From aiindex at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 15:34:13 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 00:34:13 +0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_14_Jan_2018_=7C_Pakistan=3A_Opposition_p?= =?windows-1252?Q?arty_allies_with_=91Taliban_seminary=92_/_South?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Asia=3A_Murderous_Majorities_/_Sri_Lanka=3A_Ru?= =?windows-1252?Q?ral_Economy_/_Bangladesh=3A_Rohingya_marriage_b?= =?windows-1252?Q?an_/_India=3A_Learning_to_Love_Nehru_/_The_NGO_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Game=3A_Post-Conflict_Peacebuilding?= Message-ID: <499D9E9D-DD95-4F92-9E10-F3969C26B391@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 14 January 2018 - No. 2967 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. South Asia: Murderous Majorities | Mukul Kesavan 2. Tariq Ali writes about Tassaduq Sohail and the Partition of India 3. The last Armenians of Myanmar | Andrew Whitehead BBC 4. Video: North Korea is "the most dangerous crisis since the Cuban missile crisis" says nuclear expert Zia Mian 5. India: BJP?s artful illusion - Actually the fringe reinforces the mainstream, and the mainstream nurtures the fringe | Pavan K Varma 6. India: Aadhaar Leaks? vulnerability of citizens? data repository 7. India: Penalizing for Poverty ? Public Sector Banks Should Stop Extorting Money Over Minimum Account Balance (MAB) Requirement 8. India: Peoples Alliance for Democracy and Secularism Condemns Casteist, Patriarchal and anti-Secular Comments of a BJP Minister 9. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Coming Karnataka Assembly Elections - Will communal politics be on the margins? - India: Gandhi?s last battle | Apoorvanand - Advancing Majoritarianism in India | Papia Sengupta - Bangladesh: When books preach lies | Myat Moe Khaing - India: Politics of love vs 'Love jihad': Will celebrate Valentine's Day, says Mevani - India: DMK leader Kanimozhi speech at the World Atheist Conference rattles the Hindu Right - Rumana Hashem: Has rape become a weapon to silence atheists in Bangladesh? - India: BJP?s communal Karnataka campaign must be called out for its toxicity - India: Insecure of BJP efforts, churches in Meghalaya are getting into electoral politics - BJP's cocktail of instant talaq and ?gau raksha? | Rohit Prasad - Babri Masjid and Its Aftermath Changed India Forever? | Thomas Blom Hansen - India: Why Does the UGC Want to Drop the ?M? from AMU? Laurence Gautier - India: Bhima Koregaon - Dalit Assertion and Hindu Right [Search of Icons from History] | Ram Puniyani - India: Rajsamand is no faraway place - And the Shambhulals know they can get away with murder | Syeda Hameed - India: Citizen Shambhulal Is the New Face of Hindutva | Shiv Visvanathan ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 10. Disasters Bring Upheaval to Sri Lanka?s Rural Economy | Amantha Perera 11. Pakistan?s main opposition party allies with ?Taliban seminary? | Kunwar Khuldune Shahid 12. Bangladesh court upholds Myanmar Rohingya marriage ban 13. In India, hate crimes are invisible and under-reported | Harsh Mander 14. Pakistan - India: The Jadhav affair challenges the media | Jawed Naqvi 15. Indian doctors protest against plan to let ?quacks? practise medicine | Michael Safi 15.1 India: NMC Bill - A conspiracy to undermine modern medical practitioners | Faraz Ahmad 16. India: Aadhaar is surveillance technology masquerading as secure authentication technology | Javed Anwer 17. India: Learning to Love Nehru | Aatish Taseer 18. H-Net Review Stubbs on McMahon,'The NGO Game: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in the Balkans and Beyond' ======================================== 1. SOUTH ASIA: MURDEROUS MAJORITIES | Mukul Kesavan ======================================== The ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya is a particularly vicious chapter in a long history of majoritarian nationalism in South Asia. Unless that history is acknowledged and its legacy contested, more tragedies lie in store. http://sacw.net/article13601.html ======================================== 2. TARIQ ALI WRITES ABOUT TASSADUQ SOHAIL AND THE PARTITION OF INDIA ======================================== In October, soon after the seventieth anniversary of Indian independence and the partition of the subcontinent, the Pakistani painter Tassaduq Sohail died in Karachi. The anniversary was celebrated with dazzling military displays: the centrepieces in both Delhi and Islamabad were nuclear missiles. Partition is history now, tales grandparents tell, but for Sohail and others who experienced it first-hand, the memories have never lost their force. http://sacw.net/article13602.html ======================================== 3. THE LAST ARMENIANS OF MYANMAR | Andrew Whitehead BBC ======================================== One of the oldest churches in Myanmar, also known as Burma, is struggling to keep going - its congregation only occasionally reaches double figures. But the opening up of the country to outside investment and tourism is offering new hope. http://sacw.net/article13522.html ======================================== 4. VIDEO: NORTH KOREA IS "THE MOST DANGEROUS CRISIS SINCE THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS" SAYS NUCLEAR EXPERT ZIA MIAN ======================================== http://sacw.net/article13603.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: BJP?S ARTFUL ILLUSION - ACTUALLY THE FRINGE REINFORCES THE MAINSTREAM, AND THE MAINSTREAM NURTURES THE FRINGE | Pavan K Varma ======================================== BJP?s artful illusion . . .The fringe reinforces the mainstream, and the mainstream nurtures the fringe. They are two sides of the same coin. One should have no illusions on this score http://sacw.net/article13600.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: AADHAAR LEAKS? VULNERABILITY OF CITIZENS? DATA REPOSITORY ======================================== THE Tribune exposed the vulnerability of citizens? data repository guarding about a billion Aadhaar IDs. Crucial information is being sold by unscrupulous people for a paltry sum of Rs 500. The buyer could be anyone ? an irksome telemarketer, a cunning hacker or a cyber criminal operating from a remote location. The buyer can take full advantage of the inundating information because the government is hell bent on linking virtually everything with this 12-digit number. Based on its diktat, citizens are forced to link their PAN cards, bank accounts, provident funds etc with their Aadhaar numbers. http://sacw.net/article13599.html ======================================== 7. INDIA: PENALIZING FOR POVERTY ? PUBLIC SECTOR BANKS SHOULD STOP EXTORTING MONEY OVER MINIMUM ACCOUNT BALANCE (MAB) REQUIREMENT ======================================== Banks charging a penalty for not maintaining a monthly average balance directly affects the poor in India, who are often unable to maintain the minimum balance because of their financial compulsions. These customers are being doubly burdened, as the people who are not in a position to maintain a minimum balance are being penalized by the banks through imposing a fine for it. http://sacw.net/article13597.html ======================================== 8. INDIA: PEOPLES ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SECULARISM CONDEMNS CASTEIST, PATRIARCHAL AND ANTI-SECULAR COMMENTS OF A BJP MINISTER ======================================== It is well known that Hindutva is against secularism. It considers secularism detrimental to the interests of the religious majority (which they falsely claim to represent); and a means of appeasing religious minorities. Many broad-minded people who oppose the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian politics of Hindutva also think that secularism is a doctrine concerned only with protecting minorities. This is a limited understanding of secularism. India needs to be secular not only for the security and protection of minorities, but because no true democracy can function without secular values, and a state which does not follow secularism will be against interests of every Indian. http://sacw.net/article13598.html ======================================== 9. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Coming Karnataka Assembly Elections - Will communal politics be on the margins? - India: Gandhi?s last battle | Apoorvanand - Advancing Majoritarianism in India | Papia Sengupta - Bangladesh: When books preach lies | Myat Moe Khaing - India: Politics of love vs 'Love jihad': Will celebrate Valentine's Day, says Mevani - India: DMK leader Kanimozhi speech at the World Atheist Conference rattles the Hindu Right - Rumana Hashem: Has rape become a weapon to silence atheists in Bangladesh? - India: BJP?s communal Karnataka campaign must be called out for its toxicity - India: Insecure of BJP efforts, churches in Meghalaya are getting into electoral politics - BJP's cocktail of instant talaq and ?gau raksha? | Rohit Prasad - Babri Masjid and Its Aftermath Changed India Forever? | Thomas Blom Hansen - India: Why Does the UGC Want to Drop the ?M? from AMU? Laurence Gautier - India: Bhima Koregaon - Dalit Assertion and Hindu Right [Search of Icons from History] | Ram Puniyani - India: Rajsamand is no faraway place - And the Shambhulals know they can get away with murder | Syeda Hameed - India: Citizen Shambhulal Is the New Face of Hindutva | Shiv Visvanathan lar dreams and our plural worlds. Credit: Bharath Joshi/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) On December 12, I read - Christmas Celebrations and its opponents - India: Communalism and Hate Crimes | Ram Puniyani -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 10. DISASTERS BRING UPHEAVAL TO SRI LANKA?S RURAL ECONOMY by Amantha Perera ======================================== (Inter Press Service) PERIYAKULAM/ADIGAMA, Jan 5 2018 (IPS) - Last year was an annus horribilis for 52-year-old Newton Gunathileka. A paddy smallholder from Sri Lanka?s northwestern Puttalam District, 2017 saw Gunathileka abandon his two acres of paddy for the first time in over three and half decades, leaving his family almost destitute. The father of two had suffered two straight harvest losses and was over 1,300 dollars in the red when he decided to move out of his village and look for work in nearby towns. ?What am I to do? There is no work in our village, all the fields have dried up, everyone is moving out looking for work,? Gunathileka told IPS. He was left to work in construction sites and tobacco fields for a daily wage of about five dollars. When jobs became scarcer, his wife joined the search for casual work. The couple, who have been supporting their family off casual work for the last four months, is unsure whether they will ever return to farming despite the drought easing. Gunathileka is not alone. Disasters, manmade and natural, are increasingly forcing agriculture-based income earners, especially small farmers, out of their villages and into cities looking for work. In the village of Adigama, in the same district, government officials suspect that between 150 and 200 villagers, mainly youth, have left looking for work in the last two years. Sisira Kumara, the main government administrative officer in the village, said that the migration has been prompted by harvest losses. ?There was no substantial rain between October of 2016 and November 2017. Three harvests have been lost. Unlike in the past, now you cannot rely on rain patterns which in turn makes agriculture a very risky affair,? he said. ?In Sri Lanka, poverty, unemployment, lack of livelihood options and recurring climate shocks impact the food security of many families, resulting in migration to find secure livelihoods,? the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said last year in a joint communiqu? with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to commemorate World Food Day. Climate shocks have been severe in Sri Lanka in the past few years. In 2017, a drought affected over two million people and floods impacted an additional 500,000. The vital paddy harvest was the lowest in over a decade, falling 40 percent compared to the year before. The UN has termed the 2017 drought as the worst in 40 years.. According to M.W, Weerakoon, additional secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, paddy farmers have to work throughout the year just to stay above the poverty line. He estimates that a paddy farmer needs to cultivate 2.6 acres without a break just to make the 116 dollars (Rs 17,760) needed monthly for a family of four to remain above the poverty line. ?That is not possible with the unpredictable rains, so farmers are moving out,? he said. Around 20 percent of Sri Lanka?s population of 21million are internal migrants, according to government statistics, and experts like Weerakoon say that this movement is heightened by climate shocks. Staying in their native villages and continuing to farm pushes victims further into a debt trap. Last August, when the drought was at its peak, a WFP survey found that the family debt of those surveyed had risen by 50 percent compared to a year back. And as formal lenders like banks shy away from lending to them, these farmers tend to seek the help of informal lenders. Human-made disasters are also pushing the poor out of their homes to seek jobs elsewhere. In Sri Lanka?s North and East, ravaged by a deadly civil war till 2009, high poverty rates are forcing vulnerable segments of society like war widows to seek work elsewhere. In the Northern Province where the war was at its worst, female unemployment rates are almost twice the national rate of 7 percent, at 13.8 percent. There is no data available for single female-headed households of which there are at least 58,000 out of the provincial total of 250,000. Last year, the Association for Friendship and Love (AFRIEL), a civic group based in the province, located 15 women stuck in Muscat, Oman, after being sent there by job agents. At least four were from the war zone and none had been paid for months and were being moved around the Omani capital daily working in odd jobs. Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar a 54-year-old war widow who was part of the group, said that they were being sent for casual work by the job agents to recoup costs. ?All of us could not work in the households due to various issues, so for three months we kept doing odd jobs, so that the agents made their money,? she said. The group was finally brought back to Sri Lanka after the government intervened. AFRIEL head Ravidra de Silva told IPS that women like Nesemalhar were among the most vulnerable due to almost zero chances of jobs in their villages. ?So they will take any chance that is offered to them. What we need are long-haul policies that target vulnerable communities.? Unfortunately, there have been few such interventions since the war?s conclusion. The IOM office in Colombo said that climate-driven migration was fueled by complex and diverse set of drivers and required multi-dimensional risk assessments and interventions. Government official Weerakoon said that one of the main ambitions of the government in 2018 was to increase the planted extent of paddy and other crops. The government also plans to introduce measures to increase value addition among farmers who remain by and large bulk suppliers of raw produce. ======================================== 11. PAKISTAN?S MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY ALLIES WITH ?TALIBAN SEMINARY? | Kunwar Khuldune Shahid ======================================== (Asia Times, January 11, 2018) Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Darul Uloom Haqqania have agreed on an alliance on 'ideological' grounds, presenting a new threat to secular forces Supporters of opposition leader Imran Khan's PTI political party attend a celebration rally in Islamabad on July 30, 2017, after the Pakistani Supreme Court disqualified prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Photo: Reuters / Faisal Mahmood In a significant move bound to raise international concerns, Pakistan?s leading opposition party, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), is formulating a joint electoral strategy with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Sami (JUI-S), insiders in both parties have told Asia Times. General elections are just a few months away. JUI-S is the political wing of the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, renowned for being the alma mater of Taliban leaders of past and present. It is led by Sami-ul-Haq, the Islamist cleric known fondly as the ?Father of the Taliban.? In November, PTI chief Imran Khan met with Sami-ul-Haq to discuss a potential alliance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwala (KP) province. The two have been in touch throughout the past month and a half, sources confirm. ?Imran Khan has ensured that the PTI?s rallying cry will be the implementation of Sharia law,? a PTI member told Asia Times. ?We want to create an Islamic welfare state, and that is what the JUI-S wants as well.? JUI-S Secretary General Abdur Rauf Farooqi confirmed that the creation of an Islamic state is a ?joint agenda? of the PTI and his party. ?It is our mission to support jihad and Islamist freedom movements, and also to clarify misconceptions about jihad,? he told Asia Times. ?While we continue to support the struggle overseas, it is important to implement a truly Islamic system in Pakistan as well. And in PTI we have a willing partner that has already taken steps towards Islamization in KP.? PTI currently allies itself with the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in KP, and the two have collaborated to revise educational curricula in the province. ?The removal of secular references and the Islamization of syllabuses, and overturning secular references and mentions of non-Muslims [instituted by a previous coalition government that included the secularist Awami National Party (ANP)] government was one of the first demands of the JI before joining us,? confirms another PTI leader. In June 2016, the PTI-led KP government gave a Rs 300 million (US$2.7 million) grant to Darul Uloom Haqqania, prompting criticism from many quarters. Imran Khan later claimed the grant was in exchange for reform within its madrassa. However, sources inform Asia Times that the funds have gone on upgrading a high school affiliated with the controversial seminary and not the madrassa itself. ?[That spin] is how the JUI-S is protecting against a potential crackdown,? says a KP government official. ?But considering that the PTI chief Imran Khan himself came out and justified the money actually going to Darul Uloom Haqqania, we all know where it is actually going.? JUI-S Spokesman Yousaf Shah insists the KP government has spent money on many educational institutions and questions why there is such alarm about funds for the ?Haqqania school.? ?Darul Uloom Haqqania does not need any funding, and all conspiracies against us should stop,? Shah says. ?It is a centre of excellence in Islamic studies where many Taliban (students of Islam) have graduated from.? Shah adds that the JUI-S will continue to support the Taliban?s struggle. ?The Afghan Taliban are fighting foreign US occupation, and every Muslim should support their struggle. The next step is proper Islamization of Pakistan and eradication of secular forces,? he says. ?In this regard, we have an ideological alliance with the PTI as well, in addition to the political cooperation.? While PTI has admitted to the new political alliance, its leaders maintain the ideological commonalities are a ?matter of interpretation.? ?We both agree that Pakistan should be an Islamic welfare state, but the JUI-S has their own interpretation and we have ours,? PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry told Asia Times. JUI-S insiders maintain, however, that the meeting between Sami-ul-Haq and Imran Khan establishes thorough Islamization as a common agenda of both the parties. ?The changes made in the KP curricula are something we would want for the rest of the country as well,? says Yousaf Shah. ?We would want Pakistan?s ideology to be in line with Darul Uloom Haqqania.? ======================================== 12. BANGLADESH COURT UPHOLDS MYANMAR ROHINGYA MARRIAGE BAN ======================================== (BBC News - 8 January 2018) Image caption Bangladesh has not recognised marriages involving Rohingyas since 2014 A court in Bangladesh has upheld a law which bans Rohingya Muslims from getting married in the country. The 2014 law forbids registrars from officiating at unions with Bangladeshi nationals and between Rohingya couples, after the government said it was being abused to obtain citizenship. More than half a million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in 2017. The case was raised by a man whose 26-year-old son had been evading police since marrying an 18-year-old Rohingya. Police had been searching for Shoaib Hossain Jewel since October, when they found out about the marriage, according to local reports. Mr Jewel reportedly met the Rohingya woman while her family were sheltering at a local Muslim cleric's house. He was said to have travelled hundreds of kilometres to find her in a refugee camp after her family were moved on from his village, before the couple got married. At the time it was reported to be the first known union between a Bangladeshi and a Rohingya since an upsurge in violence in Myanmar against the persecuted ethnic minority forced hundreds of thousands to flee across the border. Explaining the law in 2014, government officials said they believed wedding certificates were being used to try and claim legal documents including Bangladeshi passports. Under it anyone found to have married a Rohingya can be sentenced to seven years in prison. Mr Jewel's father, Babul Hossain, was outspoken about his support for his son's marriage and filed a petition against the law. "If Bangladeshis can marry Christians and people of other religions, what's wrong in my son's marriage to a Rohingya?" he told AFP news agency in October. The High Court in Dhaka dismissed his challenge on Monday, and ordered him to pay 100,000 taka (?885; $1,200) in legal costs. It also rejected a request to protect Mr Hossain's son from arrest. It was unclear if the couple were set to face further action following the ruling. ======================================== 13. SILENT COMPLICITY: IN INDIA, HATE CRIMES ARE INVISIBLE AND UNDER-REPORTED | Harsh Mander ======================================== (The Telegraph, January 08, 2018) Ever since the country's traumatic partition, India has never been as divided as it is today. The growing gulf of resentment, suspicion and hostility among its peoples will take generations to bridge. And, yet, this profound challenge to the country's domestic peace, fraternity and unity is not matched by even enough acknowledgment, let alone resistance. India is swiftly transforming into a republic of hate and fear, especially for its religious minorities and disadvantaged castes. The response of the ruling establishment to rising hate crime is cynical, combining strategic silences and official denial with tacit encouragement and incitement of hate speech and violence, and patronizing vigilante groups and militias. The culpable silences that surround mounting hate crimes are societal, political and official. Troubling is the scarcity of compassion and solidarity with victims of hate crimes. That the political conspiracies of silence around hate crime span the ideological spectrum was reflected in the Gujarat elections of the winter of 2017. Except for the independent candidate, Jignesh Mevani, all political parties chose to avoid mentioning Muslims and the violence. The dogged official silence and the denial by the State strike hardest at India's constitutional values. An otherwise voluble prime minister responds to hate attacks with strategic silences and unspontaneous anguish. Instead, we hear rationalizations by chief ministers and senior ministers and runaway hate speech by the entire gamut of the ruling establishment, from ministers and legislators to 'fringe groups', which are actually mainstream. All combine to legitimize, nurture and embolden pervasive social bigotry and hate violence. This coalesces with barefaced official denial of the scale of hate violence. In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha on December 27, 2017, the Union home minister claimed that in 2017, until July, there were just two cases of mob lynching in the country, one in Maharashtra and one in Rajasthan. This patently false claim has not been challenged within or outside Parliament, even though on its veracity hinges hopes of the security of the country's vulnerable minorities. This conforms to the claims of the government and its supporters who maintain that the numbers of hate crime are inconsequential, and that a few stray incidents are blown out of proportion by vested interests to defame the government. This denial was especially remarkable in a frightening year scarred by hate attacks so gruesome that they penetrated even the generally reticent mainstream media. Official denial is aided because although India's National Crime Records Bureau collates information on a wide range of crimes, it does not count hate crimes. This helps make these crimes invisible, thereby erasing any State accountability for these. This contrasts with mandatory duties that have been established in democracies with diverse populations like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, where the State is required to publish regular reports on hate crimes. For instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation counted 6,121 hate crimes in the US in 2016. Another official body, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, reported that the number of hate crimes was many times higher, at around 2,50,000. In India, if we are to hold our governments to their constitutional duty to control hate crimes and ensure justice for the victims, we must not only demand that the NCRB count and report hate crimes but also that the State fund a well-staffed independent agency to do the same. But there is likely to be no political will for this in the present administration (nor sufficient resolve in the Opposition to compel it to do so). This places high duty on the independent media and civil society to estimate the numbers and nature of hate crimes. A national newspaper did establish a hate crime tracker, which listed over 150 hate crimes, but it was pulled off. A credible non-profit data media portal, IndiaSpend, collated cow-related mob attacks after 2010 reported in the English-language press. It found that 97 per cent of these occurred after Narendra Modi assumed office in Delhi, 86 per cent of the persons killed were Muslim and 8 per cent Dalit. It reports further that 2017 recorded the highest death toll (11) and the most number of incidents of hate violence (37) related to cows and religion since 2010. A civil society coalition, Citizens against Hate, studied 30 such cases of lynching and vigilante violence, and confirmed that an overwhelming majority of these attacks were against Muslims, and, sometimes, against Dalits. Many attacks relate to alleged smuggling, slaughter and eating of cattle. Inter-faith couples and their relatives have been the target of many attacks, but some Muslims have been lynched without attributing any specific offence to them. The United Christian Forum for Human Rights recorded 216 incidents of attacks on Christians in 2017, including violence against priests, nuns and shrines. There have also been many hate attacks on Dalits in 2017, including the burning of a Dalit settlement in Saharanpur, a Dalit boy being thrashed for sporting a moustache and the lynching of a Dalit man for attending a garba dance - both in Gujarat villages - and attacks on African nationals and people from India's Northeast. I am convinced that the numbers of hate crimes recorded by all these agencies are only a tiny fraction of those that actually occurred. In September 2017, we undertook a journey for atonement and solidarity to families struck by hate violence in eight states, which we called 'Karwan e Mohabbat'. We visited 55 families, but our discussions with communities revealed that the actual numbers of hate crimes would run into thousands. We have, therefore, resolved to continue this journey through this new year, visiting families bereaved by hate attacks in at least one state every month, beginning with Bengal in January and Odisha in February. There are many reasons why hate crimes in India are so invisible and under-reported. Most sections of both mainstream media and civil society organizations self-censor reporting hate crimes and extending humanitarian and human-rights support to the survivors, partly in fear of official retribution if they were to report the truth. The police are neither trained nor motivated to distinguish hate crimes from ordinary crimes, and rarely charge them under criminal sections associated with hate crimes. Hate crimes, such as communal taunts, pulling beards, harassing women in burkas, or communal and caste bullying in schools, public transport and workplaces have become so common that these are mostly endured, never reported. Survivors and victim families have little faith that they will secure justice from state administrations that are nakedly hostile to their minority residents. Therefore, unless there are deaths, they do not file or pursue police complaints. The police most often side with the hate criminals, and frequently register criminal charges against the victims instead, charging them as cow smugglers and killers, criminals, love jihadis or missionaries making dubious religious conversions. Worse, we have found instances in which the police described men lynched by mobs as cow smugglers killed by rash driving, thereby erasing the lynching entirely from the record. If India is to pull back from becoming a land in which people live with dread only because they worship a different god, or are born to disadvantaged castes, or look different or eat differently, then we must fight to shatter societal, political and official silences and denials. We must restore compassion to and solidarity with public life. We must compel parties that claim commitment to secular democracy to not compromise with majoritarian politics. And we must fight the official denial of hate violence, beginning with developing a robust tracking of every hate crime in the country. Published here: https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/silent-complicity-199329 ======================================== 14. PAKISTAN - INDIA: THE JADHAV AFFAIR CHALLENGES THE MEDIA | Jawed Naqvi ======================================== (Dawn, 9 January 2018) IT is a given that truly professional journalists can be a troublesome quantity for any recalcitrant state. Drum-beaters of the state are just that ? drum-beaters, and on occasion, the cat?s paws for their minders with a nefarious intent. When it comes to the little explained but widely embraced idea of ?national interest? we register a spike in this genre of delinquency among journalists on both sides of the divide, usually. The malaise is of course global. British journalists are or were considered a cut above the rest, but they were the ones who tamely fell for the ministry of information, a British innovation for thinly veiled censorship, intelligence gathering and propaganda. The ruse was the war with Hitler when the BBC was on the ministry?s payroll. The institution of information ministries continued through peacetime in post-colonial societies. India and Pakistan are prime examples where journalists are doled out privileges unrelated to their work, such as subsidised land for housing. How were the American drum-beaters any different, who came up with an unabashedly cooked up testimony against Saddam Husain, laying fictitious grounds to justify his bizarre removal from power and eventual execution? Tenacious journalists, on the other hand, got Richard Nixon impeached and exposed Tony Blair as an artful liar. American and British journalists have unearthed the horrors of their governments? foreign policies too, including their stories on the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib or about Israeli brutalities in occupied Palestine. Both types exist in India and Pakistan in varying degrees. Pakistani newshounds who refuted their government?s spontaneous but senseless denial of Ajmal Kasab?s nationality were particularly good journalists. They stuck to the truth against the state?s might and marshalled evidence showing that the young terrorist was indeed an indoctrinated Pakistani and not a Martian. An Indian journalist abandoned his safe sanctuary of ?national interest? and reported the destruction of an alleged Pakistani dhow in the Arabian Sea by the Indian Navy. Reportedly the naval commander wanted to save on the cost of the food that the arrested crew would otherwise be given in jail. Naturally, the government slammed the report as a lie or some such thing. Sadly such journalists come to us more often as an exception than as an inviolable rule. How does one figure out the truth between Indian and Pakistani claims of contested events of which there is already a surfeit? The drum-beaters have a field day on most occasions with their complete and exclusive access to state-controlled and state-backed instruments of news dissemination. The truth is very often not far to seek yet it remains elusive even if there?s nothing quite complex about a simple quest. For example, one may ask: was there an Indian military raid inside Azad Kashmir or was Prime Minister Modi making a mountain of a molehill, a routine outing that was not quite as dramatic as it was portrayed to be to tweak his nationalist appeal. The Congress party contested the Modi claim, not the media. Who starts the spiral of cross-border firing and to what avail? There are good arguments on both sides, but arguments need not lead to the elusive truth. It is not Akira Kurosawa?s Rashomon, where there are many sides to a story, including an occult explanation for a tragic event. Who can cross-check for us an Indian claim of Pakistan breaking the ceasefire and vice versa? Consider a more current issue that lacks clarity, purposely, one suspects. Pakistan has issued a video of Kulbhushan Jadhav in which the man convicted as an Indian spy praises his captors for arranging an emotional meeting with his mother and wife recently. He also blackguards the Indian diplomat ? who I know as a gentleman who discussed with me ideas about peace between India and Pakistan. The Indian diplomat apparently riled Jadhav with alleged shouting at the women after the meeting where he was present in a separate cubicle. Indians have not surprisingly dismissed the video as doctored and therefore unreliable. Has Jadhav become a pawn on the larger India-Pakistan chessboard? Or has he become a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome whereby prisoners become enamoured of their captors? In most countries that practise free press, the wife and the mother would be the first destination of intrepid journalists who want to know and publish what transpired at the meeting. (I would add a caveat: do nothing that could physically harm or prejudice the prisoner?s chances of fair play.) In this pursuit, there could be a demand from Indian journalists (as distinct from drum-beaters) to be given access to Jadhav if he so wishes. This would help prevent reckless and harmful stories like the one published by The Quint, a web-based news portal that inexplicably retracted its report on the condemned prisoner. Let?s see which country blinks. We can quickly, without demur, arrange a team led by Rajmohan Gandhi from India and I.A. Rehman from Pakistan. Or both could nominate a journalist from their country or even from the other side. Let similarly credible joint teams have access to areas of concern to both countries (in the absence of the undermined UNMOGIP) along the Line of Control and also to Srinagar and Muzaffarabad if that helps. As things stand, the people on both sides are being forced to divine the truth with their eyes blindfolded, eardrums bursting with poisonous and shrill propaganda. Nationalism can trip up the most seasoned exponents of journalism, however. I remember the first delegation from Pakistan, including senior journalists, coming to Delhi after the military standoff of 2002. At their meeting in Delhi, led by senior Indian journalists, the Pakistanis said they were embarrassed about the mistakes their country had made by seeking to harm and abuse India. The Indian interlocutor, a much respected journalist who is no more, smiled self-righteously, and said: ?You are absolutely right.? Could the Jadhav affair change some of that attitude? ======================================== 15. INDIAN DOCTORS PROTEST AGAINST PLAN TO LET ?QUACKS? PRACTISE MEDICINE | Michael Safi ======================================== (The Guardian, 2 January 2018) Indian Medical Association says short bridging courses for traditional healers will lead to ?army of half-baked doctors? An Ayurvedic doctor checks a patient?s pulse. Traditional healers are already allowed to dispense medicines in some parts of India. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo Indian doctors have accused the government of seeking to ?sanction quackery? by proposing to allow homeopaths and others trained in alternative remedies to practise conventional medicine after taking a bridging course. Doctors at private hospitals held protests on Tuesday while their counterparts in public facilities wore black armbands in opposition to the proposal, part of a sweeping overhaul of medical governance. Aimed at addressing a severe shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas, the bill would allow people who dispense Siddha, Ayurvedic and other traditional Indian remedies to practise medicine after taking a course, the length of which is yet to be decided. A similar law already in place in Madhya Pradesh state licenses traditional healers to dispense and prescribe 72 medicines after taking classes for three months. The Indian Medical Association has criticised the plan, saying it will ?lead to an army of half-baked doctors in the country?, according to the association?s president, KK Aggarwal. ?The government is giving sanction to quackery,? he said. ?If those doctors make mistakes and people pay with their lives, who is going to be held accountable?? SS Uttre, the president of the Maharashtra state medical association, said the proposal would dilute medical education and provide a ?back-way entry into medicine?. He added: ?We are going to oppose it tooth and nail.? Although India has more than 400 medical schools producing tens of thousands of high-quality graduates annually, the country has about 12 doctors, nurses or midwives per 10,000 people ? less than half the World Health Organization benchmark. Thousands of graduates each year prefer to take their skills to the US or UK, or are drawn to well-paid jobs in the burgeoning private health industries of big cities such as Delhi or Mumbai. As a result, research three years ago found more than 2,000 primary health centres around the country lacked even one doctor to treat patients, with shortages of surgeons and specialists even more acute. Many Indians turn instead to traditional remedies such as Ayurveda ? treatments prepared according to recipes from ancient Hindu texts ? or to ?quacks? who present themselves as doctors but lack any medical qualifications. About 57% of purported Indian doctors are thought to fall into the latter category. Similarly, according to a 2014 study, traditional healers already carry out clinical care in as many as one in three primary health centres in rural or tribal areas. To address the shortage, state and federal governments have experimented with licensing non-specialist doctors to carry out caesarean sections or administer anaesthetics. Village social workers and ?quack? doctors have also received formal training in basic medicine, while under a health ministry proposal, traditional healers will soon be permitted to deliver babies, carry out non-invasive abortions and treat certain noncommunicable diseases. Ayurveda, yoga and other traditional practices have been championed by the current government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, which in 2014 established a ministry to promote alternative remedies. At least 65 Ayurvedic ?hospitals? have been established in the past three years, with more planned. Rules for rigorous testing of Ayurvedic products have also been relaxed or waived, despite the concerns of medical scientists who say there is insufficient evidence to recommend their use in clinical settings. Another state, Gujarat, has sought to alleviate the doctor shortage by equipping some children with stethoscopes and allowing them to administer Ayurvedic treatments for ?minor diseases? to their classmates. The government bill under scrutiny also proposes to scrap the doctor-run Medical Council of India and replace it with a new organisation overseen by health officials and free of the taint of corruption allegations, which have dogged the council. Doctors? groups say the proposed changes are undemocratic and shift power from medical professionals to regulators who are without experience in the field. Medical groups said they would return to work after the government agreed to send the bill to a standing committee in parliament for further examination. Uttre said doctors would fight the proposal for bridging courses in any form and appeal to the supreme court if necessary. ======================================== 15.1 INDIA: NMC BILL - A CONSPIRACY TO UNDERMINE MODERN MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS | Faraz Ahmad ======================================== (Faraz Ahmad's blog, January 8, 2018) While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was furtively attempting to win back his Hindut6va constituency (including the upwardly mobile urban Hindu middle class, whom the Sangh has, over these last few decades, considerably succeeded in saffronising, but which appeared slightly disenchanted with Modi in the Gujarat assembly elections), by bringing in the Triple Talaq Bill to show the insolent Muslim his place in Hindu Rashtra, his government slyly slipped in the National Medical Commission Bill, seeking to undermine modern Medical profession in the country and with it the prospering career of doctors who till the other day swore by Modi. On December 29 Union Health Minister J P Nadda introduced in Parliament the National Medical Commission Bill which seeks to replace the National Medical Council, formed under an Act of Parliament in 1956 with the stated objective of standardizing modern medical education in India. This Government has come, as Union Skill Development Minister Anath Kumar Hegde confessed publicly the other day, to demolish and destroy every institution and every remnant of the Congress rule in India or rather whatever Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors did in India since independence. The Medical Council of India is only one such institution. But even more important the Bill surreptitiously sneaks in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)/ BJP agenda starting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself who have tremendous aversion to intellect. Already the Modi Government has announced that it plans to allow Ayurveda Vaids and Hakims and even Homeopaths with some bridge course and issue licences to them to practice modern medicine. There is no dearth of quacks in this country. People with Nursing and Pharmacy courses and even peons in hospitals are donning the doctor?s white coat and with a stethoscope around their neck are happily killing the gullible people giving them medicines at will, even performing operations in their ?clinics.? This Bill seeks to give a free run to persons with no study of modern medicine and surgery to do as they choose. Such was an uproar against this Bill from the doctor community all over the country that several MPs from BJP/NDA who are qualified doctors had to vocally oppose the Bill in Parliament and eventually the Government which had got it cleared from the Union Cabinet, had to step back and send it to the Standing Committee of the ministry to be reviewed thoroughly. The idea of replacing the Medical Council with this Commission was conceived by the Niti Ayog where no doctor was involved in consultations, least of all deliberations. Obscurantists, bureaucrats and sundry others sat and conceived this Bill. But it is evident who could be behind this idea. After all when we have a Prime Minister and his party colleagues who proudly proclaim that the elephant head on Lord Ganesha is the evidence of how plastic surgery had advanced in India in the Vedic era, what respect such a set of people could have for anything genuinely modern? Thanks to the indoctrinaton at the Shakhas they genuinely believe that we were flying Pushpak Vimans across the universe. Anyway, to the Bill!. The doctors all over the country went on a one day strike on the call of the apex body of doctors, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and came out with serious criticism of the proposed NMC on each count that the Bill proposed. This Bill proposes that the NMC shall create an Ethics and Medical Registration (EMR) Board along with a Medical Assessment and Rating (MAR) Board as also two other bodies Undergraduate Medical Examination (UGME) Board and a PGME Board to assess Post graduate medical examination. The IMA pointed out that Section 31(8) of the Bill says that the EMR Board shall maintain a separate National Register including the names of licensed Ayush Practitioners who qualify the bridge course. By an explanation in the Biill, Ayush practitioner has been defined as a person who is a practitioner of Homeopathy or of Indian Medicine. Section 49(4) contemplates bridge courses even for the practitioners of homeopathy ?to enable them to prescribe such modern medicines at such level as may be prescribed .? The IMA pointed out that Section 2(j) of the Bill defines ?medicine means modern scientific medicine in all its branches and include surgery and obstetrics but does not include veterinary medicine and surgery. Thank Modi for small mercies otherwise RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat would have been heading this NMC for after all he is a qualified Vet. The IMA pointed out that these are the floodgates that have been opened up in terms of the statutory provisions for backdoor entry into medical profession entitling them to practice modern medicine. That is only one glaring example what this Government proposes to do by abolishing the MCI and creating NMC instead. But that is not all. It also seeks to use its discretion to allow all those who have studied abroad say in Russia, China, Nepal or in one of the Central Asian Republics, to practice medicine in India with0out going through the currently mandatory examination in India. On the other hand the doctors with MBBS and MD/MS degrees would have to undergo yet another test set by the UGME or the PGME Boards as the case may be, without which their MBBS or MD/MS degree would not entitle them to practice medicine. Shows a degree of hostility towards qualified doctors. Perhaps that is why there is hardly any representation of the doctors from elected bodies in the Commission or its many bodies whereas it is going to be full of bureaucrats and other Government nominees. The stated objective is to end corruption allegedly being indulged in by the MCI. True that the former MCI President Dr Ketan Desai was arrested for allegedly accepting bribe for allowing opening of a private medical college. Also Ketan Desai was given a clean chit by Gujarat administration under Modi which enabled him to return to medical profession. So that plea holds no water. Moreover this Bill gives even more leeway to private medical colleges keeping the Government?s regulation only at 40 per cent allowing 60 per cent discretion to the college be it in the matter of admission or deciding fees. Thus it will keep the poorer or not so rich children from entering medical profession. In fact the IMA pointed out that the provision of this Bill are highly discriminatory towards poorer and children coming from backward background particularly those coming from North East. Recently a judge was charged with involvement in giving recognition to a private medical college. That person has been arrested but simultaneously another scam broke involving some senior embedded TV journalists and the top notch of the ruling party as well as of Health ministry for allowing a private medical college in Haryana. The matter was hushed up, but not before the journalists concerned were made to quit their jobs. Besides this so-called anti-corruption party has successfully covered up the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh which ruined the career of thousands of young boys and girls aspiring to enter MBBS course. However the names of the top brass of the MP government and the RSS whose names also figures in that scam have gone scot free. The NMC Bill may now make all that legal and above board. ======================================== 16. INDIA: AADHAAR IS SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY MASQUERADING AS SECURE AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - THE RESULTS ARE NOT GOING TO BE PRETTY | Javed Anwer ======================================== (Daily O, 09-01-2018) Aadhaar didn't start as surveillance technology. While the concept of a unique ID for all was fuzzy even in the beginning ? around 2009 ? it was meant to be an authentication technology that would plug leaks in India's welfare schemes. The idea behind Aadhaar seemed well-meaning, but the way it was designed and hurriedly pushed made it evident to keen observers that it was not going to end up well. There were many problems with it, but of particular note was the way Aadhaar would give the government and bureaucrats unnecessary power over individual citizens. Instead of being a tool of inclusion, Aadhaar would be a tool of exclusion. Even in the early stages, it was difficult to imagine that one day the Aadhaar would turn into Frankenstein's monster. In 2018, it has become a tool that has the potential to put every citizen in this country under surveillance. The argument that Aadhaar is a tool to end corruption in India surfaced earlier this decade. After 2012, and exceedingly after 2014, Aadhaar grew in ways it was not meant to when it was conceived. This has happened as the UIDAI ? the agency in charge of the Aadhaar programme ? acquired unaccountable power over the people of India, and made its operations as secretive and opaque as it can. Fun fact 1: Do you know that under Aadhaar Act 2016, the UIDAI has virtually no accountability, but has provisions that stop Aadhaar users, that is ordinary Indians, from filing any complaint against it in court for the misuse of the UID? Arguably the world's biggest surveillance apparatus that a country has built to keep an eye on its citizens. Fun fact 2: Do you know Aadhaar was never meant to be an ID card? In the initial days, Aadhaar was linked to government's welfare schemes. For instance, it was made mandatory for issuing ration to all those who held a ration card. This despite the fact that the Supreme Court, in its interim order, told the government that having the Aadhaar card cannot be made mandatory in any way. Post-2015, all hell broke loose. By now, Aadhaar is no longer just technology to authenticate the identity of those entitled to benefits under government welfare schemes. It transformed into an authentication technology for almost everything Indians do. In 2018, if you go by the directives issued by the government, you have to link your Aadhaar to almost everything you own or do. Aadhaar is no longer required only for welfare schemes, like obtaining a ration card, but also if you want to continue using your phone. It is ?required?, although not yet mandatory, for availing banking services until March 31 because Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to it. Aadhaar is required for registering births in many parts of India, and even deaths. Aadhaar is required if you want an LPG connection, even if you don't intend to take subsidies. And Aadhaar is required if you want to send your children to school or if you want your degree, and for treatment at many hospitals ? even if you are an accident victim and are brought to the emergency with severe head trauma! This is just the beginning. If the Supreme Court dismisses the current challenge to link Aadhaar with every aspect of our lives, be ready to see more Aadhaar in your life. Even simple tasks like buying airline tickets or making hotel reservations or renting homes will soon necessitate Aadhaar authentication. It is important to understand why Aadhaar has become so pervasive. By linking the UID with children?s admissions in private schools, or by linking it with private data, such as your phone number, the government is not saving any money. It is not curbing or cracking down on corruption. It is just putting in place an infrastructure: arguably the world's biggest surveillance apparatus that a country has built to keep an eye on its citizens. Sure, the United States? NSA will still be bigger, but then NSA for now watches only non-Americans. In the recent years, Aadhaar has metamorphosed into the perfect surveillance tool. It allows the government to collect and record every piece of data that Indians generate as they go about their lives. By storing this data in one place, with Aadhaar as its key, the government will be able to theoretically track and build profiles of every Indian with the UID. There is the argument that we already leave a digital trail whenever we use a phone, carry out a banking transaction, book an air or train ticket or get an LPG connection, and so it doesn't matter that Aadhaar is linked with the service. That is true. But by linking every detail of our existence with Aadhaar, the government puts all of this data in one place and makes it incredibly easy to monitor, record and use. Across the world, governments seek to gain more control over citizens. When they have achieved some level of control, they also abuse it, as history tells us. Even if the original intent is benign, never in the history has a government built surveillance apparatus and not abused it. If we allow Aadhaar to grow unchecked, controlled and managed by an agency with no accountability ? and it is the UIDAI that filed an FIR to go after people who pointed out Aadhaar flaws ? the results are not going to be pretty. PS: The headline of this article has been taken from a tweet often used by some Indian Twitter users to highlight the perils of Aadhaar. The full tweet is: "Repeat after me: Aadhaar is surveillance technology masquerading as secure authentication technology. ===================================== 17. INDIA: LEARNING TO LOVE NEHRU | Aatish Taseer ===================================== (The New York Times, January 4, 2018) Jawaharlal Nehru awaiting his sister at the airport in Palam, India, in 1954. Credit Alkazi Collection of Photography NEW DELHI ? I grew up with an aversion to India?s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He was the towering figure of the postcolonial world. Harrow and Cambridge-educated, he was one of the architects of the Non-Aligned Movement, which sought a third way through the odious binaries of the Cold War. In India, he dominated the political landscape and is credited with laying the foundation for our country?s democracy. The cult of Nehru continued through his heirs. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, and grandson, Rajiv Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), both went on to be prime minister. Nehru died in 1964, and by the time I was growing up, some two decades later, the brand of socialism he had championed was failing. The impression that came down to me of this father of Indian democracy was of a fey creature, embarrassingly Anglicized, making grandiloquent speeches in an Oxbridge accent about light and freedom and ?trysts with destiny.? By then, India was changing. The economic reforms of the 1990s had empowered a new class of Indian, less colonized, more culturally intact. We entered an age when authenticity was prized above all else, and Nehru, by his own admission, was not authentic, not culturally whole. He was a hybrid, forged on the line between India and Britain, East and West. The reputation of Mahatma Gandhi, though he was no less a hybrid, survived the change. Nehru?s did not. Nehru today is a figure of revulsion on the Hindu right, which governs India. The era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party is in every respect a repudiation of Nehru. Mr. Modi represents authenticity and Indianness; Nehru is the quintessential foreigner in his own land. Every year, around Nehru?s birthday on Nov. 14, a battle rages in which the bedraggled remains of India?s left try to defend the first prime minister, even as an increasingly louder chorus of voices on the right portray him as having been soft on Muslims and having betrayed the interests of the Hindu majority. His ease with Western mores and society is a liability, for it implies an apparent contempt for Hindu culture and religion. Nehru comes to seem almost like a symbol of a country looking at itself through foreign eyes, and in a newly assertive India, his legacy is being dismantled. In at least one B.J.P.-controlled state he is being completely written out of textbooks; he is maligned daily on social media, with hashtags like #knowyournehru. Which brings me to an embarrassing confession: Nehru is one of those people I thought I knew without ever feeling the need to read. He was among the great literary statesmen, and his output was prodigious: letters, speeches, famous books like ?The Discovery of India? and ?Glimpses of World History.? And there is his autobiography, ?Toward Freedom,? in which he truly comes alive. I have at last been reading Nehru, now at this hour when his stock is at an all-time low. And I have yet another embarrassing confession to make: He?s wonderful. It is not just a question of the peerless prose ? the American journalist John Gunther was quite right to say that ?hardly a dozen men alive write English as well as Nehru.? Nor is it simply that he is a man of astonishing reading, intellect and sensitivity. What makes Nehru so compelling is his acute self-knowledge. There is practically nothing you can say against him that he is not prepared to say himself. Consider him on the subject of his own deracination. In ?Toward Freedom,? he writes: ?I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps my thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways.? He continues: ?I am a stranger and alien in the West. I cannot be of it. But in my own country also, sometimes I have an exile?s feeling.? Nehru, unlike Mr. Modi ? who is decidedly not a reader and who has an almost childish regard for the Indian past ? can look hard at himself and his country. ?A country under foreign domination seeks escape from the present in dreams of a vanished age, and finds consolation in visions of past greatness,? he writes in ?The Discovery of India.? Nehru is never more prescient, seeming truly to speak across the decades, than when he addresses the nationalism that will one day endanger his vision of India. ?Nationalism,? he writes in ?Toward Freedom,? ?is essentially an anti-feeling, and it feeds and fattens on hatred against other national groups, and especially against the foreign rulers of a subject country.? I was stunned, reading these lines at a moment when Mr. Modi?s Hindu Renaissance has proved to be precisely the ?anti-feeling? Nehru described: a culture war against two enemies, Westernized Indians and the country?s approximately 170 million Muslims. If Mr. Modi stands for authenticity, Nehru forces us to question the premium we place on it. He forces us to ask ourselves if purity is even desirable, and whether India?s true genius does not lie in its ability to throw up dazzling hybrids, like Nehru, who seem, in intellect and sophistication, vision and worldliness, to be every bit Mr. Modi?s superior. Mr. Modi has certainly ushered in an age when the ?Indian soul? ? like the German and Russian soul before it ? is finding utterance. But what is it saying? Last month, in Rajasthan, a state whose government is run by the B.J.P., we were given yet another sampling of what Mr. Modi?s brand of authenticity looks like: a Hindu man axed to death a Muslim man, then set the body alight, while asking his nephew to film the murder. The killer posted the video on Facebook. He wanted to send a message that the ?Love Jihad? ? a baseless B.J.P.-promulgated conspiracy theory in which Muslim men lure unsuspecting Hindu women into marriage and conversion ? would not be tolerated. The response of the B.J.P. leadership was, as it usually is after such killings, strategic silence. Rajasthan, in recent months, has become a byword for this kind of religious murder. It also happens to be one of those states where last year Nehru was erased from school textbooks. Otherwise the eighth graders there might have grown up with these words of his, which the historian Ram Guha quoted last month in an essay for The Hindustan Times: ?If any person raises his hand to strike down another on the ground of religion,? Nehru said on Gandhi?s birthday in 1952, ?I shall fight him till the last breath of my life, both at the head of government and from outside.? Time may have trifled with Nehru. But time will also reveal him to be the giant that he was. Aatish Taseer (@aatishtaseer) is a contributing opinion writer and the author, most recently, of the novel ?The Way Things Were.? ======================================== 18. H-NET REVIEW STUBBS ON MCMAHON,'THE NGO GAME: POST-CONFLICT PEACEBUILDING IN THE BALKANS AND BEYOND' ======================================== Patrice C. McMahon. The NGO Game: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in the Balkans and Beyond. Ithace: Cornell University Press, 2017. 238 pp. $89.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-0923-4; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5017-0924-1. Reviewed by Paul Stubbs (The Institute of Economics, Zagreb) Published on H-Diplo (December, 2017) Commissioned by Seth Offenbach Patrice C. McMahon?s The NGO Game articulates a very clear and consistent thesis that in postconflict environments and beyond, although nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been seen as a kind of magic bullet fostering sustainable peace and development, their impact has been much exaggerated. At times, McMahon goes further to suggest that the unintended consequences of their activities result in them actually doing more harm than good on the ground. She is particularly concerned with the distorting influence which international NGOs have on local organizations whose growing numbers are a product more of instrumentalized relations than of burgeoning civil society. A general conclusion is, therefore, that the international community?s faith in NGOs as a kind of peacebuilding panacea, primarily by Western donors, is essentially misplaced and even akin to a form of colonialism. Most of the empirical evidence for this is drawn from the author?s own extended, if intermittent, fieldwork, over a long period of time, roughly 2000 to 2011, in Bosnia-Herzegovina (which throughout the author calls Bosnia) and Kosovo, presented in chapters 3 and 4 of the book, respectively. In addition, reference is made in the introductory chapter to the author?s fieldwork in Vietnam and Cambodia. Throughout the book, and particularly in the concluding chapter, the author uses work by others on, inter alia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, East Timor, Libya, Haiti, and postcommunist Russia. McMahon in some ways is faced with a dilemma, in that when she began her work on NGOs in peacebuilding, the literature was generally positive about their impact, although lacking detailed empirical validation. However, by the time she wrote the book, an opposite orthodoxy, a kind of complete volte face as it were, was in place, substituting for a more nuanced and complex understanding of the diverse impacts of diverse NGOs in different places at different times. In a moment of reflexivity, the author notes that her own initial discussion of NGOs in Mostar was ?incomplete and somewhat misleading? (p. 89), although no direct reference is provided to the text or texts in which this supposed error is manifest. This does not lead McMahon to embrace the open and contradictory roles of NGOs, individually and collectively, over time, within postconflict environments. Instead, she repeats frequently what I want to term the new common sense about their negative impacts, sometimes giving the book an air of superficiality. Although there is a general agreement that research on peacebuilding and postconflict reconstruction needs to be multidisciplinary,[1] the book appears to be focused primarily within the discipline of international relations (IR). In fairness, an early criticism in the book regarding the statist bias of IR and the concomitant failure to address the role of NGOs and other nonstate actors in international politics leads to McMahon, rightly in my view, suggesting that ?IR scholars have a long way to go to catch up with their peers in sociology, anthropology, and even comparative politics, who have all interrogated NGOs more thoroughly? (p. 19). Unfortunately, subsequent reference to, in particular, anthropological work which is extremely well placed to provide a more nuanced account and to address the gap between what NGOs say they do and what they actually do on the ground, is rather haphazard, however. A great deal of important anthropological work on realities in contemporary Bosnia-Herzegovina by ?arna Brkovi?, Andrew Gilbert, Elisa Helms, Azra Hromad?i?, Stef Jansen, and Larisa Kurtovi?, to name a few, for example, is entirely absent.[2] The author?s invoking, throughout the book, of ?institutionalism? as a key conceptual lens through which to address the roles of NGOs in peacebuilding is problematic. McMahon does not explain which type of institutional theory is being preferred (at different moments, rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and discursive institutionalism seem to be influential). She also does not explain how to conceptualize the relationship between individual agency, organizational form, and macro-level power structures in ?determining? NGO practices. At times, it is not clear whether it is the faith in NGOs as a quick, effective and, above all, cheap substitute for direct, long-term engagement in postconflict reconstruction by international (read Western) intergovernmental and bilateral actors which is the main target of McMahon?s criticism or, rather, any attempt to intervene from outside, through the establishment of protectorates or semi-protectorates. The best parts of the book, in my view, are those which address the complex, and ever lengthening, chains of relations between different agencies and the complex, and often competing, roles of the United Nations and its agencies, the European Union, the World Bank, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and other key actors in aid and development. l would argue that what Mark Duffield termed a new security and development agenda, linking humanitarianism, peacebuilding, biopolitical interventions, and forms of social and political engineering ?from above? within a developing ?Duty to Protect? (D2P) frame is more of an issue than the role of NGOs per se.[3] At the same time, linking the faith in NGOs not only to ?liberal peace,? which is discussed in the book, but also to ?neoliberal restructurings? and ?new public management? approaches, which are not, could also have taken the book in an interesting direction. What if the projectization, NGOization, and, even marketization and subcontracting (for-profit actors, including consultancy companies, are not given enough attention in the book), traced here are part of more general global restructurings?[4] Regarding McMahon?s sources, I am concerned with the rather uncritical use, at times, of Robert Kaplan?s Balkan Ghosts (1993) and Samuel Huntington?s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). Both works tend to reinforce a kind of ?West is best? ideology which, in other places, the author is keen to reject. At the same time, Kaplan?s invocation of ?ancient ethnic hatreds? in the Balkans is a prime example of what Milica Baki?-Hayden has termed ?nested Orientalism.?[5] Thus, McMahon?s work is in danger of negatively comparing supposed ?exotic? elsewheres with a mythical ?civilized? West, as well as buying into a thesis that Kosovo is at risk in terms of the spread of ?radical Islamic ideas? (p. 162). Favorably quoting Huntingdon for his ?cogent? analysis in which ?future violence? is caused by ?issues of identity and culture? (p. 31) is far from an understanding of the causes of the wars of the Yugoslav succession through categories which are not essentialist but which relate to the contested claims of political elites in complex political economies. Following the work of Michael Pugh and, more recently, Karla Koutkova, any simplistic and binary division between ?local? and ?international? actors and organizations is difficult to accept.[6] While McMahon does recognize the thriving civil society in Kosovo, explored in Howard Clarke?s Civil Resistance in Kosovo (2000), she fails to pay similar attention to a nascent civil society of women?s, student, and artist groups in parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1980s. The NGO Game appears to be aimed at US readers (the book is marked by a noticeable US-centrism) who still believe in the panacea of NGOs in international assistance, if such straw persons exist. Unfortunately, as someone deeply involved in activist-oriented research on peacebuilding and on the role of NGOs in the post-Yugoslav space, I may be far from the book?s ideal reader. At the same time, the empirical work charting the rise of NGOs in chapter 2 is very much worth reading and shows the author?s grasp of the shifts which occurred in both the framing and practice of partnerships with nonstate actors by a large number of diverse supranational organizations. The argument in the conclusion of four ?gaps? undermining NGO work in conflict environments?the ?funding gap,? or the failure of most development assistance to actually reach local actors; the ?empowerment gap,? in terms of the false rhetoric of ?partnership? with local actors; the ?accountability gap,? in terms of the failure to involve end beneficiaries; and the ?motivation gap,? in terms of the reluctance of powerful actors to change the status quo?is extremely interesting and could, and perhaps, should have been more central to the book. Notes [1]. See Francisco Ferrandiz and Antonius Robben, eds., Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives on Peace and Conflict Research: A View from Europe, (Bilbao: University of Deusto, 2007). [2]. See, for example, ?arna Brkovi?, ?Scaling Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Actions in a Bosnian Town,? Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 81, no. 1 (2016); 99-124; Andrew Gilbert, ?Legitimacy Matters: Managing the Democratization Paradox of Foreign State-building in Bosnia-Herzegovina,? Sudosteuropa 60, no. 4 (2012); 483-96; Elisa Helms, Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women's Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013); Azra Hromad?i?, Citizens of an Empty Nation: Youth and State-Making in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (Phiadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Stef Jansen, Yearnings in the Meantime: 'Normal Lives' and the State in a Sarajevo Apartment Complex (New York: Berghan Books, 2015); Larisa Kurtovi?, ?The Strange Life and Death of Democracy Promotion in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina,? in Unbribable Bosnia-Herzegovina: The Fight for the Commons, ed. Damir Arsenijevi? (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2014), 97-102. [3]. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001). [4]. Paul Stubbs, ?International Non-State Actors and Social Development Policy,? Global Social Policy 3, no. 4 (2003): 319-48. [5]. Milica Baki?-Hayden, ?Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,? Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (1995): 917-31. [6]. Michael Pugh, ?Protectorates and Spoils of Peace: intermestic manipulations of political economy in South-East Europe,? Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (2000); Karla Koutkova, ??The King is Naked?: Internationality, informality and ko ful statebuilding in Bosnia,? in Negotiating Social Relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Semiperipheral Entaglements, ed. Stef Jansen, ?arna Brkovi?, and Vanja ?elebi?i? (New York: Routledge, 2016), 109-21. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 05:24:33 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 14:24:33 +0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_20_Jan_2018_=7C_Patriotic_Delirium_/_Afg?= =?windows-1252?Q?hanistan=3A_Power_Struggle_/_Pakistan=3A_Minori?= =?windows-1252?Q?ties_packing_their_bags_/_India=3A_Hysteria_on_?= =?windows-1252?Q?history=3B_non-stop_vigilante_violence=3B_non-c?= =?windows-1252?Q?itizens_in_Assam_/_Adam_Zameenzad_/_Poland=92s_?= =?windows-1252?Q?great_leap_backwards_/_Review_of_Directorate_S?= Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 20 January 2018 - No. 2968 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Patriotic Delirium | Stanislav Markelov 2. India chapter of HRW world report 2018 points at unfettered vigilante violence and promotion of Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism 3. India: What future for thousands who are likely to be declared non-citizens in Assam ? | commentary by Sanjib Baruah and Seema Guha 4. India: Open letter from Khedut Samaj to Chief Minister of Gujarat regarding Narmada water issue 5. India: Tejal Kanitkar debunks everyday obscurantism 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India's 'Internet Hindus' Are in Love With Israel | Saudamini Jain - India: A people divided The communal conjuncture in Karnataka calls for more than policing. - India: Communal propaganda campaign by Bajrang Dal in South Karnataka - India: In Adityanath ruled UP, Police unable to control Hindu Yuva Vahini - India: Anti-outsider Assam Agitation of the early 1980s - Are illegal Bangladeshi migrants responsible for increase in Assam's Muslim population? Two part report by Ajaz Ashraf - India: on various state-run subsidy schemes for pilgrims - report in Indian Express - India: "Any adult woman or man can marry anyone of their choice, Khap Panchayats cannot question it", SC - India: No half-hearted secularism pls ! after stopping Haj subsidy the state should stop all spending on religion ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. The President, the Strongman, and the Next U.S. Headache in Afghanistan | Mujib Mashal 8. India: Hysteria on history | A.G. Noorani 9. Minorities packing their bags as religious freedom plunges in Pakistan | Kunwar Khuldune Shahid 10. Pakistani humanist denied UK asylum after failing to identify Plato | Harriet Sherwood 11. Nepal: Transitional Justice, Accountability Stalled - Elections Throughout Year Signal New Opportunity - HRW 12. Statement by Jean Gough, UNICEF's South Asia Regional Director, denouncing attack on polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan 13. India: Death of a Judge - There is much more than meets the eye | Dushyant Dave 14. India: PUDR demand release of Abu Bilal Kawa 15. India: State of folly: Beware the mob. Do not patronise it - Editorial, The Times of India 16. The dark side of light | Aisling Irwin 17. 40% of India?s Thermal Power Plants in Water-Scarce Areas, Threatening Shutdowns | Tianyi Luo, World Resources Institute 18. Sherard Cowper-Coles's Review of Directorate S: The CIA and America?s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016 by Steve Coll 19. In Memoriam: Adam Zameenzad (1937-2017) | Muneeza Shamsie 20. Cherepovets Journal: In Russian City, a Time Capsule to Comrades of the Future | Matthew Luxmoore 21. Catholicism, abortion and national identity: Poland?s great leap backwards | Audrey Lebel 22. Meet Antifa's Secret Weapon Against Far-Right Extremists | Doug Bock Clark ======================================== 1. PATRIOTIC DELIRIUM | Stanislav Markelov ======================================== The greater the patriotism, the weaker the people http://www.sacw.net/article13609.html ======================================== 2. INDIA CHAPTER OF HRW WORLD REPORT 2018 POINTS AT UNFETTERED VIGILANTE VIOLENCE AND PROMOTION OF HINDU SUPREMACY AND ULTRA-NATIONALISM ======================================== (New York, January 18, 2018) ? The Indian government failed to stop or credibly investigate vigilante attacks against minority religious communities during 2017, Human Rights Watch said today, releasing its World Report 2018. Many senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism at the expense of fundamental rights for all Indians. Extremist Hindu groups, many claiming to be affiliated with the ruling BJP, committed numerous assaults against Muslims and other minority communities in response to rumors that minority group members sold, bought, or killed cows for beef. Instead of taking prompt legal action against the attackers, police frequently filed complaints against the victims under laws banning cow slaughter. There were at least 38 such attacks in 2017, and 10 people were killed. http://www.sacw.net/article13608.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: WHAT FUTURE FOR THOUSANDS WHO ARE LIKELY TO BE DECLARED NON-CITIZENS IN ASSAM ? | commentary by Sanjib Baruah and Seema Guha ======================================== what happens to people declared non-citizens when the National Register of Citizens releases its final list in Assam? http://www.sacw.net/article13607.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: OPEN LETTER FROM KHEDUT SAMAJ TO CHIEF MINISTER OF GUJARAT REGARDING NARMADA WATER ISSUE ======================================== the situation in the rural areas of the state is turning grim and explosive. It is hoped that you will consider impartially the issue I am raising here and rise above political divide, think seriously to take immediate decisive steps to meet the situation. Your government has suddenly announced that the farmers would not get water for their summer crop as there was a shortfall of water in the Sardar Sarovar dam! http://www.sacw.net/article13606.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: TEJAL KANITKAR DEBUNKS EVERYDAY OBSCURANTISM ======================================== Video: Why do people in power get away with making unscientific and ridiculous statements? http://www.sacw.net/article13605.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India's 'Internet Hindus' Are in Love With Israel | Saudamini Jain - India: A people divided The communal conjuncture in Karnataka calls for more than policing. - India: Communal propaganda campaign by Bajrang Dal in South Karnataka - India: In Adityanath ruled UP, Police unable to control Hindu Yuva Vahini - India: Anti-outsider Assam Agitation of the early 1980s - Are illegal Bangladeshi migrants responsible for increase in Assam's Muslim population? Two part report by Ajaz Ashraf - India: on various state-run subsidy schemes for pilgrims - report in Indian Express - India: "Any adult woman or man can marry anyone of their choice, Khap Panchayats cannot question it", SC - India: No half-hearted secularism pls ! after stopping Haj subsidy the state should stop all spending on religion - India - Karnataka: After Prakash Raj Event, BJP Workers Sprinkle Cow Urine For 'Cleansing' - India: In IIT Bombay - Is separate-plate rule for meat eaters caste discrimination? - India: After Haj Subsidy Scrapped, Spotlight On State-Funded Hindu Pilgrimages, Including Rs 2,500 Crore By UP Govt For Ardh Kumbh - India: AIFRTE Press Statement condemning the abusive and threatening public reference on Facebook by ABVP student against Prof. K. Laxminarayana - India: Times of India Editorial on proposed bill criminalising triple talaq - India - Rajasthan: ?Love jihad? cover for Shambulal Regar ties with ?Hindu sister? - Does BJP Intend to Change Indian Constitution? Ram Puniyani - India: Compulsory Sanskrit prayers at Kendriya Vidyalayas prompt a Jabalpur lawyer to move Supreme Court -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. THE PRESIDENT, THE STRONGMAN, AND THE NEXT U.S. HEADACHE IN AFGHANISTAN by Mujib Mashal ======================================== (The New York Times, January 15, 2018) Photo Atta Muhammad Noor talking to an aide at the governor?s compound in Mazar-i-Sharif. Since being fired by the Afghan president, he has been at work every day. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan ? Atta Muhammad Noor, a strongman who has ruled a prosperous northern Afghan province more like a king than a governor for 13 years, was driving between meetings in Dubai last month when he got the call: President Ashraf Ghani was firing him. For three years, Mr. Ghani had tried to ease Mr. Noor, 54, a commander of the mujahedeen resistance to the Soviets who then became a warlord in the civil war and in the battle against the Taliban, out of his spot as governor of Balkh Province, the country?s commercial hub. Negotiations over a deal that would see Mr. Noor finally leave in return for more government seats for his political party faltered. And when Mr. Noor began meeting with other important regional power brokers who were also critics of the president, Mr. Ghani decided he had finally had enough. He ordered Mr. Noor out. The Afghan president may have miscalculated. Since returning to Balkh, not only has Mr. Noor rejected the Afghan president?s firing of him, but he is using his defiance of the American-backed administration in Kabul as a platform to project himself as a player in the presidential elections that are supposed to happen next year. A regional power?s rejection of the central government has long been seen as a likely test for the heavily centralized but potentially fragile Afghan state set up after 2001. Now the standoff between Mr. Noor and Mr. Ghani, which has dragged on for almost a month, has become a painfully public test of how far the United States will go to support the Afghan president against a widening, though not united, opposition. Continue reading the main story ?They were thinking I was the same as the governors they had appointed with a piece of paper and removed with a piece of paper,? Mr. Noor said last week, in an interview with The New York Times in the governor?s office. ?I am the operational chief of a strong political party, I am part of a strong coalition, and the people trust me for who I am, for my charisma.? Photo Mr. Noor (foreground center) listening to supporters during a gathering at the governor?s compound. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Mr. Noor said the effort to remove him was tied to political machinations around the presidential elections next year, when Mr. Ghani wants to be re-elected, but it remains unclear how. ?We are a great capacity for votes during elections. They are trying to marginalize us, and we won?t take it quietly,? Mr. Noor said. ?If my party and my allies agree, it?s possible that I will be a candidate ? as the head of the ticket.? He added: ?I don?t like being No. 2.? One event that probably contributed to Mr. Noor?s firing happened about two months ago, when fuel trucks contracted by NATO were blocked by his forces in Balkh. Mr. Noor said the trucks were using NATO?s tax-exempt status to import illegal fuel. Some officials, however, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid angering Mr. Noor and his allies, suggested that the trucks were stopped because they were refusing to pay Mr. Noor?s men a cut. Afghan officials say the episode angered Gen. John W. Nicholson, the top American commander in Afghanistan. Mr. Ghani?s aides used it in their lobbying against Mr. Noor, arguing that the former warlord was not only against the Afghan president, but also his American allies. Mr. Noor appeared unconcerned. ?Nicholson should not have gotten upset,? Mr. Noor said. ?Nicholson should have called me, like a man, and asked for information on what had happened.? Photo Demonstrators showing their support for Mr. Noor while on their way to the compound. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times In December, Mr. Ghani?s government, with the help of the NATO coalition, which still controls Afghan airspace, refused Mr. Noor?s plane permission to to fly to the southern province of Kandahar to attend an opposition rally. In July, a plane carrying Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Afghan vice president who is exiled in Turkey on charges of abducting and raping an opponent and has become a strong ally of Mr. Noor, was denied landing in Balkh, where he was supposed to attend a rally organized by Mr. Noor. Through it all, Mr. Noor has been trying to stay afloat, and some even see his meetings as the moves of a potential candidate who is testing his prospects for a bigger move. According to several Afghan officials, those meetings included one in Dubai last month with Erik D. Prince, the former chief executive of the Blackwater private security firm, who has recently proposed a greater role for privatized security and intelligence operations in Afghanistan. Mr. Noor would not confirm those reports of a meeting with Mr. Prince, who has ties to the Trump administration and whose sister, Betsy DeVos, is the education secretary. But he was clear about seeking channels for American support. ?I saw strong people who have connections to the White House,? Mr. Noor said. As successor to Mr. Noor, Mr. Ghani?s government announced Mohammed Dawood, a former guerrilla from Mr. Noor?s faction who, for the past two decades, has lived in London and run a luggage shop there. Denied entry into Balkh, Mr. Dawood has set up office in the diplomatic quarters in Kabul, where, in preparation for a future role that may never materialize, he has dyed his beard pitch black, ordered new three-piece suits, and appointed a spokesman who represents him on television shows. ?Right now, I am waiting to hear what the government says. It is totally up to them to decide when and how to take me to Balkh,? Mr. Dawood said during an interview at the guest house the government has provided for him in Kabul. Mr. Noor sees Mr. Dawood as ?an exhausted tool against me? and says there is no way the man could become governor. The crisis could only be resolved through negotiations with his party, which are ongoing in Kabul, he said. Continue reading the main story Photo Mohammed Dawood, named by the Afghan president as Mr. Noor?s replacement, at his temporary office in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Mr. Noor?s military and political reputation has been deeply tied to his home province for decades, and it has given him deep leverage with both the West and the government in Kabul. About $1.7 billion worth of goods transited through just one of Balkh Province?s ports last year, including fuel contracted by NATO. Mr. Noor is also believed to have armed militias in the north, which Human Rights Watch has accused of extensive abuses. Over 15 years, Mr. Noor has developed a vast network of businesses and patronage centered on Balkh and the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, long a center of trade and interaction with Central Asia. Those relationships have brought him and his allies wealth that affords them a lavish lifestyle, but also resources for a network of militia commanders across several provinces. In trying to take Mr. Noor down, Mr. Ghani?s aides have portrayed him as helplessly corrupt, saying that he takes a cut from every business, and that he has hundreds of millions of dollars sitting in foreign bank accounts. But Mr. Noor insists that his income has come from clean business dealings, and that his profits have all been piled into his network of supporters and his political efforts. For months before his firing, an aloof Mr. Noor had mostly not bothered to show up at the governor?s office in Mazar. He attended to only the most serious of government business from one of his homes or guest houses, decorated with large chandeliers, golden faucets, and more than a dozen portraits of their owner. But as soon as he was fired, he started showing up to the office every day. Behind multiple layers of security, Mr. Noor now meets hundreds of people daily, giving rousing speeches that are broadcast live on several national television channels. And he has repeatedly used the language of force. One of the most frequent targets of his verbal abuse has been Abdullah Abdullah, a former Northern Alliance figure who now serves as Mr. Ghani?s coalition partner in the Afghan government. ?I will smash your teeth!? Mr. Noor said in a callout to Mr. Abdullah, a former ally whom he now denounces as a sellout to Mr. Ghani. Photo Mr. Atta on stage in front of his supporters. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Last Thursday, Mr. Noor, wearing black clothes and sunglasses while ferried in a convoy of gloss-black armored vehicles, arrived at the governor?s office late in the afternoon. His aides said he had been up much of the night, pacing the room on the phone or holding private audiences with visitors from Kabul. As he listened to a long list of speakers in one auditorium, visitors were being seated into two adjacent halls where Mr. Noor would speak next. He seemed tired, trying to hide his yawns as speaker after speaker called him lion, king, emperor. To each platitude, Mr. Noor simply bowed his head, his hand on his chest. But when Mr. Noor took the podium, there was no sign of exhaustion. Once again, he lashed out at the government in Kabul. He said his party leaders were trying to negotiate a solution in the capital, and that would be the only way out. But he asked his supporters to be ready for civil protest ? to have their ?old tires? ready for burning to block roads. The speech quickly turned into an election rally, with Mr. Noor saying the leaders of the government in Kabul were blind to Afghans? suffering through years of war. ?If I become president one day ? ? Mr. Noor said, baiting the crowd. And they roared in response. Then, gripping the podium ? a $27,000 Omega watch on his wrist, a garnet ring with a halo of about 20 small diamonds on his finger ? Mr. Noor talked about corruption. He said the central government was rife with graft, as the two coalition leaders fattened their own allies. While a teacher was making $200 or less a month, he said, Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah were paying hundreds of useless advisers $5,000, $6,000, or more. And how much was the cost of renting an armored vehicle for each adviser? ?They are sucking the blood of the people,? Mr. Noor said. Continue reading the main story Photo Mr. Noor?s face is seen on posters across Mazar-i-Sharif. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Reporting was contributed by Najim Rahim from Mazar-i-Sharif, and Jawad Sukhanyar, Fatima Faizi and Fahim Abed from Kabul, Afghanistan. A version of this article appears in print on January 16, 2018, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Standoff With Kabul Props Up A Strongman. ======================================== 8. INDIA: HYSTERIA ON HISTORY | A.G. Noorani ======================================== (Frontline, February 2, 2018) In February 1991, the Supreme Court directed that a disclaimer be made about the accuracy or authenticity of the episode while telecasting the serial ?The Sword of Tipu Sultan?. Photo: The Hindu Archives Leela Samson. In 2011, as Chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, she took a principled stand on the film ?Aarakshan?: ?I don?t think the film is anti-Dalit.? Photo:K. Ramesh Babu A scene from ?Khap?, a movie on ?honour killings?. The police actively prevented the screening of the film. Photo:The Hindu Archives A still from ?Ore Oru Gramathile?, a movie criticising the reservation policy. Photo:The Hindu Archives BRITISH historians? effort at religious periodisation of Indian history is well known. Not so well known is a clumsy attempt at divide a... ? How ancient hatreds are invented and the politics of identity and community, of religion, ethnicity and gender has begun to occupy the space vacated by political ideology. By A.G. NOORANI History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. Its properties are wellknown. It causes dreams, it intoxicates whole people, gives them false memories, quickens their reflexes, keeps their old wounds open, torments them in their repose, leads them into delusions, either of grandeur or persecution, and makes nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vain. ?Paul Valery, History & Politics, 1931. IT would be suicidal for any democracy to ignore the repeated waves of mass intolerance which swept unchecked over several parts of the country, as they have in recent decades. They profess to set right imagined historical wrongs. The outbursts have common features. The ?wrongs? had long been forgotten until they were revived, all of a sudden, for manifestly political ends. In each case ?the other? becomes a target of hate; extreme demands are made in the nature of surrender terms; and the state bows before mob hysteria and the violence it promotes. The waves engulf the fields of literature; the arts, especially films; politics; and academia, leaving few fields of creative endeavour untouched. Let alone the government, even the judiciary has been none too eager to quell such movements, not excluding its very apex, the Supreme Court. The violence at Bhima Koregaon in Pune district of Maharashtra on New Year?s Day 2018 is but the latest, assuredly not the last, in a series of such ignoble ventures. The calculation in the madness is all too apparent. None analysed its root cause better than the scholar Shiv Visvanathan did in The Hindu (January 6, 2018), which was based on earnest research. Tersely, the Peshwa Balaji Rao II spurned an offer by the Mahars to serve in his army against the East India Company. He relied instead on the Marathas and the Brahmins and lost in the battle at Koregaon Bhima Tal. Thus ended Maratha rule. That was 200 years ago, on January 1, 1818. It is not difficult to sense the event?s potential for arousing the emotions of nationalism and caste rivalry between the Mahars and the Marathas. Significantly, nationalist fervour is not evoked. We are rid of British rule and are happy. But the caste rivalry persists and memories of the 200-year-old battle can be pressed into service. As Shiv Visvanathan put it: ?The battle now is not one of memory, it is a battle for identity and equality.? This is a battle that rages fiercely to this day. One cannot say that of other historical episodes which politicians exploit for petty gains at the cost of national unity. One had thought that with Pahlaj Nihalani as Chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification, the office had touched its nadir. But we had not reckoned with Prasoon Joshi. He outsourced statutory functions to persons outside and wrecked the entire system, exposing it and himself to ridicule. All this over the film Padmavati, which aroused, ostensibly, the fury of persons who had not seen it over a person who never existed. The ridiculous Prasoon Joshi proposed and got accepted five cuts, including a change in the title of the film into the title of the book written a couple of centuries later by a Sufi. The Sufi?s work was entitled Padmavat, now the title of the film. In between he parleyed for a settlement left and right including some ?royals? of Mewar and reportedly even suggested at one stage formation of a committee, outside the bodies set by the law to which he owes his office. It is doubtful whether Prasoon Joshi read the statute which created his office and, if at all he did so, whether he understood it?the Cinematograph Act, 1952. The Central government framed the Cinematograph (Censorship) Rules, 1983, as well as the Censorship Guidelines. The Supreme Court?s ruling in Khwaja Ahmad Abbas vs Union of India (AIR 1971 SC 491; 1971 2SC 242) renders the entire system of film certification unconstitutional. The court was promised that a quasi-judicial independent tribunal would be set up. What the belated amendment of 1981 and 1984 along with the Rules of 1983 and the guidelines of 1991 do is to set up a hierarchy of daily-wage earners; right from the President of the Appellate Tribunal, generally a retired High Court judge, and the Chairman of the Board downwards. All hold office ?during the pleasure of the Central Government?; i.e., the Information and Broadcasting Minister, the Secretary and the political bigwigs who support the government. Khosla Committee The Report of the Enquiry Committee on Film Censorship, headed by Justice G.D. Khosla, is a forgotten classic. Among the committee?s members were R.K. Narayan, K.A. Abbas and Romesh Thapar. Men like Sohrab Modi, Satyajit Ray, E. Alkazi, V. Shantaram, Prithviraj Kapoor, Pahari Sanyal, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and leading distributors and film critics gave evidence. Two actors on the committee, Nargis and later Balraj Sahni, did not participate ?owing to heavy professional commitments?. The Supreme Court relied heavily on this report. The actors set a precedent of indifference. Like other Indians, members of the industry?actors, producers and distributors?wake up from their somnolence episodically, mostly when their own rights are affected. Those who protested over the cuts imposed on Prakash Jha?s Aarakshan seemed to have no time for Ajay Sinha?s Khap, a movie on ?honour killings?. It could not be screened in the one State that needed its message the most, Haryana. In her article ?Reality show? (Frontline, August 26, 2011), T.K. Rajalakshmi remarked: ?No one in the Mumbai film industry, save a few, bothered to back the beleaguered film director.? The police actively prevented the screening of the film. On August 10, 2011, Amitabh Bachchan, who starred in Aarakshan, blogged: ?If creative expression is to be curbed by institutes that wish to dictate their terms... above the conditions of... recognised constitutional formats... then we might as well accept that we live not in the sanctity of the tenets of democracy but a most unfortunate fascist conditioning.? The flamboyance is typical. He must be congratulated on his belated discovery of a grim reality. A pity that it dawned on him only when his film was being brutalised. Our publicity-hungry civil liberty ?activists? were conspicuous by their silence on the issue. The Athenian lawgiver Solon (640-558 B.C.), when asked how a people could preserve their liberties, said: ?Those who are uninjured by an arbitrary act must be taught to feel as much indignation at it as those who are injured.? In India, such consciousness is absent; protests are episodic. They subside and things go on as before. There is no national, non-political civil liberties organisation or movement. Do not trust our politicians to fill the void. As a foreign correspondent once remarked, the Indian politician wakes up to deprivation of liberty only when the prison doors are shut behind him. Khaps provide musclemen during election. In Mumbai, two Ministers and a politician extracted from Prakash Jha his consent to cuts in order to gain some brownie points. One regrets the cuts, but one cannot condemn him. The system is frail, and crores of rupees are involved. But what is it that prevents Bollywood from challenging the archaic Act in the Supreme Court as K.A. Abbas did? Culture of intolerance If film censorship is discussed at such length, it is because it exposes vividly the culture of intolerance. Illiteracy and intolerance written into the law. Rule 41(4) reads thus: ?(a) In cases where the examining committee, after examination of the film, considered that a scrutiny of the shooting script is necessary or the authenticity of the incidents depicted in a film of historical, mythological, biographical or legendary nature is to be verified, a provisional report to that effect shall be submitted by the regional officer to the chairman within a maximum of three working days after such examination.? There is a fundamental objection to this bizarre provision. Evidently, its authors were ignorant of the very concept of historical fiction. Fiction based on history need not be historically correct. And who is to judge the accuracy of the historical narrative, the government?s hand-picked appointees? Expert opinion is as irrelevant as citation of sources. It is the richness of the imagination that matters, as does the style in the writing and in the depiction in the film. But, the pass was sold by none other than the apex court of the land, the Supreme Court of India, in the case of the telecast on Doordarshan of the film The Sword of Tipu Sultan. In February 1991, the Supreme Court directed that the following announcement be made along with the telecast: ?No claim is made for the accuracy or authenticity of any episode being depicted in the serial. This serial is a fiction and has nothing to do either with the life or rule of Tipu Sultan. The serial is a dramatised presentation of Bhagwan Gidwani?s novel.? Evidently the judges did not know at all that historical fiction retains its character as fiction even if it is based on history. What if it professes to be a depiction of history such as the 1857 Mutiny or Dunkirk? The producer is no more bound to establish its accuracy than a historian is in respect of his book. And it is not for a court of law to act as a supervisor of the thesis in either case. But now the floodgates were opened?by the highest court of the land, none else. In 2011 came another notable case, the film Aarakshan thanks to the arrogant intolerance of the politician who headed the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, P.L. Punia. Aarakshan had scenes that show how the S.Cs were treated in the past?the businessmen who did not want their children to sit with Dalit children ?who stink?. It is sheer illiteracy to suggest that the film extols such conduct. Quite the opposite. A film on Gandhi?s struggle for the eradication of untouchability will perforce have scenes showing the disgraceful treatment meted out to them for centuries. The then Chairperson of the CBFC, Leela Samson, deserves high praise for her principled stand: ?When you show a certain situation, you must show reality as it is.? She added: ?I don?t think the film is anti-Dalit.? Punia?s cat came mewing out of his tattered bag when he said: ?The film ridicules the rights given to the underprivileged by the Constitution as well as the Supreme Court.... This is a matter of shame for the nation as a whole.? The intemperate language and the shameless violation of Article 338A brand him unfit for the office. He held a press conference and issued a press note after sending cheekily a summons to Leela Samson. Constitutionally, Punia had no business to intervene in the matter at all. Article 338A, which establishes his office, imposes three precisely worded duties under Clause (5): namely, ?(a) to investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards provided for the Scheduled Castes... and to evaluate the working of such safeguards; (b) to inquire into specific complaints with respect of the deprivation of rights and safeguards of the Scheduled Castes; (c) to participate and advise on the planning process of socio-economic development of the Scheduled Castes.? The law was no deterrent, evidently. Punia was courting his constituency. Movie on reservation As it happened, in 1989 the Supreme Court itself had ruled in a case involving reservation in the case of the film Ore Oru Gramathile (S. Rangarajan vs P. Jagjiwan Ram & Ors (1989) 2 SCC 574 at 598). The court said: ?We find it difficult to appreciate the observations of the High Court. We fail to understand how the expression in the film with criticism of reservation policy or praising the colonial rule will affect the security of the State or sovereignty and integrity of India. There is no utterance in the film threatening to overthrow the government by unlawful or unconstitutional means. There is no talk for secession either. Nor is there any suggestion for impairing the integration of the country. All that the film seems to suggest is that the existing method of reservation on the basis of caste is bad and reservation on the basis of economic backwardness is better. The film also deprecates exploitation of people on caste considerations. This is the range and rigour of the film. ?The High Court, however, was of opinion that public reaction to the film, which seeks to change the system of reservation, is bound to be volatile. The High Court has also stated that people of Tamil Nadu who have suffered for centuries will not allow themselves to be deprived of the benefits extended to them on a particular basis. It seems to us that the reasoning of the High Court runs afoul of the democratic principles to which we have pledged ourselves in the Constitution. In a democracy it is not necessary that everyone should sing the same song. Freedom of expression is the rule and it is generally taken for granted. Everyone has a fundamental right to form his own opinion on any issue of general concern. He can form and inform by legitimate means.? The court?s censures on the State government are all the more relevant now. ?In the affidavit filed on behalf of the State government, it is alleged that some organisations like the Tamil Nadu Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes People?s Protection Committee, Dr. Ambedkar People?s Movement, the Republican Party of India have been agitating that the film should be banned as it hurt the sentiments of people belonging to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes. It is stated that general secretary of the Republican Party of India has warned that his party would not hesitate to damage the cinema theatres which screen the film. Some demonstration made by people in front of The Hindu office on 16 March 1988 and their arrest and release on bail are also referred to. It is further alleged that there were some group meetings by Republican Party members and Dr. Ambedkar People?s Movement with their demand for banning the film. With these averments it was contended for the State that exhibition of the film create very serious law and order problem in the State. ?We are amused yet troubled by the stand taken by the State government with regard to the film which has received the National Award. We want to put the anguished question, what good is the protection of freedom of expression if the State does not take care to protect it? If the film is unobjectionable and cannot constitutionally be restricted under Article 19(2), freedom of expression cannot be suppressed on account of threat of demonstration and processions or threats of violence. That would tantamount to negation of the rule of law and a surrender to blackmail and intimidation. It is the duty of the State to protect the freedom of expression since it is a liberty guaranteed against the State. The State cannot plead its inability to handle the hostile audience problem. It is its obligatory duty to prevent it and protect the freedom of expression.? Custodians of morality The rebuke had no effect on our thick-skinned politicians. It could not, for obvious reasons. In a press interview published on December 9, 1998, the veteran film star Dilip Kumar remarked apropos of the Shiv Sainiks? attacks on December 4 on the cinema house screening Fire: ?How can you appeal to the government when Chief Minister Manohar Joshi is himself encouraging threats of violence... by congratulating the miscreants?? On December 12, Shiv Saniks in their underwear surrounded his house and hurled abuses. The obscenity of such behaviour arouses no censure from the pretentious custodians of morality; some, indeed, have approved of it. We never had such problems before, on Sohrab Modi?s historical films Pukar (on Emperor Jehangir), Sikandar-e-Azam (on Alexander the Great) or Prithvi Vallabh, based on a novel by K.M. Munshi, or K. Asif?s Mughal-e-Azam (on Akbar the Great). We must ask ourselves to what do we owe this newly acquired frenzy? It is surely not because of increased interest in the historical truth. In 2014, the highly regarded Penguin Books had to pulp The Hindus: An Alternative History by the distinguished Indologist Wendy Doniger. One hopes her forthcoming book will fare better. If building a Ram temple at Ayodhya was a matter of ?national honour?, how come men like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai and Madan Mohan Malaviya never realised it. It was raised in the last quarter of the 20th century because the Bharatiya Janata Party sought to retrieve its lost support. As Sushma Swaraj admitted, it was raised for political reasons. ?Modern hate? Around that time two of the finest American scholars on India, who had deep empathy for the country, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd I. Rudolph, wrote a brilliant analysis of the phenomenon in The New Republic of March 22, 1993. Aptly entitled ?Modern Hate?, it exposed ?how ancient animosities get invented?. They wrote: ?Ancient hatreds are thus made as much as they are inherited. To call them ancient is to pretend they are primordial forces, outside of history and human agency, when often they are merely synthetic antiques. Intellectuals, writers, artists and politicians ?make? hatreds. Films and videos, texts and textbooks, certify stories about the past, the collective memories that shape perceptions and attitudes.... If there was no standard version of Hinduism until yesterday, then when and how did the day before yesterday end? How did it happen that the Bharatiya Janata Party was able to hijack Hinduism, replacing its diversity, multivocality and generativity with a monotheistic Ram cult?... ?As political ideology recedes with the collapse of communism, the politics of identity and community, of religion, ethnicity and gender have begun to occupy the space vacated by political ideology. Directly and indirectly, religion, ethnicity and gender increasingly define what politics is about.... Which identities become relevant for politics is not predetermined by some primordial ancientness. They are crafted in benign and malignant ways in print and electronic media, in textbooks and advertising, in India?s T.V. mega series and America?s talk shows, in campaign strategies, in all the places and all the ways that self and other, us and them, are represented in an expanding public culture. ?The struggle in India between Mandal and mandir, between quota government and Hindu nationalism, reminds us that in America too, the politics of interest is being overtaken by cultural politics, the politics of gender, family values, race and sexual orientation.... ?Ancient hatreds? function like the ?evil empire?. That term too was a projection on a scrim, obscuring the motives and practice that lay behind it. The doctrine of ancient hatreds may become the post-Cold War?s most robust mystification, a way of having an enemy and knowing evil that deceives as it satisfies. The hatred is modern, and may be closer than we think.? ======================================== 9. MINORITIES PACKING THEIR BAGS AS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM PLUNGES IN PAKISTAN | Kunwar Khuldune Shahid ======================================== (Asia Times, January 16, 2018) www.atimes.com/article/minorities-packing-bags-religious-freedom-plunges-pakistan/ Thousands of Christians, Ahmadis and Hindus are fleeing as the government turns a blind eye to Islamic groups' harassment of other faiths and beliefs; even atheists have now gone quiet Pakistani religious students and activists gather for a protest against social media in Islamabad on March 8, 2017, and demanded the removal of all blasphemous content from social media sites. Photo: AFP / Aamir Qureshi Pakistan has been put on a US watch list for countries of concern over ?severe violations of religious freedom? ? and a closer look at the situation reveals that religious minorities and atheists are at a higher risk than ever. The State Department?s move came after a tweet by President Donald Trump in New Year accusing Pakistan of providing ?safe haven to terrorists?. However, the list is significant given the state?s surrender to protests by the Islamic political party Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) at the end of last year. Islamabad?s capitulation to the radical Islamist mob has endangered the Ahmadiyya community, which has been the target of death threats made openly since the party besieged the capital a few months ago. The Ahmadis, an Islamic sect excommunicated by the second amendment to Pakistan?s Constitution in 1974, have faced a severe backlash over the initial changes made regarding Khatm-e-Nabuwat (finality of prophethood) in the Elections Reforms Bill passed in October. According to the Pakistan Penal Code, an Ahmadi can be imprisoned for reading the Koran or even using Islamic titles. Ahmadis face the sword of blasphemy ?What?s ironic is that those ideologues who were against the creation of Pakistan not only accuse us of heresy, but also call Ahmadis ? who played a crucial role in Pakistan?s freedom struggle ? anti-nationals,? Ahmadiyya spokesperson Saleem Uddin said to Asia Times. ?We have been the convenient scapegoats for the state since Pakistan?s inception. What was a breach of freedom of religion in 1974 [through the Second Amendment], was transformed into apartheid a decade later when the state slashed and barred us from ?posing as Muslims?,? he went on. While Ahmadis are constantly under the sword of blasphemy ? a ?crime? punishable by death in Pakistan ? owing to their interpretation of Islamic theology, the state has recently begun targeting atheists. Last year, a judge in the Islamabad High Court maintained that ?blasphemers are terrorists?. That prompted the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to not only block local Facebook pages that questioned religion, but also to send text messages to cell-phone users nationwide throughout the year, warning against blasphemy. Social media crackdown, atheists at risk An atheist, who organizes underground meetings for local skeptics and appeared in the BBC documentary ?Pakistan?s Secret Atheists?, told Asia Times there has been a significant decrease in atheist gatherings in his country. ?After the social media crackdown, many of us deactivated our profiles fearing abduction, especially after secular bloggers were abducted in January last year,? he says. ?But there?s also a reluctance among atheists about meeting up at homes. Our homes and the internet used to be our safe spaces to share ideas, but even those have been taken away from us.? While local atheists can pass off as Muslims ? if that is their birth religion in Pakistan, Hindus and Christians are more visible targets. Last month, two suicide bombers killed nine and injured nearly 60 others inside Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, the latest in a string of attacks on the local Christian community. ?We feared going out on Christmas with memories of the Easter Day bombing [at a children?s park in Lahore] from 2016 still fresh,? a member of the Christian clergy, who asked to remain anonymous, said. ?But what support can we expect when our own Kamran Michael is more interested in seeking the support of Presbyterian and Anglican Church bodies for the Sharifs? election campaigns than in safeguarding our rights.? Kamran Michael, a senator from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was elected in a seat allocated for minorities and served as the minister for human rights from 2013 until Nawaz Sharif?s disqualification as prime minister last July. Many locals accuse Michael of not doing enough to protect minorities. Threats by Muslim radicals has prompted innumerable Christians to flee Pakistan and look for asylum elsewhere. Hindus also targeted Members of the local Hindu community have also been seeking shelter abroad. Recently, two Hindu traders were shot to death in Sindh?s Tharparkar city just days before the US announced that Pakistan was on its watch list in regard to religious freedom. PML-N Senator Ramesh Kumar said ?around 5,000 Hindus leave Pakistan every year? because of the extensive persecution. This includes forced marriages and kidnapping for ransom, as well as attacks on Hindu temples. Pakistani human rights activist Kapil Dev (named after the Indian cricket star) blames the state?s acquiescence to the radical Islamist narrative as the main reason why Pakistani Hindus are targeted. ?The mushrooming growth of seminaries of banned outfits has paved quick inroads for growing extremism in Tharparkar, where both Hindus and Muslims had been enjoying an exemplary interfaith coexistence,? Dev said to Asia Times. He believes the country?s educational curricula, which marginalizes local Hindus while outlining the Muslim separatist movement that resulted in the creation of Pakistan, needs an overhaul. ?Hatred against Hindus, primarily driven from the ideology of Two-Nation Theory, is deeply injected in the veins of raw minds through distorted history and fabricated tales taught in books,? he said. ?There is a need to secularize curricula by filtering out religion and distorted versions of history promoting hatred against Hindus.? Activists want to counter radical Islamist perspectives with a secular narrative, but Ibn Abdur Rehman, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, doesn?t see it happening anytime soon. ?This is only going to get worse,? he told Asia Times. ?The state has surrendered to the radical Islamists and plans on gradually taking away every last bit of freedom from its citizens.? ======================================== 10. PAKISTANI HUMANIST DENIED UK ASYLUM AFTER FAILING TO IDENTIFY PLATO | Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent | @harrietsherwood ======================================== (The Guardian, 17 Jan 2018) Man who renounced Islam says he has received death threats from family members in Pakistan A Pakistani man who renounced his Muslim faith and became a humanist has had his application for asylum in the UK rejected after failing to correctly answer questions about ancient Greek philosophers. The Home Office said Hamza bin Walayat?s failure to identify Plato and Aristotle as humanist philosophers indicated his knowledge of humanism was ?rudimentary at best?. The Home Office also said Walayat did not face persecution for his beliefs. In a letter rejecting his asylum claim, seen by the Guardian, it said his assertion that he would be at risk in Pakistan, and could be killed by his family because of his beliefs and his renunciation of Islam, was unfounded. Walayat, who has lived in the UK since 2011, said he had received death threats from members of his family and community in Pakistan after integrating into secular British life, forming a relationship with a non-Muslim partner and refusing to conform to the expectations of conservative Islam. Apostates are subject to discrimination, persecution and violence in Pakistan. In March last year, a student who had stated he was a humanist on his Facebook page was murdered at his university. Destitute UK asylum seekers get 80p rise in subsistence payments Read more Blasphemy is punishable by death under Pakistani law. In August, 24 British politicians wrote to the Pakistani government urging it to repeal its draconian blasphemy law, which has been used against religious minorities and humanists. Walayat claimed asylum in July last year after being served with removal papers for overstaying his student visa. After an interview with immigration officials, the Home Office said he had ?been unable to provide a consistent or credible account with regards the main aspect of your claim, namely that you are a humanist?. When tested on his knowledge of humanism, Walayat gave a ?basic definition? but could not identify ?any famous Greek philosophers who were humanistic?. The letter said: ?When you were informed by the interviewing officer that he was referring to Plato and Aristotle, you replied: ?Yeah, the thing is because of my medication that is strong I just forget stuff sometimes?.? The Home Office concluded: ?Your knowledge of humanism is rudimentary at best and not of a level that would be expected of a genuine follower of humanism.? MPs criticise error-hit 'hostile environment' for illegal immigrants Read more Walayat joined the Humanists UK organisation in August, but said he had believed in the basic principles of humanism from childhood. According to Humanists UK, ?humanism is not a ?canonical? belief system, where adherents must learn and follow a strict set of behaviour codes. As a descriptive term, humanists can be someone who has simply rejected religious belief but holds some positive conception of human values.? Advertisement In a letter in support of Walayat?s asylum application, Bob Churchill, of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, said: ?For many, the broad descriptive ?humanist? is just a softer way of saying atheist, especially if you come from a place where identifying as atheist may be regarded as a deeply offensive statement.? Andrew Copson, of Humanists UK, said the move ?set a dangerous precedent for non-religious people fleeing persecution. The Home Office is simply incorrect to claim that non-religious people seeking asylum don?t get the same protection in law as religious people do.? The questions put to Walayat ?reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of humanism?, he added. Walayat told the Guardian he believed his life would be in danger in Pakistan. The Home Office decision had come as a shock, he added. ?I?ve told the truth and instead of believing me they are trying to find excuses to kick me out of the country,? he said. Many Christians he had encountered in the UK did not have a detailed grasp of the history of their faith, he said, ?but it doesn?t mean they?re not Christian?. A Home Office spokesperson said: ?The UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need our protection and each claim is carefully considered on its individual merits.? ======================================== 11. NEPAL: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE, ACCOUNTABILITY STALLED - ELECTIONS THROUGHOUT YEAR SIGNAL NEW OPPORTUNITY ======================================== (Human Rights Watch, January 18, 2018) Villagers wait to vote at a polling station during the parliamentary and provincial elections in Sindhupalchok district, Nepal, November 26, 2017. ? 2017 Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters (New York) ? The Nepali government held local, provincial, and national elections in 2017, following longtime political instability and debate over new provinces, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018. However, despite some halting progress on transitional justice for abuses during the country?s 1996-2006 civil war, victims saw little by way of justice or reparations. In the 643-page World Report, its 28th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that political leaders willing to stand up for human rights principles showed that it is possible to limit authoritarian populist agendas. When combined with mobilized publics and effective multilateral actors, these leaders demonstrated that the rise of anti-rights governments is not inevitable. Nepal?s political leadership has long been divided on most issues except to deny justice and accountability for conflict-related abuses. -Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director ?After years of political instability that led to stalled human rights reforms, Nepal?s elections may lead to fresh hope for justice and due process,? said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. ?Nepal?s political leadership has long been divided on most issues except to deny justice and accountability for conflict-related abuses, which should now change.? Nepal?s transitional justice mechanisms, focused on truth-telling and disappearances, held hearings throughout 2017 and received more than 60,000 complaints from across the country. Flaws in the commissions? mandates were not remedied, in spite of several Supreme Court directives. Due to these shortcomings, the international community chose to remain silent on the transitional justice process until the laws were brought into line with international norms. Quarrels among political leaders led to long delays in establishing a mechanism charged with distributing the estimated US$4 billion in aid generated for victims of the April 2015 earthquakes. Victims, many still living in temporary shelters, were further affected by harsh winters and floods during the monsoon season. Nepal has the third highest rate of child marriage in Asia ? 37 percent of girls are married before age 18, and 10 percent before age 15. Progress toward ending the practice has stalled. In 2016, the government launched a national strategy to end child marriage by 2030, but has yet to announce or implement any practical action plan. In positive news, in line with a 2007 Supreme Court decision, the government has gradually introduced a legal third gender on various documents, including citizenship certificates and passports. In 2017, the court issued a new judgment emphasizing the government?s responsibility to issue such documents. Nepal also outlawed chaupadi, a practice that effectively removes menstruating women and girls from their homes. ======================================== 12. STATEMENT BY JEAN GOUGH, UNICEF'S SOUTH ASIA REGIONAL DIRECTOR, DENOUNCING ATTACK ON POLIO VACCINATION CAMPAIGN IN PAKISTAN ======================================== UNICEF Press centre Press release KATHMANDU, 19 January 2018 ? ?UNICEF joins the Government of Pakistan in its condemnation of the killing of two polio vaccinators in Balochistan earlier this week." ?The mother and daughter who were killed were at the forefront of this extremely important fight to combat polio in Pakistan. Such attacks on health workers can hamper the important work to eradicate the disease and ensure that Pakistani children are no longer at risk of lifelong disability.? ?UNICEF expresses its deepest sympathy with the family of the two killed health workers who have worked to protect children and keep them healthy.? ?We remain committed in our support to the Government and the people of Pakistan in their determination to save the new generations from this terrible disease.? ### About UNICEF UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.For more information on UNICEF's polio work in South Asia, visit http://www.unicefrosa-progressreport.org/eradicatepolio.html4 Follow UNICEF on Twitter5 and Facebook6. For more information, please contact: Paul Rutter, Regional Adviser Maternal & Child Health, UNICEF South Asia, +977 9801096877, prutter at unicef.org Sabrina Sidhu, UNICEF New York, +19174761537, ssidhu at unicef.org ======================================== 13. INDIA: DEATH OF A JUDGE - THERE IS MUCH MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE | Dushyant Dave ======================================== (Bar and Bench, Jan 19, 2018) The sad demise of Judge Loya is the biggest mystery yet to be unravelled even after three years. It is also the biggest tragedy for the Judiciary for more than one reason. [ . . . ] https://barandbench.com/judge-loya-death-dushyant-dave/ ======================================== 14. INDIA: PUDR DEMAND RELEASE OF ABU BILAL KAWA ======================================== People?s Union for Democratic Rights Press Statement 15.1.18 Release Abu Bilal Kawa Immediately PUDR demands the immediate release of Abu Bilal Kawa who was arrested on January 10, 2018 by a joint team of the Special Cell and Gujarat ATS from outside Delhi?s International Airport. The Deputy Commissioner Special Cell said that the suspect was arrested after it was confirmed that he was ?the same man we were looking for in the Red Fort terrorist shoot out case? (Hindustan Times, 11.01.2018). Subsequently, a city court sent Bilal Kawa to ten-days police remand. Kawa is said to be a proclaimed offender in the Red Fort attack case of December 2000, a shoot-out in which 3 personnel of the Rajputana Rifles lost their lives and for which death penalty was awarded to Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq, a Pakistani national who continues to languish in solitary confinement. The prosecution had argued that Kawa was part of hawala transactions and that the main accused, Mohd. Arif, had allegedly disbursed a sum of 29 lakhs in Kawa?s account in Srinagar as well as in the accounts of two other men from Srinagar, Farooq and Nasir Quasid. While it is the duty of the law enforcing agency to arrest proclaimed offenders, Kawa?s belated arrest raises several questions which refute the police?s claim that Kawa has been in hiding all this while: After his arrest Kawa has told the police that he frequents Delhi as he is a businessman and that his January visit was for a medical check-up. Neighbours and family members in Srinagar have stated that in all these years no police warrant has been issued against Kawa. The J&K police has confirmed that there is no pending FIR against Kawa in the nearby Maharaj Gunj Zainkadal PS. The family members have also asserted that Kawa?s brother is a resident of Delhi for the past twenty years and that he?s never faced any queries from the police. Besides these obvious questions which suggest that the arrest is politically motivated, Kawa?s alleged role in the larger conspiracy, as claimed by the police, deserves scrutiny within the controversial legal history of the Red Fort attack case: Before the trial court, the police had failed to furnish the prosecution claim against the above mentioned Quasids as it could not procure bank documents or show how the disbursed money was used for furthering LeT sponsored terrorist activities. Not surprising that the Quasids along with four others were acquitted by the High Court in 2007. The High Court had also pointed out that in a case which was tried under normal law, the reliance of the trial court on confessional statements of accused, was a case of miscarriage of justice. It must be remembered that Kawa is said to have the same role as that of the Quasids. The Special Cell, the investigating agency, which arrested Kawa has played an infamous role as it killed a prime suspect, Abu Shamal, on the plea of ?self-defence?. The ?encounter? was doubtful as the residents of Batla House in Jamia Nagar claimed that there was no such incident on the morning of 26th December 2000. The legal controversies of the Red Fort attack case are not restricted to shoddy investigations and unethical practices of the Special Cell. It is built into the very chain of evidence as the ?recoveries?made against the main accused?weapons, mobile phones and letters?were as controversial as the omission of his statement before the Magistrate, S.313 CrPC in which he named a RAW agent, Nain Singh. Based on flimsy evidence, a politically motivated case of terrorism was built and Mohd. Arif was given the death penalty and he continues to remain the sole accused. Quite clearly, Kawa?s arrest brings a new shine to an old case and which resuscitate familiar fears about lawless investigations. Significantly, a member of the Special Cell personnel told the media soon after the arrest that ?why he (Kawa) could not be arrested for the last seventeen years is a matter of ?investigation? (HT, 11.01). If that is so, the arrest and ten-day remand sought by the police are extremely questionable. It is to be noted that the implications of arresting a Kashmiri businessman with young children on the eve of Republic Day on charges of evading arrest serves the current right-wing purpose of projecting Kashmiri terrorism. It also confirms what the residents of the Old City of Srinagar feel: yet another instance of ?framing innocent Kashmiris?. PUDR strongly refutes the police?s claim that Kawa was in hiding or that he has a central role in the Red Fort attack case. Given the circumstances and facts of the case, the arrest of Abu Bilal Kawa seems like a clear case of political harassment. PUDR demands the unconditional release of Abu Bilal Kawa. Shashi Saxena, Shahana Bhattacharya (Secretaries, PUDR) 15th Jan 2018 http://pudr.org/content/release-abu-bilal-kawa-immediately ======================================== 15. INDIA: STATE OF FOLLY: BEWARE THE MOB. DO NOT PATRONISE IT - Editorial, The Times of India ======================================== (The Times of India, January 20, 2018) Freedom of expression must be protected despite threats to law and order but it is unfortunate that four BJP ruled states ignored this self-evident constitutional precept and then got tutored on creative freedom by Supreme Court judges. The apex court?s stay against the ban on Padmaavat is another example of judiciary rectifying flawed executive orders. SC noted that any possible concern regarding the film?s content or danger to public order would have been considered by the censor board in the discharge of its duties under the Cinematograph Act and state governments had little leeway to ban films. State governments are still exploring legal options. While they are free to pursue this futile exercise a more rewarding course of action would be to provide unconditional support and police protection to cinema halls. Safeguarding free speech is critical to preserving democracy. Even the censor board?s expansive scope is contentious. Certifying a film is understandable but suggesting audiovisual cuts and title changes is no less a dampener of creative freedoms. SC?s observation that states have ?guillotined creative rights? starkly captures, perhaps inadvertently, the blood thirst inherent in BJP leader Suraj Pal Amu?s bounty of Rs 10 crore for beheading Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Deepika Padukone. Karni Sena?s crude threats of wreaking violence are part of this wider socio-political pattern of rising intolerance. The Padmaavat ban is reminiscent of how communal riots are fuelled by administrations that surrender to mobs. State governments must disabuse themselves of the notion that right to creative expression is a utopian or elitist construct. As Supreme Court noted: ?When creativity dies, values of civilisation corrode.? Governance and the capacity to govern are often challenged when the state comes into conflict with collective interests. The Constitution has helped negotiate these pitfalls for 67 years. Bans, on the other hand, are shortcuts to disaster. This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India. ======================================== 16. THE DARK SIDE OF LIGHT: HOW ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING IS HARMING THE NATURAL WORLD | Aisling Irwin ======================================== (Nature - 16 January 2018) The world is lit at night like never before, and ecologists are assessing the damage. In mini-ecosystems in the Netherlands, researchers test the effects of artificial light. Credit: Kamiel Spoelstra/NIOO-KNAW It?s a summer night near a forest lake in Germany and something unnatural is going on. Beyond the dark waters lapping at the shores, a faint glow emanates from rings of light hovering above the surface. Nearby, bobbing red torchlights ? the least-disruptive part of the visible spectrum ? betray the presence of scientists on the shoreline. They are testing what happens when they rob the lake creatures of their night. This experiment near Berlin is the most ambitious of several projects going on in dark patches of countryside around Europe, set up in the past few years to probe what light pollution is doing to ecosystems. Researchers are growing increasingly concerned about the problem. Although many studies have documented how artificial light harms individual species, the impacts on whole ecosystems and the services they provide, such as crop pollination, is less clear. Several field studies hope to provide answers, by monitoring how plant and animal communities respond to both direct light and the more diffuse unnatural luminance of the night sky, known as skyglow. Ecologists face challenges such as measuring light accurately and assessing how multiple species behave in response. But early results suggest that light at night is exerting pervasive, long-term stress on ecosystems, from coasts to farmland to urban waterways, many of which are already suffering from other, more well-known forms of pollution. It?s an important blind spot, says Steve Long, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana?Champaign and editor of the journal Global Change Biology. ?We know a great deal now about the impacts of rising CO2,? he says. ?But how extensive are the impacts of light pollution? We?re gambling with our future in what we?re doing to the environment.? In the 1950s, Dutch physiologist Frans Verheijen began to study how lights attract animals and interfere with their behaviour. And during the 1970s, more biological observations of the impacts of light started popping up in the literature. But it took two lateral-thinking biogeographers ? Catherine Rich, president of the Urban Wildlands Group in Los Angeles, California, and Travis Longcore, now at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles ? to see the links between them and organize a conference in 2002, followed by a book, The Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting (Island, 2006), pointing out how far the tendrils of the illuminated night extend. For the vast majority of organisms ? whether human, cockroach or wisp of plankton ? the cycle of light and dark is an influential regulator of behaviour. It mediates courtship, reproduction, migration and more. ?Since life evolved, Earth has changed dramatically, but there have always been light days and dark nights,? says Christopher Kyba, a physicist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. ?When you change it, you have the worry that it could screw up a lot of things?. The pace of that change is increasing. Striking images from space over the past two decades reveal the extent to which the night is disappearing. Estimates suggest that more than one-tenth of the planet?s land area experiences artificial light at night1 ? and that rises to 23% if skyglow is included2. The extent of artificially lit outdoor areas spread3 by 2% every year from 2012 to 2016. An unexpected driver of the trend is the widespread installation of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are growing in popularity because they are more energy efficient than other bulbs. They tend to emit a broad-spectrum white light that includes most of the frequencies important to the natural world. The trend has had profound impacts on some species; lights are well known to disorient migrating birds and sea turtles, for example. Scientists have also found that disappearing darkness disturbs the behaviour of crickets, moths and bats, and even increases disease transmission in birds. The most lethal effects are perhaps on insects ? vital food sources and pollinators in many ecosystems. An estimate of the effects of street lamps in Germany suggested that the light could wipe out more than 60 billion insects over a single summer4. Some insects fly straight into lamps and sizzle; some collapse after circling them for hours. Fewer studies have examined plants, but those that have suggest that light is disrupting them, too. In a study in the United Kingdom5, scientists took a 13-year record of the timing of bud opening in trees, and matched it up with satellite imagery of night-time lighting. After controlling for urban heat, they found that artificial lighting was linked with trees bursting their buds more than a week earlier ? a magnitude similar to that predicted for 2 ?C of global warming. A study of soya-bean farms in Illinois6 found that the light from adjacent roads and passing cars could be delaying the maturation of crops by up to seven weeks, as well as reducing yield. Ecosystem effects Now, the results of some ambitious experiments are coming in. One of the largest is a field experiment in the Netherlands, where eight locations in nature reserves and dark places host several rows of street lamps. The rows are different colours ? green, red, white and a control row turned off ? and run from a grassland or heath field into a forest7. For six years now, scientists and volunteers have used camera traps to monitor the activity of small mammals; automatic bat detectors to record echolocation calls; mist nets for trapping birds; and nest boxes to assess the timing and success of breeding. Botanists are studying the vegetation underneath the lamps. A map of night-sky brightness over Europe, where black is pristine sky and red areas are 5-10 times brighter.Credit: Ref. 2 The team has found physiological evidence of the detrimental effects of light pollution on the health of wild animals. Songbirds roosting around the white light were restless through the night, slept less and had metabolic changes that could indicate poorer health8. The project also looked at how light affects bats, which have had mixed fortunes under the explosion of artificial illumination. Some species, such as the common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus), feast on the buffet of insects that they find circling lamps. Other, light-shy, bats have lost habitat and have disappeared from some places. In the Netherlands study, red light had no effect on any of the bat species9, which means it could be deployed instead of white. But the experiment has yielded some puzzling findings. Several urban studies had found that artificial light at night triggers songbirds to sing earlier in the day. Because females tend to select early-singing males, the shifted dawn chorus might be affecting which birds get to reproduce. But the team in the Netherlands found no effect on any of 14 songbird species10. It?s possible that the lighting was too weak to elicit an effect ? it is calibrated to reflect the level on country roads and cycle paths, rather than the glare of an urban park. Both kinds of result are useful for local governments, says Kamiel Spoelstra, a biologist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) in Wageningen, who leads the project. His team?s findings are being incorporated into Dutch regulations on outdoor lighting. For instance, he says, some areas seeking to support local bat populations have switched to red light, a trend that he expects to increase. Coloured light also graces grasslands in southwest England, where a project known as Ecolight is looking for evidence of ?cascade effects?? in which the influences of light on one species have knock-on effects on the ecosystem. The glowing cubes used by Ecolight might be mistaken for an art installation. Scientists led by Kevin Gaston, a biodiversity and conservation specialist at the University of Exeter, UK, have just finished researching 54 artificial communities of grassland. In some of the cubes, beetles, slugs, pea aphids and 18 species of plant muddled along for 5 years, isolated from the outside world. Other boxes were simpler ? containing just plants and herbivores, or plants alone. At night, some were illuminated with white light, some with amber, and some just saw the raw sky. The effects of light on grasslands are important, partly because roadside grass provides refuges and corridors for wildlife in built-up areas. The scientists discovered that amber light and, to a lesser extent, white, suppressed flowering in the trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus)11. And there was a cascade effect in the amber-lit boxes. During August, when pea aphids switch from eating shoots to feasting on flower heads, their numbers fell, presumably because their food was less abundant. ?I think this is the first experimental evidence of a strong, bottom-up effect of exposure to artificial light,? says Gaston. In its latest, unpublished, work, the team reveals further effects, cascading onto the predators in the systems. Another elaborate experiment, in a dark-skies reserve in Westhavelland Nature Park in Germany, has shown that these cascade effects can spill over into neighbouring ecosystems. Street lamps erected near water-filled ditches lure aquatic insects out of the water12, says Franz H?lker, an ecohydrologist at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin. The insects flock to the lamps, exhaust themselves and become food for nearby predators. Meanwhile, the hinterland, which might otherwise have received insect visits, is deprived of an important source of food, he says. Studies such as these, which lay such relationships bare in well-controlled, small-scale studies, mean that ?those impacts are more likely to be taken seriously in the field and by regulators considering impacts from lighting?, says Longcore. Artificial light can also have impacts on ecosystem services ? the benefits that ecosystems provide to humans. A study published in Nature last year found that illuminating a set of Swiss meadows stopped nocturnal insects pollinating plants13. A team led by Eva Knop of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Berne, found that insect visits to the plants dropped by nearly two-thirds under artificial light and that daytime pollination couldn?t compensate: the plants produced 13% less fruit. Knop?s team forecast that these changes had the potential to cascade to the daytime pollinator community by reducing the amount of food available. ?This is a very important study, which clearly demonstrates that artificial light at night is a threat to pollination,? says H?lker. Light skies Much of Earth remains free of direct artificial light, but skyglow ? light that is scattered back to Earth by aerosols and clouds ? is more widespread. It can be so faint that humans can?t see it, but researchers say it could still threaten the 30% of vertebrates and 60% of invertebrates that are nocturnal and exquisitely sensitive to light. Skyglow ?almost certainly? has an impact on biodiversity, Gaston says, because the level is well above the thresholds for triggering many biological responses. And yet, he says, ?it?s actually quite hard to do the definitive study?. An experimentally illuminated ?Light on Nature? research site in a nature reserves in the Netherlands. This grassland experiment supports the idea that red light is relatively benign to wildlife. Credit: Kamiel Spoelstra/NIOO-KNAW That?s where the forest-lake experiment comes in. Glowing circles of light hover above cylinders sunk into Lake Stechlin, recreating skyglow. They are the work of Leibniz physicist Andreas Jechow, who had to find a way to produce low-level, even illumination without blocking daylight or impeding access for scientists. He and his team achieved this using state-of-the-art photonics tools such as an advanced ray-tracing model. ?We were too ignorant as biologists about the complexity of light as a physical phenomenon,? says Mark Gessner, director of the project, known as The LakeLab, and co-leader of its artificial-light project, called ILES (Illuminating Lake Ecosystems). In the past, some experiments have even failed to account for the fact that the Moon moves across the sky, he adds. The idea for ILES was to extend findings from a well-known study of zooplankton, which live in deep, dark water during the day and migrate up into shallower waters at night to graze on algae. This movement is thought to be the biggest migration of biomass in the world. A study14 in lakes near Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1990s suggested that skyglow reduces the zooplankton?s ascent by 2 metres, and the number of organisms that ascend by 10?20%. This behavioural change may be an unacknowledged driver of fundamental lake processes such as algal blooms. At ILES, the 24 cylinders ? each 9 metres in diameter ? look from the surface like a fish farm. Lighting them with different levels of ?skyglow? and measuring the distribution of the tiny plankton using video cameras, the scientists found that skyglow had no massive effect on the movement of algae. ?We may have a changed migration pattern but I?m not yet certain about this,? says Gessner. ?If there is an effect, though, it looks like it?s not the profound one we were expecting.? The surprise result is typical of these difficult studies. Gessner points out that their experiment has only completed its first season. ?Maybe we don?t need to be worried or maybe we need to be less worried ? we don?t know, at least as far as the effects of skyglow on lakes is concerned,? he says. Bright future It?s slow, meticulous work, but the field is coalescing as evidence accumulates, says Gaston. ?The last two or three years has seen a dramatic improvement in the level of our understanding,? he says. Nonetheless, there are improvements to make. Even measuring exposure is hard. In the field, the light an organism receives can be difficult to measure; a bird could retreat to the shadow of a nearby tree to avoid illumination, for example. So some scientists have tried strapping light meters to birds to get a better idea of dosage. As the results seep out, one thing that both frustrates and inspires ecologists is that the remedy is at hand. Longcore is now gathering published data on how different species, such as shearwaters and sea turtles, respond to different parts of the spectrum, and matching the results to the spectra emitted by different types of lighting. He wants to inform decisions about lighting ? for example, which type of lamp to use on a bridge and which at a seaside resort. Engineers and ecologists know that well-considered lighting can perform its task without ?spraying light into the sky?, as Kyba puts it. LEDs can be tweaked to shine in certain parts of the spectrum, to dim and to switch off remotely. ?My vision,? says Kyba, ?is that in 30 years? time, the streets will be nicely lit ? better than today ? but we?ll use one-tenth of the light.? That would be great news for ecological systems, says H?lker, because darkness is one of the most profound forces to shape nature. ?Half of the globe is always dark,? he says. ?The night is half the story.? doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-00665-7 ======================================== 17. 40% OF INDIA?S THERMAL POWER PLANTS IN WATER-SCARCE AREAS, THREATENING SHUTDOWNS Tianyi Luo, World Resources Institute ======================================== http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/01/40-indias-thermal-power-plants-water-scarce-areas-threatening-shutdowns/ ===================================== 18. SHERARD COWPER-COLES'S REVIEW OF DIRECTORATE S: THE CIA AND AMERICA?S SECRET WARS IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, 2001-2016 BY STEVE COLL ===================================== (The Times [London], January 20 2018) NONFICTION REVIEW Review: Directorate S: The CIA and America?s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016 by Steve Coll US infighting proved fatal to the Afghan war effort, says Sherard Cowper-Coles Sixteen years ago this month, America won the war in Afghanistan. Or rather, it won the war it should have fought. The bases from which al-Qaeda had planned and prepared the 9/11 attacks had been destroyed. Its people had been killed, captured, or driven out, across the Durand Line into Pakistan. A wise America, a calm America, would have declared victory and moved on. Instead, in the flush of victory, egged on by an obsequious British ally, President Bush plunged America into its longest war, one matched in folly and cost only by the decision to invade and try to remake a second large and dangerous Muslim country ? Iraq ? just over a year later. Steve Coll?s Directorate S is the sequel to his magisterial Ghost Wars. Both books rest on a foundation of serious scholarship and Coll?s extraordinary access, to individual CIA officers mostly, but also to many others. These notably included members of Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, where Directorate S was the name given to the branch of the agency ?devoted to secret operations in support of the Taliban, Kashmiri guerrillas, and other violent Islamic radicals?. Every assertion is carefully sourced and checked. This book is in the finest traditions of American investigative journalism. Coll is the thinking man?s Michael Wolff. Ghost Wars told the story of how the CIA, working with its Pakistani allies, ramped up the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s and thus helped to create Osama bin Laden. Directorate S is the second act of the same tragedy. Coll picks up the thread in the weeks before 9/11. The CIA?s al-Qaeda watchers knew that something awful was about to happen, but had not detected the clues that would have told them when, where and, most importantly, how. From there Coll plots a carefully constructed course, describing the four stages of America?s Afghan adventure. Early and easy victory first, in the weeks after 9/11, then the gradual unravelling over four years of the flimsy peace that prevailed in the wake of al-Qaeda?s expulsion from Afghanistan in early 2002. The third movement of this symphony of self-delusion was the one in which I played a small part, as Britain?s ambassador and later Afghan envoy: the attempt, from 2006 until 2009, to reassert control by pouring resources into the country and putting Nato in charge. That well-meant, but ill-founded attempt to defy political, historical and geographic gravity has been followed since 2009 by the final stage of Coll?s story: the growing realisation, which should have been obvious to every serious western player from the start, that stabilising and pacifying a broken Afghanistan, and preparing it for self-government, was the work of a generation. And that it was work that could not, and should not, be done by America and its allies alone. Only by involving every neighbour with a dog in the fight ? Pakistan, above all, but also India, China, Iran, Russia and others too ? could the project have had any hope of success. And only if America had been prepared to engage with all the internal parties to the conflict, including, but ranging far beyond the Taliban. Coll does not pretend to relate the whole history of the war, but rather focuses on the war less visible: that waged by the CIA and its paramilitary units, by the ISI and its agents inside and outside Afghanistan, and by Afghanistan?s surprisingly effective intelligence and security service, with its powerful Soviet legacy. In many ways, what the CIA and Directorate S were each up to in Afghanistan?s Taliban-infected badlands and in the tribal areas of Pakistan?s northwest frontier were mirror images of each other. Each was arming, sponsoring, training and directing local militias and tribal levies of various kinds, in a proxy war. Only very occasionally did officers of the CIA?s paramilitary wing and of Directorate S engage in combat. The only exception to this was the CIA?s drone force ? the modern equivalent of what the interwar RAF used to call ?imperial air policing? ? taking out high-value Taliban targets. Mostly, however, the two agencies, nominal allies and bitter rivals, were and probably still are the controllers of a ground war fought by others. I remember Britain?s MI6 officers in Afghanistan speaking enviously of the resources available to their American cousins: about 15 bases across Afghanistan, as well as an air force and a tribal army of their own. The officers of the CIA emerge with great credit from the fog of this long and unhappy war. Patriots, above all, as analysts and operators they have a better grasp of reality than eager-to-please civilian colleagues in other branches of government. And they are brave too, in running agents and in fighting small wars with their tribal levies, as well as in bureaucratic battles in Washington. Historians of America?s self-accelerated and relative decline will find much material for further analysis in this book?s 700 unflagging pages. The central truth, which leaps out from almost every chapter, is that, by entering Afghanistan without the faintest idea of how it was going to get out, a chaotic American Republic broke the basic rules of military success: unity of purpose and unity of command. In Kabul, in the provinces, in Washington, America was fighting not only the Taliban, but itself. Agency against agency, army against Marines, embassy against CIA station, the National Security Council against the Pentagon, no one was ? is ? in charge. Brutal inter-agency bureaucratic warfare is in the DNA of American democracy. But it can be fatal to a serious war effort. Just one egregious example: the US ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, sent top secret cables to l a handful of senior people in Washington. They described the folly of a counter-insurgency ?strategy? founded on supporting Hamid Karzai?s unconvincing Afghan government. They were leaked to The New York Times. In cameo, this disarray came out in my first weeks as Britain?s ambassador in Kabul. My American colleague, fresh from Colombia, nicknamed ?Chemical Bill?, had drunk the Drug Enforcement Administration Kool-Aid. He pushed hard for us to spray the whole Helmand valley from the air with Roundup weedkiller, destroying not only the opium poppies, but every other plant as well. Helicopter gunships would keep the crop-dusting planes safe. Hercules transport planes would follow close behind, dropping seed and shovels to the farmers in time for them to plant a second and less noxious crop. Bush urged an eager Tony Blair to support the idea, saying: ?Ah?m a sprayin? kinda guy.? Karzai and some embarrassed Brits pushed back, pointing out that such crazy chemical warfare would turn insurgency into insurrection. Common sense prevailed. But ?sprayin? kinda guys? don?t win wars, at least not ones such as that still rolling on in Afghanistan. Sherard Cowper-Coles was British ambassador to Afghanistan 2007-09, and UK special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan 2009-10. He is the author of Cables from Kabul. Directorate S: The CIA and America?s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016 by Steve Coll, Allen Lane, 784p, ?25 ===================================== 19. IN MEMORIAM: ADAM ZAMEENZAD (1937-2017) | Muneeza Shamsie ===================================== (Dawn, Books & Authors, January 14, 2018) Adam Zameenzad, the Pakistan-born author of six novels, passed away in Britain on Dec 4, 2017, at the age of 80. He was one of the major pioneers of contemporary Pakistani English fiction. In 1987, his book The Thirteenth House won the David Higham Prize for Fiction for best debut, making Zameenzad the first English-language novelist of Pakistani origin to win an international literary award. It was also long listed for the Man Booker Prize, as was Zameenzad?s gargantuan and ambitious fourth novel from 1991, Cyrus Cyrus. In 1988, Zameenzad wrote his second novel, My Friend Matt and Henna the Whore, in response to the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85 and gave the royalties for famine relief efforts. This poetic, haunting book, which combines the child narrator?s enchanted world with daily sorrow, is now being developed into an animated film by British filmmaker and publisher Franc Roddam. Adam Zameenzad was the pen-name of Saleem Ahmed. He spent his early years in Nairobi where both his parents, Fatima Aziz and Shammim Ahmed, were teachers. He moved to Pakistan when he was eight because his father, a landlord?s son, had inherited lands in Sindh. Zameenzad read voraciously, preferred the company of older people to children his own age and hated school. He also befriended the jhuggi [slum] dwellers who lived beyond the walls of his father?s haveli. These experiences would shape much of his fiction and the sensitivity with which he portrayed troubled children, rich or poor, and ?the disadvantaged, the dispossessed and the outcasts of this world.? Zameenzad?s parents separated and at 11 years of age he went to live with his mother in Lahore. He continued to ?bunk? school, but matriculated at 14, graduated from college and earned his Masters degree from the University of Karachi. He then became a professor of English at Forman Christian College, Lahore. He left Pakistan when his mother was killed in a car accident and lived in the United States, Canada and Scandinavia before arriving in England in 1974 during a teacher shortage. He taught English at schools in Kent and Essex and continued to live in Britain ? Robert Bush in The Guardian described him as ?a great friend, a man of immense intellectual power, endlessly disputatious, with passions that brooked no compromise.? In 1989, Zameenzad became a full-time writer, following the success of The Thirteenth House, a tale of power and powerlessness set in the early years of the Zia regime. Narrated by the disembodied voice of a dead mill owner?s son, it tells of the tribulations of Zahid, a poor clerk who, with his wife and handicapped son, falls prey to the machinations of a fake pir. The novel merges reality with the supernatural, as does My Friend Matt and Henna the Whore which employs the innocence of a child-narrator to great advantage to tell of a country ravaged by famine, brutal soldiers, venal politicians and ?do-good? foreigners. Zameenzad continued with themes of desperate people struggling against natural and man-made disasters in 1989?s Love, Bones and Water, which is steeped in Biblical images and describes the friendship between a rich, neglected child and the kindly dwellers of a shanty town in a fictitious South American Republic. Zameenzad gathered up elements of all these novels into Cyrus Cyrus to follow the misadventures of Cyrus, disfigured since birth, who belongs to a choorhha [sweeper] family which has converted to Christianity. Cyrus?s quest for dignity, justice and self takes him from India, East Pakistan and the US to Britain, and ends as a dictation to ?Adam Zameenzad: Man, Son of Earth.? Zameenzad was the first Pakistani English novelist to explore transgender issues with his tight, multilayered novel Gorgeous White Female, published in 1995. The book, replete with the imagery of Hollywood and contemporary film, looked at the crisis of a British Asian boy, Lahya, in New York. Unfortunately, Zameenzad had a serious road accident in 1999 that brought long-term effects. He published only one novel thereafter, Pepsi and Maria, in 2004, a moving tale of streetchildren terrorised by the authorities in a South American country. One of the most significant and innovative writers of early contemporary Pakistani English fiction ? and his novels are to be reprinted very soon ? Zameenzad is survived by his wife Shammi, three daughters and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The writer is the author of Hybrid Tapestries: The Development of Pakistani Literature in English ======================================== 20. CHEREPOVETS JOURNAL: IN RUSSIAN CITY, A TIME CAPSULE TO COMRADES OF THE FUTURE | Matthew Luxmoore ======================================== (The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2017) Members of the Russian Defense Ministry?s ?Youth Army? attended the opening of a time capsule containing a message to the youth of 2017, from the youth of 1967, in Cherepovets, Russia. Credit Valeri Nistratov for The New York Times CHEREPOVETS, Russia ? To mark the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, this industrial city engaged in a little time travel. Its inhabitants came together last week on the main square to read out a message that had been sealed inside a time capsule ? to the youth of 2017, from the youth of 1967. Fifty years ago, when the citizens of Cherepovets gathered in the same spot, it was to celebrate the achievements of a socioeconomic system they deemed eternal. Pride in its achievements, coupled with an unshakable belief in a future under socialism, infused a letter that they slipped inside a steel capsule and placed in a hollow monolith brought to the square. ?Today we are building Communism, and you will live under it,? they wrote. ?Our message to your generation: Stay true to Communism?s ideals, and fearless in the fight for the welfare of the working man.? At last week?s ceremony, in a less ideological Russia but a resurgent one, 500 people congregated to hear those words. Camouflage-clad members of the Defense Ministry?s ?Youth Army? stood in perfect formation, staring steely-eyed ahead as veterans of the Communist youth league, the Komsomol, delivered speeches extolling the continuity of generations. The message from 1967, eventually removed from the monolith and preserved in a local museum, elicited not a single smirk. Neither did a new message meant for another audience 50 years from now listing major moments in the city?s history and statistics about its regional clout. Digital SLR and iPhone cameras snapped as it was placed into a new steel capsule, forged, just like the one before, inside the searing blast furnaces of Severstal, the city?s steel plant. From atop a stone plinth a hundred yards away, Lenin looked on. A century ago, the tsarist monarchy was toppled and the Russian Empire replaced with a revolutionary socialist system. The October Revolution (which is marked on Nov. 7 because Russia was on a different calendar when it took place), was celebrated as the Soviet Union?s foundational myth. The Soviet collapse in 1991 ushered in political and economic turmoil that enabled a select few to become fabulously rich while the majority of people struggled, bringing staggering inequality to a country that until recently could by definition have none. President Vladimir V. Putin came to power promising stability, and since 2000 he has sought to merge the various periods of Russia?s turbulent past into a 1,000-year linear narrative of progress, with a powerful state as its guarantor. To help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the Komsomol veteran organization held a concert in Cherepovets. Credit Valeri Nistratov for The New York Times In that narrative, there is no place for upheaval or revolt ? not for the 19th-century uprising of Russian army officers, not for the decade-long parliamentary system that ended in 1917, and especially not for the revolution itself. A generation socialized in the revolutionary Soviet discourse is growing old under a counterrevolutionary state. And so on Tuesday, it is the Communists who will stage a march through Moscow?s streets ? the Kremlin has shunted off commemoration of the event into academia, funding a series of conferences and art exhibitions throughout the year. It is left up to local institutions like museums and city councils, and to Soviet nostalgists, to fill the void. From the village of Filaretovka in Russia?s Far East to Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, messages buried in time capsules are being read out. And in some cases, their authors are there to witness the scene. Valery Belyayev is one of them. Born in 1941 in a village 40 miles from Cherepovets, Mr. Belyayev grew up desperately poor. He was 2 months old when his father left to fight the Nazis in Stalingrad, in a battle that would claim two million lives. Throughout the postwar years, Mr. Belyayev watched life in Cherepovets improve, and it was as the 25-year-old deputy head of the city?s Komsomol committee that he helped write the message that was placed in the monolith there back in 1967. He could not have known then that everything he believed in would fall apart. ?We were convinced that if we could transform our lives at such speed, then of course in 50 years a new era would arrive ? we had absolutely no doubt,? Mr. Belyayev said the morning after the message was read aloud to a new generation, as he and other former Komsomol members reminisced, as they often do, inside their community center. In Cherepovets, a gritty factory town about 300 miles east of St. Petersburg, Komsomol veterans like Mr. Belyayev have their own disco nights, their own clubs and funding from the mayor?s office for events that resurrect a bygone era. For them, the Soviet Union represented a noble idea, and the Komsomol ? whose membership reached over 40 million by 1991 ? was its social underpinning. For 17-year-old Andrei Tolokontsev, a member of the Youth Army who took part in the ceremony in Cherepovets, the Soviet Union was a bloc of brotherly nations. Mr. Tolokontsev has lived all his life under Mr. Putin?s rule, and for him the letters U.S.S.R. conjure up images of the Soviet emblem and its hammer-and-sickle flag, and of the ruthless wartime leader ? Stalin ? whom the young man credits with the country?s development. Standing in the ranks of the Youth Army, which was begun in 2016 by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, means keeping the Komsomol legacy alive, Mr. Tolokontsev said. He hopes to stand in the same spot in 50 years as an army veteran, in a powerful Russia at peace with the world. Photo Cherepovets was a village when Stalin ordered the construction of the steel plant that would transform it into an industrial center of the north. Credit Valeri Nistratov for The New York Times ?They told us what we should and shouldn?t do in the future,? he said. ?And we wish the same for the generation to come. The situation in the world is tense now, but everything will be resolved.? Cherepovets was a village when Stalin ordered the construction of the steel plant that transformed it into an industrial center of the north. Severstal opened the steel mill in 1955 and has powered the city?s economy since, with steady global demand for the metal helping it weather economic upheaval after the Soviet collapse and the recent Western sanctions against Russia. Today much in the city has changed. There are shiny shopping malls, and a refurbished bus station is opening. But on the outskirts, a creaky tram still courses at 15-minute intervals along a track that runs between crumbling Soviet-era housing blocks and the mighty smokestacks that dominate the skyline, shuttling workers across the plant?s sprawling territory. With the speeches over and the new time capsule sealed, the crowd left to escape the cold. Mr. Belyayev made his way to the old movie theater across the square, joining fellow Komsomol veterans as they crowded into its auditorium. They donned commemorative medals and called each other ?comrade,? then sat bright-eyed and nostalgic as a choir sang songs about a Soviet youth: ?Let one misfortune after another threaten us, but my friendship with you will only die when I die myself ?? Across town, Marina Gorbunova showed visitors around the history museum. An exhibition on the revolution had opened, and Ms. Gorbunova told stories about young men from Cherepovets who left to fight in the civil war that followed the Bolsheviks? overthrow of the provisional government. ?The dream was to abolish class differences, for us all to be equal,? she said. ?And now it?s the way it used to be. There?s a class of the poor, the middle class and the rich. What was all the blood, hunger and cold for?? Asked about the enduring strength of Soviet nostalgia, she paused to reflect. ?Youth is always a source of joy,? she said. ?It always seems to us that things were better then.? The new time capsule will be kept in this museum, stowed away until a new generation, with a new set of ideals, gathers to hear its message. A version of this article appears in print on November 7, 2017, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Opening Time Capsule To Comrades Of Tomorrow ======================================== 21. CATHOLICISM, ABORTION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: POLAND?S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS | AUDREY LEBEL ======================================== (Le Monde diplomatique, November 2016) Polish abortion legislation is some of the most restrictive in Europe. But some Catholic groups want to tighten it further still. At present, abortion is permitted if there is a risk to the mother?s health, a malformation of the fetus or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. A new bill proposed by the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) seeks to restrict abortion just to cases where the mother?s health is at risk. A previous bill was abandoned in October 2016 after massive demonstrations. ?Family planning and women?s organisations estimate that 150-200,000 clandestine abortions are carried out in Poland each year. Pro-life campaigners dismiss this as a gross exaggeration?, explains Audrey Lebel. Polish women, faced with a proposed law that further restricted abortions, organised huge protests to challenge it. But their reproductive rights are still at risk. Marta Syrwid travelled to a private clinic in Slovakia for an abortion this January, as thousands of Polish women regularly do. Syrwid, 30, a journalist, told her story in Gazeta Wyborcza (1): ?2 January. The woman who was supposed to be driving us was still drunk from New Year?s Eve. A man drove us instead and she told him the way. There were three of us in the back, squeezed together in a car that was in a terrible state. It stank of booze and we couldn?t open the windows.? Abortion was legal and free in Poland from 1956 to 1993 but the country?s current legislation is among the most restrictive in Europe, with only three exemptions from an outright ban ? a risk to the mother?s health, a foetal abnormality or illness, or a pregnancy because of rape or incest. And still there are hurdles: ?Even when a woman is in theory entitled to a free, legal abortion in a public hospital, she often can?t get one,? says Krystyna Kacpura who runs Federa, the Federation for Women and Family Planning. The majority of doctors invoke the conscience clause or delay until the legal 22-week time limit expires. They request additional examinations and don?t tell patients their rights, despite a legal obligation. ?And what?s worse,? says Kacpura, ?they exert psychological pressure to make them change their minds. They play down the risks of serious health problems in the foetus and say ?Of course your child has a brain abnormality but look, he?s moving his legs?.? Doctors also fear stigma: ?Some have had their cars vandalised. Online you see ?Don?t go to so-and-so. He?s a murderer?. Catholics demonstrate outside hospitals holding graphic images. In some southern cities, there are no longer any hospitals prepared to carry out a termination.? A question of dignity The official figures show that the number of legal abortions in Poland has dropped from 130,000 a year in the 1980s to under 2,000 for a population of 38.5 million. That is still too many, say activists from the Fundacja PRO ? Prawo do ?ycia (Foundation for the Right to Life), who collected nearly 500,000 signatures in July to submit a draft law to parliament to remove all exemptions except immediate danger to the mother. Doctors would have been required to inform the police about every miscarriage, and women who aborted would have faced five years in prison. The plan ? other than the jail term ? was officially backed by Poland?s bishops. The Church put forward Magdalena Korzekwa for interview, who told me that ?the law should be changed as soon as possible. All unborn children should be protected.? She maintained that ?even a child conceived through rape should have the right to life. It?s not his fault if he was conceived in terrible circumstances. He?s a child like any other. His dignity is the same.? The main grounds for legal abortion in Poland is the risk of disability. ?That?s a form of eugenics. A choice is being made about who has the right to life.? The Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has a majority in the Sejm (lower house), approved a draft version of the law on 23 September, but U-turned on 6 October, three days after 100,000 women dressed in black demonstrated in Poland?s major cities. Prime Minister Beata Szyd?o tried to reassure the most reactionary wing of her support base by announcing ?a huge information campaign to promote the defence of life? and a support scheme for women who have had a disability diagnosed in their unborn child but not had a termination. The founder of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), Mateusz Kijowski, emphasises that the law ?originated in civil society: the PiS had said it would put forward its own law to further restrict the right to an abortion, in particular in case of foetal abnormality.? Parents of a disabled child currently have no entitlement to state aid. Around a million children (14%) in single-parent families receive no support from the father. ?There is a state food allowance, but the chances of getting the monthly grant of 500 z?oty [$125] in the event of paternal default are very limited,? says Ma?gorzata Druciarek, a sociologist at Warsaw?s Gender Equality Observatory. ?Only 330,000 children receive it. If a woman works and is not assessed as being in extreme poverty, she can?t claim it. Some women do two or three jobs to keep their heads above water.? Family planning and women?s organisations estimate that 150-200,000 clandestine abortions are carried out in Poland each year. Pro-life campaigners dismiss this as a gross exaggeration. The most clued-up women get reliable information from sites such as Kobiety w Sieci (Women Help Women) or Women on Web (2), which offer help in finding emergency abortion pills. Some have the financial and material means to go to private clinics in Slovakia, Germany or the Czech Republic. But what about the less well off and less well informed? ?Many doctors take advantage of these women in need,? says Wanda Nowicka, former deputy speaker of the Sejm. ?The same doctors who say publicly that they won?t carry out abortions put small ads in the papers or online offering ?all gynaecological services? or ?resumption of your periods?. They sometimes exploit women?s ignorance. Women will go to see a doctor thinking they?re pregnant just because their period is a few days late, and for a hefty fee, these doctors will pretend to carry out a termination but in fact do nothing at all.? Poland?s black market is thriving. An abortion costs between 3000 and 4000 z?oty ($750-1,000), a month?s salary (the average monthly income is 4,100 z?oty) (3). They are sometimes carried out without anaesthetic, and medical aftercare is rare. Marta Syrwid, whose abortion cost $500, says an acquaintance told her about worse journeys than her own. ?It was like something from a spy film. A minibus took the girls from Krak?w to Katowice. In Katowice they had to find the second vehicle by themselves to take them to the doctor?s surgery. They were told to carry a particular newspaper under their arm so the driver would recognise them. A few minutes after the abortion, my friend had to leave the surgery, still under anaesthetic, and walk a kilometre in the snow to the station to catch the train back to Krak?w.? Even if prosecutions are rare in Poland, doctors and others who help a woman risk two years in jail (the projected law would have increased that to five years). Blackmail is common. Other than Syrwid, no woman has told her story publicly, even anonymously ? too risky, too painful. Putting their lives at risk Other women have turned to veterinarians or used heavy doses of arthritis medicine to cause a miscarriage. ?Most people think it?s an exaggeration to say that women are putting their lives at risk having clandestine abortions, but it?s true,? says Natalia Skoczylas of Feminoteka, which helps victims of domestic violence. Church spokesperson Magdalena Korzekwa claims ?these situations don?t exist. They?re an invention of the abortionists.? Korzekwa went on to say: ?The greater the protection of life under the law, the fewer the women who will risk their lives by having abortions, including clandestine ones.? The Federation for Women and Family Planning has recorded cases of women who have had health problems or even died. The most high profile is that of Alicia Tysi?c. In March 2007 the European Court of Human Rights found against Poland for its refusal to allow Tysi?c, who had three children and suffered from severe myopia, to have a termination that would have saved her sight. In October 2012 the court found Poland to have breached article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides a right to respect for private and family life, in the case of a woman who had been raped when she was 14 and had been refused an abortion by several hospitals, and harassed by anti-abortion groups. In post-communist Poland, religion is taken seriously. The 1993 compromise on abortion must be seen in the context of the politics of social tension when society was undergoing major change, says sociologist Fran?ois Bafoil, a Central Europe specialist at CNRS, France?s national centre for scientific research. ?During the partitions of Poland [in the late 18th century], the Church enabled it to maintain its historical, territorial unity and an idea of nationhood. It played this role again between the wars, and under the Nazis and the communists. It was the foundation of a shared identity. This continued in the 1990s, when the state was overwhelmed by the scale of what it needed to do after independence, and it remains so today.? So it?s unsurprising that the proposed law contained passages of scripture and quotations from the Polish pope John-Paul II (1978-2005). The number of self-declared Catholics in Poland is still very high. When the regime changed in 1989, the Church ensured that religious education was added to the school curriculum. Sex education, introduced in 1973, was replaced by classes on ?family life? taught by priests. ?They play videos that show the embryo as a child with hands and a head,? says Natalia Skoczylas, ?and show how it will be cut up during an abortion.? Hard to buy contraceptives Abortion was banned in January 1993. When the left returned to power that September, they passed an amendment adding ?difficult social circumstances of the mother? to the permitted exemptions, but this was vetoed by President Lech Wa??sa and, after his departure in 1995, a new measure introduced by his successor was censured by the constitutional court, which repealed it in 1997. Today, even the right to contraception cannot be taken for granted. ?In big cities, it?s easier to get the pill prescribed or to buy contraceptives,? says Kacpura. ?You can blend in with the masses. But rural doctors refuse to prescribe it, even for therapeutic purposes.? Chrystelle F (not her real name), a Frenchwoman married to a Pole who has lived in Warsaw for six years, told me that ?my pill, Cerazette, is banned by Poland?s Medical Association because they say it carries too high a risk of sterility. My mother posts it to me. Polish friends stock up on it when they go to France or England.? Chrystelle once tried to get the morning-after pill, available over the counter for under a year: ?I had to go to nine pharmacies. On one of the city?s best-known streets, Nowowiejska Avenue, one pharmacist told me curtly that I ought to think about what I?m doing. Another told me she couldn?t give it to me because of the problems it might create. I ended up paying ?80 [$88] for it, double the normal price.? ?The current situation for Polish women is the worst in 25 years,? says Nowicka. Hundreds of thousands of Poles have recently responded to the call from the KOD and demonstrated in Warsaw against PiS decisions in the first public expression of anger since 1989. Social networks rallied 100,000 to a march organised by Dziewuchy Dziewuchom (?Gals for Gals?) on 18 June, followed by the ?women on strike? demonstration on 3 October. ?These marches in black are a terrifying demonstration of the civilisation of death,? said the archbishop of ??d? (4). Ewa Burgunska, a film producer, says: ?The right to medical protection has really pushed us to mobilise. None of the organisers is a feminist or activist, but the proposed law went too far. Our strength is that we know how to talk to women in straightforward terms that reach them all.? Nowicka believes that ?part of society has woken up?. Kijowski thinks ?people realised the effect they could have by taking to the streets. There had never been such demonstrations over abortion before.? But ?the current situation is still very serious. Most doctors are restricting access to prenatal examinations.? Outlawing abortion has had no effect on the birthrate, which has fallen continuously since 1989. At 1.3 births per woman, it is among the lowest in Europe and demographic prospects are grim. Audrey Lebel is a journalist. Translated by George Miller (1) Marta Syrwid, ?Polki jad? po aborcj? na S?owacj?? (The Polish women who go to Slovakia for Abortions), Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, 28 January 2016. (2) An international organisation set up in the Netherlands in 2006 by Dr Rebecca Gomperts to help women in countries where abortion is illegal, www.womenonweb.org. (3) According to the site Wynagrodzenia.pl/. (4) Agence France-Presse, 3 October 2016. ======================================== 22. MEET ANTIFA'S SECRET WEAPON AGAINST FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISTS | Doug Bock Clark ======================================== (Wired, 16 January 2018) The email arrived just as Megan Squire was starting to cook Thanksgiving dinner. She was flitting between the kitchen, where some chicken soup was simmering, and her living room office, when she saw the subject line flash on her laptop screen: ?LOSer Leak.? Squire recognized the acronym of the League of the South, a neo-?Confederate organization whose leaders have called for a ?second secession? and the return of slavery. An anonymous insider had released the names, addresses, emails, passwords, and dues-paying records of more than 4,800 members of the group to a left-wing activist, who in turn forwarded the information to Squire, an expert in data mining and an enemy of far-right extremism. Fingers tapping across the keyboard, Squire first tried to figure out exactly what she had. She pulled up the Excel file?s metadata, which suggested that it had passed through several hands before reaching hers. She would have to establish its provenance. The data itself was a few years old and haphazardly assembled, so Squire had to rake the tens of thousands of information-filled cells into standardized sets. Next, she searched for League members near her home of Gibsonville, North Carolina. When she found five, she felt a shiver. She had recently received death threats for her activism, so she Googled the names to find images, in case those people showed up at her door. Then she began combing through the thousands of other names. Two appeared to be former South Carolina state legislators, one a firearms industry executive, another a former director at Bank of America. Once she had a long list of people to investigate, Squire opened a database of her own design?named Whack-a-Mole?which contains, as far as anyone can tell, the most robust trove of information on far-right extremists. When she cross-checked the names, she found that many matched, strengthening her belief in the authenticity of the leak. By midafternoon, Squire was exchanging messages via Slack with an analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a 46-year-old organization that monitors hate groups. Squire often feeds data to the SPLC, whose analysts might use it to provide information to police or to reveal white supremacists to their employers, seeking to get them fired. She also sent several high-profile names from the list to another contact, a left-wing activist who she knew might take more radical action?like posting their identities and photos online, for the public to do with what it would. Squire, a 45-year-old professor of computer science at Elon University, lives in a large white house at the end of a suburban street. Inside are, usually, some combination of husband, daughter, two step-children, rescue dog, and cat. In her downtime she runs marathons and tracks far-right extremists. Whack-a-Mole, her creation, is a set of programs that monitors some 400,000 accounts of white nationalists on Facebook and other websites and feeds that information into a centralized database. She insists she is scrupulous to not break the law or violate Facebook?s terms of service. Nor does she conceal her identity, in person or online: ?We shouldn?t have to mask up to say Nazis are bad. And I want them to see I don?t fit their stereotypes?I?m not a millennial or a ?snowflake.? I?m a peaceful white mom who definitely doesn?t like what they?re saying.? Though Squire may be peaceful herself, among her strongest allies are ?antifa? activists, the far-left antifascists. She doesn?t consider herself to be antifa and pushes digital activism instead of the group?s black-bloc tactics, in which bandanna-masked activists physically attack white supremacists. But she is sympathetic to antifa?s goal of silencing racist extremists and is unwilling to condemn their use of violence, describing it as the last resort of a ?diversity of tactics.? She?s an intelligence operative of sorts in the battle against far-right extremism, passing along information to those who might put it to real-world use. Who might weaponize it. As day shifted to evening, Squire closed the database so she could finish up cooking and celebrate Thanksgiving with her family and friends. Over the next three weeks, the SPLC, with help from Squire, became comfortable enough with the information to begin to act on it. In the shadowy world of the internet, where white nationalists hide behind fake accounts and anonymity is power, Whack-a-Mole was shining a searchlight. By mid-December, the SPLC had compiled a list of 130 people and was contacting them, to give them a chance to respond before possibly informing their employers or taking legal action. Meanwhile, the left-wing activist whom Squire had separately sent data to was preparing to release certain names online. This is just how Squire likes it. Hers is a new, digitally enabled kind of vigilante justice. With no clear-cut rules for just how far a citizen could and should go, Squire has made up her own. ?I?m the old lady of activism,? says Megan Squire, a professor of computer science at Elon University. Jo?o Canziani Squire grew up near Virginia Beach in a conservative Christian family. She has been involved in left-leaning movements since she was 15, when her high school environmental club took a trip to protest the pollution from an industrial pig farm. ?I loved the activist community,? she says, ?and saying things we weren?t supposed to say.? After getting degrees in art history and public policy from William & Mary, she became interested in computers and took a job as a secretary at an antivirus software company, working her way up to webmaster. She eventually got a PhD in computer science from Nova Southeastern University in Florida and moved to North Carolina to work at startup companies before landing a job teaching at Elon. Between classes she could often be spotted around town waving signs against the Iraq War, and in 2008 she went door to door campaigning for Barack Obama. But Obama?s failure, in her view, to live up to his rhetoric, compounded by the Great Recession, was ?the turning point when I just threw in the towel on electoral politics,? she says. She plunged into the Occupy movement, coming to identify as a pacifist-anarchist, but she eventually became disillusioned with that as well when the movement?s ?sparkle-fingers? utopianism, as she puts it, failed to generate results. In 2016, she cast a vote for the Green Party?s Jill Stein. Donald Trump?s campaign, though, gave Squire a new sense of mission: ?I needed to figure out what talents I had and what direct actions I could do.? When a mosque in the nearby city of Burlington was harassed by a local neo-Confederate group called Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, she decided to put her skills to use. ACTBAC was using Facebook to organize a protest against the opening of the mosque, so Squire began scraping posts on the page that threatened to ?kick Islam out of America.? She submitted her findings to the SPLC to get ACTBAC classified as a hate group, and to the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, which started an investigation into the group?s tax-exempt nonprofit status. She also organized a counterprotest to one of the group?s rallies, and it was at this event and others like it where she first became acquainted with the black-clad antifa activists. She was impressed. ?They were a level of mad about racism and fascism that I was glad to see. They were definitely not quiet rainbow peace people.? Over the following months, she began feeding information to some of her new local antifa contacts. As white pride rallies intensified during 2017?s so-called Summer of Hate?a term coined by a neo-Nazi website?Squire began to monitor groups outside of North Carolina, corresponding with anonymous informants and pulling everything into her growing Whack-a-Mole database. Soon, in her community and beyond, antifa activists could be heard whispering about a new comrade who was bringing real, and potentially actionable, data-gathering skills to the cause. The first big test of Whack-a-Mole came just before the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on Saturday, August 12. In the weeks before, because of her database, Squire could see that nearly 700 white supremacists on Facebook had committed to attend the rally, and by perusing their posts, she knew they were buying plane tickets and making plans to caravan to Charlottesville. Her research also showed that some of them had extensive arrest records for violence. She sent a report to the SPLC, which passed it on to Charlottesville and Virginia law enforcement. She also called attention to the event on anarchist websites and spread the word via ?affinity groups,? secret peer-to-peer antifa communication networks. ?Antifa was a level of mad about racism and fascism that I was glad to see. They were definitely not quiet rainbow peace people.? The night before the rally, Squire and her husband watched in horror on the internet as several hundred white supremacists staged a torch-lit march in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, chanting ?Jews will not replace us!? The next morning, the couple got up at 5 am and drove more than 150 miles through rain and mist to Virginia. At a crowded park, she met with a half-dozen or so activists she knew from North Carolina, some of them antifa, and unfurled a banner for the Industrial Workers of the World. (She?d joined the Communist-inspired labor organization in December 2016, after witnessing what she considered its well-organized response to KKK rallies in North Carolina and Virginia.) Just before 10 am, the white supremacists began marching into Emancipation Park, a parade of Klansmen, neo-Nazis, militia members, and so-called alt-right adherents, armed with everything from homemade plexiglass shields to assault weapons. Squire screamed curses at the white supremacists by name?she knew them because she had their information on file in Whack-a-Mole and had memorized their faces. At one point, a group of clergy tried to blockade the white supremacists, and Squire linked arms with other activists to protect them. A petite woman, she was pushed aside by men with plexiglass shields. Fights broke out. Both sides blasted pepper spray. Squire put on a gas mask she?d been carrying in a backpack, but the pepper spray covered her arms, making them sting. After the police finally separated the combatants, Squire and dozens of other counter?protesters took to Fourth Street in triumph. But then, a gray Dodge Challenger tore down the street?and rammed into their backs. The driver, who had marched with the white nationalists and was later identified as James Alex Fields, missed Squire by only a few feet. She stood on the sidewalk, weeping in shock, as the fatally injured activist Heather Heyer lay bleeding in the street. Recounting the event months later, Squire began to cry. ?I had all this intelligence that I hadn?t used as effectively as I could have. I felt like I?d wasted a chance that could have made a difference.? When she returned home, she threw herself into expanding Whack-a-Mole. Squire, center, marches through the streets of Asheboro, North Carolina, to protest the KKK. Daniel Hosterman One morning in December, I visited Squire in her small university office. She had agreed to show me the database. First she logged onto a foreign server, where she has placed Whack-a-Mole to keep it out of the US government?s reach. Her screen soon filled with stacks of folders nested within folders: the 1,200-plus hate groups in her directory. As she entered command-line prompts, spreadsheets cascaded across the screen, each cell representing a social media profile she monitors. Not all of them are real people. Facebook says up to 13 percent of its accounts may be illegitimate, but the percentage of fakes in Squire?s database is probably higher, as white nationalists often hide behind multiple sock puppets. The SPLC estimates that half of the 400,000-plus accounts Squire monitors represent actual users. Until Whack-a-Mole, monitoring white nationalism online mainly involved amateur sleuths clicking around, chasing rumors. Databases, such as they were, tended to be cobbled together and incomplete. Which is one reason no one has ever been able to measure the full reach of right-wing extremism in this country. Squire approached the problem like a scientist. ?Step one is to get the data,? she says. Then analyze. Whack-a-Mole harvests most of its data by plugging into Facebook?s API, the public-facing code that allows developers to build within Facebook, and running scripts that pull the events and groups to which various account owners belong. Squire chooses which accounts to monitor based on images and keywords that line up with various extremist groups. Most of the Whack-a-Mole profiles contain only basic biographical sketches. For more than 1,500 high-profile individuals, however, Squire fills out their entries with information gleaned from sources like the SPLC, informers, and leaks. According to Keegan Hankes, a senior analyst at the SPLC, Squire?s database ?allows us to cast a much, much wider net. We?re now able to take a much higher-level look at individuals and groups.? In October, after a man fired a gun at counterprotesters at a far-right rally in Florida, SPLC analysts used Squire?s database to help confirm that the shooter was a white nationalist and posted about it on their blog. Because so much alt-right digital data vanishes quickly, Whack-a-Mole also serves as an archive, providing a more permanent record of, say, attendees at various rallies. Squire?s database has proven so useful that the SPLC has begun laying the groundwork for it to feed directly into its servers. ?I don?t have any moral quandaries about this. I know I?m following rules and ethics that I can stand up for.? Mark Peterson/Redux When Squire sends her data to actual citizens?not only antifa, but also groups like the gun-toting Redneck Revolt?it gets used in somewhat less official ways. Before a neo-Nazi rally in Boston this past November, Squire provided local antifa groups with a list of 94 probable white nationalist attendees that included their names, Facebook profiles, and group affiliations. As one activist who goes by the pseudo?nym Robert Lee told me, ?Whack-a-Mole is very helpful. It?s a new way to research these people that leads me to information I didn?t have.? He posts the supposed identities of anonymous neo-Nazis and KKK members on his blog, Restoring the Honor, which is read by journalists and left-wing activists, and on social media, in an effort to provoke the public (or employers) to rebuke them. Lee is careful, he says, to stop short of full-on doxing these individuals?that is, publicizing more intimate details such as home addresses, emails, and family photos that would enable electronic or even real-world harassment against them. Squire says that?s why she feels comfortable sending him information. Of course, once a name is public, finding personal information is not that hard. In the digital age, doxing is a particularly blunt tool, one meant to terrorize and threaten people in their most private spaces. Celebrities, private citizens, left-wing activists, and Nazis have all been doxed. The tactic allows anonymous hordes of any persuasion to practice vigilante justice on anyone they deem evil, problematic, or just plain annoying. As the feminist video?game developer and activist Zoe Quinn, who has been doxed and brutally harassed online, has written: ?Are you calling for accountability and reform, or are you just trying to punish someone?and do you have any right to punish anyone in the first place?? Squire has been doxed herself. Pictures of her home, husband, and children have been passed around on racist websites. She has received death threats and terrorizing voicemails, including one that repeated ?dirty kike? for 11 seconds. Elon University has fielded calls demanding she be fired. On Halloween, Confederate flags were planted in her yard. Still, though Squire fears for her family?s safety, she keeps going. ?I?m aware of the risks,? she says. ?But it seems worth it. That?s what taking a stand is.? After Charlottesville, Squire considered, in her anger and grief, publicly releasing the entire Whack-a-Mole database. It would have been the largest-ever doxing of the far right. But she worried about the consequences of misidentification. Instead, she worked with her regular partners at the SPLC and activists she trusts. At one point the SPLC contacted a university about a student whom Squire had identified as a potentially violent member of the League of the South. The university did not take action, and she thought about tossing the student?s name to the ever-ravenous social media mobs. But here too, she reasoned that when you have someone?s life at your fingertips, you need rules. If the university wasn?t willing to act, then neither was she. It was, for her, a compromise, an attempt to establish a limit in a national moment pointedly lacking in limits. Critics might still argue that public shaming of the kind Squire promotes constitutes a watered-down form of doxing, and that this willingness to take matters into their own hands makes Squire and her cohort no better than vigilantes. As David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, says of Squire?s work: ?Is it ethical to digitally stalk people? It may not be. Is it legal? Probably, as long as she doesn?t hack into their accounts and she?s collecting information they post publicly on an open platform like Facebook.? But he warns that limiting speech of anyone, even white supremacists, starts down a slippery slope. ?Political winds can shift across time. Liberals who might cheer at a university limiting neo-Nazi speech also have to worry about the flip side of that situation when someone like Trump might penalize them in the future.? As far as Squire is concerned, there?s a clear difference between protected speech and speech that poses an imminent threat to public safety. ?Richard Spencer yelling about wanting a white ethno-state after events like Charlottesville?it?s hard to argue that kind of speech doesn?t constitute danger.? Ultimately, Squire sees her work as a type of ?fusion center??a government term for a data center that integrates intelligence from different agencies?for groups combating white nationalism. And she admits that she is outsourcing some of the ethical complexities of her work by handing her data off to a variety of actors. ?But it?s the same as how Facebook is hypocritical in claiming to be ?just a platform? and not taking responsibility for hate. Every time we invent a technology to solve a problem, it introduces a bunch more problems. At least I?m attentive to the problems I?ve caused.? Squire sees herself as having to make difficult choices inside a system where old guidelines have been upended by the seismic powers of the internet. White nationalists can be tracked and followed, and therefore she believes she has a moral obligation to do so. As long as law enforcement keeps ?missing? threats like James Alex Fields, she says, ?I don?t have any moral quandaries about this. I know I?m following rules and ethics that I can stand up for.? After Charlottesville, some white supremacist groups did find themselves pushed off certain social media and hosting sites by left-wing activists and tech companies wary of being associated with Nazis. These groups relocated to platforms like the far-right Twitter clone Gab and Russia?s Facebook-lite VK. Squire sees this as a victory, believing that if white nationalists flee to the confines of the alt-right echo chamber, their ability to recruit and organize weakens. ?If the knowledge that we?re monitoring them on Facebook drives them to a darker corner of the internet, that?s good,? she asserts. That doesn?t mean Squire won?t follow them there. She has no plans to stop digitally surveilling far-right extremists, wherever they may be. After Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Unite the Right rally, was unverified on Twitter, he joined VK. His first post read, ?Hello VK! I?d rather the Russians have my information than Mark Zuckerberg.? The declaration was quickly scooped up by Squire. She had already built out Whack-a-Mole to track him there too. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 06:11:06 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 15:11:06 +0400 Subject: SACW - 29 Jan 2018 | Pakistan: Manipulating minds / India: Loud mobs & silent rulers; RSS setting the agenda / Secret struggle for Afghanistan / Russia: Homoerotic Videos / Brazilian Evangelicals Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 29 January 2018 - No. 2969 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Manipulating Pakistani minds | Pervez Hoodbhoy 2. India: Former state officials want the govt to act against hatred and violence against minorities 3. India: Loud mobs and silent rulers | Ruchir Joshi 4. Video: ?Some Reflections on the Limits of Liberalism?, 10th Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer Memorial Lecture delivered by Dr. Akeel Bilgrami 5. India - Maharashtra: Rashtra Seva Dal?s Inquiry Report into Bhima-Koregaon Riots 6. Reconsider the decision to refuse Hamza bin Walayat?s request for asylum - Letter to British Home Secretary from philosophers 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Violent enemies killed Gandhi, the ?great soul? of peace | Marea Donnelly - Living in Pakistan - A Hell for Non-Muslims | Rahat John Austin - India - Meghalaya: BJP is struggling to shed its anti-Christian image - India: watching ?Padmaavat? is a statement against the creeping lumpenisation of public space and discourse | Smruti Koppikar - India: Patriotism Vs Jingoism | Ramachandra Guha - India: Kasganj violence in UP - The Facts And Not The Hype | Amaresh Mishra (The Citizen) - V.B. Rawat on Ambedkar?s Mission Towards Elimination Of Caste Discrimination - India: Karni Sena isn?t a ?fringe group? ? it is intimately linked to India's centres of power | Shoaib Daniyal / scroll.in - India: Mob violence over the film Padmaavat - Excerpts from Romi Khosla's article on the fragility of the state of India ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Bangladesh: Religious, Ethnic Minorities - Rise in attacks due to culture of impunity | Sultana Kamal 9. Female Pakistani Activist Pushes Back Against Blasphemy Charges | Nazrana Ghaffar 10. UN chief offers mediation b/w India, Pakistan 11. Why India?s Big Fix Is a Big Flub | Reetika Khera 12. Indian education minister dismisses theory of evolution | Michael Safi 13. India: RSS is clearly setting BJP agenda for 2019 | Bharat Bhushan 14. Karat?s blind eye towards BJP, another of CPIM?s historic blunders | Faraz Ahmad 15. History remains elusive as India battles violence over fictional movie | Mohan Guruswamy 16. The secret struggle for Afghanistan | Demetri Sevastopulo 17. What Homoerotic Videos Can Teach Us About Modern Russia | Maria Antonova 18. Rewriting Russian history | Dagmara Moskwa 19. The Rise of the Brazilian Evangelicals | Chayenne Polim?dio ======================================== 1. MANIPULATING PAKISTANI MINDS | Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== Is it legal for a Pakistani state institution to maintain secret funds for influencing attitudes and opinions regarding individuals, groups, and political parties? Is there not a constitutional obligation to protect citizens from fake news, character assassinations, and hate campaigns? http://www.sacw.net/article13619.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: FORMER STATE OFFICIALS WANT THE GOVT TO ACT AGAINST HATRED AND VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORITIES ======================================== We, retired civil servants belonging to different Services and batches, wish to register our deep concern at the continuing incidents of mindless violence in the country, especially those targeting the minorities, and the lackadaisical response of the law enforcement machinery to these attacks. http://www.sacw.net/article13620.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: LOUD MOBS AND SILENT RULERS | Ruchir Joshi ======================================== The anti-Padmaavat mass goondagiri stems from a disease that has been eating away at our society for a long time http://www.sacw.net/article13614.html ======================================== 4. VIDEO: ?SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LIMITS OF LIBERALISM?, 10TH DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER MEMORIAL LECTURE DELIVERED BY DR. AKEEL BILGRAMI ======================================== http://www.sacw.net/article13621.html ======================================== 5. INDIA - MAHARASHTRA: RASHTRA SEVA DAL?S INQUIRY REPORT INTO BHIMA-KOREGAON RIOTS ======================================== Located at the eastern side of Pune and situated on the banks of River Bhima, Koregaon-Bhima can be traced along the Pune-Ahmadnagar highway and approximately 25 km from the Pune City; its population is around 7000-8000. January 1, 2018 was the occasion of celebrating the completion of 200 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle. It is considered to be a valour day for the Mahar Regiment and this was initiated by Dr B.R. Ambedkar nearly 90 years ago in 1927. From 1927 to 2018 the number of people belonging to and consisting of depressed classes from all over Maharashtra increased magnificently from a few thousands to nearly around 1.5 million this year http://www.sacw.net/article13613.html ======================================== 6. UK: RECONSIDER THE DECISION TO REFUSE HAMZA BIN WALAYAT?S REQUEST FOR ASYLUM - LETTER TO BRITISH HOME SECRETARY FROM PHILOSOPHERS ======================================== Academic philosophers call on Amber Rudd to reconsider decision to refuse Pakistani?s request for asylum on the grounds that he did not mention Plato and Aristotle when questioned about humanism http://www.sacw.net/article13618.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Violent enemies killed Gandhi, the ?great soul? of peace | MAREA DONNELLY - Living in Pakistan - A Hell for Non-Muslims | Rahat John Austin - India - Meghalaya: BJP is struggling to shed its anti-Christian image - India: watching ?Padmaavat? is a statement against the creeping lumpenisation of public space and discourse | Smruti Koppikar - India: Patriotism Vs Jingoism | Ramachandra Guha - India: Kasganj violence in UP - The Facts And Not The Hype | AMARESH MISHRA (The Citizen) - V.B. Rawat on Ambedkar?s Mission Towards Elimination Of Caste Discrimination - India: Karni Sena isn?t a ?fringe group? ? it is intimately linked to India's centres of power | Shoaib Daniyal / scroll.in - India: Mob violence over the film Padmaavat - Excerpts from Romi Khosla's article on the fragility of the state of India -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. BANGLADESH: RELIGIOUS, ETHNIC MINORITIES: RISE IN ATTACKS DUE TO CULTURE OF IMPUNITY | Sultana Kamal ======================================== (The Daily Star, January 20, 2018) Sultana Kamal blames the culture of impunity and procrastination in law implementation as the reasons behind the rising incidents of communal violence. Photo courtesy of Prothom Alo Staff Correspondent A culture of impunity and delay in trials for attacks on religious and ethnic minority people were behind the rise in such incidents, eminent rights activist Sultana Kamal said yesterday. ?The state had to play a strong role in this regard, but it could not carry out the role,? she told a conference at the Jatiya Press Club. The number of such incidents could have been brought down had the attackers been identified and put on trial immediately, she observed. Bangladesh Mohila Oikya Parishad, an associate body of Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad, organised the second triennial conference. Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad, inaugurated the conference which focused on establishing equal rights of the women from the religious and ethnic minority communities. According to a recent report of the oikya parishad, more than 30,000 people from these communities became victims of at least 1,004 incidents of violence across the country last year. Of them, over 104 were either murdered or found dead and 325 injured. Besides, at least 15 women were gang-raped, 18 were raped, and 11 became victims of attempted rape that year, said the report prepared based on newspaper reports. Terming such communal attacks barbarous, Sultana said, ?On average, three incidents of violence took place every day last year. If there was no culture of impunity and delay in trials, such incidents would not have happened.? The main objective of the country's independence was to ensure the rights of all citizens irrespective of race, religion and cast as mentioned in the constitution, she told the programme while speaking as the chief guest. ?But the religious and ethnic minority people and those having differing views face severe violence from a group of people. It seems Bangladesh has been becoming shrunken gradually [due to the activities of that group].? The minority community members, especially the women, should get united and raise their voice to resist such violence and ensure their rights, said Sultana, also an adviser of a former caretaker government. Rana Dasgupta said communal forces and militancy have emerged in the country. ?Many political parties formed unities with them at different times due to politics of vote.? Even the textbooks have been communalised under pressure from the forces, he complained, adding that thousands of people did not lay down their lives during the Liberation War in 1971 for these reasons. The Mohila Oikya Parishad President Jayanti Roy, General Secretary Priya Shaha and its former president Sabitri Bhattacharya also spoke, among others. ======================================== 9. FEMALE PAKISTANI ACTIVIST PUSHES BACK AGAINST BLASPHEMY CHARGES | Nazrana Ghaffar ======================================== (Voice of America - January 27, 2018) Pakistan's Gulalai Ismail delivers an acceptance speech after being awarded the Prize for Conflict Prevention for the work of her organization Aware Girls promoting women's issues and equality in Pakistan, during the award ceremony of the Jacques Chirac Foundation in Paris, Nov. 24 2016. WASHINGTON ? A female Pakistani rights activist has broken with tradition and set a precedent by seeking legal action against the person who accused her of violating the country?s anti-blasphemy laws. Gulalai Ismail, founder of the Pakistan-based, nongovernment organization Aware Girls, was accused of insulting the religion of Islam, a charge she denies. Hamza Khan, 23, a student from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, started a social media campaign against Gulalai, accusing her of ?insulting religion and Pashtun culture.? He seemingly was unhappy with her role as an activist. Khan, who claims to be the president of Mardan Youth Parliament, uploaded a 12-minute video on his Facebook page, November 20, 2017, in which he called for a mob to attack Gulalai for her alleged acts of blasphemy. ?Fears for safety Fearing for her security, Gulalai filed a case against Khan on November 21 with the country?s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which led to Khan?s arrest this week after a Peshawar court issued a verdict against him. Pakistani authorities intervened, and Facebook removed the video, in which Khan is heard saying that Gulalai must be ?eliminated? to safeguard Islam. Gulalai told VOA she wants to be a voice for those who have been wrongly accused. ?I wanted to set a precedent so that other human rights activists and other young women can speak out and can use their right to freedom of expression without the fear of being silenced in the name of religion,? she said. Additional Sessions Judge Ayesha Arshad in Peshawar dismissed a bail application for Khan. Seen as ?daring? decision Some see the order that led to the arrest of Khan as a bold move by Arshad. Noreen Naseer, a professor of political science at the University of Peshawar, credited Arshad for her ?daring? decision. ?It has set a precedent that if anyone tried to malign, threat[en], or use any other mode to harass and scare the women activists, then the consequences will be of serious nature,? Naseer said. Gulalai?s actions were also celebrated by other activists. ?I think she did the right thing and took a big step that most women don?t, because harassers are the majority, especially if they belong to political parties,? Nadia Khan, a social media activist, told VOA. ?I think Gulalai has given hope to women who go through this and are convinced by men to let it go because of the consequences,? Nadia Khan added. Gulalai?s Aware Girls organization, which is based in Peshawar, has been working for gender equality, education and female empowerment in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Her work as an activist has brought other cases of harassment as well. FILE - Malala Yousafzai attends a ceremony with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after being selected a United Nations messenger of peace in New York, April 10, 2017. FILE - Malala Yousafzai attends a ceremony with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after being selected a United Nations messenger of peace in New York, April 10, 2017. Her organization is also cooperating with the Malala Fund, a global organization that works to provide education for girls in countries around the world. The fund is named after Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her activism in education and her resilience against the Taliban. Gulalai founded Aware Girls at the age of 16 and has since received international recognition for her activism, including being given the Anna Politkovskaya Award, established in the name of a slain Moscow journalist. Abuse of blasphemy laws The anti-blasphemy law remains a controversial issue in the Muslim-majority country where anyone labeled as blasphemous faces dangerous consequences. The laws are strictly enforced in Pakistan, and punishment for those found guilty is harsh. In some cases, when courts have not charged suspects, ordinary Pakistanis have taken the matter into their own hands. A simple accusation that someone has committed blasphemy can lead to threats against the suspect. At times, it can mean death. Last week, a student of Charsadda New Islamia College killed a principal after accusing him of blasphemy. The video of the accused killer went viral. In it he bragged about his actions and said he had no remorse. Last year, a Hindu man was rescued by police from a mob in Hub, Balochistan. The man had been accused of posting blasphemous content on social media. And in April 2017, Mashal Khan, 23, a journalism student of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was beaten to death by fellow students. He had been accused of posting blasphemous content online. Hamza Khan, the person who accused Gulalai of blasphemy, organized a protest against her in the same area where the protest was held against Mashal Khan. Gulalai wants her case to set a precedent for those who use religion to incite violence. ?In Pakistan, it has become very easy to use religion for silencing people, especially human rights defenders. We have seen how, in the past, blasphemy has been used as a political tool,? she said. She said she would also file a case against Hamza Khan under the country?s anti-terrorism act, because she says he has terrorized her with these baseless charges. State support Gulalai blames what she calls Pakistan?s flawed education system, which has been focused on creating patriots and ?good Muslims,? she said. ?It?s not the fault of Hamza Khan or his friends. The real perpetrator is the state that intentionally indoctrinates our children and youth in education institutions,? she added. Last year, Pakistan?s government formed a regulatory body to monitor and block blasphemous content online in an effort to further extend the enforcement of the country?s anti-blasphemy law into cyberspace. Rights groups charge that the state?s commitment to enforcing the anti-blasphemy laws actually contributes to an environment where some feel empowered and emboldened to take matters into their own hands. ======================================== 10. UN CHIEF OFFERS MEDIATION B/W INDIA, PAKISTAN ======================================== United Nations, Jan 23 (UNI) The UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres has urged both India and Pakistan to resolve the issue of ceasefire violations across the Line of Control (LoC) through a dialogue to avert more causalities. Responding to questions at the regular briefing here in New York on Monday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN chief was ready to mediate peace talks between India and Pakistan provided the two neighbours accepted his good offices. The spokesman underscored that Secretary-General?s good offices work only when both parties agree to mediation, adding that the UN chief was following the situation in the Kashmir region and called for talks between the two countries. UNi XC-SNU 0639 Read more at http://www.uniindia.com/un-chief-offers-mediation-b-w-india-pakistan/world/news/1114439.html#SM6FSK7TjQVE5C7K.99 ======================================== 11. WHY INDIA?S BIG FIX IS A BIG FLUB | Reetika Khera ======================================== (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2018) NEW DELHI ? Aadhaar, India?s grand program to provide a unique 12-digit identification number to each of its 1.3 billion residents, appears to be collapsing under its own ambitions. When it was set up by the Congress Party-led government in 2009, it was touted as a voluntary biometric ID system that would ensure the smooth delivery of public services ? notably welfare benefits and subsidized food for the poor ? while limiting the risk of fraud. The Bharatiya Janata Party, then the main opposition party, was among the project?s fiercest critics at first, calling it too costly and a ?political gimmick.? But after it came to power, in May 2014, the B.J.P. went further than Congress had ever dreamed of: Since then, it has made Aadhaar mandatory for accessing numerous public services, as well as for some private transactions. So far, Aadhaar ? ?the foundation? in Hindi ? seems to have helped neither with welfare nor against corruption, all the while creating new problems, including by exposing people?s personal data to theft or predation by the private sector. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court began hearings in a long-running collective case challenging the program?s constitutionality. In their opening statement, the petitioners argued that Aadhaar, if fully implemented, would ?reduce citizens to servitude,? since not having an Aadhaar number ? that ?electronic leash? ? in effect meant ?civil death.? On the one hand, having an Aadhaar number does not in itself guarantee access to India?s welfare benefits ? among the least generous in the world. On the other, the need to have one and to link it to one?s various accounts and benefits has prevented some Indians from obtaining state assistance. Several Indian states require people to enlist in Aadhaar before they can claim rice or wheat at subsidized prices under the Public Distribution System, an important source of food security in the country?s poorer areas. Among them is the eastern state of Jharkhand, where only about 7 percent of residents aged 6 to 23 get an adequate diet. In September, an 11-year-old girl there died of hunger after her family was struck off the beneficiaries registry because it had failed to link its ration card to an Aadhaar number. (The government has contested this account, claiming the girl died of malaria.) A half-dozen other Indians are reported to have died because of similar reasons. These deaths are the starkest and most tragic example of the system?s shortcomings. But many, many thousands of Indians, perhaps even millions, are at risk ? if not of dying, at least of losing access to food, pensions or other benefits they sorely need. And all of this, precisely as a result of a system that was supposed to help them get state help. To buy subsidized grain in some states, for example, a beneficiary must authenticate her identity by placing the tip of a finger on a hand-held machine. Collecting a readable fingerprint this way requires functioning electricity, an internet connection and operational servers. In large swathes of rural India, such as in Rajasthan, all of this is a steep ask. Yet if any one of these steps fail, applicants are denied food assistance. Previously, an infirm, older person could send a relative or neighbor with the relevant paperwork as a proxy to collect monthly rations. Now, the biometric identification system requires one?s physical presence. In 2017, several economists and I conducted a survey of 900 households in Jharkhand, comparing villages that did and did not implement the Aadhaar system for buying grain. We discovered that the percentage of households that failed to obtain any grain at all was five times higher in the villages where Aadhaar authentication was compulsory (20 percent) than in those where it was not (4 percent). In theory, biometric identification could help reduce identity fraud, but there has never been much evidence of large-scale identity fraud in India?s welfare programs. The main problem with, say, the main food aid program is that officials and intermediaries appear to misreport official disbursements and skim off some of the aid. In a survey of about 2,000 randomly selected households in eight Indian states that the economist Jean Dr?ze and I conducted in 2013, the households collected only 87 percent of their entitlements; the rest of the resources were misdirected. There is no evidence that Aadhaar has put a dent in corruption. In our 2017 survey, we found that among households that succeeded in buying grain, skimming levels were the same ? about 7 percent ? in villages with or without the Aadhaar system. Despite these problems, the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expanded the reach of Aadhaar over the past year, requiring it for a host of public services beyond welfare benefits ? such as to register marriages or file income tax returns. Worse, the government wants to make it compulsory to link bank accounts and mobile phone numbers to Aadhaar numbers. Online shopping portals have also started asking for the ID from Indians simply trying to buy a book or a pair of shoes. Some critics have warned that Aadhaar could turn into an instrument of mass surveillance. At a minimum, it already raises grave concerns about data security and privacy, neither of which is currently protected under Indian law. (The Supreme Court affirmed, in a landmark judgment, that privacy was a fundamental right under the Constitution last year.) The government has admitted that last year millions of Aadhaar numbers had been carelessly displayed on more than 200 government websites. Earlier this month, an investigative reporter for The Tribune newspaper claimed to have found a way to buy unrestricted access to the details of any Aadhaar number for just 500 Indian rupees, about $8, from people operating on the mobile app WhatsApp. Given the many ways in which the Aadhaar system is broken, at the very least it should be made voluntary again, and the data of anyone who opts out should be destroyed. Aadhaar was supposed to showcase the government?s forward thinking about efficient administration; it has only exposed the state?s coerciveness. It was supposed to ease the poor?s access to welfare; it has hurt the neediest. It was supposed to harness technology in the service of development; it has made people?s personal data vulnerable. One of the Indian government?s biggest banner projects has become a glaring example of all that can go wrong with policy making in this country. ======================================== 12. INDIAN EDUCATION MINISTER DISMISSES THEORY OF EVOLUTION | Michael Safi ======================================== (The Guardian - 23 January 2018) Scientists condemn Satyapal Singh for saying Darwin?s theory is ?scientifically wrong? India?s minister for higher education has been condemned by scientists for demanding that the theory of evolution be removed from school curricula because no one ?ever saw an ape turning into a human being?. Satyapal Singh stood by his comments on Monday, saying his ministry was ready to host an international conference at which ?scientists can come out and say where they stand on the issue?. Advertisement ?I have a list of around 10 to 15 great scientists of the world who have said there is no evidence to prove that the theory of evolution is correct,? Singh told a crowd at a university in Assam state, adding that Albert Einstein had agreed the theory was ?unscientific?. Singh, who has a postgraduate degree in chemistry from Delhi University, said he was speaking as a ?man of science?. ?Darwin?s theory is scientifically wrong,? he said at the weekend. ?It needs to change in the school and college curriculum. ?Since man is seen on Earth, he has always been a man. Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, said they ever saw an ape turning into a human being.? More than 2,000 Indian scientists have signed a petition in response calling Singh?s remarks simplistic, misleading and lacking in any scientific basis. ?It is factually incorrect to state that the evolutionary principle has been rejected by the scientific community,? the statement said. ?On the contrary, every new discovery adds support to Darwin?s insights. There is plentiful and undeniable scientific evidence to the fact that humans and the other great apes and monkeys had a common ancestor.? Singh?s plans for a conference on evolution were slapped down on Tuesday by his superior in the cabinet, Prakash Javadekar, the human resource development minister. ?I have asked him to refrain from making such comments,? Javadekar said, according to the Press Trust of India. ?We are not going to fund any event or don?t have any plan for a national seminar to prove Darwin wrong. It is the domain of scientists and we should let them free to continue their efforts for progress of the country.? Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 160 years ago, arguing that all species, including humans, evolved over time through a process of natural selection. He argued that humans and apes share a common ancestor who lived more than 7m years ago, an idea frequently misunderstood to suggest modern apes turned into humans. Ancient Indian scholars are credited with advances in astronomy and mathematics including the invention of the concept of zero, but religious nationalist figures have been accused in recent years of pushing ?ideological science?. That includes claims by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, that myths from the origin texts of Hinduism include evidence of plastic surgery and genetic science. YS Rajan, a prominent scientist, said in response to Singh?s comments that Hindu texts such as the Rigveda included lines that explicitly embraced knowledge from across the world. ?Nothing in ? Bharatiya samskaar [Indian philosophy] would demand rejection of such theory or for that matter any scientific findings,? he wrote on Facebook. o o o Science, January 22, 2018 INDIA?S EDUCATION MINISTER ASSAILS EVOLUTIONARY THEORY, CALLS FOR CURRICULA OVERHAUL by Pallava Bagla Higher Education Minister Satyapal Singh on Friday labeled the theory of evolution ?scientifically wrong,? provoking a backlash. NEW DELHI?A new front has opened in the war on science in India. On Friday, India?s minister for higher education, Satyapal Singh, took aim at the theory of evolution. Calling himself ?a responsible man of science,? Singh, a chemist, suggested that Darwin?s theory is ?scientifically wrong? and ?needs to change? in school and university curricula. In remarks on the sidelines of a conference in Aurangabad, in central India, Singh further noted that ?nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man.? Top scientists have condemned Singh?s remarks. They ?seem to be aimed at politically polarizing science and scientists, and that is the real danger we must guard against,? says Raghavendra Gadagkar, immediate past president of the Indian National Science Academy and an ecologist at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Yesterday, India?s three science academies released a statement endorsed by more than 2000 scientists, declaring that ?it would be a retrograde step to remove the teaching of the theory of evolution from school and college curricula or to dilute this by offering nonscientific explanations or myths.? Singh is not the only voice in India?s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) espousing antiscience views. The government took heat last year over an effort to validate panchagavya, a folk remedy based on cow dung, as a cure-all, and in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the world?s first plastic surgery was performed in India when the Hindu deity Ganesh was created with a human body and an elephant head. ?The BJP is the fountainhead of scientific nonsense,? says opposition politician Jairam Ramesh, a mechanical engineer by training. Singh is not backing down. Over the weekend, he said his ministry intends to hold a conference in which evolutionary theory and creationism ?could be debated openly.? However, a senior Indian official, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, told The Press Trust of India on Tuesday that the government has no plan ?for a national seminar to prove Darwin wrong.? *Update, 23 January, 11:23 a.m.: This story has been updated with comment from a senior official, who said the government has no plan ?for a national seminar to prove Darwin wrong.? ======================================== 13. INDIA: RSS IS CLEARLY SETTING BJP AGENDA FOR 2019 | Bharat Bhushan ======================================== (Asian Age - January 24, 2018) Mr Modi is only an instrument for fulfilling the RSS? ideological agenda. After the Pyrrhic victory in the Gujarat Assembly elections, the contradictions between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Narendra Modi government are likely to increase. Tension between the two will circumscribe government policy and set the agenda for the coming 2019 general election. Without the RSS, Mr Modi is like a groom without a horse and a wedding procession. That is why his government has tried to keep the RSS happy by appointing its nominees to head national institutions, research-funding bodies and universities. Yet two recent incidents indicate that the tension with the RSS still persists. The RSS was not happy when the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo appointed a controversial police officer, Rakesh Asthana, as special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. Aware of Mr Asthana?s services in Gujarat, it still favoured another officer who was transferred out to pave the way for him and is chafing at not getting its way. The RSS was also upset with the empanelment of two senior income-tax officers as chief commissioners by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) early last December. Both had been named in a CBI FIR for receiving bribes from Sterling Biotech of the Sandesara group. The company allegedly has links with a senior Congressman. Three weeks later, the ACC decision was reversed to please the critics. Earlier, after the Gujarat election, the party was pulled up by the RSS for its marginal victory (?alpvyap vijay?) and criticised for the ?abrogation of decency? during the campaign. That there wasn?t even a yelp from the party suggests that the ideological agenda of the RSS is above all else. Thus, for example, voices critical of the government?s economic policy within the BJP, like Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and Subramanian Swamy, have not been silenced. They have not been shown the door. Perhaps their views are shared by some in the RSS. The RSS thinks that demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) have led to an economic slowdown and increased unemployment. Both moves have hurt its natural base ? the trading community and small businessmen who supply it with cadre and finance. RSS organisations have also opened a front against the government?s economic policies. Aravind Pangarhiya, brought from Columbia University with much fanfare to head the Niti Aayog, was sent packing even before he could complete his tenure, under pressure from the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), an RSS affiliate. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), an RSS trade union, has accused the government of creating jobless growth, suppressing wages, increasing contractualisation of labour; and destroying the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector. The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), the RSS farmers? front, has taken the government to task for not tackling the agrarian crisis and has had to be persuaded not to participate in the nationwide farmers? protests. The contradictions between the Modi government and the RSS family of organisations also spill into areas beyond economic policy. Thus, Vishwa Hindu Parishad president Pravin Togadia, a known critic of the government, fears that he may be killed in a fake encounter by the police. Surprisingly, he does not fear his ideological enemies but his friends in the government. Similarly, Pramod Muthalik, chief of the lumpen Sri Ram Sene, which specialises in terrorising teenagers in love and Muslims alike, has claimed that his ideological friends might bump him off. They must be aware of saffron terrorist Sunil Joshi?s fate. According to reports, to keep tensions with the government manageable, Mr Togadia might be removed as VHP president and the head of BMS general secretary Virjesh Upadhyay is also on the chopping block. Besides Mr Modi, perhaps the RSS is also wary of Mr Togadia in case he runs away with the Ram Mandir issue. Meanwhile, there is an attempt to bring Dattatreya Hosabale, a senior RSS functionary positively inclined towards Mr Modi, as the next chief executive (sarkaryavah) of the organisation, replacing incumbent Bhaiyyaji Joshi. The first such attempt failed in 2015 but should it now succeed, Mr Modi will be able to influence decision-making in the RSS. This spring cleaning will happen in the next few months to prioritise a clear Hindutva agenda for 2019. There is also speculation that the RSS leadership would like a greater say in the selection of candidates for the 2019 general election. For this they may even need a new BJP president more amenable to their suggestions than the present incumbent. What is important to understand is that the RSS is not opposed to Mr Modi. In the larger scheme of things, he is only an instrument for fulfilling its ideological agenda. The RSS recognises that Mr Modi?s ?deviation? from that agenda is not ideological but a result of the compulsions of governance. However, it wants to keep the contradictions at a level where the Hindutva agenda retains primacy. Meanwhile, the RSS wants quick progress in cases of corruption against prominent Congressmen and their kin to delegitimise any political challenge. It also wants the temple construction to begin at Ayodhya by the end of this year. For that it needs a favourable judgement from the Supreme Court, and failing that, legislation. The RSS would also like the Supreme Court to abolish the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. This can be done by declaring Article 35A of the Constitution is ultra vires, or unconstitutional. It is by no means certain whether the court would limit itself to deciding on the inheritance rights of Kashmiri women or throw out the entire provision of privileges of a ?state subject?. If it does the latter, J&K may well be reduced to the same status as other Indian states. Despite the fact that there is a broad convergence on major issues between the RSS and Mr Modi, he has not been able to move forward on them at a pace acceptable to the former. Yet both he and the BJP know that with little to show in terms of performance, to get re-elected in 2019 they have to follow the dictates of the RSS. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 14. KARAT?S BLIND EYE TOWARDS BJP, ANOTHER OF CPIM?S HISTORIC BLUNDERS | Faraz Ahmad ======================================== (National Herald, January 23 2018) The CPIM has made historical blunders many times and each time it had willy-nilly aided the rise of Jana Sangh/BJP bringing it to the present state when it looks difficult to get rid of them The people of India suddenly saw a glimmer of hope when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), faced a virtual rout, a month before in his home state of Gujarat, a citadel of the BJP for more than two decades. It became evident from the results that had the Opposition presented a united and organised force on the ground and worked with greater conviction to defeat the BJP, there was no way Modi could have overturned the people?s verdict even with a pliable Chief Election Commissioner, manipulated Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and a kept media. But less than a month later, that hope is fast fading and turning into despair and gloom for the oppressed classes at the distinct possibility of Modi returning triumphantly to rule us for another term and usher in formally a rule of the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which, with a distorted Constitution already predicted by the likes of his minister Ananth Kumar Hegde, would continue to rule upon the people for an indefinite period a la Pakistan post General Mohammad Zia-ul Haq. In 1977, when the mullahs with tacit support of the then Army chief of Pakistan, Zia-ul Haq, were conspiring to overthrow the ?liberal and secular? regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his Pakistan People?s Party (PPP) within the limitations of an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the son of the great stalwart of secular democracy, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, nee Bachcha Khan, chose to align with the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), surreptitiously backed by the Army seeking Nizam-e Mustafa. In effect, Wali Khan betrayed the cause of democracy and secularism by describing the PPP and Bhutto as bigger enemies of the people than the obscurantist Army-sponsored mullahs and by joining the PNA and happily participating in sabotaging and subverting the people?s voice in Pakistan. Wali Khan?s son Asfandyar Khan, leading the Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (earlier the NWFP), who aligned with the PPP in the 2008-13 term and came to power in his state, had to reap the fruits of Wali Khan?s treachery with the Jihadi mullahs strutting around with impunity the entire length and breadth of Pakistan, more so in Pakhtunkhawa and Baluchistan, with or without the support of the ruling military establishment. Asfandyar nearly lost his life to these fascists when they made an almost successful bid on his life while his party was ruling the state. This is worth mentioning to the likes of former CPIM general secretary Prakash Karat who refuse to characterise the BJP and Modi as fascists and have forced the leading Left party of the country to virtually consider the Congress a bigger enemy than the Modi/BJP/RSS combine. Can some thing be farther from truth than Prakash Karat?s formulation that the BJP is not fascist? It smacks of a certain Brahmanical mindset even though probably Karat is a Nair from Kerala and not a Brahmin. But Kerala CPIM has been following blindly the line extended by former Chief Minister and former CPIM general secretary EMS Namboodiripad, a Brahmin. How else would you describe a perfectly intelligent, widely read and articulate leader like Karat, who sees the sword of fascism hanging loose over the heads of the people of India but chooses to turn away and look the other side at the Congress party? Speaking from hindsight, the CPIM has made historical blunders umpteen number of times and each time it had willy-nilly aided the rise of Jana Sangh/BJP bringing it to the present state when it looks near impossible to get rid of these fascists in a democratic electoral battle. Already, there is enough case for despair because whatever hope of defeating Modi in 2019 was glimmering, seems to receding, throwing us back into the abyss of unfathomable darkness. The Opposition parties were expected to draw inspiration from the Gujarat results and see the rainbow on the horizon, sit together to work out a strategy and plans to unitedly fight the BJP on the street and in the elections. The street movements by Jignesh Mevani, Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore, Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Umar Khalid gave the people a lot of hope, considering the overwhelming response of the people. The Opposition parties were expected not just to help these young activists but build upon it to ensure that their efforts do not go waste. However, the Opposition has gone into a lull once more, perhaps to wake up with a start only when the bugle to the general elections will be blown by Modi?s fascist establishment at its convenience. ======================================== 15. HISTORY REMAINS ELUSIVE AS INDIA BATTLES VIOLENCE OVER FICTIONAL MOVIE | Mohan Guruswamy ======================================== (Asia Times - January 25, 2018) http://www.atimes.com/india-battles-violence-fictional-movie-history-remains-elusive/ ======================================== 16. THE SECRET STRUGGLE FOR AFGHANISTAN | Demetri Sevastopulo ======================================== (Financial Times - January 26, 2018) Journalist Steve Coll investigates the encounter between the CIA and Pakistan?s ?Directorate S? Afghanistan?s President Hamid Karzai visiting the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, in January 2013, accompanied by the then US defence secretary Leon Panetta (centre) ? Getty In March 2008, three American senators flew to Kabul to assess the state of the conflict still ravaging Afghanistan more than six years after the US invasion. Joe Biden, who had recently quit the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, was joined by Chuck Hagel and John Kerry ? a team, it turned out, that would later deal with Afghanistan as vice-president, secretary of defence and secretary of state in the administration of President Barack Obama. As the trio returned to Kabul in Black Hawk helicopters following a tour of eastern Afghanistan, the general escorting them pointed out that Tora Bora ? the mountain cave complex where Osama bin Laden hid after the invasion ? was nearby. Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, advised against flying closer because there was a blizzard approaching and they were low on fuel, but Biden, who was the senior of the group, insisted that they take a detour. The helicopters ended up making emergency landings, leaving the three men in their sixties stranded in the snow within sight of armed locals; after hiking for an hour they were rescued by US troops. According to Directorate S, a spectacular account of 15 years of secret CIA and US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the investigative journalist and academic Steve Coll, the day was about to get even worse. That evening the senators dined with Hamid Karzai, the elite Afghan who had become president after the CIA whisked him into Afghanistan from Pakistan on a motorcycle following the invasion. By then, Karzai was a quixotic figure prone to lash out at the Americans. After he declared that the US hadn?t ?done anything? for his country, Biden banged the table, announced that ?This conversation, this dinner, is over?, and stormed out. Karzai was unaware that Biden?s son was about to be deployed to Afghanistan. It is difficult not to see this episode as a metaphor for the war as a whole. Ill-considered decisions, unreliable allies and misunderstandings were always at the heart of the problems that only two weeks earlier had led Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state for George W Bush, to conclude during a visit to the country that ?this war isn?t working?. The senators? visit epitomised the turbulent relationship between the US and Afghanistan ? and particularly Karzai ? that underpinned and undermined US efforts in the longest war in American history. It also prefigured the further deterioration in relations with Karzai that would occur after Obama inherited the Afghan conflict from Bush, who had retained a reasonable bond with his Afghan counterpart. Directorate S is the sequel to Coll?s Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars (2004), the definitive account of the CIA, Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden before September 11, 2001. The title of the new book derives from the US name for the secret unit inside Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency responsible for sponsoring and funding Taliban activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ostensibly as a bulwark against its arch-rival India. Coll reveals in detail the complex web of tensions, rivalries, suspicions and pure blunders that has prevented the US from being able to declare ?mission accomplished? in Afghanistan. Through meticulous accounts of meetings between the key players, he demonstrates how an incredible lack of trust between Washington, Kabul and Islamabad ? and frequently between competing agencies and characters within each of the three countries ? all but doomed the US adventure from the start. Along the way we get illustrations of the power of American intelligence, from the simple ability to detect that an Afghan man was using a pigeon to warn the Taliban about US patrols, to the satellites that allow pilots in Nevada to unleash Hellfire missiles from drones over Pakistan. But Directorate S also exposes how bureaucratic infighting and severe miscommunication between US agencies offset these technological advantages and hampered the war effort. On one occasion, Gary Schroen, a CIA operative in Afghanistan, received a call from the person in charge of flying Predator drones over the country. The mission manager said they had detected two al-Qaeda agents dressed in western clothing who were standing beside an airstrip that the Taliban had just built. Schroen replied that they were aiming their drone missiles at his tall, bearded CIA colleague on an airstrip that the agency itself was constructing. With impressive access to American, Afghan and Pakistani intelligence, Coll reveals the extent of the surveillance undertaken by all sides. At the same time that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on ISI director Ahmad Pasha, for example, Pasha was spying on someone closer to home. Pakistan?s ambassador to the US said, ?If you?re going to send a Jason Bourne to our country, make sure he has the skills to get out like Jason Bourne? After becoming CIA director in 2009, Leon Panetta flew to Pakistan where he dined with Pasha and Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan?s then president. During their meal, Zardari commented: ?Ahmad knows everything I think and everything I say?.?.?.?I walk into my office every morning and say, ?Hello Ahmad?!? The CIA later concluded that the Pakistani leader was the number one surveillance target for his own spy agency. Coll outlines how US ties with Pakistan evolved over the tenures of Bush and Obama, with bouts of co-operation interrupted by periods when there was almost no trust. At one point, as the US was holding secret negotiations with the Taliban, Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Kayani and the ISI were helping the Taliban draft statements in the name of its leader Mullah Omar, whose location they claimed not to know even as he was dying in a hospital in Karachi. But the deceit ran both ways. After a CIA operative was arrested for shooting dead two Pakistanis, Panetta told Pasha and Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan?s then ambassador to the US, that he was not working for the CIA. Haqqani later accused him of lying and said, ?If you?re going to send a Jason Bourne to our country, make sure he has the skills to get out like Jason Bourne.? Directorate S has a cast of characters that make Bourne movies pale in comparison ? from type-A CIA officers and paramilitaries to cigar-smoking and whisky-drinking Pakistani generals to a dog nicknamed ?Lucky? because he was able to detect incoming missile strikes from drones before they hit. Coll rigorously explains why Pakistan pursued a double game and why US concerns about Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal meant that Washington never took as hard a stance with Islamabad as it otherwise might have. He also documents why Karzai waxed and waned with respect to the US, which was mostly because he was angry that the US was not cracking down on the ISI over its clandestine support for the Taliban. While recognising these constraints, Coll reserves strong criticism for a US that he says was ?blinded? to its limitations in Afghanistan. There were a host of reasons for this, including complacency resulting from the initial thundering defeat of the Taliban and also the ?disastrous decision? to invade Iraq, which made it easier for the Taliban to attract new recruits at home. Both the Bush and Obama administrations, Coll writes, ?tolerated and even promoted stovepiped, semi-independent campaigns waged simultaneously by different agencies of American government?. His conclusion, which will be unwelcome in Islamabad, is that ?the failure to solve the riddle of the ISI and to stop its covert interference in Afghanistan became, ultimately, the greatest strategic failure of the American war?. Directorate S: The CIA and America?s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001?2016, by Steve Coll, Allen Lane, RRP?25/Penguin Press, RRP$35, 784 pages Demetri Sevastopulo is the FT?s Washington bureau chief ======================================== 17. WHAT HOMOEROTIC VIDEOS CAN TEACH US ABOUT MODERN RUSSIA by Maria Antonova ======================================== (The New York Times - Jan. 24, 2018) Photo A still from a video made by Russian aviation students that went viral. MOSCOW ? Last week, a group of Russian aviation students unleashed a firestorm when a decidedly homoerotic video of them dancing to the 2002 electro hit ?Satisfaction? found its way onto YouTube. What has happened since has been unexpectedly revealing ? so to speak ? of the real Russia, the one that exists beyond the conservative anti-Western facade put up by the Kremlin. The original Benny Benassi video to accompany ?Satisfaction? shows models slick with sweat, using power tools while licking their lips ? a campy dig at the objectification of the female body for marketing purposes. The Russian students aren?t the first to be inspired to make their own version: In 2013, for instance, British military personnel made a parody in which they, too, wore almost nothing and danced erotically while cleaning their living quarters. The Russian clip resembles the British version: It follows a gyrating, nearly naked cadet up the stairs of a dormitory building where the camera floats through various spaces typical of post-Soviet communal interiors. He encounters other young men dancing suggestively while engaged in household chores. In one scene, a cadet comes out of a bathroom stall and playfully tilts his peaked cap. In another, a young man thrusts away while ironing his uniform. A banana makes a pivotal appearance. At the end, the dozen or so performers converge to shake their butts together, with youthful abandon. The reaction was immediate. The Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation, where these students study, trains civilian pilots, not military ones. But as the clip went viral, officials began accusing the young men of desecrating their uniforms and offending veterans, as if they?d neglected their duties to the motherland by staging an ironic erotic performance. State television also immediately suggested the participants were gay ? another taboo in modern Russia. ?There has been nothing like it in the 90-year-old history of Russian civil aviation,? fumed the country?s aviation watchdog, Rosaviatsia, warning that all those implicated in the ?immoral? video would be expelled. ?How can you ridicule what is holy!? the institute?s principal said plaintively, even comparing the performance to the band Pussy Riot, whose members were jailed after singing a protest song in a Moscow cathedral. One might have reasonably expected, at this point, a sad end for these students: public apologies, expulsions, smears on state TV, even prosecutions for distributing gay propaganda. Instead something unexpected happened: Young people across the country started making similar videos in support. Within a few days, students at a nearby agricultural college uploaded a video made in a similar dorm, in which they wore balaclavas and lathered one another with shaving cream. Future construction workers followed suit, dancing in their showers in hard hats; another clip, filmed in a stable, featured a young man cheekily biting a carrot and another dancing on top of a horse. By then, the meme was unstoppable: Other clips in the ?Satisfaction challenge? have now featured pensioners in a communal flat, swimmers dancing underwater, future doctors, actors. A petition demanding that the cadets be allowed to continue their education gathered nearly 70,000 signatures. The tide began to turn. National television, which walks a fine line between supporting the official ideology and trying to stay relevant, wavered. ?They are 17 to 18 years old. Do we as a country really think they should be expelled?? exclaimed the Channel One personality Artem Sheynin, donning a similar peaked cap on his show. The channel?s top talk-show host, Ivan Urgant, eventually danced, albeit rather torpidly, to ?Satisfaction? on his evening program. By the time transportation prosecutors, who were dispatched to the academy, concluded that they had found no reason to expel the students, the victory was complete. Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have for decades been analyzed in a simplistically binary fashion. Soviet society was viewed as largely comprising Homo Sovieticus ? individuals devoid of free will who blindly followed the party line ? and a few heroic dissidents; Russian society, similarly, is divided into the 86 percent of ?patriots? who support Vladimir Putin?s policies and embrace ?traditional values,? and the ?liberal? opposition, which supports Western values, doesn?t like the growing role of the church and occasionally protests. This binary leaves little room for unexpected phenomena such as a funny homoerotic dance clip that is not only created in a provincial state institution but also goes on to inspire over a dozen more clips, made by people across the country, in solidarity. For Western observers whose only means of understanding Russia is through media coverage, the private lives of Russians are relatively inaccessible. And so it?s easy to assume a majority are on board with conservative policies, agree that Russia is surrounded by enemies and fear their children?s succumbing to dangerous gay propaganda. But scratch the surface and most people don?t share the kind of neo-Soviet puritanism pushed by the current traditionalist union of Russia?s church and state. This is especially true with the generation whose entire lives correspond with the Putin era, like these students, who grew up on the internet and find it easier to relate to the YouTube videos created by and for a globalized world rather than Soviet dogmas of right and wrong. How will the Kremlin relate to these youths when they head to the polls for the first time in March? ?There is an official order, a sort of shop-sign Russia, which does not correspond to the real Russia, which is a lot more alive,? Mark Shein, who runs the popular satirical news project Lentach that pokes fun of official Russian ideology with viral memes, told me. The fundamental reason for the semi-naked flash mob, he says, is that the existing system doesn?t have anything to offer the new generation. ?There is an elite made up of old geezers and a new generation of Europeans that don?t understand where they are, since they live one life on the internet, but in reality are in a state with an aging leader who has been in power for 17 years.? In that situation, there is not much left to do but strip your uniform and shake your behind. Maria Antonova is a Moscow-based reporter for Agence France-Presse. ======================================== 18. REWRITING RUSSIAN HISTORY | Dagmara Moskwa ======================================== (Eurozone - 19 January 2018) A battle for the future shape of Russia's education system is under way. Not only is the Kremlin increasing its control over what it considers the correct version of the country's history, there are also signs of a gradual ideological turn towards promoting the glorification of Joseph Stalin. In 2015 the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was celebrated in grand style. During that time, a larger than usual number of Stalin monuments was erected in several cities especially in south-western parts of the country upon the proposal of the communist party. The communists? call came after a 2014 law passed by the Duma introduced a criminal penalty for rehabilitating Nazism and criticising Soviet activities during the Second World War. The law stipulates up to five years in prison for ?lying about history?. Similar steps have been taken with regards to teaching history in schools. Academic shuffle In August 2017 Olga Vasilyeva, who is known for her close ties with the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church, was nominated as the new Russian minister of education and science. She replaced Dmitry Livanov who was considered to be a liberal-minded technocrat. This change came as no major surprise. Livanov?s dismissal from his post had been discussed in the circles close to Putin for some time. The minister had many enemies, especially after the fierce battle he led against academic plagiarism in doctoral and postdoctoral dissertations at Russian universities. Livanov also worked on reforming the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) which, in theory, was meant to improve Russian academia and science. In practice, it has led to the government taking control of RAS?s assets and operations. As a result of the reform, the Federal Agency for Scientific Organisations (FANO) was established in 2013. It is a body that is subordinate to the government that manages fixed property and other assets of all educational institutions in Russia. Even though the RAS reform turned out to be to the government?s advantage, Putin still decided to move Livanov, making him his advisor on trade and economic relations with Ukraine. The decision was seen as the president?s concession to conservatives in the ruling elite, who believed Livanov did not put enough effort into promoting patriotism, pride and the accomplishments of the Russian state. In academic circles, Vasilyeva is a highly regarded historian, specialising in the Orthodox Church. Her research has mostly focused on the Soviet era and specifically on relations between the communist regime and the clergy. Less known, however, is the fact that Vasilyeva graduated in music, with a focus on conducting church choirs. She began her academic career as a teacher of history and singing. Without doubt, the minister is a prolific scholar. She has published nearly 160 academic articles over a span of 30 years. Thus, the controversy around Vasilyeva?s nomination is not related to her academic accomplishments, but rather revolves around how she interprets the past. Olga Vasilyeva. Source: kremlin.ru Vasilyeva?s articles and lectures illustrate her open approval of the Stalin era and her appreciation for the impact ? positive, in her view ? that Stalin had on the development of the Orthodox Church as well as in his promotion of patriotism and pride among Russians. Not surprisingly, her nomination was received with sincere enthusiasm, on behalf of the Orthodox clergy, by Patriarch Kirill and Archimandrite Tikhon (Putin?s personal confessor). On the day of her nomination as the new education minister, Vasylieva gave an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian daily newspaper, in which she was reported as saying that her appointment was ?a realisation of God?s will?. A few days later, however, she walked back from those comments, explaining that what she had said was ?the realisation of the inevitable?. Since both expressions sound very similar in Russian (bozhestvovanye versus dolzhenstvovanye, respectively), the newly appointed minister was able blame her interviewer for misinterpretation, and accuse him of being unprofessional. Thus, Vasylieva found a clever way to deal with an inconvenient situation. Her nomination caused quite a stir in the Russian media who started citing her earlier, approving references to Stalin and the Soviet Union. Her speeches from 2013 were published on lenta.ru, a leading online Russian-language news website, quoting her as saying: ?Despite his shortcomings, Stalin is a public good because on the eve of the outbreak of the war he committed himself to uniting the nation; he reactivated the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and promoted the Russian language and culture which, in the long run, allowed Russia to win the war. Vasilyeva is active not only academically, but also politically. Prior to her nomination, she had worked for the president?s administration thanks to her involvement in the widely discussed preparation of a project called ?the single textbook of Russian history?. The ?single? textbook In 2013, when Putin criticized history teaching in schools ? stating that various textbooks were presenting opposing points of view ? it marked a new era for Russia?s education system. In response to the president?s criticism, a new, single textbook on Russian history was suggested. This new book was to be written ?in beautiful and correct Russian ? and free of any internal contradictions and ambiguities?. To achieve this aim, the president summoned a group of loyal officials and academics (among them Livanov, Aleksandr Tschubaryan of RAS, Sergey Naryshkin, the Chairman of the State Duma, and Vladimir Medinsky, the minister of culture) who quickly took on the project. It was endorsed in October 2013 and preparation of a standardized textbook of Russian history began. The book was envisioned to promote patriotism, a sense of civic responsibility and tolerance towards other nationalities. It was meant to teach Russian youth to be proud of their country, specifically the accomplishments of the heroes of the 1812 war and the Great Patriotic War (Second World War). Thus, it was supposed to emphasize the common military effort of a nation faced with danger. It was also expected to include information about recent acquisitions by the Russian Federation: Crimea (the refrain ?Crimea is ours? still helps maintain Putin?s high popularity across the nation) and the port city of Sevastopol. During the preparations, however, it was decided that there would not be a single textbook, but several books. ?We will have a single standardized view of history and culture that should be followed when preparing all history textbooks. That does not mean, however, that there will be just one single textbook,? Livanov told Izvestiya, a Russian daily, in August 2014. In the end, three different textbooks were approved for introduction into schools in October 2015. One of the outcomes of the reform was a considerably shorter list of textbooks in other subjects authorized by the ministry to be used in schools. Textbooks that had formerly been quite popular among teachers (including several maths textbooks), and had been available at school libraries, disappeared from the list, deemed unpatriotic and ?inefficient?. The reform also called for approved textbooks to be prepared every five years, rather than annually. Textbook publishers will now have a longer waiting period before they get another chance to bid for publishing new textbooks. A single interpretation The Prosveshcheniye publishing house now holds the largest share of the teaching materials market in Russia. As a result of the reform, in Moscow alone it increased its share from a mere 1.23 per cent in 2013 to 93.2 per cent in 2015. This phenomenal market success can be attributed to Prosveshtschenye?s owner, Arkady Rotenberg, who is a long-standing friend and former judo sparring partner of President Putin. Notoriously, companies owned by Rotenberg made huge profits during preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi after being awarded a large number of lucrative contracts. Prosveshcheniye operations prompt a number of questions. In May 2015, for instance, the Moscow department of education sent out a letter addressed to the directors of Moscow primary schools in which it was clearly suggested that they should purchase teaching materials and textbooks published by Prosveshcheniye. When asked, employees denied any knowledge of the letter. Similarly, in 2016 a letter signed by the publishing house?s director, Mikhail Kozhevnikov, was circulated. It stated that following the debates of the National Convention of History and Civic Education Teachers (in April 2014) it was recommended that textbooks published by Prosveshcheniye and edited by Anatoly Torkunov are the best option for history teachers. However, in the actual resolution that was prepared to summarize the decisions of the convention, Prosveshcheniye was not mentioned once. In terms of the practical effects of the reform on the teaching of a single interpretation of history in Russian schools, the story of Vladimir Luzgin, a teacher from Perm, is instructive. It is also a warning of what can happen to those who attempt to depart from what is now being seen as the correct narrative. Luzgin posted on VKontakte, a popular Russian social media site similar to Facebook, a statement that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had enabled Hitler to start the Second World War and that the signatories to the pact (the Soviet Union and Germany ? editor?s note) had together invaded Polish territory in September 1939, thus unleashing the war. For sharing this information, he was fined 200,000 rubles (almost 3,000 euros) by a local court. The court justified its decision by ruling that Luzgin?s activities constituted an act of ?rehabilitation of Nazism?, which, it argued, could lead to a revision of the consequences of the war, thus standing in contradiction with the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the verdict, dismissing the argument that Luzgin?s post was in accordance with the interpretation of history as it was presented in history textbooks from 1994?1995 ? the time when Luzgin himself was learning history in school. Another example illustrating the process of creating a single version of history and assigning this responsibility to Putin?s loyalists is the controversy over the doctoral dissertation of the current minister of culture, Vladimir Medinsky. In 2011 he defended his PhD thesis, which analysed problems of objectivity in Russian history from the 15th to the 17th century. However , five years later, in April 2016, the Russian ministry of science received a request to nullify his degree because of alleged plagiarism and citation of non-existent sources. The dissertation was re-examined in June 2017 and it was concluded that Medinsky could retain his doctorate. The case was again reopened in October after it had been recommended by the scientific council of the Higher Attesting Committee of the Ministry of Education that the minister?s academic degree should be nullified on the premise that his dissertation did not meet the necessary academic standards. However, the decisive body ? the presidium of the Attesting Committee ? rejected the accusation and the minister was again allowed to hold onto his doctorate. This episode attracted strong criticism within the academic community (including RAS members) who argued that academia should be independent of the government: in their view the Higher Attesting Committee should not be dependent on the Ministry of Education, but instead subordinate to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Look who?s back Many Russians see Stalin as the builder of the Soviet Union, the victor of the Second World War, and a commander and strategist who had extraordinary skills and amazing political intuition. Emphasising the dictator?s pragmatism makes it easier to justify his morally dubious decisions which led to mass repression and murder. Instead, it is argued, it is thanks to Stalin that Russia became a global superpower, something that many Russians feel nostalgic about today. Thus, demand for a cult of Stalin is now growing. New monuments to Stalin are just one way to honour the dictator. In 2015, a few days before the commemoration of Victory Day, the Communist Party put forward a proposal to erect new statues of Stalin across the country. Such monuments can now be found in Lipetsk, Stavropol and Penza. Also, in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the Yalta Conference, a monument to the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt) was unveiled in the city. The opening ceremony was attended by the chairman of the Duma and the president of the Russian Military-Historical Society (RMHS). In 2016, in the Pskov district a bust of Stalin was unveiled, funded by the RMHS. Upon another initiative by the same organisation, a ?Leaders? Alley? was built in Moscow. There, next to the busts of various political figures from the Soviet and post-Soviet period, are those of Lenin and Stalin. The myths associated with the Soviet Union?s victory in the Great Patriotic War are shared by many Russians who see it as the biggest accomplishment of the Soviet nation (and by the same token, the Russian nation) and are being used by the Kremlin as a foundation for an identity-building process. However, while the interpretation of history that is being now propagated by the Kremlin tends to stress military victories and technological advancements, Stalin?s repressions are conveniently forgotten. This manipulation finds fertile ground within Russian society: some research, for example, finds that many in Russia still regard Stalin as the most prominent figure in Russian history. In one survey, conducted by the Levada Centre, Stalin was ranked in first place, closely followed by Putin, Aleksandr Pushkin and Lenin. Overall, knowledge of Stalin?s repressions and terror is rather limited in Russia. In 2012 six percent of respondents claimed to be unaware of his criminal acts, whereas by 2017 as many as 13 to 25 per cent said that the repressions ?were a politically justified necessity?, while 36 per cent said that the aims and accomplishments of Stalin?s period justified the number of victims. There are, however, places where local authorities have opposed initiatives to unveil new monuments to Soviet leaders. In Surgut, for example, a statue of Stalin was disassembled by the municipal authorities at the request of the city?s inhabitants. The monument had been splashed with red paint several times. Such actions, undertaken either by the authorities or NGOs show the need to commemorate the victims of terror and repression is shared by part of Russian society, even though it is still a minority. It is also somewhat encouraging that the history textbook prepared by another publishing house, Drofa, which was thoroughly evaluated by experts and allowed to be published and circulated in Russia in 2015, emphasises that while Stalin is the symbol of Soviet Union?s victory in the Second World War, he was also responsible for political repressions. Historical oversensitivity Just like any other society, Russians want to promote an idealised version of their past rather than face inconvenient truths. It is a version that is driven by emotions and serves as guidance for social conduct and values. History textbooks are a useful tool in this regard, as it is through them that the young generation shapes its understanding of history. In Russia, so far, nothing has worked better than the myth of the Great Patriotic War which, to a large extent, was constructed on the Soviet victory over the Nazis, thus allowing the narrative that the Red Army saved Europe from complete disaster in 1945. This, in turn, has been interpreted as Russia having the moral right to decide on the fate of other nations in eastern Europe. The immense power of suggestion wielded by the Russian authorities, as well as the appeal of the myth of the Great Patriotic War, has resulted in a lot of oversensitivity, especially in regards to statements that diminish the Soviet Union?s role in the victory over Nazism. This situation is one of the explanations for the changes that are taking place, which include the gradual revival of Stalin?s cult, punishment for those who are ?lying about history?, and the introduction of new textbooks which present an officially accepted version of history. Such activities are undertaken with the long-term goal of forming a society that is loyal to the government, proud of its historical accomplishments and ready to defend it when needed. Before we judge, we should ask: is there any state in the world that does not want to have that? Published 19 January 2018 Original in Polish Translation by Agnieszka Rubka First published in New Eastern Europe 1/2018 (January-February 2018) ======================================== 19. THE RISE OF THE BRAZILIAN EVANGELICALS | Chayenne Polim?dio ======================================== (The Atlantic - Jan 24, 2018) Meet Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the ultra-conservative military officer-turned-politician poised to capitalize on the fall of the Workers? Party. Jair Bolsonaro gestures during a press conference he called to announce his intention to run for the Brazilian presidency, at a hotel in Rio de Janeiro on August 10, 2017. Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty Hope is in short supply in Brazil. The country is struggling to recover from the worst recession in its history and more than 12 million Brazilians are unemployed. Violent crime is on the rise. A slew of scandals is sending an endless parade of politicians to prison for corruption. The latest major figure to fall in the ongoing anti-corruption purge is Brazil?s beloved former president Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva, an economic populist who helped lift millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Today, three judges at one of Brazil?s Federal Regional Tribunals in the city of Porto Alegre, ruled on whether Lula is guilty of crimes of corruption and money laundering, after he received a beachfront apartment plus $1.1 million-worth of improvements from a construction company in exchange for helping the company obtain contracts from the state-owned oil company Petrobras. Lula?s lawyers tried to convince the judges that there wasn't enough evidence to send him to prison for 12 years. But that wasn?t enough, and the court unanimously upheld the conviction. Lula?s conviction signals that no one, not even Brazil?s most popular president, is above the law. Today?s news is also likely to further erode whatever remaining trust Brazilians feel for their country?s political elite. In a recent survey by Ipsos, 94 percent of Brazilians said they don?t feel represented by their politicians. Jos? Maria de Souza Junior, an international relations professor at Rio Branco University in Sao Paulo, said Brazilians are facing a moral crisis. ?When the economy is doing badly, when there are no jobs, we respond to that ? We are very sensitive,? he said. In recent years, as crisis has consumed Brazil, there has been a notable shift in political, social, and religious attitudes. According to a 2016 survey, 54 percent of the Brazilian population held a high number of traditionally-conservative opinions, up from 49 percent in 2010. The shift is particularly evident on matters of law and order: Today, more Brazilians are in favor of legalizing capital punishment, lowering the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults, and life without parole for individuals who commit heinous crimes. Observers have ascribed this phenomenon to Brazilians? increasing fear of violence over the last few years. This rightward shift has been accompanied by a massive growth in the country?s Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal churches, which constitute the greater part of Brazilian Protestantism. The percentage of those who identified as evangelicals in Brazil has grown from 6.6 percent in 1980, to 22.2 percent in 2010. Perhaps the clearest articulation of this shift has been the rise of 62-year old military officer-turned-congressman Jair Messias Bolsonaro. In a time when corruption has tarnished Brazil?s political class, his blunt charisma, zeal for law and order, and rapport with Brazil?s evangelicals, have turned what would ordinarily be glaring weaknesses into strengths. He has defended the legalization of capital punishment, and argued that the ?politics? of ?human rights, and of the politically correct, give space to those who are against the law and on the side of criminals.? He has said he?d rather have ?a dead son over a gay son? and that he would not rape a particular female deputy in congress because ?she wasn?t worthy of it.? Political parties, congressmen, and even the Brazilian Bar Association, have filed a total of 30 requests to have him removed from his position as federal deputy for the city of Rio de Janeiro, a position he?s occupied for nearly three decades, for actions that broke congressional decorum, like sending death threats to another member of Congress and saying the military regime that ruled Brazil for 30 years ?should have killed more people.? He has shown no particular grasp of policy: When questioned about how he was planning on ensuring a fiscal surplus, keeping inflation low, and maintaining a floating exchange rate (known as Brazil?s macroeconomic tripod, which has been the basis of economy policy in the country since 1999), he said that the person who needed to understand such things would be his finance minister, who he?d appoint if elected. Despite Bolsonaro?s considerable baggage, as of last December, 21 percent of Brazilians said they would vote for him for president in this year?s election should he choose to run. While that?s not enough to get him through the primaries, his rising popularity suggests a transformation in Brazilian society that may be picking up speed. Bolsonaro was born in Campinas, a city in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, on March 21, 1955. In 1974, at the age of 19, he enrolled in the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, Brazil?s equivalent of West Point, eventually rising to the rank of captain. At the time, a military career was promising: Brazil had been under military rule since 1964, when a coup brought down the democratically-elected President Jo?o Goulart. Under the dictatorship, Brazil experienced rapid economic expansion. But these were also the ?The Heavy Years,? when critics of the regime went into exile, and dissent was met with censorship, violence, and sometimes death. Eventually, the debt-saddled regime began to crack. The oil shock of 1973 forced Brazil to increase its borrowing to compensate for the higher cost of oil, while the value of its exports depreciated due to global inflation. By 1985, popular protests and international pressure convinced the dictatorship to transition to civilian rule. Political parties were legalized, and the country readied itself to write a new constitution and hold free and fair elections. Under the dictatorship, Brazil?s evangelical community largely stayed out of politics, as Paul Freston, a religion expert at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, has written. (The community?s slogan was ?Believers don?t mess with politics.?) But as the dictatorship crumbled, Brazil?s evangelicals came to recognize their new strength: Democracy is a numbers game. And their own numbers were growing. So in 1985, at a gathering in An?polis in the rural state of Goi?s, the leaders of the Assembly of God, a popular evangelical church, announced they would begin endorsing and supporting candidates to run for office and thus be part of the ?Constituent Assembly,? which would write a new constitution for Brazil. Founded in 1911, the Assembly of God had chapters all over the country; evangelical candidates had a real shot at victory. With the slogan Brother votes for Brother, ?the organized participation in politics by the major Pentecostal denominations? was a ?big novelty? and the beginning of a new era, Freston told me. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro was fed up with the treatment of his community?the military?under the new government. In a 1986 article for Veja Magazine titled ?The Salary is Low,? he complained, with some justification, that the government had underfunded the military. In fact, all public employees in those years faced pay cuts when the government refused to adjust salaries for hyperinflation. One year later, Bolsonaro was arrested after giving an interview to Veja in which he detailed a plan, complete with sketches, to set off bombs at the Agulhas Negras Military Academy to draw attention to low salaries in the military. He would later deny that he was the author of the sketches, even though experts confirmed they were his. He was convicted for his ?anti-ethical behavior,? but served only 15 days in a military prison after a successful appeal. Bolsonaro?s outlandish plan created a media frenzy, and broadened his appeal among those who yearned for the days of the junta. Capitalizing on his newfound fame, he won the position of city counselor in Rio de Janeiro in 1988, the same year the Constituent Assembly finished the new constitution. In the same election, thanks to the Assemblies of God?s new political strategy, more evangelical candidates were elected at the municipal level than ever before. In the following years, the Assembly of God?s donations to the Christian Social Party (PSC), a new political party that put religion at the front and center of its platform, strengthened and facilitated the church?s political efforts. By the early 1990s, Brazil?s economy had improved and inflation was down. Yet Bolsonaro couldn?t seem to let go of the dictatorship. As a city counselor and later as a federal deputy, he focused on increasing the benefits, salaries, and pensions of the military. In 1993, he called for the abolition of Congress, and in 1999, was suspended from congress after saying he wished the military had assassinated the current democratically-elected President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. A majority of Brazilians, meanwhile, had no interest in going back to the military years. While Bolsonaro?s extreme views confined him to the margins, evangelical leaders embraced Brazil?s desire to join the global middle class. By 2003, their emphasis on faith and acts of sacrifice (particularly through tithing) as the path to material wealth, was one of the main reasons why Brazilians joined their churches. Around the same time, Lula, a labor leader during the dictatorship in the outlawed Workers? Party, had finessed his leftist views into a palatable populist message. With a government flush with cash from rising commodities prices, he pushed massive infrastructure programs and direct cash transfers which eventually brought 36 million Brazilians out of poverty over 10 years. Despite the evangelical community?s suspicions of Lula, most eventually embraced him. Lula reciprocated, bringing them into his governing coalition. Both drew from the same base of support: poor Brazilians who wanted a better life. But the global recession and a collapse in global commodities prices foiled Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Operation Carwash, which began in 2014 and uncovered a massive corruption scheme involving Petrobras, politicians, and construction companies, in which billions of dollars were siphoned off from public coffers, outraged Brazilians and signaled the beginning of the end for the Workers? Party. In May 2016, Brazil?s senate impeached Dilma Rousseff, Lula?s successor, for manipulating the federal budget. With crime and violence skyrocketing, unemployment hitting a record high, and a never-ending slew of political scandals, Brazil spiraled into chaos. In 2016, the police gave up trying to control violent areas of Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro?s district, because the government couldn?t pay the police. Some began to wonder if what their country needed was a more disciplined, firmer approach to governing. In May 2016, the same month Dilma was impeached, Bolsonaro was in Jordan. On May 12, Pastor Everaldo, a prominent leader of the Assembly of God and the head of the Christian Social Party, baptized Bolsonaro in the Jordan River. This was his most important act in formalizing his relationship with Evangelicals that he spent the early part of this decade cultivating. And even though Bolsonaro hasn?t renounced his Catholicism?he calls himself a Catholic who, for 10 years, attended the Baptist church?evangelical leaders like Silas Malafaia are ready to offer him their support as someone who can put the country back on track. Bolsonaro?s wife and son are evangelical, which so far has given him just enough credibility to navigate the evangelical community. With Catholics projected to become a religious minority by 2030, and evangelicals making up 22 percent of the electorate, Bolsonaro has placed his political fortunes in the hands of the evangelicals. Bolsonaro?s evangelical supporters continue to back him not so much because of his extreme rhetoric, but because they view him as incorruptible. For Carlos Henrique Bernardes, a member of the Baptist church, Brazilians ?don?t have options for ?clean? candidates, and Bolsonaro seems to be the only one who?s not corrupt, and that?s what makes him so appealing.? Meanwhile, to broaden his appeal, Bolsonaro has toned down some of his more extreme claims. He has connected with segments of the Brazilian population who feel they have been ignored by their elected officials, according to de Souza Junior. ?That might be one of Bolsonaro?s greatest strengths,? Bernardes said. That?s what got Lula elected. And Bolsonaro might benefit from it, too. With crime and corruption rampant, Brazilians find Bolsonaro?s nostalgia for military dictatorship and even his disdain for democracy appealing. And so he?ll continue bringing those fed up, middle-class Brazilians together with conservative Christians sympathetic to a law-and-order governing style. Lula is likely resort to Brazil?s Supreme Court to challenge the verdict from the court of appeals. At a speech given to his supporters while the judges read their verdicts, he said he?ll stop fighting only when he dies. And his resilience might pay off. For de Souza Junior, ?Lula?s voters aren?t sympathizers, they?re loyalists.? But even if Lula ends up being able to run and wins the presidency, the scandal that will plague his term and the possibility of his impeachment should only further boost Bolsonaro?s long-term support. For de Souza Junior, the ?precariousness of Bolsonaro?s platform wouldn?t necessarily deter his victory.? Today, one in three Brazilians would support a military takeover in the country. In an interview 19 years ago, Bolsonaro said: "You can?t change anything in this country with voting and elections.? It seems that now it is precisely through voting and elections that he?ll try to make his kind of change. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Feb 6 09:22:52 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2018 18:22:52 +0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_6_Feb_2018_=7C_Maldives=3A_Emergency_/_B?= =?windows-1252?Q?angladesh=3A_Repatriation_of_Myanmar_Refugees_/?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Sri_Lanka=3A_1971_JVP_Insurrection_/_India=3A_?= =?windows-1252?Q?CPI=28M=29_useful_idiot_for_BJP=3B_inter-faith_?= =?windows-1252?Q?marriages_/_Indonesia=3A_Arabisation_/_Brazilia?= =?windows-1252?Q?n_Left_-_What=92s_next_=3F?= Message-ID: <84C087BB-4A7F-4122-9A3C-FD06B00DCF2F@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 6 February 2018 - No. 2970 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. The Maldives: Implement Supreme Court Order no.2018/SC-SJ/01 - Press release from Maldivian Democracy Network - 3 February 2018 2. Bangladesh: Digital Security Act 2018 - A Cause for Alarm 3. Sri Lanka: Review of Neville Jayaweera?s ?The Vavuniya Diaries? on the 1971 JVP Insurrection | B Skanthakumar 4. India: A candle for Ankit | Teesta Setalvad 5. India: Release of WeSpeakOut study on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting among the Bohra community 6. India and Pakistan: The truth about the partition of Punjab | Ishtiaq Ahmed 7. McGarr?s Review of Leake, Elisabeth, The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936-65 8. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: A Police Officer?s Allegiance Must Be to the Constitution and Not to a Temple by Basant Rath (in The Wire) - India: Kerala Poet Attacked Allegedly By RSS Workers | report on Outlook - Do you want India to turn into a Hindu Pakistan? Garga Chatterjee - India: ?Hindu?, ?Hinduism? & ?Hindutva? in court rulings - India: Hindu Janajagruti Samiti leader, prime accused in Pansare murder case gets bail - India: By foreclosing any united electoral challenge to the ruling BJP, the communist party only strengthens Hindutva communalism - India: Hindutva FB page publishes list of 100+ couples in inter-faith marriages, calls for violence | report on AltNews - India: Prolonged intimidation of minorities could lead to counter-violence | Manoj Joshi - Act of weaving in religious discourses with science is a clever ploy to appeal to the urbane middle class | Gautam Benegal - India: Abhisar Sharma on deliberate communal propaganda on TV regarding Kasganj violence - What is common between Hindutva forces and the founders of Pakistan? ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 9. Changed Public Sentiment Puts Dhaka In A Cleft Stick on Hasty Repatriation of Myanmar Refugees | Bharat Bhushan 10. The Gandhi in our midst | Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar 11. India: The sangh and its affiliates have double-standards when it comes to women?s rights | Lalita Panicker 12. India: CPI(M) has proved to be a ?useful idiot? for BJP by rejecting alliance with Congress | Aniket Alam 13. India: Modi & Co looting the middle-class old through Mediclaim premiums | Faraz Ahmad 14. What?s in a name in Indonesia? Aisyah Llewellyn Medan 15. The Big Idea For Liberals | Jan Zielonka 16. The Seine Also Rises | Chris Newens 17. Beyond Lula's Candidacy for Presidency - What?s next for the Brazilian left? by James N. Green ======================================== 1. THE MALDIVES: IMPLEMENT SUPREME COURT ORDER NO.2018/SC-SJ/01 - PRESS RELEASE FROM MALDIVIAN DEMOCRACY NETWORK - 3 February 2018 ======================================== We welcome the decision of the judiciary to reverse some of the unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that led to the destruction of the rule of law and the weakening of democratic governance in the country, and the call on all relevant government authorities and State institutions to respect and implement the Supreme Court order to reinstate the parliamentary seats of Members of Parliament and to release detainees that the order has deemed free. http://www.sacw.net/article13628.html ======================================== 2. BANGLADESH: DIGITAL SECURITY ACT 2018 - A CAUSE FOR ALARM ======================================== The Digital Security Act 2018 will curb the freedom of expression and also impede independent journalism in Bangladesh http://www.sacw.net/article13627.html ======================================== 3. SRI LANKA: REVIEW OF NEVILLE JAYAWEERA?S ?THE VAVUNIYA DIARIES? ON THE 1971 JVP INSURRECTION by B Skanthakumar ======================================== This slim memoir spanning a few months in 1971 is noteworthy for its insider view on the failed first insurrection of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP?Peoples Liberation Front), or more exactly its repression somewhere remote from Colombo and the southwest, by a principal participant. The author was then Government Agent, that is the top-most administrative official, in undivided Vavuniya http://www.sacw.net/article13624.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: A CANDLE FOR ANKIT by Teesta Setalvad ======================================== Ankit Saxena was killed in west Delhi?s Khyala area on Thursday night [1 Feb 2018] allegedly by the family members of a woman with whom he was in a relationship. http://www.sacw.net/article13626.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: RELEASE OF WESPEAKOUT STUDY ON FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION/CUTTING AMONG THE BOHRA COMMUNITY ======================================== FGM/C is risky and harmful. FGM/C has long been internationally recognized as a form of violence and discrimination against women and girls. It gravely affects women?s sexual pleasure, and their physical, & psychological well-being. It has been banned by a number of countries where the practice occurs, including Egypt, where Bohras trace part of their ancestry. http://www.sacw.net/article13625.html ======================================== 6. INDIA AND PAKISTAN: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PARTITION OF PUNJAB by Ishtiaq Ahmed ======================================== The partition of Punjab proved to be one of the most violent, brutal, savage debasements in the history of humankind http://www.sacw.net/article13630.html ======================================== 7. MCGARR?S REVIEW OF LEAKE, ELISABETH, THE DEFIANT BORDER: THE AFGHAN-PAKISTAN BORDERLANDS IN THE ERA OF DECOLONIZATION, 1936-65 ======================================== The rugged and contested South Asian borderlands that straddle Afghanistan and Pakistan have long attracted the interest of powerful international actors. Of limited economic significance in global terms, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border?s strategic importance as a conduit between the East and the West, has made it an enduring locus of great-power rivalry. http://www.sacw.net/article13631.html ======================================== 8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - We Can't Let Hindu Nationalists Rewrite India's History by Teesta Setalvad / AlterNet - India: A Police Officer?s Allegiance Must Be to the Constitution and Not to a Temple by Basant Rath (in The Wire) - India: Kerala Poet Attacked Allegedly By RSS Workers | report on Outlook - Do you want India to turn into a Hindu Pakistan? Garga Chatterjee - India: ?Hindu?, ?Hinduism? & ?Hindutva? in court rulings - India: Hindu Janajagruti Samiti leader, prime accused in Pansare murder case gets bail - India: By foreclosing any possibility of a united electoral challenge to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the communist party only strengthens Hindutva communalism - India: Spread of misinformation via WhatsApp - India: Hindutva FB page publishes list of 100+ couples in inter-faith marriages, calls for violence | report on AltNews - India: Even If I Don?t Get Justice, Won?t Have Hatred Against Any Community, Says Father Of Ankit Saxena In An Appeal To Not Communalise Son?s Murder - Threat of Khalistani ?terror, fuelled and funded by foreign ?gurudwaras patronised by liberal white politicians ? - India: Prolonged intimidation of minorities could lead to counter-violence | Manoj Joshi - Act of weaving in religious discourses with science is a clever ploy to appeal to the urbane middle class | Gautam Benegal - Aarti Tikoo Singh: Secular Love and Communal Murder [ killing of Ankit Saxena] - India: Abhisar Sharma on deliberate communal propaganda on TV regarding Kasganj violence - What is common between Hindutva forces and the founders of Pakistan? - India: Curb the rioters ensure normalcy returns western UP after violence in Kasganj district - India - UP: Bareilly district magistrate under fire from the right wing govt for his courageous post on facebook - India: Alwar?s Long History of Hindutva | Kannan Srinivasan - India: Violent enemies killed Gandhi, the ?great soul? of peace | MAREA DONNELLY - Living in Pakistan - A Hell for Non-Muslims | Rahat John Austin - India - Meghalaya: BJP is struggling to shed its anti-Christian image - India: watching ?Padmaavat? is a statement against the creeping lumpenisation of public space and discourse | Smruti Koppikar - India: Patriotism Vs Jingoism | Ramachandra Guha -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 9. RIPPLES TURN INTO WAVES: CHANGED PUBLIC SENTIMENT PUTS DHAKA IN A CLEFT STICK ON HASTY REPATRIATION OF MYANMAR REFUGEES | Bharat Bhushan ======================================== (Outlook Magazine, 12 February 2018) The Bangladesh government has put the repatriation of nearly 7.5 lakh Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on hold by a month bec?ause of protests in the refugee camps and international pressure against a hasty deal. The rep?atriation process follows from a bilateral ?arrangement? signed by Bangladesh and Myanmar in November last year to send back the Rohingyas crossing into Bangladesh after October 2016. Two refugee leaders or majhis, who favoured repatriation, have been murdered in the refugee camps in Cox?s Bazar. Those whose names they had put on a repatriation list are being blamed. The fact remains, however, that Ban?g?ladesh has neither the financial res?ources nor adequate public support to host the refugees for long. Myanmar on its part has claimed that it was ready to receive 1,500 Rohingyas per week after verification of their resident status. Being ready may not mean much more than corralling the returning Rohingyas into ?transit camps?. The government has made no promises to return or compensate property lost or prosecute those who committed violence. The refugees are wary of living in ?grouped villages? designed for monitoring and punitively controlling the Rohingya population. Bill Richardson, former US ambassador to the United Nations, resigned from an international panel the Myan?mar government formed to help organise the return of refugees from Bangladesh. Saying he had no intention of becoming a member of a ?cheerleading squad for the (Myanmar) government?, he has accused Aug San Suu Kyi of lacking ?moral leadership?. Since August 25, 2017, nearly 6,88,000 Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar?s Rak?hine province for adjoining Bangladesh. The Myanmar Army burned down Rohi?ngya villages, shot dead young adults and raped, tortured and abducted Rohingya women while ostensibly sear?ching for extremists who had attacked 30 police posts and one military outpost on the August 24/25 night in north-west Rakhine. The UN has described these army operations as a ?textbook example of ethnic cleansing?. The new influx of refugees joined nearly 1,00,000 Rohingyas who had fled due to army excesses in October 2016 to Bangladesh?s border district of Cox?s Bazar. A majority of the refugees are children (54 per cent) and women (52 per cent). About 14 per cent of the refugee families are headed by single mothers with husbands missing or dead. Nearly 4 per cent of the refugee families are headed by children, with separated children constituting 3.31 per cent of the population?and vulnerable to trafficking. The refugees are housed in makeshift bamboo and tarpaulin shelters in spo?ntaneously formed and government-run camps in the Teknaf and Ukhiya sub-districts of Cox?s Bazar. Some 3,000 acres of forest land has been earmarked for a massive refugee camp in Balukhali and Kutupalong in Ukhiya. It is run by the army along with the local district administration. Except for 450-odd Hindu refugees, the Muslim Rohingya refugees are apprehensive of returning without guarantees of safety, and assurances of citizenship and justice. At the Kutupalong refugee camp, Ghulam Nabi (all names of refugees have been changed), a majhi, sums up the dilemma of being stateless, ?We are ?Bengalis? in Myanmar and Rohingyas here. We are not accepted in either country. But how do we go back if there is no peace in Myanmar?? Sayeda Khatun, a woman, interrupts the majhi with all the anger she could summon, ?Both my husband and son were killed. I don?t want to go back at all.? Other women joined her in refusing to go back. At the adjoining Balukhali camp, Ali Mamun from TulaToli village, the scene of a ghastly massacre by the Myanmar Army on August 30, 2017, asks, ?Where should we go? Three out of my four sisters were killed along with one of my three brothers. Seven of us fled here after walking for three days. If there is no peace in Myanmar, what should we do?? Mohammad Ameen of Urbi village admits that he will want to go back only ?if there is assurance of peace and security based on Myanmar-Bangladesh understanding and if our property is returned.? He adds, ?But we also want justice against the atrocities of the Myanmar army. Our children were killed and our women raped.? The question remains unanswered on where the unaccompanied and orphaned children, besides members of women or child-headed households or raped women with possible ?war babies?, will return to. The Bangladesh government had deci?ded that the Hindu refugees would be repatriated first. The Hindu refugees, housed in a separate camp, say that the violence against them was not from the army but from militant Rohingyas, possibly of the Haraqah a-Yaqin, better known as the Ara?kan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). Aashirbad Pal, a Hindu refugee, standing outside a ramshackle long bamboo and tarpaulin shelter housing an incredible 60 families, explains, ?ARSA wants freedom. They wanted us to join them. We refused and they attacked us. We have Myanmar citizenship, while the Muslim Rohingyas don?t.? He adds, ?We are willing to go back right now but only if the Myanmar and Bangla?desh governments provide us security.? ARSA is believed to have killed 187 Hindus, burned down houses and temples and local Rohingya Muslims allegedly stole their cattle. A senior official of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Cox?s Bazar puzzled over Dhaka?s rush to repatriate the refugees says, ?At the moment the refugees just need to settle. Some are still trying to find their missing family members within the camps. They need to form community links and get over their trauma.? At the core of the repatriation efforts is Bangladesh?s refusal to recognise the Rohingyas as ?refugees?. Termed as ?Displaced Myanmar Residents?, they are at best ?migrants? who do not enjoy any strong protection under the law. Advertisement opens in new window As ?refugees?, they would be protected by a consolidated international law. They would be allowed to seek employment in the host country, apply for asylum and protected from forced repatriation to a country where they could face discrimination (principle of non-refoulement). Bangladesh, however, is neither a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees nor the 1967 Refugee Protocol (incidentally, nor is India). With no refugee policy, Bangladesh deals with the Rohingyas under the Foreigners? Act of 1946 and local administrative mechanisms, although most policy decisions up to now have favoured the refugees. The locals, who had initially welcomed the refugees, have of late become resentful. Many complain of rising prices. The turning of public opinion against the refugees is an added reason for the government?s determination to rep?atriate them. The local community which initially welcomed the refugees has slowly become resentful. In Ukhiya sub-district, the refugees already outnumber the locals. A Rohigya Pratirodh Committee exists in Cox?s Bazar since the 1990s. Locals complain that the price of daily commodities is rising because of the refugees and that they were being under?cut in the labour market where daily wage rates have fallen from Bangladesh Taka 400-500 to less than half. ?Local employment is not allowed but in reality we cannot prevent that. The refugees have undercut the daily-wage rates, as they are willing to work for less,? says Mohammad Wahidur Rehman, the Additional Deputy Com?missioner General of Cox?s Bazar. The local people also feel that refugees get priority in accessing services such as healthcare, as government doctors have been deployed in the camps. Schooling too has been largely disrupted as the army is yet to fully vacate school buildings occupied when it was drafted to manage relief distribution. Local women are apprehensive that their husbands might take younger Rohingya women as a second, third or even fourth wife. Rohingya women are desperate for Bangladesh citizenship and local men think marrying them would mean access to free food and relief material. Damage to the local environment and ecology are also a concern. Mohammad Junaid of Shomudrobarta newspaper said, ?Our forests and agricultural land has been taken over by the refugees.? Elephant populations in the adjoining forests have already moved away. Environmentalists warn of the possibility of water sources drying up as hillsides are cut and deforested. The indigenous tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts fear further ingress into their territory as Rohingyas from previous waves have settled illegally in their area. Although Cox?s Bazar Assistant Superintendent of Police Muhammad Afrujul Haq Tutul denies a rise in crime rate, he concedes that ?one should take the apprehensions of the local population into account?. Even UN officials agree that an inc?rease in trafficking and trade in drugs and small arms is possible because of the ?movement back and forth? across the border. Drug trade?almost exclusively in Yaba (tablets containing a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine)?has gone up and is a $2-billion industry today. Camp Guard An armed soldier at Kutupalong camp in November 2017 Photograph by Alamy While the local police claim to control refugee movement from the camps, aid workers say that Rohingya refugee women were engaged in ?survival sex? at bus stops and hotels in Cox?s Bazar. Despite linguistic similarities between spoken Rohingya and the Chittagonian dialect, the cultural dislike for the Rohingyas is palpable. They are seen as ?culturally backward?. Soeb Said, a journalist with AmaderRamu.com, says, ?We understand the Rohingyas are also human beings. But their lack of education makes them barbaric and aggressive.? The Imam of the central mosque at Ramu Upzila observes, ?Despite being Muslims, they do not know how to offer prayers. Their behaviour is in conflict with local Muslims.? Sajalkant B. Choudhury, a Brahmin leader of Ramu, says, ?They are uneducated, backward and uncivilised. Nothing good will come by their staying here.? There are also fears of Rohingya extr?e?mists making inroads among the refug?ees. Several hitherto-unknown Islamic gro?ups are active in the camps. There were reports of night-long meetings in the camp mosques. An app?rehensive adm?inis?tration has banned the entry of outsiders to the camps after 5 p.m. ?Up to now,? says Tutul, ?we haven?t found any presence of ARSA loc?ally, but we have teams of police detectives keeping a close watch.? Mohammad Nikaruzaman, the Upzila Nirbahi Officer of Ukhiya, acknowledges the shift in the public sentiment: ?The resentment among the locals is growing and there could be an outburst soon.? Relief workers and the UN agencies also do not seem to be against repatriation per se, but they do not want the refugee situation to recur as in the past. A UNHCR official says, ?We should be involved in the repatriation talks as we bring the refugee voice to the table. We should also have access to Rakhine. Otherwise, how can we say in good conscience that conditions exist for the refugees to return voluntarily with safety, security and dignity?? In 1992, the two governments had signed separate memorandums of und?erstanding with the UNHCR, leading to the repatriation of 2,30,000 Rohingya refugees. As of now, however, neither country has involved the UNHCR in the repatriation process. (The writer was in Cox?s Bazar and Dhaka as a member of a fact-finding mission on the condition of the Rohingya refugees, organised by South Asians for Human Rights, Colombo ======================================== 10. THE GANDHI IN OUR MIDST | Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar ======================================== (Dawn, February 01, 2018) ON Jan 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for ?appeasing? Muslims and for the suffering of Partition. Much has been written about Gandhi?s life and death, but what of the Gandhi in our midst? I have an image of the gentle, towering figure of Bacha Khan assisting a frail Gandhi cross a very narrow and precarious bridge in Jehanabad, Bihar, in March 1947, as the two friends struggled to bring salve and rebuild communities in the aftermath of the terrible cycle of violence set in motion by the Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946. Bacha Khan, as Abdul Ghaffar Khan was lovingly called, is an important anticolonial figure of the 20th century and his historical significance needs to be understood not merely from the narrow confines of a nationalist narrative, but rather as essential to our understanding of struggles for justice, methods for social and political transformation, and the ethics of living together with difference ? all urgent as ever in our times as in his. If we think about colonialism as a form of political and economic subjugation, it was also accompanied by the production of a whole body of knowledge that made this subjugation both possible and legitimate. The powerful anthropological construction of ?warlike? tribal Pathans, who only responded to bribery and brute force rather than reason, was used to justify the most extreme forms of collective violence carried out in British India, and the northwest was a testing ground (especially during the interwar period) for grotesque technologies of war that would have raised a hue and cry of inhumanity had they been carried out elsewhere. In friendship they forged an ethics of care and dialogue. By espousing nonviolence and mobilising one of the most successful nonviolent civil disobedience movements in the form of the Khudai Khidmatgars, Bacha Khan fundamentally challenged and unravelled this colonial understanding of Pathans. The Khudai Khidmatgars are largely forgotten today or simply recounted as a huge exception in the militarised history of insurgency and counter-insurgency in the northwest. But were they a blip in the past? A small and irrelevant movement that stood up for, but a few moments, to the injustice and subjugation of the largest and most advanced military power of its time? In his autobiography, translated into Urdu as Ap Biti, he recounts a conversation with Gandhi at his ashram where he asks Gandhi if he was surprised that the Khudai Khidmatgars, albeit the last to receive his training in nonviolence, had been the most disciplined and steadfast. The political theorist Uday Singh Mehta has pointed out that for Gandhi cultivating the ?fighting spirit?, or the capacity for violence, was essential to then actively renouncing it ? nonviolence had to be a courageous choice, not a coward?s submission. Thus Gandhi replied to his friend that he was not surprised at all for nonviolence as unarmed resistance required at least as much courage as armed resistance and as such the Pathans had a long history of courage. By aligning Pathan courage to nonviolence, Bacha Khan had countered the foundations of colonial knowledge and exposed the utter brutality and illegitimacy of colonial violence. By becoming ?Frontier Gandhi?, Bacha Khan also brought the concerns of the frontier into the mainstream of Indian politics. The sources of Bacha Khan?s ideas are numerous as are those of Gandhi?s, but their extraordinary friendship too deserves our attention, rather than something to be feared. In friendship they forged an ethics of care and dialogue across vast religious and cultural differences, and it is an ethics that could have arguably saved Mashal Khan?s life at the Bacha Khan University not so long ago. When Bacha Khan died on Jan 20th, 1988, Peshawar came to a standstill, the streets of Peshawar were covered in red flags of the Awami National Party, and Bacha Khan?s body was laid in Jinnah Park so hundreds of thousands of his followers and well-wishers could pay their last respects. Gen Zia came to pay his respects, and Rajiv Gandhi, then prime minister of India, was given permission to fly in to Peshawar, and at the height of the Cold War, the Soviets and the mujahideen held their peace as the Khyber Pass opened for the massive caravan that travelled from Peshawar to Jalalabad to lay him to rest there. If we think of the national boundaries that were momentarily suspended for Bacha Khan, it may well allow us to not only recuperate his anticoloniality, but also his humility, simplicity and openness to the world. (The writer is associate professor of history at Brown University and faculty fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies. She is the author of The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories.) ======================================== 11. INDIA: THE SANGH AND ITS AFFILIATES HAVE DOUBLE-STANDARDS WHEN IT COMES TO WOMEN?S RIGHTS | Lalita Panicker ======================================== (Hindustan Times, Feb 03, 2018) The women who signed up for jauhar don?t even seem to realise that they are nothing more than pawns in a larger game of imposing what is seen as good Hindu values on society. The horror of it all seems blunted by the ease with which over 2,000 women signed up with the Karni Sena to commit jauhar (suicide by immolation) if the film Padmavaat was released. They were defending the honour of a mythical queen and their community. The valiant men of the Karni Sena chose the infinitely easier route of vandalising public property, terrorising school children and blocking roads. As it turns out, no one committed jauhar, the film was released and the goons folded their tents and vanished secure in the belief that indulgent state governments would do nothing much to them to bring them to justice. This in a way is representative of the right-wing and its attitude to women. Women must make sacrifices to uphold the honour of a patriarchal order; please note that the Karni Sena men did not speak of giving up their lives to uphold Rani Padmavati?s honour. A real women?s movement would challenge notions of male domination in a family. In the right-wing, women are seen as symbols of the ideal woman, the homemaker whose primary task is raising children and taking care of the larger family unit. These women, who form organisations such as the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (the women?s arm of the RSS) are mobilised when it becomes necessary . While they play a supplementary role to the men, they enjoy certain privileges on account of their position. The women in the Shiv Sena, for example, have been known to mete out justice to shopkeepers they think are cheats, resist the police when the latter are doing their duty, even beat up neighbourhood bullies with impunity. Yet when it comes to leadership roles and decision-making, women are left out of the picture. Whatever these women undertake even by way of social work is seen as something done at the behest of men. The women feel empowered by the fact that they get the legitimacy to break the rules, exert their influence, broker peace in family disputes, tell women who are being abused to adjust and justify various regressive practices on account of the fact that they are subsidiaries of powerful right-wing organisations. The pernicious propaganda about love jihad seeks to convey that the threat to Hindus is through the sly co-option of women by Muslims or even Christians. The Hindu right-wing seeks to portray the Hindu nation here in terms of the predatory Muslim and the pure Hindu woman who needs male protection in the form of violence against the predator. When it comes to actual political or economic power for women, we see that the right-wing groups are not particularly vocal, and in fact, they are against any larger role for women outside of the home. If we go back to the origins of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, its founder Laxmibai Kelkar approached RSS founder KB Hedgewar to see if women could join his organisation. Needless to say, he turned her away. It was 11 years after the RSS was founded the women?s wing took shape. Even then, it had to stick to the dictum enunciated by MS Golwakar that disparity is an indivisible part of nature. In no way were the women to be considered on a par with men. Women were always seen in relation to their association with men; they could be mothers, sisters, daughters or wives. At all stages of life, they had to heed the voice of their male relatives. It is not for nothing that the RSS calls itself the sangh parivar. Indeed, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is on record to say that under the social contract a woman should take care of the household and the man?s needs in return for which he will protect and provide for her. That?s not too far from the vision of the organisation?s founding fathers. In fact, Bhagwat says it is all right for a man to disown a woman who fails to keep her side of the contract. The women who signed up for jauhar don?t even seem to realise that they are nothing more than pawns in a larger game of imposing what is seen as good Hindu values on society. They don?t seem to question why men who breathe fire and brimstone over the perceived insult to a mythical queen are quiet, even complicit, in dowry harassment, female foeticide and rape. They feel comfortable imposing dress codes and conduct on women, circumventing their freedom of choice. This is not just the tyranny of patriarchy, it is the duplicity of patriarchy. @lalitapanicker ======================================== 12. INDIA: CPI(M) HAS PROVED TO BE A ?USEFUL IDIOT? FOR BJP BY REJECTING ALLIANCE WITH CONGRESS | Aniket Alam ======================================== (scroll.in, 5 February 2018) By foreclosing any possibility of a united electoral challenge to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the communist party only strengthens Hindutva communalism. One could argue that despite socio-economic conditions in India being conducive for its politics, the Left regularly manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Indeed, the manner in which the central committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) recently rejected any possibility of a united electoral front against Narendra Modi?s Bharatiya Janata Party suggests we are in for a repeat show of that most successful play of the communists: ?historic blunder?. This time the battle pivots on one word: ?understanding?. Should there be any room left for electoral understanding between the parties opposed to the BJP so that the anti-Modi vote does not split? Shorn of all verbiage, the majority in the CPI(M)?s leadership believes that 15 months before the next general election, the very possibility of such a united front needs to be firmly closed. For any party invested in an electoral battle, or for that matter in any political contest, this does not make sense. The only sensible tactic is to keep all options open until the end and maximise the potential from all possibilities of victory. There is consensus within the CPI(M) on two points, as indeed within almost any group opposed to the Modi government. One, that the BJP is a clear and present danger to the Indian republic, which is less than perfect but enshrines the ideals of democracy, justice, secularism and socialism for which we strive. Two, that another term for the present dispensation would mean the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP?s parent organisation, would push its agenda of Hindu Rashtra ? an authoritarian, anti-secular, anti-democratic nation ? much further, perhaps irreversibly. The debate is about how to prevent this. Can there be an understanding with the Congress to prevent opposition votes from splitting and handing the BJP a victory? This happened in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in 2017 when the non-communal vote was split and enabled the saffron party to win an unprecedented number of seats. It appears that Prakash Karat, the former general secretary of the CPI(M), has convinced enough of his comrades that irrespective of whether the split in opposition votes hands the BJP victory in 2019, there can be no possibility of ?any understanding? with the Congress. This position has been dressed up in complex argumentation and claims to some form of ideological and political purity among communist parties. In reality, it is merely another version of Arun Shourie?s (in)famous line that the BJP is merely Congress plus cow; that there is basically no difference between the two parties. In the language of India?s communist parties, these are both ?ruling class parties? with little to differentiate them. In other words, tweedledee and tweedledum. Looking at independent India?s political history, it is clear that this formulation has only helped the BJP gain respectability. The perception that it is merely a more Hindu version of the Congress has allowed the Hindutva party to regularly divide its opponents and, more dangerously, to ally with non-communal parties in the name of anti-Congressism. Historic blunder Interestingly, this ?Congress and BJP are the same? formulation did not stop the Left from having an understanding with the Hindutva party to defeat the Congress in 1977 or in 1989; the latter time at the height of the BJP?s campaign to demolish the Babri Masjid. Somehow, this equating of the Congress and the BJP has mostly stopped the communists from forming a united front against Hindutva fascists, it has rarely stopped them from coming together with the latter. In any case, at no point in India?s history has this ?Congress and BJP are the same? line been reasonable. A comparison with Pakistan, where Muslim communalism ? Hindutva?s twin ? has been in power since 1947, would show how absurd this equation of the Congress with Hindu nationalism has been. One has led to an imperfect but democratic republic, the other has led to a society deeply divided by religious fundamentalism, oppressed by military rule, and with a weak democracy. An unbending anti-Congress position perhaps made sense for the communists when the Congress was the ?natural party of government?. It is not any more, and deploying political tactics from 1977 in 2017 is not merely anachronistic and silly, but opens the door for the political consolidation of the most bigoted, authoritarian, criminal and incompetent government independent India has seen. The record of the previous United Progressive Alliance government, led by the Congress, also belies this false equivalence between the Congress and the BJP. Coming after six years of BJP rule, it delivered massive improvement on every social, political and economic indicator. Despite regular parliamentary obstructions by the BJP, the UPA?s decade in power saw some of the most progressive pieces of legislation and policies in the history of independent India put in place. In the given global context, it was a classic social democratic government that empowered people and widened the ambit of rights, while also helping the private sector prosper. This does not mean there were no blemishes, but given all its shortcomings, the UPA was a giant step forward towards a progressive India. The last two Congress presidents, Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul Gandhi, have been consistently pushing a rights-based social democratic agenda. The Left, in which the CPI(M) was then the largest constituent, played a crucial role in formulating and deepening the UPA?s progressive agenda. The UPA is proof that a coming together of the Congress and the Left is not just feasible, it can play a crucial role in shaping a progressive, secular and pro-people agenda to unite the broadest sections of the Indian population to challenge the BJP in the coming general election. To foreclose that possibility is to be a ?useful idiot? for the Amit Shah-Narendra Modi election machine. History may not forgive this blunder. Aniket Alam is a historian and journalist who teaches at IIIT-Hyderabad. ======================================== 13. INDIA: MODI & CO LOOTING THE MIDDLE-CLASS OLD THROUGH MEDICLAIM PREMIUMS | Faraz Ahmad ======================================== (National Herald, Feb 05th 2018) This government has scrapped the bonus for older insurance payees and instead now they promise to compensate you in other ways, which have not yet been defined In all the noise around the Union budget presented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley the other day, everyone seems to have overlooked the silent loot engineered by this government in the form of Mediclaim premium from people. With any ado, the annual premium of Mediclaim has more than doubled, particularly for senior citizens, who are more likely to avail of the Mediclaim insurance scheme often. This is nothing but a well-crafted and planned plunder. Last year, I paid ?21,000 as premium for a mediclaim policy worth ?5 lakh, not with a private company, but the nationalised New India Assurance. I found the premium, steep because I have had that policy for close to 10 years and have been promptly paying the premium every year, beginning at ?15,000 and thereby. Thus, I have paid the insurance company around ?2 lakh already whereas I availed of its facility only once for a minor hernia operation involving just an overnight stay at the Max Hospital, Saket, in 2014. This was after paying my premiums for three years. Thus, I had paid the company somewhere around or a little more than ?80,000 and the cashless surgery with all expenses paid also cost me ?80,000 of which I was asked to pay around ?5000. So, there was also some money in my mediclaim account after that surgery. Since then I have never visited a hospital or consulted a doctor and have only been paying the company in the form of annual premiums. This year, I turned 66 and the insurance agent shocked me with the statement that the annual premium has been increased to ?42,000 and it includes a strong dose of service tax. Now, every year till the age of 75, I will pay over ?42,000 and only then can I hope to get the insurance company pay for my hospitalization if needed. After the age of 75, there may be another such steep rise in premium under whose burden I may die anyway without ever going to hospital. The premium slabs for the various age groups make an interesting reading. For a five lakh policy, the premium for a person under the age of 35 is only ?5,420, very nominal indeed. For the age group of 36-45 it is ?5,747, pretty reasonable, no doubt. For the age group 46-50, it goes upto ?9,582. Mind you the probability of a 35-year-old falling ill and availing of the insurance is almost nil, except in exceptional circumstances. And, that of those between the age of 36-45 is marginally higher. And so is the premium, nominally higher. Once you enter the age 46-50 your chances of hospitalisation for even more ailments like hernia situation in my case proves. That?s when you expect your Mediclaim policy to come to your aid and so the premium for this age group shoots up suddenly to ?9,582. Now you are getting closer to the age when you will need to look back at your mediclaim to avoid sleepless nights over the prospect of hospitalization if needed. For all the years you have fattened the insurance company?s coffers and in the case of nationalized companies indeed the government?s. So, for the age group of 51-55, the premium is ?14,418. The next age group 56-60 it is ?18,954. It is becoming increasingly difficult to continue paying these premiums, especially for those who have not availed of any hospital facilities but only paid premiums every year. Earlier there was a bonus that accrued to your account and thus your premium amount was reduced by the bonus that was accrued to your account. The government of our ?poor? Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his equally ?poor? Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has scrapped the bonus and instead now they promise to compensate you in other ways. What are these, still not very clear? Besides, the next budget may bring some more changes dumping even these assurances. But the real thing comes once you cross 60 and enter the age group of 61-65. That mind you is the retirement age when your capacity to make any payments suddenly comes down drastically and every penny out of your pocket is a torture, more so for those who do not get a pension, and many have not even had regular jobs and were thus bereft of any retirement benefits. The majority of the over 60 in our society fall into this category. And I am not talking of the poor who cannot afford this Mediclaim insurance any way. It is for us of the middle-class salaried lot who bought Mediclaim in the false hope of saving for the bad days when we may not have enough but may urgently need hospitalisation and don?t want to burden our children unnecessarily. So, the premium for this age group goes up to ?25,243. After 65 when you may really need to avail of your Mediclaim, the premium shoots up to ?35,698. And all the figures quote above do not include the service and such other taxes. In the meantime, you have paid much more than ?5 lakh for which you stand assured. All over the world, senior citizens are given concessions and comforted to ensure that they lead a hassle-free respectable life. Not in Modi regime though! In effect then it is a big scam in which the government is stealing from you if you buy a policy from a nationalised company and helping the private companies too in turn to rob you, if you avail of their policies. And here the leading national newspaper such as the Times of India, which is deceiving its readers by claiming that ?5 lakh health cover has been made affordable by this government. I have with me the entire table but since the story ran for ?5 lakh health cover, I just stuck to ?5 lakh health cover for which I have paid the premium just last month. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the organisation ======================================== 14. WHAT?S IN A NAME IN INDONESIA? Aisyah Llewellyn Medan ======================================== (Asia Times, February 6, 2018) Arabization is changing how parents name their children, a trend to be enforced in areas by a new ban on giving Western names Children from the"Orang Rimba" tribe -- whose name translates as "jungle people", who have been converted to Islam and given up their nomadic ways, wearing Islamic skullcaps and hijabs as they gather to recite the Koran, in the Batang Hari district of Jambi province. Photo: AFP/Goh Chai Hin Mohammad Hamdan is the spiritual caretaker of Mesjid Raya Al Mashun, the largest mosque in the Indonesian city of Medan on the island of North Sumatra. One of his top responsibilities is to help parents name their new born children. Names are full of meaning in Indonesia, meaning parents take great care to give their offspring the possible start in life. ?As Muslims, we believe that a name is like a prayer to god. If we give our child a good name, it?s like our wish for them for the future,? said Hamdan Hamdan is himself an example of the phenomenon: his name means ?praiseworthy.? His parents hoped that he would be praised by Allah and blessed throughout his life. Instead of using the Indonesian word for ?praise? which is ?puji? (also a common Indonesian name), they chose the Arabic version to show their belief in Islam. In recent years, Indonesians have increasingly chosen names with Arabic origins over local ones in a trend towards greater Islamization. Local names in Indonesia originate from local languages or dialects such as Javanese, Batak or Malay. Around 80% of Indonesia?s population is Muslim, making it the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Although the country officially recognizes religious pluralism, there is a rising intolerance towards other faiths, with hard-line Muslim groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front even calling for sharia law to be the universal law of the land. There have also been crackdowns on the LGBT community, a rise in blasphemy convictions and growing use of Islamic discourse in politics, trends which many see as a turn towards an increasingly intolerant brand of Islam. Naming culture could also play a part in the trend. Academics Joel Kuipers and Askuri noted in a 2017 article entitled ?Islamization and Identity in Indonesia: The Case of Arabic Names in Java? that surveyed over three million names across three regencies a ?growing popularity of bestowing Arabic names on Javanese children.? In Java?s Bantul region, for example, ?There were far fewer pure Arabic, or even Javanese?Arabic hybrid names until the mid 1980s. By the 1990s, however, about half of the children born have at least one Arabic name. ?During this same period ? the number of children who have ?pure? Javanese names ? i.e., a name not mixed with either a Western or Arabic name?has dramatically declined, and by 2000, such names are a distinct minority.? The origins of names are now a hot topic of national debate. In January, the Karanganyar Legislative Council (DPRD) in Central Java announced plans to issue a bylaw which will prohibit parents from naming their child using a ?Western? name. According to the council?s speaker, Sumanto, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, ?It will take quite a long time for the council to pass the bylaw. But in principal, the bylaw aims to protect local cultures that have begun to disappear.? He pointed to a rise in the use of Western names in Indonesia, saying that he was ?concerned about the condition? and thinks that local names should be protected as ?part of the nation?s noble historical inheritance.? A young Indonesian Catholic looks on as she celebrates Christmas during mass at the Saint Fransiskus Asisi church in Karo, North Sumatra on December 24, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / IVAN DAMANIK A young Indonesian Catholic looks on as she celebrates Christmas during mass at the Saint Fransiskus Asisi church in Karo, North Sumatra on December 24, 2017. Photo: AFP/Ivan Damanik It is not immediately clear from Sumanto?s comments what differentiates a ?Western? from a ?local? name, or if the law would potentially be enforced retroactively, forcing Indonesians with Western-sounding names to pick new ones. As Kuipers and Askuri?s research shows, however, many Indonesians in Java use Arabic names, so the law could cause a new surge in the Arabization of Indonesia?s naming culture. Hamdan says for examples Indonesians who choose to name their children ?David? would in future need to use the Arabic version, which is ?Daud.? He says he supports the law as he feels that it is ?better to give your child a Muslim name if you can? to show your Muslim identity. Others, however, are gravely concerned about the proposed law?s implication for religious and other freedoms. Speaking to Asia Times, Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman describes the proposed law as ?unnecessary and over-reaching into citizens? private lives.? From a legal perspective, Koman also urges caution because ?the law could be discriminatory and could potentially violate parents? right to freedom of cultural expression.? Religious leaders already exercise a strong power of persuasion. Hamdan explains one of the ways that parents end up with Arabic names for their children. ?When they are babies their parents take them to a Tuan Sheikh (an Islamic expert). The Tuan Sheikh asks questions, such as the day and time of birth and gives the child a good name accordingly.? He also says that name choices are now increasingly being discussed publicly thanks to the rise of social media. The name you use on Twitter or Facebook forms part of your whole online persona, and people are now more mindful of their overall image, says Hamdan. An Indonesian woman plugs into social networking platforms on her mobile phone in Jakarta. Photo: AFP/Bay Ismoyo An Indonesian woman plugs into social networking platforms on her mobile phone in Jakarta. Photo: AFP/Bay Ismoyo He suggests this is less a sign of Islamization and more an element of ?showing off? that comes with social media, with parents wanting to demonstrate that they have chosen a name with strong religious connotations. With the rise of shared online information, people are more aware that names matter, he says. Hamdan also points to how names fall in and out of fashion depending on geopolitical events. At the time of the US-Iraq War in 2003, Hamdan says that a number of his friends named their children ?Saddam Hussein.? ?Many of them wanted to show their support for Islam versus the West, which is how they saw the Iraq War,? Hamdan said. ?To do this they did the most obvious thing they could think of ? name their child after Saddam Hussein.? Intan Veranica, an ethnic Batak Mandailing from Sumatra, says her name is not of Arab origin. Nor is her husband Wahyu Hidayat, a Javanese whose name is a Malay-Arabic hybrid. Yet the couple recently chose to name their one-year-old son Abizar Al Ghani, one of the 99 names of Allah, because his father wanted him to have a name that ?sounded more Arab than Indonesian to show that we are good Muslims,? she said. ?Abizar means gold mine so we hope he will have a lot of money in his life.? Naming a child after a religious or high-profile Muslim figure is common practice in Indonesia, but Hamdan says that this tends to come and go in cycles, as with the previous example of Saddam Hussein, which apparently is no longer popular. JAKARTA, INDONESIA - DECEMBER 17: Child protesters show a poster reading "Israel go to hell" poster and save Palestine headscarf in the demonstration to support Palestine at National Monument in Jakarta, Indonesia on December 17, 2017. The action protest US President, Donald Trump statement to move the capital of Israel and US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Istanbul, Turkey on December 13, was declared East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital. The OIC is the second-largest inter-governmental body after the United Nations, and its 57 member states spread over four continents?including Indonesian government that condemns the US formal recognition. Nani Afrida / Anadolu Agency Child protesters demonstrate in support of Palestine at the National Monument in Jakarta, December 17, 2017. Photo: Anadolu via AFP/Nani Afrida He says that one of the biggest religious and political issues in Indonesia today is the struggle between Israel and Palestine, which is spelled ?Palestina? in the local Indonesian language. Strung across the street of his mosque is a colorful banner urging support for the Palestinians in the wake of US President Donald Trump?s recent controversial decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Hamdan notes that he observed a large rally in Medan several weeks ago in support of Palestine. ?I walked through the crowd and people were saying that they would do anything they could to pledge their support to the Palestinian cause. Who knows? Maybe we will see more and more Indonesians naming their children ?Palestina? in the future,? he says. ======================================== 15. THE BIG IDEA FOR LIBERALS by Jan Zielonka ======================================== (Social Europe, 6 February 2018) Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, liberalism has been the ?only game in town? across the whole of Europe. This is no longer the case. From Helsinki to Warsaw, Rome to Athens, liberals are losing votes to anti-liberal insurgents. The latter represent a very mixed bag, with numerous local variations. Yet they are doing pretty well at the ballot box against the centre-left and centre-right parties that have ruled Europe for many decades. At first, liberals tried to forge a united front against the ?populist threat.? In Greece, socialist PASOK went to bed with its long-standing foe from the New Democracy to prevent Syriza from coming to power. In Italy, Matteo Renzi from the left-wing (former communist) party worked hand in hand with the people from Silvio Berlusconi?s right-wing party to fend off pressure from the Five Stars Movement. This tactic was a mixed blessing for liberals, especially those on the left. PASOK is practically dead, and Partito Democratico, led by Renzi may follow the suit. (We will learn more on the latter in March, after the Italian elections.) A ?grand coalition? has seriously weakened social democrats even in economically prosperous countries such as Germany and Holland. More recently, liberals, especially those on the right, have tried a different tactic. They have embraced a ?soft? version of populism to defeat their ?fully fledged? populist opponents. Mark Rutte in Holland castigated migrants, Emmanuel Macron bashed traditional parties, and Theresa May embraced Brexit. Sebastian Kurz in Austria went even further: in his recent electoral campaign, he adopted populist anti-immigrant rhetoric and later formed a government coalition with the party of the late J?rg Haider. (Finland witnessed a similar coalition with populists.) This tactic too is likely to be a mixed blessing, especially for those on the right. The distinction between soft and hard populism is fuzzy, and soft populists will be pressed to harden their stance when faced with the next economic, migratory or security crisis. Can liberalism survive such a populist turn? Great revival? The latest medicine for fading liberalism is called: the big idea. Liberals should stop being defensive and use their greatest weapon ? intellectual capacity. Populists lack the necessary expertise to propose a vision of Europe fit for the 21st century. They are able to criticize, but they are not capable of offering plausible solutions to growth, security and democracy. They are a force of destruction, not a force of hope and vision. Liberals can do much better and offer the voters a positive alternative to chaotic and shallow populist programs. I believe in this medicine more than in the previous two options, but we should not expect wonders. This is partly because those who betrayed liberal ideals cannot be trusted to lead the liberal renewal. People associated with Blair, Tusk or Renzi do not seem to understand that. More crucially, liberalism is not good at generating big ideas, let alone utopias. Inspirational liberal thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper invited us to strive for an ?open society? but keep in mind that the process of getting to the destination is as important as the final product. They were critical of revolutions with clearly defined agendas; they wanted to move forward through reasoning, deliberation and bargaining, with open minds and no dogmas. They were fond of experiments, marching through trial and error, recognizing our limitations, and suspicious of simple solutions for complicated problems. This is not an endorsement of benign-neglect policy; this is a call for modesty, patience and reason. Three steps forward My big liberal idea consists of three steps: reckoning with the past, engaging in experimentation, and creating a new liberal system fit for the digital world. The first step can be accomplished in a year or two, the second step in less than a decade, but the third step may take much longer and we ought to be honest about that. In short, the big idea does not amount to a big bang. Liberals should offer the public a new sense of direction in their march towards a better future. They should offer safe refuge to those unable to adjust to change. However, liberals should not fall into the populist trap of promising heaven on earth by issuing a few decrees and rebuking opponents. Instead of cultivating nostalgia for the period of liberal glory, liberals should revisit the catalogue of liberal norms guiding their policies. Over the past three decades, those who called themselves liberals have given priority to freedom over equality; economic goods have received more attention (and protection) than political ones; and private values have been cherished more than public values. These priorities need to be revisited. The next step is to endorse a series of courageous experiments reflecting basic liberal values. The Tobin tax, ?timebanks?, and various forms of shared economy ought to be tried together with versions of e-democracy and Barcelona-style municipalismo. These experiments by themselves will not heal capitalism and democracy, but they will help to move Europe forward from the current deadlock, empower citizens, and reinstall a sense of justice. They will show that liberalism is a force for progress and not a device for maintaining the status quo and preserving the interests of those in power. Perhaps these experiments will even make liberalism sexy enough for young people to follow. The final and most demanding step is to move from experiments to the new liberal system of governance. As Zygmunt Bauman has observed in his famous book Liquid Times, the ?openness? of the open society ?has acquired a new gloss, undreamt of by Karl Popper.? Today openness chiefly means ?a society impotent, as never before, to decide its own course with any degree of certainty, and to protect the chosen itinerary once it has been selected.? Liberals should therefore find plausible solutions for unbounded trade, capital, migration, communication, crime and violence. They need to conceive a model of democracy and capitalism which makes sure that citizens are not left in ?authority holes? with no public jurisdiction and protection. At present, even the brightest liberal minds lack holistic solutions for handling transnational movements; besides, possible solutions ought to be negotiated with the public and tried in practice, which takes time. I strongly believe that the new version of the open society should welcome the plurality, heterogeneity, and hybridity of a Europe shaped by globalisation, but I know that some of my liberal friends fear that this would lead to chaos, free riding, and conflict. I am in favour of embracing technological innovation and employing it for the service of the open society, but it is hard to deny that the internet is also being used as a tool of propaganda and repression. Machines will perform many jobs more cheaply and better than humans, but they may also leave many people with no prospect of employment. I look at migrants as a cultural and economic asset, but this does not mean that those who demand a set of stricter conditions for allowing migration are wrong. We need to debate all these complex if not controversial issues and search for practical solutions to them, reflecting such core liberal values as openness and tolerance; individual rights and welfare; restraint, inclusiveness and fairness. Jan Zielonka is Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and Ralf Dahrendorf Professorial Fellow at St Antony?s College. His previous appointments included posts at the University of Warsaw, Leiden and the European University Institute in Florence. His latest book, Counter-revolution. Liberal Europe in Retreat, was just published by Oxford University Press. ======================================== 16. THE SEINE ALSO RISES | Chris Newens ======================================== (London Review of Books Blog, 31 January 2018) Tags: climate change | floods | paris For several days now, the Seine has been drawing a crowd. The international press, tourists and Parisians have come to look at the river because it is uncharacteristically high. Before I had seen it myself, I assumed the reason for all the curiosity was novelty. We?ve been told that the chances of the river breaking its banks are extremely low, but Paris can so easily be mistaken for a city frozen in time that changes in its landscape, even temporary ones, ask to be witnessed. Setting eyes on the engorged river, though, mud brown and churning viciously around the bare branches of its towpath trees, stirred in me an unease I had not expected: that one day, though probably not today, the Seine may begin rising like this, and not stop. And it reminded me that Parisians have long harboured a fear of their city ending up underwater. I have read about this in poetry and seen it in art. And Laurence Osborne?s Paris Dreambook (1990) begins with a fantasy of the city drowning: At first there was no sound as the water rose from the drains, lapped over the kerbs and restaurant doors, spilled untidily into the underground stations and filled up the cavities between the platforms ? And as the oily slime made its way into the shops, garages and concierge?s lounges the population took themselves screaming to the rooftops. Everywhere clinging to makeshift rafts, scampering like rodents up church facades and famous monuments ? The city finally went under, all except for the proud tip of the Eiffel Tower. I found the scenes that Osborne describes easy to visualise, because I had seen them before. Not quite on the cataclysmic scale that Osborne imagines, but in photographs of the great flood of 1910, when the Seine burst its banks, and for a number of months, Haussmann?s boulevards filled with water and Paris was a city transformed. Parisians fear another ?crue centennale?, a 100-year flood, which they say is long overdue. And it will happen again: Paris was built on a floodplain and the weather will only behave itself for so long. The fear of a drowned Paris is a fear for the submergence of all cities. Its star may have waned in the last fifty to a hundred years, but there are few places more synonymous with the perceived triumph of Western civilisation. (And it is where the most recent international agreement on climate change was signed.) To see it returned to the waves, to imagine fish swimming the corridors of the Louvre or octopuses nestling in the gargoyles of Notre Dame, is to contemplate the end of all things. ======================================== 17. BEYOND LULA'S CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENCY - WHAT?S NEXT FOR THE BRAZILIAN LEFT? by James N. Green ======================================== (NACLA, 5 February 2018) As a historian of Brazil, I learned long ago that predicting the future is a risky business. The country?s past is filled with unexpected twists and turns, far too numerous to enumerate here. It is safe to say, however, that in this year of presidential elections, anything is now possible. The Workers? Party (PT) decision to continue supporting Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva?s candidacy for president after the 3-0 decision upholding his conviction for corruption and money laundering makes strategic sense. It challenges the weak case against him and casts the decision as political persecution against a person who remains incredibly popular among a large segment of the population. According to the Bar?metro Pol?tico Estad?o-Ipsos poll conducted in November 2017, sponsored by the conservative newspaper O Estado de S?o Paulo, Lula?s approval rate reached a six-month high of 45%, climbing up from 28% in June 2017. His rejection level remained significant, around 54%, although it has dropped 14% over the past half year. Before this most recent verdict, momentum was clearly on Lula?s side. The most recent DataFolha poll, conducted after his appeal, found 37% of those interviewed still in favor of his candidacy for president. Other presidential contenders have been less fortunate. Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right congressman from Rio de Janeiro and number two in the presidential race according to most national polls, has seen his popularity drop to 21% with a rejection rate surpassing that of Lula?s at 62%. Geraldo Alckmin, governor of the state of S?o Paulo and runner-up in the 2006 presidential election, is doing even worse as the nominee of the center-right Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). His support dropped from 24% to 19%, and his rejection rate jumped from 67% to 74% in a single month. Other potential contenders, such as the centrist Marina Silva, former Minister of the Environment in Lula?s first term and presidential candidate for the Green Party (2010) and later the Socialist Party (2014), is faring little better at 28% with a 62% disapproval rate. Ciro Gomes, the head of the leftist Democratic Labor Party (PDT), has inched up in the polls but has failed to get national traction, although this might change if Lula is barred from running. President Michel Temer?s astounding 97% rejection rate and 2% approval rate only underscores the country?s crisis of political leadership, which may be the lowest recorded approval rating in the history of polling. So, forging ahead with Lula?s candidacy while his lawyers appeal on his behalf makes sense. Doing so represents a path out of the doldrums for the PT, hit hard by the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and a plethora of corruption charges surrounding some of its key figures. It places the leading party of the Brazilian left on the offensive as Lula rallies his supporters throughout the country. However, it is unlikely that Lula?s candidacy will be allowed to stand, given the Clean Background (Ficha Limpa) law that prohibits those convicted of crimes upheld by an appeals court from running for office. At some moment ahead of the October 7 elections, he probably will be barred from the race and perhaps sent to jail. That leaves three obvious options for the PT. If Lula?s name remains on the ballot, his votes will be voided. Alternatively, the PT could call on its supporters to cast a blank ballot in protest. Or, at the last minute, perhaps sometime in August, the PT could nominate someone else in Lula?s stead to campaign in the final month or so of the race. Looking at a past election might offer a hint of what lies ahead. In 1989, Brazil held its first democratic presidential election since 1960. With 22 candidates running in the first round that year, Fernando Collor picked up 30.47%, followed by Lula who received 17.18%. Leonel Brizola, another leftwing candidate, trailed Lula by less than a percentage point, and the PSDB candidate polled 11.5%. In the run-off, Collor defeated Lula by six points. This year there could be as many as eighteen candidates from across the political spectrum running in the first roundThis year there could be as many as eighteen candidates from across the political spectrum running in the first round that will be held on October 7. They could easily divide up the electorate with unpredictable outcomes. Any configuration of run-off candidates seems possible, from the PT?s standard bearer (assuming Lula is definitively out of the race) against ultra-rightist Bolsonaro to Marina Silva or Ciro Gomes pitted against Geraldo Alckmin. Although Lula?s popularity?and potential for him to become a national martyr should he be sent to prison?could increase the chances of the PT?s candidate making it to the run-off, it is possible that Bolsonaro could be the next president of Brazil. This has made many politicians and their financial backers on the center-right nervous. The country remains profoundly polarized, and most of the traditional representatives of the center-right forces that ousted President Rousseff from office have lost their legitimacy. One man potentially waiting in the wings is Luciano Huck, a Brazilian television host, media personality, and entrepreneur, whose Saturday night show on TV Globo, the media giant, averages 18 million viewers. Although former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso cautions that Huck is still too inexperienced to run for chief executive, the idea that a wild-card top entertainer and entrepreneur might be the answer for the center-right?s seeming inability to find a strong candidate does have a recent international precedent. And what of the Left? Without Lula to head a center-left electoral coalition, one of the PT?s closest allies, the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB), is fielding its own candidate for the presidency. Similarly, the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL), a leftwing offshoot of the Workers? Party formed in 2004, is debating whether to launch its own contender in Guilherme Boulos, the charismatic leader of the S?o Paulo Homeless Workers? Movement. The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2014, less than two years after she was reelected with 54 million votes, which many consider to have been a parliamentary coup d??tat, and now the confirmation of Lula?s conviction, mark two serious defeats for the Brazilian left in recent years. For now, however, the PT?s focus on the 2018 elections will likely defer any serious debate over past mistakes or how the Left might reorganize itself to continue pushing an agenda of economic and social justice. James N. Green is the Carlos Manuel de C?spedes Professor of Latin American Studies at Brown University, the Director of the Brown-Brazil Initiative, and the Executive Director of the Brazilian Studies Association. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Fri Feb 16 02:43:16 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2018 11:43:16 +0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_16_Feb_2018_=7C_Asma_Jahangir_=281952-20?= =?windows-1252?Q?18=29_/_A=2E_Sivanandan_=281923_=96_2018=29_/_I?= =?windows-1252?Q?ndia=3A_Hindutva_Right_Wing_Propaganda_in_Full_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Swing_/_Sri_Lanka=3A_Local_Government_Elections?= =?windows-1252?Q?_/_Automated_Digital_Tools_/_a_grass-roots_bid_?= =?windows-1252?Q?to_expose_Stalin=27s_=27Great_Terror=27_/_Far-R?= =?windows-1252?Q?ight_Politics_in_Europe?= Message-ID: <305AA61D-4052-4C28-AF61-E4F55092AD94@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 16 February 2018 - No. 2970 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Asma Jahangir (1952-2018), Secular icon, Feminist, Human Rights Lawyer Passes Away - links to reports, interviews / portraits and tributes 2. A. Sivanandan (1923 ? 2018) : Tribute to the late editor of Race & Class | B Skanthakumar 3. BJP Ideology and Future of Scientific Enterprise in India | Ram Puniyani 4. Partition: The Danger of Counterfactuals | Neera Chandhoke 5. India: Aadhaar?s $11-billion question | Jean Dr?ze, Reetika Khera 6. India: PADS Condemns Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister for Intimidating State Officers who Expressed Opinion Against Communalism 7. Mcgarr?s Review of Leake, Elisabeth, The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands In The Era Of Decolonization, 1936-65 8. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Religion was always recognised in India?s public sphere ? but, unlike now, in the plural | Christophe Jaffrelot - Allauddin Khilji-Padmavati: what does the History say? - India: Is Hindutva mercenaries plan for Hindu rashtra working out ? Shamsul Islam - Indian Authoritarianism in CPI(M) Resolution | Y Venu Gopala Reddy - India: Full Text of statement Condemning Violence Unleashed by the Police and the RSS Outfits Against Dalits in Vadayampady, Kerala - India: Hindutva?s Desperate Attempt to Use Bhagat Singh Against Love - India: Bhagwat?s army comment deserves to be condemned, but not for the reasons you thought - Hilal Ahmed - The story of escape from a Mormon fundamentalist family - India: RSS Chief's statement that his organisation is better than the Indian army | Bharat Bhushan - India: The history of archaeology at Ayodhya is also a history of ideology in archaeology - Jaya Menon, Supriya Varma - India: On Ankit Saxena?s father refusing to communalise his son?s murder | Harsh Mander / Personalised violence cannot be equated with systematic, normalised violence | Sanjay Srivastava - India: BJP lawmakers continue targeting India?s religious minorities | Aritry Das ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 9. Nepal?s communist party leader Oli named next prime minister 10. Nepal gives up its hippy zeitgeist | Ross Adkin 11. Sri Lanka: After the Local Government Elections -- Back to the chessboard? | Jayadeva Uyangoda 12. India: Why political parties are reluctant to ban khap panchayats - Editorial, Hindustan Times 13. Nuclear Power: Challenging Rosatom's claims - Our opposition to Rooppur power plant . . . | Mowdud Rahman and Debasish Sarker 14. Bhagwat?s Better-Than-Army Comment And Brownshirts? Appeal To Replace The German Army | Bharat Bhushan 15. Amar Kanwar: From the fault lines| Vandana Kalra 16. India?s secret war | Praveen Swami 17. Automated Digital Tools Threaten Political Campaigns in Latin America | Emilio Godoy 18. In Russia, a grass-roots bid to expose Stalin's 'Great Terror' | Fred Weir 19. Review: Dafnos on Camus and Lebourg, 'Far-Right Politics in Europe' ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: ASMA JAHANGIR (1952-2018), SECULAR ICON, FEMINIST, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER PASSES AWAY - LINKS TO REPORTS, INTERVIEWS / PORTRAITS AND TRIBUTES ======================================== Asma Jahangir: Pakistan human rights champion died on sunday 11 February in Lahore, Pakistan. Here is an ongoing compilation of reports, portraits, tributes etc http://www.sacw.net/article13636.html 1.1 Obituary: Pakistan?s bravest citizen is no more | Ahmed Rashid Nobody in Pakis?tan?s brief history, which has witnessed four military coups, has matched Asma Jahan?gir for her dedication to public service, her belief in the rule of law, her relentless defence of democracy and pursuit of free and fair elections. She stood for both peace and justice with all of Pakistan?s neighbours. http://www.sacw.net/article13637.html 1.2 An indomitable will? ? why Asma Jahangir was Pakistan?s social conscience | Moni Mohsin The death of Asma Jahangir, the Pakistani activist, lawyer and human rights campaigner who passed away on Sunday after suffering a cardiac arrest at her home in Lahore, has left a nation reeling with a profound sense of loss. http://www.sacw.net/article13638.html ======================================== 2. A. SIVANANDAN (1923 ? 2018) : TRIBUTE TO THE LATE EDITOR OF RACE & CLASS by B Skanthakumar ======================================== Ambalavaner Sivanandan, who has died aged 94 in London on 3 January 2018, was an organic intellectual working at the interstices of race, class and imperialism. http://www.sacw.net/article13642.html ======================================== 3. BJP IDEOLOGY AND FUTURE OF SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE IN INDIA by Ram Puniyani ======================================== With Indian independence and coming of Indian Constitution; the foundations for progress in the society were laid. This was to be for an all out progress and the basis of this was the principles of scientific temper. This process was guided by the architect of modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru. http://www.sacw.net/article13633.html ======================================== 4. PARTITION: THE DANGER OF COUNTERFACTUALS | Neera Chandhoke ======================================== . . . till today, communal organisations continue to trigger the brutalisation of social and political identities, creation of divides, exacerbation of hitherto muted schisms, and the creation of new ones. We have, it appears, not paid heed to these warnings. If we had, India would not re-enact the horrors of the Partition. http://www.sacw.net/article13639.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: AADHAAR?S $11-BILLION QUESTION by Jean Dr?ze, Reetika Khera ======================================== Word has it that World Bank economists use ?obviously fabricated? data from time to time. These are not Sitaram Yechury or Medha Patkar?s words, but those of Paul Romer, former chief economist of the World Bank, in a recent email exchange reported by Financial Times. Romer retracted them later, but this ?may not end the controversy?, as The Economist mildly put it. This not the first time that World Bank economists skate on thin ice. Another recent example concerns the widely-quoted estimate of $11 billion annual savings (or potential savings) due to Aadhaar http://www.sacw.net/article13635.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: PADS CONDEMNS UTTAR PRADESH DEPUTY CHIEF MINISTER FOR INTIMIDATING STATE OFFICERS WHO EXPRESSED OPINION AGAINST COMMUNALISM ======================================== Statement from People?s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism on 8 February 2018 http://www.sacw.net/article13634.html ======================================== 7. MCGARR?S REVIEW OF LEAKE, ELISABETH, THE DEFIANT BORDER: THE AFGHAN-PAKISTAN BORDERLANDS IN THE ERA OF DECOLONIZATION, 1936-65 ======================================== The rugged and contested South Asian borderlands that straddle Afghanistan and Pakistan have long attracted the interest of powerful international actors. Of limited economic significance in global terms, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border?s strategic importance as a conduit between the East and the West, has made it an enduring locus of great-power rivalry. http://www.sacw.net/article13631.html ======================================== 8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Religion was always recognised in India?s public sphere ? but, unlike now, in the plural | Christophe Jaffrelot - Allauddin Khilji-Padmavati: what does the History say? - India: Is Hindutva mercenaries plan for Hindu rashtra working out ? Shamsul Islam - Indian Authoritarianism in CPI(M) Resolution | Y Venu Gopala Reddy - India: Full Text of statement Condemning Violence Unleashed by the Police and the RSS Outfits Against Dalits in Vadayampady, Kerala - India: Hindutva?s Desperate Attempt to Use Bhagat Singh Against Love - India: Bhagwat?s army comment deserves to be condemned, but not for the reasons you thought - Hilal Ahmed - The story of escape from a Mormon fundamentalist family - India: RSS Chief's statement that his organisation is better than the Indian army | Bharat Bhushan - India: The history of archaeology at Ayodhya is also a history of ideology in archaeology - Jaya Menon, Supriya Varma - India: On Ankit Saxena?s father refusing to communalise his son?s murder | Harsh Mander / Personalised violence cannot be equated with systematic, normalised violence | Sanjay Srivastava - India: BJP lawmakers continue targeting India?s religious minorities | Aritry Das - India: Please respect Interfaith Marriages a Constitutional right - Shehla Rashid - BJP To Launch a Communal Propaganda Procession Across India Starting 13 Feb 2018 from Ayodhya - Muslims have no place in India says BJP's MP Vinay Katiyar -- Should an MP say this in a secular country? - View from the spider?s web - Jawed Naqvi - We Can't Let Hindu Nationalists Rewrite India's History by Teesta Setalvad / AlterNet - India: A Police Officer?s Allegiance Must Be to the Constitution and Not to a Temple by Basant Rath (in The Wire) -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 9. NEPAL?S COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER OLI NAMED NEXT PRIME MINISTER ======================================== The Asahi Shimbun THE ASSOCIATED PRESS February 16, 2018 Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, center, announces his resignation in Katmandu on Feb. 15. (AP Photo) KATMANDU--The leader of Nepal's communist party was named the Himalayan nation's new prime minister Thursday, a day after the results of parliamentary elections were finalized. Khadga Prasad Oli, who also served as prime minister in 2015, was to take the oath of office later Thursday, a spokesman for the president's office said. Oli will be leading a coalition government made up of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), which took the most seats in the November and December 2017 elections. The poll results were made official Wednesday night, leading Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to resign earlier Thursday after eight months in office. Oli's biggest challenge as prime minister will be balancing Nepal's relationship with its giant neighbors India and China, as well as managing lingering internal strife stemming from the country's new Constitution and transition from a monarchy. The 2015 charter divided the nation into seven provinces that are now governed as a federal republic but sparked violent ethnic protests in southern Nepal that left more than 50 people dead and shut down the entire region for months. The Madhesi ethnic group was unhappy with the Constitution, believing they deserved more territory than assigned for their province. India supported the Madhesi and choked the supply of oil, medicine and other supplies to Nepal, resulting in severe shortages and making Oli's first turn as prime minister a difficult one. Landlocked Nepal is surrounded by India on three sides and imports all of its oil and most supplies from India. It also shares a border with China. The protests eventually fizzled out, but relations between India and Nepal hit a low point. India appears to be seeking a better relationship with Oli this time around. It sent Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to Nepal earlier this month in an apparent move to woo the incoming alliance government. Oli, 65, was born in a village in east Nepal and has been involved in politics since he was young. He worked up the ranks of the communist party and was jailed a total of 14 years for opposing the autocratic rule of Nepal's monarchs. The monarchs banned political parties until 1990, when street protests forced then King Birendra to allow political parties to contest elections and turned him into a constitutional monarch. The monarchy was formally abolished in 2008. Oli has a kidney illness and has made regular trips to Thailand for medical treatment. ======================================== 10. NEPAL GIVES UP ITS HIPPY ZEITGEIST | Ross Adkin ======================================== Nikkei Asian Review February 15, 2018 New rules and new hotels transform the once-seedy tourist district of Thamel ROSS ADKIN In the evenings, people travel through the streets of Thamel, the popular tourist district of Kathmandu. ? Jurgen Schwenkenbecher/picture-alliance/dpa/AP In north-central Kathmandu sits the famous tourist district of Thamel. From the uneven path that wends its way to the area through Amrit Campus, a famous science college, a visitor can see the ongoing transformation of the city's skyline. Skeletons of concrete and brick reach up, ever further, into the shabby, dusty blue of the sky. It will be some months before rooms in these structures will be full of hoped-for arrivals from China and South Korea, but the names on the signboards -- for example, Fairfield by Marriott -- already signal Nepal's ambitions to attract a more "respectable" clientele than the neighborhood's traditionally bohemian visitors. Last October, a long-awaited municipal decree came into force that could hasten the drawn-out death of one of South Asia's most enduring monuments to the hippy era. The banning of most motor vehicles on Thamel's narrow and crowded streets will make wandering and shopping a more pleasant experience, and perhaps attract a better quality of shops and clientele. The new rules also ban cycle rickshaws from Thamel's center and force pullers to congregate at its fringes, robbing them of the mobility needed for the part-time purveying of adulterated hashish, another of the neighborhood's traditional selling points. The real home of the hippies was around Freak Street, just to the south. But in the 1980s, residential Thamel became a hub for mountaineers, rafters and trekkers. In its transformation into a shadier self, it took on the mantle of the vestiges of hippy culture of 20 years earlier. The district became a seedy, concrete hodgepodge of adventure adrenaline, Buddhist art and cover bands playing Dire Straits and Creedence Clearwater Revival, an ambiguous character that nevertheless put the area on the tourist map. Overseas graduates wrote theses about the meeting of Nepalis and foreigners here. British director Murray Kerr's low-budget feature film "Sick City" was shot there and paints a bleak picture of Thamel's dark, druggy underbelly. "Thamel is a physical space, but it is, equally, a mental artefact," Rabi Thapa wrote in "Thamel: Dark Star of Kathmandu," a wonderful combination of memoir and reportage detailing the area's history and the most recent homage to the neighborhood. The 65 Nepalese rupee ($0.63) breakfast of fried potatoes, a banana, toast and fluorescent pink jam, along with the instant coffee served in tall glasses and dosed with copious amounts of milk and sugar, has virtually disappeared. Also gone are the music shops, full of pirated Grateful Dead and Bob Marley albums -- and the chance to pick up some classical Indian music or Tibetan chants as you loaded up on cheap CDs. Where the iconic Pilgrims Book House used to be (it burned down in 2013), there is now a miniature mall, made of unlovely concrete and faux marble, with around 10 stores selling cashmere shawls and Apple products. Thamel's bookshops still cater to every ideology and creed, however. And Pilgrims has reopened elsewhere. Halfway down Mandala Street, the shiny, grand-looking China's Tibet Book Store sells books about Chinese philosophy, literature, educational ideas and Taoism. It also has shelves of books telling China's side of the Tibetan story. In pride of place were Nepali and English editions of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's latest book, "The Governance of China," which was released in Nepal in 2016 by President Bidya Bhandari. In a cafe on the southern edge of Thamel, I met a climber from Beijing who said he lived in Nepal half the time, in a small, cell-like room. He worked as a guide for Chinese tourists into the mountains. He spoke as little Nepali as the hippies would have done, and no English. He seemed content and busy. An estimated 100,000 Chinese tourists visited Nepal last year, some making the kind of long and intrepid overland journey that is no longer made from the West in any serious numbers. The poverty/spirituality trope that inspired many of these journeys, and which lingers on in international media coverage and development discourse, is being increasingly challenged by the aspirations of the country's young and mobile population. Meeting such ambitions will require Nepal to take better advantage of its location between India and China. In exorcising the "ghost of the hippy" and by welcoming more and more visitors from east of the Himalayas, the sanitized, more respectable Thamel is already showing the way. Ross Adkin is a U.K.-based writer. ======================================== 11. SRI LANKA: AFTER THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS -- BACK TO THE CHESSBOARD? | Jayadeva Uyangoda ======================================== (The Hindu February 15, 2018) The political crisis in Sri Lanka will likely end in a reconfiguration of coalition forces Sri Lanka?s local government election held on February 10 has become more than a mid-term poll that usually helps the opposition. Rather, it has led to an immediate political crisis of sorts, threatening the stability of the present government. While the disunited ruling coalition, jointly headed by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, has lost the election badly, the newly formed Sri Lanka People?s Front, unofficially backed by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has secured a sweeping victory in provinces except in the north and east. Pressure points There are two dimensions to the crisis. The first is the pressure from the Rajapaksa camp for the Wickremesinghe government to resign, interpreting the local government election as a referendum on the government as well as a loss of its popular mandate of 2015. The government can easily dismiss that pressure by showing that Mr. Rajapaksa?s new party polled only 44% of the popular vote this time while the parties that were partners in the coalition that brought them into power in 2015 have nearly 52% of votes between them. Besides, the outcome of the local government election has no direct bearing on the government?s parliamentary majority. Mr. Rajapaksa has only about 50 MPs. Thus, the balance of power within Parliament has not been altered, and it is likely to remain that way unless the ruling coalition breaks up. It is in that sense that the second dimension is more serious than the first. The hostility and disunity between the two centres of power of the ruling coalition ? one headed by Mr. Sirisena and the other by Mr. Wickremesinghe ? has shaken the very foundations of the government. Mr. Wickremesinghe heads the United National Party (UNP), which is the largest component of the coalition with 106 MPs. Mr. Sirisena heads the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and United People?s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), with only 37 MPs with him in the coalition government. The local election showed 32% voter support for Mr. Wickremesinghe?s UNP ?and Mr. Sirisena?s UPFA and SLFP polled a low 12%. The discord build-up The discord between the President and the Prime Minister has been building up for over a year on a mixture of policy and personal issues. The President has been open in saying that Mr. Wickremesinghe and his ministers had been mishandling the economy, slowing down the investigation into alleged corruption by the Rajapaksa family, and even engaging in large-scale corruption while preaching clean governance. Mr. Sirisena also felt that Mr. Wickremesinghe has been ignoring him on policy issues. Thus, due to the simmering disharmony, bitterness and mutual distrust, the Sirisena and Wickremesinghe camps of the government could not even contest this election as a coalition. Once in the fray as competitors, the two main parties of the coalition quickly transformed themselves into rivals and adversaries. In the backdrop of the escalating cold war between the two leaders was a major policy failure of the government ? a massive financial fraud that was committed during the central bank?s bond sales in 2015. This was under the new government, within three months of its coming to power on a platform of corruption-free good governance. Much of the blame for the bond sales fraud was laid at the door of the Prime Minister by the opposition and the media for allowing it to happen and then attempting a cover-up. Amidst a public outcry, Mr. Sirisena appointed a commission last year to investigate the fraud. In its report, submitted to the President late last year, the commission recommended the prosecution of the bank?s former Governor, his son-in-law and their accomplices. This was a blow against the government, and caused further deterioration of relations between the President and the Prime Minister. The issue dominated campaigning for the local government election, which began early in December, with Mr. Sirisena targeting the UNP. He also pledged that he was going to clean up the government after the election, indirectly suggesting a change in the composition of the cabinet. It is this conflict that exploded in February 11 soon after the election results showed Mr. Rajapaksa?s new party winning comfortably. Mr. Sirisena began to search for a replacement for Mr. Wickremesinghe, despite not having the constitutional authority to sack or appoint the Prime Minister or members of the cabinet. Mr. Sirisena failed to make any headway after two days of manoeuvring. Alive to the threat, UNP Ministers and MPs, even amidst fresh divisions, have now closed ranks against Mr. Sirisena. By the night of February 13, the UNP began a line of action independent of Mr. Sirisena and his SLFP/UPFA and then to reconstitute the coalition government. In this scenario, the UNP envisages an outcome in which Mr. Wickremesinghe will continue as the Prime Minister of a reconfigured coalition government, with a much weakened Mr. Sirisena as President. Mr. Wickremesinghe has 106 UNP MPs in the 225-member Parliament. There is speculation that nearly a dozen SLFP Ministers, who are currently with Mr. Sirisena, are ready to join Mr. Wickremesinghe?s new government in case of a clear split between the two leaders. There is also speculation that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is ready to offer conditional outside support to Mr. Wickremesinghe. Devolution, peace building and constitutional reform are sure to be the themes of those conditions. There is another scenario in which Mr. Sirisena will continue to insist on Mr. Wickremesinghe?s resignation as Prime Minister. This will certainly deepen the crisis because the UNP is no mood to lose the power struggle. As mentioned earlier, the President is reported to be searching for a replacement for Mr. Wickremesinghe from among senior members of the UNP, but with limited success. A part of Mr. Sirisena?s strategy would also be to create dissent within the UNP with a view to weakening Mr. Wickremesinghe. Thus, the political crisis that has been precipitated by the election seems to be intensifying but is expected to end with the significant step of re-constitution of the government. Difficulties ahead Whatever happens, the undeclared power struggle between the two main coalition partners will have to come to an end in a new configuration of coalition forces. As things stand now, the two leaders do not seem to be giving way in the battle for supremacy within the coalition government. Reconciliation between the two coalition leaders is not in the realm of immediate possibilities, but they will have to find a framework of cohabitation given that the Rajapaksa family is waiting to move in. However, the political drama that began on February 10 is unlikely to end soon. Buoyed by the surprise win for its party which was formed just a year ago, the Rajapaksa family will continue to stake claim to power both within and outside Parliament. It will also have another chance of consolidating its newly gained electoral power in the Provincial Council elections to be held later this year. After this, presidential elections will have to be held by end-2019, followed by parliamentary elections. Sri Lanka watchers can expect more political surprises ahead. Meanwhile, if the President and the Prime Minister do not find a framework of constructive reconciliation between them, governance in Sri Lanka will crawl along for two years. Worse still, the much-valued programme of constitutional and political reform, peace building, inter-ethnic reconciliation and democratic consolidation will enter an extended state of stalemate. Its resurgence, sadly and ironically, might require another phase of democratic setback. Jayadeva Uyangoda is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colombo ======================================== 12. INDIA: WHY POLITICAL PARTIES ARE RELUCTANT TO BAN KHAP PANCHAYATS - Editorial, Hindustan Times ======================================== (Hindustan Times, Feb 07, 2018) editorial Political parties do not want to ban khap panchayats because these caste groups command large vote banks. But no matter the support they get from political parties, they are illegal and must be ruthlessly stamped out. Boys will be boys and will commit mistakes (reference to the Delhi gang rape), an old wife loses her charm, mobile phones and jeans used by women are against Indian culture ? just a small selection of remarks from prominent politicians which echo the sentiments often expressed by the infamous khap panchayats across north India. These self-styled kangaroo courts will now have to watch their words since the Supreme Court has castigated them saying: ?If people decide to marry, they are adults and you are nobody to interfere.? While the court?s sentiments are laudable, it will take much more to get the khaps to fall in line, secure as they are in the political patronage they enjoy. There are two reasons for this support. One is that many politicians, even some women leaders, are opposed to inter-caste and inter-religious marriages very much as the khaps are. The other is that the khaps control sizeable vote banks and can be called upon to gather support during elections. The apex court has earlier too spoken out strongly against these khaps, which seem to hold the power of life and death for those who come up against them. Many young couples have been hounded out of their homes and some murdered, all in the name of the honour of the family. These murders, horrific as they are, enjoy a considerable amount of social sanction in the villages where they took place and even the families of the victims have often come out in support of the killings. The court?s ire apart, the killings continue because of the ease with which the killers are able to get away with it or get off lightly. Often, this is because the witnesses are reluctant to come forward and there is political pressure on the police to go slow or botch up the cases. Even those politicians who do not want to come out in support of khaps have restricted themselves to saying that they are part of traditions and culture. But it is the job of any elected lawmaker to ensure that tradition does not translate into the murder of young people who have committed no crime other than to exercise their freedom of choice of a partner or a way of life. The Supreme Court?s latest directive was in response to a plea before it to ban khaps altogether. There is little possibility that they will transform into reformation movements in the near future. So odious as bans are, there is some merit in the suggestion that they be neutralised before they do further damage. ======================================== 13. NUCLEAR POWER: CHALLENGING ROSATOM'S CLAIMS - OUR OPPOSITION TO ROOPPUR POWER PLANT IS NOT BASED ON UNFOUNDED FEAR BUT ON THE PAST RECORDS OF ROSATOM AND THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AT LARGE by Mowdud Rahman and Debasish Sarker ======================================== (The Daily Star, January 21, 2018) On December 25, 2017, an opinion piece was published in The Daily Star by Andrey Shevlyakov titled ?Changing perceptions on nuclear energy.? Given the author's institutional position as the acting CEO of Rosatom South Asia and their business interest, it is not surprising that he is engaged in an effort to change the public perception of nuclear power. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and global trend to backtrack from nuclear power projects, any company with huge investment in this industry is bound to engage in such a campaign. We appreciate the author's effort to publicly engage in discussion on the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant; however, we write this response to his article to record our dissent to Rosatom's misinformation campaign. What Shevlyakov has written does not reflect the real scenario of the nuclear industry today, rather it was a clever attempt to justify a dangerously destructive project. Shevlyakov talked about what all they had done to ensure public participation because, as he suggests, ?public acceptance affects both the implementation of individual nuclear energy projects and our industry as a whole.? Sadly, in the implementation of Rooppur project, we have not seen any public consultation. Even before starting the construction of this 2,400 MW capacity plant, a plan has been formulated to install 4,800 MW capacity by 2041. It was necessary to go for a public mandate and an open discussion within various groups in the society. It seems Shevlyakov's remark on public acceptance is rather rhetorical. In reality, they are imposing their pre-conceived idea of nuclear power on us. Shevlyakov claimed ?public acceptance is promotion of direct dialogue? and that they have done so through arranging?might we say sponsoring?trips for Bangladeshi youth to Russia or journalists' visit to Ishwardi. A trip to Russia may be a long-cherished dream for many, and Rosatom has every right to enjoy appreciation from individuals who received their support to realise that dream. However, it is not clear how such trips for a small group of individuals can improve larger public perception on nuclear power. Do they have any statistics about what percentage of people in Bangladesh actually knows about this project? Other than advertisement and propaganda, has there been any activity to count the common people's voice on this vital project? Why hasn't the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report been made public? Without a proper information flow, how are they changing perception on nuclear energy? These overseas trips appear to be an attempt at sidestepping open and public dialogues and justifying such a complex project. The author has spent a good chunk of his column space on these trips, which is rather unconvincing. Shevlyakov mentioned that Rosatom gives the highest priority to nuclear safety and will comply with all the necessary safety and security standards prescribed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to IAEA, there are two zones surrounding any nuclear reactor?the first of which is the Precautionary Action Zone, which has a 5km radius area of any nuclear reactor and it is recommended to have evacuation facility and preparation for any emergency situation to evacuate the area within 15 minutes' notice. And, the second zone is Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone, which covers a 30km radius area and is recommended to have the facility to evacuate the area within one hour in any emergency situation. The people of Pabna, Bheramara, Lalpur, Kushtia, Ishwardi are all living within the 30km area of the proposed Rooppur nuclear power reactor. Have they been informed by the government about the possibility of an emergency situation? Is there any plan to comply with the international safety and security standards and build infrastructure to evacuate thousands of people within hours? In a densely populated region, would it be possible to build such capacity and maintain the mechanism effectively? From our own independent investigation, we did not find the people to be aware and ready to leave their ancestral land in just 15 minutes. Shevlyakov's piece is implicitly built on the assumption that the dissenting voice that exists in Bangladesh about nuclear energy is based on fear, and not scientific information. We want to assure him that our fear is historically and scientifically grounded. We can't help but recall the history of the Russian nuclear industry, which is built on denial?denial of truth. They have records of using substandard equipment, bypassing in-country expert community suggestion, and so on. The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant that they have recently built in India bears evidence of these allegations. In October 2017, a French public authority of nuclear safety and security identified a cloud of radioactive isotope ruthenium-106 in European territory which originated from a Russian nuclear facility. It is not surprising that Russia's nuclear agency has refused to accept any responsibility in this regard (The Guardian, November 21, 2017). Therefore, our opposition to Rooppur power plant is not based on unfounded fear but on the past records of Rosatom and the nuclear industry at large; we are expressing our concern about our future as Bangladeshi citizens. Shevlyakov proudly announces that 3rd generation plus technology will be used by Russia at Rooppur. We all know that it is nothing but an advertising tool of the nuclear industry. Improvement of technology is a continuous process and it keeps on adding new features every day. The third-generation technology might be the latest one in their basket but surely not the last one. Fukushima, when it happened, had the most advanced technology at its disposal, yet it could not avert the disaster. Besides, averting a disaster is not the only risk involved here. Therefore, the third-generation plus technology cannot be the right answer to our concerns. They are taking cues from previous disasters to build new technology at the expense of immense loss of lives and ecology. Therefore, advanced technology could be their selling point but it does not answer our concerns. Mowdud Rahman is Engineer and Energy Technology Researcher, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) and Debasish Sarker is Engineer and PhD Researcher on Nuclear Safety, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany. ======================================== 14. INDIA: BHAGWAT?S BETTER-THAN-ARMY COMMENT AND BROWNSHIRTS? APPEAL TO REPLACE THE GERMAN ARMY Dejavu: In 1934, Head of Hitler?s Brownshirts wanted his force to replace army as main fighting force of Germany by Bharat Bhushan ======================================== (Outlook Magazine Web Site 14 February 2018) Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat boasted that his organisation could get battle-ready in as little as three days compared to the six-seven months taken by the Indian Army. Bhagwat?s comments reveal that given the right political milieu, the RSS aspires to a formal role in the State. The typical RSS member looks more like the paunchy grandpas of the BBC sitcom Dad?s Army, than a formidable fighting force. Unfit to fight but full of jingoism in Dad?s Army the middle-aged characters prepare to deal with the fictional contingency of a German landing in South England. As they prepare to hold off an invasion their commanding officer observes with bravado: ?It'll probably be the end of us, but we're ready for that, aren't we, men?? However, Bhagwat?s comments also bring a more sinister image to mind. Of the Stormtroopers (Sturm Abteilung or SA), popularly called the Brownshirts of Adolf Hitler and the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN, "Voluntary Militia for National Security"), better known as the Blackshirts, of the Italian fascist, Benito Mussolini. The Brownshirts (SA) and the Blackshirts (MVSN) were both paramilitary wings of their respective parties and were given respectability once the fascists assumed power. The SA, founded in 1920, played an important role in Hitler?s rise. They marched in military-style rallies and protected party meetings, broke up meetings of the Opposition, and intimidated voters during elections. Its head Ernst Roehm sent a memorandum in January 1934 to the German Army Chief, General von Blomberg, demanding that the SA replace the army as the main fighting force of Germany. The activities of SA under Roehm were viewed with suspicion by the regular army as he hoped to merge the SA and the army under his leadership. Unsure of the SA?s loyalty, Hitler formed his own personal guard the Schutzstaffel (or SS). On 30 June 1934 - known as the ?Night of Long Knives? - Hitler used the SS forces to carry out a brutal purge of the SA as he became suspicious of Roehm who had called for a second Nazi revolution along socialist lines. Hitler ordered the killing of the top SA leadership, including Roehm. In all 80 extra-judicial murders including that of a former Chancellor and some generals took place. In the aftermath of the bloody purge, the downsized SA remained an instrument of violence and trained the German Home Guard from 1939. The SS, on the other hand, became much more important. One of its wings was used for enforcing the Nazi state?s racial policies, the other known as the Waffen-SS or armed SS, constituted the combat units of the German Army, and a third wing took over the running of the concentration camps from the SA after 1934. Both the SA and the SS were accommodated in security roles by the fascist state. Is this what the RSS also seeks? The Italian Blackshirts are another example of the fusion of fascist vigilante groups with State forces. The RSS as is well documented was greatly inspired by Italian fascism. Italian historian Marzia Casolari has documented how Mussolini?s fascism inspired RSS leader B S Moonje. Mentor of the organisation?s founder KB Hedgewar, Moonje made a trip to Italy in 1931. He was deeply impressed with militarisation of schooling under Mussolini. On his return inspired by Italian fascists he adopted a programme of militarising Hindu society The Bhonsala Military School which the RSS apparently uses to train its cadre, was set up by Moonje. The Italian Blackshirts started in 1919 as ?action squads? fighting those whom they considered a threat to the Italian nation. In 1923, the vigilante groups led by nationalist intellectuals, war veterans and landowners were officially constituted into the MVSN, as the private army of the fascist party. Like Hitler?s SA, they were a national, political militia. Once Mussolini came to power, the Blackshirts formally became a part of the establishment and were called the ?fourth branch? of the armed forces. The RSS is a political militia that can be mobilised at short notice ? three days according to Bhagwat. This militia feeds other vigilante groups sharing the same ideology - the Bajrang Dal, the Sri Ram Sene and theGaurakshaks. Each one is summoned for a specific task and its members then dissipate into the cadre of another organisation depending on social, political and ideological contingencies. The ability to apparate into new forms according to circumstance allows the RSS to project itself as a social service organisation helping victims of natural disasters at one time and to appear as the sword arm of Hindutva at another. In saying that the RSS too can be morphed to become one with the Indian Army, Bhagwat is doing more than celebrating its military ethos. He is deliberately trying to blur the distinction between his Hindu bullyboys and the professional and secular armed forces of the Indian Republic. (The writer is a journalist based in Delhi) ======================================== 15. AMAR KANWAR: FROM THE FAULT LINES| Vandana Kalra ======================================== (The Indian Express, February 11, 2018) How the unabashedly political art of filmmaker Amar Kanwar is earning him a global following. Written by Vandana Kalra | New Delhi Amar Kanwar Artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar at his Saket, New Delhi residence on Thursday, December 14, 2017. Express photo by Abhinav Saha Early on in the millennium, when art was still blue-chip in India, an Indian filmmaker was invited to participate in the most prestigious contemporary art showcase. The Nigerian art director of Documenta 2002, Okwui Enwezor, wanted to make the festival truly global and present undiscovered but exceptional artists. Amar Kanwar was one of them. The unassuming Delhi-based filmmaker was not a regular at the leading art galleries; nor the toast of white cubes and art fairs. Instead, he was just becoming known outside the experimental art circuit for his works that explored the inequalities of the subcontinent. ?There were artists who admired him, completely believed in his work, but then there were also those who did wonder how he was at the Documenta,? recalls Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. Kanwar?s work at Kassel was a befitting reply. His 77-minute film, A Night of Prophecy, recorded the music and poetry of tragedy and pain. The artist-filmmaker had travelled across India, from Andhra Pradesh to Kashmir, Maharashtra and Nagaland, to weave poetic narratives that questioned the promise of democracy. Dalit writer Prakash Jadhav?s powerful poem, Under Dadar Bridge, comes alive when a son recalls asking his now deceased mother whether he was born Hindu or Muslim. His mother replies, ?You are an abandoned spark of the world?s lusty fires.? In Nagaland, children sang of freedom, and a schoolteacher in Kashmir recited verses as the screen moved from Kashmiri Pandits to graves of Kashmiri Muslims. ?It?s a film that has a life of its own and lives beyond me now,? says Kanwar. Seated in his sparsely furnished Saket studio, he has since then turned to poetry in several of his narratives. The only Indian invited to show his work at four consecutive Documenta editions, including last year, he is lauded for successfully blurring the boundaries between cinema and art. ?He has not only developed his own mode of making videos but also given films an entirely new dimension. It is art in every sense of the word. I don?t know anyone else of his kind in India,? says veteran artist Gulammohammed Sheikh. Kanwar has affirmed his position as one of the world?s most politically discerning artists. Mounted as multi-channel installations, his videos compel his audience to build their own perceptions. He layers his chronicles with interviews and archival material, poetry, prose and animated drawings. He informs his audience of the different ways of viewing, just as his own art teacher did, at Delhi?s Air Force School. ?He asked us not to follow a prescribed template. All leaves are not green, the sky didn?t always have to be blue,? he says. What he saw as a student of history in Ramjas College, Delhi also politicised him. Sikhs were killed or maimed by murderous mobs seeking to avenge the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi in 1984. In that broken city, Kanwar assisted in relief work and participated in campaigns demanding justice for the victims. ?I was upset and shocked at the brutality that followed against innocent citizens of my country, by the complicity of the police and politicians in power in the killings. I was upset by the protection that the killers received and still receive,? says Kanwar. A few months later, the toxic gas leak at Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal killed thousands. ?Again, we saw the same thing. Violence in another form. Disrespect for people. Complicity of corporations and administrations. And impunity. Those responsible were protected,? says Kanwar. We meet the 53-year-old a few weeks after he was awarded the Prince Claus Award at the Royal Palace Amsterdam, that recognises socially engaged cultural practitioners. It adds to the long list of accolades he has received, including the Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, USA (1999). ?I took up films just because it seemed interesting, more open, without rigid academic and examination systems,? says Kanwar, talking of the years when he enrolled for post-graduation at the Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia. He was still pursuing his Master?s when he made Site and A Wager (1986), a film that discussed minimum wages, health and maternity benefits in India. The irony of portraying the plight of the underprivileged through the expensive medium of film struck him so much that he decided to quit filmmaking in the late 1980s. Posted in the coal mining belt of Madhya Pradesh as a researcher at the People?s Science Institute, he felt the urge to share stories from the area. ?I started looking at cheaper mediums such as drawings, photography and theatre, but then I returned to films,? he recalls. Back in Delhi, he was still searching for opportunities when he found himself at the centre of a civil and democratic rights movement, Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, led by Shankar Guha Niyogi. The trade union leader wanted a filmmaker to document the mass movement in Bhilai. Kanwar reached a day after Niyogi was assassinated. He could not film him but he did record the funeral and the outrage that followed. There was also a recorded audio message in which Niyogi predicted that industrialists would harm him. Years later, in 2005, when the Supreme Court acquitted local industrialists accused of conspiring to kill Niyogi, Kanwar revisited the scene of crime in The Prediction. A projection on a handmade book had archival photographs, newspaper reports, the legal history of the trial, and Niyogi?s prophecy. It also included the mineral and resource maps of Chhattisgarh, and the prediction of their gradual eradication. Two more handmade books were part of the trilogy ? The Constitution which talks about how the state fails to protect the basic rights of citizens, and The Counting Sisters, a story written by Kanwar where mourners count the dead and missing displaced by the government and large corporations in Odisha. The series, along with several other elements, adds up to The Sovereign Forest, a project that evolved over a decade and one that Kanwar filmed intermittently since 1999. Central to the display was the 42-minute single channel projection ?The Scene of Crime? that offered ?an experience of a landscape just prior to erasure as territories marked for acquisition by industries?. ?Almost every image in this film lies within specific territories that are proposed industrial sites and are in the process of being acquired by government and corporations in Odisha,? wrote Kanwar in a note. It was exhibited across the world. Kanwar even took it to Odisha, inviting people to the Samadrusti campus in Bhubaneswar from 2012 to 2016, ?to add to the growing body of evidence collected?. Scrupulously, he flips through a book that lists over 272 different varieties of rice seed, grown and harvested every year by the farmer Natbar Sadangi, meticulously labelled, collected from the ?crime scene?. ?There were 30,000 varieties of traditional paddy seeds in Odisha, assuring very high yields. Today, there are only a few, all requiring large amounts of water and chemical fertilisers,? says Kanwar. Kanwar remains a reclusive artist, reluctant to talk about himself or commit to networking. ?I clearly discovered, that over a period of time people actually relate to the ?work? rather than the network. And there is only a limited amount of energy so it?s better and easier actually to let the films do the talking and connect with people than through networking. People reach out to you if they find meaning in the films,? he says. Seldom seen at art soirees, he is solely represented by New York?s Marian Goodman gallery. ?Once I started working with them, I realised I was just very comfortable working with them. I didn?t feel the need to have dealings with more commercial galleries,? says Kanwar. His cinematographer Dilip Varma and editor Sameera Jain, too, have been working with him since 1995. His neighbours in Delhi might not recognise him as a world-class artist but his audience would identify his melancholic voice from his videos, where he is often the narrator. In A Season Outside (1997), for instance, he told them, how his family too fled Pakistan in 1947, and he grew up listening to stories of Punjabi women nailing their windows to barricade themselves against the prolonged rape and murder unleashed by Partition. Over the years, his work has explored the nature of truth. ?The ?document? of the documentary has for long already been thrown up into the air. Is an illusion more real than a fact? Which vocabulary is more appropriate for a dream? How can a pamphlet be a poem, how can a poem be the story of a murder, how can a murder become a ballad, how can a ballad become an argument, how can an argument become a vulnerability the expression of which negates the argument but eventually shifts all positions,? says Kanwar, talking about his documentation approach. Evidence for him is paramount. But what Kanwar does is question its very meaning. ?Who defines evidence?? he asks. He had set out to find answers to this question during the making of The Sovereign Forest. He had also addressed it in his eight-channel video The Lightning Testimonies (2007). Reflecting on the history of sexual brutality and violence in times of political conflict, the film?s starting point was Partition. The 2002 Gujarat riots prompted Kanwar to gather stories from the past, collecting evidence, speaking to both victims and their families over a course of four years. From Manipur, he had interviews of women who famously protested naked outside the Assam Rifles office in Imphal. In Wokha, Nagaland, an orange tree was cited as witness to ?everything the army had done over a number of days that seemed like years?. ?Sexual violence is something that we find difficult to talk about and often are unable to express. The narratives of sexual violence always seems to disappear, but, in fact, the memory remains submerged and lives for long. I tried to find a way to go beyond the violence and suffering which I think did happen, towards the experience of resistance and ways of surviving? says Kanwar. The account might be rooted in India, but its relevance is universal. ?This work allowed us to open up conversations about sexual violence in other conflicts ? in Europe after the World War II, in Africa, in Southeast Asia,? says Nada Raza, assistant curator of Tate Modern, London, where the work was on view till last week. In his most recent work, though, Kanwar makes a slight departure. He is still responding to the times and questioning the consensus but this time it is through his fictional protagonist, an aging mathematician who, at the peak of his career, retires to an abandoned train carriage. On the verge of blindness, he begins to experience hallucinations and epiphanies. They compel him to write letters that he compiles in the ?Almanac of the Dark?. Screened at Documenta last year, Such a Morning is a cinematic parable about the limits of knowledge, and addresses global political tensions, violence and insecurities. ?The film searches for a sensory, hallucinatory and metaphysical way to re-comprehend the difficult times we are living in and the very meaning of truth, rather than presenting an argument,? says Kanwar. At the end of the film, he presents ?a set of clues that may help to live, re-calibrate, respond and resist?, suggesting the presence of light at the end of the tunnel. His own predisposition might take him elsewhere. As he says in A Season Outside, ?I have a compass which keeps spinning me into zones of conflict?. Against the Grain 1992: Invited to Bhilai to document the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha led by Shankar Guha Niyogi, Kanwar reached a day after Niyogi was assassinated. He recorded the outpouring of rage in his film Lal Hara Lehrake 1997: Kanwar explores non-violence and the Partition in A Season Outside. The 30-minute film opens with the ritual at Wagah, moving to the international border, where ?only the butterflies and birds are free to fly across?. 2000: The Many Faces of Madness captures images of ecological destruction, mining, displacement and deforestation. 2002: For A Night of Prophecy, a film in 12 languages, Kanwar travelled across India to record poetry and protest music about caste, labour, religion and nationality. 2003: The silent film To Remember is a homage to Mahatma Gandhi in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. 2007: Screened across the world, from Documenta to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Art Institute of Chicago and the Assam State Museum, The Lightning Testimonies explores the often ignored instances of sexual violence in times of political conflict, beginning with Partition. 2011: The Sovereign Forest, made in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik and Sherna Dastur, emerges from the conflict in Odisha between local communities and the government and mining corporations. ======================================== 16. INDIA?S SECRET WAR The implications of the questions raised by the Kulbhushan Jadhav case go far beyond Jadhav?s fate. It is time India reflects seriously on its expanding programme of covert action and its long-term consequences. By Praveen Swami ======================================== (Frontline February 16, 2018 Controversy) FOR six hours, the hired car had driven through a forest of shadows, cast by the mountains of Iran?s Sistan-Baluchistan province?for generations, a refuge for smugglers, insurgents and spies. Heading towards Saravan, a town of 50,000 some 20 kilometres from the border with Pakistan, the car was carrying a businessman from Mumbai to a meeting. The men he wanted to meet were waiting, but there were others, too: like every spy story, this one ended in betrayal. India knows something of what happened next: Kulbhushan Jadhav is now on death row, awaiting execution, after a hurried trial by a military court in Pakistan which found him guilty of espionage. Early in January, Jadhav appeared on Pakistani television, insisting he was still ?a commissioned officer of the Indian Navy??a statement that contradicts the government of India?s statements and directly implicates it in his activities. Precisely who Jadhav was and why he ended up where he did remain profoundly opaque. Basic questions remain unanswered; official documents are sealed. But interviews with over 10 diplomats and intelligence and naval officials from three countries make it clear that the governments of both India and Pakistan have been economical with the truth. The implications of these questions go far beyond Jadhav?s fate, for behind the case lies a secret war that may claim hundreds, even thousands, of lives. Ever since 2013, India has secretly built up a covert action programme against Pakistan, seeking to retaliate against jehadists and deter their sponsors in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. Led by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and now by Research and Analysis Wing?s (RAW) Anil Dhasmana, the programme has registered unprecedented success, hitting hard against organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad. But the story of the man on death row illustrates that this secret war is not risk-free. Lapses in tradecraft and judgment, inevitable parts of any human enterprise, can inflict harm far greater than the good they seek to secure. Service in the Navy In principle, there should be no difficulty in settling the truth of the claims that Jadhav still serves with the Indian Navy. The Gazette of India records, among other things, the commissioning, promotions and retirements of military and civilian officials in granular detail. Inducted into the Navy in 1987, with the service number 41558Z, Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav would likely have been promoted to the rank of commander after 13 years of service, in 2000. But the digital archive of the Gazette of India, a public document, has removed all files relating to the Defence Ministry for several months in 2000. Files in subsequent years bear no record of Jadhav?s retirement?though the Gazette is far from being immune to errors and omissions. The government of India has told the International Court of Justice that Jadhav was a retired naval officer?a question that is, in any case, irrelevant to proceedings there? but it has declined to state exactly when he retired. In response to a written question from this writer, the Naval Headquarters declined to confirm or deny whether Jadhav was a serving naval officer. Instead, it referred this writer to the Ministry of External Affairs. The Ministry, in turn, said it had ?nothing to add to whatever is already in the public domain?. In general, nation states simply deny any ties to individuals arrested for espionage. Thirteen Indians are being held in Pakistan on espionage charges, and 30 Pakistanis are in Indian jails, but in not a single case has either country officially concerned itself with its agent?s fate. Into a grey area The possibility that Jadhav is still a serving naval officer is precisely what makes this case different. The governments of both India and Pakistan almost certainly know the definitive truth?but only glimpses of it are so far visible outside their vaults. From the accounts of two separate naval officers who served with Jadhav, it appears the commander?s journey into the grey world of the spy began soon after the near-war between India and Pakistan that followed the Jaish-e-Muhammad?s attack on Parliament House in 2001?a claim that the officer also made in the first of a series of hastily produced videos of his custodial confessional, possibly given under duress. Late in 2001, the Navy set up nine naval detachments to monitor the Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts, anticipating the nascent threat to coastal cities from jehadist groups. Intelligence had begun to arrive around that time that the Lashkar was training operatives in marine skills at the Mangla Dam?s reservoir in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The implications were obvious and the Navy was deeply concerned. Early on, though, the Navy realised it had one key problem: the absence of an independent intelligence capacity to monitor the organised criminal cartels most likely to serve any terrorist operation across the seas. Jadhav, his colleagues said, volunteered for covert service. ?Few sign up for these kinds of dangers,? recalls a senior intelligence official who met Jadhav on one occasion. ?His was a choice of exceptional courage.? But there was a catch, a senior naval official recalls. ?The commander was insistent that he be allowed to remain on the Navy?s rolls to secure his promotion and pay,? he said. ?The Navy didn?t have a system for off-the-books operatives overseas, so this was how it had to be.? To Iran In December 2003, Jadhav travelled to Iran from Pune on a passport (E6934766) that identified him as Hussein Mubarak Patel. The passport identified ?Patel? as a resident of the Martand Cooperative Housing Society in Pune but gave no apartment number. There has been no official investigation into how the passport was issued. The Pune passport office records show the passport was earlier held by another individual, but the files contain no address. The Indian government has offered no explanation of how this passport was obtained by Jadhav. Funding for Jadhav?s fiction?the term used by spies for their cover identities?was provided by the Naval Intelligence, sources said. Iranian investigations, diplomatic sources said, supported that conclusion, showing Jadhav paid cash to set up the Kaminda Trading Company, which engaged in marine engine repairs. Later, it operated a dhow called the Kaminda out of the port in Chabahar. Records show that Jadhav?s company invited contracts for the supply of gypsum, which India imports for the manufacture of cement. In March 2015, for example, Jadhav looked for partners to enter into an annual contract for gypsum running to March 2016. In a confessional testimony released by Pakistan?s military, Jadhav says he ?established a small business in Chabahar in Iran [and] I was able to achieve undetected existence and visits to Karachi in 2003 and 2004?. Tehran?s own investigation into the affair, a senior diplomat said, has shown that the Kaminda did little business, leaving a question mark over just why Jadhav stayed on in Iran for so many years. There are no records in Iran, the diplomat continued, to suggest that the Kaminda sought or received bank finance, a normal part of business. In India, the Jadhav family did not receive regular remittance payments either, a police officer close to Jadhav?s father said. The family has repeatedly declined to meet the press. Expansion of role In the build-up to 26/11, growing numbers of Indian jehadists were being routed to training camps in Pakistan through Iran?s Zahedan: figures like Fahim Arshad Ansari, allegedly among the Lashkar-e-Taiba?s top surveillance agents in India, and the fugitive bomb-maker Fayyaz Kagzi. The Baluch insurgency also exploded in 2006. Though Indian intelligence was kept well-informed of events there by its stations in Afghanistan, there was pressure inside the intelligence community to develop better contacts in the region. To the dismay of Naval Intelligence, two officers said, their new asset in Chabahar soon began to be drawn into counterterrorism work for the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.)?raising fears that the fact that he was still on the organisation?s payroll could lead to embarrassment. Even though Admiral Arun Prakash, Navy chief from 2004 to 2006, resisted the efforts, the sources said, his concerns were overruled by intelligence chiefs desperate for reliable assets in the region. ?The Navy was extremely worried about the possible consequences of the tasks being assigned to Jadhav by the Intelligence Bureau,? said one officer. ?However, we were basically told that since he was there, that was how it needed to be.? Former RAW officials claimed that the push to draw Jadhav into front-line intelligence work was driven by the I.B.?s ambitions to have an independent overseas role. RAW?s own intelligence capacities in the region, they argued, were more than adequate to address emerging threats. I.B. officials who served at the time disputed the claim and pointed to successes that their initiative had registered. In March 2007, for example, eight Pakistani nationals led by the Lashkar operatives Jamil Ahmad Awan and Abdul Majid Araiyan landed near Mumbai. They were presumed to have been tasked with attacking targets in Maharashtra and Gujarat. But the planned attack was penetrated by the I.B. and the terrorists were interdicted. Either way, the sources said, Jadhav sought to expand his role after 26/11, even drawing up plans to use the Kaminda to stage a reprisal attack on Karachi, should a similar terrorist strike take place again. The idea received no traction but drew the attention of top intelligence officials who were convinced that more covert action was needed to deter Pakistan. The former naval commander was greeted with consternation at RAW, where he first appeared in 2010, introduced as a former naval officer. Anand Arni, the head of RAW?s Pakistan desk, shot down proposals for Jadhav to work with the organisation, sources said, arguing that the naval officer had little intelligence that RAW did not already possess. ?There were, shall we say, some small tests put to him in the course of the four meetings we had,? a former RAW officer recalled. ?He failed to give us anything particularly interesting.? But small cash payments, the source added, were made to Jadhav by successive RAW chiefs, beginning with K.C. Verma??a standard practice to maintain a working relationship with potential sources?, said an official familiar with the payments. Interestingly, the payments appear to have continued through the tenures of several spymasters, running from Verma?s successor, Sanjiv Tripathi, chief from 2010 to 2012, and Alok Joshi, who led RAW from 2012 to 2014. Through this entire period, no one appears to have reviewed Jadhav?s employment structure?which means he may have remained on the books as a naval officer because of bureaucratic oversight. RAW routinely employs military officers, but on secondment, and never for front-line operational tasks, thus ensuring that there is a wall between the activities of agents and the government in the event of disclosure. In a purported confessional testimony, Jadhav says he began working for RAW in 2013, reporting to an officer named Anil Kumar Gupta. There is, however, no officer in the organisation of that name, past or present. In later videos, though, he names RAW chiefs Anil Dhasmana and Joshi. Perhaps significantly, both Verma and Joshi were former I.B. officers?as is the present National Security Adviser Doval?and may have come across Jadhav?s work in the pre-26/11 period. In 2014, Jadhav obtained the passport (L9630722) he was eventually arrested with in Pakistan, which was issued in Thane. This time, he identified himself as a resident of the Jasdanwala Complex on the old Mumbai-Pune road cutting through Navi Mumbai. The flat, municipal records show, was owned by his mother, Avanti Jadhav. Giving the accurate address on the passport was an extraordinary lapse of professional judgment if Jadhav was, at the time, still in service with an espionage organisation. ?Basically, it makes it impossible for India to deny he is who he says he is, which is a basic element of tradecraft,? a RAW official pointed out. ?It?s criminally irresponsible for a spy?s cover identity to be so closely linked to his real life.? Towards betrayal From 2014 onwards, sources say, Jadhav grew increasingly close to the Karachi-based ganglord Uzair Baluch, once a valued ally for Pakistan?s military but forced to flee the country in 2013. Having held an Iranian passport since 1987, Uzair Baluch moved in and out of Chabahar. Living next door to Baluch?s nephew, Jaleel Baluch, Jadhav paid cash for information. Pakistani military sources insist that he made at least five deliveries of weapons to Baloch insurgents for RAW after 2014?but, like so much to do with the story, the facts are murky. An official Pakistani investigation document shows that Baluch, who was provided safe haven by Iran after a falling-out with the ISI, returned the favour by becoming ?involved in espionage activities, by providing secret information/sketches regarding Army installations and officials to foreign agents?. The material he handed over appears to have been low-grade. Last year, Uzair Baluch was finally detained in Abu Dhabi, on the basis of an Interpol warrant, and deported to Pakistan. Baluch?s interrogation, Pakistani official sources say, eventually led the ISI to the Indian whose operations in Chahbahar had gone undetected for over a decade. In April 2017, Uzair Baluch gave testimony in a Karachi magistrate?s court, admitting to having been in touch both with Jadhav and Iranian intelligence. His account provides some insight into how the Jadhav story came to an end. Though Jadhav was accused in the Pakistani media of engaging in acts of terrorism, the secret military court in Pakistan that sentenced Jadhav to death tried him only under the Official Secrets Act. The Act allows the imposition of the death sentence on individuals who pass any ?information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy?. Following Jadhav?s kidnapping from Saravan, Pakistani sources said, a decision was taken at the ISI Directorate to link him to acts of terrorism. Notably, however, the first of Jadhav?s confessional videos, released by Pakistan?s military, referred in general terms to acts of terrorism by India but none involving himself. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif?s foreign policy adviser, Sartaj Aziz, told the Pakistani Senate in April 2017 that a dossier prepared by the intelligence services for the government ?did not have any conclusive evidence?. ?What the dossier contained was not enough,? he said. But in a sealed submission to the International Court of Justice, Islamabad named 13 senior Indian officials who it says facilitated Jadhav?s operations. In an earlier letter to the Indian government, Pakistan sought ?assistance in the investigation process and early dispensation of justice??invoking India?s language in requests on the 26/11 and Pathankot cases. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and former RAW chief Alok Joshi, senior government sources said, are among the officials named in both sets of documents?an effort to draw a parallel between the Jadhav case and the involvement of Pakistan?s intelligence services in jehadist strikes on India. ?This is an effort to equate acts like 26/11 with Indian covert action,? said a former intelligence officer. ?The only reason it has traction, though, is because of the opacity around Jadhav?s employment status. If he is indeed a serving naval officer, that means there are some serious problems with the infrastructure for our covert action programme, which need addressing.? Perils ahead In 1948, the United States government created a new Office of Special Projects within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct covert action across the world. The Office?s tasks, according to a National Security Council directive, were activities ?conducted or sponsored by this government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups?. In practice, this meant funding anti-communist forces, including former Fascists, in countries like Italy, and even assassinating leaders whom the U.S. found hostile. There was one key caveat in the directive: covert action had to be ?so planned and executed that any U.S. government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorised persons and that if uncovered the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them?. Evidence on whether Jadhav is still a naval officer or not remains ambiguous. But the questions that have already surfaced give reason to suppose that his interrogators in Pakistan?s ISI have enough material to embarrass India. The foundation of any covert action programme is, after all, plausible deniability. For Indians, this ought to be an occasion for serious reflection on the country?s expanding programme of covert action and the long-term consequences it might have. There has, sadly, been next to no informed political debate on the issue in India, a situation that ought to be of concern to both advocates and critics of covert action. Political consensus, after all, is the bedrock on which countries as diverse as the U.S., the United Kingdom, Israel and Russia have built their covert action programmes. There are precedents for the covert action programme India is now unleashing. Establishment 22, operating under the command of Major General Surjit Singh Uban, carried out a secret war in what is now Bangladesh. Establishment 22 personnel aided Sikkim?s accession to the Union of India; trained Tamil terrorists; and armed rebels operating against the pro-China regime in Myanmar. In the early 1980s, RAW set up two covert groups, Counter Intelligence Team-X and Counter Intelligence Team-J, targeted at Khalistan groups backed by the ISI. Each Khalistan terror attack targeting India?s cities was met with retaliatory attacks in Lahore or Karachi. ?The role of our covert action capability in putting an end to the ISI?s interference in Punjab,? the former RAW officer B. Raman wrote in 2002, ?by making such interference prohibitively costly is little known.? Prime Minister I.K. Gujral ended RAW?s offensive operations against Pakistan, and his predecessor, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, wound up its eastern operations. Ever since 26/11, a welter of senior intelligence figures, including former National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, are known to have argued for an expansion of RAW?s covert offensive capacity to retaliate against the ISI. Inside the intelligence community, RAW?s new offensive operations are reputed to have registered unprecedented success against jehadist groups in Pakistan. The assassination of Lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed?s security boss, Khalid Bashar, in 2013; the penetration of the Jaish-e-Muhammad?s cross-border attack plans; the tit-for-tat arming of Baluch nationalists to retaliate against the ISI?s sponsorship of the Kashmir jehad?these have all been attributed, in Pakistan, to RAW?s new leadership. Nation states, almost without exception, use similar covert means to secure ends they cannot legally or ethically defend in public. Such operations allow for the discreet exercise of power, minimising the risks of war, and allow governments room to manoeuvre free of public pressure. Yet, the scholar Alexandra Perina has noted, ?the very attributes of these tools that are so appealing present corresponding costs; by taking their conduct out of the public realm, states cede their influence in shaping international public opinion about their conduct, with consequences not only for the legitimacy of their actions but for the law itself?. Moreover, covert action can have unintended consequences. The U.S.? backing of Contra insurgents in Nicaragua aided drug traffickers in its own cities, while its arming of anti-Soviet jehadists in Afghanistan led, inexorably, to 9/11. Its use of proxies to destabilise regimes around the world undermined the norms of the global state system, with dangerous consequences. Unanswered question Hence, the Kulbhushan Jadhav case ought to raise questions about whether India?s intelligence bosses are devoting the kind of granular attention that the issue requires to insulate the country from the potential risks. The questions over Jadhav?s passports, the opacity of his business operations and, most important, the lack of transparency about his connection to the Indian Navy, have all made it difficult for the government of India to dissociate itself from his cause?the usual, necessary fate of the spy. It is also not clear why, if he is indeed a spy, he was not withdrawn after Uzair Baluch?s arrest, an elementary precaution. Perhaps more importantly, there ought to be a serious political debate cutting across party lines on the possible consequences of covert action. In this case, Pakistani prosecutors may have little to tie Jadhav to actual acts of violence. But lapses, if left unaddressed, could cause significant damage. Global reaction to a future 26/11, after all, might be different were it ever to be demonstrated that India had links to similar acts of terror. Knowledge of the truth about the Jadhav case, as it emerges, will do little to alter his fate. In a May 18 judgment asking Pakistan not to proceed with Jadhav?s execution, the International Court of Justice recorded that ?the Vienna Convention does not contain express provisions excluding from its scope persons suspected of espionage or terrorism?. Put simply, Jadhav is entitled under Indian law to the assistance of the Indian government?including legal assistance?irrespective of the nature of his activities in Iran or Pakistan. The International Court of Justice does not, however, conduct criminal trials; nor can it strike down domestic laws. It will, at most, ask Pakistan to try Jadhav again, this time ensuring that he is allowed to access support from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. A local court will assess the evidence Pakistan prosecutors bring before it?and that evidence will include the claim, supported by Jadhav?s confession, that he was a serving naval officer working as a spy. Precedents do exist to resolve situations like this. Gary Powers, the pilot of a CIA espionage flight shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960?and reviled by his colleagues for not committing suicide?was eventually exchanged for the legendary KGB spy Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher. In both New Delhi and Islamabad, there are rumours the two capitals are working on just such a deal?possibly involving former ISI officer Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Zahir Habib, alleged to have been kidnapped by India?or a wider deal, which could see the release of multiple espionage convicts. Both countries have much to gain from a dispassionate conversation on the case?on the norms that ought to govern covert activity of the one against the other, and on the inexorable consequences of the secret war Pakistan has long run. For that, the Kulbhushan Jadhav case needs to be elevated above prime-time ranting and opened up for rational discussion. ======================================== 17. AUTOMATED DIGITAL TOOLS THREATEN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS IN LATIN AMERICA by Emilio Godoy ======================================== (Inter Press Service) Automated programmes, known as "bots", threaten to smear political campaigns, through massive deceitful messages, which can disrupt the democratic game. Credit: Phys.org Automated programmes, known as "bots", threaten to smear political campaigns, through massive deceitful messages, which can disrupt the democratic game. Credit: Phys.org MEXICO CITY, Feb 13 2018 (IPS) - The use of technological tools in political campaigns has become widespread in Latin America, accompanied by practices that raise concern among academics and social organisations, especially in a year with multiple elections throughout the region. The use of automated programmes ? known as ?bots? ? to create profiles in social networks intended to offset critical messages, propaganda, the spread of lies and hate campaigns on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are already the digital daily bread in the region. For Tommaso Gravante, an academic at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Sciences and Humanities at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an emerging concern is detecting fake profiles on social networks using artificial intelligence or machine learning. "The main problem is that regulating a discourse means deciding what is a lie and what is not, and that is a problem. In terms of freedom of expression, anything should be said and the limits should be minimal. Election laws must be updated to face the challenges of on-line campaigns, but I'm not sure whether that's a good idea." -- Catalina Botero ?Clearly, this gives the impression that these technologies impoverish the debate with superficial answers. There is a problem in companies that handle ?big data?, such as Google. They accumulate information, but we do not know how it is managed. Complex algorithms are used. How it is managed is a mystery,? he told IPS. Gravante was one of the five winners in 2017 of the Seventh Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists organised by the International Sociological Association, and is one of the editors of ?Technopolitics in Latin America and the Caribbean?, published in 2017. In 2018, six Latin American countries will hold presidential elections, while others are holding legislative elections or referendums. And technopolitics is part of the electoral landscape in the region. As the July 1 presidential elections in Mexico approach, the use of social networks is already being seen, and the same is expected for Colombia?s elections in May and Brazil?s elections in October. Voters in Costa Rica, Paraguay and Venezuela will also elect new presidents this year. ?The two-way digital technology (anyone speaks-anyone hears) represents a great advantage for freedom of expression, as it not only enhances the possibility of informing but also of getting informed. But it also shows how the problems of society are appearing in the networks,? Colombian expert Catalina Botero told IPS. The problem involves the potential reach of a message on the Internet, which also applies to its possible negative effects, said Botero, the current director of the non-governmental Karisma Foundation, which works for human rights in the digital environment, and a former special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2008-2014). The use of social networks and digital media in political campaigns broke onto the scene in the United States in 2008, at the hands of Democrat Barack Obama (2009-2017), who won the presidential elections in November of that year. Since then, there is a perception that new technologies can determine the tone, and therefore the outcome, of election campaigns. That belief was consolidated even more with the use of big data and data mining in 2016 by current US President Donald Trump, to build electoral models and tailor messages. As a result, political parties across the spectrum have sought advice in these fields, while marketing and digital imaging agencies have added those services to their portfolio. Six out of 10 Latin Americans use a social network, according to a December study carried out for the Spanish newspaper El Pa?s by the consultancy firm Latinobar?metro and the Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, a unit of the Inter-American Development Bank. Map of the 2018 elections in Latin America. Credit: ACE Map of the 2018 elections in Latin America. Credit: ACE Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay are the countries most connected to social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. In 2015, 43 percent of Latin American households had internet access, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica head the list of the most connected households, while Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador are the least connected. As several studies have shown, there are already practices in the region to manipulate information and guide political discourse, as has happened in countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Germany. The 2017 study ?Troops, Trolls and Trouble-Makers: A Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation? detected bots in 28 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela. The report, prepared by two researchers from the Computational Propaganda Research Project (COMPROP) of the University of Oxford Internet Institute in Britain, considers that governments and political parties promote these digital hosts, through official institutions or private providers. Another 2017 analysis, ?Computational Propaganda Worldwide?, also published at Oxford, found that bots and other forms of computer propaganda have been present in Brazil. The study says they were used in the 2014 presidential elections, the 2016 impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), and the municipal elections in Rio de Janeiro the same year. ?Highly automated accounts support and attack political figures, debate issues such as corruption and encourage protest movements,? says the report. In Mexico, another report identified in 2016 the presence of bots in 2014 to block criticism of the government of conservative President Enrique Pe?a Nieto, in power since 2012. ?They want to create trends, but nobody knows how people can appropriate that discourse, although it can be stimulated with some provocations. The only antidote against this is to take to the streets, as a response to these manifestations, get organised neighborhood by neighborhood. The learning process is linked to social needs,? said Gravante. In this respect, the expert argued that social conflicts enhance ?empowerment processes?, in which ?there has been impressive progress?In that sense, I am techno-optimistic,? he said. The 2016 US elections won by Trump offer a preview of what is taking shape in Latin America. In September 2017, Facebook said it found some 80,000 publications on controversial issues in the U.S. elections, created by Russian-linked agents, which reached more than 126 million people in the United States from June 2015 to May 2017. Twitter, meanwhile, identified more than 50,000 Twitter accounts linked to Russia, which spread false information during the 2016 presidential elections in the United States. For Botero, it is worrying how citizens can be involved in political processes that use digital media and the emergence of manipulation through networks, which can determine election results and, ultimately, impoverish democracy. ?WhatsApp chains are impacting the way people are informed and viralizing a lot of information that could be labeled as ?fake news?. Their impact has not been measured,? she said. The use of social networks is not regulated in the region, although most governments monitor their use, and in countries such as Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico the electoral authority reviews on-line advertising and propaganda. ?The main problem is that regulating a discourse means deciding what is a lie and what is not, and that is a problem. In terms of freedom of expression, anything should be said and the limits should be minimal. Election laws must be updated to face the challenges of on-line campaigns, but I?m not sure whether that?s a good idea,? said Botero. ======================================== 18. IN RUSSIA, A GRASS-ROOTS BID TO EXPOSE STALIN'S 'GREAT TERROR' | Fred Weir ======================================== (Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 2018) The nascent movement mirrors efforts in many countries - Japan, Germany, Rwanda, and the United States, to name a few - to confront elements of a dark past. VORONEZH, Russia-Just about every former Soviet city has a place outside town, usually a forest or piece of scrubland, where Joseph Stalin's secret police brought thousands of executed "enemies of the people" and dumped them into mass graves, especially during the nightmare years of the Great Terror of 1936-38. Here in Voronezh, a central Russian city of about 1 million people, that place is known as Dubovka. It's a forlorn stretch of sparse oak forest that even today can be reached only by a long hike along unmarked paths. For decades the subject of rumors and frightened whispers, Dubovka was recently designated an official "memorial zone." Mostly youthful volunteers have been excavating the pits each summer, removing and reburying the remains of at least 10,000 local victims that are thought to have been interred here. What they find are the remains of men, women, and even children, often with their hands still tied behind their backs, whose tattered documents, buried with the bodies, show they came from all walks of life. Researchers say many had a swift and perfunctory trial, if they had one at all. Most were charged with fantastical crimes, such as operating under the direction of German or Japanese intelligence. They were accused of committing acts of sabotage, motivated by loyalty to Stalin's personal enemies, such as Leon Trotsky. "I hope the time has come for people to face this monstrous reality, but it is not happening," says Lena Dudukina, a local poet and volunteer with the human rights group Memorial. She wants to start a website similar to one set up by activists in the western Russian region of Karelia to document all that is known about the mass slaughter and, perhaps, inspire others around the country to begin their own investigations. "Something has to be done so that when the public and the government do decide to face these issues squarely, enough facts have been collected to assist that process," she says. "The worst thing would be if it all slips back into the realm of mythology, and no justice is ever realized." In one sense, the nascent movement here mirrors enduring grass-roots efforts in many countries around the world to confront elements of a dark past. In Japan, officials are being forced to deal with the atrocities committed against South Korean "comfort women" during World War II. In the United States, the legacy of slavery continues to haunt many states and institutions. (Click here for related story.) Germany's moral reckoning with the Holocaust is ever present, and countries from Indonesia to Cambodia to Rwanda have had to deal with past genocides. The nations that do confront past atro?cities do so in their own ways and at their own pace. Some hold very public truth and reconciliation hearings. Some erect monuments. Others deal with it more quietly, through schoolbooks and social discussions. Russia's response has been more muted than that of other countries in similar situations. Eight decades later, the crimes of Stalin have yet to be fully recognized, much less documented. There is no closure for millions of descendants whose grandparents disappeared, and no consensus - or even much debate - among Russian historians about what happened and why. The slaughter and incarceration of millions remain shrouded in myth, even though former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the repressions in a secret speech in 1956 and attempted to "de-Stalinize" the Soviet system before he was overthrown. His successors, seeing the whole discussion as a threat to Soviet legitimacy, quelled the talk altogether. During Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to reform Communism in the late 1980s, a flood of revelations about Stalinist repressions in the media, and wrenching memoirs of surviving victims, did contribute greatly to public loss of faith and the subsequent peaceful collapse of the USSR. To this day, no one has a clear estimate of how many Soviet people fell victim to the massive waves of political purges that rocked the Stalin era, tearing families and whole communities apart, and leaving scars that have not healed. "Between August 1937 and November 1938, about 1-1/2 million people [in the USSR] were arrested and perhaps 700,000 of them were shot," says Nikita Petrov, one of Russia's leading historians on the secret services and an expert with the Memorial society. "It was a really terrible time in our history." During the entire period from the early 1920s to Stalin's death in 1953, he estimates, about 12 million people were either killed, sent to labor camps, or otherwise suffered directly from repressions. "We would like very much if our state would provide official figures, perhaps in the form of an apology, but the Russian state doesn't seem at all interested in doing that on any level," he says. "They say: 'Leave it to the historians.' But how can we do our jobs when the archives are still mostly closed, even to specialists?" One of the few surviving victims of the Great Terror is Valery Chekmaryov. His father was one of a group of 23 railroad workers accused of treason and shot in 1937. As the family of a convicted "enemy of the people," young Chekmaryov and his mother were arrested shortly thereafter, evicted from their apartment, and trundled off to a labor camp in the Volga region of Mordovia. Chekmaryov spent nearly a year in the gulag before being taken to Voronezh to live with his grandmother while his mother was still being held. "The fate of my family was typical for those designated as enemies of the people," says Chekmaryov, who has spent his life trying to document what happened to his parents. His mother returned from the gulag in 1946 and, following Stalin's death, managed to get herself and her husband "rehabilitated" - which is Soviet-speak for having one's rights as a citizen restored and their convictions expunged from the record. Chekmaryov himself was only rehabilitated by a Soviet court in 1989. Still, he managed to live a productive life in the Soviet Union, becoming a railroad engineer like his father. But it's only in recent years that he's managed to gain access to some of the documents in his father's case. For instance, he has a court paper, stamped as a "true copy" by today's FSB security service, that says his father's group was convicted after a 20-minute trial of being "a Trotskyist spy and sabotage unit acting under the direction of Japanese intelligence." "I have been studying this for many years, and I still have no idea how all [the state purging] was organized," says Vyacheslav Bitytsky, head of the Voronezh chapter of Memorial - which has, ironically, been declared a "foreign agent" by the Kremlin because it receives international funding. In addition to trying to document the extent of the Stalin-era mass terror, the group works to legally exonerate victims and introduce educational programs in local schools that could help lift the fog that still surrounds this horrific chapter of history. "They didn't just seize people in the streets. They opened cases, investigated, held trials, and hence there must be documents," says Mr. Bitytsky. "Yet it becomes harder and harder to get access to the archives, unless you were a victim or a direct descendant. People like Chekmaryov are the last ones who will be given any access at all. He's over 80 now, and most of the others are long gone." For years, Chekmaryov did his research largely in anonymity. No one was particularly interested in his efforts to dig up details of his family's past, nor his push to get the country to confront this dark era. But that began to change about five years ago. Now he sits on a committee in Voronezh that prepares events each year to mark a national day to "commemorate victims of political repressions." He is also a regular guest at solemn ceremonies authorities organize at the Dubovka gravesite, and is often consulted on issues about Stalin-era crimes by local and regional officials. "Once a year, at least, this issue gets quite a lot of coverage in our local media. The governor and others organize and attend events to honor the victims of repressions," says Chekmaryov. Sitting in a hotel room in Voronezh, he comes off as someone who has spent a lifetime battling the system - passionate, engaged, committed. "That is something quite new in Russian life, and it's a symbol of the attitude of our authorities," he goes on. "On the other hand, the continuing difficulty of getting access to documents, to fully research what happened, is another mark of their attitude." What Chekmaryov has been able to find out, he's written in a book, which he published himself. At this point, he doubts he will unearth any new information. "You can't call it closure," he says. "But it's something." Voronezh is a cultural and industrial hub in southwestern Russia that sits astride a broad river. It was the city where Peter the Great built his first great naval fleet and, more recently, was almost completely destroyed in back-and-forth sieges between the Germans and Russians in World War II. Voronezh lies in a more liberal part of Russia, and local authorities, unlike those in many other cities and regions, have been cooperating with efforts spearheaded by the local chapter of Memorial. But even here it's an uphill slog for activists. They perceive that officials are deeply ambivalent about an issue that remains explosively controversial, and are therefore unwilling to let the social conversation move much beyond commemorating victims and expressing shock at the tragedy that struck here 80 years ago. Besides sponsoring the annual commemoration day, local authorities have assisted in the publication of a "Book of Memory" that lists thousands of area people who were executed or sent to gulag labor camps. RIA-Voronezh, a state-funded regional news agency, has run a series describing the stories of local people who suffered death and imprisonment during those terrible days. But that's about as far as it goes. Alexander Akinshin, a history professor at Voronezh State University, and one of the authors of the Book of Memory, says there are two institutes of higher learning in Voronezh with modern history departments, but not a single course is taught about those terrible events of the 1930s. Historians do write about it, but usually their work, like his own, focuses on individual cases rather than trying to analyze the era. "To investigate those events properly, to examine the whys and wherefores, you would need access to a lot of documents that are absolutely unavailable today," he says. He can't name a single book by any contemporary Russian historian that tackles the broad themes of purges and gulags, though there are plenty by Western authors. "Perhaps not enough time has passed," he speculates. "Public interest is not there. People these days are too concerned with their private lives, personal problems, and there is no pressure from below for change." Those boundaries have undoubtedly been set by the Kremlin. On one hand, Vladimir Putin has gone much further than any previous Soviet or Russian leader in acknowledging the massive tragedy that befell millions of Soviets, and admitting that it was wrong. On the other hand, President Putin is striving to knit together a narrative of Russian history that promotes national unity, and Stalin needs to be integrated into that story as an effective leader who oversaw industrialization and a victory over Nazi Germany, and left the USSR a mighty superpower on the world stage when he died. "What we see in the official narrative is that victory over enemies takes precedence over the 'mistakes' that were made. It doesn't deny the repressions - as [the government] did in Soviet times - it accepts that they happened but offers a very vague moral verdict," says Anastasia Nikitina, a former history teacher who is now an education consultant for a local coalition of nongovernmental organizations called Human Rights House. She works with local schools and teachers, with the aim of raising consciousness about fascism and Stalinism. Ms. Nikitina says students generally know that many people were killed during this period but few teachers are interested in discussing the atrocities in any depth. "There is a strange imbalance in the way this history is taught," she says. "Young people are officially encouraged to speak about their grandparents who died fighting against Nazis in the war. Whole classes are devoted to showing pictures, recounting their experiences, keeping their memories alive. But no one is encouraged to speak about ancestors who perished in the repressions. It's an awkward, silence-inducing subject." Nikitina takes some solace in knowing that young people today seem more willing to discuss such topics. While the interests of the state tend to reign supreme in Russian political culture, she says that young people today believe their opinions matter. Still, she believes the country has a long way to go in addressing the atrocities of the past. In her view, Russia needs to not just recognize the victims of the Stalin era, but the crimes that took place as well. "People want justice, and that only happens when the criminals are named and the crimes are punished," she says. "We are very far from having any kind of discussion about that." Last Oct. 30, the official day commemorating "victims of political repression," Putin inaugurated a major monument to thousands of faceless victims of Stalinist terror called the "Wall of Sorrow" in central Moscow. It is a 100-foot-long bronze wall featuring a multitude of faceless figures intended to represent the victims of repression and persecution. The wall is curved like a scythe and contains stone fragments from gulags across the country. "An unequivocal and clear assessment of the repression will help to prevent it being repeated," Putin said at the unveiling on a damp night. "This terrible past must not be erased from our national memory and cannot be justified by anything." Yet in his recent interview with US filmmaker Oliver Stone, Putin slammed critics for "excessive demonization" of Stalin and argued that focusing on the former dictator's crimes against humanity "is one means of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia." That illustrates the fine line the Kremlin is attempting to walk over how to deal with the massive crimes of the Stalin era, which did more to delegitimize the USSR than any other issue and cannot be comfortably woven into any conceivable narrative of Russian history that purports to stress continuity, national unity, and rightness of purpose. One key problem for Putin is that Russia sees itself as the inheritor state of the Soviet Union, and many of its current institutions proudly trace their roots back to Soviet predecessors. Foremost among these is the FSB security service, which recently celebrated 100 years since the founding of the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police organization. To mark that occasion the current FSB director, Alexander Bortnikov, gave a defiant interview to the press arguing that accusations against Stalin's secret police are greatly overstated. The USSR faced all kinds of threats from devious external enemies, as does Russia today, and the Motherland had to be protected even if the methods were sometimes harsh. "The enemy either tried to defeat us in open combat or by using traitors inside our country to sow discord, divide the nation, and paralyze the ability of the government to effectively respond to threats," he said. "The destruction of Russia is still an obsession for many. Although many associate this period [1936-38] with the mass fabrication of charges, archive materials show a significant number of criminal cases were based on factual evidence." Public opinion polls show that Russians themselves are increasingly inclined to see Stalin as an effective leader and play down the mass crimes that he oversaw. A tracking poll by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found the number of respondents who regarded the Great Terror as a "matter of political necessity that history will absolve" grew from 9 percent to 25 percent between 2007 and 2017. Those who viewed the purges as a "political crime that cannot be justified" fell from 72 percent to 39 percent over the same period. "It's not just that the public is mostly indifferent to these issues; it's that even people who know all about it are conflicted," says Svetlana Tarasova, author of a series of articles about the Great Terror for the RIA-Voronezh news agency. "I talk with people who went through terrible things, who were real victims, and yet they still are unsure what to think about Stalin. Even if they suffered through agonizing personal tragedy, somehow they still find it possible to justify him." Follow Stories Like This Chekmaryov, the gulag survivor, hears the same things - and it haunts him. The only way to cleanse a nation's soul and prevent the horrors of history from being repeated, many believe, is to have a full and forthright reckoning with the past. "These days the thing that just astounds me is when I hear that somewhere in Russia, someone is talking about putting up a monument to Stalin," he says. "I wonder, have they learned anything from history?" ======================================== 19. REVIEW: DAFNOS ON CAMUS AND LEBOURG, 'FAR-RIGHT POLITICS IN EUROPE' ======================================== Jean-Yves Camus, Nicolas Lebourg. Far-Right Politics in Europe. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2017. 310 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-97153-0. Reviewed by Andreas Dafnos (University of Sheffield) Published on H-Nationalism (February, 2018) Commissioned by Caner Tekin The Far Right and the influence it exerts on both domestic and international political systems have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Although there exists an abundance of scholarly work on the ebbs and flows of this diverse phenomenon, Far-Right Politics in Europe by Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg is a useful addition to the existing literature due to its meticulous investigation of the numerous Far Right factions that have been developed over time and across space. With a predominant focus on the European continent, the book defies easy explanations and can, more generally, be approached as an answer to the voices that indiscriminately tend to treat the Far Right as a single and unified entity. The introductory chapter, titled ?How the Far Right Came into Being,? covers a large part of the book. This comes as no surprise however, as a fundamental premise of the book is that the modern Far Right can be better understood if viewed through a historical lens. Therefore, Camus and Lebourg position the unit of their analysis in French history and specifically in the workings of the Constituent Assembly at the end of the eighteenth century. They trace the origins of Far Right thought, which was at the time portrayed as a plea for the restoration of the ancien r?gime by counterrevolution advocates. The chapter invites the reader to delve into the social processes that influenced the trajectory of the Far Right since that moment, showing how ?the first globalization? of Europe allowed ideas and people to disseminate across geographic territories (p. 7). A recurring theme refers to this constant exchange of ideas and the tendency of the Far Right to adopt beliefs that may even belong to different political leanings along its own ideological lines. Another interesting observation is the realization that some of the dominant traits of the Far Right today cannot be considered idiosyncrasies of our era; in fact, national populism is shown to have been part of the French system for the last 130 years. Camus and Lebourg convincingly argue that the developments of the Far Right in terms of its ideological and organizational synthesis cannot be explained if context and time are omitted from analysis. Chapter 1 turns its attention to the period after the Second World War, providing a detailed overview of the difficulties faced particularly by those groups that were closer to Fascism and Nazism. The Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) is mentioned here, and this is important because academic work has often attributed the transformation of several like-minded groups to the catalytic role MSI has played. But what stands out in this chapter is the effort of the Far Right to build networks beyond national borders, since ?immediately after the collapse of the Axis powers, Fascist militants saw a united Europe as the justification for their previous positions? (p. 64). Camus and Lebourg illustrate, for example, how these attempts led to the New European Order (NEO), an organization that decided to divert from Nazism and to adopt a discourse for the defense of neo-racism, marking a critical moment for the history of the Far Right as ?that discourse would have many incarnations and transmutations? (p. 74). Another movement with the same purpose of establishing European presence is Jeune Europe (JE), which is also discussed at length due to its innovative nature. The chapter concludes with an important observation that ?despite the desire of Fascist movements, a supranational and social reorientation has not really taken hold. Their efforts have not been fruitless, however, because, their innovations were useful to both populist and neorightist factions? (p. 96). The next chapter deals with the role of white power and the role of race as driving forces for the actions of some Far Right groups. Here the discussion revolves around neo-Nazi groups that are ?more cultural than political in nature? (p. 101), placing emphasis on the skinhead movement. It is interesting to see how this type of movement developed across Europe, in a period of time that the ?proletariat was deconstructing? (p. 104). The authors explain that, among others, indoctrination through music and participation in violent practices are key characteristics of a Far Right skinhead, and then proceed to a more eloquent exploration of how violence is articulated through the activities of neo-Nazi groups. This section shows the extent of influence that the American Far Right had on its European counterparts. As one would expect at this point, there are references to the lone wolf strategy, which ?should not be confused (as it often is) with the question of self-radicalization? (p. 110), and The Turner Diaries (1978), an influential book that is based on the principle of the struggle for race. Once more the narration of the authors is strengthened by the use of various case studies, helping the reader engage with the material of this section. Much has been written in the academic literature about the impact that the New Right had on ideological aspects of the modern Far Right, mainly as this was expressed through the idea of ethnopluralism that ?every individual is attached to an ethnocultural group that would protect its identity by avoiding racial mixing? (p. 130). In chapter 3, the reader has the opportunity to engage with an important moment in the history of the Far Right. Camus and Lebourg exemplify that the New Right or Nouvelle Droite (as is often mentioned) is an amalgamation of intellectual groups and personalities that cannot, however, be assumed uniform. A key figure is GRECE (Groupe de Recherches et d'?tudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne), which occupies a central place in this chapter. It is also interesting to see that the reason why the New Right emerged was ?the organizational failure to build a European nationalist party in France? (p. 127). Once more the interplay between groups is evident as well as the influence of historic events (for example, May 1968) on the development of the Far Right. The ability of the authors to attain accuracy is outstanding, and this is evident, for example, in their narration on neopaganism and the New Right or the impact of Julius Evola?s theories. Chapter 4 dissects the relationship between religious fundamentalism and the Far Right, beginning with the intriguing observation that faith should not be associated with extremism, since it embraces the qualities of ?freedom of conscience,? the antithesis to dogmatism, and takes an ?interest in individual rights? (p. 152). However, the authors show how ideological stances can be fused into paths of multiple interpretations, signifying in this way the complexity of reality. This might explain, for instance, why compared to Catholics more Protestants vote for a Far Right party. Camus and Lebourg also define terms that seem to be conflated (see, for instance, on page 159 the differences between integrists and traditionalists), while a large section looks into the association between integrism and the National Front. Even the issue of the Jewish Far Right is raised and addressed toward the last pages, describing its true dimensions. On the other hand, scholars keen on learning more about populism will find chapter 5 interesting, where the term is analyzed in depth. The chapter shows how populist questions came to the forefront and dominated the political debate. Indicative of this is the speech of Enoch Powell in 1968, which assigned blame to nonwhite immigrants and asked for their repatriation. The latter combined with the impact of the New Right thinking, as discussed previously, helps the reader understand that the evolution of the Far Right is the result of multiple factors. The chapter also offers a compelling account of successful and failed cases, showing that populism is no panacea for success, and that political groups may face insurmountable obstacles and challenges when they put the populist model into practice. Particular emphasis has been finally placed on the so-called neopulist shift that was determined by ?the geopolitical crisis subsequent to September 11, 2001, and the socioeconomic recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis? (p. 196). The description of the Dutch case reveals how this shift can materialize. The last chapter investigates the Far Right in Eastern European countries. Although it is debatable within academia to what extent the Eastern European Far Right can be compared to its Western counterparts, Camus and Lebourg make clear at the outset that ?the eastern part of the continent must not be understood in terms of Western assumptions? (p. 210). What the authors find particularly interesting is the fact that some of the prewar ideologies did not lose their significance during the Communist era and appeared again after the collapse of the regimes. The chapter also familiarizes the reader with the ideas of one of the most important figures of Russian neo-nationalism, Aleksandr Dugin, and his concept of neo-Eurasianism, which ?reconciles the two theoretical elements of George Sorel?s thought: myth and utopia? (p. 227). What is more, the analytical prism under which numerous countries (for example, Russia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria, to name a few) are being approached sheds light not only on the peculiarities of Eastern European Far Right groups but also on the composition of their base of support. Finally, despite the fact that one could raise objections about the labels that have been used (for example, radical Far Right and national populism) or feel that some points are being obscured by the detailed description of events, this book is essential reading for those aspiring to understand the Far Right. In essence, readers have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with Far Right groups that encompass varying degrees of radicalism, and to look into their differences, overlaps, influences, and evolution up to the present time. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Feb 20 06:18:02 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2018 15:18:02 +0400 Subject: SACW - 20 Feb 2018 | Asma Jahangir (1952-2018) / Bhuwansehwar Declaration 10th PIPFPD / India: Control over women; crony capitalists; CPI(M) / Sri Lanka: Local Govt Elections / Sarajevo not to honour Orhan Pamuk / Rewriting History in Eastern Europe Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 20 February 2018 - No. 2970 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Bhubaneswar Declaration From 10th National Convention of Pakistan-India Peoples? Forum for Peace and Democracy 2. Sri Lanka: Northern Elections and Tamil Politics | Ahilan Kadirgamar 3. Remembering Asma Jahangir (1952-2018) 4. India: CPI(M) has proved to be a ?useful idiot? for BJP | Aniket Alam / Comrade Karat and the poverty of philosophy | Antara Dev Sen 5. India: Tributes to Dhrubajyoti Ghosh (1947-2018) 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Amid tensions with BJP and a row within, Hindu Yuva Vahini grows in UP - In 2019, Disenchantment with the BJP May Not be Limited to Gujarat | Dolly Daftary - India: Muslims today | A.G. Noorani - India: Vallabhbhai Patel - A legacy appropriated and distorted | Neha Dabhade - Excerpt: Neyaz Farooquee?s memoir examines what it?s like to be a Muslim in India - "Cow vigilantism" in India | The Economist - India: RSS Chief Bhagwat's claim on militarisation was no slip of tongue - Religion was always recognised in India?s public sphere ? but, unlike now, in the plural | Christophe Jaffrelot ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Bangladesh: Khaleda Zia full verdict in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case - news reports 8. Asma embodied the left's crisis | Jawed Naqvi 9. Asma Jahangir - Little Big Woman | Najam Sethi 10. India: A Line Of Control For Women | Pragya Singh 11. India: Too many corpses: A miasma of menace swirls around the Loya controversy | Manini Chatterjee 12. India: Richard Sennett on Delhi's Grey Market 13. India?s crony capitalists continue to laugh their way to the bank | Maheshwar Peri 14. Heather Streets-Salter. Review of Ghosh, Durba, Gentlemanly Terrorists Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919?1947 15: What Happens When War Is Outlawed | Louis Menand 16. Sarajevo decides against honouring Turkish author Orhan Pamuk with honorary citizenship | AFP Sarajevo 17. Antony Beevor: why did Ukraine ban my book? 18. Russia's ban on 'The Death of Stalin' is unprecedented since fall of Soviet Union | Oliver Carroll 19. Rewriting History in Eastern Europe: Poland's New Holocaust Law and the Politics of the Past | Volha Charnysh and Evgeny Finkel 20. Review: Dafnos on Camus and Lebourg, 'Far-Right Politics in Europe' ======================================== 1. TEXT OF BHUBANESWAR DECLARATION - THE TENTH NATIONAL CONVENTION OF PAKISTAN-INDIA PEOPLES? FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY ======================================== We, the delegates to the 10th National Convention of the PIPFPD, held at Bhubaneswar on February 10-11, 2018 under the overhang of the rapidly deteriorating relationship between Pakistan and India, renewed our commitment to the joint struggle for peace and democracy in the two countries. http://www.sacw.net/article13643.html ======================================== 2. SRI LANKA: NORTHERN ELECTIONS AND TAMIL POLITICS by Ahilan Kadirgamar ======================================== The Local Government elections have sent tremors through the body politic of Sri Lanka, and the fall out of the shaken Coalition Government is yet to unfold. With the muscular re-emergence of Rajapaksa populism, nationalist political strategies are again gaining centre stage. http://www.sacw.net/article13649.html ======================================== 3. REMEMBERING ASMA JAHANGIR ======================================== - Pakistan: My friend Asma | I A Rehman - The five-foot giant | Irfan Husain - The Importance of Being Asma | Mohammed Hanif - Video: Religious Intolerance and its Impact on Democracy - Asma Jahangir & Response by Amartya Sen | Jan 2017 - Book Announcement: Asma - An Icon of Rights and Resistance - A Tribute to Asma Jahangir SEE: http://www.sacw.net/rubrique37.html http://www.sacw.net/article13636.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: CPI(M) HAS PROVED TO BE A ?USEFUL IDIOT? FOR BJP | Aniket Alam / COMRADE KARAT AND THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY | Antara Dev Sen ======================================== By foreclosing any possibility of a united electoral challenge to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the communist party only strengthens Hindutva communalism. http://www.sacw.net/article13646.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: TRIBUTES TO DHRUBAJYOTI GHOSH (1947-2018) ======================================== Dhrubajyoti Ghosh the engineer, environmentalist and public intellectual passed away on 16 February 2016, he fought for Kolkata?s endangered wetlands and his work was widely recognised and he was a UN Global 500 laureate. Four tributes to him are posted below. http://www.sacw.net/article13651.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Amid tensions with BJP and a row within, Hindu Yuva Vahini grows in UP - In 2019, Disenchantment with the BJP May Not be Limited to Gujarat | Dolly Daftary - India: Muslims today | A.G. Noorani - India: Vallabhbhai Patel - A legacy appropriated and distorted | Neha Dabhade - Excerpt: Neyaz Farooquee?s memoir examines what it?s like to be a Muslim in India - "Cow vigilantism" in India | The Economist - India: RSS Chief Bhagwat's claim on militarisation was no slip of tongue - Religion was always recognised in India?s public sphere ? but, unlike now, in the plural | Christophe Jaffrelot -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BANGLADESH: KHALEDA ZIA FULL VERDICT IN ZIA ORPHANAGE TRUST GRAFT CASE - NEWS REPORTS ======================================== Dhaka Tribune February 20, 2018 Khaleda full verdict: Life sentence spared for age, social status by Ashif Islam Shaon Md Sanaul Islam Tipu 'Of the accused, Khaleda Zia had discharged duties as the country's prime minister. She was also the opposition chief in parliament, and has been the chief of a political party. She is an elderly woman' The special court which dealt with the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case refrained from awarding the highest punishment of life-term imprisonment to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and five others after considering three factors. Special Judges? Court-5 of Dhaka, which sentenced Khaleda Zia to five years and the others to ten years rigorous imprisonment this month, said it considered the offenders? age, social status and the amount of misappropriated money in awarding the lighter punishments. The court in its full judgment, which was published on Monday, said the accused are entitled to punishment under section 409/109, as the charges against them were proven beyond doubt. Under section 409, punishment for the charge of criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant or agent is imprisonment for life, or either rigorous or simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years along with a fine. ?The defendants committed economic offenses in collaboration with each other. That is why they should be awarded exemplary punishment,? the court said. However, it added that it would not be proper to award life-term imprisonment to the accused due to three factors. ?Of the accused, Khaleda Zia had discharged duties as the country?s prime minister. She was also the opposition chief in parliament, and has been the chief of a political party. She is an elderly woman,? the court said to justify the five year prison sentence. It added that age and social status were also considered when sentencing BNP Senior Vice-President Tarique Rahman, former lawmaker Kazi Salimul Haque Kamal, businessman Sharfuddin Ahmed, Dr Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, and Khaleda Zia?s nephew Mominur Rahman to ten years imprisonment. The court also said that section 409 did not specify whether the offenders should be sentenced to simple or rigorous imprisonment, and hence rigorous imprisonment was determined after interpretation of the law. The court also asked the accused to pay a fine of Tk 21,071,643 to the government treasury within 60 days of the full text of the verdict having been published, as this was the amount which was misappropriated by them. The court issued the certified copy of the verdict on Monday, while the sentences in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case were delivered on February 8. o o Dhaka Tribune, February 20, 2018 Khaleda full verdict: There was no Zia Trust when the grant came Ashif Islam Shaon Md Sanaul Islam Tipu Khaleda was sentenced to five years imprisonment, with the rest receiving 10 years of incarceration and fined Tk2.10 crore each by a special court on February 8 this year The Zia Orphanage Trust was actually created for the very purpose of misappropriation, with money meant for orphans being used for alternative purposes, a Dhaka court said in its verdict in a corruption case against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia. There was nothing called ?Zia Orphanage Trust? in 1991 when a grant of $1.255 million came from the United Saudi Commercial Bank for orphans in Bangladesh, the court said, according to the full text of the verdict released on Monday. The orphanage trust, which only existed on paper, was created in 1993 with the money having been kept idle in a bank till then. The court, which sentenced Khaleda to jail for corruption on February 8, said when BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia was prime minister between 1991 and 1996; she set up a fund by the name of Prime Minister?s Orphanage Fund. When money equivalent to TK 4,44,81,216 came to the PM?s fund, it was kept in a bank account. From 1991 to 1993 the money was kept idle. In 1993 as the Zia Orphanage Trust was created and the money was divided in two parts ? with only one part of TK 2,33,33,500 going to that trust, the court continued. Keeping public money idle for two years in the PM?s fund is a crime, the verdict said. Moreover, half of the money was transferred to the Zia Orphanage Trust, but it has not been spent on the wellbeing of orphans till date; with only 2.79 acres of land being bought, the text added. Terming the money meant for orphans public money, the judgement said that holding public money for an indefinite period without spending is also punishable under Section 409 of penal code. The court found that the trust was created as a premeditated measure in order to misappropriate the allocated funds, with all of the accused involved in the crime. On July 3, 2008, the Anti-Corruption Commission lodged a graft case with the Ramna police station against six members of the BNP including Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia for embezzling Tk2.10 crore meant for orphans. The five others accused are Khaleda?s son and BNP Senior Vice-President Tarique Rahman, her nephew Mominur Rahman, former MP Kazi Salimul Haque Kamal, businessman Sharfuddin Ahmed, and Dr Kamal Uddin Siddiqui. Khaleda was sentenced to five years imprisonment, with the rest receiving 10 years of incarceration and fined Tk2.10 crore each by a special court on February 8 this year. ======================================== 8. ASMA EMBODIED THE LEFT'S CRISIS | Jawed Naqvi ======================================== Dawn, February 20, 2018 SOME individuals are instantly mesmeric. Asma Jahangir was one such though she also embodied a chronic crisis afflicting the left: a great cause, a greater legacy but with no movement on the ground to sustain and build on her work. Yes she was a fiery rebel and a deeply caring comrade, an outstanding lawyer and a raconteur with impish humour. She hugged the dispossessed with spontaneous empathy. She fought relentlessly against a variety of usurpers of democracy, mullahs and generals being her staple quarries. She also dreamt of uniting the people of South Asia into a comity of mutually caring nations where perennial, manmade inequalities could be terminated to everyone?s advantage, where gender and sexual rights would be accorded primacy with other elusive rights that people have been struggling to gain since time immemorial. She was against war always. She was a votary of peace at all times. In a nutshell, given the adverse times she lived in, Asma Jahangir was a perpetual risk to herself while being an answer to the prayers of her dazzled admirers. This anomalous equation in some ways depicted her quandary in fighting unending injustices and metastasising chaos. Asma Jahangir was a towering hero without a movement to support, a living proof that individual charisma alone could neither drive social change nor effect political upheavals. The compounded reality check is there for all to see. Asma?s admirers are legion, but they stand outnumbered (and outgunned) by their detractors. People turned out at her funeral in massive numbers, and they constitute the cream of Pakistan?s freedom-loving multitude, which is a blessing. But let?s not be too self-congratulatory, and maybe admit openly that as effusive funerals go the right wing she fought with sleeves rolled up maintains a clear edge manifold over the liberal echelons. This is not how it used to be, only how it has become. Could Asma?s team of selfless advocates compare head to head with the lawyers that turned out, say, to cheer and greet the right-wing zealot of an icon called Mumtaz Qadri? Likewise, across the border in India, Prashant Bhu?shan and Vrinda Grover are among the brave law?yers fighting for precisely the causes that Asma stood for. Yet, like her, they too stand outnumbered by the lurch to the right. It is difficult to say who is faring better against similar odds stacked on both sides, but the reasons for their plight appear to be the same. Sitting in Delhi, the view across the border looks eerily familiar. In her fight against the patriarchal mullahs and the military simultaneously, Asma was forced (for tactical reasons if not worse) to defend one of the two desperate choices on offer. The PPP had on its hands the bloody plight of the Ahmadis, whereas the PML-N has been tethered to an obscurantist mass base, with a leader who modelled himself as amirul momineen, a sobriquet stolen from the mediaeval Afghan Taliban. In India, the picture looks similarly dismal. Gone are the days when a Majrooh Sultanpuri would pen a song in Mumbai that would become the battle cry against the martial law of Gen Ayub. The collapse and the dissipation of the left movement in Pakistan ended an era of hope for their comrades in India too. Still, when Z.A. Bhutto was to be hanged, there was an Indira Gandhi, backed by the leftists in India who urged Gen Zia to spare his life. That was something prime minister Morarji Desai had refused to do. (For which Zia rewarded him with Nishan-i-Pakistan.) Things had only worsened for both countries by the time Asma Jahangir took the stage. In recent days, when the right-wing Indian government claimed to have carried out a military raid across the LoC, there was not a voice from any section of the political spectrum to speak up against poking a nuclear-armed neighbour in the eye. They mocked and teased Prime Minister Modi instead for allegedly exaggerating the claim of hot pursuit. There was a time when the Indian left, if no one else, would take a clear stand against such actions, even if these occasions were few and far between. Today, that considered counsel seems to have given way to tinctured nationalism even among the comrades. Often, the left?s position on Pakistan is difficult to distinguish from the nationalist MPs in the parliament?s two houses. I wonder how Asma Jahangir took it. The result is that on the one hand there is a government that whips up anti-Pakistan hysteria at will ? and there are sinister rumours about more worrisome action on the borders before the 2019 polls. On the other, there is the familiar Congress response to jingoism, one of being unabashedly diffident about questioning the nation?s militarist chorus. The love of the army may be on the wane in Pakistan, but it has risen rapidly in India. To Pakistan?s credit, with persistent nudging from Asma Jahangir and her followers, both the main parties have very nearly abandoned their stance of anti-India posturing. In India, despite overt camaraderie with Asma and lip service to her cause, the left has been remiss in confronting jingoism. As for the leader of the main opposition party, he is not averse to gloating about how his grandmother broke Pakistan into two. (Though the claim has never got his party a single extra vote.) Asma Jahangir stood for universal nuclear disarmament as one of her leading causes, but just around the time she died, the nuclear Doomsday Clock had moved closer to an alarming two minutes to midnight. The notional global clock packages an entire range of risks that life on earth faces, including environmental depredations and an instinct for mass suicide underscored by cavalier nuclear-armed nations. Though the current threat to human life derives from the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, other serious challenges complete the picture. These include the ever cocked-up Middle East trigger and the never-ending India-Pakistan stand-off that threatens to spiral out of control any day. Asma?s mourners must pick up the cudgels and resume the fight as the best tribute to her. But they also need to introspect whether her legacy can be sustained without funnelling their energies into a movement she would be proud of. ======================================== 9. LITTLE BIG WOMAN | Najam Sethi ======================================== The Friday Times Issue: 16 Feb 2018 Asma Jahangir is dead. But she will live forever in our hearts and minds. Asma fought tirelessly for the cause of the weak, the dispossessed, the have-nots, the voiceless, the disappeared, the bonded, the battered and beaten, and all those shackled by the chains of exploitation and repression in state and society. It is inevitable that many Pakistanis will be inspired by her courage and conviction to carry the torch forward and build a culture of resistance to oppression and injustice. When a big tree falls the saplings in its shade grow to be tall and strong. For the one Asma who has died, surely dozens of Asmas will spring up to enrich the soil of Pakistan in years to come. Asma did not seek accolades. But they piled up at her doorstep until she sat atop a mountain of laurels. Indeed, she is probably the most acclaimed and decorated Pakistani in history. A sampling of those who eulogized her reads like an International Who?s Who. But considering her staunch defense of constitutional democracy, it is tragic that the democratically elected Pakistani government ? which is besieged by many destabilizing conspiracies and for whose constitutional right to survive she fought relentlessly ? did not have the courage to give her a state funeral. In fact, none of the mainstream party bigwigs who espouse worthy causes turned up at her funeral. No matter. The thousands who thronged to wish her on her last journey came from all sections of society whose ordinary everyday lives she had touched in some incredible, heartfelt manner. The old and young, men and women, rich and poor, state and stateless, minorities and majorities, all choking on their tears, formed a caring chain around her until she was returned to the womb of Mother Earth. Indeed, the funeral itself ? in which men and women spontaneously prayed together ? was a tribute to the spirit of equality that she nurtured and championed all her life. Many apt words and phrases have been used at home and abroad to describe her persona and politics. Fearless. Gritty. Courageous. Iconic. Principled. Upright. Compassionate. Joan of Arc. Iron Lady. Legendary crusader for human rights. Champion of Truth and Justice. And so on. The international community should now make amends for ignoring her lifetime?s struggle for humanity by bestowing the Nobel Peace Prize on her posthumously. Inevitably, too, like all great reformers and visionaries, she had her fill of vicious, spiteful detractors and critics in her lifetime. They accused her of being an ?Indian Agent? simply because she wanted peace and amity among neighbours; they clipped her words and said she was unpatriotic because she challenged the hegemony of the Miltablishment. They fudged the facts to accuse her of religious deviation. But she stood her ground and had the last laugh. On the day of her passing, all of Pakistan stood up to recognize and pay tribute to her qualities of heart and mind in the service of the downtrodden. Indeed, on that day she seemed to inspire a collective unity of purpose and will in the quest of a progressive Pakistan that had eluded her in her lifetime. Asma routinely received death threats from all sorts of extremists and misplaced ?patriots?. But she never as much as glanced over her shoulder as she went about her daily business. She stood up in courtrooms to challenge bias and prejudice, but always politely. She publicly challenged faulty or biased judgments but never judges personally. She abhorred military dictators and autocracies, however ?benevolent? or ?liberal? some appeared to be. She was acutely aware of the political, social and human frailties and corruptions of our elected leaders, but she would never allow their constitutional rights to be trampled under the boot of wannabe Saviours and Messiahs from the Miltablishment. No wonder, ?they? hated her with a blind passion reserved only for an implacable ?enemy of the state?. No sooner had she been buried that ?they? unleashed their social media and TV trolls to blight her character and demean her achievements so that the seeds of her inspiration may be scattered in the wind. Asma Jahangir valiantly stood for all that is good and great and generous in this age of selfishness and hypocrisy and intolerance. She wanted a Pakistan in which women could aspire to equality and unleash the full potential of half of humanity. She wanted amity among South Asian neighbours so that people could mingle freely, uproot their prejudices and build a creative culture of tolerance and plurality. She wanted the rule of law and constitution to prevail in Pakistan so that the social contract between the rulers and ruled in a modern state could be honoured. She wanted Pakistan to be cited among the progressive and dynamic nations of the world instead of being constantly harangued as a ?failing? or ?double-dealing? state. She wanted an upright and accountable state instead of a ?deep? and self-righteous state. These are universally noble objectives for which she will long be lauded. Rest in Power, Little Big Woman! ======================================== 10. INDIA: A LINE OF CONTROL FOR WOMEN Ankit Saxena?s murder and khap killings over a woman?s free choice expose society?s anxiety about its property rights Pragya Singh ======================================== Outlook Magazine 26 February 2018 Cover Story The headlines are relentless, every day bringing fresh news of society?s revenge upon women. The image is starkest in parts of India where they were lucky enough to live in the first place. Where gynocide?a genocide of newborn/unborn women?is a silent, ongoing routine. The acts of violence are a way of saying, in incredulity, ?And then she has the gall to go and develop a free will!? To think, act and, most of all, to love. Often the revenge takes the form of the object of her desire being crushed. The latest to join the list of young social martyrs is Ankit Saxena. On a list lengthening like a dark shadow over modern Indian life, it?s an intriguing presence: an inversion of the normal ?love jehad? pattern of Hindu girl/Muslim boy. Ankit?s killing is a way of saying: our right over our women is supreme; even a minority status won?t change it. Classic honour killing, in short. Ins?tead of a regional caste, a nat?ional community feels the anger of someone trespassing on property. Love itself is branded as fake and women, of course, deemed unfit to make that choice. So, a father in Delhi ends his young daughter?s romance by slashing the throat of her boyfriend. Ankit?s girlfriend is in hiding, afraid for her life too, a living symbol of what happens to those who transgress. Before the extra seasoning in the episode?the fact that the woman?s father is a Muslim, which both explains the murder and almost became the only way to decipher it?abates, another middle-aged man masturbates on a bus next to a woman, again in the heart of the capital. (As if she was an image, not a living being.) Fresh outrage is triggered, rinse and repeat. In Bhilwara, Rajasthan, a Jat woman dies of TB, but no one turns up for the funeral. She, a widow, had dared to marry a Dalit. No outrage, rinse and repeat. The ?community feels the anger of ?someone trespassing on ?property. Love is branded as fake and women deemed unfit to make that choice. Out in the country, it was always crystal-clear, by custom and social decree, that women were mere property, things that belonged to someone or the other, pieces of differently-?abled furniture perhaps, exchangeable as a commodity, meant to be pulled into commission for a giant, enslaving machine. Traditional society was built around systematica?lly confining women?to the home, and allied sectors, strictly delimited. And marriage was a vital part of this technology of confinement. Castes and communities came to exist and evolve through endogamy, by controlling female sexuality. Besides all the wars (and ritual immolations) for honour, there was an implicit violence in that stability. The new violence has a slightly different origin. It comes from the cracks, from the change and instability of traditio?nal society grappling with modernity?with fear, loathing and incomprehension?to the moving of social tectonic plates as women speak and act. It shows up the starkest in the countryside. Witness how Naresh Tikait, leader of one of the infamous Jat khaps, responds to a Supreme Court verdict that chastised his ilk for interfering in love relationships. ?We will not give birth to daughters, nor let others do so,? he said. The threat contains within it the promise of that silent gynocide, made absolute. But after Ankit, and similar urban, even elite murders in the past (see ?Her Hand in the State?s Grip?, p.36), has the city lost its edge over the farm? Is non-?village India entitled to feel morally superior? Look at the countless signs of nervous patriarchy?the dress codes in city colleges, the new phobia of women drinking beer?. Half of humankind is not yet rising up in insurrection?acquiescence among women is a deep-rooted, conditioned reflex. But the old consensus is creaking under the strain. There?s a growing mismatch, a natural tension between the poles represented by the old world and what a scornful western UP farmer calls the ?momo-jeans culture?, the world of mobile phones and Valentine?s Day. Between what young women?and men?seek and the sort of relationship society would love to impose on them. The egregious violence comes from the refusal of women to be treated as items in a prope?rty transaction. It?s not a sudden eruption of battle?it?s a long war deepening in intensity by the day. It?s death by a thousand cuts?almost every aspect of masculinity clashing with what women want, charging the fraught territory of relationships with an extra veneer of fear. The degree of possible reconciliation with modernity varies. Jats offer the ?perfect stereotype?having started to forge into city life in just the last 50 years, they hunt down inter-caste or inter-?religious couples with a vengeance. Even so, the ?liberal? instinct isn?t absent here. Varnika Kundu, the Chandigarh girl chased on a deserted street by two men last year (all three are Jats), got unexpected support from the Kundu khap. ?Nobody emphasised the Jat thing last year because it was ?Jat versus Jat?,? she says. ?Yes, the khap supported me because I?m a Jat. That said, it was a huge thing to back a city girl, for khaps are notorious for banning cell phones, noodles etc. I?ve seen educated households where women don?t have the same privileges as their brothers and also broad-minded families in the villa?ges?what else was Dangal about?? So there?s mobility there. And also a sense of the immoveable?the idea of property. Signifying something inanimate, with no sense perceptions. With literacy, it ought to be an inevitable movement forward, out of that thought-world. And village India is signing on as a conflic?ted recruit?Janus-faced, one face looking back. Last week, the same belt in Manesar, off Gurgaon, reported a moral policing/sexual assault case on a South Korean woman and a village, Naurangpur, that had reversed the female foeticide pattern and registered 1,866 girls to 1,000 boys. But zoom to the other end of the scale?to the #MeToo campaign, or to the chic urbanity of Bollywood, where Kangana Ranaut says independent women are seen as ?vamps?. Or the women going home while peeling potatoes on Mumbai suburban trains?liberated enough to participate in the economy (and pay half the bills), but not quite out of domesticity. The two-?facedness persists despite literacy. It?s also inevitable that women themselves internalise the conflict, soaking up all of society?s neuroses. A 2005-06 National Family Health Survey study in Haryana found that more women than men (46/33 per cent) justified violence by husbands. Even a pan-India study among adolescents in 2012 found that while 57 per cent boys justified wife-?beating, so did 53 per cent girls. And experts deemed that to be an underestimation. And so, in the interpersonal space, a firm anchoring in a sense of identity and self-worth is yet to take root fully?relationships are founded on this loose soil of inner conflict and self-doubt. ?That women are considered keen to invest more in relationships and nurture them at all cost is itself a kind of oppression,? says Prof Satish Prakash, a Meerut-based Dalit ideologue. ??Nobody recognises that she nurtures indiscriminately from a sense of insecurity. She is silent as she does not have any other choice.? Concrete reasons for this lack of a full singular ?ide?ntity?as if women aren?t ?complete? without ?marriage?aren?t hard to find. Their changing ?edu?cational and economic profile has not entitled ?women, in the eyes of family or community, to ownership of property, forget respect. Dowry demands are at an all-time high. One grotesque ?extreme was that of a man in West Bengal recently exposed for having ?stolen? his wife?s kidney to ?recover? the dowry promised. The equation couldn?t be starker?he was merely selling off a piece of property. Love Actually A Bajrang Dal ?protest against Valentine?s Day Photograph by PTI There?s a growing mismatch, a natural tension between the old world and what a scornful western UP farmer calls the ??momo-jeans? culture. The law is supposed to have a modernising force, driving society?s reforming impulse, but this has not happened?that?s at the core of the crisis. In 2006, in Uttar Pradesh, only six per cent of women owned land independently. In Haryana, at around the same time, only 11 per cent households were ?female-headed?. Muslim and Christian communities, with a few exceptions, deny women the right to own property. UP, India?s most populous state, continues with the ?Zamindari and Land Reforms Act of 1950 instead of migrating to the new Hindu Succession Act that gives women rights to agricultural land. The older law does not recognise the inheritance rights of widows, daughters and sisters unless all male descendants are dead or gone. ?Even in Haryana, women?s property rights exist only in name,? says Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary, All India Democratic Women?s Association, a social activist who has battled khaps for decades. ?This is at the root of all conflicts. Women are too scared to demand property and men want girls married by 15 or earlier, so they never attain enough education or independence to demand what?s theirs. After such a long struggle, the Supreme Court said khaps should not threaten couples. And Naresh Tikait says they will stop producing girls! They can?t say anything to the SC directly, so take their anger out against the weakest section, women.? Even if Tikait?s scary, Malthusian threat does not come to pass, there?s always the everyday punishments of transgression. Or V-Day violence, which has gone way beyond small crowds of rowdies descending suddenly on a theatre or a club and thrashing young, romantically inclined couples. It?s an elaborate, choreographed ritual of social anger, with widening acceptance from institutions. Universities close for the day to preclude chances of love blooming perchance on campuses. Public thrashings, of course, are routine by now. ?Under the guise of Valentine?s Day, Muslims befool Hindu women,? says Manoj Saini of the ?Hindu Yuva Sena?, a rag-tag outfit that did a ?lathi puja? to forewarn couples (and establishments that welcome them) in Muzaffarnagar. Xenophobia blends seamlessly into misogyny in his words. ?They wear kalava, teeka, and take names like Raju and ?Pappu. Girls don?t realise they are Muslim, and get trapped.? Love Actually ?Love Commandos? rescues couples whose ?families seek to tear them apart Photograph by lovecommandos.org ?There is no rich or poor, Jat or Jatav difference in those who seek our help,? says Sanjay Sachdev of Love Commandos. DU professors Tanveer Aijaz and Vineeta, a ?Hindu-?Muslim? couple, are concerned over the myths and violence being woven around stories like theirs. When they wanted to marry, their families broached conversion too but they went for the Special Marriages Act (SMA), meant for inter-caste/religious couples. ?We foresaw accepting conversion could lead to daily battles,? he says. It helped that they are not ?practising? devouts, and both are repelled by notions of groups bound by perimeters that don?t allow mixing. For Nainital-based educationist Kripa, a Syrian Christian married to a Rajput, it wasn?t so smooth. She was unwilling to convert to marry and her prospective in-laws were ?the most liberal family possible?. Yet, the SMA was not an option?her father?s signature, required under the SMA, was not forthcoming. The couple went for a temple wedding; she adopted a friend?s gotra. Her church, when it found out, asked her to resign or get her husband to convert. Averse to a conversion of convenience, she res?igned. ?The church, I feel, did everything contrary to the message of god,? she says. ?The Bible is inclusive, not exclusive. Personally, I feel connected to god even now.? Kripa, Ankit?s girlfriend, Saini?s potential victims?all are on the same plane. The dread of girls doing their own choosing may now be rearticulated in the terms of conversion, the latest brand of phobia. But it?s an ancient, congenital fear?the idea that our women will be bamboozled out of the fold. ?In the 1940s, when untouchables said they are not Hindus, the Hindus felt their numbers would fall,? says Sunil Kumar, who teaches history at Delhi University. ?So the fear is not just about Muslims or Christians, it?s more so about Dalits marrying ?higher? castes. They have not coined a word for this yet, but they might as well?perhaps it would not be so easy to push it with the electorate.? Kumar, of course, says the whole ?love jehad formulation? makes no sense. ?The proposition is that a woman is so inept she cannot discern. It?s absurd.? If smaller histories are the real history of India, it?s worth mentioning that Saini?s opponents are alive?and starting to kick. ?In the name of opposing Valentine?s Day, they want to spread chaos. They tell people that Muslims will capture India, and people fall in the trap,? says Shivaji Gautam, a young Dalit activist in rural Muzaffarnagar, a member of an Udham Singh Sena and a Dalit-Muslim Sena. ?This year, we?ll go out to oppose them and protect couples if the government does not stop them.? All About Honour A khap panchayat in Haryana The law ought to have a modernising force, driving society?s ?reforming impulse, but this has not ?happened??that?s at the core of the crisis. ?They want Christian/English education for their children, but if some boy hands their daughter a flower on a street-corner, they thrash her,? says Prof Prakash, who wishes courts would intervene. ?If they love their culture so much, caste Hindus should bear its weight themselves and hand over their male children to temples and priests. Why do they want women and Dalits to carry this burden?? One couple-protection force exists in Delhi too??Love Commandos? rescues women (and men) in social crises brought on by love. ?We?ve helped 50,000 couples already and still get a steady stream of cases, such are the conditions in our country,? says Sanjay Sachdev, who runs the voluntary outfit. Where do the couples come from? The number one place is Andhra-Telangana, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karna?taka, Pondicherry, Gujarat, Maharashtra. If the Jat belt has khaps, jati and samaj panchayats in Rajasthan, Andhra, Madhya Pradesh et al push couples in the way of danger. ?There is no poor or rich, Bania or Brahmin, Jat or Jatav, or Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta difference in the people who seek my help. I can show you the violence of all these groups.? Muslims, of course, have an elaborate architecture of miso?gyny of their own, including a clergy steeped in patriarchy, Student activist Shehla Rashid had raised a storm rec?ently, asking, fairly pointedly, if Muslims would react differently from Hindutva warriors if a Muslim girl were to marry a non-Muslim. ?It?s not like just one religion has fundamentalist elements?both Muslim and Hindu groups suppress women,? she says. Ankit?s corpse came as proof, this week?s Exhibit A. ?We have the right to marry anybody we choose, to eat what we like, work in what profession we want. The right-wing assaults those rights,? she says. Out in the country, things are moving erratically, two steps forward, one back. Haryana?s sex ratio has inched back up to 950?it was 819/1000 in 2001. And it stands at 912 in UP (894 in urban areas). But the old world is nervous. ?Many anxieties we see today, such as over love jehad or inter-caste marriages, are a reflection of old idea of defending honour,? says Jagpal Singh, who teaches at IGNOU. Honour, of course, is rendered more honourable when it?s systematically linked to property. Judge by a recent instance in Ghaziabad. A Hindu-Muslim couple were engaged to be married. Even their families were happy and willingly participating. Still, the right-wing sought to stop it, in vain. VHP activist Balaraj Doongar, who leads such agitations in the area, laments: ?It was love jehad and land jehad rolled into one. The Hindus lost a daughter and crores in property.? All talk of ?all?owing? freedom in relationships to women floats on this dark sea. It?s a double deceit. At one level, women are to be denied ancestral property. At another, more fundamental level, women are ancestral property. By Pragya Singh in New Delhi ======================================== 11. INDIA: TOO MANY CORPSES: A MIASMA OF MENACE SWIRLS AROUND THE LOYA CONTROVERSY | Manini Chatterjee ======================================== https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/too-many-corpses-209559 The Telegraph, February 19, 2018 As any crime fiction aficionado knows, it never stops with one death. The original crime is compounded by a cover-up, which leads to more crimes and yet more cover-ups. Real life, it would seem, is no different. With the Supreme Court holding regular hearings over the past four weeks, the death of the judge, Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, is much in the news these days. While the petitioners in the case are demanding an independent investigation into what they insist is a mysterious death, the Maharashtra government is strongly arguing that no such probe is necessary because Loya died of a cardiac arrest. It is not possible for anyone of us to know whether Loya's death on a wintry night in Nagpur more than three years ago was natural or not. But piecing together all that has appeared in the public domain so far, it is equally impossible to see his death as an isolated incident. On the contrary, the reason a miasma of menace swirls around the controversy is because it has a blood-soaked backstory and a sinister aftermath that is still unfolding. The first death in this gory saga took place on November 26, 2005, when a Gujarat police team shot dead Sohrabuddin Sheikh. The police initially claimed that he was a terrorist who was cornered by a police party on a highway near Ahmedabad. The alleged terrorist shot at the police who fired back in self-defence and killed him on the spot. Since many similar 'encounter' killings had taken place in Gujarat since 2002, the police were confident of getting away with their story. But it didn't quite work out that way. Sohrabuddin Sheikh's brother, Rubabuddin, wrote to the Chief Justice of India seeking an inquiry into the death and also the disappearance of Sohrabuddin's wife, Kausar Bi, who had gone missing. The Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat police to investigate the matter. Significantly, it was the Gujarat police's investigation which first established that the police version was a fabrication and Sohrabuddin had been killed in cold blood. Detailed investigations by the Gujarat police and later by the Central Bureau of Investigation revealed the full extent of the crime and the reasons behind it. Sohrabuddin was no terrorist but part of a criminal gang who ran an extortion racket in Rajasthan. He and his gang were patronized by certain police officers and politicians in Gujarat. But fearing that he was getting out of their control, a plot was hatched to eliminate him and paint it as an encounter killing. The CBI charge sheet and numerous newspaper articles have detailed the modus operandi - how a team of the Gujarat police intercepted the bus in which Sohrabuddin, his wife, Kausar Bi, and an associate, Tulsiram Prajapati, were travelling from Hyderabad to Sangli, pulled them out, and took them away. Prajapati was handed over to the Rajasthan police while the Sheikh couple was kept in separate farmhouses in Gujarat. Sohrabuddin was subsequently killed in a staged encounter four days later. One murder leads to another and so it was that Death Number Two took place soon after, possibly on November 29, 2005. To quote the CBI charge sheet, "Smt. Kausarbi was an eyewitness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin. She was a dangerous witness... She was, thereafter, eliminated by the accused persons and her body was burnt in village Illol." The other eyewitness, Tulsiram Prajapati, feared that it would be his turn next. In a panic, he revealed his fears to fellow jail inmates and even wrote to the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, seeking protection. But his fears proved right. He was brought from Udaipur to Ahmedabad in late December 2006 and on December 28 was killed by the Gujarat police at a highway near the Gujarat-Rajasthan border. The first three deaths that form Loya's back story were gruesome murders carried out by police teams. According to investigations carried out by both the Gujarat police and the CBI, the teams were operating under the instructions of very senior police officers of the state, who were in turn in close and constant touch with the then Gujarat home minister, Amit Shah. Amit Shah and several police officers were eventually charged as accused in the extra-judicial killings and sent to jail. The charge sheet noted inter alia, "Investigation also revealed that when the investigation of the case was transferred to CBI by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, there were concerted efforts made to hamper investigation." Amit Shah, it added, directed his close confidantes "to convince, coerce, threaten, influence the witnesses on his behalf to conceal the truth from CBI about the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin." It is in this backdrop that many citizens - activists, journalists, lawyers - have viewed the death of B.H. Loya with concern and sought an independent probe by petitioning the Supreme Court. Unlike Sohrabuddin and Prajapati, Loya was no criminal. He had no links with Gujarat or Rajasthan, and only came into the picture when he was appointed the judge in the special CBI court in Mumbai hearing the fake encounter case. As many have noted, the trial took a new turn after the Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in May 2014 and Amit Shah was appointed party chief two months later. The first trial judge of the special court, J.T. Utpat, had the gumption to pull up Amit Shah on June 6, 2014, for failing to show up in court and asked him to be present at the next hearing on June 26. But on June 25, Utpat was transferred to another court, even though the Supreme Court had said the same judge should hear the case from beginning to end. Loya was then appointed the judge. During a hearing on October 31, 2014, Loya, too, asked Shah's counsel to ensure his appearance at the next hearing set for December 15. On the night of November 30-December 1, Loya, who had gone to Nagpur to attend a wedding, passed away. On December 30, the third judge hearing the case, M.B. Gosavi, discharged Amit Shah from the fake encounter case. Loya's death went largely unnoticed till the journalist, Niranjan Takle, wrote his article in Caravan magazine in late November 2017 in which he quoted Loya's father and sisters who expressed grave doubts about the 'cardiac arrest' theory, and gave disturbing details of the circumstances of the death. That article and its follow-ups triggered an outcry that has led to the petitions currently being heard in the Supreme Court. More murky details are now emerging. On January 31 this year, the Congress held a press conference where a Nagpur-based lawyer and activist, Satish Uke, made startling allegations. He said two friends of Loya - the lawyer, Shrikant Khandalkar, and the retired district judge, Prakash Thombre - had approached him on the judge's behalf in 2014. They told him Loya was facing tremendous pressure in the fake encounter case. According to Uke, the three of them held a video conference with Loya where he said he had been sent a draft order and asked to sign it. He was disinclined to do so, but also afraid of the consequences of being upright. Soon after, Loya met his untimely death. Uke's words could be dismissed as outlandish but for what transpired later. Khandalkar, Uke said, called him in October 2015 to say that he too was getting death threats. Khandalkar's body was found in the premises of the Nagpur district court on November 29 with no clarity on how he died. A little over six months later, Prakash Thombre also met an 'accidental' death. He apparently fell from the upper berth of a train and broke his spine. Uke missed death by a whisker when an avalanche of iron rods smashed his office shed minutes after he exited. And in tandem with the mystery deaths, as many as 33 of the 49 witnesses in the fake encounter case have turned 'hostile', the last three as late as last week. And 15 of the key accused, starting with Amit Shah, have been discharged, prompting the retired judge of the Bombay High Court, A.M. Thipsay, to openly question the "absurd inconsistencies" in the trial process. In the hands of a master story-teller, the fictional detective always succeeds in bringing together disparate strands of an intricate plot to offer the reader a satisfying resolution in the end. That might be too much to hope for in this real-life mystery involving people in the highest places... ======================================== 12. INDIA: RICHARD SENNETT ON DELHI'S GREY MARKET ======================================== The Guardian The story of Mr Sudhir: how to survive in Delhi's 'grey market' Cities When sociologist Richard Sennett was fleeced by an iPhone dealer in Delhi, the pair struck up a friendship that opened a window into the informality of modern cities Richard Sennett 15 Feb 2018 A shopkeeper stands next to a generator outside a commercial complex in Nehru Place, New Delhi A trader outside a commercial complex in Nehru Place, New Delhi. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images In the south-east of Delhi, a vast T-shaped market has arisen on top of an underground parking garage. Business Today: sign up for a morning shot of financial news Read more Nehru Place came into being because in the 1970s Delhi did not have enough commercial real estate to house its burgeoning small businesses. Original plans show the plaza above the parking garage as empty, and lined with low, four-storey buildings meant for offices rather than shops. Today, there remain traces of that intention. The boxy buildings lining the sides of Nehru Place form a downmarket version of Silicon Valley. Here, tech startups occupy cramped rooms next to computer repair shops and cut-rate travel agents. The open-air plateau, however, has filled up with retail stalls. Here, people sell smartphones, laptops and pre-owned motherboards, saris and Bollywood CDs, sometimes all out of the same boxes. Crowds surge with energy. In the multiplex, the same Bollywood film has been cut and edited differently for the three languages in which it is currently showing. Nearby is a huge temple, and also more upscale office buildings. People mingle casually on this plateau. Unlike Silicon Valley, where everybody makes a point of dressing down, the budding entrepreneurs of Nehru Place flaunt designer jeans and expensive loafers. Yet they do not hold aloof from the heaving market; a very good food stand, for instance, is located outside the offices of a firm that has pulled off an IPO. Rather than lunch in an upmarket place, the sharp young men still hang out around this stand, eating off paper plates, gossiping with the stand?s half-blind, motherly proprietor. At night, India?s ghosts appear: pavement dwellers who colonise the staircases or spread out under the few trees that offer some shelter against the weather. One night I watched the police try to sweep out these night dwellers. As the forces of order moved forward, the dispossessed regrouped behind them and bedded down again ? as the police knew perfectly well they would. Nehru Place, a down-market version of Silicon Valley. Photograph: Richard Sennett This mixed scene does not quite evoke Jane Jacobs? West Village. Though loose and micro-scale in the character of its daily life, Nehru Place came into being thanks to large-scale, careful planning. Big money has been spent to provide Nehru Place with its own metro station and an equally efficient bus terminal. Slightly elevated and angled, keeping out rain and draining filth, the garage roof ? though unlikely to win any architecture prizes ? is a masterstroke in terms of urbanism. On top of it, what the French call a cit? (a neighbourhood with character) has become grafted on to a planned ville. It?s misleading to imagine that the poor only appropriate unbuilt land. Many places they colonise were previously constructed for a purpose, lost their value for one reason or another, were abandoned and then appropriated. Nehru Place is the same: unforeseen rooftop activities over a structure whose original purpose was parking cars. Mr Sudir's situation is familiar, if uncomfortable morally ? ethical family values ?coupled to shady behaviour It is also typical of the informality that marks other fast-growing (or in UN-speak, ?emerging?) cities. Economically, the entrepreneurs of Nehru Place have escaped India?s legal marketplace, which had suffocated under a leaden bureaucracy. Legally, they sell what are politely described as ?grey goods? ? at worst stolen or, less bad but still illegal, diverted from factories or storage facilities, untaxed. Politically, as with the pavement-dwellers and the police, Nehru Place is informal in the sense of not being rigidly controlled. Socially, it is informal because of its transience. Shops and shoppers, offices and workers come and go; the stall you remember from last month is no longer there. The half-blind, motherly kebab-seller seems, at least in my experience, the only permanent fixture. Informal time is open-ended. Versions of Nehru Place can be found in a Middle Eastern souk or a parking lot in Lagos; they used to appear in the squares of almost any small Italian town. In all of them, sellers and buyers haggle in a kind of economic theatre. The merchant declares, ?This is my rock-bottom price!? to which the buyer responds with something like: ?I really don?t want this item in red; don?t you have one in white?? The seller, discarding the ?rock-bottom? declaration, answers, ?No, but you can have it in red wholesale.? The Parisian department store put an end to this. In its windows, commodities were still dramatised, but prices were fixed. The ?grey market?, on the other hand, fosters a certain kind of face-to-face urban intensity. A view of the Nehru Place market The business people of Nehru Place have escaped India?s legal marketplace. Photograph: Mail Today/India Today Group/Getty Images I learned this to my cost in Nehru Place. I first came here in 2007, to hang out rather than to work. (The LSE was holding a conference in Mumbai that year, and I wanted to see more of India than the inside of a conference hall.) But my phone ? an early iPhone ? had gone on the blink, and someone gave me a tip: a repair genius near the south-west corner of Nehru Place. I found the spot, but not the man; he had ?been moved on?, said a young woman nearby, which my local colleague interpreted as, ?he has refused to pay the right bribes?. If I couldn?t repair my phone, I had to find a replacement, which was not an extravagant expense here. Many goods are cheap because, as one merchant declared of a box of new iPhones, all in red: ?It happened to fall into our hands.? It was he who offered to do a deal ?wholesale? ? and we did it, on an overturned cardboard box that served as his shop counter. He sold me a dud. I returned two days later and demanded my money back. The Indian friend with me released a volley of what sounded like quite threatening Hindi, and a new phone was handed over. The iPhone merchant then smiled, as though this was just part of the working day. Rather than a slick youngster, he was a balding, paunchy man, reeking of some sort of perfume that perhaps also ?happened to fall into our hands?. What touched me was a framed photo of two adolescent children he set on the upturned cardboard box. ?I am Mr Sudhir? It was insufferably hot, and I was pouring with sweat. Having placated me, the merchant offered tea, the hot liquid somehow assuaging the heat. We sat on either side of the box, stained with the rings of prior teacups ? refreshment for assuaged customers was also normal business practice. I told him I was a researcher. He replied: ?I am Mr Sudhir.? Sudhir is a first name, and my host, evidently believing all Americans use them when meeting strangers, used his own, perhaps adding the ?Mr? as a signal that I should treat him with respect. After selling another red iPhone to a wandering Dutch woman, his eyes carefully averted from me, Mr Sudhir returned to our conversation. We had already discussed grandchildren, and his own story now appeared. Mr Sudhir had received a few years of schooling beyond the norm in a village 50 miles away, which perhaps prompted him as an adolescent to seek his fortune in Delhi, however he could. Contacts had put him into Nehru Place ? but originally in the fetid stalls in the parking garage, home to the most marginal traders. Electronic shops in Nehru Place. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images ?In the garage it was hell,? Mr Sudhir said. ?I had to be watchful every moment.? In time, he rose above ground, occupying one regular spot and becoming known to a few key contacts outside. As we talked, I heard other voices. In the 1980s I had made a study of 14th Street in New York City with the photographer Angelo Hornak. In those far off pre-gentrified days, that big street resembled Nehru Place in one key way: 14th Street sold towels, toilet paper, luggage and other everyday goods which ?happened to fall into our hands?. The goods were available because freight operations at John F Kennedy International airport would ?leak?, we were told. This grey market of 14th Street served as the public realm of working-class New York: almost all the underground lines in the city converged on it, and out on the sidewalks, in front of the stores, were overturned cardboard boxes like Mr Sudhir?s. I became acquainted in particular with a group of African migrants who manned some of those cardboard boxes on 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. They were men just hanging on, earning a few dollars each day, sleeping rough in basement corners or outside, but immensely proud. My passable French served as an entry card to stories of long, erratic journeys from West Africa, of politics or tribal conflicts that had aborted jobs, landed sons in prison, daughters in prostitution. The escape to America was filled with guilt over abandoning home, yet it had not improved their fortunes. Their life?s journey led relentlessly downwards, and they were depressed. Dodgy dealings have led Mr Sudhir in the other direction. Abjection to him meant hawking stolen goods in the depths of Nehru Place. But he made a move up, both literally and socially, and the fact that he traded in goods of dubious origin did not detract from his aura of solid paterfamilias. The market offered him a chance to establish a solid stone on which his two sons could stand when they took over the business. Street vendors selling an array of umbrellas, leather bags, watches and sunglasses on a New York street in 1979. Photograph: Frances M Ginter/Getty Images It was the same, I learned, with his house. In the course of the 20th century, as the urban revolution gathered force, the mass of poor people streaming into cities occupied empty land to which they had no legal right. By one estimate, 40% of new urbanites in the year 2000 squatted in cinderblock or cardboard shacks. Private owners now want their property back; governments see these shack-camps, if made permanent, as a blight on cities. Mr Sudhir, who has squatted for 14 years, doesn?t see it that way. Year by year he has improved his house, and he now wants to secure these improvements by making his tenancy legal. ?My sons and I have recently added a new room to our home,? he told me proudly. They?d built it each night, cinderblock by cinderblock. The anthropologist Teresa Caldeira has noted that such long-term family projects become a disciplining principle for how money should be spent over the years. The collective efforts are a source of family pride and self-respect. Mr Sudhir has a family to support, and a dignity to maintain. His situation is a familiar one sociologically, if uncomfortable morally ? ethical family values coupled to shady behaviour. The harsh conditions of survival can put poor people in that position; taken to a more violent extreme, it is the story told in Mario Puzo?s The Godfather. I cannot say that my sympathy for Mr Sudhir as a paterfamilias made me accept being fleeced by him. Still, I wasn?t very angry. Need, rather than greed, drove him, and he wasn?t a self-righteous crook. Our tea should have been an unalloyed moment ? one old man sharing with another the fruits of a life of striving. But looking around us in Nehru Place, he concluded our chat with the comment, ?I know I will be pushed out.? It was survivor rather than victim talk. ?At our age,? he added, ?it is not easy to start again.? But he then named a number of other places in Delhi where he might set up shop once more, illegally. What are the forces that seek to push out this admirable conman? This is an edited extract from Building and Dwelling by Richard Sennett, published by Penguin, priced ?23 ======================================== 13. INDIA?S CRONY CAPITALISTS CONTINUE TO LAUGH THEIR WAY TO THE BANK | Maheshwar Peri ======================================== Asia Times, February 16, 2018 Many years ago, while I was sitting with the chairman of a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) bank, a phone call was put through to him. The chairman immediately started talking in Telugu, not realizing that I understand it because it is my native language. The person at the other end of the call was a minister who was asking the bank to approve a loan to a company whose promoter had doubtful credentials. He also had a terrible record of repayments. All that I could hear from the chairman translated into ?it will be done.? The massive loss of 110 billion rupees (US$1.77 million) due to an alleged scam by Nirav Modi and associates is a prime example of a deeper rot that exists in India?s banking sector. The PSU banks are milked dry by politicians and their cronies, and while ordinary citizens have to struggle to borrow money, those with connections continue to milk the system. Many of the current problems in India?s banks and their non-performing assets (NPAs) stem from the collusion and influence-peddling that happen for sanctioning loans. This leads to extensions, moratoriums and restructuring packages. With most banks having directors and even independent directors appointed by the government of India, crony capitalism has its feet firmly stuck in the muck. This is not to say that all NPAs are due to bad intent. We have now come to a stage where we can no longer look the other way on Ponzi schemes masquerading as debt-restructuring packages. So the central Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in a midnight swoop, changed all the rules regarding any restructuring packages that are granted to corporates that fail to meet loan obligations. We have now come to a stage where we can no longer look the other way on Ponzi schemes masquerading as debt-restructuring packages. So the RBI, in a midnight swoop, changed all the rules Most corporates have been using the ?Corporate Debt Restructuring Package? or the ?Strategic Debt Restructuring? package avoid being tagged as as a loan defaulter. Most of such packages involve changing the original terms of an agreement to avoid a default, thus enabling them to seek loans through newer entities floated by the same promoters. They get fresh loans to repay old loans and garner some interest-rate reductions, converting debt into equity, with moratoriums on payments and even haircuts to banks. Consider the following cases. In March 2011, a consortium of 13 lenders, including the State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank, converted 7.5 billion rupees of debt into an equity of 23.21% stake in Kingfisher Airlines promoted by liquor baron Vijay Mallya at a 61.6% premium over its prevailing share price. Another group, owned by a minister in the current government, is a great example of how banks continue to finance a loan that should have been called out as bad. The figures on a consolidated basis for the year ending March 2017 were: One company in the group has total current liabilities of 25.69 billion rupees backed by receivables of 24 billion rupees. The total turnover is 16.12 billion rupees. The receivables are 18 months of turnover. And the market cap is 160 million rupees. Another of the group?s companies, which is into metals, has been renamed, probably to avoid scrutiny. It has total liabilities of 29.24 billion rupees backed by receivables of 21.66 billion rupees and inventories of 2.54 billion rupees. The total turnover is 15.61 billion rupees. The receivables are 17 months of the turnover. The market cap is 430 million rupees. A third company, also renamed recently, has total liabilities of 34.3 billon rupees and receivables of 20.61 billion rupees. Total revenue is 2.45 billion rupees, and the interest cost alone is 2.93 billion rupees and losses are 4.59 billion rupees. Its market cap is 240 million rupees. In all, we have a group of companies, owned by a minister in the current government, with liabilities (mostly bank borrowings) of 89.23 billion rupees and a market cap of 930 million rupees! Another company, Essar Steel, with a debt of close to 45 billion rupees ($704 million) and which went through bankruptcy proceedings, is currently seeing one of its own promoter-related families bidding to buy back the company at $6 billion. The current move by the RBI will lead to a bloodbath in bank balance sheets over the next six quarters. I suspect that the banks got wind of it over the past few months. Most PSU banks hiked their NPA provisions, forcing 17 of the 23 banks to declare losses for the first time in two decades. This forceful measure by the RBI will increase gross NPAs by at least 50%. What banks refused to recognize for years, they will now be forced to acknowledge in the next few quarters. There will be less space for the banks to lend and expand credit because of the capital-adequacy ratios. The banks will become more collection agents and loan-recovery officers than lending banks. The companies with debt on their books will have to come clean in any loan renegotiation. More companies will stand exposed in the next few quarters. In the short term, the scenario is bleak. But the cleaning up of bank balance sheets and greater transparency were much needed, and is a courageous move by the RBI. But with the current political bickering, an environment of fear and also a desperate need for investment to make the economy grow, this could have a downturn effect in the next few quarters. It is time to fasten our seat belts as we carry out high-risk maneuvers. Maheshwar Peri The author is a chartered accountant by training and the chairman of Careers360, a magazine on issues related to education. ======================================== 14. HEATHER STREETS-SALTER. REVIEW OF GHOSH, DURBA, GENTLEMANLY TERRORISTS POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND THE COLONIAL STATE IN INDIA, 1919?1947 ======================================== Durba Ghosh. Gentlemanly Terrorists Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919?1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 290 pp. $29.99 (paper), ISBN 978-1-316-63738-8. Reviewed by Heather Streets-Salter (Northeastern University) Published on H-Diplo (February, 2018) Commissioned by Seth Offenbach Beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, a number of educated, high-caste Indian men formed secret societies with the goal of violently overthrowing British rule. To fund this mission, they resorted to acts the Government of India called ?terrorist,? which included robbing banks and post offices. They also carried out political assassinations and bombings of British administrators and Indians who supported British rule. These groups continued their campaigns of violence through independence in 1947, all the while seeking to inspire more revolutionaries and deeply alarming the colonial government out of all proportion to their numbers. Durba Ghosh, in Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947, takes up these revolutionary movements in the years after World War I to demonstrate the ways ?terrorist? movements ?reshaped the politics and laws of late anticolonial nationalism in India? (p. 10). While attention to these movements highlights the fact that the Indian nationalist movement was more complicated than Gandhian nonviolence, Ghosh goes further by arguing that the Indian nationalist movement cannot properly be understood without attention to revolutionary terrorism. This was because the devolution of power to Indians by the colonial government during the 1920s and 1930s occurred alongside, and in relation to, the enactment of a series of repressive laws designed to contain the threat posed by the ideals and acts of revolutionary terrorists. Revolutionary terrorism, Ghosh argues, prompted the colonial government to make it abundantly clear which Indian elites would be considered worthy and legitimate heirs to the state and which would not. Indeed, one of the core arguments of Gentlemanly Terrorists is to demonstrate how major constitutional reforms in late colonial India were accompanied by repressive legislation. This simultaneity, Ghosh argues, was no accident. In the case of the 1919 Government of India Act, which expanded the Indian franchise and introduced devolution at the provincial level, Ghosh links these constitutional reforms (and a liberal-minded reform of Indian jails) with the introduction of the repressive Rowlatt Act which allowed indefinite detention and incarceration without trial of political dissidents, among other things. Thus, while the Government of India Act and the jails reform sought to bring Indians who might oppose colonial rule into a working relationship with the state, the Rowlatt Act simultaneously continued the repressive legislation of the World War I-era Defense of India Act. In essence, Ghosh argues that ?a plan of introducing self-government to educated elites in India and improving jail conditions was paralleled by a series of repressive legislation that attempted to discipline the revolutionary and radical activities of those very same educated elites? (p. 34). This same pattern also marked the discussions around the Simon Commission later in the interwar period, which advocated provincial autonomy and federalism in India in the midst of a series of repressive legislative acts designed to contain and silence revolutionaries. A second core argument is that the repressive legislation so intimately connected to constitutional reform in India tended to galvanize not only revolutionary terrorists against the government but also more moderate nationalists as well. This, in turn, prompted colonial administrators to believe that further emergency repressive legislation was necessary to prevent revolutionary violence from spiraling out of control. Ghosh argues that this belief was reinforced after the brief hiatus in repressive legislation that followed the enactment of the Government of India Act in 1919 and lasted through Mohandas Gandhi?s Non-Cooperation campaign until its end in 1922. During that time, revolutionaries agreed to Gandhi?s request that they refrain from staging violent attacks on colonial administrators or their supporters. Once the Non-Cooperation campaign was officially over, however, terrorist acts proliferated around Bengal between 1923 and 1925. Colonial administrators argued that the absence of repressive emergency laws during the Non-Cooperation campaign were to blame for this situation, and in response quickly enacted a series of emergency ordinances in Bengal that more or less accomplished the same goals as the never-enforced Rowlatt Act. The Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act (BCLA), as it was called, resulted in an explosion in the number of political prisoners?approximately 10,000 by 1933?who had to be detained in special detention camps. The dramatic rise in detainees and the conditions under which they lived were widely decried by even moderate Indian politicians, and continually put the colonial government at odds with Indians who insisted that the rule of law must prevail. Notwithstanding these consistent objections, when the BCLA lapsed in 1930, it was quickly renewed and supplemented with further emergency legislation in response to a series of assassinations between 1930 and 1934. By this time, Ghosh argues, ?anticipating a continued state of emergency became a new norm? (p. 145). The irony, as Ghosh demonstrates, was that repressive legislation did not stop revolutionary terrorism and also contributed to moderate nationalist discontent. In spite of this, the colonial government continued to insist that such legislation was essential right through independence. A third core argument of Gentlemanly Terrorists revolves around the ways that individuals?both revolutionary terrorists themselves and colonial administrators?used history and historical accounts to make claims about the movement. Indeed, Ghosh shows that in seeking to make sense out of revolutionary terrorism, the colonial government spent a lot of energy and time writing histories of the movement. In so doing, government accounts imposed an artificial unity on terrorist acts that made them seem part of a conscious and connected conspiracy?a legacy that persists to this day. Even more important, Ghosh argues that revolutionary terrorists themselves used history to take control of their own stories, both during the interwar years and after independence. Ghosh explores a handful of autobiographies written by revolutionaries after their release, in 1919, from detention during the war. For these men, writing their own histories was a political statement that became ?a part of their political insurrection? (p. 63). Notwithstanding the differences in each story, each of these men sought to portray themselves as both disciplined and modern revolutionaries who were willing to give their lives for their nation. In so doing, they hoped to gain recruits for their cause and also to remind Indians and Britons alike of a long-standing Bengali tradition of militancy. In the postindependence period, revolutionaries released from detention camps in 1947 likewise sought to record their autobiographies for posterity. But unlike the revolutionary autobiographies of the earlier period that hoped to build the movement, these later texts sought to demonstrate the importance of revolutionaries and the revolutionary movement to the larger history of India?s independence movement. And in this new political environment of independence, revolutionaries (including some women) became celebrated public figures: indeed, in postindependence India they had truly gone from being seen as terrorists to being seen as freedom fighters, and were officially recognized by the state. While Ghosh points out that most Indian schoolchildren know about the men and women featured in the book as gentlemanly terrorists, she is equally aware that it was the story of Ghandhi?s nonviolent movement that became the accepted narrative of independence. And though it might be tempting to brush off the story of these revolutionaries as marginal to the larger story of Indian independence because of their smaller numbers, because of their regional concentration in Bengal, or because they ultimately failed, Ghosh shows us in multiple ways that the problem of revolutionary terrorism was fundamental to the unfolding of the better-known Gandhian narrative. For her, the enactment of emergency legislation and the promotion of a liberal democratic agenda were not contradictory impulses but two sides of the same coin. Given that the revolutionary terrorist movement generated an enormous official archive in both India and Britain, Ghosh could certainly have had ample material to work with from such sources alone. Her choice to include so many of the writings of these revolutionaries, however, makes the book not only far more interesting but also far more nuanced. Just as revolutionaries sought to recover control over their own histories by writing their autobiographies, the chapters that focus on revolutionary writings refuse to let colonial administrators have the last word on what kind of people these revolutionaries were or how they should be remembered. One of the ironies of this history, however, is that despite such a major shift in how Indian revolutionaries were viewed by the colonial and the independent Indian states, the legacies of the past?especially with regard to emergency legislation existing in tandem within liberal democracies?continued to haunt independent India. While the ?terrorists? of the newly independent state were not the same as those of the past, new ?terrorists? such as tribal leaders, Maoists, and communists were targeted by emergency legislation after 1947. In the end, Ghosh argues that ?both the colonial and postcolonial states have used the logic of protecting democracy and democratic norms and rights as a way of rationalizing a growing security apparatus? (p. 245). Gentlemanly Terrorists is important in its own right for what it says about Indian revolutionaries, the Indian nationalist movement, and the priorities of the late colonial and early independent Indian states, but it also speaks to a more general problem for the construction of democracies. Although Ghosh does not make this connection explicitly, it is not difficult to see numerous other case studies in which the passage of emergency laws in order to preserve and protect emerging or existing democratic forms?in Malaya, Kenya, South Africa, and Germany, among others?has resulted in the abrogation of democratic rights for those whose political programs contradict or threaten those of the state. For this reason Gentlemanly Terrorists can provide a useful case study for exploring the logic of how and why these seemingly oppositional impulses have become linked. One wonders if there are more global implications to this cycle of seeing revolutionaries everywhere, legislating to remove them from society, detaining them, and continuing to feel the need for more legislation. In any case, Gentlemanly Terrorists is an important book that will leave readers with a greater understanding of the complexities of Indian nationalism and of an understudied set of violent revolutionaries who helped to shape the colonial state?s response to it. It may also leave them with larger questions about the history of the interplay between repression and democracy and how it has played out around the world. ======================================== 15: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WAR IS OUTLAWED Did a largely forgotten peace pact transform the world we live in? by Louis Menand ======================================== New Yorker A Critic at Large September 18, 2017 Issue Two legal scholars argue that the Paris Peace Pact of 1928?widely disparaged or ignored?led to a new international order. Illustration by Javier Ja?n On August 27, 1928, in Paris, with due pomp and circumstance, representatives of fifteen nations signed an agreement outlawing war. The agreement was the unanticipated fruit of an attempt by the French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand, to negotiate a bilateral treaty with the United States in which each nation would renounce the use of war as an instrument of policy toward the other. The American Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg, had been unenthusiastic about Briand?s idea. He saw no prospect of going to war with France and therefore no point in promising not to, and he suspected that the proposal was a gimmick designed to commit the United States to intervening on France?s behalf if Germany attacked it (as Germany did in 1914). After some delay and in response to public pressure, Kellogg told Briand that his idea sounded great. Who wouldn?t want to renounce war? But why not make the treaty multilateral, and have it signed by ?all the principal powers of the world?? Everyone would renounce the use of war as an instrument of policy. Kellogg figured that he had Briand outfoxed. France had mutual defense treaties with many European states, and it could hardly honor those treaties if it agreed to renounce war altogether. But the agreement was eventually worded in a way that left sufficient interpretive latitude for Briand and other statesmen to see their way clear to signing it, and the result was the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, also known as the Paris Peace Pact or the Kellogg-Briand Pact. By 1934, sixty-three countries had joined the Pact?virtually every established nation on earth at the time. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, gets bad press. It imposed punitive conditions on Germany after the First World War and is often blamed for the rise of Hitler. The Kellogg-Briand Pact does not get bad press. It gets no press. That?s because the treaty went into effect on July 24, 1929, after which the following occurred: Japan invaded Manchuria (1931); Italy invaded Ethiopia (1935); Japan invaded China (1937); Germany invaded Poland (1939); the Soviet Union invaded Finland (1939); Germany invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France and attacked Great Britain (1940); and Japan attacked the United States (1941), culminating in a global war that produced the atomic bomb and more than sixty million deaths. A piece of paper signed in Paris does not seem to have presented an obstacle to citizens of one country engaging in the organized slaughter of the citizens of other countries. In modern political history, therefore, the Paris Peace Pact, if it is mentioned at all, usually gets a condescending tip of the hat or is dutifully registered in footnote. Even in books on the law of war, little is made of it. There is not a single reference to it in the political philosopher Michael Walzer?s ?Just and Unjust Wars,? a classic work published in 1977. The summary on the U.S. State Department?s Web site is typical: ?In the end, the Kellogg-Briand Pact did little to prevent World War II or any of the conflicts that followed. Its legacy remains as a statement of the idealism expressed by advocates for peace in the interwar period.? The key term in that sentence is ?idealism.? In international relations, an idealist is someone who believes that foreign policy should be based on universal principles, and that nations will agree to things like the outlawry of war because they perceive themselves as sharing a harmony of interests. War is bad for every nation; therefore, it is in the interests of all nations to renounce it. An alternative theory is (no surprise) realism. A realist thinks that a nation?s foreign policy should be guided by a cold consideration of its own interests. To a realist, the essential condition of international politics is anarchy. There is no supreme law governing relations among sovereign states. When Germany invades France, France cannot take Germany to court. There are just a lot of nations out there, each trying to secure and, if possible, extend its own power. We don?t need to judge the morality of other nations? behavior. We only need to ask whether the interests of our nation are affected by it. We should be concerned not with some platonic harmony of interests but with the very real balance of power. A standard way to write the history of twentieth-century international relations is to cast as idealists figures like Woodrow Wilson, who, in 1917, entered the United States into a European war to make the world ?safe for democracy,? and the other liberal internationalists who came up with the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Second World War proved these people spectacularly wrong about how nations behave, and they were superseded by the realists. To the realists, such Wilsonian ideas as world government and the outlawry of war were quixotic. Nations should recognize that conflict is endemic to the international arena, and they should not expend blood and treasure in the name of an abstraction. Containment, the American Cold War policy of preventing the Soviet Union from expanding without otherwise intervening in its affairs, was a realist policy. Communists could run their own territories however they liked as long as they stayed inside their boxes. If our system was better, theirs would eventually implode; if theirs was better, ours would. The author of that policy, the diplomat George Kennan, called the Kellogg-Briand Pact ?childish, just childish.? And yet since 1945 nations have gone to war against other nations very few times. When they have, most of the rest of the world has regarded the war as illegitimate and, frequently, has organized to sanction or otherwise punish the aggressor. In only a handful of mostly minor cases since 1945?the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014 being a flagrant exception?has a nation been able to hold on to territory it acquired by conquest. Historians have suggested several reasons for this drop in the incidence of interstate war. The twenty years after the Second World War was a Pax Americana. By virtue of the tremendous damage suffered in the war by all the other powers, the United States became a global hegemon. America kept the peace (on American terms, of course) because no other country had the military or economic capacity to challenge it. This is the ?great? America that some seventy-five million American voters in the last Presidential election were born in, and that many of them have been convinced can be resurrected by shutting the rest of the world out?which would be a complete reversal of the policy mind-set that made the United States a dominant power back when those voters were children. By the nineteen-seventies, the rest of the world had caught up, and students of international affairs began to predict that, in the absence of a credible global policeman, there would be a surge in the number of armed conflicts around the world. When this didn?t happen, various explanations were ventured. One was that the existence of nuclear weapons had changed the calculus that nations used to judge their chances in a war. Nuclear weapons now operated as a general deterrence to aggression. ?O.K., maybe I need to change my life, or maybe you could just tweak my medication.? Other scholars proposed that the spread of democracy?including, in the nineteen-eighties, the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe and the dismembering of the Soviet Union?made the world a more peaceable place. Historically, democracies have not gone to war with other democracies. It was also argued that globalization, the interconnectedness of international trade, had rendered war less attractive. When goods are the end products of a worldwide chain of manufacture and distribution, a nation that goes to war risks cutting itself off from vital resources. In ?The Internationalists? (Simon & Schuster), two professors at Yale Law School, Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, present another explanation for the decline in interstate wars since 1945. They think that nations rarely go to war anymore because war is illegal, and has been since 1928. In their view, the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact was not a Dr. Seuss parable with funny characters in striped trousers and top hats. The treaty did what its framers intended it to do: it effectively ended the use of war as an instrument of national policy. Then what about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and so on, down to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor? Those actions were carried out by nations that were among the Pact?s original signatories, and they clearly violated its terms. According to Hathaway and Shapiro, the invasions actually turned out to be proof of the Pact?s effectiveness, because the Second World War was fought to punish aggression. The Allied victory was the triumph of Kellogg-Briand. O.K., so what about the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons? The spread of democracy? Free trade and globalization? Isn?t the Kellogg-Briand Pact just a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc?an exercise in feel-good diplomacy that happened to find confirmation many years later in a state of global affairs made possible by other means? On the contrary, Hathaway and Shapiro argue. If war had not been outlawed, none of those other things?deterrence, democracy, trade?would have been possible. The Kellogg-Briand Pact is the explanation that explains all other explanations. Genuine originality is unusual in political history. ?The Internationalists? is an original book. There is something sweet about the fact that it is also a book written by two law professors in which most of the heroes are law professors. Sweet but significant, because one of the points of ?The Internationalists? is that ideas matter. This is something that can be under-recognized in political histories, where the emphasis tends to be on material conditions and relations of power. Hathaway and Shapiro further believe that ideas are produced by human beings, something that can be under-recognized in intellectual histories, which often take the form of books talking to books. ?The Internationalists? is a story about individuals who used ideas to change the world. The cast is appropriately international. Many of the characters are barely known outside scholarly circles, and they are all sketched in as personalities, beginning with the seventeenth-century Dutch polymath Hugo Grotius, who is said to have been the most insufferable pedant of his day. They include the nineteenth-century Japanese philosopher and government official Nishi Amane; the brilliant academic rivals Hans Kelsen, an Austrian Jew, and Carl Schmitt, a book-burning Nazi; the American lawyer Salmon Levinson, who began the outlawry movement in the nineteen-twenties and then got written out of its history by men with bigger egos; and the Czech ?migr? Bohuslav E?er and the Galician ?migr? Hersch Lauterpacht, who helped formulate the arguments that made possible the prosecution of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg and laid the groundwork for the United Nations. The book covers an enormous stretch of historical ground, from 1603, when a Dutch trader attacked and looted a Portuguese ship in the waters outside Singapore, to the emergence of the Islamic State. The general argument is that it made sense to outlaw war in 1928 because war had previously been deemed a legitimate instrument of national policy. The key figure in the early part of the story is Grotius, who, in contriving a legal justification for an obviously brigandly Dutch seizure of Portuguese goods off Singapore, eventually produced a volume, ?On the Laws of War and Peace,? published in 1625, that Hathaway and Shapiro say became ?the textbook on the laws of war.? Grotius argued that wars of aggression are legal as long as states provide justification for them, but that even when the justifications prove to be shams the winners have a right to keep whatever they have managed to seize. In Grotius?s system, to use Hathaway and Shapiro?s formulations, might makes right and possession is ten-tenths of the law. That doesn?t sound like much of a legal order, but it placed some constraints on what nations could do. For one thing, it prohibited nations from going to war to recapture lost territory or other goods, since those were now in the lawful possession of the victor. For another, it required states that were not party to a war to remain neutral. This meant not just that nations couldn?t intervene militarily in someone else?s war; they could not change, for example, the terms on which they traded with the belligerents. They were, in effect, obliged to look the other way. Individuals were given a license to kill under the old system, but only if they were already at war. Otherwise, killing was still just killing. Hathaway and Shapiro argue that Grotius?s law of war explains why actions that look like simple landgrabs, such as the Mexican-American War, which began in 1846, were perfectly legal undertakings. They explain that the United States had a valid justification for attacking Mexico?among other things, they say, there was a matter of unpaid debts?and that it also had a right to whatever territory it could lay claim to as a result, which, in that case, included all or part of what would become California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. The Mexican-American War was not an extralegal military adventure. It was how nations behaved in what Hathaway and Shapiro call the Old World Order. The Old World Order obviously set a low bar for going to war, which was convenient during a period of imperial expansion but dangerous when the imperial powers turned on one another. In 1914, Grotius?s chickens came home to roost. The First World War was a regional brush fire that turned into an out-of-control inferno almost overnight. The system was not working, and the outlawry movement was a response to the emergency. The outlawers reasoned that, since the old system had rested on the legality of war, the way to replace it was to make war illegal. Hathaway and Shapiro tell us that Salmon Levinson used the analogy of duelling. There had been many efforts to change the codes of duelling and make it more humane, but people still duelled. Finally, duelling was banned, meaning that killing someone in a duel was murder, and duelling stopped. The way to stop war was, likewise, to remove its legal immunity. Hathaway and Shapiro acknowledge that one reason the Kellogg-Briand Pact is regarded as historically insignificant is that it provided no enforcement mechanism. The language of the Pact reads as merely aspirational, not much more than a promise to be good. The ineffectuality of the League of Nations, created in the wake of the First World War, was part of the problem. When Japan invaded Manchuria and eastern Mongolia, in 1931, creating the puppet state of Manchukuo, the League, which the United States never joined, judged Japan?s actions to be illegitimate. Japan responded by resigning from the League. Members of the League were in a bind: they could condemn aggression, but, as signatories to the Paris Peace Pact, they were prevented from going to war to stop it. The world needed not only a New World Order but also a way to make it stick. This was provided by Nuremberg. From a realist point of view, the Nuremberg trials, which were conducted in 1945 and 1946 and resulted in death sentences for twelve Nazis, were an application of victor?s justice. Kennan called the trials a ?horror.? The man who would become the leading international-relations theorist in postwar American academia, Hans Morgenthau, himself a Jew who had fled Hitler, considered the trials ?a symptom of the moral confusion of our times.? ?German aggression and lawlessness were not morally obnoxious to France and Great Britain as long as they were directed against Russia,? he pointed out. But the defendants were charged in three categories: crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Winston Churchill was against holding trials at all. He thought the leading Nazis should be shot on sight. Joseph Stalin favored the trials. His country had been invaded and nearly conquered, and he wanted a precedent that made wars of aggression a crime. By the time the trials began, in October, 1945, the world knew of the death camps, and to many people it seemed unconscionable not to hold the surviving Nazi leaders accountable. The chief U.S. prosecutor, Robert Jackson, characterized German aggression in his celebrated opening statement as ?a crime against international society which brings into international cognizance crimes in its aid and preparation which otherwise might be only internal concerns. It was aggressive war, which the nations of the world had renounced.? In other words, Germany?s violation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact opened the door to the prosecution of crimes against humanity. (This also explains why Soviet atrocities committed during the war were not subject to prosecution. The Soviets had been engaged in a war of self-defense, and thus, in principle, had immunity for acts performed in its pursuance.) But the legal basis for charging individual Nazis was flimsy. Technically, the Kellogg-Briand Pact had not made war a crime; it had simply removed the legal immunity that had been extended to it under Grotius?s system. And, according to international law, states, rather than individuals, were responsible for war crimes. In order to prosecute the defendants at Nuremberg, the Allies and their lawyers basically had to convert the Pact into a criminal code that made individuals liable for illegal acts of war. They did, and that is the most important legacy of Nuremberg today. It is what has allowed the prosecution, in an international court in The Hague, of more than a hundred and fifty individuals for war crimes committed during the fighting that took place in the former Yugoslavia in the nineteen-nineties. Hathaway and Shapiro concede that, in its final judgment, the Nuremberg court reverted to a form of reasoning that Allied lawyers had warned against: it argued that, since the defendants should have known that their actions were wrong, the court was justified in punishing them?effectively an exercise in ex-post-facto legislation. But the trial marked the inauguration of a new international era, because it showed how the new order?s rules could be enforced. It also signalled the advent of a new international understanding of the laws of war. From then on, territory seized by conquest in a war of aggression wasn?t exempt from reparations. Hathaway and Shapiro say that virtually all the conquered territory that had been unrecognized by the international community since 1928 was restored after 1948. As Hathaway and Shapiro see it, the success in establishing this New World Order has brought ?seven decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity.? That success has come at a price, however. When the United Nations was founded, in 1945, there were fifty-one member states, and the architects of the U.N. buildings left room for twenty more. Today, there are a hundred and ninety-three U.N. members. This is, in part, because the ban on conquest has allowed small states to maintain their sovereignty. But it has also produced a number of internally weak states, and a great deal of the carnage around the world today is the result of intrastate conflicts or the emergence of militant groups in states whose governments lack the power to suppress them. The Islamic State is an example of the kind of insurgency that thrives in weakened regimes. Atrocities seem endemic to such intrastate conflicts. Hathaway and Shapiro are lawyers, and, in making their case for the supreme explanatory power of Kellogg-Briand, they litigate themselves around some tricky historical corners. The claim about the return of conquered territories turns out to require some definitional parsing. They mean what they call ?unrecognized transfers,? a category that does not include, for example, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and East Germany, which became puppet states of the Soviet Union. Nor does their definition include the Baltic states, which were taken over by the Soviets in consequence of an agreement that Stalin made with Hitler. Hathaway and Shapiro argue that the United States refused to recognize this seizure, but this is not the reason those states were awarded independence in 1991. That happened because the Soviet Empire collapsed. Hathaway and Shapiro acknowledge the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War, in 1967, but say almost nothing about the West Bank. They scarcely mention America?s two Iraq wars, and they ignore the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that preceded them, which they presumably regard as a border dispute. (In the end, no territory changed hands, but almost half a million people were killed.) Part of the interest of their deeply interesting book, though, is seeing how far and in which cases you are willing to go along with them. ?The Internationalists? has some lessons for today. One is a warning against the temptation nations have to construe threats of war as equivalent to acts of war. The New World Order would seem to rule pre?mptive strikes out of bounds, but not self-defense, and it?s easy to see how the latter might be made a justification for the former. The claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was such a case, and the current standoff with North Korea might become another one. Hathaway and Shapiro also argue that, to the extent that there is peace among nations, it is secured by the networks of international organizations and treaties that have proliferated since the Second World War. The authors count two hundred thousand international agreements now in force. These allow for a method of punishing international lawbreakers and outlaw regimes by what they call ?outcasting.? Since there is no rule requiring neutrality, countries can now band together to impose sanctions on aggressors, casting truant nations out of the international system. This is how the world is responding, for example, to the forced annexation of Crimea. (It is not, on the other hand, how it responded to Iraq?s seizure of Kuwait, in 1990. Within six months, an international coalition of thirty-two nations, led by the United States, had attacked Iraqi forces and driven them out. The punishment chosen for violations of the new law of war depends a little on the size of the truant.) Today, we are living through a backlash against globalization, and Hathaway and Shapiro see this as itself a serious danger to peace. ?Trade plays an essential role not only as a source of beneficial collaboration,? they say, ?but also as a collective tool for constraining illegal behavior.? Economic interdependency creates a harmony of interests. ?The Internationalists? doesn?t use the terms ?realism? and ?idealism,? but if it did, its point would be that policies once disparaged as idealistic turned out to have significant tangible consequences. Still, great powers do not give up something for nothing. A central phenomenon in modern world history is Western imperialism and its aftermath, decolonization. Western world conquest began in the fifteenth century and peaked in 1939, when seven European nations had jurisdiction over almost a third of the world?s population. After 1945, those empires began breaking up; by 1970, apart from a few, mostly short-lived holdouts, they had vanished. These historical developments underlie many of the changes in the legal status of military conflict that Hathaway and Shapiro bring to our attention. So, for example, when they assert that ?the likelihood that a state will suffer a conquest has fallen from once in a lifetime to once or twice in a millennium,? and support the claim with data comparing the amount of territory conquered annually between 1816 and 1928 with the amount conquered annually after 1948?it was many times greater in the earlier period?they are only recording the difference between a period of intensive empire-building and a period of imperial divestment. ?It is likely no coincidence that Grotius?s new theory favored sovereigns and their trading companies,? Hathaway and Shapiro note. Well, yes. International law is the superstructure for the system of geopolitical relations. In writing his law of war, Grotius claimed to be deducing from the principles of natural law the proper rights of states. But he was clearly inducing from the actual actions and ambitions of powers like the Netherlands a set of rules that legalized their behavior. Ideas like Grotius?s mattered because they provided a coherent rationale for what was happening in the world willy-nilly. Grotius made the world safe for imperialists. Similarly, today, as Hathaway and Shapiro acknowledge, ?the New World Order is not divorced from global power dynamics.? The Allied powers that went to war against Germany and Japan in the name of self-determination?which is the main principle of the Atlantic Charter, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941?all had imperial possessions. After the Second World War, the European powers could no longer afford those empires; in places where they tried to hold on to them?Algeria, Vietnam, Kenya?they paid a heavy price (to say nothing of the toll paid by the colonized peoples) and lost them anyway. Decolonization, assuming that the ex-imperial powers could maintain favorable trade relations, eliminated administrative costs and the associated ideological contradictions. It is not surprising that the great powers, in a world in which their influence and their share of global product were likely to shrink, were willing to exchange the right of conquest for globalization, with its system of international trade agreements. ?The Pact appealed to the West because it promised to secure and protect previous conquests, thus securing Western Nations? place at the head of the international legal order indefinitely,? as Hathaway and Shapiro rightly say. Like most international treaties, it didn?t redistribute political capital; it locked in existing power differentials. Defining ?conquest? as a violation of international law today means that it is much harder for smaller states to become big ones, and making smaller countries dependent on their trade with bigger ones keeps them in line. That there will be better off and worse off is always implicit in the concept of order. This article appears in the print edition of the September 18, 2017, issue, with the headline ?Drop Your Weapons.? Louis Menand has contributed to The New Yorker since 1991, and has been a staff writer since 2001. ======================================== 16. SARAJEVO DECIDES AGAINST HONOURING TURKISH AUTHOR ORHAN PAMUK WITH HONORARY CITIZENSHIP | Agence France-Presse, Sarajevo ======================================== (Hindustan Times - Feb 17, 2018 A municipal council committee, tasked with deciding on the award, this week revoked its earlier decision to honour the famous author, who is also an outspoken critic of the current political climate in Turkey. Sarajevo has dropped plans to proclaim Turkish Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk an honorary citizen of the Bosnian capital, a move the opposition claimed was done out of fear of offending Turkey?s president. A municipal council committee, tasked with deciding on the award, this week revoked its earlier decision to honour the famous author, who is also an outspoken critic of the current political climate in Turkey. The committee has so far given no explanation for revoking the decision which had previously passed unanimously by the seven councillors. In the second vote, four councillors voted against it, Samir Fazlic of the opposition multi-ethnic Nasa Stranka (Our Party) party told AFP. The different outcome of the vote was prompted by the ?writer?s opposition to the politics of Turkish president Erdogan? and ?fear ... of Erdogan,? Fazlic claimed. Sarajevo is ruled by Bosnia?s main Muslim SDA party led by Bakir Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic, also the Muslim member of Bosnia?s joint presidency, is close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who invited him to the marriage of his daughter in May 2016. The opposition Social Democratic Party in a statement also criticised the decision as ?servile politics.? Contacted by AFP, the office of Sarajevo mayor Abdulah Skaka, of the SDA party, did not reply. Head of the committee Velija Katica, also of the SDA, told local reporters he ?did not get instructions on how to vote.? Pamuk had been nominated for the award by a local bookstore as he is writing a screenplay for a movie on wartime Sarajevo. The bookstore director reportedly said the committee thought Pamuk was not ?sufficiently important for Sarajevo.? ?We still don?t know? what was the real reason, director Damir Uzunovic told regional N1 television. ?To say that he (Pamuk) is not sufficiently important for the city is no explanation at all. ... This argument is completely absurd.? Bosnia?s branch of the PEN club sent its ?sincere apologies? to Pamuk. Pamuk, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2006, has denounced what he called a climate of ?fear? in his country. He lashed out at the arrest of prominent Turkish writer and journalist Ahmet Altan, over suspicion of being linked with a failed July 2016 coup, warning that Turkey was heading towards becoming a ?regime of terror?. Since the end of Bosnia?s 1990s war, Turkey has invested in Bosnia through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) some 240 million euros ($298 million) in about 800 projects. They include the reconstruction of mosques, monuments from the Ottoman era and schools. The Ottomans ruled in Sarajevo for more than four centuries until 1878. ======================================== 17. ANTONY BEEVOR: WHY DID UKRAINE BAN MY BOOK? ======================================== The Guardian, 3 Feb 2018 After the Ukraine government condemned his book Stalingrad, Antony Beevor reflects on governments? desire to alter the past and warns of the dangers of censorship According to an old Spanish proverb, ?history is a common meadow in which everyone can make hay?. It has also long been a battleground for the perpetuation of nationalist myths and political attempts to reshape the past. In recent decades there have been encouraging developments, with many more international history conferences and foreign academics recruited by universities. All of this has helped to reduce the tendency of countries to view the past uniquely from their own patriotic perspectives. At the same time governments of all shades still long to impose their versions of the past through education, pressure on the media and if necessary outright censorship and even legislation. Motives vary. In France, attempts by the former president Nicolas Sarkozy to criminalise denial of the Armenian genocide were strongly suspected to have been aimed at attracting the votes of the large Armenian community. Meanwhile, Holocaust denial laws in Germany and Austria in 2000 were no doubt brought in with the best intentions, yet the conclusion of the Irving-Lipstadt case in Britain ? in which historian David Irving sued US academic Deborah Lipstadt for branding him a Holocaust denier ? triumphantly proved that open debate, if necessary in court, is a far better way of nailing the lies of extremists. Irving?s short term in jail in Austria in 2006 simply encouraged him to play the political martyr. In Turkey, censorship becomes more and more ferocious, and not just about the Armenian genocide, Kurdish matters, Fethullah G?len and the attempted coup of 2016. Today?s Russia is at times just like the Soviet Union in its attempts to preserve past legends. Yuri Dmitriev, the highly respected Gulag researcher in Karelia, north-west Russia, was arrested on trumped up charges in 2016 of taking pornographic photographs of his adopted daughter and is still held more than a year later for ?psychiatric evaluation?. Most Russian archives, especially the military ones, were closed to foreign historians back in 2000 after the tantalising glimpses we had enjoyed from 1992. Friends teased me, blaming the closure on the storm caused by my book Berlin ? The Downfall, but it was not published until 2002. This was also some time after the FSB (the new version of the KGB) had started to investigate the work of foreign researchers. One friend, more than a year after he had published his book, found that in one of the archives every file he had quoted from had been withdrawn on orders from on high. Grigory Karasin, the Russian ambassador in London at the time, and now deputy foreign minister, condemned my account of the Red Army?s mass rapes in the Berlin book as ?lies, slander and blasphemy?, although it was mainly based on Russian archival sources. And in 2014, when historian Catherine Merridale and I were in Estonia for a literary festival, we heard that the Russian defence minister, Sergey Shoygu, had finally managed to pass a law condemning anyone who insulted the Red Army in the second world war with up to five years in prison. During his first attempt, six years earlier, to introduce the law, Shoigu had said that the offence was the equivalent of Holocaust denial, which was an interesting comparison.The following year an already bowdlerised version of Berlin was banned in part of Russia on the grounds that it might corrupt the minds of students and teaching staff. According to the regional minister of education, the book ?propagandises stereotypes formed during the Third Reich?. My Russian publishers, who have been issuing new translations of my books, are working to find a way in which they can be published in their integral forms without coming into conflict with the authorities. It is not easy. I certainly did not expect this latest contretemps, following the Ukrainian government?s sudden banning of a Russian language edition of Stalingrad, especially 20 years after the first publication. This was basically because one passage recounts how the SS forced Ukrainian militiamen to massacre 90 Jewish children in August 1941. The Ukrainian government?s ?committee of experts? claimed this story was taken from Soviet propaganda. In fact the source notes show clearly that it was based on reliable German accounts, especially one by an anti-Nazi officer who was so horrified that he wrote to his wife to say that Germany did not deserve to win the war. There is also a harrowing eyewitness account of the killings written by an SS officer. At least there has been one encouraging aspect to the whole sorry story. I received a bewildering array of support from Ukrainian human rights groups, Human Rights Watch in the US, the Canadian foreign minister and the Foreign Office in the UK. (This prompted my daughter to observe: ?And what about people who have real human rights problems?? She had a point.) Fellow historians naturally regarded the decision to ban the book as ridiculous. Philippe Sands, the president of English PEN, immediately offered to change his mind and accept an invitation to the Kiev book fair for his book East West Street so that he could put the case there. It was an astonishing own goal by the Ukrainian committee of experts when the country wants to be seen as more democratic and western than Vladimir Putin?s Russia to their north, and, finally, mainly thanks to representations by the British embassy, the committee has backed down. There is no longer any suggestion that the story came from Soviet sources. They did, however, have one complaint outstanding. My Russian publisher?s translator had changed ?Ukrainian militiamen? to ?Ukrainian nationalists?, which implicitly tars all Ukrainian nationalists with the reputation of having helped the SS Einsatzgruppen. But now my Russian publisher believes that it was right to change the word on the grounds that the militiamen were operating under the aegis of the OUN, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. This may seem a trivial spat over nomenclature, but it is a pertinent reminder of how powerful the grim legacy of the war remains three-quarters of a century on. ? Arnhem ? The Battle for the Bridges is published by Viking in May. To pre-order a copy for ?21.25 (RRP ?25) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over ?10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of ?1.99. ======================================== 18. RUSSIA'S BAN ON 'THE DEATH OF STALIN' IS UNPRECEDENTED SINCE FALL OF SOVIET UNION | Oliver Carroll ======================================== The Independent - 24 January 2018 That decision has raised fears about the return of censorship and the further rehabilitation of one of history?s tyrants Armando Iannucci?s dark satire has gained plaudits in the West, but it has drawn a very different reaction in Russia's upper echelons ?The comedy The Death of Stalin has been banned,? wrote the writer Vladimir Voinovich on Facebook. ?Because for those banning it, Stalin is still alive ? and that is no comedy.? On Tuesday, the Russian ministry of culture made a dramatic last-minute decision to withdraw the screening licence of Armando Iannucci?s dark satire. That decision ? the first ever of its kind in post-Soviet Russia ? has raised fears about the return of censorship and the further rehabilitation of one of history?s tyrants. But there seems to be more to the story than first meets the eye. We may not fully understand the mechanism in which the ministry decided the film was not fit for cinemas, a few weeks after being issued with a licence. Reading between the lines of often muddled official positions, it appears many contexts were at play: business, politics, wounded pride and possibly even incompetence. The Ministry?s recent backtracking of a decision to postpone the film Paddington 2 ? to prioritise a Russian film being released on the same day ? may have played a crucial role. At least some of the conservative reaction seemed to be as real as it was righteous. Celebrated filmmaker Vladimir Bortko, a signatory to the letter announcing the ban, said the film was a ?tremendous abomination?. The only reason it was produced was to denigrate the Communist Party, he said: ?For some reason, they say it?s a comedy ... There is so much hatred in this film. It will not be shown.? Another high-profile signatory to the letter was the Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov, who is a friend of the president. Mikhalkov claimed the film was ?unprofessional? ? from the acting through to the camera work. ?It?s not a film so much as a speculative operation unworthy of discussion,? he said. Pavel Pozhigailo, a member of ministry of culture?s advisory council described the film as ?blasphemous?. ?We don?t have to be a country of masochists,? he said. ?This is insulting our national symbols. The trailer goes out using our national anthem and it shows our great war marshals as ... I don?t know how else to put it ... idiots.? Nadezhda Usmanova, head of the Russian Military Historical Society?s department of information, said the film was ?vile, repugnant and insulting?. Usmanova?s group is closely associated with the controversial culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, and organised the secret screenings that led to the ban. Styling himself as a patriotic historian, the controversial Medinsky has written several books on ?Western myths? about Russia. Much to the chagrin of liberals, he has built huge influence in the Russian arts during six years in power. Under his watch, his ministry has become known for activist interventions in culture, financing patriotic films and exhibitions. In November, the minister initially ruled out banning the Iannucci satire. ?We have freedom of speech here,? he said. Explaining his U-turn on Wednesday, Medinsky said the withdrawal of the film?s licence was not censorship per se, but an attempt to draw ?moral boundaries?. It could not be right that the film was due to be released on the anniversary of the victory at Stalingrad, he argued. But it is unlikely the ban was driven only by patriotic considerations and new solidarity with Stalin. According to the president of the St Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, much of this looked like a local initiative, driven by anger: ?Medinsky?s ministry wanted to save some face following the Paddington 2 debacle, and wanted to show it was still in the game. Stalin was the cover.? Producer Yevgeny Gindilis, a member of the Russian Oscar committee, offered a similar assessment. ?Paddington 2 galvanised the ministry and other ultra-nationalist forces into a counter-reaction,? he says. ?On the one hand, they decided to battle against a film they don?t like. But on another they are trying to broaden the sense of what is and isn?t allowed. This was the first example of open censorship, banned by the constitution.? According to Gindilis, the actions of the ministry were not intended to have any practical effect. ?It?s a classic case of the Streisand effect ? everyone will now want to watch the film, in cinemas or elsewhere,? he says. ?No, Medinsky?s intervention is symbolic and part of a strategy of legalising prohibition.? Both films ? Paddington 2 and The Death of Stalin ? are promoted by the same company, VolgaFilm. Its representatives told The Independent it was taking a ?principled position? by not commenting on either situation. The presidential administration has claimed it remained arms-length from the decision-making process. Speaking to journalists, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said the decision was the ?prerogative of the ministry of culture and its experts?. Of course, it is likely they played an entirely supportive consultative role. But the reaction from Russia?s other seat of government ? Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev?s government was disapproving. On Tuesday evening, an unnamed government source was quoted in the Vedomosti newspaper, saying that the ministry decision ?had undermined all confidence in the sector?. The Prime Minister had already ordered an inquiry into the Paddington 2 debacle, the source said; the scope would be extended. Film critic and journalist Anton Dolin told The Independent that it was not unusual for the government to be sending mixed messages. ?All the time we sense the two towers of the Kremlin ? competing forces, gnawing their way through each other,? he said. ?The world of culture often sees a multi-headed monster, and this may well be happening here.? The apparent slapping-down of the culture minister in the Russian press raised another possibility: that this may not be the last episode or U-turn in the story. Tickets have yet to be pulled from several Moscow cinemas. ======================================== 19. REWRITING HISTORY IN EASTERN EUROPE: POLAND'S NEW HOLOCAUST LAW AND THE POLITICS OF THE PAST By Volha Charnysh and Evgeny Finkel ======================================== Foreign Affairs February 14, 2018 Last week, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a controversial law criminalizing statements that attribute responsibility for the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities to ?the Polish nation.? In a televised speech, Duda said that the law protects Poland?s interests, dignity, and the historical truth, ?so that we are not slandered.? The move sparked an outcry in Western countries. Human Rights Watch warned that it would have ?a chilling effect on free expression.? Jean-Yves Le Drian, France?s foreign minister, said that the Polish government should not attempt to ?rewrite history.? And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the law ?baseless.? ?I strongly oppose it,? he said. ?One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied.? The law is just the latest part of a broader effort at historical revisionism. Last year, Poland?s ruling Law and Justice party (known as PiS) took over a World War II museum in Gdansk in an effort to restructure the exhibitions to emphasize Polish suffering and heroism. The museum?s director was fired, its advisory board was reshuffled to include right-wing pro-PiS historians, and an exhibit on contemporary conflicts across the world was replaced with a patriotic animation on Poland?s struggle from the beginning of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union. PiS also began talk of requesting new reparations from Germany and started removing the ?monuments of gratitude? to the Red Army erected by the Soviet Union after World War II. Nor is Poland the only postcommunist country that has tried to reframe the history of its role in World War II and defend the part it played in the Holocaust. Hungary, Ukraine, and the Baltic states have all made similar moves. Critics of such policies say they falsify history; their defenders argue that they represent a normal and necessary part of state building or even valiant attempts to preserve historical truth. In reality, these developments have little to do with historical accuracy or state building. [ . . . ] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/hungary/2018-02-14/rewriting-history-eastern-europe?cid=int-lea&pgtype=hpg ======================================== 20. REVIEW: DAFNOS ON CAMUS AND LEBOURG, 'FAR-RIGHT POLITICS IN EUROPE' ======================================== Jean-Yves Camus, Nicolas Lebourg. Far-Right Politics in Europe. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2017. 310 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-97153-0. Reviewed by Andreas Dafnos (University of Sheffield) Published on H-Nationalism (February, 2018) Commissioned by Caner Tekin The Far Right and the influence it exerts on both domestic and international political systems have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Although there exists an abundance of scholarly work on the ebbs and flows of this diverse phenomenon, Far-Right Politics in Europe by Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg is a useful addition to the existing literature due to its meticulous investigation of the numerous Far Right factions that have been developed over time and across space. With a predominant focus on the European continent, the book defies easy explanations and can, more generally, be approached as an answer to the voices that indiscriminately tend to treat the Far Right as a single and unified entity. The introductory chapter, titled ?How the Far Right Came into Being,? covers a large part of the book. This comes as no surprise however, as a fundamental premise of the book is that the modern Far Right can be better understood if viewed through a historical lens. Therefore, Camus and Lebourg position the unit of their analysis in French history and specifically in the workings of the Constituent Assembly at the end of the eighteenth century. They trace the origins of Far Right thought, which was at the time portrayed as a plea for the restoration of the ancien r?gime by counterrevolution advocates. The chapter invites the reader to delve into the social processes that influenced the trajectory of the Far Right since that moment, showing how ?the first globalization? of Europe allowed ideas and people to disseminate across geographic territories (p. 7). A recurring theme refers to this constant exchange of ideas and the tendency of the Far Right to adopt beliefs that may even belong to different political leanings along its own ideological lines. Another interesting observation is the realization that some of the dominant traits of the Far Right today cannot be considered idiosyncrasies of our era; in fact, national populism is shown to have been part of the French system for the last 130 years. Camus and Lebourg convincingly argue that the developments of the Far Right in terms of its ideological and organizational synthesis cannot be explained if context and time are omitted from analysis. Chapter 1 turns its attention to the period after the Second World War, providing a detailed overview of the difficulties faced particularly by those groups that were closer to Fascism and Nazism. The Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) is mentioned here, and this is important because academic work has often attributed the transformation of several like-minded groups to the catalytic role MSI has played. But what stands out in this chapter is the effort of the Far Right to build networks beyond national borders, since ?immediately after the collapse of the Axis powers, Fascist militants saw a united Europe as the justification for their previous positions? (p. 64). Camus and Lebourg illustrate, for example, how these attempts led to the New European Order (NEO), an organization that decided to divert from Nazism and to adopt a discourse for the defense of neo-racism, marking a critical moment for the history of the Far Right as ?that discourse would have many incarnations and transmutations? (p. 74). Another movement with the same purpose of establishing European presence is Jeune Europe (JE), which is also discussed at length due to its innovative nature. The chapter concludes with an important observation that ?despite the desire of Fascist movements, a supranational and social reorientation has not really taken hold. Their efforts have not been fruitless, however, because, their innovations were useful to both populist and neorightist factions? (p. 96). The next chapter deals with the role of white power and the role of race as driving forces for the actions of some Far Right groups. Here the discussion revolves around neo-Nazi groups that are ?more cultural than political in nature? (p. 101), placing emphasis on the skinhead movement. It is interesting to see how this type of movement developed across Europe, in a period of time that the ?proletariat was deconstructing? (p. 104). The authors explain that, among others, indoctrination through music and participation in violent practices are key characteristics of a Far Right skinhead, and then proceed to a more eloquent exploration of how violence is articulated through the activities of neo-Nazi groups. This section shows the extent of influence that the American Far Right had on its European counterparts. As one would expect at this point, there are references to the lone wolf strategy, which ?should not be confused (as it often is) with the question of self-radicalization? (p. 110), and The Turner Diaries (1978), an influential book that is based on the principle of the struggle for race. Once more the narration of the authors is strengthened by the use of various case studies, helping the reader engage with the material of this section. Much has been written in the academic literature about the impact that the New Right had on ideological aspects of the modern Far Right, mainly as this was expressed through the idea of ethnopluralism that ?every individual is attached to an ethnocultural group that would protect its identity by avoiding racial mixing? (p. 130). In chapter 3, the reader has the opportunity to engage with an important moment in the history of the Far Right. Camus and Lebourg exemplify that the New Right or Nouvelle Droite (as is often mentioned) is an amalgamation of intellectual groups and personalities that cannot, however, be assumed uniform. A key figure is GRECE (Groupe de Recherches et d'?tudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne), which occupies a central place in this chapter. It is also interesting to see that the reason why the New Right emerged was ?the organizational failure to build a European nationalist party in France? (p. 127). Once more the interplay between groups is evident as well as the influence of historic events (for example, May 1968) on the development of the Far Right. The ability of the authors to attain accuracy is outstanding, and this is evident, for example, in their narration on neopaganism and the New Right or the impact of Julius Evola?s theories. Chapter 4 dissects the relationship between religious fundamentalism and the Far Right, beginning with the intriguing observation that faith should not be associated with extremism, since it embraces the qualities of ?freedom of conscience,? the antithesis to dogmatism, and takes an ?interest in individual rights? (p. 152). However, the authors show how ideological stances can be fused into paths of multiple interpretations, signifying in this way the complexity of reality. This might explain, for instance, why compared to Catholics more Protestants vote for a Far Right party. Camus and Lebourg also define terms that seem to be conflated (see, for instance, on page 159 the differences between integrists and traditionalists), while a large section looks into the association between integrism and the National Front. Even the issue of the Jewish Far Right is raised and addressed toward the last pages, describing its true dimensions. On the other hand, scholars keen on learning more about populism will find chapter 5 interesting, where the term is analyzed in depth. The chapter shows how populist questions came to the forefront and dominated the political debate. Indicative of this is the speech of Enoch Powell in 1968, which assigned blame to nonwhite immigrants and asked for their repatriation. The latter combined with the impact of the New Right thinking, as discussed previously, helps the reader understand that the evolution of the Far Right is the result of multiple factors. The chapter also offers a compelling account of successful and failed cases, showing that populism is no panacea for success, and that political groups may face insurmountable obstacles and challenges when they put the populist model into practice. Particular emphasis has been finally placed on the so-called neopulist shift that was determined by ?the geopolitical crisis subsequent to September 11, 2001, and the socioeconomic recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis? (p. 196). The description of the Dutch case reveals how this shift can materialize. The last chapter investigates the Far Right in Eastern European countries. Although it is debatable within academia to what extent the Eastern European Far Right can be compared to its Western counterparts, Camus and Lebourg make clear at the outset that ?the eastern part of the continent must not be understood in terms of Western assumptions? (p. 210). What the authors find particularly interesting is the fact that some of the prewar ideologies did not lose their significance during the Communist era and appeared again after the collapse of the regimes. The chapter also familiarizes the reader with the ideas of one of the most important figures of Russian neo-nationalism, Aleksandr Dugin, and his concept of neo-Eurasianism, which ?reconciles the two theoretical elements of George Sorel?s thought: myth and utopia? (p. 227). What is more, the analytical prism under which numerous countries (for example, Russia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria, to name a few) are being approached sheds light not only on the peculiarities of Eastern European Far Right groups but also on the composition of their base of support. Finally, despite the fact that one could raise objections about the labels that have been used (for example, radical Far Right and national populism) or feel that some points are being obscured by the detailed description of events, this book is essential reading for those aspiring to understand the Far Right. In essence, readers have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with Far Right groups that encompass varying degrees of radicalism, and to look into their differences, overlaps, influences, and evolution up to the present time. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Feb 25 13:07:41 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:07:41 +0400 Subject: SACW - 26 Feb 2018 | Arms sales data / Suffragettes & Mahatma Gandhi / Afghan Mental Hospital / Sri Lanka's past / Pakistan - India: Escalating Border War / India: Neelabh Mishra (1960 - 2018) / Russian theatre / East European Populism Message-ID: <782BC5DD-5645-4360-BE78-782A6C432CB9@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 26 February 2018 - No. 2973 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. SIPRI Data on 100 Companies Selling Most Arms in the World - A Chart by AFP 2. How the Suffragettes influenced Mahatma Gandhi | Ramachandra Guha 3. India: Neelabh Mishra (1960 - 2018) - the ethical and public spirited journalist passes on, he will be widely remembered 4. India: Direct benefit transfer (DBT) Scheme for food subsidy despite huge opposition in Jharkhand - Mass protest planned on 26 Feb 2018 5. Who is responsible for India?s Partition and Kashmir Imbroglio ? Ram Puniyani 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India; BJP govt in Haryana hell bent on introducing hindu religious prayer in school - India: Anand Mohan J and Somya Lakhani on the high price of inter-faith marriages - [Ram Rajya Rath Yatra: Politics for power - Ram Puniyani's artile in Hindi] - India: Resisting Saffronisation of Textbooks - Karnataka?s Success Story | Suresh Bhat - India: Adityanath Hate CD, Found in Sealed Records a Decade Later, Was Never Sent for Forensics - N Gopalaswami, Head of RSS Education Wing to Select India?s 20 ?World Class Institutes? | news18.com - What was Tariq Ramdan the rape accused islamist doing in Dec 2017 at Al Jamia al-Islamiya of Santapuram, Kerala India - India: Amid tensions with BJP and a row within, Hindu Yuva Vahini grows in UP ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Afghanistan's Lone Psychiatric Hospital Reveals Mental Health Crisis Fueled By War | Samantha Raphelson 8. The fear inside us: Confronting Sri Lanka's past | Aljazeera 9. Burma: Generals Prep $15M of New Fencing For Border With Bangladesh | Htet Naing Zaw 10. Bangladesh worried about influx of Bangalis from Assam 11. Are factories better in Bangladesh after Rana Plaza? That depends on who you ask | Andrea Crossan and Jasmine Garsd 12. Kashmir: Pakistan and India exchange artillery fire amid escalation in dispute | Fayaz Bukhari [ + related news] 13. Into the Woods : Thomas Jones on the Italian Election 14. How Russian theatre is speaking truth to power | Viv Groskop 15. Review: Dafnos on Camus and Lebourg, 'Far-Right Politics in Europe' 16. How Eastern European Populism is Different | S?awomir Sierakowski ======================================== 1. SIPRI Data on 100 Companies Selling Most Arms in the World - A Chart by AFP ======================================== http://www.sacw.net/article13657.html ======================================== 2. HOW THE SUFFRAGETTES INFLUENCED MAHATMA GANDHI | Ramachandra Guha ======================================== Their [Suffragettes] struggles left a mark on the techniques of protest used by the Mahatma in South Africa http://www.sacw.net/article13659.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: NEELABH MISHRA (1960 - 2018) - THE ETHICAL AND PUBLIC SPIRITED JOURNALIST PASSES ON, HE WILL BE WIDELY REMEMBERED ======================================== Senior journalist and editor-in-chief of National Herald, Neelabh Mishra, passed away on February 24 at a Chennai Hospital http://www.sacw.net/article13656.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: DIRECT BENEFIT TRANSFER (DBT) SCHEME FOR FOOD SUBSIDY DESPITE HUGE OPPOSITION IN JHARKHAND - MASS PROTEST PLANNED ON 26 FEB 2018 ======================================== Overwhelming Popular Opposition to the DBT Experiment in Jharkhand Glitches in the system have deprived people of nearly half of their food rations in the last four months. When they do get their rations, people spend 12 hours collecting them, on average. Most people are opposed to (...) http://www.sacw.net/article13658.html ======================================== 5. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR INDIA?S PARTITION AND KASHMIR IMBROGLIO ? Ram Puniyani ======================================== Political tendencies not only distort and ?present the past? to suit their political agenda; they can go to any extent to even lie about the events and their interpretation. ?Facts are sacred; opinions are free? should have been the dictum for all those commenting on them, but as they say for the likes of Modi, ?all is fair in love and war?. To promote his personal ambitions and to enhance the impact of his political agenda http://www.sacw.net/article13655.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India; BJP govt in Haryana hell bent on introducing hindu religious prayer in school - India: Anand Mohan J and Somya Lakhani on the high price of inter-faith marriages - [Ram Rajya Rath Yatra: Politics for power - Ram Puniyani's artile in Hindi] - India: Resisting Saffronisation of Textbooks - Karnataka?s Success Story | Suresh Bhat - India: Adityanath Hate CD, Found in Sealed Records a Decade Later, Was Never Sent for Forensics - N Gopalaswami, Head of RSS Education Wing to Select India?s 20 ?World Class Institutes? | news18.com - What was Tariq Ramdan the rape accused islamist doing in Dec 2017 at Al Jamia al-Islamiya of Santapuram, Kerala India - India: Amid tensions with BJP and a row within, Hindu Yuva Vahini grows in UP -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. AFGHANISTAN'S LONE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL REVEALS MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS FUELED BY WAR | Samantha Raphelson ======================================== National Public Radio (NPR) February 14, 2018 An Afghan patient sits in a yard at the only mental health rehabilitation center in the city of Herat in April 2014. Aref Karimi /AFP/Getty Images Nearly 40 years of violent conflict is driving a growing mental health crisis in Afghanistan. While accurate data on mental health issues are not available in Afghanistan, the World Health Organization estimates more than a million Afghans suffer from depressive disorders and over 1.2 million suffer from anxiety disorders. The WHO says the actual numbers are likely much higher. The mental health toll signifies a hidden consequence of war that is often overshadowed by bombed-out buildings and loss of life. Afghanistan has only one high-security psychiatric facility, where many of the patients are often chained and sedated. The Red Crescent Secure Psychiatric Institution houses almost 300 patients considered to be the "most dangerous," says Sahar Zand, a reporter for the BBC who reported from the facility in Herat, the third-largest city in the country. While some patients in the hospital showed symptoms of mental health problems in childhood, "the majority of people are actually in there because they have developed psychological problems during the war because of Afghanistan's recent history," she tells Here & Now's Lisa Mullins. There are few treatment options in Afghanistan for those with mental health issues, according to the World Health Organization. The government has recently stepped up efforts to train and employ mental health professionals, but there are still barriers to treatment, such as the cultural stigma surrounding mental illness. "There is an urgent need for increased investment towards supporting mental health interventions in Afghanistan to ensure support is available for people with mental health disorders," Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement last year. "We need to treat mental health with the urgency it deserves." Some people in the Red Crescent psychiatric hospital say they shouldn't even be there, Zand says, but because there is a lack of adequate outpatient mental health services, they remain. "I'm not crazy. I'm sane," one woman told Zand. "What am I doing in this madhouse? It's horrible. I beg you to get me out of here." It's hard to be accepted into the hospital, but it's even harder to get out once patients receive sufficient treatment, Zand says. Many patients are stuck in the hospital because their family was either killed in the conflict or migrated to neighboring countries, such as Iraq and Pakistan. More than 2.5 million of the world's refugees are from Afghanistan, the second-largest refugee population behind Syria, according to World Bank data. "Even thinking about it now ? it still sends shivers down my spine ? is the fact that some of the patients in there are actually cured," Zand says. "As long as they take their medication, they would no longer be a threat to the society. ... But for these patients to get discharged, somebody needs to come and pick them up." As a result, patients with severe psychological problems, such as psychosis, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, who could thrive outside of the hospital, are "basically stuck in there forever," she says. Among the patients are former terrorists, militants and others who lost family members in the conflict, Zand says. They come from all different walks of life, but most of them are in the hospital as a direct result of the war. In an outdoor courtyard, Zand met two men who were chained together: a former Taliban fighter and his enemy, a former mujahideen. The two men are bound together by their illnesses, she says. "No matter who you are, where you come from, what your religion, ideology, race, whatever it is, war is ugly, and it doesn't just leave behind destroyed buildings or corpses," Zand says. "It leaves behind a long-term effect on people's minds. And this is something that gets passed down generations and can actually have very long-term, horrific effects." ======================================== 8. THE FEAR INSIDE US: CONFRONTING SRI LANKA'S PAST ======================================== Aljazeera 4 Feb 2018 As Sri Lanka marks 70 years of independence, the nation has a long road ahead in tackling post-war reconciliation. In his film Demons in Paradise, Tamil filmmaker Jude Ratnam revisits Sri Lanka's uneasy past [Screengab/Al Jazeera] more on Tamil Tigers At first, the tall, brooding silhouette at her doorstep was unrecognisable. After more than three decades, Sellaiah Manoranjan, an ex-Tamil fighter, returned to a house in Jaffna where he and his family once sought refuge from the Sri Lankan military. It reminded his Sinhalese host of the time she risked her own safety by offering shelter to this Tamil family in the beginning of the country's 26-year civil war. "We're still alive, aren't we, my boy?" she asked, patting Manoranjan on his shoulder, as if he was still a teenager. "They harassed us because we supported Tamils. But we protected them anyway." Manoranjan has returned with his nephew Jude Ratnam, a filmmaker who is retracing his uncle's experiences to get closer to understanding not only the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict, but also the infighting and power struggle within Tamil separatist groups that characterised their quest for a separate homeland. A history of discrimination After gaining independence from Britain in 1948, Sri Lanka became embroiled in a struggle between the Sinhalese majority ethnic group and the minority Tamils. Despite the British Raj over Sri Lanka being largely coloured by the divide-and-rule strategy, figures from the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka were appointed to high-ranking civil services jobs and played an important role in the governance of the island. But in 1948, administrative power fell into the hands of the Sinhalese, who began an onslaught of legislative discrimination against the Tamil population. The Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 denied citizenship to Sri Lankans of Indian descent (Tamils were largely of Indian descent). Then, in 1956, the Sinhala Only Act made Sinhalese the only official language of Sri Lanka. In the 1970s, importing Tamil language books, magazines and films from the Tamil cultural hub of Tamil Nadu in India, was also outlawed. "Once political parties dominated by the Sinhalese majority got entrenched, they pushed through certain policies that had an effect on the everyday life of Tamils and made them feel marginalised," said Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University. "This was seen as an affront to the idea of equal citizenship and created a situation that radicalised the youth and led to a feeling of discontent that was channelled into anti-state movements," she told Al Jazeera. Once political parties dominated by the Sinhalese majority got entrenched, they pushed through certain policies that had an effect on the everyday life of Tamils and made them feel marginalised. Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University Calls for the right to Tamil self-determination, reflected in the 1977 parliamentary elections, were brushed aside when the Sri Lankan government responded with an amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution, prohibiting peaceful advocacy of independence. Four years later, in 1981, an irreversible blow to Tamil culture and history at the hands of an organised Sinhalese mob saw the Jaffna library set on fire. Over 95,000 Tamil historical texts and manuscripts were burned to ashes. Sri Lanka's Black July In July 1983, a group of Tamil fighters ambushed a contingent of the Sri Lankan military, killing 13 soldiers. The incident sparked the 1983 anti-Tamil riots, and a bloody civil war broke out that left more than 100,000 dead and around 800,000 displaced. "That night in July 1983, the whole capital was set on fire," recalls Ratnam, referring to what is widely remembered in Sri Lankan history as "Black July". When the dust settled, thousands of Tamils had been displaced from their homes and their businesses uprooted. Many Tamils were forced to migrate to the northern parts of the country, mainly to the city of Jaffna. Just as we were arriving in the north of the country, the Tamil fighters began to organise themselves to take up arms. The Tamil guerrillas' fight for an independent state began. Jude Ratnam, filmmaker Ratnam was still a child when they fled the violence, but he remembers his father walking helplessly up and down the platform as his family boarded the train from Colombo to Jaffna. "That picture is deeply etched into my memory," he said. "That night, I didn't realise we were fleeing Colombo as refugees. We went to the north where the majority of Tamils were already living." "Just as we were arriving in the north of the country, the Tamil fighters began to organise themselves to take up arms. The Tamil guerrillas' fight for an independent state began," Ratnam said. Manoranjan reconnects with the lady who sheltered his family from the Sri Lankan army three decades ago. [Screengrab/Al Jazeera] A rebellion divided Under the banner of Tamil Eelam, the struggle for a separate homeland for the Tamils, the resistance fractured before it could present itself to be a viable opposition for the state. "All the names I heard as a child, Tigers, TELO, PLOTE, EPDP, EPRLF, EROS, were those of the various Tamil militant groups," Ratnam said. "I was proud of those names." Pride soon turned into fear as infighting started within the group. "They [Tamil Tigers] were killing all those who opposed them, one by one," said Manoranjan, who was a member of the National Liberation Front of Tamileelam (NLFT). It was a "small political group" that stood for "socialist revolution" and a group that inevitably was overshadowed by the more violent and menacing Tigers. "In the early 1980s, you had a streamlining of the [Tamil resistance] groups. The Tigers really consolidated their hegemony as the dominant group and physically eliminated most of its rivals," Wickramasinghe told Al Jazeera. "The TT consolidated its place quite violently. There wasn't a rallying around in an organic way, it was a battleground for who would become the representative of this movement," she said. The struggle for Tamil Eelam was quashed in 2009, when, after weeks of intense fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief Tamil leader was shot and killed by security forces. The Tigers really consolidated their hegemony as the dominant group and physically eliminated most of its rivals. Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University 'The fear is ready to come back' Almost nine years after the end of the civil war, Sri Lanka is still grappling with its recent past. Many challenges remain unresolved and many of the physical, emotional and psychological wounds of war remain unhealed. According to Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch's South Asia director, successive governments have failed to properly address issues raised by the conflict. "Immediately after the war, the government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa was unwilling to address concerns around violations of laws of war," she said. "Those seeking accountability and answers were under severe pressure with the government cracking down on freedom of expression. Those suspected of any connection or sympathy with the Tamil Tigers were subjected to arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and severe torture, including sexual abuse, in custody," Ganguly told Al Jazeera. In March 2017, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Rights Council that "the consistent failure to effectively investigate, prosecute and punish serious crimes appears to reflect a broader reluctance or fear to take action against members of the security forces." The current government stresses it has indeed been involved in efforts to address some of the concerns regarding its role in the civil war. In that light, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena appears to contradict key findings from a UN investigation into the country's civil war, released in September 2015. "Today, in our country, we're asked to move forward, forgetting the past," said Ratnam. "Almost all traces of the war have been wiped out. Everyone wants to believe the country will develop, whatever the means. We are asked to deny our identities in order to move forward. But I know that that fear, which is buried deep inside us is ready to come back to the surface and it could happen at any moment." ======================================== 9. BURMA: GENERALS PREP $15M OF NEW FENCING FOR BORDER WITH BANGLADESH | Htet Naing Zaw ======================================== The Irrawaddy 23 February 2018 NAYPYITAW ? The Upper House of Parliament on Thursday heard the Home Affairs Ministry?s 20 billion kyats ($15 million) plan to raise several more kilometers of fencing along Myanmar?s border with Bangladesh and carry out other related work. Home Affairs Deputy Minister Major General Aung Soe told the Upper House session that the money would come from the president?s emergency fund and be handed over to the Ministry of Defense to carry out the work in Rakhine State. He asked the session to make a record of the project, which it did. With the president?s approval, the fund can be appropriated without approval from Parliament. Fencing was built along 204 km of Myanmar?s 295-km border with Bangladesh in three phases between 2009 and 2015. ?In phase four, an 11.5-mile [18.5-km] fence was put up along the border during the 2016-17 fiscal year. Another 3.2-mile Y-shaped fence topped with barbed wire coils is being built during the 2017-18 fiscal year. Fencing will have been put up along 14.7 miles of border when that work is completed,? Maj-Gen Aung Soe said. The 20 billion kyats from the president?s emergency fund will be used to build a Y-shaped fences topped with barbed wire coils along an additional 18.5 km this fiscal year along with other related infrastructure including a 12.2-meter-wide patrol route along the fence, 161 reinforced concrete conduits and eight buildings including three warehouses. ?The old fences are not strong enough and people can cross over them or remove them. However, we don?t yet know about [the quality of] the new fences. We want better fences so that people from the other side cannot enter illegally. If the fence cannot prevent people on the other side of the border from entering illegally, it will be a waste of money to build a fence. It is the responsibility of the ministries to spend the funding effectively,? said lawmaker U Pe Than, of Rakhine State?s Myebon Township. U Pe Than, a central executive committee member of the Arakan National Party, said the project would be adequately funded but stressed that the ministries had to spend the money effectively because the fence was key to preventing illegal immigration and the threat from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The Upper House also made a record of another 1 billion kyats from the president?s emergency fund that the Border Affairs Ministry will use to upgrade two gravel roads connecting Ngakhuya to Zetipyin and the Kyikanpyin junction to the Kyaukpyinseik camp in Rakhine State?s Hla Phoe Khaung Village. The two roads are a combined 18.5 km in length. Border Affairs Deputy Minister Major General Than Htut told the session that the road upgrades would contribute not only to the border area?s security but also to transportation, health, social affairs and the education of local people. The Implementation Committee for Recommendations of the Rakhine State Advisory Commission led by Kofi Annan had instructed authorities to upgrade the roads. Defense Deputy Minister Major General Myint New said his ministry would also spend 5 billion kyats from the emergency fund on renovating 882 buildings belonging to the military?s Western Command that were damaged by Cyclone Mora. ?The damage caused by the natural disaster was inspected by proper teams and 882 out of 1,009 buildings hit by the cyclone will be repaired in the first phase during the 2017-18 fiscal year,? he said. ?The president?s emergency fund was known as the reserve fund in the past,? explained U Khin Cho of the Lower House Public Accounts Committee. ?If the president approves, the fund can be spent without seeking the approval of Parliament. However, it is necessary to inform Parliament of the spending.? Translated from Burmese by Myint Win Thein. Htet Naing Zaw The Irrawaddy Htet Naing Zaw is Senior Reporter at the Burmese edition of The Irrawaddy. ======================================== 10. BANGLADESH WORRIED ABOUT INFLUX OF BANGALIS FROM ASSAM ======================================== Dhaka Tribune, February 22, 2018 Tribune Desk File photo: Women stand next to policemen as they wait to check their names on the draft list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at an NRC centre in Chandamari village in Goalpara district, in the northeastern state of Assam, India, January 2, 2018 Reuters The situation in Assam is threatening India-Bangladesh ties, Bangladesh government officials said The ongoing process of the National Register of Citizens in India?s Assam state may result in a mass displacement of Bangalis from the region and create another refugee crisis for Bangladesh, senior officials of the Bangladesh government said on Wednesday. According to the Indian national daily The Hindu, officials during their New Delhi visit said the situation in Assam was ?threatening? India-Bangladesh ties and would be exploited by ?anti-India elements and Islamic fundamentalists? who are opposing the Awami League rule. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina?s Media Affairs Adviser Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury said the citizenship issue would be ?another disappointment after the setback on the Teesta water sharing agreement.? He said Bangladesh believes India should think of its ties with the country before going ahead with ?the full implementation of the citizens register in Assam.? He further said if the process led to the exodus of a section of the Bangali population of Assam ?it would trigger another Rohingya-like refugee crisis.? The Hindu reports that Bangladeshi policy-makers agreed that the failure to conclude the Teesta water sharing agreement between Dhaka and New Delhi ?has been disappointing and the ongoing process in Assam will complicate the situation further.? Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reiterated the same sentiment on Tuesday, saying it was sad that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not want to allow the Teesta deal. The report further said these observations have gained significance as a section of the ruling party believes that India has not reciprocated the prime minister?s support on ?counter-insurgency steps in the northeastern states.? The officials reportedly said the Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina, ?without any expectation of reciprocity,? supported India in apprehending ULFA leaders who had taken refuge in Bangladesh. However, all that effort will go in vain, undoing bilateral cooperation, if there is a new refugee flow from Assam. With two major floods in 2017 and the Rohingya crisis, further turmoil caused by the citizen register in Assam will add to the volatility of the country ahead of the general polls, the officials added. They further said the citizen register in Assam was ?reminiscent of the communalism of the 1940s.? ======================================== 11. ARE FACTORIES BETTER IN BANGLADESH AFTER RANA PLAZA? THAT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK | ANDREA CROSSAN AND JASMINE GARSD ======================================== Public Radio International - The World December 06, 2017 ? 7:00 PM EST Garment workers These are garment workers at a factory making denim jeans. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/PRI What if she hadn?t lost her shoe that day? Arati Baladas wonders about this sometimes. Baladas is 20, and she sometimes replays in her mind that moment on April 24, 2013, when she scrambled to find her missing sandal, as the walls and the ceiling around her crumbled. She was working at her sewing machine when she heard a loud bang. She says the building ?shivered.? Her supervisor told everyone to run. Baladas who often slipped her shoes off at work, searched for her sandal. ?Just run!? her supervisor said. She sprinted, and tripped. She doesn?t remember anything else. Close up of a young woman wearing a red shawl. Former garment worker Arati Baladas at her home outside of Dhaka. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/PRI On that morning, the Rana Plaza garment factory complex became a pile of rubble. ?I was under a dead body,? Baladas says. The images of the collapsed Rana Plaza show a pile of cement and iron rods tangled with human limbs and fabric. Fabric that was destined to be made into clothing for big-brand stores. Baladas was trapped under all that, her leg stuck under another worker?s body. By the time she woke up to the sound of rescuers, Baladas had been buried for three days. Her mother, who worked at the same factory, died in the collapse. Baladas was taken to the hospital, where they had to amputate her leg. The Rana Plaza collapse was the deadliest accident in garment industry history. The final death toll was over 1,000 and approximately 2,500 people were injured. The building had not been built for thousands of workers operating heavy machinery. Additional floors had been added illegally. The day before the collapse, managers found deep fissures in the structure. Now where Rana Plaza used to be, it?s just an empty lot with overgrown bushes and mounds of garbage. Empty lot with shrubs growing in the open area where Rana Plaza used to be. The empty lot where the Rana Plaza factory complex was located before it collapsed in 2013. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/PRI Every morning, thousands of workers, mostly women, walk past it on the way to garment factories. Adrian Rodriguez is the merchandising manager at the Waymart Factory in Dhaka. At Waymart, workers make clothing for Debenhams and Next, two British retailers. Manager Adrian Rodriguez oversees a factory of 800 garment workers. Manager Adrian Rodriguez oversees a factory of 800 garment workers. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/PRI ?Buyers have become more alert than before,? says Rodriguez. He says that after Rana Plaza, retailers changed the way they did business with factories in Bangladesh. ?They will send the compliance team to check the building team,? he explains. ?And to check the building safety, the electrical safety, the structural safety ? How compliant we are, whether we are giving proper facilities to the workers, whether the workers are happy. So, overall, buyers are more pushy now, for safety.? And he says, Rana Plaza taught the industry two things: First, as much as consumers love a bargain, they don?t want blood on their hands. And second, Bangladeshi factory owners are learning the value of a happy worker. ?They have seen that if they?re behaving better with the employees, if they are giving better facilities, they are getting the products out better.? Out on the production floor, rows of workers, almost all women, hunch over their tables, their needles ricocheting through denim. This is not a cushy job. The hours are long. The work is repetitive and physically draining. Garment factory worker making denim jeans. Garment factory worker making denim jeans for a British retailer. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/PRI It?s warm and the fans seem to just push hot air around. And the building has been checked by structural engineers. These are all great improvements. And yet, activists say, there?s a long way to go. ?These jobs are not [jobs] with respect,? says Kalpona Akter. ?These jobs have no dignity.? Akter worked in garment factories as a child. She?s now a union leader, And she understands what a delicate battle this is. Twenty percent of this country?s gross domestic product comes from garment production. She says that European companies like Adidas and H&M have tried to improve work conditions by signing something called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. In it, they promise they won?t do business with factories that aren?t up to safety standards. Rob Wayss is the executive director and acting chief safety inspector for the accord. ?Since 2013, we've been inspecting about 1,800 factories that produce garments in Bangladesh, identifying safety hazards ? fire, electric and structural safety hazards. And we've been working with the signatory companies and unions and the factory owners and the technical people that the factories have on staff are [hired] to fix all the safety hazards and to monitor that they're being fixed and reporting whether they're being fixed or not.? Wayss says inspectors identify hazards and also train workers on how to respond in the event of an emergency. ?We do these programs at factories where production stops for an hour or so and the workers assemble at different points in the factory, and we [train] safety trainers that deliver about a 40-minute session on essentials and safety essentials and safety in garment factories [on] how to evacuate a building in the event of an emergency or in the event of a fire.? The Bangladesh Accord is a legally binding agreement. Labor organizer Kalpona Akter says it?s made a difference. ?To give you an example, up to 2013, every year, [on] average, 200 workers would die. [In] 2016 ... it was zero.? Getting the big North American brands to be better about safety has been a challenge. They didn?t sign the accord. Instead, they created something called, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Unlike the accord, it?s not legally binding, and it?s been criticized for having less teeth. Nearly 2,000 factories are covered by the alliance and the accord. But there are thousands of factories manufacturing garments that are not part of either agreement. Ultimately, Akter says, it isn?t just the responsibility of clothing brands. Or even of factory owners. The buck stops with the consumer. ?Start with the store managers. Ask him, ?I want to know more about this worker. Are they paid a living wage? Are they safe??? Arati Baladas doesn?t think factories in Bangladesh are any safer now than when the Rana Plaza building collapsed on her. She says she?ll never go back to the factory. And no child of hers will go, either. But in Bangladesh, almost all roads lead to garment work. What else is there? Sometimes at night, Baladas says a strange itch wakes her up. Phantom limb feelings are common in amputees. She swears she can feel her toes. She reaches down, only to find there is nothing. ======================================== 12. KASHMIR: PAKISTAN AND INDIA EXCHANGE ARTILLERY FIRE AMID ESCALATION IN DISPUTE | Fayaz Bukhari [ + related news] ======================================== The Independent [UK] 25 February 2018 Altercation prompts fears over 15-year-old ceasefire between nuclear-armed rivals The Independent Online [photo] Indian army soldiers carry a box containing bulletproof shields near the site of a gunbattle with suspected militants in Srinagar earlier in February Reuters India and Pakistan have exchanged artillery fire in the disputed Kashmir region forcing hundreds of people to flee, police in Indian Kashmir said, raising fresh doubts about a 15-year-old ceasefire between the nuclear-armed rivals in the area. It was not clear what triggered the latest fighting on Saturday in the Uri sector on the so-called Line of Control (LoC) that divides the mostly Muslim Himalayan region. But tension has been running high since an attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir this month in which six soldiers were killed. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and said it would make its rival pay for the "misadventure". Police superintendent Imtiaz Hussain said artillery shells fired by the Pakistan army fell in the Uri area and hundreds of villagers had fled from their homes. Indian forces returned artillery fire, an Indian officer said, the first time the heavy guns had been used since a 2003 ceasefire along the disputed frontier. The two armies have been exchanging intermittent small-arms and mortar fire over the past couple of years as ties deteriorated. Hussain said Pakistani authorities made announcements from a mosque advising villagers living close to the LoC on the Indian side to flee, saying the situation was bad. About 700 people were sheltering at a school in Uri, he said. India and Pakistan have twice gone to war over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947. The neighbours both claim the region in full but rule it in part. Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the firing and said in a statement 17 Pakistani civilians had been killed by Indian fire along the LoC this year. India accuses Pakistan of orchestrating a separatist revolt in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Muslim Pakistan denies giving material support to the fighters and calls for talks to resolve what it regards as the core disagreement between it and India. Reuters SEE ALSO: HEAVY ARTILLERY SHELLING IN URI, VILLAGERS FLEE According to some locals, Pakistani army used public address system informing people living near the LOC to leave their homes. Naseer Ganai https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/heavy-artillery-shelling-in-uri-villagers-flee/308751 LIVES ON THE LINE http://indianexpress.com/article/india/lives-on-the-line-5058929/ Traders body in Mussoorie asks garment sellers from Kashmir to leave town http://indianexpress.com/article/india/traders-body-in-mussoorie-asks-garment-sellers-from-kashmir-to-leave-town-5077049/ INDIA, PAKISTAN SHOULD HOLD IMMEDIATE DIALOGUE TO END VIOLENCE: CPI(M) PTI | Jan 21, 2018 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-pakistan-should-hold-immediate-dialogue-to-end-violence-cpim/articleshow/62592018.cms o o o The Christian Science Monitor AMID KASHMIR'S UNREST, GIRLS' SPORTS ARE MORE THAN A GAME Young Kashmiri sportswomen are pushing boundaries in everything from rugby to karate. It's a source of both empowerment and escape in a region where opposition to Indian rule often flares into violence. Fahad Shah Correspondent February 15, 2018 Srinagar, India-controlled Kashmir?A few years ago, when Insha Bashir Mir began playing cricket in her neighborhood playground, she was ridiculed by neighbors who told her not to play a ?boy?s game.? But then, as now, she ignored that derision by remembering her father?s words: ?Don?t answer people with your mouth, but through your bat.? Ms. Mir, now a student at Government Women?s College in Baramulla ? 40 miles north of the state capital, Srinagar ? is daughter of a businessman father and homemaker mother, both of whom enthusiastically support her passion. She?s part of new generation of local girls showing their mettle in sports, from rugby and soccer to karate. That alone is boundary-pushing. But that trend is especially meaningful here in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where opposition to Indian rule has simmered for decades and often burst into violence. Increasingly, young Kashmiris are involved, from schoolgirl stone-throwers to teenage rebel fighters. In Jammu and Kashmir state, where curfews and internet blackouts are frequent, more boys and girls alike are finding an empowering outlet through athletics. It?s a trend officials are encouraging, with investments in previously neglected facilities and sports programs ? and one that may serve as a simplified sign of peace. But the lessons on the playing field are still welcome for many teens, particularly girls, though they continue to combat stereotypes game by game. The more that people adopt Mir's and her teammates? perspective that gender is no handicap, she says, the more optimistic she is about her generation?s future. Shattered glass: How much do you know about these barrier-busting women? ?We are in [the] 21st century and we shouldn?t be living like ancient times,? she says. ?Girls who can carry a broom can also pick up a bat.? Region in turmoil Conflict-torn Kashmir is a disputed territory, claimed by both India and Pakistan; polls suggest that most residents support independence. Estimates of the death toll over the past three decades run into the tens of thousands. Today, youth are at the forefront of the movement, joining street protests and insurgency groups. Indian forces and police killed more than 200 rebels in 2017, the highest in recent years, but civilians bear a heavy cost as well: over 200 were killed in the past two years, and more than 15,000 wounded. Right alongside, however, has been a rise in sportswomen. Last year, nearly 90,000 players from around the region participated in sports, ?and almost half of them are girls,? says Waheed Ur Rehman Para, the secretary of Jammu and Kashmir State?s Sports Council. ?When I carry my cricket bat in my hand, I forget who I am, I forget my food, everything. I can do anything for cricket,? Mir says. Since 2016, when the death of a popular rebel leader reignited unrest, the government has periodically imposed curfews and internet blackouts to quell protests. But that doesn?t stop sports, says Irtiqa Ayoub, a player and assistant coach for the state rugby team. She practiced at home, but ?I still go out during curfew or protests to give training to fresher players,? says Ms. Ayoub, a student at the University of Kashmir who also runs 10 rugby clubs. She learns from her trainees, too. To the many aspiring rugby players who message her on social media ? boys and girls ? her frequent reply is: ?You?re most welcome. Whenever you have time, come and I will teach you.? Budding support Until recently, funding for sports infrastructure was hardly a priority. But since the 2016 uprising, both the Indian and regional governments have taken an interest in sports as a way to shift young people?s focus from the fiery conflict. The state is brimming with youth: Almost 70 percent of the population is younger than 35, according to the 2011 census, and about 20 percent in their teens and early 20s. Sports can be a source of integration in a fragmented state, Mr. Para says. ?We need to offer space to youth, and sports is an option. The government finds sports a meaningful means to improve leadership, sportsmanship, and team spirit among children,? he says. ?There are people excelling in sports across the world. We want to figure on that global sports map, [because] it has nothing to do with guns or conflict.? In the past, athletics facilities were simple, Mir says. Without proper facilities or a coach, she learned cricket skills by watching professional matches on television ? especially with her favorite star, former Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni ? or when she traveled outside the state and asked senior cricketers for tips. Now there is better infrastructure, Mir says, and officials have promised a new playing ground. But there?s still much to be done. ?We are so different from other girls in sports; it looks like we are coming from some old century,? she says. ?We also need opportunities.? Mubashir Hassan, coach and director of the State Cricket Academy, says that with the surge of interest in sports, infrastructure is getting better. He has been coaching both girls and boys at the academy, and wants the government to focus more on rural areas, in particular. ?We have raw talent but don?t have adequate facilities yet,? says Mr. Hassan. ?And girls have started from scratch, so it has to be given some time before it blooms.? 'As long as I'm alive' But there are benefits of sports for girls and society alike, Hassan says. ?I think sports is conflict-neutral, like education. It is an effective part of your growth. You grow mentally.? Many teen sports events have been organized by police. Athletics ?will engage youth so that they do not get into drugs, don?t take up guns,? state police chief Shesh Paul Vaid said last September, during a rowing contest in Srinagar; ?[it is] very sad to see bloodshed and sadness on the faces of the youth.? In Para?s opinion, however, sports can?t do much for peace ? but peace can boost sports, and the region?s young sportswomen, as they continue to push against stereotypes. In Mir?s estimation, more than two-thirds of people ?think girls should work inside homes and not be into sports.? ?Girls are often humiliated and harassed,? she adds. ?Once while playing a cricket match many boys at the playground passed lewd comments and abuses at us, but we continued our game.? Her efforts have paid off: Mir recently played in the region?s first-ever twenty-overs format Women?s Cricket Championship. Ayoub has also made a name for herself, winning gold and silver medals in national championships ? and seen support grow. Originally, neighbors told her father not to let her go into sports, ?but my father said, ?No, I trust my daughter. She will do well,? ? she remembers. ?Rugby is in my blood,? she says. ?I won?t let anyone snatch an opportunity from me to play. I will continue as long as I?m alive.? ======================================== 13. INTO THE WOODS Thomas Jones on the Italian Election ======================================== London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 5 ? 8 March 2018 page 20 | 2100 words I recently discovered that when my friend Giovanni was a boy scout, the leader of his troop was none other than Matteo Renzi. I asked what he had been like. Giovanni shrugged. ?Com??,? he said. (?As he is.?) He wouldn?t be drawn further. When Renzi was prime minister, his scouting career ? he?s still a keen supporter of the movement ? was a source of much mirth in the Italian press. A photo of him with his backpack and neckerchief, laughing merrily, circulated alongside a severe picture of Vladimir Putin in his KGB uniform. One of these politicians was to be taken seriously, the comparison implied, and one was not. Renzi?s supporters might plausibly argue that there are reasons to prefer the boy scout over the secret policeman, but given the standing of his Partito Democratico (PD) in the last polls before we head into the general election on 4 March (22 per cent and falling) it?s hard not to think that he?s led them deep into the woods with a broken compass and no idea which way to turn to get them out again: certainly not to the left; but should they go dead ahead, or further to the right ? or can we pretend there?s no difference? Meanwhile, the stragglers at the back ? who happen to include the speakers of both houses of parliament, as well as three former party leaders ? have broken away from the rest of the troop, and are striking out on their own; but no one can agree whether they are heading to the left or just going backwards. Meanwhile, as the scouts frantically rub sticks together in the hope of generating a spark, night is falling, and the forces of xenophobic nationalism are gathering. Renzi has never been a member of parliament, or led his party to victory in a general election. The last time Italy went to the polls, in February 2013, a centre-left coalition of ten parties led by the PD, then in the care of Pier Luigi Bersani, scraped to a majority in the lower house, thanks to the bonus seats awarded, since 2005, to the first-placed party or coalition. But no one gained control of the Senate. Bersani tried and failed to form a government with Beppe Grillo?s Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), which had won more votes than the PD alone but fewer than the centre-left coalition as a whole. He then tried and failed ? not least because of manoeuvring by Renzi, who had lost heavily to Bersani in a primary to determine the leader of the coalition ? to persuade deputies and senators to vote for Romano Prodi as president of the Republic when Giorgio Napolitano?s term came to an end in April 2013. Prodi, humiliated, dropped out of the race. Napolitano agreed to stand for a second term, and Bersaniresigned as leader of the PD. His deputy, Enrico Letta, became prime minister at the head of a grand coalition government with Silvio Berlusconi?s Popolo della Libert?, but without several of the parties whose presence in the centre-left coalition going into the election had ensured its narrow but decisive victory over the M5S in the lower house. The PdL split in November 2013 after Berlusconi failed to get its ministers to quit the government. In December, the constitutional court ruled that the electoral system was unconstitutional, and the current parliament ? which lacked legitimacy, having been elected according to an illegitimate system ? should remain in session for only as long as it took to establish a new electoral system that was in line with the constitution. Meanwhile, Renzi was elected leader of the PD. In February 2014, Letta resigned as prime minister and Renzi took over. The Italian prime minister, whose official title is ?presidente del consiglio dei ministri?, i.e. leader of the cabinet, is appointed by the president of the Republic; as head of the executive, he ? and it always has been a ?he? ? doesn?t technically need to be a member of the legislature. Renzi?s extracameral elevation was unusual, but not unprecedented: in 1993, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, governor of the Bank of Italy since 1979, was appointed prime minister at the head of a technical government. A new electoral law was passed in 2015, but parliament wasn?t dissolved. Renzi called a referendum on the next stage of electoral reform, which included reducing the powers of the senate, and said he?d resign if it didn?t pass, which immediately turned it into a referendum on his leadership ? unsurprising, really, considering that no one outside his party had voted for him to be prime minister. He duly lost and duly resigned, to be replaced by his foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni. But he clung onto the leadership of the PD, and goes into this general election hoping to be prime minister again. I don?t think this is what Gramsci meant by optimism of the will. Left-wing PD deputies, at loggerheads with Renzi, started to abandon the party in 2015. The most substantial exodus came a year ago, when Bersani, Massimo D?Alema (prime minister for 18 months in the late 1990s) and others quit to form the Movimento Democratico e Progressista. It is now the largest party in the Liberi e Uguali (Free and Equal) coalition, contesting the election on a platform to the left of the PD, under the leadership of the ex-PD speaker of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, who has identified Jeremy Corbyn as a model to follow. The two factions aren?t holding back from attacking one another. Renzi has accused D?Alema and Bersani of trying to destroy the PD, and said that a vote for the LeU is a vote for the Lega Nord. Laura Boldrini, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and a senior figure in the LeU, has said that a vote for the PD is a vote for Berlusconi, whose revenant Forza Italia is the largest party in a right-wing coalition that?s leading the polls with close to 40 per cent. Berlusconi is banned from holding public office until 2019, but he?s contesting that in the European Court of Human Rights, and contesting the election anyway, presenting himself as an elder statesman, a safe pair of hands. His coalition is routinely described as ?centre-right?, but there?s nothing of the centre about it. The second biggest party in it is the Lega Nord, which was founded thirty years ago on a platform of independence for the fantasy land of Padania ? Italy north of the river Po ? in the hope of unshackling the country?s wealthy northern regions from the dead weight of Rome and the unprosperous south. But in recent years, under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, it has more or less entirely abandoned that project and repositioned itself as a national (and nationalist) party. The Lega used to direct its contempt at its fellow citizens from the Mezzogiorno; now that it wants their votes, it has turned its hatred further south, and is running an unabashedly racist, anti-immigration campaign, promising to put ?Italians first? and to deport hundreds of thousands of African migrants. It isn?t a promise they?ll be able to deliver on, even if they do come to power, any more than Berlusconi is likely to be able to deliver on his promise of a flat rate of income tax, which he?s wanted for as long as he?s been in politics. But that doesn?t mean the Lega?s racist rhetoric doesn?t have consequences. On 3 February, a man who?d stood for the party in local elections last year drove through the town of Macerata, in Le Marche, shooting at black people. He imagined he was avenging the death of a young Roman woman a few days earlier; a Nigerian man had been arrested in connection with her murder. On 20 February, a left-wing activist was stabbed at a political rally in Perugia. The right doesn?t have a monopoly on political violence: in Palermo, the leader of the neo-fascist Forza Nuova was tied up and beaten by left-wing militants. On 22 February, meanwhile, the police turned water cannon and tear gas on anti-fascist protesters trying to disrupt a speech by the leader of CasaPound, yet another small neo-fascist party, which attracts press attention out of all proportion to its level of support among the general public. (A few years ago Ezra Pound?s daughter took them to court to try to stop them taking her father?s name in vain; she lost.) * The biggest single party is still the M5S. It was created as an anti-establishment movement in 2009, but since acquiring positions of real power has come to look more like just another political party, as corrupt and venal as all the others. The M5S mayors of Rome and Turin have not only run incompetent administrations but are under investigation for fraud. Still, it has some way to go before it?s as thoroughly tainted in voters? eyes as either ? take your pick, depending on your politics ? Berlusconi or the PD. One M5S supporter I spoke to ? just turned fifty, he has always voted for parties to the left of the PD?s current position ? said that their programme is, for him, a left-wing programme: more money on health and education, sustainable public transport, renewable energy, publicly owned utilities ? What about the ius soli? The proposed law, finally defeated in the Senate just before Christmas, would have made it much easier for the children of immigrants to get Italian citizenship. On the day of the vote, none of the M5S senators showed up (they weren?t the only ones, admittedly), which meant there wasn?t a quorum, and the bill was abandoned. Yes, the M5S supporter agreed, the ius soli is the right thing to do, but it isn?t for Italy alone to pass such a law; it?s something that the whole of Europe needs to do. He isn?t wrong; but still, Italy could have led the way. And with an ageing population and low birth rate, the country needs more young citizens. The ius soli would have been a better starting point for a solution to Italy?s long-term problems than neo-fascist fantasies of mass deportation. Given the state of the opinion polls ? and their general unreliability; they were off in 2013, exaggerating the PD?s chances ? it?s impossible to say what the outcome of the election will be, even in terms of how many seats each party is likely to get. And that?s before the horse-trading begins as they attempt to form a government. Both Renzi and Berlusconi have ruled out a grand coalition, and said that the only answer to an inconclusive result is another election. Jean-Claude Juncker was reported as saying that ?we must prepare for the worst scenario,? by which he meant Italy having ?no operational government? (though I can think of several scenarios a lot worse than that, many of them emblazoned on posters across the country: ?Salvini Premier?, for example). Gentiloni ? who has been strangely absent, for a sitting prime minister, from the cut-and-thrust of the campaign trail, though he has been held up by both Napolitano and Prodi as the best hope for a stable future ? made soothing noises, and Juncker issued a bland official statement: Elections are a moment of democracy, and this applies to Italy ? a country that is very close to my heart. On 4 March the Italians will go to the polls and cast their votes. Whatever the outcome, I am confident that we will have a government that makes sure that Italy remains a central player in Europe and in shaping its future. But the Italian stock exchange, which had been outperforming other European bourses, took a hit, and the spread between German and Italian bonds grew by a few points. It may yet turn out that a more significant date than 4 March 2018 will be 31 October 2019, when Italy?s most powerful man, Mario Draghi, steps down as president of the European Central Bank. In July 2012, Draghi said the ECB would do ?whatever it takes? to save the euro. Under the programme of quantitative easing begun in 2015, the ECB has bought pretty much all Italian bonds issued since then. And no one wants to think about what may happen when it stops. 23 February ======================================== 14. HOW RUSSIAN THEATRE IS SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER Nearly two decades into the age of Putin, the battle for the soul of the Moscow stage rages on by Viv Groskop ======================================== Financial Times February 23, 2018 One of the most striking points in any play is the loudest laugh. When that moment comes during Smile Upon Us, Lord, on a chilly January night at the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow, it's intensely surprising. The jester of the piece delivers a trio of traditional Jewish jokes, ending on a zinger. "What do you think of the government?" "Same way as I think of my wife," comes the reply. "I love the government. I fear the government." A pause for the punchline. "I want another government." The entire theatre erupts. So much for Moscow being gripped by a lack of a sense of humour. To read the news outside Russia, you'd think that any political jokes would fall flat in Moscow and that theatre listings must be full of one-man shows extolling the greatness of one V Putin. (They're not.) In Russia, no matter the limitations, theatre still really matters. The repertoires of Moscow's theatres are packed with challenging and interesting choices, and box-office numbers have never been better. As Vakhtangov producer Oksana Nemchuk puts it: "Art is an important part of national thinking. It's more truthful than what you can pick up from the news." With Russia's elections just weeks away and the Trump-Russia inquiry looking more Dostoyevskian by the day, surely there has never been a more important time to understand what makes Russians laugh and cry. Looking at the surface of things culturally in Russia, it's often hard to know what's funny and what's tragic. In January the British comedy The Death of Stalin, directed by Armando Iannucci, had its distribution certificate withdrawn in Russia, in effect banning the film. One politician, Yelena Drapeko, told RBK News she had "never seen anything so disgusting in my life". Last year a Russian cinema chain cancelled screenings of the epic film Matilda, a dramatisation of the love affair between the last tsar Nicholas II and his mistress, following protests by a group calling themselves Christian State, Holy Russia. The message? You can't criticise Stalin. And you can't criticise the tsar. You couldn't make it up. Recent headlines from the theatre world are equally disturbing. Since August 2017, Kirill Serebrennikov, an acclaimed director and head of the progressive Gogol Centre, has been under house arrest, accused of embezzling over ?1m in government funds. Many see his detention as symbolising a political crackdown on the arts. The Bolshoi Theatre premiere of his ballet Nureyev, about the life of the dancer, was delayed by five months. When it was eventually staged, Serebrennikov was unable to attend because of his house arrest. The opposition TV channel Dozhd reported that a priest who acts as a spiritual adviser to Putin had complained about Serebrennikov's film The Student, a critique of the Orthodox Church. These allegations were denied. It is against this fevered cultural backdrop that the Vakhtangov Theatre brings Smile Upon Us, Lord, a production packed with black humour, double meanings and allegory, to the Barbican Theatre in London next week. The story of Jewish Lithuanians in the early 1900s, it became part of this influential theatre's repertoire in 2013 and is a hit in Moscow. It's a fascinating choice to bring this production to the UK: it's ambitious, experimental, bold and a real departure from the classic glamour of the theatre's last outing in London in 2015, a lavish production of Eugene Onegin complete with a (stuffed) dancing bear. Eugene Onegin opened to five-star reviews, the English surtitles proving no barrier to audience appreciation. (Although the producer Oksana Nemchuk happily admits that their London audience is made up of at least 50 per cent Russians, thrilled to see their own language spoken on the British stage.) A meditation on the fate of the Jews in the early 20th century, Smile Upon Us, Lord tells the story of a stonecutter called Efraim (masterfully played by Sergey Makovetsky, an actor as at home on stage as on screen and beloved by Russians). Efraim makes the journey from his shtetl to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in search of his son, who is awaiting trial for the attempted assassination of the governor-general. He picks up two companions en route and they all face dangers that clearly prefigure those faced by the Jewish people in the years to come. Yes, it is pretty upsetting, in case you were wondering. But there are also a lot of jokes. Highlights include the fool/jester, played by Viktor Dobronravov (who was young Onegin in their last Barbican production), and a skittish, loony she-goat, played by Yulia Rutberg. (Yes, I did just say she-goat. Like British theatre, Russian theatre can do bonkers rather brilliantly.) The play is adapted from two novels by Lithuanian writer Grigory Kanovich and is directed by the Vakhtangov's artistic director Rimas Tuminas, also a Lithuanian. Trailing rave reviews from outings in Boston and New York, it has an inconclusive, open-ended narrative reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. As Efraim sets off on his travels riding atop a caravan of rubble, suitcases and wardrobes that vividly conjures up the Holocaust, you watch with a sense of dread as you know that he can only be headed to a very bad place indeed. At the end of the performance I saw in Moscow in January, Muscovites rushed to the footlights to hand flowers and carrier bags of gifts to their favourite actors. This always happens at Russian plays and it's entertaining to watch: a fan will step back and discreetly lower the bouquet if the wrong actor steps forward for it. I've always been sceptical about this adulatory behaviour and I later asked the producer if the theatre ever provides flowers for the audience. She was horrified that anyone would think such a terrible thing. "Of course not! People do it because they want to." She lowered her voice. "It's a mark of profound respect. And don't let the actors hear you say that. They'll be ever so upset." It's hard for a cynical westerner to understand just how significant the theatre has always been for Russians. And still is to this day. In 2018, business is booming. Like most Moscow theatres, the Vakhtangov sells an astonishing average of 97 per cent of tickets to each one of the 100 performances it puts on every month across six stages. During the interval of Smile Upon Us, Lord, young Instagrammers queued up to take selfies with cast portraits in the foyer. (Not even with the cast. With their photographs.) While some of the crowd were clearly moneyed and wouldn't look out of place in a Paris or New York theatre, there was a Soviet vibe that has persisted. It's not old-fashioned or sad to dress up for the theatre, almost in a self-consciously ostentatious way. I watched a man closely resembling a 1970s cabaret version of Lech Walesa, complete with (non-ironic) walrus moustache, lilac ruffle shirt and purple velvet suit and matching bow tie, treat himself to a caviar sandwich. This is an audience drawn from the growing middle class. In a city where the average civil servant earns $2,000 a month (according to Rosstat, Russia's federal statistics agency), theatre tickets roughly cost between 100 roubles (?1.20) and 7,000 roubles (?85). The Lech Walesa lookalike might go to the theatre a couple of times a month. When I met Kirill Krok, the general manager of the Vakhtangov, in his office over Russian chocolates and espresso (which he proudly made himself with a pod coffee machine), he was open about how the theatre operates. Some ?6m of the Vakhtangov's annual income is ticket sales, Krok says; ?5m is government subsidy. On the question of political interference, he says quickly: "The minister of culture is in charge. But we are free to put on whatever we want." Their tradition is firmly based in what we call repertory theatre: a repertoire of productions performed on a rotating basis. Smile Upon Us, Lord has, for example, been in the theatre's repertoire for five years and might have an outing several times a month. This could go on for years, with audience demand dictating the lifespan of a play. This system means it's hard to get new work premiered in Moscow. (Rep lends itself better to classics.) And it also means that audiences tend not to read as much into the political meanings of plays as we might, because the play has not been scheduled to come out at a specific time, with the assumed short shelf-life that a West End play would have. Nonetheless some of the lines in Smile Upon Us, Lord made me raise an eyebrow: "Thoughts have been replaced by bullets." "We would be better off as animals - they suffer less." But producer Oksana Nemchuk says Russian audiences interpret the play's themes far more generally: "For us, it's a story about humanity and parenthood. The symbols are universal." The other interesting story behind the Vakhtangov is also glossed over. The artistic director is Lithuanian. Everything about the play is Lithuanian. And the producer is Ukrainian. In the current climate in Moscow - where flights to Kiev, Ukraine, are suspended in a three-year trade war - a play telling the story of a former Soviet republic, directed by someone from that former republic...It's an interesting choice during difficult times. Lithuania very happily joined the EU in 2004. (Bear in mind that the very idea of Ukraine joining the EU is a massive headache for Russia.) According to the official political narrative, relations between Lithuania and Russia are not uncomplicated: in January Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry's spokesperson, accused Lithuanian politicians of wanting to "settle historic accounts with Russia". Add to this the fact that the Lithuanian authorities are currently enforcing a blacklist of 49 Russians suspected of human rights violations, corruption or money laundering, a list modelled on the US's 2012 Magnitsky Act. (This law bars Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses from entering the US; Trump's ambiguous attitude to it is used - both at home and abroad - as an indication of his stance towards Russia.) In this context, this play is symbolic of something that is difficult for us to understand outside of Russia: there is more room than we might think for collaborative work and for a plurality of views. Of course, it would be surprising if a Moscow theatre mounted a production about Ukrainian independence right now (at the very least, I suspect this would be commercial suicide, rather like staging an earnestly pro-Remain play outside of London). But producing a play that is controversial, difficult and verging on the political? Not as taboo as you might imagine. In Moscow, the stage is not exactly a place of dissent, but it's not doffing its cap to the establishment either. Productions of the work of Michael Frayn and Tom Stoppard are regularly staged. Current productions in Moscow include a musical Pride and Prejudice, a political satire based on The Brothers Karamazov, and a stage version of Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, all at the Moscow Art Theatre. At the Satirikon there's Othello, a Russian take on Pygmalion called (rather hilariously) London Show, and an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground by Konstantin Raikin, son of the great Soviet theatre actor Arkady Raikin. Yes, there is an emphasis on looking back and re-examining the past. But, still, there is room for controversy and suggestion. In 2016, the same Konstantin Raikin gave an uncompromising speech for the human-rights organisation PEN America that referred to the "hideous attack on artistic freedom" that Russia was facing. It is possible to voice these thoughts and still perform. However. Some believe the premiere of the Bolshoi Ballet's Nureyev was delayed in oblique reference to the 2013 law prohibiting "promotion of homosexuality". (The production did not seek to obscure any of the well-known details about Nureyev's biography, including his sexuality, and caused a minor scandal by flashing up a giant full-frontal Richard Avedon portrait of the dancer for - gasp - several seconds.) Writing in The Moscow Times last month, cultural critic Yury Saprykin concluded that "cultural figures feel compelled to censor themselves" and referenced "the new conflict between the Russian state and the creative elite". The rules are hazy, he added. The punishment for violating them is not. The playwright Valery Pecheykin is one of the few who have gone on the record to suggest that the Serebrennikov case is not about financial impropriety - it's about artistic control: "Things look very different from our point of view." He said that Serebrennikov is one of the only directors to stage "provocative, independent, tolerant works" that "cover the full range of human sexuality". At the eventual premiere of Nureyev in December, present in the audience in dark glasses was another reminder of the complications of working in the arts in Russia: Sergei Filin, the former Bolshoi director who was the victim of an acid attack in 2013 that left his sight permanently damaged. All Moscow's cultural and political elite were in attendance and there was a 15-minute standing ovation. Putin, though, was absent. He is apparently not a fan of theatre. There's got to be some level of self-censorship when you're working in this environment. I put this question to Sergei Ostrovsky, a lawyer, keen theatregoer and co-chair of Pushkin House, the centre for Russian culture in London. He agrees that despite occasional outbursts, the Moscow theatre scene gives off the impression of not wanting to rock the boat. It doesn't see political provocation as its job: it wants to put on productions that appeal to its audience. That means nothing too controversial. "Yes, call it a form of self-censorship or a conflict of interest," says Ostrovsky. "Even liberal-minded theatres are financed by the state to a large extent. There are also plenty of vocal and aggressive interest groups (religious, political, etc) that consider theatre important enough to direct their efforts - often their anger - at it." The ensemble cast of Smile Upon Us, Lord floats serenely above all these concerns, showing off some highly impressive clowning skills, soaking up the crowd's appreciation and embodying the Vakhtangov Theatre's stated mission: "To deal with complex moral issues" and "awaken warm human feelings in the audience". The actor and director Yevgeny Vakhtangov, who originally founded the theatre in 1920, would be proud. His motto? "The quality to develop in an actor is courage." In these complicated times, it might come in handy. The Vakhtangov Theatre's 'Smile Upon Us, Lord' is at the Barbican Theatre, London, from February 28-March 3. barbican.org.uk ======================================== 15. REVIEW: DAFNOS ON CAMUS AND LEBOURG, 'FAR-RIGHT POLITICS IN EUROPE' ======================================== Jean-Yves Camus, Nicolas Lebourg. Far-Right Politics in Europe. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2017. 310 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-97153-0. Reviewed by Andreas Dafnos (University of Sheffield) Published on H-Nationalism (February, 2018) Commissioned by Caner Tekin The Far Right and the influence it exerts on both domestic and international political systems have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Although there exists an abundance of scholarly work on the ebbs and flows of this diverse phenomenon, Far-Right Politics in Europe by Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg is a useful addition to the existing literature due to its meticulous investigation of the numerous Far Right factions that have been developed over time and across space. With a predominant focus on the European continent, the book defies easy explanations and can, more generally, be approached as an answer to the voices that indiscriminately tend to treat the Far Right as a single and unified entity. The introductory chapter, titled ?How the Far Right Came into Being,? covers a large part of the book. This comes as no surprise however, as a fundamental premise of the book is that the modern Far Right can be better understood if viewed through a historical lens. Therefore, Camus and Lebourg position the unit of their analysis in French history and specifically in the workings of the Constituent Assembly at the end of the eighteenth century. They trace the origins of Far Right thought, which was at the time portrayed as a plea for the restoration of the ancien r?gime by counterrevolution advocates. The chapter invites the reader to delve into the social processes that influenced the trajectory of the Far Right since that moment, showing how ?the first globalization? of Europe allowed ideas and people to disseminate across geographic territories (p. 7). A recurring theme refers to this constant exchange of ideas and the tendency of the Far Right to adopt beliefs that may even belong to different political leanings along its own ideological lines. Another interesting observation is the realization that some of the dominant traits of the Far Right today cannot be considered idiosyncrasies of our era; in fact, national populism is shown to have been part of the French system for the last 130 years. Camus and Lebourg convincingly argue that the developments of the Far Right in terms of its ideological and organizational synthesis cannot be explained if context and time are omitted from analysis. Chapter 1 turns its attention to the period after the Second World War, providing a detailed overview of the difficulties faced particularly by those groups that were closer to Fascism and Nazism. The Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) is mentioned here, and this is important because academic work has often attributed the transformation of several like-minded groups to the catalytic role MSI has played. But what stands out in this chapter is the effort of the Far Right to build networks beyond national borders, since ?immediately after the collapse of the Axis powers, Fascist militants saw a united Europe as the justification for their previous positions? (p. 64). Camus and Lebourg illustrate, for example, how these attempts led to the New European Order (NEO), an organization that decided to divert from Nazism and to adopt a discourse for the defense of neo-racism, marking a critical moment for the history of the Far Right as ?that discourse would have many incarnations and transmutations? (p. 74). Another movement with the same purpose of establishing European presence is Jeune Europe (JE), which is also discussed at length due to its innovative nature. The chapter concludes with an important observation that ?despite the desire of Fascist movements, a supranational and social reorientation has not really taken hold. Their efforts have not been fruitless, however, because, their innovations were useful to both populist and neorightist factions? (p. 96). The next chapter deals with the role of white power and the role of race as driving forces for the actions of some Far Right groups. Here the discussion revolves around neo-Nazi groups that are ?more cultural than political in nature? (p. 101), placing emphasis on the skinhead movement. It is interesting to see how this type of movement developed across Europe, in a period of time that the ?proletariat was deconstructing? (p. 104). The authors explain that, among others, indoctrination through music and participation in violent practices are key characteristics of a Far Right skinhead, and then proceed to a more eloquent exploration of how violence is articulated through the activities of neo-Nazi groups. This section shows the extent of influence that the American Far Right had on its European counterparts. As one would expect at this point, there are references to the lone wolf strategy, which ?should not be confused (as it often is) with the question of self-radicalization? (p. 110), and The Turner Diaries (1978), an influential book that is based on the principle of the struggle for race. Once more the narration of the authors is strengthened by the use of various case studies, helping the reader engage with the material of this section. Much has been written in the academic literature about the impact that the New Right had on ideological aspects of the modern Far Right, mainly as this was expressed through the idea of ethnopluralism that ?every individual is attached to an ethnocultural group that would protect its identity by avoiding racial mixing? (p. 130). In chapter 3, the reader has the opportunity to engage with an important moment in the history of the Far Right. Camus and Lebourg exemplify that the New Right or Nouvelle Droite (as is often mentioned) is an amalgamation of intellectual groups and personalities that cannot, however, be assumed uniform. A key figure is GRECE (Groupe de Recherches et d'?tudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne), which occupies a central place in this chapter. It is also interesting to see that the reason why the New Right emerged was ?the organizational failure to build a European nationalist party in France? (p. 127). Once more the interplay between groups is evident as well as the influence of historic events (for example, May 1968) on the development of the Far Right. The ability of the authors to attain accuracy is outstanding, and this is evident, for example, in their narration on neopaganism and the New Right or the impact of Julius Evola?s theories. Chapter 4 dissects the relationship between religious fundamentalism and the Far Right, beginning with the intriguing observation that faith should not be associated with extremism, since it embraces the qualities of ?freedom of conscience,? the antithesis to dogmatism, and takes an ?interest in individual rights? (p. 152). However, the authors show how ideological stances can be fused into paths of multiple interpretations, signifying in this way the complexity of reality. This might explain, for instance, why compared to Catholics more Protestants vote for a Far Right party. Camus and Lebourg also define terms that seem to be conflated (see, for instance, on page 159 the differences between integrists and traditionalists), while a large section looks into the association between integrism and the National Front. Even the issue of the Jewish Far Right is raised and addressed toward the last pages, describing its true dimensions. On the other hand, scholars keen on learning more about populism will find chapter 5 interesting, where the term is analyzed in depth. The chapter shows how populist questions came to the forefront and dominated the political debate. Indicative of this is the speech of Enoch Powell in 1968, which assigned blame to nonwhite immigrants and asked for their repatriation. The latter combined with the impact of the New Right thinking, as discussed previously, helps the reader understand that the evolution of the Far Right is the result of multiple factors. The chapter also offers a compelling account of successful and failed cases, showing that populism is no panacea for success, and that political groups may face insurmountable obstacles and challenges when they put the populist model into practice. Particular emphasis has been finally placed on the so-called neopulist shift that was determined by ?the geopolitical crisis subsequent to September 11, 2001, and the socioeconomic recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis? (p. 196). The description of the Dutch case reveals how this shift can materialize. The last chapter investigates the Far Right in Eastern European countries. Although it is debatable within academia to what extent the Eastern European Far Right can be compared to its Western counterparts, Camus and Lebourg make clear at the outset that ?the eastern part of the continent must not be understood in terms of Western assumptions? (p. 210). What the authors find particularly interesting is the fact that some of the prewar ideologies did not lose their significance during the Communist era and appeared again after the collapse of the regimes. The chapter also familiarizes the reader with the ideas of one of the most important figures of Russian neo-nationalism, Aleksandr Dugin, and his concept of neo-Eurasianism, which ?reconciles the two theoretical elements of George Sorel?s thought: myth and utopia? (p. 227). What is more, the analytical prism under which numerous countries (for example, Russia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria, to name a few) are being approached sheds light not only on the peculiarities of Eastern European Far Right groups but also on the composition of their base of support. Finally, despite the fact that one could raise objections about the labels that have been used (for example, radical Far Right and national populism) or feel that some points are being obscured by the detailed description of events, this book is essential reading for those aspiring to understand the Far Right. In essence, readers have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with Far Right groups that encompass varying degrees of radicalism, and to look into their differences, overlaps, influences, and evolution up to the present time. ======================================== 16. HOW EASTERN EUROPEAN POPULISM IS DIFFERENT by S?awomir Sierakowski ======================================== (Project Syndicate, January 31, 2018) Only in Europe?s post-communist east do populists routinely beat traditional parties in elections. Of 15 Eastern European countries, populist parties currently hold power in seven, belong to the ruling coalition in two more, and are the main opposition force in three. WARSAW ? In 2016, the United Kingdom?s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump?s election to the US presidency created an impression that Eastern European-style populism was engulfing the West. In reality, the situation in Western Europe and the United States is starkly different. As political scientists Martin Eiermann, Yascha Mounk, and Limor Goultchin of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have shown, only in Europe?s post-communist east do populists routinely beat traditional parties in elections. Of 15 Eastern European countries, populist parties currently hold power in seven, belong to the ruling coalition in two more, and are the main opposition force in three. Eiermann, Mounk, and Goultchin also point out that whereas populist parties captured 20% or more of the vote in only two Eastern European countries in 2000, today they have done so in ten countries. In Poland, populist parties have gone from winning a mere 0.1% of the vote in 2000 to holding a parliamentary majority under the Law and Justice (PiS) party?s current government. And in Hungary, support for Prime Minister Viktor Orb?n?s Fidesz party has at times exceeded 70%. Aside from hard data, we need to consider the underlying social and political factors that have made populism so much stronger in Eastern Europe. For starters, Eastern Europe lacks the tradition of checks and balances that has long safeguarded Western democracy. Unlike PiS Chairman Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski, Poland?s de facto ruler, Trump does not ignore judicial decisions or sic the security services on the opposition. Or consider Special Counsel Robert Mueller?s investigation into Trump and his campaign?s ties to Russia. Mueller was appointed by US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a government functionary who is subordinate to Trump within the executive branch. But while Trump has the authority to fire Mueller or Rosenstein, he wouldn?t dare do so. The same cannot be said for Kaczy?ski. Another major difference is that Eastern Europeans tend to hold more materialist attitudes than Westerners, who have moved beyond concerns about physical security to embrace what sociologist Ronald Inglehart calls post-materialist values. One aspect of this difference is that Eastern European societies are more vulnerable to attacks on abstract liberal institutions such as freedom of speech and judicial independence. This shouldn?t be too surprising. After all, liberalism in Eastern Europe is a Western import. Notwithstanding the Trump and Brexit phenomena, the US and the UK have deeply embedded cultures of political and social liberalism. In Eastern Europe, civil society is not just weaker; it is also more focused on areas such as charity, religion, and leisure, rather than political issues. Moreover, in the vastly different political landscape of Europe?s post-communist states, the left is either very weak or completely absent from the political mainstream. The political dividing line, then, is not between left and right, but between right and wrong. As a result, Eastern Europe is much more prone to the ?friend or foe? dichotomy conceived by the anti-liberal German political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Each side conceives of itself as the only real representative of the nation, and treats its opponents as illegitimate alternatives, who should be disenfranchised, not merely defeated. Another major difference between Eastern and Western European populists is that the former can count on support not only from the working class, but also from the middle class. According to research conducted by Maciej Gdula of the Institute of Advanced Study in Warsaw, political attitudes in Poland do not align with whether one benefited or lost out during the country?s post-communist economic transformation. The ruling party?s electorate includes many who are generally satisfied with their lives, and are keeping up with the country?s development. For such voters, the appeal of the populist?s message lies in its provision of an overarching narrative in which to organize positive and negative experiences. This creates a sense of purpose, as it ties voters more strongly to the party. Voters do not develop their own opinions about the courts, refugees, or the opposition based on their own experiences. Instead, they listen to the leader, adjusting their views according to their political choices. The success of the PiS, therefore, is rooted not in frustrated voters? economic interests. For the working class, the desire for a sense of community is the major consideration. For their middle-class counterparts, it is the satisfaction that arises not from material wealth, but from pointing to someone who is perceived as inferior, from refugees to depraved elites to cliquish judges. Orb?n and Kaczy?ski are experts in capitalizing on this longing. It is worth asking if populism will come to define the true cultural ? and, in turn, political ? boundaries of the European Union. If Polish or Hungarian politics proves more similar to the politics of Russia than of France or Austria, does that mean the EU?s borders are overextended? Could it be that their place is with Russia, rather than with Western Europe? Are the EU?s borders therefore impossible to maintain in the long run? I hope not, but these are troubling questions. And only Eastern Europeans themselves can settle them. S?awomir Sierakowski, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement, is Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Feb 28 08:23:55 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 17:23:55 +0400 Subject: SACW - 28 Feb 2018 | Open Letter to the Taliban / Against Deification of Asma Jahangir / India: Nationalist hysteria; Assam list for Deportations; more evolutionary biology / Brazil: end of mega-dams / How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity Message-ID: <0543A98E-7CA8-4B52-A2AA-370D4ED8D869@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 28 February 2018 - No. 2974 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Against Deification | Maryam Hussain 2. India: Hindu authoritarianism and agrarian distress | Achin Vanaik 3. Mapping Mob Lynching in India 4. India: Do not mix cancer with corruption - Letter from a cancer specialist 5. Good guys and bad guys by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Joint statement on cooperation between India and Canada on terrorism remains silent over Hindutva extremism - India - Ayodhya: While court decides Babri title suit, a thriving ?temple donation? racket - India: Intimidation by far right student org'n ABVP prevents CJP workshop in Banaras; Police sides with ABVP - India: Asphyxiated by Politics, Secularism Gasps for Breath - Can the Supreme Court Rescue It? | Satya Prasoon and Ashwini Tallur (The Wire) - The lure of the populists | Christophe Jaffrelot - India: RSS chief address on 'Rashtryoday' [Hindu Rashtra Day] - Hinduism springs from assurance, Hindutva from profound inferiority complexes' - The Telegraph Feb 24, 2018 - Genealogy more than history reminds us that we all came from the same place and were once black | Chidanand Rajghatta - Bangladesh worried about another influx - National Register of Citizens in India?s Assam state may result in a mass displacement of Bangalis - India: Anand Mohan J and Somya Lakhani on the high price of inter-faith marriages ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. An Open Letter to the Taliban | Barnett Rubin 8. A Nepal-India win-win | Kanak Mani Dixit 9. Sri Lanka: Sam Speaks For Muslims, Condemns Violence Against Muslims In Ampara 10. Nationalist Hysteria in India: Cine workers? body bans Pakistani artists from Bollywood 11. Assam's list: Indian state preparing to deport tens of thousands of 'foreigners' | Michael Safi 12. India: Justice Revati Dere, Who Slammed CBI?s Approach In Sohrabuddin Case, To Not Hear Matter Anymore | Nitish Kashyap 13. Skilling in New India ... as a bank fraudster | Harish Khare 14. Canada and India: Opposite trajectories | Pritam Singh 15. India badly needs more, not less, evolutionary biology | Amitabh Joshi 16. Roll back the ban: Don?t disrupt cattle markets, agriculture needs ease of doing business too - Editorial, in Times of India 17. India: Kerala CPM must not confuse party with government - Editorial, Indian Express 18. The Good Historian: Vigilante of Indian Past | Gerard Fussman 19. Chennai historians trying to save 300-year-old plaque connecting the city to Armenian past | Siranush Ghazanchyan 20. The era of mega-dams in Brazil may be coming to an end | Adam Wernick 21. What really scares populists? Grassroots campaigning and humour | Sra Popovic 22. Germany builds an industrial empire - Pay nearshore workers less, cut domestic rates | Pierre Rimbert 23. Payne on Darren E. Grem. The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity ======================================== 1. AGAINST DEIFICATION | Maryam Hussain ======================================== In the midst of eulogies for Asma Jahangir, well deserved and well earned, I am reminded strongly of the teachings of those we now seek to remember and honour, and those who are still here. In our desire to honour a woman who many knew as a person and as a symbol, we should not reduce her, or what indeed she stood for. We are mythmaking, and that is antithetical to what these women and men stand for and have stood for all their lives. What we are doing is dangerous. http://www.sacw.net/article13663.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: HINDU AUTHORITARIANISM AND AGRARIAN DISTRESS | Achin Vanaik ======================================== To defeat populist-nationalist forms of communal authoritarianism in India, we have to fight against more than just communalism. http://www.sacw.net/article13661.html ======================================== 3. MAPPING MOB LYNCHING IN INDIA ======================================== Mob lynching across India - 2015-2017 http://www.sacw.net/article13349.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: DO NOT MIX CANCER WITH CORRUPTION - LETTER FROM A CANCER SPECIALIST ======================================== Dr V. Shanta, well known cancer specialist, Chair of the Cancer Institute (W.I.A.), Chennai, and Padma Vibhushan and Magsaysay awardee, admonishes the M.D. & CEO of Punjab National Bank for misusing ?cancer? in the context of the recent banking mega-scam http://www.sacw.net/article13664.html ======================================== 5. GOOD GUYS AND BAD GUYS BY CARTOONIST CATHY WILCOX ======================================== ?Good guys and bad guys? by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox in The Sydney Morning Herald on all this gun violence in America and elsewhere. http://www.sacw.net/article13665.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Joint statement on cooperation between India and Canada on terrorism remains silent over Hindutva extremism - India - Ayodhya: While court decides Babri title suit, a thriving ?temple donation? racket - India: Intimidation by far right student org'n ABVP prevents CJP workshop in Banaras; Police sides with ABVP - India: Asphyxiated by Politics, Secularism Gasps for Breath - Can the Supreme Court Rescue It? | Satya Prasoon and Ashwini Tallur (The Wire) - The lure of the populists | Christophe Jaffrelot - India: RSS chief address on 'Rashtryoday' [Hindu Rashtra Day] - Hinduism springs from assurance, Hindutva from profound inferiority complexes' - The Telegraph Feb 24, 2018 - Genealogy more than history reminds us that we all came from the same place and were once black | Chidanand Rajghatta - Bangladesh worried about another influx - National Register of Citizens in India?s Assam state may result in a mass displacement of Bangalis - India; BJP govt in Haryana hell bent on introducing hindu religious prayer in school - India: Anand Mohan J and Somya Lakhani on the high price of inter-faith marriages -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. AN OPEN LETTER TO THE TALIBAN An American who helped open secret negotiations with the group calls for them to accept a ceasefire and peace talks with the Afghan government. by Barnett Rubin ======================================== The New Yorker February 27, 2018 A breakaway faction of Taliban fighters attends a gathering in the Herat province of Afghanistan, in May, 2016. Photograph by Aladdin Khan / AP Your February 14, 2018, open letter to the American people asked us to ?evaluate the future of American forces in light of the prevailing realities? in Afghanistan. I can answer only for myself, as an academic and former American diplomat who has been trying to understand Afghanistan?s realities for thirty-five years. Many Afghans claim that any answer should go not to you but to the Pakistani generals and intelligence operatives who shelter your movement. I disagree. I have interacted with you directly and indirectly since January, 1997, when I chaired a meeting at Columbia University with a delegation you sent to New York to ask for Afghanistan?s seat at the United Nations. I have concluded that your opponents underestimate your independence and abilities. But you may also underestimate theirs. On Wednesday, the Afghan government will host a second meeting of the Kabul Conference, an effort to begin peace talks, which will be attended by twenty-three countries. The United Nations announced earlier this month that ten thousand Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan in 2017, two-thirds of them in anti-government attacks. You highlight the civilian casualties inflicted by U.S. air power, the shame of Guant?namo, and the losses suffered by American soldiers and their families. I would cite the thousands of Afghan civilian casualties inflicted by your attacks and suicide bombings. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan last fall. In less than three months, Afghans submitted accounts of 1.17 million atrocities. I prefer to respond here to your appeal for dialogue. Few would disagree with your call ?to solve the Afghan issue through peaceful dialogues,? if they thought it were possible. On January 29th, after your organization used a car bomb disguised as an ambulance to kill nearly a hundred people in Kabul, President Trump did say, ?I don?t think we?re prepared to talk right now.? That was an impulse, not a strategy. As you yourself observed on Monday, ?the United States has kept the doors of dialogue open for the Taliban.? The flaw in your call for dialogue is that it is addressed only to Americans, not your fellow Afghans. You accuse Afghans opposing you of ?committing treason against our nation,? but the government of Afghanistan, corrupt and divided as it may be, is recognized by every nation in the world?not just Washington and its allies. Your dialogue with the U.S. government cannot replace dialogue with that government and the millions of other Afghans who fear your attacks and your return. Trying to exclude them repeats the mistake the U.S. made by excluding you. The list of missed opportunities for peace in Afghanistan since 2001 is long. On December 6, 2001, your leaders signed an agreement with Hamid Karzai, who had just been named the chairman of Afghanistan?s interim administration at talks convened by the United Nations in Bonn. You agreed to a truce and handed over the four provinces you still controlled to Karzai?s government. In return, you did not ask for government positions?just an amnesty that would allow you to live in dignity. The Administration of George W. Bush squandered the chance to involve you in building a new government. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced there would be neither a negotiated settlement nor an amnesty. Steve Coll reveals in his new book, ?Directorate S,? that, when some of your leaders tried to participate in the peace process agreed to at Bonn, Vice-President Dick Cheney ordered them imprisoned at Guant?namo or Bagram. Three and a half years later, with the help of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a Taliban delegation again began negotiating an agreement with the government in Kabul. But Khalilzad?s bosses in Washington declined to provide security guarantees to Taliban who joined the peace process. You concluded that you had no alternative but to continue fighting from your safe haven in Pakistan, whose military has supported you for its own reasons. The U.S. rejection of talks made you hostages to the Pakistan military. By 2007, you felt, as a former Taliban official told me, ?strong enough to talk? with the U.S. You established a political commission led by Agha Jan Mu?tasim and sent him to Saudi Arabia, to seek dialogue with Washington. Talks with Riyadh began in 2008 but deadlocked when you rejected preconditions the Saudis tried to impose. In 2010, when I was working in the State Department for Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, we learned that a new Taliban representative, Tayyib Agha, had met in Dubai with German diplomats. After consulting with Presidents Karzai and Obama, U.S. officials secretly met Tayyib outside Munich, on November 28, 2010. Tayyib presented U.S. officials with a Taliban road map for negotiations based on a series of confidence-building measures. The U.S. would release Taliban detainees from Guant?namo and lift sanctions, and the Taliban would publicly state that they were willing to distance themselves from international terrorism and seek a solution through a political process. The Taliban would then open an office in Qatar, from where they would negotiate with the U.S. and ?other Afghans,? including the government. Once the office was open, Tayyib suggested, the two sides could declare a limited ceasefire. The initially secret U.S.-Taliban peace talks continued through 2011, punctuated by deadlocks, leaks, and assassinations. The long delay in reaching talks with Afghan officials fed President Karzai?s suspicions that the country?s internationally recognized government was being marginalized. In December, 2011, the U.S. accepted Karzai?s demand that talks continue only if you spoke to Afghan officials. Despite efforts to find a formula that would enable us to proceed, you suspended the talks in March, 2012. To break the deadlock, Qatar proposed changing the sequence: open the Taliban office with a statement from the movement distancing itself from international terrorism and supporting a political resolution of the conflict; complete the confidence-building measures with the U.S.; and then meet with Afghan representatives. On April 23, 2013, the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, personally showed the draft of the Taliban statement to President Obama. Obama decided to go ahead. American diplomats had agreed in 2011 that you would open an office called the ?Political Office of the Afghan Taliban.? Obama had assured Karzai that the office would not infringe on the sovereignty of the Afghan government. On June 13, 2013, you opened the office in Qatar, in a televised ceremony, and displayed the flag of the ?Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,? as if you were an alternative government rather than a movement. Your use of the banner forced us to formally close the office. I left the U.S. government several months later, in October, 2013. Still, American officials implemented several of the confidence-building measures. Indirect talks resulted in your release of the captured American soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in 2014, in return for the transfer of five Taliban leaders from Guant?namo to Qatar. Because the U.N.?s sanctions against the Taliban are now imposed for ?constituting a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan,? rather than for international terrorism, they can be suspended for peace talks. You still demand, however, that the U.S. recognize you and your office in Qatar, and you equivocate about talking to the Afghan government. After years without meaningful talks, many have concluded you are seeking recognition, not peace. Your call for the United States to end the fighting would be more persuasive if you offered to abandon it yourselves. You need not alter your entire position: just change the order of events by challenging the U.S. and Afghan government to agree to a temporary ceasefire before the office formally reopens, regardless of who controls how many districts this week or the next. The Trump Administration, for its part, should be clearer about its support for a negotiated solution and the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops. It needs to abandon the fantasy that more U.S. troops will enable it to negotiate from a ?position of strength.? You write that you will fight as long as foreign troops are in Afghanistan. But you have acknowledged legitimate concerns about a repeat of the chaos that occurred after the Soviet withdrawal, in 1989. In a 2011 Eid message, you promised that ?the future transformations and developments would not resemble the developments following the collapse of communism, when everything of the country was plundered and the State Apparatus damaged entirely.? To avoid loss of life and destruction of Afghanistan?s infrastructure, a foreign-troop withdrawal should take place after Afghans agree on how to keep their state intact. On average, nine civilians die each day from the conflict in Afghanistan. You have committed yourselves never to allow anyone to use Afghan soil to attack other countries. You have said, ?We do not think of monopolizing power.? As diplomats gather in Kabul this week, show that your commitment to dialogue and independence is real. Challenge Washington and Kabul to accept a temporary ceasefire. Begin the long-delayed peace talks that Afghans deserve. ======================================== 8. A NEPAL-INDIA WIN-WIN | Kanak Mani Dixit ======================================== The Hindu February 20, 2018 The new Prime Minister in Kathmandu needs a hands-off New Delhi to ensure mutually beneficial stability and growth Without doubt, like every nation-state, India seeks its own advantage in international relationships, including within the South Asian region. But the repeated experience is that of New Delhi generating animosities, with attitudes and actions that go against its own interests. This forces one to ask from nearby Kathmandu, is there a structural issue with India?s foreign affairs oversight ? or is this question itself taboo? Take the case of Nepal, a country where friendship with India comes naturally even more than being a necessity, due to cultural, social and economic linkages over the open border. But, perhaps because of global preoccupations, New Delhi seems to constantly under-estimate Kathmandu?s fierce sense of self. The stratagem over the decades has been to try to influence Kathmandu?s politicos, forgetting that they too survive within the milieu of Nepali politics. The legacy of ?big brother? started with Jawaharlal Nehru ? Nepal?s statesman B.P. Koirala in his memoir has pinpointed the precise moment in 1950 during a meeting at Teen Murti Bhavan when he realised that the fellow-revolutionary was now transformed as Prime Minister of India, inheriting the geopolitical inclinations of the departed colonialist. The big stick More recently, India became progressively interventionist as Nepal got mired in internal crisis during and after the Maoist ?people?s war?, and as the hill-plain polarisation escalated during the constitution-writing. India has tended to speak loudly while wielding a big stick, based on a sense of entitlement and exceptionalism. But evidently, Indian nationalism for all its vigour cannot suppress nationalism across the frontier. While there are of course numerous domestic factors, a key reason for political instability in Nepal has been India?s overt and covert intercessions. This involvement explains in part why Nepal has not had a Prime Minister in office for more than a year-and-a-half over two decades now. Meanwhile, Indian analysts fail to appreciate how political stability in Nepal can deliver economic bounty to the bordering Indian States on its three sides. And economists should study the Pew Research Center figures showing Nepal as one of the larger sources of remittances to India, that too to the poorest regions such as north Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. India is understandably apprehensive as the Chinese geoeconomic juggernaut infiltrates the Subcontinental countries, including Nepal. Rather than imperious warnings against consorting with Beijing, however, better to leave each society to develop its own method on dealing with China. In the case of Nepal, the arrival of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway at the northern border point in 2020 will be a game-changer, and the Indian market too is set to benefit. With Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli sworn in as Prime Minister on February 15, there is now opportunity to start afresh on India-Nepal. It is true that India has never had as adversarial a Prime Minister in Kathmandu as Mr. Oli, but this is mainly the result of New Delhi?s own short-sightedness. Mr. Oli has been a moderate (if loquacious) politician who does not bend easily to populist pressures, but it fell on him during his previous term to stand up to the devastating Great Blockade of 2015. It became his job to rally a populace under humanitarian distress and seek connectivity northward through a set of 10 agreements with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Tagging Mr. Oli as ?anti-Indian? is not sensible, for being ?pro-Nepal? does not ipso facto mean animosity towards India. And New Delhi may be surprised to find Mr. Oli more than willing to reciprocate its overtures, providing reassurance that Kathmandu will never act against India?s security interests, while insisting that in all areas Nepal will take its own decisions. Nepal?s politicians are masters at realpolitik, and the art of balancing India vis-?-vis China is not outside of Mr. Oli?s personal skill-set. Desire for harmony Thankfully, it does look like India is seeking a recalibration, and no one is asking for a public apology. The desire for rapprochement is seen in the three phone conversations Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had with Mr. Oli since December, and the dispatch of Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to Kathmandu before the new government was even formed. Nepal?s topmost politicos, who never seem to retire, have got so used to revolving-door leadership that they are finding it hard to stomach the five-year term that the new government will probably get. On the other hand, the people?s expectation is that the longevity will ipso facto make for better governance. Mr. Oli?s ascendance to prime-ministership marks the final turn of the key in implementing the Constitution of Nepal (2015), which was adopted despite India?s fervent lobbying. The promulgation marks an end to the extended derailment of the last two decades, with numerous tragedies from the Maoists ?people?s war? to the Great Blockade. Nepal is now a federal and secular republic, experimenting with three levels of fully empowered government ? central, provincial and local. But there is confusion on the division of powers between the tiers, and foot-dragging by the national bureaucracy and many powerful politicians, besides an untested Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court. Ensuring inclusion Mr. Oli inherits the share-the-spoils bhagbanda politics of the transitional years, which has left the police, bureaucracy and judiciary politicised. The decay in each sphere cries out for reform, from the private sector cartels that control the economy to corruption that has seeped to the village terraces. The central socio-political task is to ensure inclusion in governance, giving the Janjati ethnicities as well as the Madhesi plains people and others a feeling of ownership of the state. While seeking to restore Nepal?s position internationally, Mr. Oli has to implement the connectivity agreements he signed with Beijing in 2015, while lifting the relationship with India above the patron-supplicant status. He will have his hands full trying to raise employment through tourism, industry, agroforestry and agriculture, ensuring energy self-sufficiency through hydro projects and rescuing the post-earthquake reconstruction effort, which has been a scandal. With international assistance in decline, investors have to be attracted by the promise of the rule of law and due process if Nepal is not to remain the playground of carpetbaggers. Speaking of the rule of law, the human rights community is worried that the ongoing truth and reconciliation process might be used as a sham exercise to pardon wartime atrocities. With Nepal recently elected to the UN Human Rights Council, there is opportunity to raise Nepal?s international profile while finally putting the ?people?s war? behind us all. Mr. Oli is fortunate that the new Constitution ensures extended tenure, by not allowing a no-confidence vote for the first two years. Besides, he rides a strong public mandate, having led the Left Alliance in its sweep of the local, provincial and national elections and forming governments at each tier. The field is also clear because the parties representing the Hindutva ideology and the deposed king, Gyanendra, were roundly defeated at all levels. Reaching out Mr. Oli?s primary preoccupation will be managing the government?s relationship with the opposition. The atmospherics between his Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and the Nepali Congress (NC) are at their worst, the latter sullen and vulnerable after the trouncing at the polls. He must reach out to build a working relationship with the NC and the Madhesbaadi plains-based parties, also because hundreds of new laws need to be urgently drafted under the Constitution. The Prime Minister?s immediate challenge, however, has to do with Pushpa Kamal Dahal (?Prachanda?), his Maoist partner in the Left Alliance. Mr. Dahal prefers to ignore the reality that his party was rescued from decimation by the electoral bonding with the UML. The voters gave him a respectable showing, hoping that the promised unification would subsume the Maoists within the UML, helping finally to neutralise the former. As this is being written, the two parties are preparing a unification document. Meanwhile, bargaining for plum posts, Mr. Dahal is demanding an alopalo, rotating prime-ministership. This would mean a jump back to bhagbanda politics, endangering both stability and growth, dishonouring the electoral mandate. Prime Minister Oli is tasked today to land Mr. Dahal where he can do no further harm to Nepal?s state and society, and to reset the relationship with India at a new normal. On the latter, he seems keen to take the olive branch held out by Mr. Modi, which can only result in a ?win-win? for Nepal and India. Kanak Mani Dixit, a writer and journalist based in Kathmandu, is founding editor of the magazine, ?Himal Southasian? ======================================== 9. SRI LANKA: SAM SPEAKS FOR MUSLIMS, CONDEMNS VIOLENCE AGAINST MUSLIMS IN AMPARA ======================================== Colombo Telegraph February 28, 2018 R. Sampanthan, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader Tamil National Alliance has condemned the violence against the Muslim community in Ampara. We publish below the Sampanthan?s statement in full: Rajavayothi Sampanthan ?I strongly condemn the attacks carried out against the Muslim community in Ampara. Any form of violence is not acceptable and I urge those who committed these unwarranted acts to create disunity and bring division among the communities to stay away from such activities and not to create ethnic tension among people. ?I urge the government to take stern action against the preparators of the violence in Ampara and to take adequate measures to prevent such incidents being repeated in future. We have witnessed such incidents in the past and we have experienced the repercussions of such unacceptable behaviour and actions. I urge the police and the other officials to enforce the law and order impartially. ?I humbly appeal to the religious leaders to ensure that peace and harmony are maintained in these areas and not to allow any extremist elements to take advantage of these incidents. ?I appeal to the people in Ampara and other areas to remain calm and to set an example to others of the importance of unity among communities.? ======================================== 10. Nationalist Hysteria in India: CINE WORKERS? BODY BANS PAKISTANI ARTISTS FROM BOLLYWOOD ======================================== Daily Times, February 27, 2018 Web Desk MUMBAI: The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) has banned Pakistani artists and technicians from displaying their skills in the Bollywood industry. The ban placed by the film industry workers? union in Mumbai, on Thursday, comes from a unanimous vote and prohibits Pakistani artists from performing in films as well as TV serials produced by Indian producers in any language. The association cites a ?war-like situation unleashed by Pakistan? as a reason for the ban, alleging that numerous of their soldiers and common men have been killed because of it. A press release issued by FWICE stated: ?We stand by our security forces and their families in this hour of crisis and believe in ?Nation comes first?.? The ban notice has been forwarded to all affiliates and producers? associations and bears the signatures of President Shri. Birendra Nath Tiwari and Hon. General Secretary Shri Ashok Dubey. Previously, many Pakistani artists including Atif Aslam, Ali Zafar, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Fawad Khan, Imran Abbas, Sajal Ali, Adnan Siddiqui, Mahira Khan, Urwa Hocane amongst many others have lent their vocals to and performed in different Bollywood film. On the political front, relations between the two countries have become strained quite frequently. This causes artists from the local industry to sporadically bear the brunt of the burden. ======================================== 11. ASSAM'S LIST: INDIAN STATE PREPARING TO DEPORT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF 'FOREIGNERS' | Michael Safi ======================================== The Guardian 26 Feb 2018 Plan to evict mostly Muslim migrants from Assam state creating panic among those who could be left without citizenship rights People stand in line to check their names on the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Gumi village of Kamrup district in the Indian state of Assam. Photograph: Kulendu Kalita/AFP Just before midnight on New Year?s Eve, authorities in the north-east Indian state of Assam published a list of 19 million names. But not Hanif Khan?s. Early the next morning police found Khan, a taxi driver from Cachar district, dead from an apparent suicide. ?I am sure he killed himself after he found his name missing,? his wife Rushka says. Two years ago, Assam, a lush state bordering Bhutan and Bangladesh, embarked on a vast exercise: to identify every resident who could demonstrate roots in the state before March 1971. And deport anyone who couldn?t. An unfinished draft was released on 31 December ? minus the names of 14 million other residents. Officials have stressed the final list will include millions more names, but the process is sparking anxiety in Assam, and warnings India might be about to manufacture tens of thousands of stateless people. Khan, 40, had grown increasingly tense in the weeks leading to the publication of the draft. Though he was born in Assam to an Indian mother, his father was an Afghan national who had long since drifted home. Hanif Khan, a driver from Cachar district in Assam, India, who was found dead on 1 January, 2018. Photograph: Supplied ?He told me many times that the documents he presented to prove he was a citizen of India were perhaps not enough,? his wife said. Assam is building a new detention centre to process the ?foreigners? it plans to evict in the coming years. At least 2,000 people are already detained in six facilities across the state. Khan often mentioned the detention centres, and had started to panic at the sight of police cars near his home, Rushka says. ?He was extremely frightened. Every day he told me that police would arrest him and push him to Bangladesh.? By December he was skipping meals and turning down driving jobs in unfamiliar places. Five hours before the list was published, his wife says, he vanished. The eastern Indian border with Bangladesh traverses five states and more than 4,000km. For centuries until the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, human traffic flowed freely across the territory. In smaller numbers, people have continued crossing in the decades after: Indian security agencies estimate about 15 million Bangladesh citizens work and live in India without authorisation. Just as with porous borders elsewhere, the flow of migrants from Bangladesh inflames Indian passions. Border guards were accused of gunning down nearly 1,000 people, most of them suspected smugglers, in the decade to 2010. A barbed-wire fence, bolstered in parts by floodlights and cameras, has been under construction since the mid-1980s and will eventually stretch more than 3,300km. Resentment has been most acute in Assam, where it sparked an anti-migrant movement in the 1980s that paralysed the state and eventually won government. It also fuelled one of India?s worst single-day massacres since partition: a frenzied seven-hour pogrom in a clutch of Muslim villages that left at least 1,800 people dead. ?Here, foreigners are like people from a different planet,? says Aman Wadud, a lawyer who represents people accused of migrating illegally. Assamese residents complain thousands of migrants have found their way onto voting rolls and take jobs and land from locals. ?In the past two decades, loads of Muslims from Bangladesh have settled around us,? says Pankaj Saha, a retailer from Dhubri district. ?Twenty years ago, Hindus formed 75% of my town?s population. Today, the Muslims are in majority.? Proving the identities of more than 30 million people ? many bearing handwritten records, or none at all ? has fallen to Prateek Hajela, a senior civil servant. ?We have received around 65 million documents,? he says from his office in Guwahati, the Assam capital. The fate of those who fail to win citizenship is outside his control, he says. ?What happens to those people who have applied and are not found to be eligible, I can?t say.? Yet this is the question dogging the process. Tribunals have already declared about 90,000 people in Assam to be foreigners, according to statistics obtained by IndiaSpend, a data journalism initiative. Only a few dozen have been deported in recent years ? Bangladesh and India have no formal repatriation agreement ? and officials admit many turn around and return at the first opportunity. Another 38,000 of those declared to be foreigners in Assam have disappeared into the community, according to police records. Thousands more claim to be wrongly accused and are awaiting citizenship hearings. The prospect of being suddenly arrested as a foreigner and languishing for years in a detention camp is worrying Bengali Muslims in particular. ?There is enormous fear and apprehension in the community,? Wadud says. Other than Hanif?s, at least two others suicides have been linked to the process. ?I am telling people, we need to wait for the second list,? says Subimal Bhattacharjee, an analyst who runs welfare schemes in the state. ?A significant number of names will be added. Verification is still going on.? When the government finally publishes the full list of citizens on 31 May, the ranks of foreigners in Assam could swell by tens of thousands ? with no clear plan yet of what to do with them. The Assam chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said in an interview last month that foreigners would lose constitutional rights. ?They will have only one right ? human rights as guaranteed by the the UN that include food, shelter and clothing.? The issue of deportation, he said, ?will come later?. Officials in the Indian home ministry declined to comment on the record but said their expectation was that Bangladesh would take back any of its citizens, as it currently does on a case-by-case basis. Bangladesh says it is not aware of any citizens living illegally in Assam, and that India has never raised the prospect of mass deportations from the state. An official at the country?s high commission in Delhi confirmed this position was unchanged. ?Deportations will never happen,? Wadud says. ?Bangladesh will never accept these people. I can?t imagine what will happen to them. They will become stateless people with no rights whatsoever.? Shaikh Azizur Rahman contributed to this report. ======================================== 12. INDIA: JUSTICE REVATI DERE, WHO SLAMMED CBI?S APPROACH IN SOHRABUDDIN CASE, TO NOT HEAR MATTER ANYMORE | NITISH KASHYAP ======================================== livelaw February 26, 2018 Justice Revati Mohite Dere, who was hearing the revision applications in the Sohrabuddin encounter case at the Bombay High Court, will not be hearing the matter anymore as the sitting list has been changed... Read more at: http://www.livelaw.in/justice-revati-dere-slammed-cbis-approach-sohrabuddin-case-not-hear-matter-anymore/ ======================================== 13. SKILLING IN NEW INDIA... AS A BANK FRAUDSTER by Harish Khare ======================================== The Tribune Feb 23, 2018 THE other day a young journalist, who works for a Delhi-based glossy magazine, came to see me. And, naturally the talk turned to the bank fraud. Suddenly, the young lady was all indignation; righteously she demanded: ?How can Nirav Modi be so rich? He is only 46-47 years; I am more educated than him.? To match indignation for indignation, I narrated how, only a few days earlier, I had mockingly scolded my economic editors that instead of knowingly explain how bank frauds were inflicted, they should be putting in place a plan to make some easy money for all of us on the editorial board. That conversation with the young journalist instigated an inspiration: why not think of a career change, from journalism to bank frauds. Come to think of it, I am tired of being an editor. All wellness ?gurus? advise variety and urge leaving behind your comfort zone. So, here I was, looking for new challenges, new excitement; eager to flirt with danger. And, ready to learn a new skill ? after all, there is so much national exhortation, from the Prime Minister down to the local chamber of commerce, on ?skill development?. I thought I would re-tool myself with skills of a bank fraudster. I got in touch with a very senior bank executive (SBE); the conversation went like this: HK: Sir, I want to take a big, a huge loan, which I know I cannot repay and frankly, between us, have no intention to repay. SBE: We like frankness; we like boldness; you have all the qualities of a risk-taker. In New India, we now have a policy of rewarding risk-takers. Tell me, what kind of collateral can you offer? HK: I have very many books. SBE: Books are useless HK: Books have knowledge; and, knowledge is priceless. SBE: If you so insist. What kind of books? HK: 32 Volumes of Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru; books on Plato, Aristotle, Isiah Berlin... SBE: Nothing of Deendayal Upadhyay? No, Bunch of Thoughts? HK: No. SBE: Do you have dual nationality? HK: No, I am fully Indian; only one passport. SBE: Sir, please, help me help you. Do you know anyone influential? HK: I can produce photographs with Prime Ministers, and Presidents from around the world. SBE: You should have mentioned that at the beginning, Sir. I shall be sending around a blank Letter of Undertaking (LoU). Fill in the figure. Good luck with your skill development. Hope to see you sometime in Dubai. ======================================== 14. CANADA AND INDIA: OPPOSITE TRAJECTORIES by Pritam Singh ======================================== The Tribune Feb 27, 2018 If in Canada, the transition on human rights has been from a disgraceful past to a tolerant present, in India it is the opposite: from anti-colonial struggles for human freedom to the authoritarianism of the present juncture. During the Canadian Prime Minister?s recent visit to India, the media in both countries, but more so in India, has tried to present as if alleged support to the demand for Khalistan by some Canadian Sikh groups and Canada?s handling of it is the main source of some perceived tension in government-to-government relations between India and Canada. There is some truth in this perception, except that it is an oversimplification and, consequently, distortion of deeper and serious differences in the political culture of Canada and India. One of the key politico-cultural differences relates to clashing perspectives on human rights. The tension over the Khalistan issue is an epi-phenomenon of the deeper structural differences on approaches towards human rights. Economically, though Canada is a developed country and India is still a developing one, both are ruled by the logic of functioning of a capitalist economy and share many of the ills of capitalism. The massive economic inequality and its consequences - socially and culturally -point towards a shared drawback in the politico-economic governance of both countries. Within that shared universe, there are deep politico-cultural differences and one of the key ones that needs understanding if one wants to get a better grip on Canada-India relations is the difference in the perspectives on human rights in the political culture of both the countries. Canada has a shameful and troubled history of near total annihilation of local indigenous communities and repression of non-white ethnic minorities, but a slow and tortured evolutionary path in the country has been towards acknowledging those historical injustices, making amends for them and building a more tolerant and multi-cultural society. Generations of human rights and equality campaigners have transformed through tireless struggles the political culture of the country. The father of the current Canadian PM was a key figure in building the politico-cultural consensus in Canada that a good society is one that recognises differences, values diversity and constructs institutions that facilitate the accommodation of these differences and diversities. No doubt, this consensus was a part of a wider debate mostly in Western capitalist economies that to build an efficient economy, inclusiveness of all forms of labour in the running of the economy is necessary and essential. Despite some recent retrogressions in the form of rise of racist/semi-racist political groupings and parties in some of the western countries of which the Trump presidency in the USA is most illustrative, this remains a widely accepted consensus in the western world. Canada has not only played a pivotal role in advancing this consensus but also in steadfastly remaining committed to it. Respect for human rights has become embedded in the accepted milieu of diversity and pluralism. Theoretical and academic work on multiculturalism has been the most advanced in Canada. This work has flourished due to the culture of respect for multiculturalism, and has, in turn, further strengthened the shaping of ideas, practices and institutions in support of multiculturalism. Canada has witnessed the multifaceted benefits of this move towards multiculturalism. In the last over 20 years, Canada has either been at the top or one among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of Human Development Index. Canada can be genuinely proud that it is the only country in the western world where a non-white person (Jagmeet Singh) has become the head of a major national party in the country. From the viewpoint of pluralism, diversity and human rights, developments in India have followed just the reverse path to the one followed in Canada. In the first half of the twentieth century, India witnessed many glorious anti-colonial struggles for expansion of human rights and freedoms. The success of the anti-colonial struggles in 1947, although marred by religious sectarianism and killings, still raised hopes of building a society based on the principle of ?unity and diversity?. However, soon after the inauguration of the post-colonial state, the slow march towards greater emphasis on unity than diversity started. Hindu majoritarianism which was muted and disguised earlier started manifesting itself openly in various formats and has accelerated at a dizzying speed in the last 30 years or so. This majoritarianism has shifted the political discourse away from diversity and the war cry now is ?unity and integrity? with added emphasis on territorial integrity. In this unitarist and centralist discourse, human rights have become a suspect subject. The campaigners for human rights are projected and viewed as disloyal to the country at a lower level of suspicion and anti-national subversives at a higher level of suspicion. If in Canada, the historical transition has been from a disgraceful past to humane and tolerant present, in India the transition has been from a historical record of anti-colonial struggles for human freedom to authoritarianism of the present juncture. Canada creates space for valuing differences for building a culturally rich society so much so that it allows one French speaking province of the country (Quebec) to hold a referendum if the province wants to secede from the union. In India, leave aside secession, even the talk of limited regional autonomy is dubbed as treason. If Canada allows free discussion on the right to secede to one of its own provinces, it is illogical to expect that it should use the coercive power of the state against some Sikhs, Kurds, Chechens, Baluchs or Tamils who advocate secession in the countries of their origin. Many members of these Canadian minorities do not even support secession, they merely want protection of the human right to assemble and debate alternative political paths. The Canadian law and political culture do not allow suppression of such peaceful articulation of differences. An honest and informed understanding of the human rights deficit in the political culture of India especially in comparison with that of Canada can provide a road map for the possible transition India can make one day towards building a human rights rich political culture. Pritam Singh [is] Professor of Economics, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK ======================================== 15. INDIA BADLY NEEDS MORE, NOT LESS, EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY | Amitabh Joshi ======================================== The Asian Age, February 19, 2018 Understanding evolution helps us solve biological problems. What is urgently needed is a revamping of biology curricula at all levels. Although this recent controversy is now defused, there are deeper systemic problems pertaining to the neglect of evolution in India that need addressing. Although this recent controversy is now defused, there are deeper systemic problems pertaining to the neglect of evolution in India that need addressing. For a biologist, the alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all. ? Peter B. Medawar, Nobel Laureate Recently, the honourable minister of state for human resource development said that the Darwinian theory of evolution was scientifically wrong and should not be taught in Indian institutions. Many scientists and students signed a petition calling upon him to withdraw his remarks. The three science academies of India issued a joint statement, in multiple Indian languages, pointing out that those remarks had no scientific basis, and that it would be retrogressive to stop the teaching of evolution. Finally, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar intervened to state that issues like deciding whether evolution should be taught, or in what form, should best be left to scientists. Although this recent controversy is now defused, there are deeper systemic problems pertaining to the neglect of evolution in India that need addressing. In Indian curricula, evolutionary biology is almost absent. It is treated very superficially, and much of the treatment is decades out of date. There is a widespread feeling that evolution is a minor issue in biology, irrelevant to modern advances in molecular biology and devoid of application potential. This could not be farther from the reality. Evolutionary biology is not a branch of biology the way immunology or biochemistry are. Rather, it is a unifying conceptual framework within which facts from all of biology get coherently arranged. Biology without evolution would be like chemistry without the knowledge of the periodic table and reaction mechanisms: an arbitrary collection of facts. An evolutionary perspective sheds light on issues of great societal relevance like why and how we age, how epidemics spread and new pathogenic strains arise, how to improve crops and domesticated animals, how to tackle the evolution of multi-drug resistance in bacteria, why nepotism and despotism are so common in human societies, how notions of justice have developed, why the sudden explosion of the so-called ?lifestyle diseases?, to cite just a few examples. The new fields of evolutionary medicine and evolutionary psychology are largely missing in India, though they are hugely relevant to understanding major societal problems ranging from disease to socio-sexual violence. Promising modern biological approaches like marker-assisted selection, biomedical genomics, epidemiology, and bioinformatics are all based upon a strong underlying foundation of (Darwinian) evolutionary theory. Indeed, there is no hope of leveraging these technologies to their fullest potential if we neglect basic training in evolutionary biology for all biologists, not just for future evolutionists. It is not just in basic education that evolution is neglected in India. In postgraduate education and research, too, evolutionary biology is woefully under-represented. Among all universities and research institutes of India, there is just one small department devoted to evolution training and research (at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru). The only postgraduate training programme in evolution in India (an Integrated PhD programme in Evolutionary and Organismal Biology also at JNCASR) was shut down in 2016, much to the disappointment of aspiring students. In contrast, most major US universities have full departments devoted to evolutionary biology. The irony is that evolutionary biology research is not very expensive and, therefore, even researchers in state universities in India could do world-class research in evolutionary biology, provided they had a proper exposure to and training in the field. In the absence of such exposure, many university researchers remain mired in doing second-rate molecular biology research, affected by paucity of resources. Indeed, on a per capita and per rupee basis, the contributions of the few evolutionary biology researchers in India to the growth of biological knowledge and understanding vastly outweigh the contributions of researchers in other areas of (mostly molecular) biology. Indian evolutionary biologists have made major conceptual and empirical contributions to our understanding of insect-plant coevolution, parent-offspring conflict, hybridisation and race-formation, evolution of sociality, evolution of competitive ability, evolutionary history of various animal lineages in the subcontinent, genome-level sexual conflict, evolutionary ecology of social organisation and behaviour, and evolution in fluctuating environments. Indian evolutionary biologists are also making fundamental contributions to contemporary research regarding the conceptual structure of ?core? evolutionary theory, as was highlighted by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, in their blog last year. What is urgently needed in India is a revamping of biology curricula at all levels to incorporate an evolutionary perspective into biology training in general, and the establishment of at least one full-fledged national institute devoted to postgraduate training and research in evolutionary biology. If these are done, we could hope to be among the world leaders in evolutionary biology. (Amitabh Joshi is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, and a Fellow of the three science academies of India) o o [ SEE ALSO: MANTRI WHO DEBUNKS DARWIN'S THEORY IS CHIEF GUEST FOR SCIENCE DAY https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/mantri-who-debunks-darwins-theory-is-chief-guest-for-science-day/articleshow/63103013.cms ] ======================================== 16. ROLL BACK THE BAN: DON?T DISRUPT CATTLE MARKETS, AGRICULTURE NEEDS EASE OF DOING BUSINESS TOO Editorial, in Times of India ======================================== The Times of India February 28, 2018 Editorial An attempt by government last May to ban cattle markets if trade eventually led to slaughter is reportedly being undone. The relevant law, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Rule, was stayed last year by Supreme Court. Simultaneously, farmers? organisations asked for a restoration of their right to trade in cattle. While the revised version of the legislation is not yet in public domain, government should not impose new burdens on cattle trade in any way. Last year?s legislation represented an attempt to impose cultural beliefs of a section of society on the dairy industry. The economic burden of this attempt was borne by farmers. It is unfair that even while Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about steps to lighten the regulatory environment for doing business in the non-agricultural sector, agriculture was subjected to additional burdens. For India?s farmers, this came at a time when they had to confront a new danger, climate change, quite apart from the usual problems of low productivity, land fragmentation, lack of access to credit and markets. Battered on all sides, the last four years have been marked by agrarian distress. The Economic Survey pointed out that during this period real agricultural revenues remained constant. Cattle are an asset for a farmer, with a visible production life cycle. Once an asset is no longer productive for an owner, it is only natural that he finds another buyer who can subsequently put it to use. Once BJP state governments and subsequently the Centre disrupted this economic cycle, farmers and cattle traders bore the economic burden. In addition, non-state actors in the form of vigilante groups have also been allowed to harm trading networks. Ironically, states with strict slaughter bans typically have a higher proportion of strays as farmers turn them loose, unable to bear the burden of feeding them. Government should change its approach to the farm sector. It has pursued some good initiatives, such as trying to create a national online market to give farmers more options. However, it has shackled them in other ways. Agriculture needs ease of doing business as much as other economic sectors. Farmers should not be asked to bear the burden of ideology. Adverse consequences of an ideological approach extend beyond farming to other job creating activities such as leather industry. ======================================== 17. INDIA: KERALA CPM MUST NOT CONFUSE PARTY WITH GOVERNMENT Party?s to-do list Kerala CPM plans to reach out with social activities, but it must not confuse party with government ======================================== The Indian Express, February 28, 2018 Editorial The CPM?s current crisis stems from a failure to understand and adjust to the changing demands of the democratic system. The challenge for the government is to ensure that the CPM cadres? enthusiasm for civic work and public programmes does not result in the exclusion of non-partisan, non-CPM citizens from the state?s welfare net and outreach. The CPM held its Kerala state conference last week at a time when the party faces a deep political crisis. Its national footprint is shrinking and the leadership seems divided on what ought to be its strategy ahead of the 2019 general election. In Kerala, the Left government?s performance has been lacklustre. The spate of political murders ? the latest claiming Congress leader Shuhaib in Kannur as victim ? has damaged the party?s public profile. Questions are being asked about CPM cadres? willingness to abide by the law and the government?s commitment to enforce it. These issues were raised at the conference, but the leaders reportedly evaded them. The incapability to engage with these questions politically points to a crisis of leadership. The leaders recognise that the party and its government are drifting away from ordinary people. They have now skirted hard political solutions for a slew of initiatives that are normally the preserve of the voluntary sector. On Sunday, state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan announced that the cadres will fan out to build houses for the homeless, become part of palliative care initiatives, do organic agriculture, clean rivers and ponds, work to raise the standards of government schools and the quality of public hospitals and so on. There is nothing wrong about these initiatives, many of which are already directed by the government. Voluntary agencies are already working in these areas and many CPM cadres, independent of the party, are associated with them. In the past, the communist movement benefited from involvement in the library movement, literacy programmes and the people?s planning; it helped the party to shed its image as merely an insurrectionist outfit. But reviving a political paradigm of the past in an entirely different historical context may not be the remedy for the problems of cadre violence and governance failure. The CPM?s current crisis ? an internal report has indicated that the poor are alienated from the party ? stems from a failure to understand and adjust to the changing demands of the democratic system. A contradiction is likely to emerge when CPM cadres get associated with government initiatives or when party programmes get institutionalised as state activity. Cadre-parties tend to capture public-funded initiatives for themselves when they involve themselves in them. The challenge for the government is to ensure that the CPM cadres? enthusiasm for civic work and public programmes does not result in the exclusion of non-partisan, non-CPM citizens from the state?s welfare net and outreach. ======================================== 18. THE GOOD HISTORIAN: VIGILANTE OF INDIAN PAST | Gerard Fussman ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 53, Issue No. 6, 10 Feb, 2018 ? The Good Historian Talking History by Romila Thapar, Ramin Jahanbegloo and Neeladri Bhattacharya, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017; pp xvi + 340, ?795. Professional historians seldom read books on history writing. In fact, once recognised as historians, books and papers written by colleagues are either their models, or examples they do not wish to imitate. However, Talking History is not a book on how history ought to be written. It is a book on Romila Thapar?s achievements as a historian, and as such, a book on intellectual life in India since independence. For Thapar was, and still is, one of the leading intellectuals of India since that period, the incarnation of Indian history in Europe and the United States, as well as a public figure acclaimed by the most progressive part of the society, while also subject to violent attacks for her secular vision of India and Indian past as one which cannot be reconciled with Hindutva. Talking History is both a scholarly autobiography, and a reflection on the links between history and politics. Thapar mostly answers questions posed by Ramin Jahanbegloo, who plays the role of an intelligent layperson, while also responding to a younger historian, Neeladri Bhattacharya, who asks fewer, lengthier, and more specialised questions. The book has apparently been entirely rewritten by Thapar, and on reading it, one does hear her voice. So Talking History is truly a book by Thapar; a reflection on her whole life. I ought to specify ?professional? life, because she does not talk (except occasionally) about her personal life, her circle of close friends, her celebrated brother, or the manifold invectives and honours she has received. Politics come in only in relation with her work as a historian. To be honest, there is nothing entirely new in the book; there exist a number of papers or interviews, in which Thapar has expressed herself on these subjects in the past. Talking History is, however, the most comprehensive presentation of her ideas, and may interest every reader who wishes to understand how Thapar came to be a historian, as well as the beginnings of her work in newly independent India. While the core of the book is not entirely new to me, reading it has made me much more conscious of the difference between the work of a patriotic Indian historian of India and that of a foreigner. Which Side of History? I suppose most of the readers of the Economic & Political Weekly would not know my name, for I write almost exclusively in French. Suffice to say, I was a graduate when Thapar was preparing the PhD which made her famous (Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 1961). My first book was printed in 1965, my first paper on Ashoka?s inscriptions in 1974. Yet, our trainings were quite different.I trained as a Greek archaeologist, which at the time meant learning Greek and Latin. I began studying Sanskrit not from a desire to know India, but because I was fascinated with the comparative history of Indo?European languages, for which a knowledge of Sanskrit is, or should be, a requisite. I was nevertheless a historian at heart. At that time, history in French universities was almost exclusively the history of France. The narratives of foreign countries were either ignored entirely, or appeared only when they were warring with France. It was self-evident that we were not supposed to ask ourselves questions about the established identity of our country. Quite different was the training of Thapar. She was located in Britain, and most of her professors would have been convinced that India was at its best when it was British India. The history she learnt, and was expected to write, while pursuing her degrees, was of a kind, quite foreign to the Puranas, the chronicles of the Afghan and Moghul sultans, and the Mahabharata, which her maternal grandmother would read in Hindi. None of the books she had to use and meditate upon were in her native Punjabi or Hindi. All of them were in English, a language foreign to India (she learnt later, when she travelled abroad, that there also were some valuable contributions by French and German scholars; British universities tend to be as chauvinistic as the French ones). Even the books written by Indian historians, some of them quite outstanding, were in English, and so were the handbooks used to teach Indians their own history. While writing in a foreign language would have been unthinkable for a Frenchman, English was never an issue for Thapar. Members of her family had been employed by the British Raj, and were fluent in English as well in the other North Indian languages?Urdu, Persian, Hindi, and Punjabi. In 1947, in part even now, English was the only language understood by a majority of educatedIndians in the country. It was the language through which Thapar could address herself to Bengalis, Maharashtrians, and Tamilians alike. She was soon convinced, both as a historian and as an Indian nationalist, that the time had come to replace the outdated history she had learnt at school with a new Indian history, advanced by Indian scholars for Indian readers. It was evident to her that she should write in English, and hope to get translations in what were called ?the vernaculars of India.? This was a political choice: Indian historians had to write historical narratives which, although true to the evidence, would help Indians build a new, peaceful, and democratic country. She never attempted to conceal this purpose, as is witnessed in the titles of some of her papers and books (The Past as Present: Forging Contemporary Identities Through History, Communalism and the Writing of Indian History); her inroads in the Babri Masjid dispute; and the discussions on the Aryans in India. She always kept true to the ideal, of a secular India, where Muslims and Hindus could peacefully coexist as they did in her native Punjab before partition. At the same time, she had to define what was that newly independent India, whose borders were no more those of British India and which did not enclose remains of her pre-Muslim past. This past lay in Pakistan, a country to which Indians could not easily, or safely travel, and whose scientific publications could reach her in Delhi, only through London, Paris or Rome. Her conception of the Indian nation?which stemmed from experiences in her personal and professional life?is at the heart of her opposition between early India and Hindutva. The former she considered a scientific and neutral concept, the latter, a religious and divisive one, which does not rely on proved historical evidence. In the 1960s, French historians were no more asked to give historical foundations for a new France: France was eternal; ?national identity? and immigration were only topics for a handful of politicians. In my young years, historians were drawn into politics not to demonstrate the existence of the nation and the advantages of being a republic, but because they belonged to a very politicised intelligentsia, who considered it their duty to confront the immediate problems of the country. Discussions in universities on politics, philosophy, and the conception of history often demanded a return to original sources in their original languages, and featured rigorous understanding, backed by data and reasoning. Furthermore, considering France is a country of many sceptics and unbelievers, the main text of Descartes, Voltaire, and Diderot were taught magna cum laude in high schools. The Bible and Jesus?s life were examined as if they were legends and Michelet?s History of France was almost looked at as a historical novel. In the field of Oriental studies, Dum?zil was arguing that the foundation of Roma according to Titus-Livius was modelled on an old Indo?European vision of the world. Erudite studies by French-speaking scholars exhibited the greatest scepticism about the Buddha?s biography as told in the Pali scriptures. In her PhD on Ashoka, Thapar follows a classical, yet rigorous approach of dealing with every source available. She does not exhibit the kind of radical scepticism mentioned above. For instance, she tries to make the best use of the Pali and Sanskrit legends of Ashoka, although each time we compare these with Ashoka?s inscriptions, they are proven wrong. Surprisingly, in Talking History, she says that, when choosing Ashoka as her subject, she was mainly interested in the possibility of exploring the ?question [of the importance] of the individual in history? (p 163). Indeed, Ashoka is the only early sovereign whose thoughts we are able to decipher through his numerous inscriptions. In any case, it was a good choice in the 1950s: Ashoka is the only Indian king whose chronology is known with some certainty, whose dominions almost equated the extent of British India (along with a small part of modern Afghanistan), and one who publicly renounced violence (except on some occasions). No wonder the capital of a so-called Ashokan column was chosen to symbolise a newly independent India. Curating a National History It came to me as another surprise that, in discussions about Thapar?s book and curricula to be introduced in Delhi University, she was dubbed a Marxist, an epithet she strongly contests. Having been well acquainted with French, German and Soviet marxisms (English Marxist historians were and are almost unknown in France), I would never have imagined Thapar termed a Marxist. Like so many historians after Karl Marx, she is interested in the economic and social background of historical events. Such an approach has long become common sense among leading historians, and is no more a privilege of the Marxists. What distinguished the Marxist historians from the non-Marxists is precisely that they were neither interested in individuals, nor in religion. Rather, they were interested in identifying the economic and social forces responsible for the apparition of these individuals, the religious changes and the social classes responsible for an optimistic conception of a historical development, and in an evolution towards socialism from slave society, feudalism, capitalism and imperialism. That was a vision of the past which was congruent with the facts when Marx used to write, at least in Western Europe. You will never find such ideas or suggestions in Thapar?s books or papers. Her only preoccupation is: what India was, is, and ought to be. There exist Marxist historians of India, some of them quite good, like D D Kosambi, whom Thapar admires. However, they face an enormous difficulty: we have almost no data on the economy and social differences in early India, except in a few inscriptions, and in the shastras (whose date, geographical origin, validity and domain are disputed). So when Thapar wanted to research beyond the role of the individual in history, she did not search for evidence of slavery or feudalism, but instead, turned to an anthropological study of the emergence of Indian states, hence her famous title, From Lineage to States. Her inspiration clearly stemmed from the British school of anthropology, and not Marx. Still, Thapar had to content with the dearth of precise data covering the whole of India, although she did search for such data in archaeological reports, inscriptions, and numismatics. In order to write her narratives, she took part of her inspiration from the eminent foreign historians and anthropologists, whom she would read and meet with. But Thapar stayed Indian. From that point of view, the most interesting pages of Talking History are those wherein she explains the choices a historian has to make. She points out that while writing history always involves selecting some facts, focusing on some themes, and choosing one system of explanation (the one which best fits the data), it is always tainted with some ideo?logy. ?The difference between a good historian and a bad historian is that the good historian makes it clear why and how the selections have been made? (p 207). I would add ?and never distorts the data.? Thapar never distorted the data. Custodian of the Past It is fascinating to see how Thapar stresses that the historians are first, members of their society, and as such, should intervene in the discussions where the past is used as an argument, in order to tell the truth, and point out misrepresentations. Thapar never shirked her responsibility in these domains, both as a historian and a citizen. The title of her book, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, explains her patriotic conception of history. I was admittedly puzzled when I read that huge book of 758 pages, inspired by conversations with the British historian Arnaldo Momigliano and dedicated both to him and to Kosambi. This puzzlement persisted when I read the first lines of its conclusion: The purpose has not been not just to ascertain whether or not there was a sense of history in early India?It has been to search for the forms this might have taken. (Thapar 2013: 681) To a European scholar, this seemed more like history of literature than historiography. Indeed most Indological handbooks begin with that kind of survey of the sources, even if less expanded and far less intelligently written. Moreover vanshavalis (genealogies) are not history. The succession of the kings of England does not teach much about the history of Great Britain. It is only upon reading Talking History that I understood Thapar?s motivations. It becomes evident that The Past Before Us was not meant for foreign readers or scholars. It was meant for Indian readers, in order to tell them that like all peoples, they too had a sense of the past which modelled their views of the present and the future. This sense of the past did not look like the history written by Europeans since Herodotus and Thucydides, but was pan-Indian, and saying so stressed the unity of Indian thought over the whole of the subcontinent. At the same time, it was diverse, different according to times, places, dynasties and creeds. The unity of India was not made by a unified creed, less so one that was supposed to have existed from ?immemorial times? (the so-called sanatana dharma or ?eternal Hinduism?), as espoused by the advocates of Hindutva. Thus, trying to unify India according to only one creed and doctrine, now called Hinduism, does not correspond to its past, essence and destiny. Smritis or Itihasa? This is obviously the underlying purpose of Thapar?s studies of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. In Sanskrit they are called itihasa (thus it was); she calls them ?epics.? But epics are studied by historians of literature. Two centuries of critical studies of the Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, as well as many others, have demonstrated that although they contain reminiscences of the past, they are not historical documents. Historians can use the data these epics preserve, only when they are substantiated by other data, such as archaeological excavations and inscriptions. Still, Thapar argues that she studies the epics as a historian, stating, ?the Mahabharata is telling us primarily about clan society, and how it is organized, how it functions, what are its values, and so on? (p 236). That may be true, but history requires some chronology as well as a geographical location. The main story of the Mahabharata is dated between the 4th century BCE and the 4th century CE. Furthermore, the events it records, and as such the society it depicts, are dated any time between 1500 and 1000 BCE (some even say 4000 BCE). Can one then construct history using a document whose date could lie anywhere between 1200 and 2000 years? Thapar is right in her observation that the Mahabharata depicts a clan society, but when exactly did that society exist? Was it at the time of the great war, when the epic was first recited, or when it was enlarged to its present core? The analysis made by Thapar makes sense only if we consider the present situation of India. Itihasa means a historical narrative, and for many Indians the epics are both religious (smritis)1 and historical documents, true to the facts. The Ramayana is thus at the root of the dispute over the Babri Masjid. By calling them epics and studying them as a historian, Thapar claims that they are man-made poetry, with many layers, with huge variants, not historical documents to be adduced in politics. She could have added (she alludes to it in the first chapter of Talking History) that the epics were also known and appreciated by the Muslims in India, in the same way that many Hindus know Muslim poetry in Urdu. Indeed these epics are fascinating texts for a historian. One would like to understand how the Mahabharata?which recounts a war that took place near Delhi at least 3,000 years ago; whose participants left no descendants; whose heroes, the Pandavas, were modelled on a very ancient Indo?European scheme of five male gods and one goddess, and thus partake of the same wife (an abomination condemned by all the dharmashastras)2?quickly became known over the whole of the subcontinent, and was one of the main vehicles of its ?sanskritisation.? Further, how it could inspire playwriters in far-off Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as well as in South-east Asia and Indonesia; how it still fascinates both Hindu and Muslim Indians, as one witnessed when it aired on television; how it can still attract Pakistani Muslims through Bollywood movies; and how it is now known the world over, are all worth studying. Yet we have no sure data to conduct such a study until the 18th century, except some sculptures, the date and origin of the most ancient manuscripts, and the adaptations made in the ?vernaculars? of India and in Persian. Thapar would have been able to carry out such a study if the data existed; this is precisely what she did in her studies on Shakuntala, and especially in Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. There she is at her best, as she demonstrates how a legend is made, how it develops, as well as how and why one version (often not the most reliable) may become popular and be mistaken for a true historical narrative. Her book also demonstrates the limits of thehistorian?s powers. It could hardlyprevent the rebuilt Somnath temple frombecoming one of the greatesttemples of India. Doyenne of Indian History A review of Thapar?s latest work ought to be much longer, for reading Talking History forces every historian, Indian or foreign, to reflect on what they are doing and what they should do. It also demonstrates how one can take the best of Western authors and thinkers, while still remaining entirely and passionately Indian, true to one?s roots. It reminds professional historians and readers that there exists no neutral history, that historical narratives are always dependent on the vision of their authors, that new nations need roots and search for them in a past which is always reconstructed (and sometimes deliberately imaginary). History played a major role in French and German nationalisms in the 19th century, in 20th century Israel and many other new countries. India is no exception. India can, however, boast having given the world one of the best 20th century historians, a great writer, an innovative scholar, and a true patriot. She is now paying a heavy price for the courage she has demonstrated during her entire life. G?rard Fussman (gerard.fussman[at]college-de-france.fr) is emeritus professor at the College de France, Paris. Notes 1 Religious truths as transmitted by human personages. 2 Hindu codes of laws. Reference Thapar, Romila (2013): The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, Raniketh: Permanent Black. ======================================== 19. CHENNAI HISTORIANS TRYING TO SAVE 300-YEAR-OLD PLAQUE CONNECTING THE CITY TO ARMENIAN PAST | Siranush Ghazanchyan ======================================== Public Radio of Armenia 13 Feb 2018 A dedicated group of Chennai historians have launched a Facebook page ?Retrieve Uscan Stone? to save one of the oldest living relics that connects the city to its Armenian past ? a 300-year-old plaque that belonged on the pillars of one of oldest bridges in the city, The News Minute reports. Marmalong Bridge, the first ever bridge across the Adyar river, was commissioned in 1726 by Coja Petrus Uscan, an immensely wealthy Armenian trader. Uscan, who had decided to settle in Madras after coming to the city in 1724, paid 30,000 pagodas from his own money to build the bridge and another 1,500 pagodas for its upkeep. ?Uscan was immensely respected and perhaps was even one of the only non-British allowed to stay in Fort St George or the White town. A devout believer in St Thomas, Uscan wanted more people to visit the Saint Thomas Mount, and therefore removed the two impediments ? the river and the lack of steps ? by building the bridge as well as 160 steps to the mount. This was the initial purpose of the bridge. But all that soon changed as the Marmalong Bridge became crucial to the expansion of the city, especially towards the South,? says Chennai-based novelist and historian Venkatesh Ramakrishnan. Named after Mambalam, one of the villages near the Adyar, the Marmalong Bridge perhaps laid the foundation stone for the city as it led to the emergence of the Mount Road, around which Chennai developed. ?It was only natural that a road followed after a bridge was built. The British built the Mount Road in the 1800s, around which the city grew. So, in a sense, the bridge led to the city?s birth and is very close to its heart,? Venkatesh adds. Where the arched bridge of Uscan once stood, a concrete replacement called the Maraimalai Adigal Bridge now exists. There are no traces of this Adyar-Armenian connect but for the last living relic ? the plaque commemorating Uscan?s construction of the bridge. With inscriptions in three ancient languages ? Persian, Armenian and Latin, the Uscan plaque was established in memory of the great nation of Armenia and is a tribute to the people who helped build the city. ?The Armenian inscriptions are on the lower portion of the plaque. It can?t be read because the writing has faded with time and neglect,? according to Venkatesh. Displaced from its original site, the plaque faces the perils of urbanisation and is further threatened by the metro rail work that is underway. Years of neglect and development in the area has buried the stone in layers of debris. In fact, the bottom of the stone has disappeared under the ground as the road levels have been rising every year due to re-carpeting, Venkatesh laments. With the construction of the Saidapet Metro station underway, historians who are fighting to save the plague urge the CMRL to give the stone a place of honor in the metro station. Highlighting the importance of preserving such relics, Venkatesh says, ?The Armenians have contributed immensely to this city. I believe it is important to preserve all traces to this link. It is really unfortunate that while the Uscan stone stands neglected, another plaque at the Fourbeck Bridge is preserved by the Architectural Society of India,? he said. ?The Saidapet Metro work is too close to the plaque. We have been urging the officials to move the relic to a better place, may be a museum or a memorial site. We just don?t want to lose a precious piece of the city?s history,? Venkatesh says hopefully. ======================================== 20. THE ERA OF MEGA-DAMS IN BRAZIL MAY BE COMING TO AN END by Adam Wernick ======================================== http://wesa.fm Feb 25, 2018 From PRI's Living on Earth Scandal and protests have prompted the Brazilian government to call a halt to more mega-dam construction in the Amazon. For about the last 20 years, Brazil had ?really grandiose plans? for more than 80 big dams in the Amazon basin and some of them have gone ahead, says Sue Branford, a Brazil reporter for the environmental news agency Mongabay. But problems keep arising with these projects. ?I think some of the problems come back to the fact that they were being funded by the state,? Branford says. ?Successive governments took electoral funding from the construction companies and then had to find a big project that it could set up so that it could pay them back, and this got worse over the years.? About two or three years ago, Branford was involved in a research project on Belo Monte, which is the largest dam in the Amazon and the third largest in the world. She interviewed engineers, environmentalists and energy experts and ?couldn't actually find anybody who thought it was a good project.? ?In the end, I rather concluded that the only reason it was going ahead was because the Workers' Party, which was then in power, needed a big project in the Amazon so it could pay back the construction companies,? Branford says. ?That really isn't a very good basis on which to be developing energy in the Amazon.? One the of main problems with these projects is how they disturb the rivers and the surrounding forests. ?The river is really central to the survival of the forests,? Branford explains. ?You need what?s called a pulse ? you need the river water to rise during the rainy season and then fall during the dry season. Sometimes, the difference in river level is something like nine meters [30 feet]. In the rainy season, you can go out in a canoe and go into the canopy of the forest, and you can see the fruits and the seeds of the trees dropping into the water. ?Then, when the water goes down, these seeds and fruit are food for the fish,? she continues. ?If you put dams on the river, you break this up. The river no longer has this pulse, no longer goes up and down. So you are disturbing the whole rhythm of the forest.? The other major problem with the dams is their effect on the indigenous peoples who live near them. The Teles Pires dam on the Tapaj?s River, for instance, was constructed near the village of the Munduruku Indians and destroyed one of the tribe?s most sacred sites. ?This sacred site is where the people go when they die; it?s where their spirits go when they die,? Branford explains. ?They say, ?We will be killed in two ways: Our lives are being destroyed now by all the impacts of the dam, and our future, after we die, is being destroyed.? So, it's a horrific impact.? Local tribes are ?absolutely determined to put an end to these big dams, and their opposition has been very important,? Branford says. The Brazilian government also promised the hydroelectric dams would provide electricity to remote areas, but, in the majority of cases, this hasn?t happened, Branford adds. ?These projects were really geared to big mining projects,? she says. "Things like bauxite. If you're going to process bauxite into aluminum, you need a lot of energy. This is what they were really about. The number of times I've traveled near a big dam in the Amazon and the local people have power shortages ? have all kinds of problems with energy ? because they're just not getting the energy from the big dams.? While the government minister hasn?t come out with a clear announcement about halting construction of mega-dams, Paolo Pedrosa, the executive secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Energy ? ?really the power behind the throne,? according to Branford ? has said he thinks the period of mega-dams has come to an end. The decision is not so much about environmental awareness as it is about money, Branford believes. Brazil now has a right-wing government, which is cutting back drastically on the money that goes to state companies. In addition, solar and wind energy are getting much cheaper. Still, Branford sees ?a growing awareness among a lot of people that it really does not make much sense to go on cutting down all this forest to create these big infrastructure projects.? ?People know that this will liberate more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It will mean that these trees aren't absorbing carbon dioxide. It's just making the whole crisis worse,? she says. ?But whether this growing awareness will gain momentum and be sufficient to actually stop the deforestation of the Amazon, nobody knows.? This article is based on an interview that aired on PRI?s Living on Earth with Steve Curwood. From Living on Earth ?2017 ======================================== 21. WHAT REALLY SCARES POPULISTS? GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGNING AND HUMOUR by Sr?a Popovic ======================================== The Guardian 7 Feb 2018 In Belgrade, we started with a prank. Then Otpor! became a household name, and helped topple Slobodan Milo?evi? An Otpor! rally in Belgrade, 2000. Photograph: Radu Sigheti/Reuters If you want a citizens? movement to grow quickly, humour is a better strategy than anger. I was one of the founders of the Otpor! (Resistance!) grassroots movement in Serbia, which in 2000 helped topple Slobodan Milo?evi?. With democracy in Europe today challenged by populism, perhaps some of the lessons we learned at the time are worth recalling. In Belgrade, our movement started with a prank: we took an oil barrel, painted a picture of Milo?evi? on it, and set it up in the middle of Belgrade?s largest shopping district. Next to it we placed a baseball bat. Then we stood aside, inconspicuously. Before long, shoppers were standing in line to take a swing at the barrel and express their feelings for the president. The police arrived, but could do nothing but drag the Milo?evi? barrel away. Pictures of the incident spread. Otpor! became a household name. Of course, pushing a warmongering autocrat out of power is different from defending democracy in places in which it is meant to have taken root but has come under threat. When seeking to put an end to dictatorship, the task is to erode the tools and institutions that serve the regime and its strongman ? indeed, the goal is to shake up the status quo entirely. Defending democracy, however, means finding ways to defend democratic institutions and principles from those who want to undermine them, even if they?re elected officials. It means creating leverage to block governments or political forces that seek to dismantle such pillars of democracy as an independent judiciary, parliamentary oversight, minority rights, or press freedom. I?ve spent the last 12 years heading Canvas, an NGO that helps pro-democracy activists in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and also parts of the former Soviet Union. It is no small paradox that Europe today has become a region where democracy needs to be protected in new, vigorous ways. Democratic backsliding is of course particularly worrisome in countries that are relative newcomers to the EU (Poland and Hungary joined in 2004). But the spread of illiberalism is a major concern in many established ?traditional? democracies as well. A pro-EU demonstration by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy in 2017. ?In Poland, after the Law and Justice party gained power in 2015, a civil society movement rallied opposition to it across partisan lines.? Photograph: Wojtek Radwa?ski/AFP/Getty Images Campaigners can be successful if they have vision, unity and a plan of action. Most of all, they must stick to the principles of nonviolence. When we launched Otpor! as a civil resistance movement, the situation in my country was desperate. The vast majority had turned their backs on politics. Yet a tiny group of students managed to grow into a movement of 70,000 people which ultimately defeated Milo?evi?. Otpor! was successful where others had failed. One explanation is that our strategy made use of the political vacuum between existing power structures and public dissatisfaction. Today in Europe, the vacuum between political elites and disgruntled voters is being exploited by populists ? people who offer anger, not hope. But calling out populism will only go so far if citizens aren?t encouraged to take action. Grassroots movements can be leaderless. They can sprout up outside traditional party structures and they can transcend those dividing lines. In Poland, after the Law and Justice party gained power in 2015, a civil society movement called the Committee for the Defence of Democracy rallied opposition to it across partisan lines. In Romania last year, huge crowds of up to half a million people repeatedly took to the streets to say no to government plans to shield corrupt officials from prosecution. The movement reached beyond the urban, educated classes and capitalised on widespread public frustration with corruption. Romania has the largest number of officials prosecuted for corruption in Europe. People wanted to keep up the pressure. In the face of their protests, the government was forced to backtrack on plans to push through changes by emergency decree. Laughter is a potent weapon. In Romania, protesters carried cardboard cut-outs representing leaders dressed as convicts Combining protests and symbolic gestures of civil disobedience is important. In Poland, women have taken to the streets to fight for their rights. Law and Justice seeks to enforce traditionalist religious values across public life. Resisting this is hard, but one tipping point was reached in 2016, when 250,000 women forced the government to withdraw its initial plan for an almost total ban on abortion. Not only did they protest in large numbers across some 150 cities and towns, they also initiated a one-day strike ? which forced businesses and political elites to sit up and pay attention. In Hungary, where elections are due in April, a group of NGOs recently launched a movement called Country for All, which seeks amendment to an electoral law that threatens the democratic process. Laughter is a potent weapon. In Romania, protesters carried large cardboard cut-outs representing the country?s leaders dressed as convicts, in black-and-white striped prison shirts. In Germany, people in the town of Wunsiedel mocked the regular marches held by rightwing extremists. Local residents and businesses made pledges to donate ?10 to an anti-extremism organisation for every metre the far-right crowd marched. In Finland, people came out dressed as clowns holding acrobat hoops to counter a white supremacist group that organised street patrols against immigrants. Humour can be a powerful tool against absurd, hateful attitudes. To stand up to populism, Europeans need to reinvent a democratic narrative. Two things keep democracy and freedom alive: strong institutions and active citizens. It is a two-way street: institutions are there to deliver to citizens, and citizens must in turn defend democratic institutions from abuse. Europeans may have taken democracy for granted for too long. Those of us who have taken part in civil resistance movements in the past know all too well that apathy is what authoritarians count on to get their way. A whole toolbox for campaigning can be put to use against illiberal forces. Sharing your experiences helps to inspire others and sharpen their strategies. The bottom line is that democracy is simply too serious a matter to be left to politicians or parties alone. And grassroots campaigning is more effective when it?s also fun. Populists, just like autocrats, are weakened when they become objects of derision. Sr?a Popovic was one of the founders of the Serbian student movement Otpor! ======================================== 22. Pay nearshore workers less, cut domestic rates GERMANY BUILDS AN INDUSTRIAL EMPIRE by Pierre Rimbert ======================================== Le Monde Diplomatique February 2018 Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany used the European system to ?nearshore? industrial production to low-wage central European countries. Now it has a colonial hinterland. The Hartz laws, introduced between 2003 and 2005, supposedly cured Germany of being what The Economist in 1999 called ?the sick man of the euro?; they allowed precarious employment, and were entirely responsible for restoring the competitiveness of German business and reviving Mercedes-Benz?s overseas sales. This is a great story (which inspired President Macron to try a similar remedy in France), but it?s not the whole truth. As the economic historian Stephen Gross points out, ?to fully understand Germany?s success as a global exporter, we need to look beyond its borders. One of the most important foundations of Germany?s export economy is the commercial networks it has developed with the economies of east-central Europe? (1) ; its asymmetrical trade relationships with Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia (the Visegr?d Group). For a quarter of a century, Germany, has been doing there what the US has done with factories in Mexico ? nearshoring. Germany?s privileged trade relationships with central Europe are not new. They were established in the late 19th century, between Bismarck?s Second Reich and the Habsburg empire. Curtailed by the cold war, they were revived in the 1970s as industrial, technological and banking partnerships, thanks to Social Democratic chancellor Willy Brandt?s Ostpolitik (1969-74). The fall of the Berlin Wall started a feeding frenzy, as German multinationals bought up newly privatised state enterprises. While Volkswagen?s acquisition of Czech carmaker ?koda in 1991 made an impression, western European firms initially subcontracted work to central European facilities, which they used as outsourcing bases. Privileged trading relationships with central Europe were established in the late 19th century, between Bismarck and the Habsburg empire To do this, they used an old but discreet and little-known process: outward processing traffic or OPT. Codified under European law in 1986, OPT allows businesses to export intermediate goods or components temporarily to a non-member state for processing, then reimport them with full or partial relief from customs duties. After the collapse of the eastern bloc, the expansion of import quotas from central European countries created rosy prospects for German businesses. European maquiladoras From the 1990s, they were able to operate as if EU borders had already been removed: they subcontracted the chrome plating of taps and polishing of bathtubs to over-qualified but undemanding Czech workers; entrusted cloth to the Polish seamstresses paid in z?oty, reimporting jackets to be sold under a German label; and had seafood shelled in a neighbouring countries. Economist Julie Pellegrin wrote: ?The OPT measure is the European version of the American provision which [led] to the development of maquiladoras in the Mexican US border region? (2). Germany subcontracts more such processing than any other EU state, mainly in textiles, electronics and automobiles: in 1996 German businesses reimported 27 times more goods (in value terms) processed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia than French businesses. OPT accounted for 13% of 1996 Visegr?d Group exports to the EU, 16% of all Germany?s Visegr?d imports, and 86.1% of its textile and clothing imports from Poland. In less than a decade, Pellegrin wrote, central and eastern European firms were ?integrated into production chains controlled mostly by German firms.? Countries until recently tied to the East by the Russian-led Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, 1949-91) were integrated all the faster because newly ?liberated? consumers were able to access western goods; and this compensated, for a while, for their dismay at only being subcontractors in the manufacture of those goods. Five hours to Wolfsburg As free trade agreements removed customs duties in the late 1990s, OPT became less attractive than overseas direct investment (ODI). Multinationals were no longer satisfied with offshoring a small part of production, and built factories in countries where labour was cheaper. Between 1991 and 1999, the flow of German ODI to eastern Europe grew 23-fold. In the early 2000s, Germany accounted for more than a third of all ODI in Visegr?d countries and strengthened its grip on Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. Automotive component makers (Bosch, Dr?xlmaier, Continental, Benteler) and plastics and electronics firms mushroomed. Wages were a tenth of Germany?s in 1990, a quarter in 2010. Eastern European workers were far higher skilled than those in Asia, benefiting from robust occupational and technical training systems. They were also closer: it takes four weeks for a container from Shanghai to reach Rotterdam, only five hours for a lorry to drive from the ?koda workshops in Mlad? Boleslav, northeast of Prague, to the VW factory in Wolfsburg. By the early 2000s Germany was the biggest trading partner of all the Visegr?d countries. To Germany, these were a hinterland of 64 million people, serving as an offshore production base. Italy, France and the UK also benefited, but on a smaller scale. Audi and Mercedes-Benz would be less popular with China?s wealthier classes if their prices were not based on the low wages of Polish and Hungarian workers. One of the most important foundations of Germany?s export economy has been the commercial networks it has developed with the economies of east-central Europe Stephen Gross By the time of the 2004 EU enlargement to include central Europe, for which Germany had campaigned tirelessly, the region?s annexation by German businesses was well advanced. It grew further from 2009, as German carmakers increased offshoring to the Visegr?d countries, to restore profit margins eroded by the global financial crisis. Researcher Vladimir Handl wrote: ?It is a paradox of history that it was precisely European integration (a project designed to tame the post-cold war economic giant Germany) that pushed Germany into the role of a hegemon? (3). Germany is now an industrial empire in which the centre exploits the skilled labour of its provinces. To the northwest, the Netherlands (German industry?s main logistical base), Belgium and Denmark have Germany as their main trading partner, though their high value-added industries and high degree of development ensure relative autonomy. To the south, Austria is integrated into German production chains, though it has its own flagship businesses in services and insurance. To the east, the industries of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and even Bulgaria, are subordinate or colonial, and depend on Germany as their main customer. Without this Far East on their doorstep, German politicians and industrialists would have had great difficulty in imposing the Hartz laws on their own workers. It is easier for a German to imagine losing his job to a neighbouring Czech than to a distant Vietnamese, so nearshoring has had a powerful impact on discipline, as described in the Journal of Economic Perspectives by economists who are certainly not leftwing: ?The new opportunities to move production abroad, while remaining still nearby, changed the power equilibrium between trade unions and employer federations, and forced unions and/or works councils to accept deviations from industry-wide agreements, which often resulted in lower wages for workers.? Workers? representatives ?realised that they had to make concessions? (4). Opposition to legislation to make employment more flexible was feeble, and wages plummeted. Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) thinktank, noted that ?for people with low qualifications, the hourly rate has decreased from ?12 to ?9 since the late 1990s? (Financial Times, 11 June 2017). Germany the beneficiary The creation of this economic backyard was a good deal for German industry. A significant proportion of European funding to the new member states ended up benefiting Germany: ?Germany was by far the largest beneficiary of investments in the [Visegr?d] states from the EU?s cohesion policy [and] able to rely on additional exports to these countries ... of ?30 billion in the period 2004-15. Germany gained not only directly ... but also indirectly; a significant proportion of these funds was spent on infrastructure ... This was of great importance for German automotive companies, for whom good transport networks were a condition for building modern production facilities in the [Visegr?d] states? (5). For the Visegr?d countries, the results have been mixed. German investment has renewed the industrial base, led to a massive transfer of technology, enhanced productivity and pay, and created many indirect jobs, some demanding highly skilled labour, to the point where Visegr?d employers are concerned about potential labour shortages. But this relationship also consigns the Visegr?d economies to subcontracting and subordination: their industrial apparatus belongs to western European, and especially German, investors. This alienation became apparent last June, when the huge VW factory at Bratislava had its first strike since 1992 (6). The Slovak government supported workers? demands for a 16% pay increase, and Robert Fico, the Social Democrat prime minister governing in coalition with nationalists, asked: ?Why should a company making one of the highest quality and most luxurious cars, with a high labour productivity, pay its Slovak workers half or one third of the amount it pays to the same workers in western Europe?? (Financial Times, 27 June 2017). His Czech counterpart, Bohuslav Sobotka, had already given foreign investors a similar warning (7). The authoritarian, conservative, counter-project for Europe developed by the Visegr?d Group leaders also calls for the Visegr?d countries to stop being assembly workshops and develop their own products for export to the greater European market (8). Otherwise, even if local wages rose sharply, this would only encourage further purchases of German cars. Pierre Rimbert is a member of Le Monde diplomatique?s editorial team. Translated by Charles Goulden (1) Stephen Gross, ?The German Economy and East-Central Europe?, German Politics and Society, New York, autumn 2013. (2) Julie Pellegrin, ?German production networks in central/eastern Europe: between dependency and globalisation?, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin f?r Sozialforschung, 1999, from which the figures in this paragraph are drawn. (3) Vladimir Handl, ?The Visegr?d Four and German hegemony in the euro zone? (PDF), Visegr?dexperts.eu, 2015. (4) Christian Dustmann, Bernd Fitzenberger, Uta Sch?nberg and Alexandra Spitz-Oener, ?From sick man of Europe to economic superstar: Germany?s resurgent economy?, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Nashville, winter 2014. (5) Konrad Pop?awski, ?The role of central Europe in the German economy: the political consequences? (PDF), Centre for Eastern Studies (O?rodek Studi?w Wschodnich), Warsaw, June 2016. (6) See Philippe Descamps, ?We won?t be slaves to western companies?, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, September 2017. (7) Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova, ?Czech leader vows more pressure on foreign investors over wages?, Bloomberg, New York, 18 April 2017. (8) See Pierre Rimbert, ?Germany alone within the EU?, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, January 2018. ======================================== 23. PAYNE ON DARREN E. GREM. THE BLESSINGS OF BUSINESS: HOW CORPORATIONS SHAPED CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANITY ======================================== Darren E. Grem. The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. xiii + 282 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-992797-5. Reviewed by Brendan J. Payne (Baylor University) Published on H-South (February, 2018) Commissioned by Jay Richardson Darren Grem, an assistant professor of history and southern studies at the University of Mississippi, has produced a welcome addition to the history of conservative evangelicalism in the United States, particularly its ties to corporate leaders and methods from the 1920s to the 1990s. While various scholars have noted that evangelical conservatives received funding from and forged networks with big businessmen, perhaps none have stated the case as forthrightly as Grem, who argues that the process of collaboration with capitalism shaped the very soul of evangelicalism in America. The book divides cleanly into two parts: ?How Big Businessmen Shaped Conservative Evangelicalism? and ?How Conservative Evangelicalism Shaped Big Business.? The first part covers how big businessmen helped conservative evangelicals recast their religious authority and identity in American culture from the 1920s to 1960s. Herbert J. Taylor, a fundamentalist in belief, nonetheless applied the business methods of alliance-building, contractual language, and moderation to set the stage for a conservative evangelical revival in America. His main vehicle for this transformation was the Four-Way Test, an ethical code for businessmen that appealed as much to his liberal Protestant friends in the Rotary as to evangelicals, but one that also reaffirmed the business executive as the absolute?if hopefully benevolent?authority over his company. Taylor, among other businessmen, helped underwrite the ministry of Billy Graham, who was not only an evangelist but a salesman par excellence for the new evangelicalism, as its most famous and respectable public voice. Meanwhile, R. G. LeTourneau, a bulldozer designer made rich by government contracts, launched hybrid economic and missionary ventures in Liberia and Peru that ended in failure, but he helped tie high-tech industries to support for Christian missions in Cold War America. Part 2 of the book turns to how conservative evangelicals became big business in the 1970s and 1980s. Chick-Fil-A?s S. Truett Cathy exemplified the evangelical turn to privatizing their faith, which at once shunned controversy while empowering their kind of identity politics. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker created Heritage USA, a ?Disneyland for the Devout? (p. 162) that exemplified evangelical-culture-as-capitalism, while Zig Ziglar embodied rag-to-riches free-market promise and baptized it with evangelical Christian faith. Grem continues a recent trend in scholarship that connects conservative evangelicalism to business in the twentieth century. Bethany Moreton in To Serve God and Wal-Mart (2010) zooms in on Wal-Mart, an Arkansas-based corporation that linked godly principles with free-market capitalism in a postindustrial age of globalization. Darren Dochuk in his prize-winning Bible Belt to Sunbelt (2010) explores how plain-folk evangelical migrants from the western South to southern California since the 1930s had built networks with businessmen that supported various educational institutions, media outlets, parachurch groups, and churches that in turn converted countless evangelicals to an updated gospel of limited government. Kevin M. Kruse?who wrote a favorable blurb on Grem?s book?pushes the connection between capitalism and evangelicalism onto more controversial ground in One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented a Christian Nation (2015). For scholars of American evangelicalism in the twentieth century, many characters and organizations in Grem?s work will be familiar: Youth for Christ, the Christian Business Men?s Committee, the Young Men?s Christian Association, L. Nelson Bell, the National Association of Evangelicals, J. Howard Pew, R. G. LeTourneau, ServiceMaster, The Navigators, the Christian Business Men?s Committee, and especially Billy Graham. As this very impartial list suggests, Grem directs his attention almost exclusively to wealthy white male elites and so omits the mid-level plain-folk evangelicals that peopled Dochuk?s account in From Bible Belt to Sun Belt. Some of Grem?s most interesting arguments concern the gender, sexual, and racial norms implicit?and at times explicit?in conservative evangelicalism. Grem notesd well distinctions within conservative evangelicalism, particularly between more strident and more moderated voices on a variety of issues, but consistently hammers home the white privilege and gendered and sexual norms that always informed evangelical elites. For example, even though Graham opposed segregation as early as 1953 and had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at the opening of his 1957 revival in New York City, Grem reminds the reader that he declined to lobby for any civil rights legislation and supported a culture that appealed to individual consciences while also giving white male business executives total authority over how to run their own companies. However, many of Grem?s criticisms apply equally well to white male liberal Christians, who as Grem notes largely hailed the Four-Way Test, shared Rotary connections with many evangelical business titans, and abided in both secular and religious worlds dominated by white men. More explicit comparison and contrast of the capitalist ties with white evangelicals, liberal white Protestants, Catholics, and nonwhite Christians would be immensely profitable to scholars of American religion. Another major asset of the book is its readability. Grem proves his ability as a storyteller by weaving together interesting and at times obscure anecdotes to powerfully advance his point, whether recounting Billy Graham?s public blessing of R. G. LeTourneau?s failed business/missionary venture to Liberia in 1952 or describing a stick-figure cartoon drawn by the editor of Christianity Today showing himself bowing before his corporate financier, J. Howard Pew, in a 1965 letter. While a book about corporate leaders and organizations with a seemingly limitless list of acronyms could have been a boring read, Grem does his best to keep the story interesting. The foremost criteria for a historical book is whether it meets its stated objective. Grem succeeds in meeting all three of his explicit objectives: he shows how corporations shaped conservative Protestant Christianity; exposes the business side of American religion, with its cultural and political ramifications; and places the construction of American religion within the history of corporate capitalism. Provocative, informative, and required reading for all who wonder how conservative evangelicalism became linked at the hip with modern free-market capitalism, Grem?s book shows how many Christians came to reconcile serving both God and mammon. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Mar 5 15:23:00 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 00:23:00 +0400 Subject: SACW - 6 March 2018 | Sri Lanka: Populism / Bangladesh attack on Muhammad Zafar Iqbal / Pakistan: Comrade Jam Saqi passes on / Afghan Taleban School Takeover / India: Left loses Tripura; RSS playing temple politics again / Nobel Laureates Letter to Erdogan / Message-ID: <8CD598EF-8514-4C68-A968-5FADF26B5B01@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 6 March 2018 - No. 2975 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka: The Rajapaksa Populism | Ahilan Kadirgamar 2. Bangladesh: An attack on us all | Taqbir Huda 3. What the Merger of Nepal?s Communist Parties Means for Their Two Leaders and India | Vishnu Sharma 4. India?s Bank of Baroda Played a Key Role in South Africa?s Gupta Scandal | Khadija Sharife and Josy Joseph 5. SherAli Tareen?s Book Review of Muslim Cosmopolitanism in an Age of Empire by Seema Alvi 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India's North-East saffronised - India: Appointment of Riot-Tainted DGP in Bihar - India: It?s High Time Gujarat Government Recognises the Communal Elephant in the Room ] Nidhi Tambi (The Wire) - India: Suspect in Gauri Lankesh Murder is linked to Hindutva Far Right - India: Ram Rajya Rath Yatra - Road to Power | Ram Puniyani - India: The coming elections are the main political reasons for Ram rajya rath yatra - report in Frontline ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Pakistan: Comrade Jam Saqi passes away 8. Afghanistan: Action Pledged On Taleban School Takeover 9. India: The saffron breeze in the Northeast | Subir Bhaumik 10. India: The disconnect between society and politics in the Northeast is dangerous for democracy | Shashi Shekhar 11. Modi playing with fire, driving J&K to despair | Bharat Bhushan 11.1 Lokpal is a dubious idea to begin with ? excluding Opposition will make it more so | Shoaib Daniyal 12. An Indian Nightmare: Is New Delhi Ready for the Twenty-First Century? | Milan Vaishnav 13. Sarin on Linstrum, Psychology and Empire 14. An open letter to President Erdogan from 38 Nobel laureates 15. Plenty of Sex & Nowhere to Sit | Kevin Jackson 16. The untenable technophobia of the Left | Simona Levi and Xnet 17. Putin promises guns and butter in his state of the nation speech | Ben Aris 18. Why the Kremlin publishes uncensored translations of Western news | Fred Weir ======================================== 1. SRI LANKA: THE RAJAPAKSA POPULISM | Ahilan Kadirgamar ======================================== The local government elections last month and their aftermath continue to have their reverberations. While some politicians and political analysts critical of the Rajapaksa camp find solace in the fact that the Rajapaksa-backed SLPP got less than 50% of the vote, I believe it was a significant victory for the former President-backed party, and one with serious consequences. The dangers are not so much about whether Mahinda Rajapaksa will make a comeback, or what is in store for the national elections ahead. Rather, it is about the Rajapaksas setting the agenda of politics and the Government. http://www.sacw.net/article13670.html ======================================== 2. BANGLADESH: AN ATTACK ON US ALL | Taqbir Huda ======================================== Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, one of the leading progressive intellectuals and educationists of the country, was stabbed multiple times by a bearded man while on stage at an event he was attending as chief guest in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (Sust) campus, Sylhet. http://www.sacw.net/article13668.html ======================================== 3. WHAT THE MERGER OF NEPAL?S COMMUNIST PARTIES MEANS FOR THEIR TWO LEADERS AND INDIA | Vishnu Sharma ======================================== The long-awaited unification of Nepal?s two big communist parties, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), has concluded. The two parties have signed a seven-point agreement that accepts Marxism and Leninism as guiding principle and calls for establishing the party?s hegemony through peaceful means. http://www.sacw.net/article13669.html ======================================== 4. INDIA?S BANK OF BARODA PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN SOUTH AFRICA?S GUPTA SCANDAL | Khadija Sharife and Josy Joseph ======================================== India?s state-owned Bank of Baroda ? one of the country?s largest ? played a crucial role in the financial machinations of South Africa?s politically influential Gupta family, allowing them to move hundreds of millions of dollars originating in alleged dirty deals into offshore accounts, an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) and The Hindu has found. http://www.sacw.net/article13666.html ======================================== 5. SHERALI TAREEN?S BOOK REVIEW OF MUSLIM COSMOPOLITANISM IN AN AGE OF EMPIRE BY SEEMA ALVI ======================================== review of Seema Alavi?s book on Muslim Cosmopolitanism. ?At the crux of Seema Alavi?s Muslim Cosmopolitanism in an Age of Empire is an argument for decentering the normative claims and aspirations of British colonial modernity. This it seeks to do by reorienting our understanding of the modern career of Islam in South Asia.? http://www.sacw.net/article13667.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India's North-East saffronised - India: Appointment of Riot-Tainted DGP in Bihar - India: It?s High Time Gujarat Government Recognises the Communal Elephant in the Room ] Nidhi Tambi (The Wire) - India: Suspect in Gauri Lankesh Murder is linked to Hindutva Far Right - India: Ram Rajya Rath Yatra - Road to Power | Ram Puniyani - India: The coming elections are the main political reasons for Ram rajya rath yatra - report in Frontline -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. PAKISTAN: COMRADE JAM SAQI PASSES AWAY ======================================== Geo TV - Geo News - 5 March 2018 Renowned politician and leftist leader Jam Saqi passes away A renowned rights activist, social worker and political leader, Jam Saqi, passed away from a protracted illness on Monday. He was 73. His funeral prayers will be held in Naseem Nagar, Hyderabad at 3pm. Senior journalist Hamid Mir, among others, posted a tribute to the activist and politician on Twitter. Mir shared a picture of when slain prime minister and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Benazir Bhutto appeared as a witness in a military court case against Jam Saqi in Hyderabad. Jam Mohammad was born on October 31, 1944 in Tharparkar. He remained the president of the Sindh National Students Federation in the 1960s. Jam Saqi is remembered as the leading advocate against the one-unit formula. In the 1970s, he became a member of Comrade Haider Baksh Jatoi?s Sindh Hari Committee and was joint secretary of the National Awami Party. Afterward, he joined the Communist Party of Pakistan and became its secretary general. Senior journalist and rights activist shares an anecdote on Jam Saqi's death He remained detained during the General Ziaul Haq government for eight years on charges of treason. In his political career, he spent around 15 years behind bars in total. Jam Saqi left the communist party in 1991 and joined the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1993. He authored seven books. He married twice and has left behind six bereaved family members. ======================================== 8. AFGHANISTAN: ACTION PLEDGED ON TALEBAN SCHOOL TAKEOVER ======================================== Institute for War & Peace Reporting Officials vow to address concerns over insurgent influence on education. By IWPR Afghanistan An IWPR report that revealed how the Taleban were attempting to impose their own curriculum in schools in Logar province has made headline news across Afghanistan. (See Taleban Impose Changes on Afghan Curriculum). Local officials said that, having been alerted to the issue by IWPR, they would now act to prevent the insurgents from forcing their own version of religious study onto students. In a number of areas of the eastern province, IWPR found that the Taleban had banned lessons on cultural subjects, such as music, and those being taught around issues of terrorism and extremism. They had also inserted their own programme of religious study into schools, often taught by their own members. Saleem Saleh, the spokesman of Logar?s governor, said that the IWPR story had already made a difference, helping focus local efforts on vital educational work. ?After the publication of your report concerning the teaching of the Taleban?s curriculum in school, Logar?s local government has become more committed to solve the problems which exist in the education department,? said. ?We are trying to rescue the areas mentioned in your report from the influence of the Taleban.? Mohammad Zahid Sultani, a reporter for the Bakhtar news agency, said that the IWPR story had been picked up by much of the local and national media and was an illustration of how reporters could act to hold the government to account on such serious social issues. ?If the media is utilised properly to publish factual reports then it makes the government face its problems,? he said. ?With the release of such reports, fundamental reforms can be implemented and the gap between the government and people reduced?. Mohammad Nasim Samadai, a reporter with Zinat Radio, also said that the IWPR story would impel the education department to improve its performance. ?The media has a major role in social reforms and in solving the issues people face,? he continued. ?I can say that if such reports are published, it will be unlikely that problems will persist in our community.? Officials agreed that the story had raised important issues which they would now follow up on. ?This report had a significant impact,? said Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai, Logar?s director of education. ?We have not heard anything like that in the districts and centre, but we will still investigate.? However, he rejected claims by the Taleban in the original story that they sent their own religious scholars to district schools in order to teach students. Stanikzai said that the curriculum was ?taught equally in the districts including the centre, Pul-e-Alam, and we will not allow anyone to alter or interfere with it?. Kabir Haqmal, the director general of communications at the ministry of education, said that they had also been unaware of the problem before reading the IWPR article. ?The curriculum of the ministry of education is an Islamic, Afghan and standards-based curriculum,? he said. ?There is nothing in this curriculum that violates Afghan and Islamic principles. The position and policy of the ministry of education is to promote only the Afghan education curriculum and we will not allow others to disseminate another curriculum.? In some areas, local elders had negotiated compromise agreements with Taleban leaders over the amount of influence they were allowed to have over the curriculum. But security officials said that a new offensive was planned when the weather improved that would further reduce insurgent influence in Logar. Logar police chief Esmatullah Alizai said, ?Security in Logar province has improved compared to the past and at the beginning of spring we plan to increase our operations against the Taleban - who prevent the implementation of the ministry of education?s training programmes as well as government development projects - and clear the remaining areas of Taleban presence so that they won?t be able to teach their own curriculum in schools.? ======================================== 9. INDIA: THE SAFFRON BREEZE IN THE NORTHEAST | Subir Bhaumik ======================================== The Hindu, March 05, 2018 Most regional parties prefer the BJP as their national partner, but managing contradictions won?t be easy Of the three States whose Assembly election results were declared on March 3, Tripura?s was doubtlessly the most stunning. Tripura has been the safest Left bastion since the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front first swept to power in 1978. Only once since then, in 1988, did the Left Front lose to the Congress-TUJS (Tripura Upajati Juba Samity) alliance, but it returned to power in 1993. Since then it has been in power, with Manik Sarkar as Chief Minister since 1998. So for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to emerge out of nowhere and score a spectacular victory by getting a majority in the Assembly on its own is nothing short of a miracle. Beneath this surprise lies a cobweb of contradictions that the BJP?s election managers, especially Sunil Deodhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s poll manager in Varanasi, seem to have managed so well. The Tripura manoeuvre By striking an alliance with the tribal Indigenous People?s Front of Tripura (IPFT) which demands a separate tribal State of Twipraland it wants carved out of the autonomous district council of the State, the BJP assured itself of a sweep in the 20 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The IPFT has close connect to the separatist National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), and the CPI(M) cadre is no match for the armed guerrillas who back the IPFT?s young militant cadres in the remote hill interiors. But by not endorsing the Twipraland demand and by not giving the IPFT the majority of the ST reserved seats (11 contested by the BJP, nine by the IPFT), the BJP sent a clear message it would not be a junior partner to its ally, as in Jammu and Kashmir. That got the BJP much of the tribal backing, and also of Bengalis in rural remote interiors who saw support to the BJP as their safest security option. Then by absorbing almost the entire Congress-turned Trinamool Congress leadership in its fold, the BJP ensured that it ran away with the 30% Congress votebank. In Tripura, the fight has always tended to be between the Left and the anti-Left. With the Congress decimated and seen as the B-team of the Left, with Congress president Rahul Gandhi avoiding any attack against Mr. Sarkar, the anti-Left voter had no option but to go with the BJP as it was seen as the only viable option to dethrone the Left. The middle class Bengali vote swung the saffron way because of the Left?s poor track record in employment generation, forcing Tripura?s best brains to seek jobs in Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Mr. Sarkar?s refusal to meet the captains of IT industry during a 2015 Tripura Conclave organised to leverage Agartala?s emergence as India?s third Internet gateway did not go down well with GenNext, tribals and Bengalis alike. That explains the BJP sweep in Agartala and other urban areas. So with the tribal vote and the middle class urban Bengali vote swinging its way, all that the BJP needed was a small swing in the rural Bengali vote. While much of that remained with the Left (which is marginally behind the BJP in overall vote share), in the deep interiors dominated by the IPFT?s militant cadre, the Bengali settlers seem to have voted against the Left, as it was seen to be no longer capable of defending them in the event of a resurgent tribal insurgency. Fear of the unknown always haunts the rural Bengalis who have borne the brunt of tribal insurgency since the violence of 1980 ? and a dominant BJP with a majority of its own was their best bet to tame the IPFT and nip the Twipraland demand in the bud. Politics is the art of managing the contradictions. It now seems those who swear by Kautilya seem to handle it better than those who preach Marx and Engels, at least in India. A bid for all three The BJP parliamentary board has expressed the hope that despite not getting a clear majority in Nagaland and also the Congress emerging as the single largest party in Meghalaya, the BJP will form the government in both these Christian-majority States. Again, the BJP seems to have managed the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) ? NSCN (IM) ? to back its bid for power with its new found ally and the Naga People?s Front (NPF) may join in as well, all apparently to pave the way for a final settlement of the Naga imbroglio. Failure to deliver a final settlement more than two years after signing the Framework Agreement would have normally jeopardised the poll prospects of the BJP, especially after it fell out with the ruling NPF, but party general secretary Ram Madhav?s political engineering in triggering a successful split and then taming the main NPF and the NSCN is something that would have done Kautilya proud. But now the challenges. In Tripura, the BJP has to deliver on its development promise ? the new Chief Minister may do well to go for roadshows to attract big ticket investments to leverage the IT gateway and may consider, for instance, decommissioning the 10MW Gumti hydel project to reclaim thousands of acres of fertile tribal land that the project submerged nearly four decades ago. While IT investments would appeal to the young, both tribals and Bengalis, the dam decommissioning may open the path for ethnic reconciliation which the Marxists overlooked at their own peril by trying to play the wild card of Bengali chauvinism. In Nagaland, the BJP has to deliver a final settlement in a way that pleases most, if not all, rebel and political factions. This is no easy task in a very divided tribal society. In Meghalaya, where the BJP appears to have managed to dethrone Chief Minister Mukul Sangma (who led the Congress to emerge as the single largest party), it would have to hold together a coalition of disparate regional players; ensuring the survival of such a coalition will not be easy in Meghalaya?s ?aya ram gaya ram? politics. Message for West Bengal Most regional parties in Northeast now prefer the BJP as their national partner, and not the Congress which has a tribal base, but managing the contradictions will be a a full-time task. Meanwhile, the Tripura results will definitely worry one Chief Minister in particular ? Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. It is easy to see why she spoke of Left arrogance and Congress missteps in not aligning with her party in Tripura. She seems to know that she will be the next to face the saffron fire. Subir Bhaumik, a former BBC bureau chief for East and Northeast India, is editorial consultant with Myanmar?s Mizzima Media ======================================== 10. INDIA: THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN THE NORTHEAST IS DANGEROUS FOR DEMOCRACY | Shashi Shekhar ======================================== Hindustan Times, March 05, 2018 Can such an assembly be considered a fair representation of an entire population where women haven?t yet found their rightful place? Has the politics of vested interests not worked against the region?s socio-cultural traditions? The brand of politics being practised these days has begun to alienate the people from the democratic process. A good example of this is the just-concluded elections in the three Northeastern states. Here, I will desist from analysing the victory or loss of any particular party or leader and, instead, focus on analysing the tendencies that have nurtured the gun-tantra (culture of guns) and dealt a number of blows to ganatantra (the republic). Let me begin with Nagaland. This extremely-sensitive part of India has been struggling to overcome poverty and backwardness. The annual per capita income here is Rs 89,607 as compared to the national per capita income of Rs 1,11,782. Now consider the average wealth of candidates from Nagaland. Of the 196 poll warriors in the fray, 114 are crorepatis with an average personal wealth of Rs 3.76 crore. As many as 60 candidates have personal assets of more than Rs 50 lakh. The story doesn?t end there. Only five of the 196 candidates who filed nominations for the 60-seat assembly are women. An indicator of the sorry state of women in the state?s politics is that not a single woman candidate has been elected for the assembly, ever. Rano M Shaiza did become the state?s only parliamentarian in 1977 but no other woman has had this honour since. In a state that believes in giving equal rights to women, there was fierce resistance to reserving 33% seats for women in the municipal elections. The condition of Meghalaya and Tripura, part of the Seven Sisters, isn?t any better. There?s a predominance of the Khasi community in Meghalaya. It is a matrilineal society that believes in the pre-eminence of women in society. In the Khasi community, the husband has to move into the wife?s ancestral home after marriage and their progeny take the mother?s name. Not just this, the recipient of ancestral property is the family?s youngest daughter. If a daughter is not born in a family, they adopt a girl child. There cannot be a better place in the country to be a woman, but look at the number of women in politics: Just 33 of the 372 candidates who fought the assembly elections are women. Here too, the candidates included 152 crorepatis with an average income of Rs 3.5 crore. The richest among these is Ngaitlang Dhar, the National People?s Party candidate from the Umroi constituency, with assets worth Rs 290 crore (he lost). Researchers from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) say that Tripura is better than other states in this regard. Only 35 of the 297 candidates are crorepatis and the average wealth is Rs 46.92 lakh. But representation of women is negligible here, too. Just 24 women candidates filed nominations for the assembly polls. The results are actually irrelevant. The question is: Can such an assembly be considered a fair representation of an entire population? Has the politics of vested interests not worked against the region?s socio-cultural traditions? How can an assembly full of crorepati legislators hope to take decisions in favour of the downtrodden? The disconnect between society and politics is dangerous for democracy. These three states are also teeming with the germs of separatism. Therefore, for a long time, power from the gun has ruled in the name of democracy. While travelling through the remote areas of Manipur and Nagaland in the 1990s, I discovered that billions of rupees allotted by the Centre were not utilised for development; instead, they lined the pockets of bureaucrats and politicians. Rather than stopping them, the local police and paramilitary personnel were in cahoots with the corrupt. Clearly, when it comes to profit and loss, guns don?t differentiate between separatist groups and those in uniform. That?s why the issue of equality for tribal rights has been relegated to the background in the Northeast by the power brokers. If you so desire, you can compare this pristine region to Kashmir, known as heaven on earth. Here too, ?gun-tantra? or the culture of guns has trampled on the rights of the common man in equal measure. The consequences are clear. Indian democracy has a bad record when it comes to helping women and the poor get their rights. But the conditions in these states, located in the lap of the Himalayas, are going from bad to worse. So, before I congratulate the newly-elected legislators from the Northeast, I?d like to ask them: What will they do to change things? It is politicians who?ve pushed these states into this quagmire. Only they can pull the Northeast out of this morass. Shashi Shekhar is editor in chief, Hindustan ======================================== 11. MODI PLAYING WITH FIRE, DRIVING J&K TO DESPAIR | Bharat Bhushan ======================================== The Asian Age, March 2, 2018 Pakistan has tended to concentrate its fire downwards of Poonch on the LoC where it has an advantage over India and across the international boundary. Instead of carrying forward the legacy of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s actions have seriously eroded the constituency for peace, dialogue and reconciliation in Jammu and Kashmir. The border with Pakistan has been deliberately heated up. The argument for an offensive posture is that the Pakistan Army must pay a cost for promoting terrorism through proxies. Since last year, there has been a heightened exchange of fire across the Line of Control (LoC) segments running through the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region as well as the international boundary. Pakistan has tended to concentrate its fire downwards of Poonch on the LoC where it has an advantage over India and across the international boundary. In Uri, however, India has an advantageous position. It is here that the conflict was escalated from small arms fire and mortar shelling to heavy artillery fire exchange on February 22 and 24 between the two armies. As the positions of military advantage of the two sides are almost balanced equally, the increased firing eventually evens out, making it a pointless exercise. However, the ?surgical strikes? of September 2016 and the Army?s Operation All Out against militants in Kashmir indicated a definite shift from earlier strategies. The unexpectedly muscular response on the border was primarily aimed at Mr Modi?s radical Hindutva constituency. In Kashmir itself, terrorist attacks, including by suicide fidayeen, have increased; a greater number of security forces? personnel were killed for every militant death; and militant recruitment increased. According to the state government, 280 local youngsters joined militancy in the last three years with 126 joining in 2017 alone ? up from a mere six in 2013. Nevertheless, having failed to deliver on the economic front, given the mess created by demonetisation and the hasty implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, increasing agrarian distress and rising unemployment, Mr Modi needed to rejig the nationalist narrative to maintain and expand the structure of his communalised politics. One of the tropes in this reinvented nationalism is to paint Pakistan as the source of all Indian woes in the Kashmir Valley. A supine mainstream media played the cheerleader in creating a nationalist paranoia to suit Mr Modi?s political ends. Why didn?t Pakistan withdraw its hand? Perhaps the Pakistan Army too had to signal to its domestic constituency that it was being tough on India, when international pressure was mounting against Pakistan for its role in Afghanistan and for using Islamic terrorist groups as its strategic instruments. The communal configuration of the border is also pertinent to understanding the decisions of the Indian and Pakistani security forces. In the Kashmir Valley the villages on the LoC, such as in the Haji Pir sector in Uri, are Muslim villages. A heightened conflict here leads to Muslim migration, putting Pakistan at a disadvantage vis-?-vis what it sees as a potential political constituency. The Indian Army focuses its fire on Pakistan in this area. In Jammu, barring a few Muslim Gujjar villages, the border villages have Hindu populations, especially in Poonch, Rajouri and Nowshera. By concentrating fire on Hindu majority villages, it appears that the Pakistan Army wants to inflict political damage on the the Bharatiya Janata Party by precipitating Hindu migration from the border. Mr Modi?s policy of heating up the border with Pakistan, however, has little purchase within J&K. While the presence of Pakistani terrorists in the state and their continued infiltration is undeniable, it is equally true that there is also an autonomous growth in militancy. This has little to do with Pakistan and much to do with India. Kashmiri society is filled with anger over the denial of free speech; constitutional rights and justice. Lack of opportunities for the youth and discrimination both within the state and outside it further contribute to the simmering anger. Kashmiri youngsters feel that nothing has changed for four generations. Mr Modi has, however, chosen to ignore the political dimension of the Kashmir issue and deliberately converted it into a problem of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. This leads to the branding of all Kashmiris as pro-Pakistan. The rest of India must understand that the people of the state of J&K have no role in either initiating the conflict on the border or ending it. What happens on the LoC is as much news to them as it is for the rest of India. It may affect the people of north Kashmir to the extent that they become unwitting collateral victims of the conflict, but for those in south Kashmir ? where militancy is most acute ? it makes no difference. The government?s approach has eroded both a healthy federal relationship between the state and the Centre as well as the social base for a peaceful settlement. Within Kashmir, independent political voices have become muted with fear. Without space for peaceful political protests, political groups like the Hurriyat are no longer able to urge the youth to shun violence. Even parents have lost moral control over their boys who take up arms. Their heroes are Burhan Wani, now dead, and Zakir Musa, whose regular video messages have a large viewership among the young. Mr Modi?s politics of polarisation has also set Jammu on fire. The rape and murder of an eight-year-old Bakkarwal Muslim girl Asifa has been communalised. BJP leaders are framing the issue as nationalists versus anti-nationals. The BJP and the Hindu Ekata Manch led a protest using the tricolour against the arrest of the alleged rapist and murderer, a special police officer and a Hindu. Such opportunist communalisation of Jammu will destroy its social fabric and provide further reasons for the growth of militancy in the Valley. Prime Minister Modi?s politics in J&K might save him in the rest of India but it is setting the state on fire, besides raising military tensions with Pakistan. He and his military commanders may think that they can carefully calibrate their ?jaw-breaking response? (?munh tod jawab?) but these processes could easily slip out of control. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 11.1 LOKPAL IS A DUBIOUS IDEA TO BEGIN WITH ? EXCLUDING OPPOSITION WILL MAKE IT MORE SO | Shoaib Daniyal ======================================== scroll.in 5 March 2018 The Big Story: Misplaced idealism In 2013, anti-corruption protests broke out in Delhi. The numbers of demonstators were not remarkable for India, where even an everyday rally can result in a turnout of millions. But the movement captured the imagination of the country?s voluble middle class, so national politicians could not ignore it completely. The protests resulted in India?s Parliament passing the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act which provides for the establishment of a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states ? ombudsmen with both executive and judicial powers to investigate corruption. In theory, the Lokpal would have a significant amount of power, being allowed to receive and act on allegations of corruption against civil servants as well as elected politicians as well as any organisation that receives substantial foreign donations. The Lokpal is selected by a small body consisting of the Prime Minister, Speaker of Lok Sabha, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (or a sitting Supreme Court judge nominated by him) and an eminent jurist to be nominated by the first four members of the selection committee. There has been little movement on the Lokpal since the act was passed. However, on Thursday, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge declined to attend the Lokpal selection committee meeting as a ?special invitee?. The current Lok Sabha does not have a leader of Opposition because the Congress ? the principal Opposition party ? does not have enough members in the House. As a result, Kharge was not invited as a member of the selection committee but only as a ?special invitee?, without voting rights. More than anything, that a selection committee can be constituted without any Opposition voices highlights the dangers of a Lokpal. The body is invested with significant powers. Fighting corruption is a noble intention ? however, as needs bear repetition, that is exactly the substance with which the road to hell is constructed. The anti-corruption agenda has captured the imagination of India?s middle classes. However, there are sobering examples of how it can lead to bad governance (and, therefore, have results that maybe even worse than corruption). The partisan use of the Central Bureau of Investigation is a case in point. The party in power often uses allegations of corruption against Opposition parties to achieve blatantly political ends ? so much so that the Supreme Court one called the CBI a ?caged parrot?. In Pakistan, corruption charges led to the courts actually dismissing a popularly elected prime minister. It is a move that commentators see as being driven by the powerful military ? a ?judicial coup? given that a real one is unviable in today?s political climate. The Aam Aadmi Party that arose out of the anti-corruption protests of 2013 is now in shambles, its legislators accused last month of assaulting a bureaucrat. The noble intentions of 2013 led to little actual political change in the form of AAP. The intention of removing corruption is laudable ? but that cannot be an excuse for getting rid of the checks and balances of democracy. The Lokpal is a dangerously undemocratic body that would, when constituted, have significant powers, without Parliamentary or judicial checks. That the present government can further squeeze the selection committee to even exclude the largest Opposition party is a pointer to how risky the setting up of such a body could be. ======================================== 12. AN INDIAN NIGHTMARE: IS NEW DELHI READY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY? | Milan Vaishnav ======================================== Foreign Affairs March 1, 2018 If the end of the twentieth century heralded the dramatic rise of China, many believe that it is India?s turn to claim the spotlight at the dawn of the twenty-first. In January, the World Bank loudly proclaimed that India was set to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world in 2018, overtaking its slowing Chinese rival for the top spot. The global consulting giant McKinsey has called the emerging Indian middle class a ?bird of gold,? harking back to an ancient aphorism about the country?s dynamic marketplace. IBM simply refers to the coming age as the ?Indian Century.? Despite these glowing projections, India?s future is by no means assured. With the right mix of economic reforms, administrative savvy, and political leadership (not to mention sheer luck), there is no doubt that India could enjoy widespread prosperity in the coming century. Yet absent such conditions?by no means a given?it faces an unnerving dystopia: one in which the aspirations of hundreds of millions of Indians are foiled rather than fulfilled, with potentially explosive implications for the country?s social fabric. This grim scenario is the subject of Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, a harrowing new book by the Indian journalist Snigdha Poonam. THE INDIAN DREAM Predictions of a coming Indian golden age are typically based on two trends. The first is urbanization. Between 2010 and 2050, India?s urban population will grow by as much as 500 million?the largest projected urban population growth in world history. Historically, urbanization has been linked with rising literacy, the establishment of a middle class, economic dynamism, and increasing cosmopolitanism. The second trend is what economists refer to as the ?demographic dividend,? or the economic benefits that accrue to an economy when a massive influx of young people enter the labor force, triggering increases in both economic productivity and the savings rate. At a time when other major economies are graying, nearly one million Indians will join the work force every month [ . . . ] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2018-03-01/indian-nightmare ======================================== 13. SARIN ON LINSTRUM, PSYCHOLOGY AND EMPIRE ======================================== Erik Linstrum. Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. 309 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-08866-5. Reviewed by Madhu Sarin (Independent Scholar) Published on H-Asia (March, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) In this book, Linstrum attempts to show the dialectic between the aspiration of British colonizers to control and regulate their imperial subjects by innovations in psychology at the turn of the last century and the subversive potential of such an undertaking: "The gap that opened up between far-reaching aspirations and disillusioned realities is a central theme of this book" (p. 2). Unlike other scholars who have written about the use of psychology in the establishment of empire, he highlights a paradox at the heart of this enterprise. The investigation and attempt to understand the inner lives of their colonial subjects generated interest, curiosity, respect, admiration, and empathy for the "natives" and called into question the civilizational motives of their imperial overlords. This disrupted the primary goal of this project, namely to better regulate, subjugate, and dominate them. Linstrum shows how the new techniques of psychological testing, laboratory experiments, and psychoanalysis were used in a dual way to both challenge and confirm racial hierarchies. Colonialists hoped to use psychology to "strengthen British control by improving efficiency and governing emotions"; to ensure the smooth running of factories and armies; to recruit talent for government jobs and limited school placements; to combat anticolonial movements and to remold families, economies, and societies (p. 2). But these techniques also served to "expose pathologies at the root of the relationship between colonizer and colonized"(p. 1). In the attempt to reconcile human diversity with a universalist model of the mind, psychologists had to confront, and account for, the assumptions and prejudices that fed imperial rule, as well as the needs of colonial regimes. Researchers learned to respect local practices, became skeptical of plans for total control, and began to question the positive benefits of imperial rule. Psychological knowledge complicated rather than reinforced the project of empire. Well researched, rivetingly written, and with revealing photographs which document the work of colonial researchers foregrounded with their subjects on the margin, Linstrum's central concern differentiates his work from that of other scholars who have written about the intersection of modernity, psychology, and empire. The latter have tended to focus more on the use of the human sciences and psychology to highlight cultural difference in order to stigmatize and put down those they sought to rule, thereby valorizing imperial values and upholding empire. Linstrum on the other shows that science and research can swing either way?and can dislocate rather than buttress such values. He shows how from one end of the globe to the other, government bureaucrats, academics, missionaries, and anthropologists used personality and intelligence testing, as well as the theories of Jung and Freud to try to research, rationalize, "modernize," and control their subjects. He has conducted a vast survey of primary and secondary source material to make his case. Using archival material from cities on five continents, he divides them into three categories: "Minds," "Tests," and "Experts." The section titled "Minds" begins with the psychological activities of the Torres Strait expedition, led by William H. R. Rivers and continues with Charles G. Seligman's work on dreams. The story starts in 1898-99 with the study of perception in the Torres Strait expedition, in which Cambridge researchers strove to determine whether the tools of Western science could be usefully applied far from the place of their invention. Their findings?that colonized minds were intelligent, adaptable, and diverse?was unexpected and unsettling. The section titled "Tests" deals with missionaries' and educators' enthusiasm for the new intelligence tests, also covering the application of aptitude tests for the army and colonial labor markets. The section titled "Experts" describes the various psychological activities employed to suppress the growing independence movements and examines psychological mechanisms for the continuation of Western hegemony in the former British colonies. Jack Meserve, who wrote about Linstrum's work in New York magazine's blog "The Cut," gets it precisely right. He argues that the fundamental tension Linstrum unearths in Ruling Minds is still with us today. The social scientists and psychologist whose stories and experiences he documents in this book were doing something innovative and reformative: "They were often the only ones arguing, No, there's no such thing as 'martial races' and Yes, mental states really are identical in Africans and Europeans.... But they were also working, formally or informally, for an empire that treated their subjects as subhuman.... The history of this tension?between embracing science's ability to improve people's lives and being aware of its tendency to reinforce existing hierarchies?is a reminder that the line isn't always so clear."[1] Note [1]. Jack Meserve, "How Psychology Helped Support?and Subvert?the British Empire," blog post, The Cut website, February 16, 2016, https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/psychology-helped-and-hurt-the-british-empire.html (accessed February 28, 2018). ======================================== 14. AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT ERDO?AN FROM 38 NOBEL LAUREATES ======================================== The Guardian, 28 February 2018 Until Turkey frees detained writers and returns to the rule of law, it cannot claim to be a member of the free world Dear President Erdo?an, We wish to draw your attention to the damage being done to the Republic of Turkey, to its reputation and the dignity and wellbeing of its citizens, through what leading authorities on freedom of expression deem to be the unlawful detention and wrongful conviction of writers and thinkers. In a Memorandum on the Freedom of Expression in Turkey (2017), Nils Mui?nieks, then Council of Europe commissioner for Human Rights, warned: ?The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, including journalists, members of parliament, academics and ordinary citizens, and government action which has reduced pluralism and led to self-censorship. This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey, can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent. ?The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, redevelop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech.? There is no clearer example of the commissioner?s concern that the detention in September 2016 of Ahmet Altan, a bestselling novelist and columnist; Mehmet Altan, his brother, professor of economics and essayist; and Nazl? Il?cak, a prominent journalist ? all as part of a wave of arrests following the failed July 2016 coup. These writers were charged with attempting to overthrow the constitutional order through violence or force. The prosecutors originally wanted to charge them with giving ?subliminal messages? to coup supporters while appearing on a television panel show. The ensuing tide of public ridicule made them change that accusation to using rhetoric ?evocative of a coup?. Indeed, Turkey?s official Anatolia News Agency called the case ?The Coup Evocation Trial?. As noted in the commissioner?s report, the evidence considered by the judge in Ahmet Altan?s case was limited to a story dating from 2010 in Taraf newspaper (of which Ahmet Altan had been the editor-in-chief until 2012), three of his op-ed columns and a TV appearance. The evidence against the other defendants was equally insubstantial. All these writers had spent their careers opposing coups and militarism of any sort, and yet were charged with aiding an armed terrorist organisation and staging a coup. The commissioner saw the detention and prosecution of Altan brothers as part of a broader pattern of repression in Turkey against those expressing dissent or criticism of the authorities. He considered such detentions and prosecutions to have violated human rights and undermined the rule of law. David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, concurred and dubbed the legal proceedings a ?show trial?. Turkey?s own constitutional court concurred with this criticism. On 11 January this year, it ruled that Mehmet Altan and fellow journalist ?ahin Alpay?s rights were being violated by pre-trial detention, and that they should be released. Yet the first-degree courts refused to implement the higher constitutional court?s decision, thus placing the judicial system in criminal violation of the constitution. Mr President, you must surely be concerned that the lower criminal court?s defiance and this non-legal decision was backed by the spokesperson of your government. On 16 February 2018, the Altan brothers and Il?cak were sentenced to aggravated life sentences, precluding them from any prospect of a future amnesty. President Erdo?an, we the undersigned share the following opinion of David Kaye: ?The court decision condemning journalists to aggravated life in prison for their work, without presenting substantial proof of their involvement in the coup attempt or ensuring a fair trial, critically threatens journalism and with it the remnants of freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey?. In April 1998, you yourself were stripped of your position as mayor of Istanbul, banned from political office, and sentenced to prison for 10 months, for reciting a poem during a public speech in December 1997 through the same article 312 of the penal code. This was unjust, unlawful and cruel. Many human rights organisations ? which defended you then ? are appalled at the violations now occurring in your country. Amnesty International, PEN International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Article 19, and Reporters Without Borders are among those who oppose the recent court decision. Advertisement During a ceremony in honour of ?etin Altan, on 2 February 2009, you declared publicly that ?Turkey is no longer the same old Turkey who used to sentence its great writers to prison ? this era is gone for ever.? Among the audience were ?etin Altan?s two sons: Ahmet and Mehmet. Nine years later, they are sentenced to life; isn?t that a fundamental contradiction? Under these circumstances, we voice the concern of many inside Turkey itself, of its allies and of the multilateral organisations of which it is a member. We call for the abrogation of the state of emergency, a quick return to the rule of law and for full freedom of speech and expression. Such a move would result in the speedy acquittal on appeal of Ms Il?cak and the Altan brothers, and the immediate release of others wrongfully detained. Better still, it would make Turkey again a proud member of the free world. Full list of Nobel laureate signatories: Svetlana Alexievich, Philip W Anderson, Aaron Ciechanover, JM Coetzee, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Elias J Corey, Gerhard Ertl, Albert Fert, Edmond H Fischer, Andrew Z Fire, Andre Geim, Sheldon Glashow, Serge Haroche, Leland H Hartwell, Oliver Hart, Richard Henderson, Dudley Herschbach, Avram Hershko, Roald Hoffmann, Robert Huber, Tim Hunt, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Eric S Maskin, Hartmut Michel, Herta M?ller, VS Naipaul, William D Phillips, John C Polanyi, Richard J Roberts, Randy W Schekman, Wole Soyinka, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas C S?dhof, Jack W Szostak, Mario Vargas Llosa, J Robin Warren, Eric F Wieschaus ======================================== 15. PLENTY OF SEX & NOWHERE TO SIT | Kevin Jackson ======================================== Literary Review March 2018 Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940?50 By Agn?s Poirier Bloomsbury 377pp ?21.99 For a book that is crammed with adulteries, alcoholism, betrayals, broken friendships, deportations, deprivation, drug addiction, executions, humiliation, illicit abortions, imprisonment, murder, Nazi atrocities, starvation, torture chambers (on the avenue Hoche, passers-by could hear the screams coming up from the cellars? air vents), treason and worse, Agn?s Poirier?s Left Bank is a remarkably exhilarating read. Above all, it has a terrific cast, with, as leading players, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The novelist, jazz musician and pataphysician Boris Vian, Samuel Beckett and the resident aliens Picasso and Giacometti also feature, as do brilliant African-American musicians and writers such as Miles Davis, James Baldwin and Richard Wright, the vehemently anti-communist Hungarian writer and wife-beater Arthur Koestler and, among the occupiers, the sinister but fascinating German Ernst J?nger, aesthete, entomologist and polymath. Left Bank is an enchanting account of how these exceptionally talented and original people not merely endured these harsh years but also found pleasure, and even a kind of joy, in creating small pockets of private utopia. During the occupation, a leading German commander, Sonderf?hrer Gerhard Heller, shared in this paradoxical pleasure and many years later recalled, ?I lived in a kind of blessed island, in the middle of an ocean of mud and blood.? Over the course of a decade, both during the occupation and then in the postwar years of austerity, the boldest and brightest Parisians took every opportunity to seize the day. If strict rationing ? 1,300 calories a day, if you were lucky ? meant it was hard for these Parisians to make merry with the traditional eating and drinking, there were other sources of cheer: easy-going sex (which also kept you warm in unheated rooms), popular music, dancing, artistic creation and endless intense conversations, fuelled by as many cigarettes as the black market could supply. Richard Wright said that the first time he attended an editorial meeting of Sartre?s journal Les Temps modernes, the cigarette smoke was so thick that initially he could not even make out the figure of Simone de Beauvoir in her trademark turban. As the historian Tony Judt once pointed out, the consequence of this pressure-cooker atmosphere was that Paris became more important to the rest of the world in the late 1940s and early 1950s than it had been at any time since the Battle of Waterloo. The free and freed nations soon became fascinated by everything Parisian, from Sartre?s existentialism to Dior?s New Look, and young people from the United States were among the keenest fans. Often funded by government grants to ex-servicemen, budding North American writers found Paris as irresistible in the years immediately after the Second World War as their forebears had in the 1920s, when the dollar had ridden high against the franc. Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Nelson Algren (one of Simone de Beauvoir?s lovers), Irwin Shaw and Art Buchwald all set up in the City of Light, though not all of them liked it. Bellow, who, among other things, claimed that he hated French promiscuity, lapsed into serious depression: ?Paris is the seat of a highly developed humanity, and one thus witnesses highly developed forms of suffering there. Witnesses and, sometimes, experiences. Sadness is a daily levy that civilization imposes in Paris. Gay Paris? Gay, my foot!? By French standards, these visitors were astonishingly well fed and well dressed; by American standards, the Parisians were skinny, shabby and shockingly impoverished. The visitors could hardly believe that world-famous artists and intellectuals could be so poor that they lived in small rooms in cheap hotels and worked in cafes, not because they were bohemians (though they were) but because cafes were warm. Few Americans could resist the temptation to go native. As de Beauvoir wrote to Algren, ?Young existentialist boys now grow a beard; American intellectual tourists grow beards too. All these beards are awfully ugly! But the existentialist caves are a wonderful success. It is funny, just two blocks ? that is all Saint-German-des-Pr?s ? but within those two blocks you cannot find a place to sit down, neither in the bars, cafes, night-clubs nor even on the pavement. Then all around it is just darkness and death.? Poirier is acute and witty on the love?hate relationship between Paris and America, which is one of the major themes of her book. Although left-wing thinkers of every political hue from red to pink were sceptical about American capitalism (incidentally, the French Communist Party hated Sartre and his crowd, and did its best to crush them), their attitude towards both high and low American culture was usually one of frank hero worship. As de Beauvoir commented, ?American literature, jazz and films had nurtured our youth.? When Camus asked Sartre if he would like to go to America on behalf of his journal, Combat, Sartre almost jumped for joy. ?I never saw him so happy,? Camus reported. The later pages of the book sing the praises of the Marshall Plan, which Poirier regards, justly, as one of America?s greatest achievements. Another of her themes is the unprecedented significance of women in this milieu. In many works of cultural history, women appear simply as wives and daughters, mistresses and muses. But here are the bookshop owners Sylvia Beach (who had published Ulysses in 1922) and Adrienne Monnier, the actresses Maria Casar?s (who played Death in Cocteau?s Orph?e), Arletty, star of Les Enfants du paradis, notorious for sleeping with the enemy, Brigitte Bardot and Delphine Seyrig. The singers include Juliette Gr?co, for whom both Sartre and Raymond Queneau wrote lyrics, and many writers: the novelist Marguerite Duras, the poet Anne-Marie Cazalis, the Horizon representative Sonia Brownell (soon to marry the dying George Orwell), who had been forced to abort Koestler?s child during the Blitz, the novelist and biographer Edith Thomas, Janet Flanner, who reported on Paris for the New Yorker, and Dominique Aury, who wrote Histoire d?O under the pseudonym Pauline R?age. Above all, there is de Beauvoir, who, now that the dust has settled, should be seen as the most permanently influential of all these remarkable women and, come to that, men. The Second Sex, written during this period, has surely touched the lives of countless millions, which can hardly be said of Being and Nothingness. Poirier credits de Beauvoir with, among other accomplishments, being the woman whose writings, example and spirit created the likes of Fran?oise Sagan and Bardot, who were adolescents on the brink of fame in the summer of 1949. Poirier has an enviably clear prose style, as well as a gift for making her characters vivid and, where appropriate, sympathetic. Sartre, for instance, comes across as a much more appealing character here than in many biographical studies. She has a lynx?s eye for telling details, from the ghastly ersatz coffee that Parisians had to choke down to the brands of amphetamine freely available in pharmacies ? Luminax, Leviton, Tranquidex, Psychotron (!), Lidepran and Sartre?s excitant of choice, Orth?drine. And she is very good on the stories behind stories, such as the bafflement with which the publisher Gallimard reacted when, three weeks after its publication, Sartre?s seven-hundred-page Being and Nothingness became a freak bestseller. Explanation? ?It turned out that since the book weighed exactly one kilogram, people were simply using it as a weight, since the usual copper weights had disappeared to be sold on the black market or melted down to make ammunition.? Perhaps Poirier?s most remarkable achievement is to make her cast seem so interesting and their concerns so urgent that, despite all the horror and the squalor, this Parisian decade can be regarded as a dawn in which for some it was bliss to be alive, and to be young was even better. ======================================== 16. THE UNTENABLE TECHNOPHOBIA OF THE LEFT Simona Levi and Xnet ======================================== Open Democracy 2 March 2018 On hate speech, fake news, anonymity and "new" politics. A warning. Espa?ol lead lead Own goal? Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena during celebration of the 13th UEFA Championship in Madrid, June, 2017. Alter Photos/ Press Association. All rights reservedAt least in Spain, the conservative Right tries to censor and jail as many Twitter users as it can. Fair enough. That is their goal: why would the Right not want to suppress rights and freedoms? It wouldn?t be the Right after all. But what permits them to do this is the Left, whose conservatism and ideological dogma prevent them from embarking on a genuine upgrade and adaptation to the new ?. This Left must be held responsible. In the digital age the overwhelming technophobia of the Left leads us towards disaster and unbridled repression. Let's see. It isn't much fun to have a neo-Nazi and xenophobic police force. As my favorite Twitter user puts it, "being a cop and a Nazi is as incompatible as being a surgeon and smoking at work". As it happens, a PRIVATE WhatsApp chat got leaked in which some policemen wrote that they wanted to kill black people and also Madrid's mayor. Not to be outdone, Madrid?s mayor, Manuela Carmena, champion of the nation's Left and the new hope of its inflexible institutionalised representatives (Podemos), declared that she will sue the policemen for hate crime. There are various aspects of this which don?t work. But mostly, it?s a matter of greed: electoral greed, power greed and short-term greed. Let?s take them in order: 1. Whether we like it or not, the leaked conversation is a WhatsApp chat ? something even more private than a conversation in a bar. It is as private as a conversation in your home or a phone call. After so many years of fighting for the right to completely private and inviolable communications, here comes this modern Left that hasn't understood anything about the way the Internet works, asking for the police to censor the private realm. Great! You?re doing the repression job for the Right. There's no need for rightwing ideology if we have such a Left. You?re doing the repression job for the Right. There's no need for rightwing ideology if we have such a Left. 2. The outlet that leaked this information ? an outlet that prides itself on being leftist ? presumably takes the information from a judicial file. Once again ? indeed, it has happened before to this outlet ? by revealing this information, it leaves its source exposed. It happily publishes the leak, rejoicing in the prospects of the benefits such a piece of information might confer among a leftist audience, given the amazing trending topic it might trigger. They won?t be so efficient when it comes to protecting the source, the person who denounced these events ? from whom they failed to ask permission or even to consult ? something that would have been relatively cost-free for them ? whose life is now threatened and, consequently, in need of 24-hour protection. I don?t believe you have to be a leftist to care for the protection of your sources: but it is not unusual that this Left takes advantage of a situation to become the defenders of the victims they have created. As you all very well know, I have nothing against leaks of information which are relevant to the public ? because I?m a whistleblower and a publisher myself ? as long as great care is taken to avoid collateral damage and to refrain from leaving the sources defenceless by heedlessly increasing their vulnerability. 3. The officers that insulted the Mayor in a private chat are, funnily enough, municipal policemen. Thus, the Mayor is ultimately responsible for leaving the public to live and struggle with a police department whose ethics are incompatible with the Mayor?s commitment. Her job is not to denounce the events as if she was just a regular citizen, but to apologise and put protocols in place to make sure that those meant to protect us don?t walk around seeking to harm us. Her job is not to denounce the events as if she was just a regular citizen, but to... make sure that those meant to protect us don?t walk around seeking to harm us. I have committed my life to speaking up about the Internet ? the digital sphere ? not as a different medium from reality but as part of reality. I?m committed to warning people that if we allow a state of emergency on the Internet, it only takes one more step to extend that to every aspect of life. The untenable technophobia of the Left pushes us backwards in time. It leads not only to greater puritanism and an infuriating ideology of victimhood, but also to a pervasive abuse of the figure of ?hate crime? to oppress and to censor on all sides. This is sweeping away freedoms of the press, satire, information and speech and even sexual freedoms. Do we want to fight hatred? Do we want to protect those threatened systematically because of their experience of discrimination? Very much, but not like this. Threats, insults and harassment, both in public and in private, are all crimes punishable by law. A clumsy or malicious legal interpretation of EU legislation on so-called ?hate speech crimes? can kill freedom. Given the abuse by the wealthy of crimes against personal honour ? systematically employed to stop more serious crimes from being dragged out in the open ? the Left should have expected to find nothing good coming via this route. But it didn?t get the message. Because the real trap, this twisted conception of ?hate speech?, was not invented by evil ministers; they have only taken advantage of it in many States like that of Spain, which has a severe democratic deficit in its value system. ?Hate speech? is a treacherous phrase: fighting against ?hate speech? ? where ?hate? is a subordinate adjective to ?speech? ? means nothing other than fighting against ?speech? in the first place, thereby contributing to the shrinking frame of freedom of speech, instead of fighting for an end to discrimination. Defending freedom of speech is not only a pretty and very leftist thing to do, it is also important so that we can distinguish between what a democracy really is and what it is not. Pursuing free speech as a political and legal praxis is a characteristic of dictatorships: and this willing adherence of the Left can only send us in the opposite direction from any solutions. Pursuing free speech as a political and legal praxis is a characteristic of dictatorships: and this willing adherence of the Left can only send us in the opposite direction from any solutions. Responding to prosecutions with an eye for an eye logic, responding to hate speech accusations with hate speech accusations, legitimates the narrative which destroys our freedom and reinforces polarization and hatred. Legal autarchy Spain is slowly becoming (once again) a legal autarchy, with the Minister of Interior widening the definition of hate crime as he likes in order to push the narrative which is destroying our freedoms. Meanwhile, however, the Left calls for limits to freedom of speech without any legal safeguards with its proposal of a law for LTGBI protection. I disagree. It is by consolidating freedom of speech that those who are a minority in the ruling narrative will get to express themselves and break free of their constraints on their own. On their own, never in a supervised and victimising way thanks to the loudest voice like that of a Left that always aims to ?represent? everyone, even when nobody asked them to. This doesn?t mean avoiding head-on confrontation with oppression, but it does mean adapting the system so that it works more efficiently with the tools it has already got. As we said, there are such tools. There is no version of events in which judicial insecurity for the entire population will create a climate in which the voice of minorities and the oppressed becomes stronger. There is no version of events in which judicial insecurity for the entire population will create a climate in which the voice of minorities and the oppressed becomes stronger.We are heading towards a legal context in which one does not go on trial for the facts of a case but for one?s speech and the type of discourse. Once again, what is happening in Catalunya, with the invaluable help of a short-sighted Left permanently campaigning only to take over power, is the spearhead of what is coming. Addictive propaganda The last frontier of the fight for real democracy in the twenty-first century is the Internet, but not a day goes by without the Left telling us how alienating it is. Somewhere in between the advent of the digital revolution from the industrial revolution, the Left got stuck in a loop. It cannot tell the difference even if you remind them that the Gutenberg press and the mimeo were also machines and that the problem isn't the machine but the question of who owns the means of production and of life. What's alienating is not having enough information to be able to make our own rational decisions ? the Internet gives us such information (as of now). What's alienating is seeing the uni-vocal and standardised content spread by TV, political parties and governments. Meanwhile, propaganda surges forward. "Online" will soon mean the same as "Satan". Hate speech ?online?; fake news ?online?... The Left is indulging itself in a blast of analytical euphoria when it says things like ?We are trapped in the Net?, "We must be proud to live outside the Net? ? as if in the times of Gutenberg people were proud of living removed from original sin, like Adam and Eve. Shining a light over the wrong problems by criminalising the tools is just what the status-quo needs in order to hold onto the privileges that were being threatened by people's actions on and for the Internet. The dis-intermediation the Internet allows has been questioning a good deal of stuff; not only privileges but also the Left's assisting role as moral guardian. We only need to remind those who buy into today's Left premises that it wasn't the right-wing but the left-wing who opposed women's right to vote in many parliamentary sessions throughout the world, in case women voted the ?wrong" way. It's just the same here: never let people use the Internet without supervision and sensible advice, in case they start using it the "wrong" way. So the Left will even end up killing net neutrality, to the everlasting glory of the big telecom industry. Leftist City Councils in Spain pride themselves on being the first to include "the Internet" into their "Plan of action against drugs". It seems that they don?t have the guts to include the TV as well. It won't get them as much political gain. But the fear of innovation will, you won't go wrong making good use of that. If we demanded a minimum of scientific rigour from them, they should know that including the Internet into this plan is doubly nonsense: 1. Addictive substances can be considered as such only if one can eliminate them from one?s life without causing disorders (drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.). Other so-called "addictions" may fall into the category of obsessive-compulsive disorders. But no doctor in his right mind would suggest to anyone to try to live without food, sex or Internet access. Trying to find any resemblance between the Internet and drugs is bogus. This assumption is a product of ignorance, pseudoscience, puritanism and other grave disorders; 2. To consider the Internet as something dangerous in itself gets us to one place only: saving the day for repression by the status quo and helping them to sustain their monopoly on framing our perceptions. To consider the Internet as something dangerous in itself gets us to one place only: saving the day for repression by the status quo and helping them to sustain their monopoly on framing our perceptions. Fake news? private garden Governments, political parties, institutionalized groups and mainstream media outlets have always held the narrative monopoly on fake news; anyone can notice it when reading or listening to pieces about the topics in which she or he has some insight. When Spain?s Foreign Minister said that the videos showing police charges during the Catalan referendum are ?almost all of them fake?, he is fabricating fake news live on all state-managed channels who are boosting his message nice and loud. Et voil?! That?s how fake news has always been fabricated. Fake news were not invented on or by the Internet; the State, its network of clients and partners and the outlets akin to the status quo enjoyed a monopoly over them. Unlike nowadays. Fake news lived longer because no one was in a position to challenge them. When we criminalise the Internet as the creator of hate, fake news and Satan, we?re criminalising the whole Net, taking from people one of the few tools they have for the fightback. The bad guys aren?t strictly those to be held responsible for oppressing since they are, after all, professional experts at that job. Instead, a special responsibility lies with those who keep hovering over the opposing parties in the heat of the conflict ? maintaining their equidistance. Handling with kid gloves The Internet as we know it is in agony and must, therefore, be defended. Full stop. And I?m not being cocky about it. I?m simply stating a fact. Of course, the Internet serves evil too; this is a tautology. We all know the devil?s everywhere. The most nitpicky will say the printing press was a good invention but made some quite dangerous books possible. Sure, one can avoid taking sides. But whoever does will ultimately be blamed for contributing to a new inquisition. We?re seeing the same stages that occurred with the Gutenberg invention: after almost 50 years since the birth of the net we now risk living through a few centuries of darkness and repression if we don?t stop the same cycle from repeating. Those of us working to protect the Internet have been saying it for quite some time: the net isn?t just some disposable tool. It is a philosophy, a way of organizing, a battlefield, and we must defend it. The Spanish Defense Minister got this quicker than the technophobes and so she has publicly stated before the uniformed ranks of the armed forces: ?the Internet is the next battlefield?. Then again, it?s clear when an army declares war that we should consider what side of the trench we?d rather be in, since there are only two: the winning and the defeated? (and, of course, the equidistant bunch.) Incredulity after incredulity, surprise after surprise, every time that a twitter writer or satirical outlet is accused and prosecuted, the Left will contribute to transforming the Internet into a television whose users will only be allowed to use it passively and under supervision. The end of democracy in the digital age. That?s why every time someone claims that the Internet alienates, that it?s evil and dangerous, one more child dies and one more book is burnt. Now you know. Simona Levi, theatre director and activist. She is co-founder of the Spanish group Xnet and of 15MpaRato, a citizens' device to bring to court those responsible for the economic crisis in Spain. Xnet (ex-EXGAE) is a group of activists who have worked since 2008 in different fields relating to online democracy, the fight against corruption and the creation of mechanisms for organised citizen participation and to constrain seats of power and institutions. We defend a free and neutral Internet; the free circulation of culture, knowledge and information; citizen journalism and the right to know, to report and to be informed; the legal, technical and communications struggle against corruption and technopolitics, understood as the practice of networking and taking action for empowerment, for justice and for social transformation. ======================================== 17. PUTIN PROMISES GUNS AND BUTTER IN HIS STATE OF THE NATION SPEECH by Ben Aris ======================================== Intellinews.com March 1, 2018 MOSCOW BLOG Russian President Vladimir Putin gave one of the most aggressive speeches of his career on March 1, promising the population a lot more "butter" and explicitly targeting the USA with "guns" if Washington continued to bully his country with sanctions and threaten it with missiles. The speech was widely anticipated as the showcase for the likely policies that will dominate his next six-year presidential term. Russia goes to the polls on March 18 in an election that Putin is expected to win without a significant challenge. But no-one was expecting the multimedia presentation that Putin delivered, replete with a series of videos showing off Russia's latest missiles, submarines and state-of-the-art fighter jets, most of which he claimed have been specifically design to defeat the US's defensive capabilities. The speech is likely to cause a hysterical reaction in the West and might be taken as the formal start of a real Cold War II as a new arms race was the only bit missing until now. Guns... Putin's speech is a clear conclusion to questions the Russian president raised at his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 where he complained loudly about what he called the broken promises made by the West during the collapse of the Soviet Union to expand eastwards or enlarge Nato to include former Soviet vassal states. Nato has strenuously dismissed the idea there was a promised curb on expansion as a "myth", though Gorbachev appears to have been verbally promised by Western leaders that there would be no Nato expansion, yet nothing was put down on paper. Putin explicitly pointed to the US decision in 2002 to unilaterally withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), which was the cornerstone of the balance of military power in Europe, and then its follow-up with the introduction of a missile defence shield, for which US-made interceptor missiles were stationed in Romania and Poland in 2017 over Russia's strenuous objections. "We tried to talk to our partners. Russia is a major nuclear power. They kept ignoring us. No one was talking to us. So listen to us now," said Putin as Russia's new rockets flew across wall-high screens behind him. If this speech was supposed to set the tone for the next six years then the tone is going to look a lot like a new Cold War. That term has been bandied about since Russia's annexation of the Crimea in 2014, but the two missing elements to make the clash a real Cold War - proxy wars between the US and Russia in someone else's country and an arms race - have now been restored. However, Putin made it explicit that Russia was not going to be the aggressor and stressed that his military build up was forced on Russia, in his opinion. Ever the legalist, he stressed that the development of these weapons are compliant with all Russia's military and security commitments and also laid out in explicit terms Russia's rules of engagement for the use of nuclear weapons: in retaliation to a first strike by an enemy or if the use of conventional weapons poses an existential threat to Russian sovereignty. Putin complained that under the US new nuclear policy Washington could launch nukes in the event of a cyber attack on the country. The optimistic reading of the speech is that Putin is trying to force the West to the table to thrash out new security arrangements that acknowledge Russia's influence in the world, and to shock the West out of its assumption that Russia is a failed state with a dying population that has no material role to play in international politics. It's a gamble and it is played into an atmosphere that is already fraught with tension and even hysteria. Without going into details - and Putin went into a great deal of detail which is what made this speech unprecedented - the weapons on display were scarily impressive. The main feature of the new missiles is they are designed to beat the US new missile policies and Putin suggested that this programme has been worked on for years. As bne IntelliNews reported in a cover story "Rekindling a new Cold War as Russia rearms" Russia began actively modernising its military in 2013 and former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin was sacked as early as 2011 for objecting to a massive increase in military budget slated for the 2012 budget that kicked the process off. In particular Putin boasted about the new Sarmat missile, a heavy rocket that can carry a 200 tonne payload but flies at hypersonic speeds and is highly manoeuvrable. The key element of this missile is it is rangeless and can fly at high speeds right the way around the world, dodging defences as it goes. Since the US withdrew from the ABM treaty its policy has been to switch development from first-strike ICBMs to developing much more sophisticated interceptor missiles (that are stationed in Romania and Poland among other places). Putin is claiming that Russia has now negated this defence capacity and so made the US vulnerable to a Russian strike. "There is no defence against these missiles and all our missiles are now equipped with this system. Maybe in a few years [the US] will catch up, but in the meantime our guys will have thought of something new," says Putin with a satisfied smirk on his face. In addition Putin showcased unmanned submarine drones that are "faster than any surface ship" and "hundred times smaller than a regular submarine" but can carry a full nuclear payload. The drones are undetectable and again there is no defence against a weapon like this that makes both the eastern and western US seaboards vulnerable to attack. If these weapon systems work as billed - a big if - then they will kick off a new arms race. Certainly merely to use the speech to talk about weapons systems like this is an extremely aggressive move on Putin's part. Russia was forced into the move, argues Putin, by the US aggression. Eleven years after Munich, Russia is now reacting to Western bullying. Putin specifically highlighted US sanctions, the latest version of which specifically target Russia's defence industry. "[The US] has created a new arms race and imposed sanctions designed to hold us back. But [the development of the new weapons] has already happened. You were unable to hold us back," said Putin to a standing ovation by the collected Moscow elite. "Now you have to face the facts. You have to make sure I am not bluffing - and I'm not bluffing." Putin's strongman display will clearly send chills throughout the region and senators in the audients said they told pundits after the speech they were expecting a "hysterical" response form the West as a result. Putin tried to anticipate the reaction by saying explicitly Russia was trying only to re-establish the balance of power as it was fed up with being ignored. "Russia's military power is not threatening anyone nor will it be used to attack anyone. We don't want to take anything from anyone. We have everything we need," he added as a clear reference to suggestions that Russia wants to recreate the Soviet Union or may invade the Baltics or Ukraine. "Russia is a force for peace and wants a balance of power." ... and butter The military hardware show came as a shock for Russia watchers who immediately questioned the veracity of the claims, as most of the video shown was computer simulations. But the irony is that this display comes as the Kremlin is clearly intending to wind down its military spending in the next six-year term and focus on the people instead. Defence spending has already been cut hard in the 2018 budget, to the point where BSC Global Markets chief economist Vladimir Tikhomirov suggested that the cuts will drag down Russia's industrial production. The first part of the speech was aimed at the domestic audience and suggested the Kremlin will now turn its attention to restoring the prosperity it sacrificed in the last five years to finance the military modernisation programme. Putin hammered two themes in the first hour: improving the quality of life for the average Russian and keeping up in the technology race. The president has clearly got a bee in his bonnet for high tech solutions, which he argues is another existential threat. "Stability forms the foundation, but it is not enough to ensure further development. We need to further improve the quality of life for our people," Putin told the adoring audience. "There is a technological revolution going on and the upcoming years will determine Russia's future. Technological change is increasing in speed and those that don't take advantage of will be buried under the technological change before eventually losing their sovereignty." Interestingly Putin also picked up the "stability is good, but predictability is better" meme that senior Russian policymakers have been pushing since the start of this year. To the Kremlin's credit some of this work has already been done. The tax system in particular has been totally overhauled and a revolutionary new IT system installed. At the same time all the regional finances are being put into the cloud to better manage their treasury operations to good effect, Svetlana Balanova, CEO of Russian software developing giant IBS, told bne IntelliNews in a recent interview. Putin called for putting all government functions online in his next term. "The danger is not invasion but lagging behind. It's like a chronic disease that undermines the body from within. Sometimes you don't even feel it," Putin said ironically, given he was about to launch into a big military presentation. But the welfare of the people occupied most of this section of the speech and addressed head on many of the problems average Russians face. Some 29% of the population was living in poverty in 2000 when he took over, but that had fallen to 10% by 2012. But since the oil and currency crisis in 2014 that share has started to rise again and 20mn Russians are living under the poverty line now. "The goal is to reduce this by half in the next six years," promised Putin. He laid out other extremely ambitious goals. The number of families that move to better quality accommodation must rise from 3mn last year to 5mn. This means increasing the amount of new residential accommodation being put up from 80mn square meters to 120mn. Mortgage loans have risen from a mere 4,000 contacts in 2001 at a 30% interest rates to hundreds of thousands now at less than 10%, but Putin called for rates to be reduced to 7% to make housing even more affordable to more people. And he talked a lot about investing into education, healthcare, infrastructure and environmental protection - much of it in tune with a liberal set of policies found in any Western country. But that has always been Russia's problem: it has been perfectly clear what needs to be done. Where Russia always falls down is on the implementation. Amongst the most unbelievable claims the president made was to increase the size of the economy by 50% in his next term of office. That would require economic growth of around 7% per year - the best of the boom years' rates of growth. With the official forecast of growth this year of 1.8% - and even the most optimistic forecast from Goldman Sachs is for 3.3% - clearly this is not going to happen. Without a new boom the question arises how the Kremlin is going to pay for all this social spending, but Putin glossed over the problem with talk about digitilising the economy and "investment by the private sector" (also a favourite trope of Western liberal politicians). Put another way the Soviet dilemma was always whether to produce guns or butter - you can't have both. The Soviet choice of guns over butter is what caused it to eventually collapse. What Putin promised in this speech is guns and butter. ======================================== 18. WHY THE KREMLIN PUBLISHES UNCENSORED TRANSLATIONS OF WESTERN NEWS | Fred Weir ======================================== The Christian Science Monitor February 28, 2018 The state-sponsored InoSMI gets hundreds of thousands of Russian readers each day, who generally seem to view Western coverage of Russia as selective and simplistic. But the site also highlights how important cultural context is to understanding the news. February 28, 2018 Moscow ? One of Russia's most popular internet news sites is one that many Russians believe to be a dedicated purveyor of ?fake news.? Yet it enjoys almost 300,000 daily readers, is consulted by editors around the country as they prepare their own news coverage, and is also reported to be heavily used by the Kremlin staff who compile Vladimir Putin's morning press summary. The site is InoSMI (a Russian contraction meaning ?foreign mass media?), which publishes a wide variety of full articles from global media translated into Russian, with a special emphasis on stories about Russia. The site routinely runs some of most critical reportage and analysis about Mr. Putin's Russia that can be found in US outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and, indeed, The Christian Science Monitor. In their Russian-language versions, those pieces often enjoy huge online readerships. Remarkably, it's the Russian government that funds InoSMI, which was originally started in 2001 with the specific purpose of illustrating the relentless hostility and and anti-Russian bias with which Western reporters cover Russia, according to former InoSMI editor Alexey Kovalev. That still seems to be a major focus, and Russian commenters vent their displeasure on the site over the bias they see in the foreign coverage of their country. But the criticism ? which mirrors American criticism of Russia's coverage of the US in Kremlin-funded news station RT ? also illustrates the limits of news translation's value without understanding the context in which the articles is published. Sochi, Soviets, and czars: How much do you know about Russia? ?There are an immense number of misunderstandings between our countries,? says Larisa Mikhaylova, a senior researcher in the journalism department of Moscow State University and secretary of the Russian Society of American Culture Studies, ?and just translating articles from the Western press can be a double-edged method.? A window on the world The Kremlin's sponsorship of InoSMI highlights a critically important distinction between the public mood and political savvy in today's Russia and that in the former Soviet Union ? which did everything possible to block regular Soviet citizens' access to unfiltered Western reporting about their country. ?The main idea behind InoSMI is to provide the Russian-speaking audience with the widest range of information, opinion, and assessments by foreign media outlets, both Western and Eastern, concerning developments in Russia,? as well as international political, economic, scientific, social, and cultural news from around the world, says the site's current head, Alexey Dubosarsky. This week, for example, one day's front page on InoSMI featured political articles from the Financial Times, Die Welt, the National Interest, Bloomberg, and Politico, as well as newspapers from Iran, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Turkey, and Poland. ?Statistically, our readers are most interested in articles about Russia, and these are what we primarily choose,? Mr. Dubosarsky says. The site's audience is mainly well-educated Russian men aged 25 to 45, people who are ?successful in their life, decision-makers.? About 80 percent live in Russia, 8 percent in Ukraine, 7 percent in Europe, and 2 percent in America, he adds. But although he works with the daily output of foreign correspondents in Russia, he thinks poorly of its quality and objectivity. ?Perceptions of Russia in the West are based on a variety of cliches and stereotypes, and a list of rather inappropriate assessments,? he says. ?Western journalists are not apart from this. At least 80 percent of mainstream media articles are now hostile to Russia. Their analysis proves mostly shallow, with judgments that are simplistic and tendentious.? Simplistic coverage? Judging by comments on InoSMI, Russian readers find the analysis of Western journalists selective and simplistic, portraying Russia as a one-man dictatorship where media is totally state-controlled, dissent is suppressed, elections rigged, and which meddles aggressively in other peoples' affairs and threatens its neighbors. If Americans want a sense of what enrages some Russian readers of InoSMI, they might comparatively tune in to RT, the Russian English-language satellite broadcaster that the US Department of Justice recently forced to register as a ?foreign agent? in the US. RT is calculated for foreign audiences, and many of its presenters are native English-speakers. But the station does carry a relentlessly unsympathetic narrative about the US: one that focuses on racism, police brutality, economic inequality, and imperialism abroad. Many Russians uncritically believe this, even as they rail in InoSMI's comments section against the one-sidedness and incomprehension of Western journalists covering Russia. The problem may be that simply publishing articles taken straight from the Western media is not necessarily as helpful as it seems it should be because context is missing, says Ms. Mikhailova. ?If a person's knowledge of another culture is sketchy, then stereotypes are easily reinforced,? she says. ?People see the tone as 'hostile' and they react against that view. It would be more scientific if these articles were accompanied by analyses that try to explain the cultural background the reporter is coming from, what he or she is trying to say, and how it might be misperceived.? ?More like people in the West than ever? Russians have always exhibited deep curiosity about the world beyond their country, with a special interest in how it perceives Russia. Soviet authorities tried to meet this demand with a mega-circulation weekly newspaper called Za Rubezhom (Abroad), which printed selected articles from foreign media about life and culture, as well as political and foreign policy analyses from Communist and USSR-friendly publications in other countries. Mikhailova says she got her start translating articles by Canadian author Farley Mowat about nature, environment, and the lives of Inuit people in the Canadian north for Za Rubezhom ? stories that resonated with Soviet readers. ?It was something people hungered for, a connection with other parts of the world, things that were similar to our lives. It provided a window and fresh information about what was happening in other countries,? she says. Mikhail Chernysh, deputy director of the official Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology in Moscow, says that despite the fact that Russians are now more sophisticated, well-traveled, and able to surf the internet freely, they still hanker for connections with the wider world ? a mood that has probably intensified with the geopolitical crisis between Russia and the West over the past five years. ?Of course InoSMI is a selection that suits authorities, because it demonstrates how narrow-minded and unfair Western journalists can be toward Russia.? he says. ?But it's not Soviet times anymore. The fact is that we are much more like [people in the West] today than we ever were.? Indeed, Mr. Kovalev, who was editor of InoSMI for two years from 2012, notes that Russians responded positively when it expanded beyond solely reports on Western views of Russia. ?I decided it would no longer be a website that only translated coverage of Russia, because there is so much interesting journalism in the world,? he says. ?Our core audience wanted that, the stuff with Russia and Putin keywords, and we continued to give it to them. But after that, I was free to experiment with more diverse subjects, and our circulation grew rapidly as a result.? Follow Stories Like This Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. There is no US equivalent to InoSMI, but Mr. Dubosarsky points out that there are some smaller-scale attempts to provide a similar service to interested Americans, including Watching America and Worldcrunch. ?Americans are primarily focused on their own domestic affairs,? he says. ?But it would be of great use for Americans and everyone else if they could see themselves through other eyes. It would only improve mutual understanding.? _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Thu Mar 15 18:31:04 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 04:01:04 +0530 Subject: SACW - 16 March 2018 | Sri Lanka: Anti-Muslim Violence / Bangladesh inheritance laws / Pakistan: / India: Rewriting history; Maharashtra farmers; Fund Ankit Saxena's Family / Stephen Hawking Dies Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 16 March 2018 - No. 2976 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka: Reframing the riots | Devaka Gunawardena 2. Sri Lanka: Women?s Rights Activists statement on Anti-Muslim Violence | Daily FT (Colombo) 9 March 2018 3. By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists aim to assert their dominance over India | Rupam Jain and Tom Lasseter 4. Video: The NDTV Dialogues - Romila Thapar On Centre?s Move To ?Correct? History 5. India: Statement by PADS on post-poll violence by BJP/RSS cadre and supporters in Tripura 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: In Odisha, no blood spilt but the fires of communal hatred are touching the skies | Harsh Mander - India: Hindu-Muslim and RSS Chief Bhagwat | Ram Puniyani - India: 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case - Swami Aseemanand?s ?disclosure? file missing from court - India: Caught Assaulting Women In Pub, Pramod Muthalik And Co Let Off - India: In UP under Yogi Adityanath's Rule, Hindu festivals are State festivals - India: Order issued by BJP govt in Rajasthan - on the new dress code - Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar threatens that there will be violence if the court doesnt favour a Hindu temple ? - Toppled statue in Tripura and a warning to Supreme Court from Sri Sri in Ayodhya - India: Will the Left heed the advice of Prof Prabhat Patnaik to mobilise secular, democratic elements to fight Hindutva forces ? - Sri Lanka declares state of emergency after Buddhist-Muslim clash ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Nepal seeks harmony, not hegemony, from its neighbors | Narayan Adhikari 8. Bangladesh: It?s about time we discussed our skewed inheritance laws | Masreka Khan 9. India: Maharashtra farmers' agitation and lessons for the Opposition | Bharat Bhushan 10. India: Appeal for Funds for Ankit Saxena's Family 11. Debating Partition, the Oxford way | Rajmohan Gandhi 12. The Good Historian: Vigilante Of Indian Past | Gerard Fussman 13. Colonial Construction Of A Frontier: Debating The Inner Line Regulation In Sibsagar?Naga Hills | Debojyoti Das 14. Secularism and sectarian violence | Srinivasan Ramani 15. The statue game: Shifting signifiers of stationary figuration | Ruchir Joshi 16. Jason Cons on Daniel Haines. Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan 17. Mikhail Gorbachev: The U.S. and Russia Must Stop the Race to Nuclear War 18. Stephen Hawking, modern cosmology's brightest star, dies aged 76 | Ian Sample 19. Bang for the Buck | Adam Hochschild ======================================== 1. SRI LANKA: REFRAMING THE RIOTS | Devaka Gunawardena ======================================== The recent riots targeting Muslims in Kandy have provoked accusations on many sides. While mainstream conversations focus on what the riots entail in terms of immediate political consequences for the current Government and its tepid response, progressives have also had to reckon with the growing presence of anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence as a feature of contemporary Sri Lankan life. http://www.sacw.net/article13679.html ======================================== 2. SRI LANKA: WOMEN?S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS STATEMENT ON ANTI-MUSLIM VIOLENCE | Daily FT (Colombo) 9 March 2018 ======================================== As activists engaged in the struggle for women?s rights, justice and equality for all across Sri Lanka, we strongly condemn the recent spate of violence against Muslim communities, and the communities? homes, shops and places of worship. http://www.sacw.net/article13673.html ======================================== 3. BY REWRITING HISTORY, HINDU NATIONALISTS AIM TO ASSERT THEIR DOMINANCE OVER INDIA | Rupam Jain and Tom Lasseter ======================================== The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed a committee of scholars to prove that Hindus are descended from India?s first inhabitants. Members of the country?s Muslim minority worry the government wants to make them second-class citizens. http://www.sacw.net/article13672.html ======================================== 4. VIDEO: THE NDTV DIALOGUES - ROMILA THAPAR ON CENTRE?S MOVE TO ?CORRECT? HISTORY ======================================== Renowned Historian Romila Thapar says the space for dissent in India is shrinking. She talks about covert pressures in the contemporary political arena and the intersection of nationalism, secularism and democracy. Discussing the place for nationalism in the current socio-political framework, Ms Thapar distinguishes between good historians and bad historians while highlighting the dangers of ?fantasy narratives?. http://www.sacw.net/article13677.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: STATEMENT BY PADS ON POST-POLL VIOLENCE BY BJP/RSS CADRE AND SUPPORTERS IN TRIPURA ======================================== Targeted violence against political opponents of BJP, as seen in Tripura, cannot be dissociated from wider processes of change. Public violence against the weak and vulnerable; poor, minorities, Dalits, women, adivasis, migrant workers, etc. has been a regular feature of Indian society. http://www.sacw.net/article13674.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: In Odisha, no blood spilt but the fires of communal hatred are touching the skies | Harsh Mander - India: Hindu-Muslim and RSS Chief Bhagwat | Ram Puniyani - India: 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case - Swami Aseemanand?s ?disclosure? file missing from court - India: Caught Assaulting Women In Pub, Pramod Muthalik And Co Let Off - India: In UP under Yogi Adityanath's Rule, Hindu festivals are State festivals - India: Order issued by BJP govt in Rajasthan - Girls in colleges asked to wear Saree / Blouse, salwar suit; Whereas for college boys, trouser /shirts and belt is the new dress code - Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar threatens that there will be violence if the court doesnt favour a Hindu temple ? - Toppled statue in Tripura and a warning to Supreme Court from Sri Sri in Ayodhya - India: Will the Left heed the advice of Prof Prabhat Patnaik to mobilise secular, democratic elements to fight Hindutva forces ? - Sri Lanka declares state of emergency after Buddhist-Muslim clash - India: Lawyer Vrinda Grover on Why Top Cop in Ishrat Jahan Case Must Face Trial -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. NEPAL SEEKS HARMONY, NOT HEGEMONY, FROM ITS NEIGHBORS | Narayan Adhikari ======================================== Asia Times March 15, 2018 In Nepal, a country that is moving toward political stability, Bidya Devi Bhandari on Tuesday was re-elected president for a second term. On October 28, 2015, Bhandari was elected as the first female president of Nepal, as a candidate from the left alliance. Very soon, the country will elect a new vice-president, but it is most likely that the left alliance has already chosen its preference for that post. The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox Last Sunday, Nepal?s newly elected Prime Minister K P Oli gained a remarkable vote of confidence with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, or 208 votes out of the total of 268 members present in the House of Representatives. Oli received votes from the left alliance and other parties including Rastriya Janata. Most people believe that under the leadership of Prime Minister K P Oli, now Nepal will take the right track for its economic growth and prosperity, but there are a lot of challenges ahead in coming days. On one side he has an enormous opportunity to become a statesman for the nation, but at the same time on another side Oli and his regime will face geo-strategic games. For the past three decades, Nepal?s foreign policy has fallen into the complexity of geopolitics. Indian hegemony Can Prime Minister K P Oli adopt a balanced foreign policy? Or can he break away from Indian hegemony? These are major questions being asked by the public. During the Indian blockade in 2015, Oli stood very strongly and raised his voice against the blockade, which was praiseworthy. But the people of Nepal want to see the collapse of Indian hegemony from Nepal forever, and they also want to reduce Nepal?s dependence on India in business. Nepal and India are close neighbors; they share culture, land and many other things. Despite that, after the 2015 blockade, people in Nepal were upset with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. No matter how many times Modi and other high-level official visit Nepal, or no matter how much help they provide, it will be very difficult to improve bilateral relations. Because of the Indian blockade, there was a big humanitarian crisis in Nepal ? there was no cooking gas, no medicine in the hospitals, and schools were completely shut down. In 2015 when Nepal adopted a new constitution, India opposed it and started the blockade. India claims that it is the largest democratic country in the world, but how does that give it the right to reject Nepal?s constitution? Actually, the new constitution was approved by more than 90% of the total strength of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal. The first thing India should not forget is that Nepal is a sovereign country and that it must maintain a policy of harmony with Nepal, not hegemony. India must correct its hegemonic attitude, otherwise relations become more complicated. We Nepalis want harmony with India. Of course, we do have an open border system, and both countries? people enjoy free movement through the border. But that does not mean Nepal is an Indian state, and that whatever India wants to do, it can. Indians must respect Nepal?s sovereignty. After K P Oli and his left alliance won the majority of seats at the provincial level and in the national House of Representatives, Modi had a conversation with him and congratulated him. In the first week of February, Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj made a surprise visit to Kathmandu. That was the first step toward reconciliation. Swaraj was the first high-level visitor to Nepal after the election, and it was just before the formation of the new government of the left alliance. Is K P Oli pro-China? We Nepalis are neither pro-China nor pro-India. First of all, we are Nepali and we are citizens of a sovereignty country. Both India and China are good neighbors. Nepal is a landlocked country, and as such has a natural right to access to the nearest seaport. So far Nepal has used only Indian seaports despite various obstacles. Now it wants to open another door toward China for trade and business. Maybe in the future, if Nepal and China establish a rail connection, then Nepal can use Chinese seaports as well. In diplomatic affairs, India and China have an enormous engagement and bigger interests than Nepal. We know that India and China have border issues and recently had a military standoff, but on another side they are huge business partners as well. But no one is telling them they are playing the China card or the India card or are pro-China or for India. When Nepal maintains relations with China, why is it blamed as pro-China or for playing the China card? These are baseless statements from a poor mind. Nepal needs economically sustainable development, not any ?cards.? ======================================== 8. BANGLADESH: DEPRIVED, DENIED, AND DISCRIMINATED It?s about time we discussed our skewed inheritance laws Masreka Khan ======================================== Dhaka Tribune, March 11, 2018 It?s about time we discussed our skewed inheritance laws In a summer afternoon, a girl came to know that her father had died of a car accident on his way back from Dhaka. Her only sibling was her younger sister. Their mother was in her late 20s, a full-time home-maker. Life has never been the same for them since. At first, her mother was not able to figure out what to do with her deceased husband. Should she lay him down in the cemetery near their home in the same small town? It seemed logical. She and her daughters could go any time to pray for him if it was in the same town. Or, as her in-laws were insisting, the body should be laid to rest in their family graveyard, two hours away, in their village. Of course, the relatives? decision was final. After all, there was no ?guardian? anymore in this family. Hence all decisions must be made by the male members of the extended family. Then came the daughters. What would these girls do in the city ? the extended family sounded worried. It?s not safe in this age to live alone with a young mother without a male guardian. ?Let?s send them to the village,? they decided. The bereaved mother muttered: ?My girls are only eight and six, are you all out of your minds?? On the third day, after the kulkhani, the in laws started to take control of the ?shongshar.? They asked for the keys to the almirah. Took the cash out from the chest of drawer, collected the cheque-books, found all the documents related to the husband?s property and savings. As expected, no property was recorded on the wife or the daughters? names. The relatives looked relieved. After a few months, the wife was forced to remarry one of her brothers-in-law, so that the 2% share from her husband?s property remains within the family. Uncles and aunts got and sold their share of the property, even though the heirs, the daughters, were underaged. The daughters? share, 8% of the property, went under the supervision of their paternal uncles. During one summer, it was the jyatha and his sons who would take care of and enjoy the property, the next summer it would be the kakku and his sons. Meanwhile, at the mercy of their uncles, the girls are being educated in the village, and reminded of this favour every day. However, the girls are not allowed to talk or ask about their share of the inheritance from their father. Instead, they are reminded that they are girls. They can?t manage such a big responsibility. They will get married, however educated, and their husbands will just take over the property, which is unacceptable. So, it is always better if the uncles were in charge. Why exactly are we so afraid to allow women equal rights on property? When can our girls feel and believe that they are not inadequate just because of their gender? This is just one event, where the in-laws are being kind enough to take care of a family without a son after the patriarch?s demise. There are many events where the wife is sent back to her parents, the daughters are sent to orphanages, and the entire property is taken over by the extended family. Yes, there are bigger problems right now in our country than worrying about inheritance. But this idea that absence of a son or a male guardian should change every parameter for all women in a family is unacceptable in this day and age. At some point, many of these girls become financially independent, provide for their families, raise sons and even leave property for them. But the experiences they go through just because they did not have a biological brother or father can never be faded. Women in our country have come a long way in education, politics, and formal labour-force participation. Government policies, NGO initiatives, grassroots movements and activism along with self-determination have all led to this point in our history, where we rank the best in South Asia in terms of women empowerment. However, we are in denial that discriminatory property rights have significant impacts (social, psychological, and financial) on women in our society. Fortunately, some of our feminist activists and the civil society members are vigorously voicing their opinion and are lobbying in favour of a uniform family law, and for equal property rights for sons and daughters. The present government has even taken this issue with enough gravity as to have drafted a policy on this. But why exactly are we so afraid to allow women equal rights on property? When can our girls feel and believe that they are not inadequate just because of their gender? Let?s broaden our heart little bit more and try to see the invisible scars left on our girls, because of one discriminatory law. Masreka Khan is an academic and has worked extensively in the international development sector on gender issues. ======================================== 9. INDIA: WHAT OPPOSITION CAN LEARN FROM MAHA FARMERS Bharat Bhushan ======================================== Asian Age March 15, 2018 In this bleak political landscape, the success of the farmers? movement in Maharashtra points to a way forward. The surrender of the Devendra Fadnavis government before the 40,000-strong farmers who marched to Mumbai holds several important lessons for the Opposition. The Opposition parties had failed to counter Narendra Modi?s political narrative in the 2014 general election campaign. That story was based on creating jobs, curbing black money and economic development in the mirror-image of Mr Modi?s ?Gujarat model?. Those unrealised dreams have since been consigned to the dustbin with Mr Modi now being described by wags as ?India?s biggest non-performing asset?. Mr Modi may well have a newer narrative for the next general election ? possibly an emotive and communally divisive one. However, the Opposition parties have yet to find a counter- narrative. In this bleak political landscape, the success of the farmers? movement in Maharashtra points to a way forward. The surrender of the Devendra Fadnavis government before the 40,000-strong farmers who marched to Mumbai holds several important lessons for the Opposition. After a long time, political parties across the ideological spectrum supported the farmers? demands ? ranging from the All India Kisan Sabha of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had organised the march, to the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Aam Aadmi Party. Even the Shiv Sena, an estranged ally of the ruling BJP, argued against judging the farmers? movement by its ideological colour. The support of ordinary folk was overwhelming as they greeted the farmers with open arms. Across Mumbai, civil society groups, residents? welfare associations, religious organisations and ordinary individuals greeted the marching farmers with packets of food, water, free medical care and even footwear, moved by the media pictures of their calloused, blistered and bleeding feet. Even as a BJP government given to talking tough was brought to its knees, the farmers? march offered an opportunity to develop an alternative political narrative based on issues that impact the lives of ordinary people and it was effectively articulated through a mass movement. The support that the movement has received shows that it is not impossible for the Opposition parties to sink their local contradictions to stand behind peoples? demands. The tribal farmers from Thane, Palghar, Nashik and Nandurbar in Maharashtra have manifestly proven that the BJP is not invincible and that its disconnect from the ground reality is all too visible. The very government in Mumbai which completely ignored the farmers? march for five days started quaking once it saw how much public support was drawn to it. The chief minister virtually conceded the farmers? demands even before he met with their representatives. In April 2017 Mr Fadnavis, even as he announced a farm loan waiver, had criticised it as an unsustainable measure. However, he was forced to concede a condition-free loan waiver for farmers left out of the previous one by extending it to loans taken between 2001 and 2008. The earlier waiver had been given only for loans taken after 2009. He also quickly agreed to address the bottlenecks in legalising the rights of forest-dwellers to till forest land to which they were entitled under the Forest Rights Act of 2006. A host of other demands were also conceded, included giving higher minimum support price for agricultural produce, river linking projects and even the replacement of torn and damaged ration cards! Rights, even if granted by the State, clearly remain on paper unless people ensure their implementation ? by monitoring them, seeking transparency and accountability and by shaking the system periodically through agitations. This is how a coherent narrative of their demands was developed by the Maharashtra farmers, allowing them to occupy the political centre-stage. Those in the Opposition who want to develop an alternative political narrative should see that now more than ever before, there is a need to connect with peoples? movements. Such movements, besides civil society organisations and other grassroots organisations of peasants, workers and migrants, are the most reliable way of finding out what affects the lives of the marginalised and what political agendas of change should include. There are even today a number of organisations that have been relentlessly asserting peoples? right to life, liberty and livelihood. Despite the Big State turning its mighty machinery against them, they organise protests and agitations at the local, regional and national levels. These movements and groups are the best indicators of the changes that people want. At a time when Hindutva forces are trying to subvert the secular and democratic character of this country, the Opposition parties must unite to protect the foundations of our constitutional republic. However, a unified ideological opposition to the BJP?s divisive politics also has to be combined with a programme of transforming lives. The Opposition political parties, therefore, need to learn from the peoples? movements, join them on the streets, help in mass mobilisation and organise protests. This will help them shed the creeping sense of diffidence and impotence in the face of the ?cleverness? and organisational prowess of the BJP. Beyond a point the public is not impressed by cleverness, especially when it conflicts with their daily experiences of the State withdrawing systematically from running quality educational institutions, communalising the curriculum, encouraging costly and privatised health services and handing over public land and other resources to corporate enterprises and reducing their access to public services. The Narendra Modi government, which had been sponsored by corporates, is busy repaying its debts to them and unwilling to regulate their ?loot and scoot? strategies. India has seen the emergence of new political leadership from mass movements in the past. This happened during the freedom movement, in the movement against the Emergency and during the Anna Hazare agitation over the Lokpal Bill. There is a new crop of leaders no one had ever heard of even four years ago ? Jignesh Mewani, Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakur, Kanhaiya Kumar and Shehla Rashid are among the young political leaders to reckon with today. The national political parties critical of the BJP must connect the pockets of resistance which exist and are constantly emerging in the country. They must join hands with them. The collective wisdom emanating from below alone can help formulate a narrative to counter the BJP. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 10. INDIA: APPEAL FOR FUNDS FOR ANKIT SAXENA'S FAMILY ======================================== This an appeal to raise money for the parents of a Delhi based young man Ankit Saxena who was killed only because he loved a girl from another religious community and they proposed to marry. Yashpal Saxena?s only child Ankit Saxena was murdered by the family of the girl he loved. She happened to be Muslim. But Mr. Saxena has refused to allow the toxic politics of our times to communalize his personal tragedy. He has firmly and consistently affirmed that he bears the Muslim community no ill will. Thus, demolishing one of the most widely used rationalisations for communal hatred. This is the idea that an entire community must collectively carry the guilt for crimes - real or imagined, committed now or in history - which any of its members may have perpetrated. This doctrine harbours a moral rationalisation of violence that people may wreak on other people in vengeance solely for sharing the same identity as the real or imagined criminal. Some of the most brutal mass crimes in recent history were such acts of collective vengeance against a community for the real or imagined crimes of a few of its members. More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in 1984 in reprisal for the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two Sikhs guards. The Gujarat carnage of 2002 was justified by the burning of the Hindus in a train. The 9/11 attack has been invoked to condone military strikes on civilian populations in faraway Afghanistan and Iraq. Each terrorist attack in Paris inevitably makes the entire Muslim population of France culpable in many eyes. It is the same idea that is invoked to justify communal violence and hate crimes in this country. The magazine Caravan reported that when Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari went to meet Yashpal Saxena, he begged him and the media not to communalise his son?s murder. ?I had one son,? he said. ?If I get justice, it?s good. If not, even then I don?t have hatred against any community. I have no such (communal) thinking. I am unable to understand why the media is showing this issue in that way.? It is these ideas of vicarious guilt and the inevitable, ?action-reaction? justification for violence, that Yashpal Saxena, a grieving father, has rejected with gentle firmness. His photographer son Ankit Saxena did what should be so normal in our diverse and secular country ? he fell in love with a college student in his neighbourhood, who just happened to be Muslim, and they wanted to marry. Her family murdered Ankit simply because they were opposed to their relationship, in a terrible hate crime. Many such hate crimes have, and continue to be, directed against Muslims and Dalits, and countless others from all castes and creeds, who fall in love across religious and caste divides. We stand with each of those victims, and for the right of each individual to choose their partners. One of Ankit Saxena?s closest friends was a Muslim, Mohammed Azhar Alam. He told The Quint he accompanied Yashpal Saxena to Haridwar to immerse his son?s ashes. There he performed the puja with his friend?s father. ?Uncle even showed me the way in which the holy dip is taken in the Ganga,? he said. ?I took the dip with him, and prayed with him.? We respect Yashpal Saxena for rejecting the doctrine of collective communal responsibility for the crimes of individuals, and of ?actions? justifying ?reactions?, particularly because in these majoritarian times, it may be easy to succumb to such thinking. In the same breath, we express our respect for the countless other families of victims of such hate crimes, from weaker and minority communities, who have, incident after incident, equally rejected this communal poison of hatred and counter-violence. These are the people who uphold our idea of India. We have visited Yashpal Saxena many times. The parents are completely broken. They also have to cope with the prospect of old age with grave illnesses without the support of their only son. They are humble people, living in a one-room Janta Flat. We therefore appeal to the central government, the Delhi state government, but most of all to ordinary citizens, to contribute to a fund with which we hope to buy a permanent asset like a shop for a recurring source of income for the family. We appeal to the government to also allot to them a milk dairy or gas agency. A group of senior citizens will also appeal to the Governments of India and Delhi to assist them with any such allocation and a decent sum to enable them to live a life of dignity. In addition, Yashpal Saxena is very keen to establish a trust in the name of his son, to spread the message of communal harmony and love in schools and colleges. If we collect enough funds, we would also use this as a corpus for this trust. Kavita Srivastava John Dayal Navsharan Singh Osama Manzar Natasha Badhwar Priya Ramani Farah Naqvi Amitabh Basu Harsh Mander For the Karwan e Mohabbat Donation details are below: Contact person :- Mr. Ashish Soni, Mobile 09313788542, Mr. Md. Aamir, Mobile 08586942950. Aman Biradari Name of A/c: AMAN BIRADARI TRUST Bank Name: IDBI Bank Limited Branch: 1/6, Siri Fort Institution Area, Khel Gaon Marg, New Delhi-110049. A/c No: 010104000156950 IFSC Code: IBKL0000010 BSR Code: 110259002 or Crowdnewsing http://contribute.crowdnewsing.com/fundraiser/AnkitSaxena ======================================== 11. DEBATING PARTITION, THE OXFORD WAY Lambasting the British is easy. India needs to examine its own inability to nurture debate. by Rajmohan Gandhi ======================================== The Indian Express March 13, 2018 British rule in India, Partition of India, India Pakistan, india's Partition, the Oxford way, P Chidambaram, subhash chandra Bose, Netaji death Cyril Radcliffe is a favourite whipping boy. Though he had never been to India before 1947, he nonchalantly drew lines across Punjab and Bengal and returned home, allowing South Asians thereafter to butcher one another. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar) Laali Vadlamani, the young woman whose term as the Oxford Union president is just ending, is perhaps the first Telugu-origin person elected to that prestigious post. Other South Asians who have held that office include Benazir Bhutto and Tariq Ali from Pakistan, Lalith Athulathmudali from Sri Lanka, and India?s Girish Karnad and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. That the Oxford Union is primarily a debating society and holds debates on major issues, including controversial ones, is well known. A recent one, held on March 1, was on the motion, ?This house regrets the Partition of India.? Invited to participate, I chose to speak for the proposition. Also slated to speak in favour, P Chidambaram, the former finance minister, was at the last minute unable to take part. The London-based commentator and author of a new book on Netaji?s death, Ashis Ray, spoke ably in Chidambaram?s place. Salman Khurshid, the former foreign minister, and Mridula Mukherjee, history professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, spoke against the motion. Evidently concerned about reactions at home to what they might say, the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis requested to take part had declined. Along with much of the UK, Oxford was hit on March 1 by a snowstorm, but despite the extreme chill, the late-night debate was attended by a full house. Two outstanding student speakers opened: Sabriyah Saeed, who is of Pakistani origin, and Eric Sukumaran, who hails from Kerala. Half a dozen other students raising their hands, most of them looking South Asian, were also invited by President Vadlamani to speak. Not surprisingly, the motion was comfortably carried. Speakers against it had argued persuasively that the future was of greater moment than the past. Though it can teach us, the past cannot be changed. It has to be accepted, not regretted. Speakers for the proposition said that regretting the Partition did not imply a wish to undo it. To think that Independence was possible only through Partition was not correct. Also, following Partition, religious majorities in both halves became preponderant majorities, capable of turning into oppressive majorities. The possibility of a nuclear war was certainly one of Partition?s unfortunate gifts. When the debated ended, students of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin besieged the Indian speakers, said thanks for the debate?s civility and voiced longings for reconciliation in South Asia. It was obvious that free and frank dialogue among South Asians, currently almost unthinkable in Karachi or Mumbai, Delhi or Dhaka, is possible in the UK and elsewhere outside India. To underline this possibility is one reason for writing this piece. The other is to say that it is time for South Asians to move beyond lambasting the UK for India?s Partition. Most speakers in the Oxford debate referred to Britain?s divide-and-rule policy. Thus, I reminded the audience that in the summer of 1945, Winston Churchill had asked Viceroy Archibald Wavell ? as the latter noted in his journal ? to ensure India?s division into ?Hindustan, Pakistan, Princestan, etc.? However, the chief responsibility for what happened in 1947 must rest on the shoulders of the people and leaders of the Subcontinent. Churchill, Mountbatten, Radcliffe and company could never have imposed Partition or the accompanying carnage on South Asia had the people living there in 1947 been determined either to stay together or to separate peacefully. Cyril Radcliffe is a favourite whipping boy. Though he had never been to India before 1947, he nonchalantly drew lines across Punjab and Bengal and returned home, allowing South Asians thereafter to butcher one another. Satirical poems and cartoons were inevitable. He was whipped afresh during the Oxford debate. But wait. Radcliffe drew his lines because his fellow judges, four in Punjab and four in Bengal, all of them Indian, half of them Hindu or Sikh and the other half Muslim, could not agree. They cancelled one another, and Radcliffe drew his lines. If Indian judges had found agreement then, Radcliffe or no Radcliffe, the Indian people would have been given an acceptable solution and acceptable borders, and Partition might have happened without carnage. Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis can lambast the British to their hearts? content but that will not change South Asian realities. The lambasting occurred in Oxford, and the British audience took it on the chin. No one objected, no one booed, and no one asked why the attackers had been given UK visas. The young woman from the Telugu world, presumably a Hindu, became the Oxford Union president. Another young woman, presumably a Muslim, whose grandparents were Sindhi on one side and Jalandhari Muslims on the other, was elected the Union?s ?Librarian?, also a post of prestige. These two and their white and South Asian associates in Oxford organised a meaningful debate on India?s Partition. The event was a plus for Oxford but also for the UK. Spitting fire at the British is easy. Organising in India a candid yet civil debate about river waters, Nagaland, Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, or minority rights is another cup of tea. Nations that sprout such debates have led the world. Nations that cannot tolerate such debates will not be loved or followed by the world, no matter their GDP, their populations, or their percentage of the young. The writer is a historian. His latest work is ?Why Gandhi still matters?. ======================================== 12. THE GOOD HISTORIAN: VIGILANTE OF INDIAN PAST | Gerard Fussman ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 53, Issue No. 6, 10 Feb, 2018 ? The Good Historian Talking History by Romila Thapar, Ramin Jahanbegloo and Neeladri Bhattacharya, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017; pp xvi + 340, ?795. Professional historians seldom read books on history writing. In fact, once recognised as historians, books and papers written by colleagues are either their models, or examples they do not wish to imitate. However, Talking History is not a book on how history ought to be written. It is a book on Romila Thapar?s achievements as a historian, and as such, a book on intellectual life in India since independence. For Thapar was, and still is, one of the leading intellectuals of India since that period, the incarnation of Indian history in Europe and the United States, as well as a public figure acclaimed by the most progressive part of the society, while also subject to violent attacks for her secular vision of India and Indian past as one which cannot be reconciled with Hindutva. Talking History is both a scholarly autobiography, and a reflection on the links between history and politics. Thapar mostly answers questions posed by Ramin Jahanbegloo, who plays the role of an intelligent layperson, while also responding to a younger historian, Neeladri Bhattacharya, who asks fewer, lengthier, and more specialised questions. The book has apparently been entirely rewritten by Thapar, and on reading it, one does hear her voice. So Talking History is truly a book by Thapar; a reflection on her whole life. I ought to specify ?professional? life, because she does not talk (except occasionally) about her personal life, her circle of close friends, her celebrated brother, or the manifold invectives and honours she has received. Politics come in only in relation with her work as a historian. To be honest, there is nothing entirely new in the book; there exist a number of papers or interviews, in which Thapar has expressed herself on these subjects in the past. Talking History is, however, the most comprehensive presentation of her ideas, and may interest every reader who wishes to understand how Thapar came to be a historian, as well as the beginnings of her work in newly independent India. While the core of the book is not entirely new to me, reading it has made me much more conscious of the difference between the work of a patriotic Indian historian of India and that of a foreigner. Which Side of History? I suppose most of the readers of the Economic & Political Weekly would not know my name, for I write almost exclusively in French. Suffice to say, I was a graduate when Thapar was preparing the PhD which made her famous (Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 1961). My first book was printed in 1965, my first paper on Ashoka?s inscriptions in 1974. Yet, our trainings were quite different.I trained as a Greek archaeologist, which at the time meant learning Greek and Latin. I began studying Sanskrit not from a desire to know India, but because I was fascinated with the comparative history of Indo?European languages, for which a knowledge of Sanskrit is, or should be, a requisite. I was nevertheless a historian at heart. At that time, history in French universities was almost exclusively the history of France. The narratives of foreign countries were either ignored entirely, or appeared only when they were warring with France. It was self-evident that we were not supposed to ask ourselves questions about the established identity of our country. Quite different was the training of Thapar. She was located in Britain, and most of her professors would have been convinced that India was at its best when it was British India. The history she learnt, and was expected to write, while pursuing her degrees, was of a kind, quite foreign to the Puranas, the chronicles of the Afghan and Moghul sultans, and the Mahabharata, which her maternal grandmother would read in Hindi. None of the books she had to use and meditate upon were in her native Punjabi or Hindi. All of them were in English, a language foreign to India (she learnt later, when she travelled abroad, that there also were some valuable contributions by French and German scholars; British universities tend to be as chauvinistic as the French ones). Even the books written by Indian historians, some of them quite outstanding, were in English, and so were the handbooks used to teach Indians their own history. While writing in a foreign language would have been unthinkable for a Frenchman, English was never an issue for Thapar. Members of her family had been employed by the British Raj, and were fluent in English as well in the other North Indian languages?Urdu, Persian, Hindi, and Punjabi. In 1947, in part even now, English was the only language understood by a majority of educatedIndians in the country. It was the language through which Thapar could address herself to Bengalis, Maharashtrians, and Tamilians alike. She was soon convinced, both as a historian and as an Indian nationalist, that the time had come to replace the outdated history she had learnt at school with a new Indian history, advanced by Indian scholars for Indian readers. It was evident to her that she should write in English, and hope to get translations in what were called ?the vernaculars of India.? This was a political choice: Indian historians had to write historical narratives which, although true to the evidence, would help Indians build a new, peaceful, and democratic country. She never attempted to conceal this purpose, as is witnessed in the titles of some of her papers and books (The Past as Present: Forging Contemporary Identities Through History, Communalism and the Writing of Indian History); her inroads in the Babri Masjid dispute; and the discussions on the Aryans in India. She always kept true to the ideal, of a secular India, where Muslims and Hindus could peacefully coexist as they did in her native Punjab before partition. At the same time, she had to define what was that newly independent India, whose borders were no more those of British India and which did not enclose remains of her pre-Muslim past. This past lay in Pakistan, a country to which Indians could not easily, or safely travel, and whose scientific publications could reach her in Delhi, only through London, Paris or Rome. Her conception of the Indian nation?which stemmed from experiences in her personal and professional life?is at the heart of her opposition between early India and Hindutva. The former she considered a scientific and neutral concept, the latter, a religious and divisive one, which does not rely on proved historical evidence. In the 1960s, French historians were no more asked to give historical foundations for a new France: France was eternal; ?national identity? and immigration were only topics for a handful of politicians. In my young years, historians were drawn into politics not to demonstrate the existence of the nation and the advantages of being a republic, but because they belonged to a very politicised intelligentsia, who considered it their duty to confront the immediate problems of the country. Discussions in universities on politics, philosophy, and the conception of history often demanded a return to original sources in their original languages, and featured rigorous understanding, backed by data and reasoning. Furthermore, considering France is a country of many sceptics and unbelievers, the main text of Descartes, Voltaire, and Diderot were taught magna cum laude in high schools. The Bible and Jesus?s life were examined as if they were legends and Michelet?s History of France was almost looked at as a historical novel. In the field of Oriental studies, Dum?zil was arguing that the foundation of Roma according to Titus-Livius was modelled on an old Indo?European vision of the world. Erudite studies by French-speaking scholars exhibited the greatest scepticism about the Buddha?s biography as told in the Pali scriptures. In her PhD on Ashoka, Thapar follows a classical, yet rigorous approach of dealing with every source available. She does not exhibit the kind of radical scepticism mentioned above. For instance, she tries to make the best use of the Pali and Sanskrit legends of Ashoka, although each time we compare these with Ashoka?s inscriptions, they are proven wrong. Surprisingly, in Talking History, she says that, when choosing Ashoka as her subject, she was mainly interested in the possibility of exploring the ?question [of the importance] of the individual in history? (p 163). Indeed, Ashoka is the only early sovereign whose thoughts we are able to decipher through his numerous inscriptions. In any case, it was a good choice in the 1950s: Ashoka is the only Indian king whose chronology is known with some certainty, whose dominions almost equated the extent of British India (along with a small part of modern Afghanistan), and one who publicly renounced violence (except on some occasions). No wonder the capital of a so-called Ashokan column was chosen to symbolise a newly independent India. Curating a National History It came to me as another surprise that, in discussions about Thapar?s book and curricula to be introduced in Delhi University, she was dubbed a Marxist, an epithet she strongly contests. Having been well acquainted with French, German and Soviet marxisms (English Marxist historians were and are almost unknown in France), I would never have imagined Thapar termed a Marxist. Like so many historians after Karl Marx, she is interested in the economic and social background of historical events. Such an approach has long become common sense among leading historians, and is no more a privilege of the Marxists. What distinguished the Marxist historians from the non-Marxists is precisely that they were neither interested in individuals, nor in religion. Rather, they were interested in identifying the economic and social forces responsible for the apparition of these individuals, the religious changes and the social classes responsible for an optimistic conception of a historical development, and in an evolution towards socialism from slave society, feudalism, capitalism and imperialism. That was a vision of the past which was congruent with the facts when Marx used to write, at least in Western Europe. You will never find such ideas or suggestions in Thapar?s books or papers. Her only preoccupation is: what India was, is, and ought to be. There exist Marxist historians of India, some of them quite good, like D D Kosambi, whom Thapar admires. However, they face an enormous difficulty: we have almost no data on the economy and social differences in early India, except in a few inscriptions, and in the shastras (whose date, geographical origin, validity and domain are disputed). So when Thapar wanted to research beyond the role of the individual in history, she did not search for evidence of slavery or feudalism, but instead, turned to an anthropological study of the emergence of Indian states, hence her famous title, From Lineage to States. Her inspiration clearly stemmed from the British school of anthropology, and not Marx. Still, Thapar had to content with the dearth of precise data covering the whole of India, although she did search for such data in archaeological reports, inscriptions, and numismatics. In order to write her narratives, she took part of her inspiration from the eminent foreign historians and anthropologists, whom she would read and meet with. But Thapar stayed Indian. From that point of view, the most interesting pages of Talking History are those wherein she explains the choices a historian has to make. She points out that while writing history always involves selecting some facts, focusing on some themes, and choosing one system of explanation (the one which best fits the data), it is always tainted with some ideo?logy. ?The difference between a good historian and a bad historian is that the good historian makes it clear why and how the selections have been made? (p 207). I would add ?and never distorts the data.? Thapar never distorted the data. Custodian of the Past It is fascinating to see how Thapar stresses that the historians are first, members of their society, and as such, should intervene in the discussions where the past is used as an argument, in order to tell the truth, and point out misrepresentations. Thapar never shirked her responsibility in these domains, both as a historian and a citizen. The title of her book, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, explains her patriotic conception of history. I was admittedly puzzled when I read that huge book of 758 pages, inspired by conversations with the British historian Arnaldo Momigliano and dedicated both to him and to Kosambi. This puzzlement persisted when I read the first lines of its conclusion: The purpose has not been not just to ascertain whether or not there was a sense of history in early India?It has been to search for the forms this might have taken. (Thapar 2013: 681) To a European scholar, this seemed more like history of literature than historiography. Indeed most Indological handbooks begin with that kind of survey of the sources, even if less expanded and far less intelligently written. Moreover vanshavalis (genealogies) are not history. The succession of the kings of England does not teach much about the history of Great Britain. It is only upon reading Talking History that I understood Thapar?s motivations. It becomes evident that The Past Before Us was not meant for foreign readers or scholars. It was meant for Indian readers, in order to tell them that like all peoples, they too had a sense of the past which modelled their views of the present and the future. This sense of the past did not look like the history written by Europeans since Herodotus and Thucydides, but was pan-Indian, and saying so stressed the unity of Indian thought over the whole of the subcontinent. At the same time, it was diverse, different according to times, places, dynasties and creeds. The unity of India was not made by a unified creed, less so one that was supposed to have existed from ?immemorial times? (the so-called sanatana dharma or ?eternal Hinduism?), as espoused by the advocates of Hindutva. Thus, trying to unify India according to only one creed and doctrine, now called Hinduism, does not correspond to its past, essence and destiny. Smritis or Itihasa? This is obviously the underlying purpose of Thapar?s studies of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. In Sanskrit they are called itihasa (thus it was); she calls them ?epics.? But epics are studied by historians of literature. Two centuries of critical studies of the Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, as well as many others, have demonstrated that although they contain reminiscences of the past, they are not historical documents. Historians can use the data these epics preserve, only when they are substantiated by other data, such as archaeological excavations and inscriptions. Still, Thapar argues that she studies the epics as a historian, stating, ?the Mahabharata is telling us primarily about clan society, and how it is organized, how it functions, what are its values, and so on? (p 236). That may be true, but history requires some chronology as well as a geographical location. The main story of the Mahabharata is dated between the 4th century BCE and the 4th century CE. Furthermore, the events it records, and as such the society it depicts, are dated any time between 1500 and 1000 BCE (some even say 4000 BCE). Can one then construct history using a document whose date could lie anywhere between 1200 and 2000 years? Thapar is right in her observation that the Mahabharata depicts a clan society, but when exactly did that society exist? Was it at the time of the great war, when the epic was first recited, or when it was enlarged to its present core? The analysis made by Thapar makes sense only if we consider the present situation of India. Itihasa means a historical narrative, and for many Indians the epics are both religious (smritis)1 and historical documents, true to the facts. The Ramayana is thus at the root of the dispute over the Babri Masjid. By calling them epics and studying them as a historian, Thapar claims that they are man-made poetry, with many layers, with huge variants, not historical documents to be adduced in politics. She could have added (she alludes to it in the first chapter of Talking History) that the epics were also known and appreciated by the Muslims in India, in the same way that many Hindus know Muslim poetry in Urdu. Indeed these epics are fascinating texts for a historian. One would like to understand how the Mahabharata?which recounts a war that took place near Delhi at least 3,000 years ago; whose participants left no descendants; whose heroes, the Pandavas, were modelled on a very ancient Indo?European scheme of five male gods and one goddess, and thus partake of the same wife (an abomination condemned by all the dharmashastras)2?quickly became known over the whole of the subcontinent, and was one of the main vehicles of its ?sanskritisation.? Further, how it could inspire playwriters in far-off Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as well as in South-east Asia and Indonesia; how it still fascinates both Hindu and Muslim Indians, as one witnessed when it aired on television; how it can still attract Pakistani Muslims through Bollywood movies; and how it is now known the world over, are all worth studying. Yet we have no sure data to conduct such a study until the 18th century, except some sculptures, the date and origin of the most ancient manuscripts, and the adaptations made in the ?vernaculars? of India and in Persian. Thapar would have been able to carry out such a study if the data existed; this is precisely what she did in her studies on Shakuntala, and especially in Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. There she is at her best, as she demonstrates how a legend is made, how it develops, as well as how and why one version (often not the most reliable) may become popular and be mistaken for a true historical narrative. Her book also demonstrates the limits of thehistorian?s powers. It could hardlyprevent the rebuilt Somnath temple frombecoming one of the greatesttemples of India. Doyenne of Indian History A review of Thapar?s latest work ought to be much longer, for reading Talking History forces every historian, Indian or foreign, to reflect on what they are doing and what they should do. It also demonstrates how one can take the best of Western authors and thinkers, while still remaining entirely and passionately Indian, true to one?s roots. It reminds professional historians and readers that there exists no neutral history, that historical narratives are always dependent on the vision of their authors, that new nations need roots and search for them in a past which is always reconstructed (and sometimes deliberately imaginary). History played a major role in French and German nationalisms in the 19th century, in 20th century Israel and many other new countries. India is no exception. India can, however, boast having given the world one of the best 20th century historians, a great writer, an innovative scholar, and a true patriot. She is now paying a heavy price for the courage she has demonstrated during her entire life. G?rard Fussman (gerard.fussman[at]college-de-france.fr) is emeritus professor at the College de France, Paris. Notes 1 Religious truths as transmitted by human personages. 2 Hindu codes of laws. Reference Thapar, Romila (2013): The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, Raniketh: Permanent Black. ======================================== 13. COLONIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A FRONTIER: DEBATING THE INNER LINE REGULATION IN SIBSAGAR?NAGA HILLS by Debojyoti Das ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 53, Issue No. 7, 17 Feb, 2018 ? Colonial Construction of a Frontier Colonial Construction of a Frontier Debating the Inner Line Regulation in Sibsagar?Naga Hills Debojyoti Das (ukdebodas[at]yahoo.com) is at the University of Sussex. ?An examination of the emergence, shifts and perceptions surrounding the Inner Line Regulation in the North East Frontier reveals that the Inner Line seems to be more of a civilisational frontier than a territorial one. Regulation of the Inner Line has played an important role in postcolonial political construction of the highland?lowland duality and in the creation of a contested social space in the Sibsagar?Naga Hills. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments and suggestions; the Felix Scholarship for supporting ethnographic and archival field research in Nagaland; and the Christopher Von Furer-Haimendorf Fieldwork Grant, the Royal Anthropological Institute?s Emslie Horniman Grant, and the University of London?s Central Research Fund for supporting 14 months of fieldwork among the Yimchunger Nagas. The author is also grateful to Johan Pottier, Willa Zhen, and Brian Morris for their valuable advice, guidance, and mentorship during the writing of this paper. This paper critically engages with the text (colonial records and correspondences) and the social context that led to the adoption of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, commonly known today as Inner Line Regulation, and further draws attention to its subsequent implementation in the Naga Hills as what is popularly known as the Sibsagar Inner Line, which demarcated the administered and unadministered territories of British India in Sibsagar district (Seebsaugor, as per colonial records), bordering the Naga Hills of the then colonial Assam. The central argument of my paper revolves around the idea that the Inner Line was a political rather than protective tool introduced by the colonial government in the North East India. Contemporary explanations of the Inner Line in social science, historical, and official literature on the North East have a singular understanding of this strategic and complex legislation that altered once and for all the relation of administration over hill tracts with control over population mobility. The Inner Line, as I will argue, was not just an administrative boundary between administered British subjects and those that were unadministered under the common codes of British India jurisprudence; it was also instrumental in the inclusion of territories that were strategic for revenue generation within the general administration of British India. It also acted as an instrument of panoptic control over population mobility between the Assam plains and the Naga Hills. Further, the Inner Line, as I will show, was never static and permanent in the Sibsagar frontier as it constantly oscillated to include and exclude territories that were central to tea plantations and the creation of forest reserves and included tracts that had been identified in surveys as potential sites of rich mineral deposits, primarily coal. Nowhere in the colonial records can we see references to the Naga1 people?s customary rights over the land being maintained by the legislation. Colonial correspondences refer to boundary disputes, claims for wasteland creation, contest over reserving forest, and using the Inner Line to extend control over unclaimed territories of the Nagas. The Inner Line was used conveniently to deny the Nagas the right over their unused (fallow) territories: land used for jhum (slash and burn) agriculture. The populist discourse of the Inner Line, being a type of benevolent protectionist paternalism of the colonial government constituted to safeguard the interest of the hill people in the Naga Hills, broadly undermined the administrative and strategic significance of the Inner Line. In fact, looking at the nature of its adoption and subsequent modification, we see that it denied the native Nagas their claim over territories bordering Sibsagar district. Further, the legislation was strategically used to politically control the hill tribes while protecting the interests of villages and populations in the Assam plains and tea garden estate that were British subjects.2 This historiography is aimed at engaging with the text and context of colonial policymaking in the frontier that was part of the excluded and partially excluded areas of Bengal?s East India frontier. Postcolonial academic and administrative as well as civil society literature gives a very ambivalent picture of the regulation that has been in place for more than a hundred years defining the territorial space of native communities and outsiders (people entering from the plains) in the Naga Hills. The ambivalence of postcolonial writings lies in their underexplored historiography and the claims made based on secondary sources and on personal opinions of colonial writers. Even anthropological writings do not skip populist discourses that appear to be inspired by colonial ethnography that championed ?protectionism of tribal culture? rather than systematic critical enquiry of existing writings and opinions. In fact, there is no historiography that directly deals with the sociopolitical and economic implications and realpolitik of the Inner Line Regulation and how it aided colonial empire building and expansion of state spaces in the North Eastern Frontier of British India. This paper makes a small beginning in this direction, looking at colonial policymaking and how the Inner Line Regulation acted as a governmentality tactic of the colonial local government, interpreted uncritically by postcolonial academic and non-academic spokespersons. While discussing the Inner Line Regulation in the Naga Hills and the policies that guided its adoption and subsequent modification, one has to critically engage with the colonial text focusing on three vital points. First, to investigate the correspondences between the different departments involved in the implementation and modification of the Inner Line. Second, to look at the differences in opinion shared through official queries and responses between local military, administrative, forest, political, and foreign department officials. Third, to analyse the very nature of the regulation and the history of how it came into existence. The idea of the Inner Line emerged in the North East Frontier out of the constraints upon the British Indian government to maintain its territorial boundaries. As one colonial official observed, the limits of the district were at first thrown very far forward, too far to exercise jurisdiction all the way up to the hills; it therefore became necessary to draw a line up to which the colonial administration intended to work. This was the ?Inner Line.?3 The limit of the district as originally proposed became the outer line, and in the intermediate tract it was only proposed to use personal influence. Beyond this Inner Line, the tracts were left unadministered. The outer line was purposely left indefinite so that the Inner Line could be advanced as and when necessary. Arthur Hobhouse, who coined the term ?Inner Line? observed, ?I would call the line by some neutral term, say the ?Inner Line,? and leave its use to be explained by the detailed regulation.?4 [. . .] FULL TEXT AT: http://www.epw.in/journal/2018/7/special-articles/colonial-construction-frontier.html ======================================== 14. SECULARISM AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE Srinivasan Ramani ======================================== The Hindu, March 13, 2018 In this Feb. 21, 2013, photo, Pakistani Shia Muslim children hold candles and banners next to photographs of people, who were killed by a bomb blast in market on Saturday, February 16, 2013, in Quetta, Pakistan. Terrorized by ferocious attacks that have killed nearly 400 ethnic Hazaras in the past 18 months, with almost half of those deaths occurring in the first two months of this year, Shia leaders blamed the inaction of Pakistan?s security service for the rising violence against them in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. | Photo Credit: AP Do secularist parties deal better with religious violence? This is a time when the Islamic world is engulfed in religious violence and also when many Muslim-majority countries in West Asia, northern Africa and South Asia are increasingly adopting democracy as a system of government. Is there a link between electoral outcomes in relatively new democracies with a religious majority and sectarian/ethno-religious violence? Does the presence or the success of moderate/secular outfits limit or exacerbate sectarian violence in such countries? Gareth Nellis and Niloufer Siddiqui sought to answer these questions in ?Secular Party Rule and Religious Violence in Pakistan? in the American Political Science Review in November 2017. The authors looked at closely fought elections in Pakistan from 1988 to 2011, a period featuring a substantive, albeit fragile, democratic political environment, and events involving sectarian violence during that time to find if secularists managed to stamp out such violence better or not. The hypothesis was that secularist parties have constituencies of support among ethno-religious minorities. These minorities face the brunt of sectarian violence and are therefore likely to punish such parties for failing to protect them while in power. The authors found that it was indeed the case that violence was tamped down better when secularists were in power in places where the contest was close and minorities helped swing the election in their favour. They also found that secularists won such elections largely due to their party?s stated positions on secularism rather than the presence of specific political leaders. They also found that the ability of these parties to stem the violence was best when there was a substantive presence of security forces/police. The findings are useful as they indicate that in countries such as Pakistan with a relatively fragile democratic environment, the substantive presence of secularist/moderate forces is more likely to yield outcomes on addressing issues related to religious violence. The authors suggest that international help to moderate/secularist governments would help peace-building efforts in these societies riven by religious tensions. They, however, caution that the findings cannot be directly interpreted to hold true for other Muslim-majority countries that are only newly democratic or have only a fledgling moderate or a secularist force. ======================================== 15. THE STATUE GAME: SHIFTING SIGNIFIERS OF STATIONARY FIGURATION | Ruchir Joshi ======================================== The Telegraph March 13, 2018 The Thin Edge [column] Something there is that doesn't love a statue. Specifically, all statues of kings, queens, leaders and political figures are installed and stay erected at least partly against something, against an idea or against a group of people; and for all the motivation behind the installation of this sort of statue there is also the implication of a counter-force, an opposition, and the statue is also the symbol of the vanquishing of this opposition, of the victory over the countervailing idea or ideology; every statue of a political figure is surrounded by the invisible presence of the obstacles and rivals the figure overcame in his or her lifetime. So, to start with a simple equation: a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte reminds us of the man's victories against the great armies of Europe that were ranged against him, while a statue of Wellington can never quite shake off the ghost of Napoleon who he was most famous for defeating; a statue of Queen Victoria lauds the idea of the British Empire whereas a statue of Gandhi or Nehru alludes to the dismantling of that Empire; statues of Garibaldi, Bismarck and Lenin mark not only the formation of three nation-states, of Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union respectively, but also the defeat of the forces that opposed the formation of those states. At some point, however, things in the statue-game start to get complicated. The title of the story by the Bangla avant-garde writer, Subimal Mishra, "The Corpse of Haaraan Majhi's Widow or the Golden Gandhi Statue", is a bitter satire on the condition of the poor living under the gaze of a golden statue of Gandhi. The idea of a statue of Gandhi, an imaginary, obscenely opulent golden one, challenges what we are told MKG stood for, that is, simplicity, truth, non-violence, and it also skewers the hypocrites who have used the symbol of Gandhi to maintain the status quo in the country and shore up the huge, violently iniquitous gap between the rich and the vast majority of the poor. Gandhi and his legacy have also been challenged by the hundreds of thousands of statues of his sharpest critic, Bhimrao Ambedkar, that have been put up across the country. From another direction, Gandhi's memory has been undercut by the statues and portraits of the men who murdered him or who instigated his murder. Every bust of Nathuram Godse, every portrait or statue of Vinayak Savarkar is testimony to the fact that these men who hated Gandhi and his ideology are revered heroes for a small group of powerful people in this country. History has a habit of playing the cheapest of tricks and so it's unsurprising that these people, who have always hated Gandhi and Ambedkar, now want to have their cake and eat it too, or, to use another old saying 'want a bit of bacon on their beef'; therefore we have the naked effrontery of some political leaders garlanding a statue of Gandhi one day, one of Ambedkar the next and one of Savarkar on the third. When they have spare time, these leaders also manage to include Bhagat Singh (an atheist and an admirer of Lenin) as a garlanding target. Statuary semiotics, or, if you like, the shifting signifiers of stationary figuration, pose all sorts of challenges in changing contexts. I, for instance, grew up in this city where Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao were openly worshipped as deities from the time I was a small boy. Yet, one strong memory I have from that time is going through a book of photographs of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Among the grainy black and white photos of young people protesting on the streets and confronting the Red Army's T-34 tanks, of feet trampling smashed portraits of the then recently dead Stalin, were also images of a huge metal statue of Lenin being brought down. It was a whole sequence of images, ropes being tied around the statue, the ropes being pulled, the figure rupturing from around the ankles and then people standing on the feet-less figure. I understood then that both Stalin and Lenin had become symbols of grotesque oppression, of the subjugation of Hungary by the Soviets, and something in me actually exulted at the fact that people could actually take matters into their own hands and collectively act to destroy such symbols of power. Later down the years we were to see images and footage of many Stalins and Lenins bite the dust, along with the still living Ceausescus and Jaruzelskis. In 2003, we would also see footage of Saddam statues being torn down in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. While all these provided a certain satisfaction, the most satisfying moment had to be when, during mass protests in London, someone climbed on to the statue of Churchill in Parliament Square and placed a lurid green mohawk wig on the old white supremacist's bald head, turning him into an ageing thuggish skinhead. I wondered then, whether it might not be a better idea to leave offending statues in place and do something to them rather than disappear them altogether. Of course such foolish considerations cannot compete with the visceral urge to destroy the visual representation of an ideology or a rival for power. This urge actually goes back a long way beyond modern history. As we know, in older times, kings relished the thought of destroying other kings' deities and temples. This led to Hindu kings destroying innumerable Buddhist and Jain temples and shrines, and also to Hindu kings paying their mercenary Muslim soldiers to destroy the rival Hindu king's temples complete with the gods and goddesses inside. The Muslim kings who destroyed Hindu temples didn't invent the idea, they were merely following this barbaric tradition. From those times to today, some base instincts have remained unchanged and yet other ideas have come into play. The statues of the odious British Empire were removed from New Delhi and planted in a park where coming generations could examine them as artefacts of another age. In Berlin, a lot of the Sovietique monuments and architecture and even some of the Nazi stuff has been kept intact, again, so that it can come under the scrutiny of history. On the other hand, when the CPI(M) rule finally ended here in Bengal, one could completely understand the glee with which the hammer and sickle symbols were painted over on the streets; that was not akin to the destruction of the enemy's statuary, it was more like 'your vandalism of these walls will now be taken over by our vandalism'. You can say that behind every statue of Lenin is the hand of its sculptor, Stalin. You can point out that the whole worship-cult of Lenin (along with the erasure of Trotsky) was instituted by Stalin as part of strengthening his grip on power. In certain contexts you can argue that if wiping out Stalin's evil works means the odd statue of Lenin is also toppled then it can be put down to the genuine progress of the Revolution. And yet, in another context, as in Tripura, the pulling down of a Lenin statue can and should cause outrage. Because it is not so much the Left ideology (which has actually benefited Tripura) that is being ripped up as it is the idea of tolerating Opposition, any Opposition, that is being uprooted. Even as the powers that be spend criminally obscene amounts constructing 'golden' (read massive) statues of Shivaji (him with the Muslim generals) and Vallabh Patel (the implacable enemy of the RSS), even as they garland the portrait of Savarkar in the gallery of the Lok Sabha, they should remember history, its habit of playing nasty tricks and the way it can shift the ground from under solid-looking symbols. ======================================== 16. JASON CONS ON DANIEL HAINES. RIVERS DIVIDED: INDUS BASIN WATERS IN THE MAKING OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN ======================================== Daniel Haines. Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 272 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-064866-4. Reviewed by Jason Cons (University of Texas at Austin) Published on H-Asia (March, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Sharing the Indus Waters Scholarship on state formation, especially in South Asia, has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years. On the one hand, renewed attention to the workings of bureaucracy and infrastructure has directed anthropologists and sociologists back to the everyday workings of the state. On the other hand, renewed attention to the politics of territory making has heralded a set of new ways to think about the historical production of space and borders in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. This later field draws on a rich tradition of scholarship tracing the everyday practices of border formation in the moments leading up to and following Partition, as exemplified by such authors as Willem van Schendel and Joya Chatterji. It also draws on new work in critical geography, perhaps most closely associated with Stuart Elden, on the making of territory. A focus on territory, as much of this new work shows, breathes new life into the study of borders, sovereignty, and security. It opens new ways to understand the relationship between the political technologies of measuring, managing, and controlling space; the material and ecological properties of landscapes; and the affective dimensions of national territory?the politics of blood and soil. Daniel Haines?s excellent and highly readable book is a worthy contribution to this literature. By rewriting the history of the Indus Water Treaty through the lens of territory, Haines shows how landscapes and bodies of water are transformed into political objects?central sites in the making of postcolonial state and nation. In doing so, Haines places environmental politics at the heart of postcolonial South Asian borders. Divided Rivers tells the story of water sharing in the post-Partition Indus basin. The centerpiece of the story is the negotiation around the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. Haines is at pains to complicate narratives of the treaty as a techno-rational solution to an environmental problem. Instead, he situates his discussion of the treaty across scales: addressing both the geopolitics of the Cold War and the everyday, quotidian negotiations of water management across this newly minted border. Haines grounds his analysis in what he argues were emergent, contested, and differential understandings of territory in India and Pakistan. He shows that various projects of working out the relationship between territory and citizenship, nation, identity, and state form the troubled backdrop of the question of water sharing. Indeed, they shaped the specific logics and claims to sovereign control and access to water in a sensitive political space. The book is roughly divided into three sections. In the first two chapters, Haines lays out the logic of his territorial framework. He contrasts an emergent Indian ideology of absolute sovereignty over water flows?an argument that upstream powers can do what they wish with water within their own border?with Pakistan?s downstream claim to a principle of territorial integrity, the right to continue receiving the water to which it has been historically accustomed. Haines traces the ways that these ideologies were leveraged, showing the origins of the Indus dispute as a search for power and legitimacy. The water of the Indus was of critical economic necessity for both states. But the claims to the Indus also were a form of nation making, where control of the water became a marker of fitness to govern. If these two absolutist territorial notions structured political debate, they by no means constitute a comprehensive way to understand the politics of cross-border water. In the subsequent two chapters, Haines goes about complicating these visions by arguing that they were never adequate to explain the actual politics of water management on the ground. He demonstrates this by examining the complicated riverine and political geographies of Kashmir, and the divided canal networks of Punjab. In doing so, he is particularly attentive to the ways that the actual physical shapes and flows of river and canal networks were themselves generative of politics. As he notes, such networks ?were not a neutral backdrop to the playing out of the India-Pakistan rivalry, but actively shaped border disputes? (p. 106). In the final three chapters, Haines gets to the heart of his subject: the 1960 Indus Water Treaty and its aftereffects. Here, he presents a revisionist reading of this process that borrows heavily from scholars of development and techno-politics. He offers a lively exploration of US and the World Bank?s involvement in the water negotiations, showing that the inability of the bank and its representatives to conceive of the problem of water sharing as anything other than a technocratic problem set the stage for a range of increasingly politicized negotiations to come. The treaty, and its agreement to make the control of water systems as mutually independent as possible, was, as Haines shows, an outcome of a highly contingent set of negotiations?the product of a political moment in which cross-border cooperation, temporarily, seemed to enhance political futures of politicians on both sides. Thus, while the treaty may have provided a solution for water sharing, it fundamentally failed to address the sources of tension behind the dispute itself. In a final chapter, Haines assesses the relationship between the Indus Water Treaty and a range of other cross-border water challenges, notably those in Bengal, showing that the image of cooperation that emerged from the Indus Water Treaty was more phantasmagoric than a durable reality. Haines?s book makes for gripping reading. He writes in a lively fashion while still remaining engaged with a range of contemporary theoretical concerns. His study thus productively contributes to a growing critical literature that brings the tools of geography and political ecology to bear on the question of colonial and postcolonial state formation in South Asia. It also articulates new scholarship on the history of development, spearheaded by such authors as Daniel Immerwahr and Nick Cullather. Yet the book?s true strength lies in Haines?s ability to animate the complex geophysical and political details of water sharing and his ability to map the fraught interplay between national (and nationalist) imperative and the everyday demands of making the border work. It offers a strong argument for rethinking history through the lenses of water and territory. The problems with this work are, to my mind, few. Haines?s writing is clear and accessible, making this a book ripe for adoption in graduate and undergraduate classes across multiple fields. But this accessibility does mean that there are lengthy passages that rehearse well-known stories of Partition and its aftermath. These are summaries rather than fresh takes for area experts. Moreover, some of Haines?s claims to the novelty of his approach are perhaps overstated. While putting environmental politics and territory back into the narrative of decolonization may be an unfinished project, it is hardly a novel one in South Asia or beyond. Finally, while Haines is conscious of the ways that issues in river management articulate with other border questions, the book is much more concerned with placing rivers at the heart of debates over the border than with exploring their imbrications with other issues. This is especially notable in his discussion of river sharing in Bengal, where the problem of river management appears as the central problem in postcolonial border negotiations, rather than one of a set of vexed challenges in the newly divided territories. These are minor quibbles with a book that is, overall, an excellent contribution to historicizing notions of territory and animating discussions of environmental politics in colonial and postcolonial settings. Divided Rivers is critical reading for scholars interested in the history of contemporary debates over water sharing in the region. It demonstrates the value of taking hydropolitics seriously: of attending not only to the physical properties of rivers but also to the ways that they become bound up in broader debates about the nature of sovereignty and territory. ======================================== 17. MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: THE U.S. AND RUSSIA MUST STOP THE RACE TO NUCLEAR WAR ======================================== http://time.com/5191433/mikhail-gorbachev-nuclear-weapons-trump-putin-russia/ Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, and President Reagan sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in the White House on Dec. 8, 1987. Reuters By MIKHAIL GORBACHEV March 9, 2018 Mikhail Gorbachev was the president of the Soviet Union and is the author of The New Russia. When I became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, I felt during my very first meetings with people that what worried them the most was the problem of war and peace. Do everything in order to prevent war, they said. By that time, the superpowers had accumulated mountains of weapons; military build-up plans called for ?space combat stations,? ?nuclear-powered lasers,? ?kinetic space weapons? and similar inventions. Thank God, in the end none of them were built. What is more, negotiations between the U.S.S.R. and the United States opened the way to ending the nuclear arms race. We reached agreement with one of the most hawkish U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan, to radically reduce the arsenals. Today, those achievements are in jeopardy. More and more, defense planning looks like preparation for real war amid continued militarization of politics, thinking and rhetoric. The National Security Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review published by U.S. President Donald Trump?s administration in February orients U.S. foreign policy toward ?political, economic, and military competitions around the world? and calls for the development of new, ?more flexible? nuclear weapons. This means lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons even further. Against this backdrop, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his recent address to the Federal Assembly, announced the development in Russia of several new types of weapons, including weapons that no country in the world yet possesses. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, published in Chicago, set the symbolic Doomsday Clock half a minute closer to ?Midnight? in January. As the scientists see it, we are now within two minutes of a global catastrophe. The last time this level of danger was recorded in 1953. The alarm that people feel today is fully justified. How should we respond to this new round of militarization? Above all, we must not give up; we must demand that world leaders return to the path of dialogue and negotiations. The primary responsibility for ending the current dangerous deadlock lies with the leaders of the United States and Russia. This is a responsibility they must not evade, since the two powers? arsenals are still outsize compared to those of other countries. But we should not place all our hopes on the presidents. Two persons cannot undo all the roadblocks that it took years to pile up. We need dialog at all levels, including mobilization of the efforts of both nations? expert communities. They represent an enormous pool of knowledge that should be used in the interest of peace. Things have come to a point where we must ask: Where is the United Nations? Where is its Security Council, its Secretary General? Isn?t it time to convene an emergency session of the General Assembly or a meeting of the Security Council at the level of heads of state? I am convinced that the world is waiting for such an initiative. There is no doubt in my mind that the vast majority of people both in Russia and in the United States will agree that war cannot be a solution to problems. Can weapons solve the problems of the environment, terrorism or poverty? Can they solve domestic economic problems? We must remind the leaders of all nuclear powers of their commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate reductions and eventually the elimination of nuclear weapons. Their predecessors signed that obligation, and it was ratified by the highest levels of their government. A world without nuclear weapons: There can be no other final goal. However dismal the current situation, however depressing and hopeless the atmosphere may seem, we must act to prevent the ultimate catastrophe. What we need is not the race to the abyss but a common victory over the demons of war. ======================================== 18. STEPHEN HAWKING, MODERN COSMOLOGY'S BRIGHTEST STAR, DIES AGED 76 | Ian Sample ======================================== The Guardian 14 March 2018 The physicist and author of A Brief History of Time has died at his home in Cambridge. His children said: ?We will miss him for ever? Stephen Hawking obituary Professor Hawking?s insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in the millions. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Stephen Hawking, the brightest star in the firmament of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in the millions, has died aged 76. His family released a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning confirming his death at his home in Cambridge. Hawking?s children, Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement: ?We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. ?He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world. ?He once said: ?It would not be much of a universe if it wasn?t home to the people you love.? We will miss him for ever.? For fellow scientists and loved ones, it was Hawking?s intuition and wicked sense of humour that marked him out as much as the fierce intellect which, coupled with his illness, came to symbolise the unbounded possibilities of the human mind. I?m not afraid of death, but I?m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first Stephen Hawking Hawking was driven to Wagner, but not the bottle, when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963 at the age of 21. Doctors expected him to live for only two more years. But Hawking had a form of the disease that progressed more slowly than usual. He survived for more than half a century. Hawking once estimated he worked only 1,000 hours during his three undergraduate years at Oxford. ?You were supposed to be either brilliant without effort, or accept your limitations,? he wrote in his 2013 autobiography, My Brief History. In his finals, Hawking came borderline between a first and second class degree. Convinced that he was seen as a difficult student, he told his viva examiners that if they gave him a first he would move to Cambridge to pursue his PhD. Award a second and he threatened to stay at Oxford. They opted for a first. Those who live in the shadow of death are often those who live most. For Hawking, the early diagnosis of his terminal disease, and witnessing the death from leukaemia of a boy he knew in hospital, ignited a fresh sense of purpose. ?Although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before. I began to make progress with my research,? he once said. Embarking on his career in earnest, he declared: ?My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.? He began to use crutches in the 1960s, but long fought the use of a wheelchair. When he finally relented, he became notorious for his wild driving along the streets of Cambridge, not to mention the intentional running over of students? toes and the occasional spin on the dance floor at college parties. The life of Stephen Hawking ? in pictures Hawking?s first major breakthrough came in 1970, when he and Roger Penrose applied the mathematics of black holes to the entire universe and showed that a singularity, a region of infinite curvature in spacetime, lay in our distant past: the point from which came the big bang. Penrose found he was able to talk with Hawking even as the latter?s speech failed. But the main thing that came across was Hawking?s absolute determination not to let anything get in his way. ?He thought he didn?t have long to live, and he really wanted to get as much as he could done at that time,? Penrose said. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark Stephen Hawking In 1974 Hawking drew on quantum theory to declare that black holes should emit heat and eventually pop out of existence. For normal black holes, the process is not a fast one, it taking longer than the age of the universe for a black hole the mass of the sun to evaporate. But near the ends of their lives, mini-black holes release heat at a spectacular rate, eventually exploding with the energy of a million one-megaton hydrogen bombs. Miniature black holes dot the universe, Hawking said, each as heavy as a billion tonnes, but no larger than a proton. His proposal that black holes radiate heat stirred up one of the most passionate debates in modern cosmology. Hawking argued that if a black hole could evaporate into a bath of radiation, all the information that fell inside over its lifetime would be lost forever. It contradicted one of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics, and plenty of physicists disagreed. Hawking came round to believing the more common, if no less baffling explanation, that information is stored at the black hole?s event horizon, and encoded back into radiation as the black hole radiates. Advertisement Marika Taylor, a former student of Hawking?s and now professor of theoretical physics at Southampton University, remembers how Hawking announced his U-turn on the information paradox to his students. He was discussing their work with them in the pub when Taylor noticed he was turning his speech synthesiser up to the max. ?I?m coming out!? he bellowed. The whole pub turned around and looked at the group before Hawking turned the volume down and clarified the statement: ?I?m coming out and admitting that maybe information loss doesn?t occur.? He had, Taylor said, ?a wicked sense of humour.? Hawking?s run of radical discoveries led to his election in 1974 to the Royal Society at the exceptionally young age of 32. Five years later, he became the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, arguably Britain?s most distinguished chair, and one formerly held by Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage and Paul Dirac, the latter one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. Hawking?s seminal contributions continued through the 1980s. The theory of cosmic inflation holds that the fledgling universe went through a period of terrific expansion. In 1982, Hawking was among the first to show how quantum fluctuations ? tiny variations in the distribution of matter ? might give rise through inflation to the spread of galaxies in the universe. In these tiny ripples lay the seeds of stars, planets and life as we know it. ?It is one of the most beautiful ideas in the history of science? said Max Tegmark, a physics professor at MIT. But it was A Brief History of Time that rocketed Hawking to stardom. Published for the first time in 1988, the title made the Guinness Book of Records after it stayed on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for an unprecedented 237 weeks. It sold 10m copies and was translated into 40 different languages. Some credit must go to Hawking?s editor at Bantam, Peter Guzzardi, who took the original title: ?From the Big Bang to Black Holes: A Short History of Time?, turned it around, and changed the ?Short? to ?Brief?. Nevertheless, wags called it the greatest unread book in history. Hawking married his college sweetheart, Jane Wilde, in 1965, two years after his diagnosis. She first set eyes on him in 1962, lolloping down the street in St Albans, his face down, covered by an unruly mass of brown hair. A friend warned her she was marrying into ?a mad, mad family?. With all the innocence of her 21 years, she trusted that Stephen would cherish her, she wrote in her 2013 book, Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen. In 1985, during a trip to Cern, Hawking was taken to hospital with an infection. He was so ill that doctors asked Jane if they should withdraw life support. She refused, and Hawking was flown back to Addenbrooke?s Hospital in Cambridge for a lifesaving tracheotomy. The operation saved his life but destroyed his voice. The couple had three children, but the marriage broke down in 1991. Hawking?s worsening disability, his demands on Jane, and his refusal to discuss his illness, were destructive forces the relationship could not endure, she said. Jane wrote of him being ?a child possessed of a massive and fractious ego,? and how husband and wife became ?master? and ?slave?. Four years later, Hawking married Elaine Mason, one of the nurses employed to give him round-the-clock care. Mason was the former wife of David Mason, who designed the first wheelchair-mounted speech synthesiser Hawking used. The marriage lasted 11 years, during which Cambridgeshire police investigated a series of alleged assaults on Hawking. The physicist denied that Elaine was involved, and refused to cooperate with police, who dropped the investigation. Hawking was not, perhaps, the greatest physicist of his time, but in cosmology he was a towering figure. There is no perfect proxy for scientific worth, but Hawking won the Albert Einstein Award, the Wolf Prize, the Copley Medal, and the Fundamental Physics Prize. The Nobel prize, however, eluded him. My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all Stephen Hawking He was fond of scientific wagers, despite a knack for losing them. In 1975, he bet the US physicist Kip Thorne a subscription to Penthouse that the cosmic x-ray source Cygnus X-1 was not a black hole. He lost in 1990. In 1997, Hawking and Thorne bet John Preskill an encyclopaedia that information must be lost in black holes. Hawking conceded in 2004. In 2012, Hawking lost $100 to Gordon Kane for betting that the Higgs boson would not be discovered. He lectured at the White House during the Clinton administration ? his oblique references to the Monica Lewinsky episode evidently lost on those who screened his speech ? and returned in 2009 to receive the presidential medal of freedom from Barack Obama. His life was played out in biographies and documentaries, most recently The Theory of Everything, in which Eddie Redmayne played him. He appeared on The Simpsons and played poker with Einstein and Newton on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He delivered gorgeous put-downs on The Big Bang Theory. ?What do Sheldon Cooper and a black hole have in common?? Hawking asked the fictional Caltech physicist whose IQ comfortably outstrips his social skills. After a pause, the answer came: ?They both suck.? Hawking has argued that for humanity to survive it must spread out into space, and has warned against the worst applications of artificial intelligence, including autonomous weapons. Hawking was happy to court controversy and was accused of being sexist and misogynist. He turned up at Stringfellows lap dancing club in 2003, and years later declared women ?a complete mystery?. In 2013, he boycotted a major conference in Israel on the advice of Palestinian academics. Some of his most outspoken comments offended the religious. In his 2010 book, Grand Design, he declared that God was not needed to set the universe going, and in an interview with the Guardian a year later, dismissed the comforts of religious belief. ?I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,? he said. He spoke also of death, an eventuality that sat on a more distant horizon than doctors thought. ?I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I?m not afraid of death, but I?m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,? he said. What astounded those around him was how much he did achieve. He leaves three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy, from his first marriage to Jane Wilde, and three grandchildren. ======================================== 19. BANG FOR THE BUCK | ADAM HOCHSCHILD ======================================== New York Review of Books April 5, 2018 Issue Armed in America: A History of Gun Rights from Colonial Militias to Concealed Carry by Patrick J. Charles Prometheus, 555 pp., $28.00 Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz City Lights, 237 pp., $16.95 (paper) Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West by James Pogue Holt, 304 pp., $28.00 (to be published on May 22) John Locher/AP Images Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, December 2015 ?Welcome, Patriots! Gun Show Today,? says a big sign outside the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, just south of San Francisco, where the Republican National Convention nominated Barry Goldwater for president in 1964. Inside, past the National Rifle Association table at the door, a vast room, longer than a football field, is completely filled with rows of tables and display cases. They show every conceivable kind of rifle and pistol, gun barrels, triggers, stocks, bullet keychain charms, Japanese swords, telescopic sights, night-vision binoculars, bayonets, a handgun carrier designed to look like a briefcase, and enough ammunition of every caliber to equip the D-Day landing force. Antique guns on sale range from an ancient musket that uses black powder to a Japanese behemoth that fires a bullet 1.2 inches in diameter. Also arrayed on tables are signs, bumper stickers, and cloth patches you can sew onto your jacket: 9-11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB; THE WALL: IF YOU BUILD IT THEY CANT COME; HUNTING PERMIT UNLIMITED FOR ISIS. Perhaps 90 percent of those strolling the aisles are men, and at least 98 percent are white. They wear enough beards and bushy mustaches to stuff a good-sized mattress. At one table a man is selling black T-shirts that show a map of California in red, with a gold star and hammer and sickle. Which means? ?This state?s gone Communist. And I hate to say it, but it was Reagan that gave it to them. The 1986 amnesty program?which granted legal status to some 2.7 million undocumented immigrants.? If reason played any part in the American love affair with guns, things would have been different a long time ago and we would not have so many mass shootings like the one that took the lives of seventeen high school students in Parkland, Florida on February 14. Almost everywhere else in the world, if you proposed that virtually any adult not convicted of a felony should be allowed to carry a loaded pistol?openly or concealed?into a bar, a restaurant, or classroom, people would send you off for a psychiatric examination. Yet many states allow this, and in Iowa, a loaded firearm can be carried in public by someone who?s completely blind. Suggest, in response to the latest mass shooting, that still more of us should be armed, and people in most other countries would ask you what you?re smoking. Yet this is the NRA?s answer to the massacres in Orlando, Las Vegas, Newtown, and elsewhere, and after the Parkland killing spree, President Trump suggested arming teachers. One bumper sticker on sale here shows the hammer and sickle again with GUN FREE ZONES KILL PEOPLE. ADVERTISING Nor, when it comes to national legislation, do abundantly clear statistics have any effect. In Massachusetts, which has some of America?s most restrictive firearms laws, three people per 100,000 are killed by guns annually, while in Alaska, which has some of the weakest, the rate is more than seven times as high. Maybe Alaskans need extra guns to fend off bears, but that?s certainly not so in Louisiana, another weak-law state, where the rate is more than six times as high as in Massachusetts. All developed nations regulate firearms more stringently than we do; compared with the citizens of twenty-two other high-income countries, Americans are ten times more likely to be killed by guns. In the last fifty years alone, more civilians have lost their lives to firearms within the United States than have been killed in uniform in all the wars in American history.1 Congress, terrified of the NRA, not only ignores such data but has shielded manufacturers and dealers from any liability for firearms deaths, and has prevented the Centers for Disease Control from doing any studies of gun violence. As of last October?the figure has doubtless risen since then?the top ten recipients of direct or indirect NRA campaign funds in the US Senate had received more than $42 million from the organization over the past thirty years. Funneling a river of money to hundreds of other members of Congress as well, the NRA has certainly gotten what it pays for. In Armed in America, Patrick J. Charles points out that after each horrendous mass shooting, like the one we?ve just seen at Parkland, not only does the NRA once again talk about good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns, but gun purchases soar and stock prices of their makers rise. However, only a tiny fraction of the more than 30,000 Americans killed by guns each year die in these mass shootings. Roughly two thirds are suicides; the rest are more mundane homicides, and about five hundred are accidents. Some 80,000 additional people are injured by firearms each year. All these numbers would be far less if we did not have more guns than people in the United States, and if they were not so freely available to almost anyone. Although not the definitive study of the NRA that David Cole called for in these pages recently,2 Armed in America does cast a shrewd eye on what is probably the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington. For almost a century the NRA has pursued a two-faced strategy. It ?would tout itself to lawmakers as the foremost supporter of reasonable firearms restrictions. At the same time, the NRA informed the gun-rights community that virtually all firearms restrictions would either make gun ownership a crime or somehow lead to disarmament.? The NRA presents itself to the public as ?a voice of compromise? and boasts of its courses in gun safety, but skillfully mobilizes its five million members and annual budget of more than $300 million to make sure Congress never passes any meaningful gun control. The poignant, outspoken campaigning by the Florida high schoolers who survived the Parkland shooting may spur somewhat tightened gun control in a few states, but, at least at the national level, don?t expect new laws to be sweeping and significant. The Koch brothers have been major financial supporters of the NRA because it so reliably turns out right-wing voters on election day. A vocal and militant NRA also helps protect people like the Kochs by encouraging the illusion that the real source of political power in America is gun ownership?rather than, say, great wealth. Guns were essential tools in our early history, but as the frontier disappeared, a mystique about them grew only stronger. Charles quotes Sports Afield from 1912: ?Perfect freedom from annoyance by petty lawbreakers is found in a country where every man carries his own sheriff, judge and executioner swung on his hip.? Last year, someone who would dearly love to wield such powers against his enemies became the first sitting president to address the NRA in more than three decades. ?The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end,? Donald Trump told the organization?s annual convention. ?You have a true friend and champion in the White House.? For more than a century, the NRA and its opponents have argued over the meaning of that amendment: ?A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.? Gun enthusiasts claim that this protects almost anyone who wants to carry a rifle down the street or a pistol to church, and therefore that gun control violates the Constitution. Liberals, on the other hand, maintain fervently that the rights granted by the Second Amendment refer only to a ?well regulated Militia,? such as that which fought the redcoats at Lexington and Concord or that makes up the National Guard today. Charles takes the second position, which he argues at ponderous length, firing salvos at rival scholars and tracing the amendment?s ancestry back to Britain?s Militia Acts of 1661 and 1662. Yet something feels sterile about this dispute over what the Founding Fathers had in mind. It is tragic that we should still have to battle over the intentions of that assembly of men in frock coats and powdered wigs when, all around us, the carnage from gun violence continues. And so it was with little appetite that I picked up yet another book that takes the history of guns back to colonial times, but Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz?s Loaded is like a blast of fresh air. She is no fan of guns or of our absurdly permissive laws surrounding them. But she does not merely take the liberal side of the familiar debate. ?Neither party,? she writes of that long squabble, ?seems to have any idea what the Second Amendment was originally about.? Of course the amendment was written with militias in mind, she says, but, during and after the colonial era, just what were those militias? They were not merely upstanding citizens protecting themselves against foreign tyrants like King George III. They also searched for runaway slaves and seized land from Native Americans, often by slaughter. Loaded quotes former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson: ?Without guns, there would be no West.? But in this sense, the West began at the Atlantic seaboard, where settler militias were organized from the seventeenth century onward. Before long, members could collect bounties for the heads or scalps of Native Americans?an early case, incidentally, of the privatization of warfare. When the thirteen colonies declared their independence, one grievance was the king?s Royal Proclamation of 1763, by which the British, fretting over the expense of sending troops across the Atlantic to fight endless Indian wars, placed land beyond the Appalachian-Allegheny mountain range off-limits to white settlement. Many well-armed settlers, however, thirsted for that land and crossed the mountains to take it. Among them was the eager young George Washington, who went on to make a fortune speculating in land far to the west of coastal Virginia where he had been born. As settlement expanded across the Great Plains, US Army troops took over the job of suppressing the doomed Native American resistance, but militias had long preceded them. The militias also kept slaves in line. Dunbar-Ortiz quotes a North Carolina legal handbook of 1860 on such duties: ?The patrol shall visit the negro houses in their respective districts as often as may be necessary, and may inflict a punishment, not exceeding fifteen lashes, on all slaves they may find off their owner?s plantations?[and] shall be diligent in apprehending all runaway negroes.? If a captured slave behaved ?insolently? the militia could administer up to thirty-nine lashes. Some militias, such as the Texas Rangers, did double duty, both seizing land and hunting down escaped slaves. After the Civil War, when the South was still awash in guns and ammunition, militias morphed easily into the Ku Klux Klan?and into private rifle clubs; by 1876 South Carolina alone had more than 240. Cleansed of its origins, some of this history has been absorbed into our culture. Dunbar-Ortiz comes, she tells us, from rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a ?proletarian cowboy,? and grew up on romantic stories of bandits like Jesse James who were said to be American Robin Hoods. But who was Jesse James? He was a veteran of a particularly brutal militia, in which he had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Men like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Dunbar-Ortiz points out, have been sanitized in a different way, remembered not as conquerors of Native American or Mexican land, but as frontiersmen roaming the wilderness in their fringed deerskin clothing?and as skilled hunters. This has powerful resonance with many gun owners today, who hunt, or once did, or at least would like to feel in themselves an echo of the hunter: fearless, proud, self-sufficient, treading in the footsteps of pioneers. One of those fringed leather jackets (although not deerskin, the salesman acknowledges) is on sale at the gun show, as is a huge variety of survival-in-the-wilderness gear: canteens, beef jerky, buffalo jerky, bear repellent, and hundreds of knives, many of them lovingly laid out on fur pelts: coyote, beaver, muskrat, possum, and the softest, badger. The early militias are one strand of ancestry Dunbar-Ortiz identifies for gun enthusiast groups like the NRA. Another is the legacy of America?s wars?not those with defined front lines, like the two world wars and Korea, but the conflicts in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan.3 In those wars it was often unclear who was friend and who was enemy, mass killings of civilians were common, and many a military man evoked the days of the Wild West. General Maxwell Taylor, Lyndon B. Johnson?s ambassador to South Vietnam, for instance, called for more troops so that the ?Indians can be driven from the fort and the settlers can plant corn.? One of the greatest predictors of American gun ownership today is whether someone has been in the military: a veteran is more than twice as likely as a nonveteran to own one or more guns. Among the bumper stickers and signs at the gun show are JIHAD FREE ZONE and I?LL SEE YOUR JIHAD AND RAISE YOU A CRUSADE; the latter shows a bloody sword. Many a vet is strolling the aisles, happy to talk about fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. The first of the chain of mass shootings that have bedeviled the United States over the last half-century or so, from atop a tower at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, was by Charles Whitman, an ex-Marine. The passion for guns felt by tens of millions of Americans also has deep social and economic roots. The fervor with which they believe liberals are trying to take all their guns away is so intense because so much else has been taken away. In much of the South, in the Rust Belt along the Great Lakes, in rural districts throughout the country, young people are leaving or sinking into addiction and jobs are disappearing. These hard-hit areas have not shared the profits of Silicon Valley and its offshoots or the prosperity of coastal cities from Seattle to New York. Even many of his supporters know in their hearts that Trump can never deliver on his promises to bring back coal mining and restore abundant manufacturing jobs. But the one promise he, and other politicians, can deliver on is to protect and enlarge every imaginable kind of right to carry arms. People passionate about guns often display a sense of being under siege, left behind, pushed down, at risk. One of the large paper targets on sale at the gun show shows a scowling man aiming a pistol at you. On bumper stickers, window signs, flags, is the Revolutionary era DON?T TREAD ON ME, with its image of a coiled rattlesnake. At one table, two men are selling bulletproof vests. For $500 you can get an eight-pound one whose plates?front, back, side?are made of lightweight compressed polyethylene. ?They used to use it to line the bottom of combat helicopters,? said one of the men. For only $300, you can get one with steel plates, but it weighs twenty-three pounds. Also on sale is a concealable vest that goes under your clothing: medium, large, and X-large for $285; XX-large and XXX-large for $315. Who buys these? I ask. ?Everybody?who sees the way the world is going.? The most bellicose descendants of the American militias of centuries past are the forces that go under the same name today. We have seen a lot of these camouflage-clad men (and the occasional woman) in the past few years: striding through Charlottesville, Virginia, last August with their rifles and walkie-talkies under Confederate flags, traveling in convoys with gun barrels poking through the windows of pickup trucks and SUVs to camp near the Mexican border and watch for immigrants slipping across, and, most often, tangling with US Forest Service or other federal officials in theatrically orchestrated standoffs over the use of federal land in the Far West. Four hundred armed militiamen were on the scene in 2014 at the height of a standoff in Nevada; one hundred appeared at another in Montana the next year, and three hundred at one in Oregon the year after that. Similar armed confrontations have taken place in New Mexico, Texas, and California, and a militia leader from Utah was arrested in 2016 after apparently trying to bomb a Bureau of Land Management outpost in Arizona. Between 2010 and 2014 alone there were more than fifty attacks on BLM or Forest Service employees, including two by snipers. James Pogue?s Chosen Country is a young journalist?s account of spending many weeks with participants in several of these western land occupations. A would-be Hunter S. Thompson, he includes far more than you want to know about his own drinking, smoking, drug use, tattoos, girlfriends, beloved grandmother, and brushes with the law. Nonetheless, there is an extravagant verve to his writing (three armed riflemen at a roadblock ?gave us looks sort of like what you?d give a couple of college boys you found at your daughter?s slumber party?; young militiamen romanticize ?a glossy magical cowboy past?) and, more important, amid the overblown gonzo riffs, he has genuine compassion for the suffering of some of those ?on the angrier fringes of the rancher subculture.? The Endangered Species Act has thrown both loggers and ranchers out of work, and even though there are good reasons for limiting grazing on federal land (such as preventing erosion or the pollution of drinking water), a new restriction can push a small struggling sheep farmer into bankruptcy. Pogue gets in amazingly deep with these western rebels, even joining a carful of them on a madcap expedition to Salt Lake City to enlist Mormon elders in defusing one standoff. But he is wise enough to know that those who will really benefit from any privatization of the vast federally owned territory in the West are not the militiamen with their ?Ranchers? Lives Matter? yard signs but those who have the capital to exploit the land?s riches: agribusiness, mining companies, oil and gas drillers. It?s no surprise that many of those interests enthusiastically support the militia occupations. Alon Reininger/Contact Press Images Beretta handguns at an NRA convention, San Antonio, Texas, April 1991 There are rivalries aplenty between various militia groups, but one undercurrent in almost all of them, whether spoken or denied, is white nationalism. The first attempt to plant a private militia on the Mexican border was made by David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan. Of African-Americans, Cliven Bundy, patriarch of the family behind several of the western land standoffs, has said, ?I?ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton??? Two of Bundy?s sons were among those who occupied federal buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon; one of their collaborators had recently aired a video that showed him wrapping pages of the Koran in bacon and setting them on fire. The Malheur occupiers rifled through a collection of Native American relics, and turned the site of a nearby archaeological dig containing more artifacts into a latrine. It is not hard to see the continuity with the militias of two hundred years ago. American right-wingers in uniform have been around since the Nazi and blackshirt groups of the 1930s. Later militias came and went; a new wave of them was spurred into being by the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Their ideology tends to echo that of others on the far right: the New World Order and its minions (the Kenyan-born Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, most people in Hollywood, and many others) favor the spotted owl over loggers and ranchers and black people over white, patrol the skies with black helicopters, and are conspiring to flood the United States with immigrants and refugees, install United Nations rule, impose Sharia law, and seize guns from their rightful owners. As long as I?m alive and breathing, sings the country and western artist (and Trump supporter) Justin Moore, You won?t take my guns. One bumper sticker on sale at the gun show says, AMERICA HAS BEEN OCCUPIED BY GLOBALIST FORCES. Militias go farther than other right-wing groups in promising to resist this imposition of the New World Order with arms. ?When the ballot box doesn?t work,? says John Trochmann, founder of the Militia of Montana, ?we?ll switch to the cartridge box.? Some of this, of course, is hot air. The number of active militia groups actually fell by 40 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors the movement closely. One ?key factor? was that when the brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their followers seized buildings at Malheur in early 2016, the federal government hung tough, shooting dead one militia leader when he tried to pull a gun on officers at a roadblock, arresting many more, and indicting them on serious charges. There has been one huge change since then: the election of Donald Trump. A few years before, during an earlier standoff, Trump voiced qualified support for Cliven Bundy. (He was uneasy about the occupation and suggested Bundy cut a deal with Obama, but said, ?I like him, I like his spirit, his spunk, and the people that are so loyal?. I respect him.?) Several friends of the Bundys or supporters of their Malheur occupation became prominent Trump backers, and one, oilman Forrest Lucas, was on the president?s shortlist for secretary of the interior. A judge?s recent declaration of a mistrial was the latest in a series of setbacks the government has had in prosecuting the Bundys. Since the election, militia members have been increasingly visible around the country, providing ?security? for right-wing demonstrators and speakers. One such speaker is Cliven Bundy, newly released from jail. And, in contrast to their decline as Obama cracked down on the land occupations, under Trump the number of armed militia groups in the United States has soared ominously, from 165 in 2016 to 273 in 2017. What happens with them next? I see two dangers. The first is that the next militia standoff over a federal land occupation in the West may end differently. It is hard to imagine Trump?s Justice Department firmly enforcing the law against people who so represent the concentrated essence of his base. Does that mean that the armed seizure of some National Forest land, say, might be unhindered and become permanent? And might that, in turn, encourage dozens of similar land grabs? The rural areas of western states are filled with people?including thousands of county sheriffs? deputies and other state and local officeholders?who believe no one should tell them where they can?t graze their cattle, hunt game, cut a tree, or dig for gold. And what right do the feds have to own all that land, anyway? Promoting oil drilling in National Parks, Trump clearly feels the same way. The second danger is this: Trump may well be forced out of office?by defeat in 2020 if not by other means before then. If that occurs, we know it will be a stormy process, in which he will try in every possible way to inflame and rally his supporters, with more dark charges of ?rigged? voting if he loses the election. To anyone on the far right his defeat or removal will be virtual proof of a conspiracy to restore the New World Order. Will these gun-toting men in boots and camouflage flak jackets accept his departure from the White House quietly? And, if they can?t prevent it, will they somehow take revenge? ? March 8, 2018 1 If you want to arm yourself with such statistics for arguments with gun enthusiasts, you?ll find plenty in ?Guns Don?t Kill People, People Kill People? and Other Myths about Guns and Gun Control by Dennis A. Henigan (Beacon, 2016), although the book?s usefulness is hampered by the lack of an index. ? 2 ?The Terror of Our Guns,? July 14, 2016. ? 3 Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Kathleen Belew (Harvard University Press, 2018) makes the same point, by tracing the roots of much white racist violence from the 1970s through the early 1990s to the Vietnam War and some of its veterans. ? _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 18:00:17 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 03:30:17 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_17_March_2018_=7C_Sri_Lanka=3A_Emancipat?= =?windows-1252?Q?ory_Politics_/_Bangladesh=3A_bruising_of_histor?= =?windows-1252?Q?y_/_Pakistan=3A_Guns_or_books=3F_/_India_Pakist?= =?windows-1252?Q?an_Diplomatic_Tit_for_Tat_/_India=3A_Authoritar?= =?windows-1252?Q?ian_Populism_in_Noida_/_Don=92t_let_Afrin_becom?= =?windows-1252?Q?e_the_next_Srebrenica_/_USA=3A_Schools_and_NRA_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Money?= Message-ID: <710DCA3E-E5D4-47A9-8645-701BE92EB747@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 17 March 2018 - No. 2977 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Missile worship not warranted | Pervez Hoodbhoy 2. Pakistan: Guns or books? | Zubeida Mustafa 3. Reserves for Emancipatory Politics in Post - war Northern Sri Lanka | Ahilan Kadirgamar and Niyanthini Kadirgamar 4. Contested Spaces, Political Practices, and Hindutva: Spatial Upheaval and Authoritarian Populism in Noida, India | Ritanjan Das, Nilotpal Kumar and Praveen Priyadarshi 5. Video: How Indian Engineers Helped Stephen Hawking ?talk? 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Inter-caste love marriage - Pushpanjali?s story is one of grand love and its devastating loss | Natasha Badhwar - India: Gauri Lankesh murder probe - Second suspect tied to Goa blast, is an activist of Sanatan Sanstha, the radical Hindutva outfit - India: R Prasad? cartoon following the Gorakhpur ByPoll where the BJP lost in march 2018 - India: In Odisha, no blood spilt but the fires of communal hatred are touching the skies | Harsh Mander - India: Hindu-Muslim and RSS Chief Bhagwat - India: 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case - Swami Aseemanand?s ?disclosure? file missing from court ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. India - Pakistan: The strategy of conflict | Happymon Jacob 8. India Pakistan Diplomatic Tit for Tat continues 9. Revised Afghan penal code ends impunity for ?honour killings 10. The bruising of history | Syed Badrul Ahsan 11. India: Begum Hamida, pioneer in women empowerment, dies at 101 | Omar Rashid 12. India: Tribune Editor Harish Khare Puts in His Papers - growing anxieties about the state of the media 13. 14. Water Scarcity: India?s Silent Crisis | Neeta Lal 14. Book Review: Call of Empire - From the Highlands to Hindostan 15. Feminism across borders: Don?t let Afrin become the next Srebrenica | Robert Hockett, Anna-Sara Malmgren 16. Marine Le Pen?s new disguise: a bid to rebrand her far-right party as the ?National Rally? | Pauline Bock 17. What Could A Corbyn Government Inside Europe Mean For The EU?s Future ? | Mary Kaldor 18. USA: Why Are Schools Still Accepting NRA Money? | Sophie Kasakove ======================================== 1. MISSILE WORSHIP NOT WARRANTED by Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== Every time Pakistan test-launches a Shaheen or India an Agni, subcontinental testosterone levels shoot sky high. The fiery plumes carry aloft a nuclear-capable missile that can lay a city to waste. Iranians, though not nuclear, have their Ashouras, Emads and Shahabs. As for the North Koreans, they celebrate with fireworks and street parties when their Little Rocket Man sends up an ICBM to annoy the Deranged Dotard who, in turn, threatens them with total annihilation. http://www.sacw.net/article13685.html ======================================== 2. PAKISTAN: GUNS OR BOOKS? by Zubeida Mustafa ======================================== Balochistan?s biggest tragedy is the education emergency there http://www.sacw.net/article13681.html ======================================== 3. RESERVES FOR EMANCIPATORY POLITICS IN POST - WAR NORTHERN SRI LANKA | Ahilan Kadirgamar and Niyanthini Kadirgamar ======================================== Historically, Sri Lanka is an interesting case; in terms of the history of import substitution regimes, the early emergence of neoliberal policies, the over-determination of politics by nationalist movements and for decades when the war isolated its northern region from neoliberal globalisation. Neoliberal policies in Sri Lanka were initiated before the rise of Reagan and Thatcher in 1977 with the authoritarian regime of President Jayawardena (Herring, 1987; Lakshman, 1980). The politics in the country both before and during the neoliberal era were shaped by Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil nationalisms as well as populist measures. http://www.sacw.net/article13682.html ======================================== 4. Contested Spaces, Political Practices, and Hindutva: Spatial Upheaval and Authoritarian Populism in Noida, India | Ritanjan Das, Nilotpal Kumar and Praveen Priyadarshi ======================================== Contemporary India is showing increasing signs of ?competitive? authoritarian populism (Levitsky and Way, 2010). The mainstream political discourse in the country is dominated by the sectarian religious forces of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, serving as the agency of a development narrative that promises to return India to its ?greatness of yore?. In this paper, we examine the case of Noida, an upcoming satellite township adjacent to the capital New Delhi, to describe a process of spatial upheaval that is leading to continuous practices of ?othering?. These processes are enabling the Hindutva forces to take root locally. In effect, we argue that local space-making has an intrinsic relationship with authoritarian populism, and it therefore needs to be at the analytical forefront. http://www.sacw.net/article13684.html ======================================== 5. Video: How Indian Engineers Helped Stephen Hawking ?talk? ======================================== http://www.sacw.net/article13680.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Inter-caste love marriage - Pushpanjali?s story is one of grand love and its devastating loss | Natasha Badhwar - India: Gauri Lankesh murder probe - Second suspect tied to Goa blast, is an activist of Sanatan Sanstha, the radical Hindutva outfit - India: R Prasad? cartoon following the Gorakhpur ByPoll where the BJP lost in march 2018 - India: In Odisha, no blood spilt but the fires of communal hatred are touching the skies | Harsh Mander - India: Hindu-Muslim and RSS Chief Bhagwat - India: 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case - Swami Aseemanand?s ?disclosure? file missing from court -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. INDIA - PAKISTAN: THE STRATEGY OF CONFLICT | Happymon Jacob ======================================== The Hindu March 16, 2018 India must work towards some understanding with Pakistan before the situation on the border spins out of control A little over two months into 2018, the violence on the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) stretch of the India-Pakistan border has reached a new high: more than 633 ceasefire violations (CFVs) by Pakistan have been reported by New Delhi which have claimed the lives of 12 civilians and 10 soldiers. Many more have been injured and several civilian habitats along the border destroyed. Till the first week of March, Pakistan reported 415 CFVs by India which have claimed 20 civilian lives (there is no data on Pakistani military casualties). The calibre of weapons used on the border have also graduated from short-range personal weapons to 105 mm mortars, 130 and 155 mm artillery guns and anti-tank guided missiles. With the rising violence, casualties and upcoming elections in both countries, we may have a perfect recipe for escalation on our hands. The question we must ask ourselves at this point, then, is this: is this sheer mindless violence, or is there a strategy behind this violence? And if there indeed is a strategy, is it a carefully calibrated one and what are its likely outcomes? Ever since the ceasefire agreement (CFA) of 2003, New Delhi seems to have followed three broad strategies to deal with the violence on the J&K border. These three approaches ? ?talks over bullets?, ?talks and bullets?, and ?disproportionate bombardment? ? have identifiable costs and benefits associated with them. ?Talks over bullets? The years immediately after the 2003 CFA witnessed a great deal of calm on the borders with CFVs dropping to a minimum even though infiltration into J&K and sporadic, minor terror attacks against India continued to take place. There were no major terror attacks, and Kashmir was calm. Bilateral talks drastically reduced violence during that phase. This lasted roughly till 2008. Another phase when this strategy was evident was following Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s visit to Lahore. Thanks to the rapprochement achieved by his visit, the period from December 2015 to February 2016 hardly witnessed any CFVs, despite the Pathankot Air Force base attack in early January 2016. The benefits of this strategy, adopted mostly by the previous United Progressive Alliance government and briefly by the incumbent National Democratic Alliance government, are evident. Engagement with Pakistan and quiet on the border are strongly correlated. The downside, however, is that New Delhi feels that it tried the strategy of peace and talks several times in the past and failed to get a positive response from Pakistan. This has led to a great deal of bitterness in India. Failure of this strategy has been due to the periodic terror attacks carried out against India, infiltration into J&K and the rise of militancy in Kashmir, in all of which India sees significant contribution of the Pakistani establishment. While there are benefits of talks, they are neither consistent nor without political costs. Put differently, the costs of ?talks over bullets? strategy, in New Delhi?s calculation, seem to outweigh the benefits. ?Talks and bullets? The second strategy has been to engage in talks while proportionately responding to Pakistani provocations. The period from 2010 to 2012 seems to fall in this category. Consider this: the two sides engaged each other in talks during this time and CFVs reduced significantly ? India reported 70 violations in 2010, 62 in 2011 and 114 in 2012. In 2010, the two Foreign Secretaries met in New Delhi, followed by the two Foreign Ministers meeting in Islamabad. In 2011, the two Foreign Secretaries met in Thimphu, and in 2012 the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers issued a joint statement in Islamabad. While the talks went on, the firing on the J&K borders did not come to a complete halt. Both talks and firing persisted, though at moderate levels. The benefits of this game of proportionate response ? ?talks for talks and bullets for bullets? ? which went on without much fuss are clear: very little risk of escalation, fewer casualties and limited destruction. However, this strategy comes with major political costs. Hardliners and the opposition in India criticised the Manmohan Singh government of being weak, in particular when the beheadings of Indian soldiers took place in 2013, and reports indicated an increasing spate of what India refers to as BAT (border action team) operations by the Pakistan army. The political costs of not upping the ante against Pakistan seemed to outweigh its military benefits. ?Disproportionate bombardment? The third Indian strategy is disproportionate bombardment of the Pakistani side using high calibre weapons while not showing any desire for talks, negotiations or concessions, and shunning Pakistani suggestions thereof. India?s reported rejection, in January, of a Pakistani proposal for a meeting between the two Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs), saying it first wanted to see a drop in infiltration levels is a direct outcome of this strategy. The domestic component of this strategy also involves a great deal of politicisation of the Indian Army?s feats on or across the Line of Control, such as the surgical strikes against Pakistan in September 2016. CFVs since April 2016 and the current state of India-Pakistan relations are largely informed by this strategy. Despite the rising terrorist attacks inside J&K and the increasing CFVs, there has been hardly any dialogue (barring the meeting between the two National Security Advisors in Bangkok, which achieved precious little). India, according to Pakistan, violated the ceasefire 389 times from April to December 2016, and in 2017 over 2,000 times, with the trend continuing this year. India reported 449 violations by Pakistan in 2016, and 860 in 2017. The benefits of this disproportionate bombardment strategy are too obvious to miss. Its domestic political utility is enormous given the surprisingly few questions being asked of the government about the rising civilian and military casualties. The ?we kill more than they do? argument, combined with the ?surgical strikes? narrative, creates a powerful political discourse laden with potential electoral benefits for the ruling dispensation in New Delhi. There are inherent costs associated with this strategy. First, the disproportionate bombardment strategy could potentially escalate to worrying levels ? a rising toll could reverse popular support for the current muscular approach. Second, more killing and destruction would also steadily shrink the space available for negotiated outcomes with Pakistan. Finally, the current media frenzy surrounding the border violence and the associated nationalist sentiments could become a worry for the government if and when it wishes to negotiate with Pakistan. Pakistan?s three-fold strategy Pakistan seems to adopt a three-fold strategy on the J&K border informed by its conventional inferiority vis-?-vis India: keep the violence on the border carefully calibrated without upping the ante; seek meaningful talks on Kashmir to turn down the rhetoric on Kashmir and infiltration into J&K; propose tactical measures to reduce violence on the borders such as DGMO talks and reduction in the calibre of weapons, without giving up its claims and interests in Kashmir. In other words, Pakistan is looking for either conflict management vis-?-vis the J&K border or a major dialogue process to resolve the Kashmir issue. There is then a clear mismatch between the expectations and strategies of New Delhi and Islamabad/Rawalpindi. Whereas India is looking for an end to cross-border infiltration and Pakistani involvement in Kashmir in return for an end to shelling on the border, Pakistan is desirous of a resolution of or meaningful talks on Kashmir in return for calm borders and cracking down on anti-India terror groups in Pakistan. The two sides must therefore try and find a via media between these two differing sets of expectations if they wish to bring down the violence on the J&K border that is increasingly spiralling out of control. Happymon Jacob teaches Indian Foreign Policy at JNU and curates an online archive on the India-Pakistan conflict ======================================== 8. INDIA PAKISTAN DIPLOMATIC TIT FOR TAT CONTINUES ======================================== Amid allegations of harassment and intimidation of diplomats of both countries, Pakistan?s High Commissioner to India Sohail Mahmood on Wednesday said that ?current approach and methods? only go against the diplomatic efforts to make progress, and a ?rethink? is needed in the current circumstances. This comment came, even as it came to light that tension has been brewing between the two sides for a couple of months ? one of the incidents involved the doorbell of the Indian deputy High Commissioner J P Singh being rung at 3 am. Since the Indian side felt that this was done by Pakistan?s security agencies, the Pakistan deputy high commissioner Syed Haider Shah?s door bell was also rung at 3 am in next few days. [. . .] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/spat-with-india-forcing-rethink-says-pakistan-envoy-sohail-mahmood-5098274/ ======================================== 9. REVISED AFGHAN PENAL CODE ENDS IMPUNITY FOR ?HONOUR KILLINGS ======================================== https://news.un.org/en/audio/2018/03/1004992 ======================================== 10. THE BRUISING OF HISTORY by Syed Badrul Ahsan ======================================== Dhaka Tribune March 15, 2018 When history is set aside in the interest of half-truths There are hordes of people in the Awami League whose understanding of history is misplaced. Or you could say significant segments of history are deliberately set aside in the interest of a dissemination of half-truths. When some years ago Sharmin Ahmad came up with a work on her father Tajuddin Ahmad (Neta O Pita), many in the ruling party were incensed. That ought not to have been the case. Works of a political nature almost always evoke public debate, but when debate is pushed aside by invective, it is collective national self-esteem which suffers. And that self-esteem informs us, in no uncertain manner, that in the absence of Bangabandhu in 1971, it was Tajuddin Ahmad who led the battlefield strategy for liberation. It is a truth underplayed by the Awami League. And, therefore, it is an attitude which turns into a weapon against the party in the hands of its detractors. Not long ago, the mother and son team dominating the Bangladesh Nationalist Party went stirring up fresh controversy over matters already settled in history. They suddenly stumbled on the truth that Ziaur Rahman was Bangladesh?s first president, that indeed he was the man who first proclaimed the independence of this country. We were not surprised, for distortions and lies have, with a fair degree of regularity, drilled holes in the history of the sub-continent. In modern times, the very first attempt to undermine history came in 1905, when the British colonial power decided that Bengal needed to be partitioned in the interest of a better administration of the region. But governance does not have to depend on an exercise of authority through effecting a shrinkage in area of the territory concerned, but the colonizers did it anyway. That original distortion was pushed aside, mercifully, six years later in 1911. A clear distortion of history and heritage became the goal of the All-India Muslim League when it decided, at its March 1940 session in Lahore, that India needed to be partitioned in order for Muslims to have a state of their own. The otherwise suave, educated Mohammad Ali Jinnah came forth with the discovery that religious communities were indeed nations. And so it was that he needed Pakistan for his ?Muslim nation.? The ramifications of that act are yet being felt, all these decades later. A major distortion of history resorted to by Jinnah came in 1946, when he deftly and stealthily replaced the phrase ?independent states? recorded in the 1940 Lahore Resolution with ?independent state? and tried to pass off the original phrase as a typing error. It is amazing that the illustrious figures of the Muslim League had not noticed the ?error? in 1940 or over the subsequent six years, that only Jinnah was wise enough to spot the mistake. Distortion is when foreign diplomats based in Bangladesh condescendingly enlighten us on the ?moderate Muslim state? we have fashioned out of Bangladesh Historical distortion hit a new low when the ruling circles of newly independent Pakistan convinced themselves that an Islamization of the country was in order. And the one surefire way of going about that was to inform Pakistanis that Urdu was the language of the Muslim state, to a point where every other language, especially Bengali, did not really matter. Pakistan paid the price for that bad move. Jinnah, Liaquat, and Nazimuddin forcefully argued the case for Pakistan in the 1940s. Ironically, they were to become the agents responsible for the future destruction of their country through their misreading of culture and history. History took a new battering in 1956, when Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in grandiose manner declared that Pakistan?s constitution, adopted nine years into independence, had guaranteed 98% autonomy for the Bengalis of East Pakistan. The truth was something else: The 1956 constitution demeaned the Bengalis through undermining their numerical majority and pulling them down to the level of minority West Pakistan. And lumping the Punjab, Sind, Balochistan, and the North-West Frontier Province into a political monstrosity called One Unit was one more shining instance of the state playing footsie with history. When the Ayub Khan regime, through Information Minister Khwaja Shahabuddin, decreed a ban on Rabindranath Tagore in 1967, it was clearly trying to fashion history in its own mould. Tagore, the imbeciles in the junta let it be known, was a Hindu who had no place in Muslim Pakistan. Tagore was banished, officially. For their part, Bengalis made it clear that the ban was of no consequence, that their heritage was their own to nurture and uphold. In free Bangladesh, history was dealt a body blow in August 1975 when the assassins of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman brought in the slogan ?Bangladesh Zindabad,? in clear imitation of Pakistan, thereby consigning the militant Bengali slogan of Joi Bangla to the woods. Within months, the country?s first military dictator Ziaur Rahman, through extra-constitutional fiat, knifed socialism and secularism in the constitution to dead meat and brought in clear communal elements to replace them. In the five years in which Zia wielded power, Bangabandhu and the Mujibnagar government were airbrushed out of history, the Pakistan occupation army was referred to as a mere ?occupation army? and the murderers of the Father of the Nation were sent abroad as diplomats for the country. Bengalis were converted, in ignorant manner, into being Bangladeshis. And Bengali nationalism, long our vocal symbol of patriotism, was replaced by the spurious concept of ?Bangladeshi nationalism.? Historical distortion scaled new heights per courtesy of the nation?s second military dictator, General Hussein Muhammad Ershad. He decreed that the state needed a faith, and that faith was Islam. The state of Bangladesh donned the attire of religion. For the country, it was a moment of unremitting shame. Distortion is when foreign diplomats based in Bangladesh condescendingly enlighten us on the ?moderate Muslim state? we have fashioned out of Bangladesh. No one, either in government or in opposition, rebuts that outrage. Someone should be giving these diplomats a pep talk on the history of Bengali secularism. Someone should tell them we are not amused. Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist. ======================================== 11. INDIA: BEGUM HAMIDA, PIONEER IN WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, DIES AT 101 by Omar Rashid ======================================== The Hindu LUCKNOW, March 13, 2018 09:41 IST She worked with SEWA (Self Employed Women?s Association), which promoted self employment for women and the art of Lucknow's famous chikankari. Begum Hamida Habibullah, a former Rajya Sabha member and a pioneer in women empowerment, died here on Tuesday. She was the daughter of Nawab Nazir Yar Jung Bahadur, Chief Justice Of Hyderabad High Court and wife of Major General Enaith Habibullah, who went on to become the first Commandant of the National Defence Academy. Her grandson Saif Habibullah announced the news of her demise through his Facebook account. Born on November 20, 1916, Hamida was 30 when India achieved independence and was a witness to modern India's political history, stretching from the British rule to the bloody partition. She witnessed the building of new nation, glory days of the Congress Party and its subsequent decline to the present domination by the BJP. Her son, Wajahat Habibullah, was India?s first Chief Information Commissioner of India and former Chairman, National Minority Commission. Ms. Habibullah was known for working on women issues. She worked with SEWA (Self Employed Women?s Association), which promoted self employment for women and the art of Lucknow's famous chikankari ( thread embroidery). She joined politics with the Congress after her husband returned from the army in 1965 and went on to become an MLA from UP's Haidergarh seat in Barabanki from 1969 to 1974. From 1971 to 1973, she was a Minister of State in the U.P. government and a Rajya Sabha member from 1976 to 1982. She held the Social and Harijan Welfare, National Integration & Civil Defence, and Tourism ministries. Hamida passed senior Cambridge with Distinction in 5-Subjects before going on to get a gold medal in B.A. from Osmania University. ======================================== 12. INDIA: TRIBUNE EDITOR HARISH KHARE PUTS IN HIS PAPERS - GROWING ANXIETIES ABOUT THE STATE OF THE MEDIA ======================================== The Wire, 16 March 2018 Tribune Editor Harish Khare Puts in His Papers Departure comes weeks after Aadhaar expos? that embarrassed Modi government The Wire Staff New Delhi: Harish Khare, editor-in-chief of The Tribune, the independent, Chandigarh-based newspaper known for punching above its weight on the national media scene, is on his way out, The Wire has learned. Word of his departure comes weeks after The Tribune?s expos? of a security flaw in the Aadhaar database that allowed middlemen to access key personal information about all those enrolled in the government?s ?voluntary? universal ID scheme database. The story won Khare and his team plaudits from privacy advocates and the media fraternity but also led to the filing of criminal charges against the reporter, Rachna Khaira, as the UIDAI scrambled to limit the damage. The FIR filed was not the only form of offensive intervention the newspaper attracted in the aftermath of the story. The Tribune?s expos?, which came bang in the middle of the Supreme Court?s hearings on the privacy and security aspects of Aadhaar, proved deeply embarrassing to the Modi government. The Wire has learned that the government?s unhappiness at the story ? and Khare?s editorial leadership of the newspaper ? was made known to members of the trust which owns and runs The Tribune. The trust is currently headed by N.N. Vohra, governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Vohra took charge after the former head, Justice S.S. Sodhi quit in the face of a revolt within the staff at the manner in which he forced The Tribune to publish an apology to a senior Akali politician, Bikram Singh Majithia, for running a series of stories on his alleged involvement in the drug trade in the state. The apology was carried, but when Khare and the employees? union pushed back, Sodhi resigned and was replaced by Vohra as president of the trust. Khare took charge of the newspaper in June 2015 on a three-year contract but is believed to have submitted his resignation earlier this week. Though he stated no reasons, sources in the newspaper told The Wire that the interventionism of the trustees in the face of growing pressure from the government on the Aadhaar story and other issues had likely prompted Khare to bow out. He has reportedly offered to serve out the rest of his three-year term so that trustees have time to search for a replacement. The trust, however, has indicated that he leave immediately. A highly regarded editor and scholar with a PhD in political science from Yale University, Khare had been resident editor of The Hindu in Delhi and the newspaper?s political editor for many years when he was made media adviser to the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in 2009. Prior to joining The Hindu, he had worked at the Hindustan Times and the Times of India, where he had been resident editor of its Ahmedabad edition. Khare resigned as Manmohan Singh?s media adviser in 2012 to return to research and writing before being being tapped by The Tribune trustees in 2015. Under his leadership, the newspaper, long known for a certain middle-of-the-road stodginess, acquired an energy and edge that was reflected in the stories it broke and the sharp commentary it ran. Khare?s own writings were often unsparing of the government and its political leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and national security adviser Ajit Doval. Rumours began circulating from 2017 itself that the ruling establishment in Delhi was looking for a way to effect ?regime change? in the newspaper. However, the structure of the institution ? the trust has no parallel businesses and does not hold events where it lobbies for ministers to attend ? made it less vulnerable to the usual forms of pressure. Khare?s departure is likely to fuel growing anxieties about the state of the media in India. The previous few months have seen the resignation or ouster of several editors who ran their newspapers or channels or television shows with a high degree of independence and who kept their distance from the NDA-led Narendra Modi government. The list includes Bobby Ghosh, who quit as editor of the Hindustan Times last year, Bharat Bhushan of Catch News, Karan Thapar, whose critically acclaimed ?To the Point? show on Indian Today TV was not renewed, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta from the Economic and Political Weekly, Krishna Prasad and (the late) Neelabh Misra from Outlook and Outlook Hindi, and now Harish Khare from The Tribune. R. Jagannathan quit FirstPost soon after he was forced by the website?s owners to take down a column he had written that was critical of Arun Jaitley. Praveen Swami, one of India?s most respected national security editors, quit the Indian Express in the wake of the newspaper?s refusal to run a story that was critical of the Modi government?s handling of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. Last month, Angshukanta Chakraborty, an editor with DailyO, the online portal run by the India Today group, was sacked for refusing to delete a tweet that was critical of media houses that promote fake news. ======================================== 13. WATER SCARCITY: INDIA?S SILENT CRISIS by Neeta Lal ======================================== Inter Press Service This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of World Water Day on March 22. Kottayam in the southern state of Kerala. India's water bodies and fresh water sources are threat from pollution, industrialization, human waste disposal and governmental neglect. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS NEW DELHI, Mar 16 2018 (IPS) - As Cape Town inches towards ?Zero Hour? set for July 15, 2018, the real threat of water scarcity is finally hitting millions of people worldwide. For on that day, the South African city?s 3.78 million citizens ? rich and poor, young and old, men and women ? will be forced to queue up with their jerry cans at public outlets for their quota of 25 litres of water per day. Who knew things would come to such a sorry pass for the rich and beautiful metropolis, ironically lapped by the aquamarine waters of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans? An ominous cocktail of deficient rainfall, devastating droughts and poor planning, say conservationists, have made Cape Town the first major city to run out of fresh water. By 2040, there will be no drinking water in almost all of India. The issue of water scarcity was first raised in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Since then, each year, March 22 is observed across the world to shine the spotlight on different water-related issues. The theme for World Water Day this year is ? ?Nature for Water? ? Exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century. But even as the world is letting out a collective sigh for Cape Town, spare a thought for India. By 2040, there will be no drinking water in almost all of India. A UN report on water conservation published in March 2017 reveals that due to its unique geographical position in South Asia, the Indian sub-continent will face the brunt of the water crisis and India would be at the epicentre of this conflict. By 2025, the report predicts, nearly 3.4 billion people worldwide will be living in ?water-scarce? countries and that the situation will become even more dire over the next 25 years. With the planet?s second largest population at 1.3 billion (after China?s 1.4 billion), and expectant growth to reach 1.7 billion by 2050, India is struggling to provide safe, clean water to most of its populace. According to data from India?s Ministry of Water Resources, though the country hosts 18 percent of the world?s population, its share of total usable water resources is only 4 percent. Official data shows that in the past decade, annual per capita availability of water in the country has plummeted significantly. If that isn?t scary enough, a glance at the World Bank?s latest statistics reveals the magnitude of the problem: 163 million Indians lack access to safe drinking water; 210 m have no access to improved sanitation; 21 percent of communicable diseases are linked to unsafe water and 500 children under age five die from diarrhoea each day in India. Experts say India?s gargantuan population increases the country?s vulnerability to water shortage and scarcity. Further, the country?s exponentially growing middle-class is raising unprecedented demands on clean, safe water. Long dry spells ? with the temperamental monsoons (the seasonal rains that visit south Asia between June and August) ? only aggravate this paucity. In 2016, a whopping 300 districts (or nearly half of India?s 640 districts) were under the spell of an acute drinking water shortage across India. The government then had to operate special trains at great expense just to carry water to the affected places. Surface water isn?t the only source reaching a breaking point in India. The country?s freshwater is also under great stress. This is largely because State policies have failed to check groundwater development. With continued neglect and bureaucratic mismanagement and indifference, the problem has intensified. Grassroots efforts like those led by Rajendra Singh, who won the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize, presented annually by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), in 2015, have had a positive effect. His pioneering work in rural development and water conservation, starting in the 1980s, brought some 8,600 rainwater storage tanks, known as johads, to 1,058 villages spread over 6,500 sq km in nine districts of Rajasthan. Five seasonal rivers in the state which had nearly dried up have since become perennial. But adverse fallouts from water shortage aren?t just limited to people. They impact the Indian economy too. ?As an agrarian economy, India relies heavily on agriculture. There is aggressive irrigation in rural areas where agriculture provides the livelihood for over 600 million Indians, However, technological advances in agriculture haven?t kept pace with the population explosion,? explains economist Probir Choudhury of Reliance Capital. As a result, he says, even as much of the world has adopted lesser water-intensive crops and sophisticated agricultural techniques, India still uses conventional systems and water-intensive crops. An excessive reliance on monsoons further leads to crop failures and farmer suicides. The country?s industrialization has brought its own set of woes, say market analysts. Contamination of fresh water sources by industrial waste has sullied the waters of all major rivers. Over 90 percent of the waste water discharged into rivers, lakes, and ponds is untreated that leads to further contamination of fresh water sources. Wastage by urban population is already a great challenge in Indian cities. By far the greatest waste occurs in electricity-producing power plants which guzzle gargantuan amounts of water to cool down. More than 80 percent of India?s electricity comes from thermal power stations, burning coal, oil, gas and nuclear fuel. Now researchers from the US-based World Resources Institute, after analysing all of India?s 400 thermal power plants, report that its power supply is under threat from water scarcity. The researchers found that 90 percent of these thermal power plants are cooled by freshwater, and nearly 40 percent of them experience high water stress. The plants are increasingly vulnerable, while India remains committed to providing electricity to every household by 2019. ?A severe lack of regulation, over privatization and entrenched corruption are the salient reasons pushing the country to a water crisis,? says Dr. Chintamani Reddy, a water expert and former professor of geography at Delhi University. Worsening the situation, adds Reddy, are regional disputes over access to rivers in the country?s interior. Clashes with neighbours ? Pakistan over the River Indus and River Sutley in the west and north and with China to the east with the River Brahmaputra ? have become increasingly common. But it?s not all doom and gloom. Thankfully, some measures are underway to improve the scenario. Indian farmers are being sensitized about the latest irrigation techniques such as drip irrigation, and utilizing more rainwater harvesting to stem the loss of freshwater sources. Modern sanitation policies are being drafted that both conserve and prudently utilize water sources. Massive investments in wind energy and solar energy, along with rejection of fossil fuel facilities in water-stressed places, are also being vigorously pursued. India has a target for 40 percent of its power to come from renewables by 2030 under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Water conservationists say if these steps are followed strictly, India may be able to minimize its water scarcity. Otherwise, the apocalyptic scenario currently bedeviling South Africa may well become India?s fate. ======================================== 14. BOOK REVIEW: CALL OF EMPIRE - FROM THE HIGHLANDS TO HINDOSTAN ======================================== Alexander Charles Baillie. Call of Empire: From the Highlands to Hindostan. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017. Illustrations, maps. 496 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7735-5124-4. Reviewed by Kate Imy (University of North Texas) Published on H-War (March, 2018) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air War College) The past few decades have witnessed a revival of scholarly interest in the East India Company. Historians often regard the company?s rapid economic and military expansion in the eighteenth century as a forerunner of formal empire. The entanglement of capital with military expansion makes the company?s story feel especially timely. Recent analyses of the company have contributed a great deal to contemporary debates about the intersecting histories of capitalism, warfare, imperial lives, gender, and slavery (see, for example, Emily Erikson?s Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600-1757 [2014]; Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter?s edited collection From The East India Company to the Suez Canal, the first volume of Archives of Empire [2003]; Miles Ogborn?s Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company [2007]; and John Brewer?s Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783 [1990]). It is into this vibrant scholarly context that Alexander Charles Baillie has published Call of Empire: From the Highlands to Hindostan. This work represents a unique opportunity to follow the triumphs and failures of a Scottish family who made their way to India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Focusing on a Scottish perspective enables readers to reexamine the so-called metropole-colony relationships of the British Empire. Scottish examples might suggest how the empire was multi-sited and consistently remade. Using a variety of oral histories and archival materials, Baillie tracks his own family?s experiences in South Asia during the eighteenth century. This makes the work a combination of enviable primary source resources and missed opportunities. The work follows two main characters from the Baillie family in India: military officer William of Dunain and civil servant John of Leys. The book engages with large stretches of the military and institutional histories of Scotland and India, the changing attitudes and strategies of the British Empire, and the important roles that Scots played in those histories. The sections on the Hanoverian conquests of the Scottish highlands make for relatively easy and accessible reading. The core of the work, however, focuses on the personal, economic, and national contexts that made service in India logical for this particular Scottish family. Baillie describes his ancestors as ?the embodiment of the new Scotland? (p. 17). A combination of uncertain local political alliances and economic instability made the Baillies find their fortune in India. This story will resonate with many Britons whose family, local, and national histories are inextricably linked to India. Baillie also mentions family connections to the burgeoning United States, the Caribbean, and other ventures across an empire that transformed dramatically in the eighteenth century. One wishes that this aspect had been developed more thoroughly, perhaps emulating the strategy of Linda Colley?s recent work on this period (The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History [2007]). Baillie situates his family?s history alongside the stories of more well-known imperial figures, such as Robert Clive, Hyder Ali, and General Cornwallis, and such events as the Mysore wars, the Maratha wars, the French and American Revolutionary wars, and the 1857 rebellion. Baillie put an extensive amount of effort into making his work as polished and accessible as possible. Nineteen short chapters increase readability. A range of images and maps from India and Scotland will orient readers who are unfamiliar with Indian history. Baillie also includes family trees to organize the Scottish characters, many of whom he rightly points out had similar names that might be confusing to readers. His inclusion of lists of colonial and current place-names and short biographies of ?supporting characters? are also useful resources and references. These features will make the work much more manageable to Baillie?s family members and those inspired to track their own family histories in South Asia. Scholars will find value in the lengthy excerpts from Baillie family letters. These would make useful resources for classroom discussion or springboards for further scholarly research and analysis. The work itself proves less beneficial for scholars beyond its primary sources. Baillie opens the work by saying that he offers ?no apology? for the long quotations because ?these quotations offer a fascinating window into a long-lost world? (p. x). This is undoubtedly true. However, not properly contextualizing or analyzing passages often fails to guide the reader. One wishes Baillie had taken the approach of such scholars as Carolyn Steedman (The Radical Soldiers? Tale: John Pearman, 1819-1908 [1988]) or Michael Fisher (The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth-Century Journey through India [1997]) who have successfully created interesting and challenging works based on extensive accounts by soldiers and employees of the East India Company. Starting or signposting the work with contextual and analytical chapters and then including lengthy excerpts or reproduced letters and diaries separately might have made for a more cogent reading experience. In Baillie?s work the primary source excerpts, while interesting, limit the readability of the work as a whole. Several page-long excerpts often appear back to back, or are sandwiched between other, shorter quotations. Scholars will certainly wonder why Baillie did not take the time to analyze and contextualize these passages more fully. Contextual details instead often feel like summaries of secondary sources. This makes these sections feel like disconnected tangents rather than an enrichment and clarification of the sources. More often than not, Baillie?s sources are left to ?speak for themselves.? This proves a rather disappointing strategy on multiple occasions. It leaves the reader with a one-sided view of the East India Company. At times Baillie even replicates imperial language or attitudes in his writing. This includes his descriptions of Marathas as ?sated in their quest for plunder? (p. 63). He criticizes divisions among company leaders to suggest that this made them unable to pursue ?the greater good? (p. 138). Many students and scholars of empire will wish for a more nuanced account of South Asian actors or a more clear understanding of what the ?greater good? meant in this context. The greater good for whom? Using Hindi, Urdu, Persian, or Sanskrit resources would have been an ideal solution. That said, not every scholar has the linguistic training to do justice to these types of materials. Nonetheless, several scholars have demonstrated that it is possible to read colonial sources ?against the grain.? Doing so can reveal fascinating truths about what sources do and do not say. Eighteenth-century authors phrased and composed documents in certain ways that often deliberately obscured the wider context of their experience. Scholars contextualize such omissions and oversights with a varierty of sources, including wills, courts martial, charters, or census records, to gain a fuller picture of what individual actors do not feel comfortable discussing.[1] Engagement with innovative or recent scholarship on the East India Company may have given Baillie a better understanding of the long passages and complex issues that sometimes slip through the narrative. He prefaces his work by stating his discomfort with ?the European sense of entitlement and racial superiority? present in several of his sources (p. x). This is a fair and reasonable response. However, it does not fully address how the source base itself tells a particular type of story. Why is it, for example, that army officer William never mentions his Indian ?wife? by name (p. 83)? What institutions and assumptions make this possible? Further engagement with the works of Indrani Chatterjee about slavery or Erica Wald on prostitution might have helped to address this type of lingering issue.[2] Spending more time with the sources might have given Baillie the chance to articulate how British attitudes shaped the behavior and actions of Britons in India. The unintended result of reproducing these ideas and attitudes without guidance is to reinforce them. Such missed opportunities reoccur throughout the text. Topics as rich and varied as slavery, war, and political revolt come up with minimal discussion of the complex histories of these topics. These omissions are especially felt in the area of military history. Key works on the East India Company by Seema Alavi, Dirk A. Kolff, Purnima Dhavan, and Kaushik Roy might have helped Baillie to flesh out the company?s military forces and government institutions. This is not merely a matter of doing one?s due diligence to name-check every relevant author. Rather, engaging with these scholars would have allowed Baillie to think about how Scottish experiences with empire were shaped by complex military labor markets, ideas of identity, nationality, and religious belonging that South Asian soldiers also faced while serving in the East India Company armies.[3] The pages of this work are full of rich detail and excellent primary sources that will surely be of interest to some general readers and other aspiring family historians. Those unfamiliar with the East India Company will no doubt find the cast of characters, the family tree, and the extensive source base very useful and informative. For more established scholars the work presents glimpses of an archive that deserves further attention. It also presents an opportunity to think more deeply about how localized histories might revise or enrich existing narratives about the East India Company and the British Empire. Scottish families undoubtedly played important roles in the British Empire and had many complex experiences that have not yet been recorded. The linkages between colony and metropole?and the limitations of these terms?are in need of constant reappraisal. This work demonstrates that Scottish and Indian histories have much to learn from one another. One only wishes that more had been done to make these connections clear to general readers. Notes [1]. Gyan Prakash, ?Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,? The American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (December 1994): 1475-1490; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ?Can the Subaltern Speak?? in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271-313; and Ranajit Guha, ?Chandra?s Death,? Subaltern Studies V: Writings on South Asian History and Society (1987): 135-165. [2]. Indrani Chatterjee, ?Colouring Subalternity: Slaves, Concubines and Social Orphans under the East India Company,? Subaltern Studies X (1999): 49-97; and Erica Wald, Vice in the Barracks: Medicine, the Military and the Making of Colonial India, 1780-1868 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). [3]. Seema Alavi, The Sepoy and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770-1830 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995); Dirk A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Kaushik Roy, ?The Hybrid Military Establishment of the East India Company in South Asia: 1750?1849,? Journal of Global History 6, no. 2 (2011): 195-218; and Purnima Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699-1799 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). ======================================== 15. FEMINISM ACROSS BORDERS: DON?T LET AFRIN BECOME THE NEXT SREBRENICA by Robert Hockett, Anna-Sara Malmgren ======================================== Jerusalem Post March 14, 2018 Last week saw the coming and going of International Women?s Day ? a day that went curiously under-reported here in the US. The silence with which the day passed was surprising precisely because the past year has been so remarkable in an opposite sense, bringing an upsurge not only in recognition of, but also in action against, gender-based harassment, oppression and inequality. The #MeToo movement was but one manifestation of this welcome development. From January?s massive Women?s March ? the largest single-day protest in American history ? through scores of political and celebrity downfalls last summer and fall, to Steve Bannon?s admission last month that ?this time is different? where white male overlordship is concerned, it is hard not to hope we?re approaching a new push to equality. Against that broader backdrop, the relative quiet about International Women?s Day was perhaps understandable. Not so, however, the deafening silence now greeting what?s poised to become the most violent attack against women and women?s equality in modern history. Even as we in both Europe and North America congratulate ourselves on our street marches and hashtag activism, a violent autocrat ? and putative US ally ? has de facto invaded northern Syria and now threatens to crush an extraordinary exercise in applied feminism and egalitarian democracy just over his border. We refer to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ?Operation Olive Branch,? which at the time of this writing is nothing other than the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of heavily populated areas in Syrian Afrin. Afrin is one of three contiguous Syrian cantons with majority Kurdish populations. Since the outbreak of civil unrest in Syria some seven years ago, these three cantons, collectively known as The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (?DFNS?), or Rojava, have become both the chief seat of resistance to Islamic State (ISIS) and other violent sectarian militias, and the site of a remarkable experiment in religiously pluralist, gender- and ethnically-egalitarian, bottom-up democracy. Every social institution of Rojava, from schools through hospitals to town councils, is co-presided over by both a popularly elected woman and a popularly elected man. Ethnic Kurds, Arabs, Syriac-Assyrians, Turkmen, Armenians, Circassians and Chechens make up this electorate. It is a population that has multiplied steadily as refugees fleeing the fighting of Syrian forces, the New Syrian Army, ISIS, al-Qaida and others have joined the Kurds ? both for protection and to help build a better model of social, economic and political life than is found anywhere else in the Middle East, if not the world. It?s also worth noting that the DFNS defense units ? the YPG and the YPJ ? have since 2014 been the only reliable US ally in the area. They, not we or anyone else, did the real work ?on the ground? when it came to pushing ISIS out of Syria. (Understandably they now feel let down.) These successes drew the lethal resentment of Erdogan and his followers. As Erdogan does everything possible to undo the great Turkish modernization of the 1920s and revive a theocratic, patriarchal and ethnically ?clean? 21st century retread of the Ottoman Empire, the success of the Rojava experiment across his border acts as an irresistibly attractive counter-model and provocation ? not only to oppressed Kurds in Turkey, but also to women across the whole Middle East and to proponents of equality and democracy worldwide. It is not news by now that Erdogan aims to restore autocratic, sultan-style rule to Turkey; in contrast, the community government of DFNS insists upon bottom-up, federated ?townhall? democracy. Erdogan seeks to restore his preferred form of Islam to the status of state religion; Rojava guards its religious pluralism. Erdogan seeks to ?returkify? all Anatolia and surrounding areas; Rojava insists upon inter-ethnic equality. Erdogan acts to return women to ?traditional? roles; Rojava puts women equally in charge with men at all levels of society. How painfully this must sting Erdogan?s retrograde faux-masculinity ? seeing armed women and men together, defeating squad after squad of Erdogan-sponsored theocrats trying to oust them from their own homes in Syria and Mesopotamia. Erdogan can?t beat them, so it seems that his army and air force must invade and obliterate them. This (not the ?fear of terrorists?) is why Erdogan now has set troops and jet fighter-bombers, together with local mercenary armies of dubious repute, to bombing and shelling the region. At the time of this writing it is only a matter of hours before Afrin?s main urban center ? the city of the same name ? will be under siege. Erdogan?s proxies have not proven up to the task ? nor will his soldiers, unless they first pummel the city with high explosives just as they did Kurdish-majority cities in southeast Turkey two years ago, and just as did Erdogan?s moral predecessors in Srebrenica and Kosovo during the 1990s, and in Warsaw, Leningrad, Minsk, Smolensk and other cities 50 years earlier. The enormity of the humanitarian catastrophe, not to mention that for democracy and for gender and ethnic equality, will be simply incalculable. No civilized human being, and no one with the courage of their convictions, can stand idly by and ignore this atrocity-in-the-making as it begins to unfold. All of us who have joined or supported the #MeToo movement across Europe and North America have strong reason to support Afrin and, more broadly, Rojava. Likewise the millions of us who believe in real democracy and in ethnic and religious pluralism. If we really believe in these things, we must support them even at a slight remove from our own backyard, and we must act now, when they are most threatened and before it?s too late. US President Donald Trump prides himself on his readiness to act ?outside the box? and in doing so make progress where those before him have settled for stalemate. Doubtless he thinks this is why North Korea?s Kim Jong-un now talks of negotiating with the US on its nuclear ambitions. Whether that?s plausible or not, if Trump and his fellow ?strongman? Russian President Vladimir Putin really are leaders, and if Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and the other pioneering feminists in Congress really are committed to the rights of women, they will act to assure Erdogan at once that he will either cease his attack upon Afrin or cease to be welcome in any civilized place. They will ? they must ? seek to exhaust every conceivable diplomatic remedy first. But they will also make clear that, failing success by these means, they will act to ensure Afrin becomes, not Erdogan?s Srebrenica or Smolensk, but his Stalingrad. Jin Jiyan Azadi (women, life, freedom). Robert Hockett is Edward Cornell Professor of Law and Cornell University. Anna-Sara Malmgren is assistant professor of philosophy at Stanford University. ======================================== 16. MARINE LE PEN?S NEW DISGUISE: A BID TO REBRAND HER FAR-RIGHT PARTY AS THE ?NATIONAL RALLY? Le Pen hopes to present her renamed party as the working-class alternative to Macron?s bourgeois elitism. By Pauline Bock ======================================== New Statesman 15 March 2018 Marine Le Pen had just declared: ?When foreigners are in France, they must respect the law and the people? when chants of ?On est chez nous!? (?We are at home!?) broke out in the audience. French flags were waved in the air. On 11 March, Le Pen, 49, was re-elected leader of her far-right party, Front National (FN), and announced it was to be renamed Rassemblement National (?National Rally?). ?It must be a rallying cry, a call for those who have France and the French at their heart to join us,? she declared at the party?s conference in Lille, northern France. It?s a pivotal moment for the party her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded in 1972 and led until 2011. After going from a ?jackass? far-right outfit known for its xenophobia, to the nationalist, anti-immigration party defeated in the final round of the 2017 French presidential election by the liberal candidate Emmanuel Macron, its goal is now to move ?from opposition and into government?, Le Pen said. For the FN leader, this is also a decisive moment. Le Pen?s credibility was damaged by her weak performance in the run-off debate and polls show her campaign eroded the political gains made during the party?s decade-long ?de-demonisation?. ?Her image is clearly tarnished,? Val?rie Igounet, an expert on the French far right, told me. ?But she is still supported by the party.? The FN claims its membership is around 80,000; Igounet says it is likely to have fallen to 50,000. The proposed name will be put to a membership vote ? as Le Pen?s re-election was, though she was the only candidate ? but the move has already prompted concern. Asked if they were happy with the rebrand, only 52 per cent of FN members answered yes. ?It is a name that has negative connotations in French history,? Igounet said. Rassemblement National was a collaborationist party in the 1940s. It was also used in 1965 by defeated far-right presidential candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, whose campaign was run by Jean-Marie Le Pen. ?For a party that wants to free itself from Le Pen?s father, it?s a surprising choice,? Igounet said. Another political organisation, Rassemblement pour la France, claims the FN has no right to the name. Not all of the FN?s fundamentals have been abandoned. The logo, a red, white and blue flame inspired by an Italian neo-fascist party, remains. Membership surveys show 98 per cent still approve of the anti-immigration rhetoric, Igounet said. Le Pen hopes the rebrand will enable new political alliances. Thierry Mariani, a former minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and member of the right-wing R?publicains, has called for an alliance with the FN (which, he said, ?has evolved?). But the R?publicains? leader, Laurent Wauquiez, is firmly opposed: ?As long as I am leader, there will be no alliance with the FN,? he vowed. ?The FN want to make alliances, but they have nowhere to go,? said Antoine de Cabanes, a researcher on the far right for the think tank Transform! Europe. Can Le Pen?s party really be ?de-demonised?? The former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon, who is currently touring Europe, was invited to speak at the Lille conference. ?Let them call you racists, let them call you xenophobes, let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honour,? he told activists, to rapturous applause. Bannon has also praised Marion Mar?chal-Le Pen, Marine?s more conservative 28-year-old niece, as the party?s ?rising star?. The younger Le Pen is on a ?break? from French politics but addressed the US Republicans in Washington in February, where she declared her ambition to ?make France great again?. Marion is tipped as a possible future leader. ?She has the right name,? noted De Cabanes. Marine Le Pen insisted she didn?t want to ?make an ally? of Bannon, but rather to ?listen to someone who defied expectation to win against all odds?. Yet even her father, a Holocaust denier whose politics are closer to Bannon?s than his daughter?s, described the choice of speaker as ?not exactly de-demonising the party?. It was not an isolated incident. On 10 March, Davy Rodr?guez, a parliamentary assistant to Le Pen, was forced to resign after he was filmed using a racial slur in Lille. The FN defended Bannon?s invitation on the grounds that ?he embodies the rejection of the establishment, of the European Union and the system of politics and the media?. Le Pen called President Macron?s politics a ?great downgrading of the middle and working class? and declared her party ?the defender of the workers, the employees, the sorrowful farmers?. The road to the 2022 presidential contest includes four elections ? municipal, departmental, regional and European ? in which Le Pen hopes to present her renamed party as the working-class alternative to Macron?s bourgeois elitism. But in Lille, activists cheered wildly not when Le Pen spoke about the road ahead, but when she declared: ?Legal and illegal immigration are not bearable any more!? Plus ?a change? Pauline Bock writes about France, the Macron presidency, Brexit and EU citizens in the UK. She also happens to be French. ======================================== 17. WHAT COULD A CORBYN GOVERNMENT INSIDE EUROPE MEAN FOR THE EU?S FUTURE ? by Mary Kaldor ======================================== Open Democracy 10 March 2018 In twenty years? time, we will look back on Brexit as a moment of terrifying global irresponsibility. We live in a world of creeping fascism in Russia, Turkey, China, Trump?s America not to mention the tendencies inside Britain, especially among the hard Brexiteers. The European Union currently represents a beacon for democracy and human rights. Of course, it is dominated by a neo-liberal ideology that threatens to undermine the euro-zone and with it the democratic values for which it stands; developments in Central Europe and the recent elections in Italy are a painful reminder of the dangerous possibilities. Nevertheless, there are tendencies for reform inside the European Union and if a Corbyn-led Labour Party were to win the next election, there is a unique ? indeed a once in a lifetime opportunity ? to reform the European Union and this means an opportunity to save us, Europe and perhaps the world. But we are so obsessed with the domestic British debate despite all the talk of a global Britain that nobody seems to be discussing or trying to diagnose the frightening scenario of everything going wrong and our role in that scenario. The current nostalgia for Britain?s role in WWII seems to neglect the fact that this was a struggle for democracy, human rights and decency and not just about nationalism. If we care about those values now, we should be worrying about the future of Europe and the world and how what happens in the rest of the world will affect us. A pamphlet published by Another Europe is Possible last week makes the argument that instead of fretting about how bad Brexit will be for Britain, we need to think about what a Corbyn government inside Europe might mean for the future of the European Union. The pamphlet sets out a reform strategy for the European Union that is realistic to achieve if a Corbyn government were to ally with socialists across Europe. Such a reform strategy would enable us to address the big global problems of today, and this in turn may well be a necessary condition for implementing the Corbyn-McDonnell programme. Reforms en marche There are already tentative moves away from dogmatic neo-liberal economic policies, which successive UK governments were at the forefront of pushing. President Macron is talking about reform of the eurozone including a common European budget and there is a possibility that his proposals will be met more warmly by the new Social Democrat Coalition in Germany. The left-wing Portuguese government has demonstrated how an anti-austerity policy can dramatically improve economic performance. There are proposals to close tax havens for multinational corporations and a proposal for a common consolidated corporate tax, something the UK has strongly opposed in the past. New proposals to stop undercutting, whereby companies deliberately recruit workers abroad under the conditions in the countries where they are recruited to reduce costs, have just been passed and will mean that it will be no longer possible to use migrant workers as a way of putting putting downward pressure on wages. And there are proposals for a tax on financial transactions as a way of controlling financial speculation, again a proposal vetoed by the UK in the past. Yet these proposals may be difficult to implement without at least one major power seriously committed to them. For example, in the wake of Brexit, some countries are engaging in beggar-my-neighbour policies in order to take over the UK position especially in financial services. A Corbyn-led government could be key to making these reforms happen. The same is true for those areas where EU policy has, in the past, been relatively progressive ? digital rights, climate change, and ending global conflicts, for example. Thanks to active protests across Europe, EU policy on digital rights, defending online privacy and the ownership of personal data, has been rather progressive ? yet without continued active engagement, along the lines of the Labour Party?s Digital Democracy Manifesto, there is a risk that this might be undermined by anti-terror legislation. In the case of climate change, there is considerable momentum for far-reaching efforts to keep climate change under 2 % including the ?Clean Energy Package for All Europeans? and the ?EU Roadmap for 100% emission cuts by mid-century. These initiatives would mean a massive transformation of the European economy affecting almost every sector. But, given powerful vested interests in our current carbon based economy, it won?t happen without substantial pressures from parties and movements across Europe. Global Europe As for ending global conflicts, the new global strategy presented by Federica Mogherini to the European Council the day after the British referendum, envisages an external security policy aimed at human security (the security of people and the communities in which they live) rather the security of borders. This policy was formerly blocked by the UK who preferred the geo-political approach of NATO and so is now moving ahead. Nevertheless, it requires much stronger political backing and more of the kind of resources in which the UK has a comparative advantage. Finally, a Corbyn-led government could change the conversation about immigration. Anti-immigration sentiment promoted by unscrupulous politicians, it can be argued, produced the refugee crisis. We live in a world of migration and it is more or less impossible to control. What is more Europe with its aging population needs migrants. Instead of creating a border security complex in which smugglers and border guards are enmeshed in an impossible business that fails to prevent the deaths of thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean, we need a policy of managed migration as was actually proposed by the European Commission but opposed by member states ? one that involves a resettlement policy across the continent. A Corbyn-led government could push for replacing the current exclusive and dangerous securitised approach with one based on humanitarian and development considerations. A reform strategy of this kind offers the possibility of transforming the global model of development from the old US-led model based on mass production and the intensive use of oil, to a new green, digital, decentralised and socially just set of arrangements. This is no longer, if it ever was, something that can be pursued in one country. On the contrary, a post-Brexit Labour government could easily be derailed by predatory action from larger economic blocs and financial markets. And the alarming tendencies for European disintegration, right-wing authoritarianism not to mention criminal and ethnic violence are likely to infect us as well. But if Labour were to pursue a ?Remain and Reform? strategy, there is a chance to remake Europe and initiate a process of taming and controlling the dark forces of globalisation. Mary Kaldor is Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author of New and Old wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era. ======================================== 18. USA: WHY ARE SCHOOLS STILL ACCEPTING NRA MONEY? NRA Foundation grants to youth programs like Eddie Eagle help explain why guns are so popular in the US. By Sophie Kasakove ======================================== The Nation March 16, 2018 A five-year-old shoots a target at an exhibit booth during NRA Youth Day events at the National Rifle Association's 142 Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Houston, May 5, 2013. (AP Photo / Houston Chronicle, Johnny Hanson) Last Tuesday, three weeks after a gunman killed 17 people at one of its schools, Broward County, Florida announced that it would stop accepting money from the NRA Foundation. Between 2010 and 2016, Broward county received $126,000 from the NRA to support shooting training and education programs, including the JROTC marksmanship team of which the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was a member. According to a recent AP analysis of the NRA Foundation?s public tax records, the NRA gave $7.3 million to about 500 schools from 2010 through 2016. 4-H youth groups received $12.2 million during those years and Boy Scout groups received $4 million. Overall, about half of the grants made during those years? which totaled $61 million? went to programs directed at children. AP found that the NRA?s investment in youth education programs has grown rapidly in recent years, increasing by nearly four times from 2010 to 2014. The geography of grant recipients maps the country?s political divide over guns, with nearly three quarters of schools that received grants located in counties that voted for Trump in 2016. This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at samantha at thenation.com. While the NRA?s financial investment in youth shooting programs has surged in recent years, the organization has long emphasized young shooters in its programming. But it wasn?t until the early ?80s? not coincidentally the same decade many have noted as the turning point in the NRA?s radicalization? that the NRA adopted an official mandate to ?introduce as many of our nation?s youth as possible to the legitimate use of firearms.? Today, the website boasts that more than one million youth participate in NRA shooting sports events and NRA-backed programs. ?What drives the NRA and the gun industry today is the fact that household gun ownership is in a steady decline,? says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy organization. Last year, American gun ownership declined to its lowest point in nearly 40 years ? from half of American households in 1978 to about a third today. ?The traditional gun buying public? white males? is aging,? Sugarmann explains. ?To borrow a phrase from the tobacco industry, the NRA and gun manufacturing industry are trying to find ?replacement shooters? to take their place.? The goals are multifold. For gun manufacturing companies, a larger youth base means expanding sales? many companies now design and market smaller, lighter guns specifically for children? and securing their future consumer base. For the NRA, it means sustaining a pro-gun base for political action. At the NRA?s 1996 Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas, then-President Marion Hammer laid out the stakes: ?It will be an old-fashioned wrestling match for the hearts and minds of our children, and we?d better engage our adversaries with no holds barred?.If we do not successfully reach out to the next generation, then the freedom and liberty that we?ve lived for ? and that many of our ancestors have died for ? will not live beyond us.? The motivations of the gun industry and gun lobby in targeting youth can?t be separated, says Sugarmann, and the funding behind youth shooting programs reflects this: research by the Violence Policy Center shows that manufacturers of firearms have donated hundreds of thousands of tax-deductible dollars to the NRA Foundation, which funds the organization?s youth education programs, which, in turn, provide a market for children?s gun models. Beyond cultivating the next generation of gun lobbyists and consumers, NRA youth education programs are already helping shape legislation. In 2016, the gun violence prevention organization The Safe Tennessee Project, brought a bill to the Tennessee legislature that would have penalized adult gun owners who leave loaded guns unlocked and accessible to children under the age of 13. Beth Joslin Roth, the organization?s executive director, decided to call the bill MaKayla?s law in honor of 8-year-old MaKayla Dyer, who was shot and killed by her 11-year-old old neighbor in White Pine, Tennessee in 2015. 14 states currently have negligent firearm storage laws; only four of these involve felony charges. In the weeks leading up to the legislative vote, Roth was optimistic: members of the Senate judiciary committee she spoke to seemed to recognize the value of Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws to the state, which ranks fourth in the nation for accidental shootings, many of which involve children. But then, just days before the vote, the NRA mobilized. NRA members across the state received action alerts urging them to contact their legislators and pressure them to vote against it. A lobbyist from Washington appeared at a senate committee meeting to testify against the bill and met with senators one-on-one in between sessions. The NRA?s argument was predictable: the bill was an intrusion into people?s right to choose how they store their firearms and how they parent their children. The NRA also cited a more unusual witness: a cartoon character called Eddie Eagle. The NRA?s youngest youth outreach tool, the Eddie Eagle program is offered in public schools to kids ages 4-10, and consists primarily of videos of Eddie Eagle demonstrating gun-safe behavior. With 29 million children having gone through the program (according to the NRA?s website), Eddie Eagle is probably the NRA?s widest-reaching youth program. And, it proved to be a fatal wrench in the Tennessee bill proposal. According to Roth, the lobbyist?s testimony relied heavily on the effectiveness of the Eddie Eagle program as an argument against CAP laws. ?The NRA markets the program in such a way that parents believe that if they let their children participate in the program that is going to somehow protect them in these situations,? Roth says. ?But research shows that when presented with the opportunity, half the kids who?ve been through the program are still likely to pick up a gun, and some will pull the trigger.? The bill was defeated a second time last year. The legislative use of Eddie Eagle is no accident: according to the Violence Policy Center, the program was launched in 1988 in Florida as part of a direct effort to kill CAP legislation. The Eddie Eagle program was successfully invoked in 2016 to crush legislation in Wisconsin nearly identical to the Florida bill. According to the NRA?s action alert against that bill: ?If anti-gun legislators were serious about keeping kids safe, they would know that the key to reducing firearm accidents isn?t about prosecuting after the fact, it?s about educating our children on the safe use of firearms. For that reason, the National Rifle Association developed the Eddie Eagle GunSafe? accident prevention program that teaches children to, ?STOP, DON?T TOUCH, RUN AWAY and TELL A GROWN-UP.? Following Broward county?s example, Denver Public Schools promised that it, too, would turn down several NRA grants to be awarded this year. However, with no other schools known to be following suit as of yet, the educators? boycott of the NRA is proving slower to catch on than the businesses? boycott. But when children?s education means giving adults a pass, holding onto this funding is a dangerous bargain. Sophie Kasakove is an editorial intern at The Nation. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 05:51:55 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:21:55 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_21_March_2018_=7C_Afghanistan=3A_Women?= =?windows-1252?Q?=92s_Shelters_Seized_/_Burma=3A_Women_in_Buddhi?= =?windows-1252?Q?st_Nationalism_/_Sri_Lanka=3A_Anti-Muslim_Riots?= =?windows-1252?Q?_/_Bangladesh=3A_Might_is_right_/_Pakistan=3A_y?= =?windows-1252?Q?ellow_stars_/_India_Pakistan_Tensions_=26_Arms_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Race_/_India=3A_anti_science_/_Russian_Fascism_?= =?windows-1252?Q?/_Facebook=92s_Surveillance_Machine?= Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 21 March 2018 - No. 2978 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. What?s Attracting Women to Myanmar?s Buddhist Nationalist Movement ? | Isabel Marler, Macarena Aguilar 2. Anti-Muslim Riots in Sri Lanka | Irfan Engineer 3. Bangladesh: ?Might is right is the only language we have reverted to as a society? - Rafida Bonya Ahmed 4. What prevents Pakistan and India from starting an uninterrupted dialogue ? | Zubeida Mustafa 5. India: Prevent Destruction of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) - Statement by Former JNU Faculty 6. Announced: International Seminar on The Landmark Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons - Opportunities and Challenges | 24-25 March 2018, New Delhi 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Why Political Parties Play Upon Fears of Muslims - Political opportunism requires a consolidated community, living in perpetual fear - India: Lingayat leadership is under an erroneous belief that recognition of a religious community depends on law - India: Cow Vigilantism - Crime, Community and Livelihood - Press Conference and Release of PUDR Report (22 March 2018) - India: The Communal Politics of Eviction Drives in Assam - India: BJP?s Forays in North Eastern States and anti Minority Agenda | Ram Puniyani - India: The Congress in Karnataka has surrendered to identity politics this election season - India: BJP and the RSS "signalled their cadres" to destroy statues of those who oppose their Hindutva ideology - Khalistan and Hindu rashtra | Jawed Naqvi - India - Mangaluru pub assault: How the prosecution derailed the case against the Sri Ram Sene - India?s liberals must take on both Hindu and Muslim communalists says Ramachandra Guha - India: ?Hindu liberalism shouldn?t need the crutches of Muslim liberalism? Asghar Ali Engineer 2004 response to Ramachandra Guha - Indian Kashmir: From Srinagar, a new crop of militants who kill and die in the name of religion, not politics - India: Ram Rahim?s ?vision?, presence still looms large over Dera Sacha Sauda in Haryana - India - Bihar: A procession of BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal workers ? led by Union MoS Ashwini Kumar Choubey?s son sparks communal clashes in Bhagalpur - India: The rise in the number of communal incidents targeting Muslims in Gujarat Village - India: Hindu Mahasabha's Hindu new year calendar refers to Mecca as Macceshwar Mahadev temple ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Afghan Government Moves to Seize Control of Women?s Shelters ? Again | Heather Barr 9. Mass arrests in Maldives as activists defy emergency 10. Pakistan: Our yellow stars | Irfan Husain 11. On India Pakistan Tensions and on-going Arms Race 12. Neoabolitionism?s last laugh: India must rethink trafficking | Prabha Kotiswaran 13. Treaty that backfired? | Mohammed Ayoob 14. India: Hindutva's Tall Claim Making on Science - Select Editorials and Commentary 15. India: After Gorakhpur - The BJP's losses in the bypolls have created new possibilities | Mukul Kesavan 16. India: Why may a municipal hospital be better than a private one with more amenities? Charles Assisi 17. India: Separate freedoms | Suhrith Parthasarathy 18. Angry French pensioners revolt over hike in social contributions payments | Manuel Jardinaud, Mathilde Goanec and Romaric Godin 19. Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach | Carole Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison 20. Facebook?s Surveillance Machine | Zeynep Tufekci 21. Ivan Ilyin, Putin?s Philosopher Of Russian Fascism | Timothy Snyder 22. France: Gaddafi relations haunt Sarkozy in 2007 campaign financing case | Tracy Mcnicoll ======================================== 1.WHAT?S ATTRACTING WOMEN TO MYANMAR?S BUDDHIST NATIONALIST MOVEMENT ? | Isabel Marler, Macarena Aguilar ======================================== Amid Myanmar?s transition towards democracy, a dangerous Buddhist nationalist movement is on the rise, and women are playing a key role. http://www.sacw.net/article13690.html ======================================== 2. ANTI-MUSLIM RIOTS IN SRI LANKA by Irfan Engineer ======================================== The recent anti-Muslim riots in Kandy, Sri Lanka, once again demonstrate that religion is becoming more salient in public domain, including politics, in South Asia. http://www.sacw.net/article13691.html ======================================== 3. BANGLADESH: ?MIGHT IS RIGHT IS THE ONLY LANGUAGE WE HAVE REVERTED TO AS A SOCIETY? - RAFIDA BONYA AHMED ======================================== Avijit Roy ? a prominent secularist and atheist ? had earned his share of friends and enemies since 2001 after he set up the Mukto-Mona website. It was the first platform of its kind for Bengali atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and secular writers. His wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, was one of its contributors. On February 26, 2015, the couple became the target of their enemies when machete-wielding attackers tried to silence them forever outside the Dhaka Ekushey Book Fair. Brutally attacked, the duo lay in a pool of blood outside the bookfair premises. http://www.sacw.net/article13686.html ======================================== 4. WHAT PREVENTS PAKISTAN AND INDIA FROM STARTING AN UNINTERRUPTED DIALOGUE ? by Zubeida Mustafa ======================================== THE disputes between India and Pakistan have cast a long and dark shadow over their relationship since the two countries stepped out of colonial bondage in 1947. The circumstances surrounding their birth made it inevitable that ill feelings would mar ties and make coexistence difficult. But did it have to be so forever? This question is now being asked by sane and rational people on both sides of the border. Even after seven decades that saw a major reconfiguration of the map of South Asia through three wars and the breakup of Pakistan, this question has a strange urgency to it. http://www.sacw.net/article13641.html ======================================== 5. India: Prevent Destruction of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) - Statement by Former JNU Faculty ======================================== We the undersigned former teachers of JNU are dismayed by the turn of events in the university since the present vice-chancellor has assumed office. The strength of JNU since its inception had been its democratic ethos marked by mutual respect, and cooperation between its three main constituents, the students, the faculty and the administration http://sacw.net/article13688.html ======================================== 6. Announced: International Seminar on The Landmark Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons - Opportunities and Challenges | 24-25 March 2018, New Delhi ======================================== http://www.sacw.net/article13692.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Why Political Parties Play Upon Fears of Muslims - Political opportunism requires a consolidated community, living in perpetual fear - India: Lingayat leadership is under an erroneous belief that recognition of a religious community depends on law - India: Cow Vigilantism - Crime, Community and Livelihood - Press Conference and Release of PUDR Report (22 March 2018) - India: The Communal Politics of Eviction Drives in Assam - India: Jawaharlal Nehru?s views on religion and secularism as read by Rajeev Bhargava - India: BJP?s Forays in North Eastern States and anti Minority Agenda | Ram Puniyani - India: The Congress in Karnataka has surrendered to identity politics this election season - India: BJP and the RSS "signalled their cadres" to destroy statues of those who oppose their Hindutva ideology - Khalistan and Hindu rashtra | Jawed Naqvi - India - Mangaluru pub assault: How the prosecution derailed the case against the Sri Ram Sene - India?s liberals must take on both Hindu and Muslim communalists says Ramachandra Guha - India: ?Hindu liberalism shouldn?t need the crutches of Muslim liberalism? Asghar Ali Engineer 2004 response to Ramachandra Guha - Indian Kashmir: From Srinagar, a new crop of militants who kill and die in the name of religion, not politics - India: Ram Rahim?s ?vision?, presence still looms large over Dera Sacha Sauda in Haryana - India - Bihar: A procession of BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal workers ? led by Union MoS Ashwini Kumar Choubey?s son sparks communal clashes in Bhagalpur - India: The rise in the number of communal incidents targeting Muslims in Gujarat Village - India: Hindu Mahasabha's Hindu new year calendar refers to Mecca as Macceshwar Mahadev temple and certain mughul monuments as hindu temples -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. NO SHELTER IN AFGHANISTAN Afghan Government Moves to Seize Control of Women?s Shelters ? Again by Heather Barr ======================================== Human Rights Watch, 19 March 2018 [photo] Members of civil society organizations chant slogans during a protest to condemn the killing of 27-year-old woman, Farkhunda, who was beaten with sticks and set on fire by a crowd of men in central Kabul in broad daylight on Thursday, in Kabul March 24, 2015. ? 2018 Reuters More than 8 out of 10 Afghan women and girls will suffer domestic and other violence in their lifetime. Before 2001, they had nowhere to run. These days there are some safe havens: the country?s tiny, but desperately important, network of women?s shelters. But these shelters are now under attack ? and not for the first time ? by Afghanistan?s own government. Last month, the Ministry of Women?s Affairs (MoWA) announced plans to seize control of shelter funding provided by foreign donors, and instead require shelter operators to seek funding through the ministry. This might sound reasonable ? a hallmark of President Ashraf Ghani?s government has been a push for greater government control over donor funds in the name of anti-corruption. But we?ve seen this before. In 2011, MoWA also pushed for control of the shelters and used the same rhetoric as this time ? alluding to ?problems? in the refuges and suggesting ? falsely ? that shelters are brothels. But these abusive lies have been spread for years by opponents of women?s rights, who believe that women should have no safe haven from their husband no matter how violent and that a father or brother should have total control over the life ? or death ? of a woman. In 2011, I was one of several lawyers who spent many hours reviewing the regulation MoWA sought to impose on shelters. It was clear that it intended to deprive women of refuge. Under the regulation, women would have been forced to convince a panel that they deserve shelter, and to undergo humiliating and medically meaningless ?virginity tests.? Worst of all, they would have been turned over to their families at the relatives? request ? although nearly all were fleeing abuse from their own family. In 2011, and in 2013 when MoWA tried again, international donors who fund the shelters fought back. But foreign donor interest in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically. It is far from clear that they will fight again to save the shelters. I have met Afghan women whose lives were saved by these refuges. I remember the fear in their eyes. If donors don?t act ? and fast ? they will have even more to fear. Heather Barr Senior Researcher, Women's Rights Division ======================================== 9. MASS ARRESTS IN MALDIVES AS ACTIVISTS DEFY EMERGENCY ======================================== The Straits Times March 17, 2018 COLOMBO (AFP) - Maldivian authorities arrested more than 140 activists who defied a ban on rallies and demonstrated against a state of emergency imposed by President Abdulla Yameen, the opposition said Saturday (March 17). Thousands of supporters poured into the streets of the capital island Male on Friday night and continued their protest rally till early Saturday, the joint opposition said in a statement issued in Colombo. "Ignoring President Yameen's edicts banning protests, and braving police and army pepper spray and tear gas, the protests swelled to thousands strong by the early hours of Saturday morning," the statement said. It said 141 pro-democracy supporters were arrested following what it called the biggest anti-Yameen protest to rock the Maldives since May Day 2015 when similar mass arrests were carried out. Maldivian police confirmed the latest arrests and said 139 people, including 26 women, remained in custody Saturday morning. Two people had been released overnight. Police also confirmed that they used pepper spray and teargas to disperse the crowds who marched through the streets despite the state of emergency imposed by Yameen last month. The opposition said three members of parliament were among those arrested on Friday. Yameen is facing increasing opposition both within and outside his tiny Indian Ocean archipelago since coming to power in November 2013 following a controversial run off election against former president Mohamed Nasheed. Last month, Yameen extended a draconian state of emergency by another month, ignoring a growing chorus of international concern and calls for democracy to be restored in the honeymoon islands. Yameen declared the emergency earlier in February, curtailing the powers of the judiciary and the legislature, after the country's Supreme Court ruled to quash criminal convictions against high profile opposition politicians. The Maldives' highest court has since revoked its order after two top judges were arrested, seemingly giving Yameen the upper hand in a bitter power struggle. UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has described the state of emergency as "an all-out assault on democracy" and urged Yameen to return the country to democracy and rule of law. The ongoing unrest has dented the Maldives' image as a popular holiday destination. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN: OUR YELLOW STARS | Irfan Husain ======================================== Dawn, March 17, 2018 THE Islamabad High Court?s recent ruling that Pakistanis have to declare their faith to obtain birth certificates, ID cards and passports, and to get on to voters? lists has generated a debate on the possible outcome of the implementation of the judgement; it has also heightened concerns that minority religious communities could be pushed even further from the mainstream. Although the court does not identify them, there is a perception that the reference in the ruling is to the Ahmadi community. According to the judgement, failure to declare one?s faith is tantamount to a ?betrayal of the state? and ?exploiting the Constitution?. This is an odd position considering that the Constitution guarantees equal rights for all citizens, and enjoins the state to protect the minorities. Intolerance is ingrained in our society. The ruling makes it compulsory for citizens to take an oath regarding their faith when joining the civil services, the armed forces and the judiciary. As far as I am aware, the military does not discriminate according to faith, though it is now rare to see a non-Muslim climb beyond a certain level of the hierarchy. The question is, why should an individual?s faith be the business of the state? Frankly, I am not concerned about my neighbour?s religion, or, indeed, lack of one. As long as a citizen has not broken the law, why can?t he get an ID card, a birth certificate or a passport without declaring his faith? And how exactly does a failure to do so amount to a betrayal? Our minorities are being rendered even more vulnerable to abuse and persecution. Pakistan ranks among the 15 most religiously intolerant countries in the world. Unsurprisingly, most of them have Muslim majorities. If non-Muslim citizens now have their faith recorded on their ID cards, how many will get jobs? Unfortunately, intolerance is ingrained in our society. As I.A. Rehman reminded us in a recent speech at an event to celebrate Asma Jahangir?s life, this business of identifying minorities has a long and dishonourable history. In the Nazi-occupied Europe of the 1940s, Jews were forced to wear distinguishing yellow stars on their sleeves. This made them vulnerable to daily harassment and humiliation. It also made them easier to identify and transport to concentration camps during the Holocaust. But the Nazis did not invent the yellow stars: mediaeval Europe is full of examples of anti-Semitic persecution, and rulers as well as the Church made Jews display their faith. And while Muslims claim that their treatment of Jews was better than that accorded to them by Christians, the record is mixed at best. There were periods in which Jews rose to eminent positions in Muslim Spain and the Ottoman Empire. But equally, there were pogroms and riots that saw Jews killed and their property destroyed. In Morocco, one of the more tolerant Muslim countries in the 19th century, Jews were forced to walk barefooted or wear straw shoes when they emerged from their ghettos. Thus identified, they became easy targets of harassment and humiliation. Is this the sort of Pakistan we want? As it is, many non-Muslims have fled the persecution they suffer from. Many of my Christian school friends from St Patrick?s have emigrated. As kids in the 1950s and 1960s, we were not concerned about what religion our friends followed. But with time, the state, the clergy ? and even individuals ? started taking an inordinate interest in the beliefs of others. Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims in 1974. Zia?s 1984 Ordinance XX forbade Ahmadis from ?posing as Muslims?. Even the mention of an Islamic verse on a wedding invitation was enough for a jail sentence. Over the years, hundreds of Ahmadis have been killed and jailed. And they aren?t the only ones: Hindus and Christians, too, have felt the lash of our zeal. Many have been victimised through the misuse of our blasphemy laws. Even if they have been declared innocent by the courts, they remain at risk from bloodthirsty clerics and the mobs the latter can whip up. One of the factors that drives this frenzy is the sense of immunity that zealots are given by the state?s refusal to protect our minorities. In all the hundreds of incidents involving attacks on non-Muslims, how many perpetrators have been arrested and sentenced? When screaming mobs are told by clerics that it is their religious duty to kill an alleged blasphemer, what would stop them but the power of the state? But when the state chooses to become a bystander, who will protect an illiterate Christian woman accused by spiteful Muslim neighbours of desecrating religious verses? We often ask why the world has ganged up against us, blaming foreign powers for their nefarious designs. But we need to look at our own actions for answers. Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018 ======================================== 11. On India Pakistan Tensions and on-going Arms Race ======================================== India: 5 Missile Tests in Two Months https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/03/13/5-missile-test-in-two-months-indias-attempt-to-create-credible-minimum-deterrence-in-south-asia/ Pakistan Has Just Tested the Ultimate Nuclear Missile http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/pakistan-has-just-tested-the-ultimate-nuclear-missile-24834 Pakistan suspects India may target CPEC installations: Dawn report http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/pakistan-suspects-india-may-target-cpec-installations-dawn-report/article22659126.ece Situation on LoC, working boundary with India rapidly deteriorating: Pak FM https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/situation-on-loc-working-boundary-with-india-rapidly-deteriorating-pak-fm-1186242-2018-03-09 FO expresses disappointment at India's 'failure' to issue visas to Ajmer Sharif pilgrims https://www.dawn.com/news/1396250 Another Grim India-Pakistan Day as Harassment of Diplomats Continues https://thewire.in/diplomacy/another-grim-india-pakistan-day-as-harassment-of-diplomats-continues Viewpoint: India and Pakistan up the ante on disputed border http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42856494 'The Doomsday Machine': Daniel Ellsberg's Riveting Memoir Flags the Risks of a Nuclear Winter https://thewire.in/222073/doomsday-machine-daniel-ellsbergs-riveting-memoir-flags-risks-nuclear-winter/ ======================================== 12. NEOABOLITIONISM?S LAST LAUGH: INDIA MUST RETHINK TRAFFICKING | Prabha Kotiswaran ======================================== Open Democracy 20 March 2018 India?s new trafficking bill seeks a wide array of new powers to punish, but does nothing to address the causes of exploitation in the first place. Carpet weaving in Rajastan, India. Jeffrey Leventhal for ILO/Flickr. CC (by-nd) In October 2017, India vehemently protested the release of the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage (GEMS) by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Walk Free Foundation (WFF) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). GEMS estimated that there were 40.3 million ?modern slaves? worldwide with 24.9 million persons in forced labour and 15.4 million in forced marriage. GEMS did not name countries, but the writing on the wall was clear. After all, the GEMS study conducted 17,000 survey interviews in India, compared to 1000 interviews in most countries, and 61.78% of the 40.3 million ?modern slaves? were in Asia and the Pacific. Furthermore, the WFF had, the year before, estimated that of the 45.8 million ?modern slaves? worldwide, 40% were in India alone. Registering its protest with the ILO, India vowed to undertake its own surveys. Bibek Debroy, economic adviser to the prime minister and member of Niti Aayog (the think-tank responsible for the sustainable development goals or SDGs), was scathing in his critique of GEMS. He called its estimates on forced marriage ?confused and fuddled? and urged reliance on the government?s reports on child marriage. But as GEMS forms the baseline for achieving SDG 8.7 (requiring states to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking; prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labour; and by 2025 end child labour), India?s desire to measure ?more? and ?better? to protect its international image is wholly inadequate. Rather than succumb to the cult of the numbers game played by international organisations and philanthrocapitalists, India could be more ambitious. It could, for example, assert a leadership role in the global fight against exploitation by countering the influence of neo-abolitionism. This is a discourse that perpetuates sensationalist accounts of ?modern slaves? as victims tricked by unscrupulous traffickers, beaten into submission for exploitation and whose only hope is to be rescued, rehabilitated and repatriated by law-enforcing heroes. After all, long before neo-abolitionist groups like WFF and a handful of western countries set the global (and Indian) policy agenda on ?trafficking?, India and Brazil had already developed a rich, indigenous jurisprudence on exploitation with a structural understanding of coercion and exploitation in labour markets backed by a creative regulatory response. But sadly, today, the Indian government is set to introduce the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill (Trafficking Bill), which exemplifies neo-abolitionism. Yet another flawed law Elsewhere I have written about India?s complex patch-work of anti-trafficking laws ranging from the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) to the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986 (ITPA) to social welfare legislations on contract labour, bonded labour and inter-state migrant work. While criminal laws like the IPC and ITPA target ?bad men? traffickers (rotten apples), labour laws presume endemic exploitation in Indian labour markets and use a combination of penal, labour and contract laws to impose obligations for better working conditions on intermediaries. Unfortunately, as the topic of trafficking gained international prominence, the Indian government began to understand trafficking as equivalent to sex trafficking and sex work itself. It came close to punishing customers of sex workers in 2005 and conflated trafficking with voluntary sex work in 2013. The current definition of trafficking in Section 370 of the IPC is not limited to the sex sector. However, despite the abysmally low convictions for trafficking worldwide (below 6000 in 2013), and the historical abuse of the criminal law in several Asian countries to further marginalise vulnerable populations, the Trafficking Bill, which builds out Section 370 and has been in the works since May 2016, is patently neo-abolitionist. The bill is highly carceral and pursues the classic raid-rescue-rehabilitation model, with stringent penalties for trafficking, including life imprisonment for its aggravated forms, reversals of burden of proof and provisions for stripping traffickers of their assets. It creates a plethora of new institutions with unclear roles, capacious powers (including for surveillance) and no accountability, alongside a parallel adjudication machinery with special courts and special public prosecutors. There is no clarity on how the bill relates to the ITPA and to labour laws. What should India do instead? In a recent statement, scholars, activists and workers? rights groups argued against extending a criminal law, raid-rescue-rehabilitation model beyond sex work to other labour sectors. They called instead for a multi-faceted legal and economic strategy; robust implementation of labour laws; a universal social protection floor; self-organisation of workers; improved labour inspection, including in the informal economy; and corporate accountability for decent work conditions. They also reiterated the need for systemic reforms to counter distress migration; end caste-based discrimination; ensure sustainable development; redistribute resources; enforce the rural employment guarantee legislation; avoid the indiscriminate ?rescue? of voluntary sex workers; and protect migrants? mobility and rights, domestically and internationally. As the introduction of the trafficking bill in parliament appears imminent, only a bold, creative and holistic response to what is fundamentally a socio-economic problem of labour exploitation can help realise SDG 8.7. Otherwise, the very neo-abolitionists that the Indian government countered last year will have the last laugh. ======================================== 13. TREATY THAT BACKFIRED? | Mohammed Ayoob ======================================== The Hindu March 20, 2018 The Shimla Agreement of 1972 was expected to be a milestone in India-Pakistan relations, for not only did it rend Pakistan asunder, but India also held 93,000 prisoners of war (POWs) who could constitute a major bargaining chip with Pakistan. India had three primary objectives at Shimla. First, a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue or, failing that, an agreement that would constrain Pakistan from involving third parties in discussions about the future of Kashmir. Second, it was hoped that the Agreement would allow for a new beginning in relations with Pakistan based upon Pakistan?s acceptance of the new balance of power. Third, it left open the possibility of achieving both these objectives without pushing Pakistan to the wall and creating a revanchist anti-India regime. There was a near-consensus among Indian policymakers that India must not pull a ?Versailles? on Pakistan. A humiliated Pakistan, it was argued, would inevitably turn revanchist. This was the reason India did not force Pakistan to convert the ceasefire line in Kashmir into the international boundary when Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ruled out this option. It accepted the term Line of Control (LoC) instead, thus delinking it from UN resolutions and highlighting that Kashmir was a purely bilateral affair. India was inclined to return the POWs but was constrained from doing so because they had surrendered to the joint India-Bangladesh command and could not be returned without the latter?s concurrence. Dhaka made it clear that it would not return the POWs until Islamabad recognised Bangladesh, thus delaying the POWs? return until 1974. However, despite its soft line on Kashmir and the POWs, India was unable to prevent the military from taking power in Islamabad in 1977 and executing Bhutto. General Zia-ul-Haq?s coup had a major bearing on India?s other objectives. Zia?s strategy was to use the Afghan insurgency in the 1980s to acquire sophisticated arms from the U.S. and induce Washington to ignore Pakistan?s clandestine quest for nuclear weapons. Pakistan?s acquisition of nuclear capability created a situation of deterrence negating India?s superiority in conventional power and instated de facto military parity between the two countries. The 1999 Kargil War validated the success of deterrence when India desisted from taking the war into Pakistani territory. Deterrence also provided the shield for the Pakistani military to take the ?war? into Indian Kashmir through its proxies, the terrorist groups created and supported by the ISI. Nuclear weapons prevented India from retaliating on Pakistani territory. The Shimla Agreement did not fully achieve any of India?s objectives. If anything, it may have whetted the Pakistani military?s appetite to try to turn Kashmir into India?s Bangladesh. Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Michigan State University, and Senior Fellow, Center for Global Policy, Washington, DC ======================================== 14. INDIA: HINDUTVA'S TALL CLAIM MAKING ON SCIENCE - SELECT EDITORIALS AND COMMENTARY ======================================== Deccan Chronicle March 18, 2018 Editorial Don?t mix science, Hindutva These utterances at a science congress become even more curious considering that to quote Hawking is like asking the devil to quote scripture. Harsh Vardhan, the Union minister of science and technology, has a bee in his bonnet about the Vedas being the fount of all knowledge, including esoteric scientific theories. We have the utmost respect for the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, as a compendium of philosophical treatises that have so much wisdom and knowledge to offer mankind. But the fact that this minister believes the Vedas postulated a theory superior to Einstein?s Theory of Relativity and that the recently deceased cosmologist Stephen Hawking acknowledged it makes him unfit to be the Union minister of science and technology. Since the science minister is said to have drawn from Hawking?s wisdom from a fake website, we wonder what his agenda is. These utterances at a science congress become even more curious considering that to quote Hawking is like asking the devil to quote scripture. Now Hawking did not believe in God, saying there was no need for a creator to have been around to make the Big Bang happen and the inflation of the universe to take place. The Big Bang theory represents the very opposite of what the texts of all religions would have us believe. While it is to be appreciated the Indian government would indeed like to further the spirit of scientific inquiry and harness it for progress, its science minister clouds the scenario somewhat by trying to meld science and faith. We have reason to believe that in matters of pure science men of great intellect like Einstein and Hawking have excelled. Don?t drag their science to promote Hindutva. o o o The Times of India March 19, 2018 Editorial Fake news trap: Science minister should be warning people against dubious online content Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan?s proclamation at the 105th Indian Science Congress that British physicist Stephen Hawking had said that the Vedas might contain a theory superior to Albert Einstein?s famous equation E=mc2, appears a classic case of falling into the fake news trap. His source is reported to be the website of one Institute of Scientific Research on Vedas which in turn references a fake Stephen Hawking Facebook page. Vardhan, a medical doctor himself, chose a gathering of the best Indian scientific minds to make a pronouncement on science with zero credibility. This not only dishonours Indian science, but is also an example of how fake news spread through social media is distorting perceptions and political debate worldwide. Perhaps Hawking?s demise last week compelled Vardhan to pay tribute to the famous scientist. And perhaps Hawking?s alleged statement on the Vedas spoke to Vardhan?s cognitive biases. In fact, this is the big danger in the age of social media. When it tallies with what people already believe, reflecting their confirmation bias, people are likely to buy inauthentic ?information? as authentic. And given the viral nature of social media ? as well as its propensity to create echo chambers ? misinformation can spread like an epidemic. In its worst form, this can lead to riots among communities and tensions between nations. This is all the more reason why people should be turning to authentic and credible sources of information rather than blindly relying on social media content. And if social media can?t be avoided, cross-checking content with multiple sources including books, journals and newspapers would help avoid the fake news trap. Vardhan, as science and technology minister, should himself be educating people about fake online information. o o o SEE ALSO: Trustee's Rebuttal - Minister's Claim On Hawking G.S. Mudur and Amit Roy Mar 18, 2018 https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/trustee-s-rebuttal-216579 A Science Minister ? and an Event ? That Insults Indian Science Harsh Vardhan and the administration to which he belongs have only displayed a lack of trust in the morality of India's scientists. by Vasudevan Mukunth https://thewire.in/science/a-science-minister-and-an-event-that-insults-indian-science ======================================== 15. INDIA: AFTER GORAKHPUR - THE BJP'S LOSSES IN THE BYPOLLS HAVE CREATED NEW POSSIBILITIES Mukul Kesavan ======================================== The Telegraph March 18, 2018 The Bharatiya Janata Party's defeats in the by-elections in Gorakhpur, Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh and Araria in Bihar are significant because these two provinces alone elect more than a fifth of the Lok Sabha. With a general election imminent, these results from the Hindi heartland inevitably raise questions about the BJP's chances of repeating the electoral sweeps of North Indian states that propelled it to an absolute majority in 2014. It's worth remembering that in UP alone the BJP and its ally, the Apna Dal, won 73 seats out of a possible 80. Apart from providing pundits with material to speculate about India's political future, these results help clarify the recent past. The most interesting question thrown up by the BJP's overwhelming victory in the UP assembly elections in March 2017 was this: why did the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi choose to elevate an extremist Hindu monk to the chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh? One answer to this question was that the BJP was so beholden to Adityanath for its victory, especially in eastern UP, that his claims to the top job were irresistible. So despite the fact that he wasn't Modi's first choice (or so the speculation went), he got the job because the sangh parivar didn't want a thwarted Adityanath making trouble for the BJP in UP. In this explanation, the BJP sought to domesticate the feral Adityanath by vesting him with the responsibilities of office. The other, simpler, explanation of his elevation was that Modi who had won the UP election without specifying a chief ministerial candidate on the strength of the sangh parivar's organization and his own charisma chose Adityanath because he thought the time was right to symbolically redeem the promise of a Hindu rashtra. What better way to formally inaugurate the Hindu supremacist project than to make an aggressively majoritarian mahant the ruler of the most politically important state in India? The second explanation was always the more likely one because it was simpler and accorded with the facts of that election as it unfolded, but if confirmation was needed, the Gorakhpur by-election supplied it. The Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat has been literally owned by the Gorakhnath temple's mahant for decades now. As the chief minister of UP, with all the resources of the State at his disposal, this mighty monk couldn't retain the pocket borough he had just vacated despite campaigning vigorously for his party's candidate. Forget the constituency, Adityanath couldn't even win the polling booth that he customarily votes in. Praveen K. Nishad, the winning candidate, rubbed it in: "BJP got just 43 votes on the polling booth covering Gorakhpur Math where Adityanath cast his vote while SP polled 1,775 votes here. Clearly, the CM is no mass campaigner." While his party's managers might have been taken by surprise by the result, it wasn't because they saw Adityanath as a mass campaigner; they merely expected him to be able to retain his own backyard as they would any local strongman. Adityanath was made chief minister of UP because he literally embodied reaction: his saffron habit, his vigilante army, his 'Love jihad', his 'anti-Romeo' squads and his gift for incendiary provocation made him a poster boy for Hindu supremacy. Before his elevation, he had called for the family of Mohammad Akhlaque (a man lynched by cow vigilantes) to be arrested, for the compensation given to them to be revoked and for the release of everyone accused of murdering Akhlaque from prison. It was for communal provocations of this sort that he was made chief minister: to indicate that this was what the unfettered Hindu politician looked like. Adityanath was Hindutva Unbound. Commentators have puzzled over why the BJP recently used Adityanath as a campaigner in southern states like Kerala and Karnataka. A glowering, parochial, monolingual mahant isn't likely to mobilize the Malayali or Kannadiga masses. But this is to mistake his purpose. For the BJP, Adityanath's persona is a shout-out to its core constituency: 'This is who we really are.' He is a reminder of the quality that differentiates the BJP from other parties, its commitment to Hindu supremacy. He is not the BJP's mass campaigner, nor its charismatic crowd-puller; that is and always was Modi. Adityanath is its mascot, its portable, full motion animation of the aggrieved Hindu. The manner of his humiliation in Gorakhpur has created new political possibilities. The BJP swept UP twice, in the general election of 2014 and, then, the assembly election three years later because its opposition was divided. The lesson of coalition politics had been taught by the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar that defeated the BJP despite Modi's best efforts in the state assembly elections there. The prospect of a grand coalition in UP has been explored before in the early 1990s but there is a powerful sociological argument against it: the principal conflicts in rural Uttar Pradesh are between powerful OBC communities like the Yadavs and Dalits. The conventional sociological wisdom ignores a few things. One, the Bahujan Samaj Party has always sought the support of non-Yadav OBCs. The winner in Gorakhpur was P.K. Nishad, the son of the founder of the Nishad Party, who used to be a prot?g? of Kanshi Ram, but later left the BSP. The BSP, on Mayavati's instructions, supported Nishad wholeheartedly in the Gorakhpur election. Secondly, Akhilesh Yadav's willingness to offer a ticket to a non-Yadav OBC party indicates an awareness on his part of the necessity to expand the Samajwadi Party's footprint beyond Yadavs and Muslims. Three, the enthronement of Adityanath has led to a sharp uptick in Thakur violence in UP, to the extent that Dalits seem more willing to overlook the history of Yadav violence to vote for an SP candidate. And four, the boost that an allliance's candidates would receive from consolidated Muslim support ought to be a real incentive for a subaltern coalition. Gorakhpur demonstrated that the BSP can swing its votes to the SP. What remains to be seen is if the SP can get the Yadavs to reciprocate. One reason why Mayavati hasn't been interested in pre-poll coalitions is that while her constituency does her bidding when it comes to transferring the BSP's votes to another party, it isn't clear, given the entrenched prejudice against Dalits, that the SP's core constituencies would be willing to vote for the BSP's candidates. But if the SP is serious about winning UP in the general elections and forestalling a second BJP majority government, it has to commit itself to helping its alliance partners win because the BJP is an existential threat to both parties. They have been wiped out twice over: in 2014 and 2017. The lesson from Bihar is clear: hang together or hang separately. The other lesson from Bihar is how difficult it is to stay together. Having found a compelling reason to campaign together (survival), the BSP and the SP need to find a populist agenda that transcends caste fractions. It won't be easy but political extinction does tend to focus the mind. ======================================== 16. INDIA: WHAT LIES BETWEEN TRUST AND THE TRUSTWORTHY Why may a municipal hospital be better than a private one with more amenities? Answers emerge when accidents happen, and convention is questioned17. Charles Assisi ======================================== Mint on Sunday March 13 2018 A very long short: Early last week, the family driver met with a tragic episode. He fainted on the wheel and lost control of the car. Passing motorists figured something is the matter and attempted to cordon it off. A passer-by ran beside it, opened the door to get in, pulled the handbrake and got it to halt. Because the episode happened close to home, an acquaintance figured it is my car and I was promptly informed. On getting there in a few minutes, it was clear something was dreadfully wrong. The 37-year old sounded incoherent and was hallucinating. All accounts from witnesses to the episode suggested he had just had an epileptic seizure. He had to be pinned down and taken to a hospital right away. With help from strangers and an obliging taxi driver, he was rushed to the nearest hospital. En route to the place, calls were placed to friends in the neurosciences. Basis their prognosis over the phone and my limited understanding of the symptoms, a few outcomes looked possible. It could be anything from a haemorrhage in the brain triggered by high blood pressure or a seizure triggered by some kind of encephalitis. To zero in the real cause, medical protocol insisted first be sedated to rein in the violent behaviour, an MRI be conducted, and a few life-saving drugs be pumped in. Else permanent impairment or even death looked imminent. On getting to the casualty ward, I didn?t think it pertinent to describe at length all of what transpired?but quickly summarise whatever happened and suggest he be restrained first and that urgent protocols as mandated when such behaviour is demonstrated be administered. I was stared right back at and told: ?He looks perfectly all right to me.? Even as the doctor said that, he got up and ran away from imaginary demons into oblivion. The security let him pass. They heard the doctor pronounce him hale and hearty. I yelled at the intensivist for thinking me an idiot. ?I know what I?m talking about,? went unheard. But she looked right through me. Much later I was told she felt mighty offended. What protocol to follow is something she decides and isn?t dictated by anybody. I certainly didn?t look the kind who could offer informed advice?unkempt in a worn-out t-Shirt, sloppy shorts, stubble a few days old on my face, and bathroom slippers on my feet. Just when it was time to lodge a man-missing complaint with the police, he reappeared on the horizon. This time, looking lost, dishevelled, and talking to ghosts. Much drama and another long story followed that lasted until mid-night when I finally sunk into bed, exhausted after all of what had transpired. In hindsight, the sanest piece of advice I received during the day was that he be taken to KEM Hospital in Mumbai. When I was first told that though, my reaction was ?Any place, but not there?. How terribly, terribly wrong I was would be evidently only much later. The first reaction KEM Hospital evoked from me is a uniform one that the ?privileged? living in metropolitan cities like Mumbai feel. It has much to do with that this is a hospital managed by the Municipal Corporation of the city and owes its allegiance to the government. And the government, the privileged believe, have a track record of mismanaging pretty much everything. But because there was no resort or resource left with after much adventure through the day, it was the last option. KEM Hospital is like a parallel universe. An altogether different system that operates at a pace and rhythm that makes no sense to those who live outside of it. Throbbing with thousands of people of all kinds, at first glance, it looks like a war zone. Casualties are brought in every minute, their misery intact, some howling in pain, others waiting to die, many accompanied by wailing relatives, others by a harried police constable, even as the medical and para-medical staff work against the odds. It is inevitable then that they have neither the time or the inclination to engage in polite talk. Everybody looks rushed and sounds brusque. With a convulsing man though, I imagined some latitude may be offered to get ahead of the others so that this creature, whose misery I was holding, could be offered some immediate relief. Instead, I was asked to stop being stupid, shut up and wait in a queue?because there were others whose misery looked greater. Broken heads, torn limbs, flowing blood, crying children, everybody looked and sounded even more miserable and desperate. It was soon evident why the professionals at work there look as rushed and sound as brusque as they do. They take calls every minute, every hour, every day, on their feet in harsh conditions. It can break down the hardiest of souls. There is no room for emotion. If any such thing be felt, it can be drowned elsewhere?but not here. There are real people that must be attended to. All of them must be paid equal attention. Time is at a premium. All help is appreciated, but not acknowledged. This is an ecosystem that has a mind of its own and gets on with life on its terms. A little while later, it was time for one of the overworked doctor to now look at the cranky mess of a man with me and his wailing wife as well in tow. The physician quickly heard me out and had no problem either with noting my opinion. He finally weighed all the evidence with a counterpart in a matter of a few minutes, so a call may be taken. I heard them quietly confer with each other quickly: ?Herpes Simplex?? one wondered. Over the years, I have gotten to know enough about this strain of the virus. That compelled me to butt in and suggest that while the clinical symptoms may suggest that, the diagnosis can be misleading in my experience, and a deeper probe may be needed. They didn?t roll their eyes or look at me suspiciously. Instead they jotted it down on the case paper, agreed to hospitalise him right away, and investigate some more. Unlike the earlier place, there was no time or room for egos to clash. That was it. My job, he said, is done. I was asked to step aside so the system can take over to do whatever it thinks is appropriate. What system? I thought I couldn?t see anything, except chaos. Just then out of where somebody emerged out of someplace and directed me to another official, so my statement can be recorded for the police to verify my antecedents and that of the ?person? I had brought in. They had to record my identity and that of whom I had got in. Over and out it was. It took me a while to let it sink in that a system had indeed taken over. There was nothing else I could do. While I am not a medical professional, I do know that what I could see being executed, was as mandated by the latest advances in medicine. There is nothing else any of the doctors at KEM or somebody at the fanciest hospital could do better. At best, the private ones may have offered an illusion of offering better care because it can offer creature comforts like air-conditioned environments, private rooms, higher quality food, reassuring conversations, and a seemingly sanitised environment. It comes at a huge premium though?unaffordable to most uninsured Indians. Having witnessed all this, calls were placed to friends of all kinds: those who practice medicine, former teachers from my stream during college and affiliated to KEM Hospital, and friends in the media who report on the domain. A clear consensus emerged: They trust the medical professionals at KEM Hospital more than they do from any private medical entity in the city. For that matter, they argue, they trust large medical entities in the country trained to serve the poor, and look chaotic to the untrained eye, more than many professionally run, private medical institutions. This runs contrary to how hospitals such as KEM are perceived by those who live on the top of the economic pyramid. But if I were to be in there, I?d sure as hell would be desperate to get out. Why may anyone want to get into a system that seems strained at the leash? Even as this dispatch is being written, 4,500 para medical staffers and nurses have declared they will not report to work because the software that processes their salaries have malfunctioned. They haven?t been paid. How can anyone trust such a system with their lives and the lives of those that matter to them? What was I missing? It took me a long while to figure I am missing the forest for the trees. The reason people in the know suggested I place my trust in the ecosystem around KEM Hospital is because experience has taught them it is a trustworthy system. Trust is something that can be measured by metrics like opinion polls. But opinions are, well, opinions. It is subjective. Trustworthiness cannot be measured in any form. This was first put into perspective for me after listening in to the British philosopher Onora O?Neill in a short, but outstanding talk on what we don?t understand about trust. ?The aim is to have more trust. Well frankly, I think that?s a stupid aim. It?s not what I would aim at. I would aim to have more trust in the trustworthy?? ?It?s judging how trustworthy people are in particular respects?.? ?And I think that judgment requires us to look at three things. Are they competent? Are they honest? Are they reliable? And if we find that a person is competent in the relevant matters, and reliable and honest, we?ll have a pretty good reason to trust them, because they?ll be trustworthy?.? ?But that?s what we?re looking for: trustworthiness before trust. Trust is the response. Trustworthiness is what we have to judge. And, of course, it?s difficult. Across the last few decades, we?ve tried to construct systems of accountability for all sorts of institutions and professionals and officials and so on that will make it easier for us to judge their trustworthiness. A lot of these systems have the converse effect. They don?t work as they?re supposed to. I remember I was talking with a midwife who said, Rs.Well, you see, the problem is it takes longer to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby.? And all over our public life, our institutional life, we find that problem, that the system of accountability that is meant to secure trustworthiness and evidence of trustworthiness is actually doing the opposite. It is distracting people who have to do difficult tasks, like midwives, from doing them by requiring them to tick the boxes, as we say.? ?The aim, I think, is more trustworthiness, and that is going to be different if we are trying to be trustworthy and communicate our trustworthiness to other people, and if we are trying to judge whether other people or office-holders or politicians are trustworthy. It?s not easy. It is judgment, and simple reaction, attitudes, don?t do adequately here.? When thought about, Onana O?Neill philosopher sounds so very right. My head was unwilling to trust the doctors at KEM because the attendant paraphernalia that accompanies a privately-run institution does not accompany them. They are burdened by having to attend to people in huge numbers and have no time for nice-talk. There are other pressing things to be attended to. Like fix a few more broken people. What my head couldn?t see is or measure is that they are trustworthy. They work in a demanding environment that insists they take complex calls. When they work as furiously as they do, it is inevitable then that they become better than others in the field. But the report cards can only measure what has been gleaned from the text-books. Like facts that can be trusted upon. There is nothing though that can showcase whether these facts will be deployed in just the right way, at the right time, and ingeniously if need be, to create a trustworthy doctor?except the word of those who may have seen them at work. Because trustworthiness, much like respect, must be earned, every day. Even as this making itself evident, his relatives started to come in. They looked distraught and looked at me for answers on what is to be done next. I had other things to do. Like meet a few deadlines. Calls were placed to two friends. ?What do I do now? This guy looks in a real bad shape and his folks don?t know what to do.? I knew what their answer would be. It is what I would have told them if they were where I was. But I needed to be doubly sure. ?You?ve done what you can. The system has taken over. There is nothing else you can do. Get out and go back to work.? As anticipated, some relatives called up a little later to suggest KEM Hospital is an awful place to be in and that they would much rather he be at private hospital. ?Bad idea?, I said and hung up. Charles Assisi is co-founder at Founding Fuel Publishing. His Twitter handle is @c_assisi. ======================================== 17. INDIA: SEPARATE FREEDOMS | Suhrith Parthasarathy ======================================== The Hindu March 21, 2018 Why did the court extend the deadline on linking Aadhaar to various services, but refuse to grant one for welfare plans? http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/separate-freedoms/article23305615.ece?homepage=true ======================================== 18. ANGRY FRENCH PENSIONERS REVOLT OVER HIKE IN SOCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS PAYMENTS by Manuel Jardinaud, Mathilde Goanec and Romaric Godin ======================================== Mediapart.fr March 15, 2018 French pensioners held nationwide protests on Thursday over a recent rise in a levy imposed on them to fund the country?s social security system, and which for many represents a yearly loss of several hundred euros. The demonstrations were organised by a united front of pensioners? unions, who dismiss the government?s argument that the rise is necessary to finance a reduction in social security payments by young workers, what it calls a gesture of ?inter-generational solidarity?. While the pensioners? protest movement shows no signs of abating, some MPs among the ranks of Macron?s normally loyal LREM party have begun voicing their unease over the measure. Manuel Jardinaud, Mathilde Goanec and Romaric Godin report. Under rain and occasional thunder storms, thousands of pensioners took to the streets in Paris and several towns across France on Thursday to protest at cuts in net pension payments, notably following an increase introduced earlier this year on a social security levy that affects all but the lowest pensions. The generalised social contribution (la contribution sociale g?n?ralis?e), or CSG, introduced in 1991, is a payment imposed on income earners to help fund France?s indebted social security system, and in January this year President Emmanuel Macron?s centrist government raised by one quarter (1.7%) the CSG levy on pensions equal or above 1,289 euros per month. The government has argued that the CSG hike for pensioners is necessary to offset its introduction of a 3% reduction in social security payments made by young workers, what it describes as "inter-generational solidarity" to give those starting out more purchasing power. Meanwhile, planned measures which would have in part compensated the loss of income for pesnioners have been postponed and diluted, such as an exoneration of local housing tax for 80% of households. For a vast number of pensioners receiving middle retirement income, the increase in the CSG payments will represent a loss of around 400 euros per year, and the widespread anger over the move was witnessed in the joint call for the demonstration on Thursday led by nine different union organisations representing pensioners. That united front is the first social movement of its kind since Macron arrived in office last May, and is in stark contrast to the failure of French trades unions to agree a common platform against labour law reforms introduced last autumn. ?We?re told about the abolition of the housing tax to compensate for the rise in the CSG, but it has strictly nothing to do with it,? commented Michel Salingue, general secretary of one of the pensioners? unions, the FGR-FP. ?The end of the housing tax is a measure that concerns everyone, without taking into consideration that the end of that tax will result in fewer services [managed] by local authorities who will be deprived of it, and so [also] for users. So it?s all window dressing.? ?The average pension in France is 1,300 euros per month, and of course less for women,? added Salingue. ?A number of them live below the poverty line. We will never be able to catch up on what?s taken away from us through a supposed rise in spending power, because our pensions are not indexed alongside salaries, like before, but against the evolution of prices.? The organisations representing pensioners have so far been invited for discussions only by the health and social solidarity minister, Agn?s Buzyn. Members of Macron?s ruling LREM party underline that the CSG rise was detailed in the president?s election campaign manifesto. ?I know I?m asking for an effort from the most elderly, that occasionally some express anger, that it doesn?t make one popular, but I take on the responsibility,? said Macron during a visit to Ch?lons-en-Champagne, in north-east France earlier this month, when he encountered a small group of angry pensioners during a walk through the town. Speaking on condition his name is withheld, one of the president?s close entourage said,? We think the [rise of the] CSG will be acceptable in the end?, adding: ?When you know how to explain things, you can move against the tide of public opinion.? But during another trip he made to Tours, in centre-west France, on Wednesday, Macron was again met by pensioners expressing dismay at the move (see video below, in French only), who appeared little convinced by his arguments, in which he underlined that the rise in pensioners? contributions allowed for an inverse reduction in social security payments for wage earners, and notably younger, lower-paid employees. ?You have worked all your life to pay the pensions of your elders,? he told a small group of pensioners. ?I have a lot of respect for elderly people, and all those who are retired, but I have to put the country?s economy back on the move [?] For all those who work, they must earn more from work, that it picks up quicker, so that they can pay you a pension.? ?I ask you for a little effort to help me relaunch the economy and the active [population],? he added. "We've worked all our life, we're not happy": pensioners tackle President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Tours on March 14th. ? BFMTV Meanwhile, the staggered reduction in employees' social security contributions, which will be fully in place in October, will however be offset, in terms of immediate spending power, by the introduction in January 2019 of a generalised ?pay as you earn? system of income tax, which will be deducted from salaries on a monthly basis instead of the current once per year payment of income tax. The anger among pensioners is further fuelled by recent reforms easing taxes on the most wealthy, such as the recalculation of the wealth ?solidarity? tax, the ISF, as a tax on property value alone, and which no longer includes financial assets. In short, the argument, as set out by Macron in the filmed encounter with pensioners in Tours, that the retired should accept the rise in the CSG in solidarity to help younger generations, is regarded by some, as expressed above by union official Michel Salingue, as ?window dressing? to mask the new shortfall in tax payments by the rich. Macron?s ruling LREM party leader, Christophe Castaner, who is also a junior minister for government relations with parliament, tackled on Wednesday in the lower house, the National Assembly, about the government?s policies regarding the redistribution of purchasing power, said: ?The French people have voted in the elections. The president was elected on a clear contract [of policies which were] announced during a meeting on December 10th 2016, and this was never hidden.? Castaner was referring to Macron?s first major public meeting at the start of his election campaign. On Thursday, as the pensioners took to the streets, Castaner released a long statement entitled ?The inter-generational solidarity to support the working generation?, in which he repeated the arguments developed by Macron and his government over recent weeks. ?While employment gets going again,? he wrote, referring to the recent fall in jobless numbers in France, ?the government has decided to strongly support workers? purchasing power. This support is funded most largely by the better management of public spending, but also, as Emmanuel Macron announced during his [election] campaign, thanks to the contribution at the beginning of this year of a section of pensioners who pay the rate of CSG?. Castaner added his ?sincere? thanks to ?all pensioners?. At stake also for the government is that the retired population in France represent a significant electorate, and which made up an estimated 25% of all those who voted in favour of Macron during the first round of the presidential elections last year, and 27% of those who chose him in the second round over far-right leader Marine Le Pen. In that final round last May, an estimated 65% of voters aged over 65 chose Macron. Among the ranks of LREM Members of Parliament (MPs), even some of the most loyal admit to a failure in the government?s public presentation of the CSG hike for pensioners. ?This measure was part of what we put forward during the [June 2017 parliamentary election] campaign, I?m convinced it?s a good measure,? said LREM MP Ya?l Braun-Pivet, who heads the National Assembly law commission, but adding that the public argumentation ?could have been better?. Another LREM MP, Guillaume Chiche, agreed, saying that while he was in favour of the ?inter-generational solidarity? demanded of pensioners, ?the message is not easy to carry?, adding that in face of the protests, ?We?re eager for the time to pass?. His LREM colleague Pierre Person, a Paris MP who was one of the first to rally behind Macron in his presidential bid, admitted the apparent contradictions perceived by public opinion over the government?s policy strategies. ?When one angles a policy line on [attracting] investment, it?s difficult afterwards to talk about purchasing power,? he said. But LREM MP Na?ma Moutchou was more direct in her reservations over the pensions issue, revealing that ?MPs have raised this failure within the [parliamentary] group?, adding: ?This failure, I believe it actually exists not only in terms of communications.? One of the LREM parliamentary group?s spokesmen, Gilles Le Gendre, admitted that it was necessary to ?explain the weakness of the measure?, implying that beyond questions over its presentation it was intrinsically unjust. For Michel Salingue, leader of the FGR-FP pensioners? union, the move is more than simply unjust. ?This manner of treating pensioners is scandalous,? he said. ?That?s also what makes us react so sharply. We are ?privileged?, a ?golden generation?. Yes, we have more wealth than a 25-year-old youngster, but we have worked all our lives to pay for it, the house.? ======================================== 19. REVEALED: 50 MILLION FACEBOOK PROFILES HARVESTED FOR CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA IN MAJOR DATA BREACH Carole Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison ======================================== Whistleblower describes how firm linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon compiled user data to target American voters How Cambridge Analytica?s algorithms turned ?likes? into a political tool https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election ======================================== 20. FACEBOOK?S SURVEILLANCE MACHINE Zeynep Tufekci ======================================== The New York Times March 19, 2018 Facebook users go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an enormous level of surveillance. Credit Thibault Camus/Associated Press In 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company that would later provide services for Donald Trump?s 2016 presidential campaign, reached out with a request on Amazon?s ?Mechanical Turk? platform, an online marketplace where people around the world contract with others to perform various tasks. Cambridge Analytica was looking for people who were American Facebook users. It offered to pay them to download and use a personality quiz app on Facebook called thisisyourdigitallife. About 270,000 people installed the app in return for $1 to $2 per download. The app ?scraped? information from their Facebook profiles as well as detailed information from their friends? profiles. Facebook then provided all this data to the makers of the app, who in turn turned it over to Cambridge Analytica. A few hundred thousand people may not seem like a lot, but because Facebook users have a few hundred friends each on average, the number of people whose data was harvested reached about 50 million. Most of those people had no idea that their data had been siphoned off (after all, they hadn?t installed the app themselves), let alone that the data would be used to shape voter targeting and messaging for Mr. Trump?s presidential campaign. This weekend, after this was all exposed by The New York Times and The Observer of London, Facebook hastily made a public announcement that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica (well over a year after the election) and vehemently denied that this was a ?data breach.? Paul Grewal, a vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, wrote that ?the claim that this is a data breach is completely false.? He contended that Facebook users ?knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked.? He also said that ?everyone involved gave their consent.? Mr. Grewal is right: This wasn?t a breach in the technical sense. It is something even more troubling: an all-too-natural consequence of Facebook?s business model, which involves having people go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an enormous level of surveillance. The results of that surveillance are used to fuel a sophisticated and opaque system for narrowly targeting advertisements and other wares to Facebook?s users. Facebook makes money, in other words, by profiling us and then selling our attention to advertisers, political actors and others. These are Facebook?s true customers, whom it works hard to please. Facebook doesn?t just record every click and ?like? on the site. It also collects browsing histories. It also purchases ?external? data like financial information about users (though European nations have some regulations that block some of this). Facebook recently announced its intent to merge ?offline? data ? things you do in the physical world, such as making purchases in a brick-and-mortar store ? with its vast online databases. Facebook even creates ?shadow profiles? of nonusers. That is, even if you are not on Facebook, the company may well have compiled a profile of you, inferred from data provided by your friends or from other data. This is an involuntary dossier from which you cannot opt out in the United States. Despite Facebook?s claims to the contrary, everyone involved in the Cambridge Analytica data-siphoning incident did not give his or her ?consent? ? at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. It is true that if you found and read all the fine print on the site, you might have noticed that in 2014, your Facebook friends had the right to turn over all your data through such apps. (Facebook has since turned off this feature.) If you had managed to make your way through a bewildering array of options, you might have even discovered how to turn the feature off. This wasn?t informed consent. This was the exploitation of user data and user trust. Let?s assume, for the sake of argument, that you had explicitly consented to turn over your Facebook data to another company. Do you keep up with the latest academic research on computational inference? Did you know that algorithms now do a pretty good job of inferring a person?s personality traits, sexual orientation, political views, mental health status, substance abuse history and more just from his or her Facebook ?likes? ? and that there are new applications of this data being discovered every day? Given this confusing and rapidly changing state of affairs about what the data may reveal and how it may be used, consent to ongoing and extensive data collection can be neither fully informed nor truly consensual ? especially since it is practically irrevocable. What did Cambridge Analytica do with all the data? With whom else might it have shared it? In 2015, Facebook sent a stern letter to Cambridge Analytica asking that the data be deleted. Cambridge Analytica employees have said that the company merely checked a box indicating that the data was deleted, at which point Facebook decided not to inform the 50 million users who were affected by the breach, nor to make the issue public, nor to sanction Cambridge Analytica at the time. The New York Times and The Observer of London are reporting that the data was not deleted. And Cambridge Analytica employees are claiming that the data formed the backbone of the company?s operations in the 2016 presidential election. If Facebook failed to understand that this data could be used in dangerous ways, that it shouldn?t have let anyone harvest data in this manner and that a third-party ticking a box on a form wouldn?t free the company from responsibility, it had no business collecting anyone?s data in the first place. But the vast infrastructure Facebook has built to obtain data, and its consequent half-a-trillion-dollar market capitalization, suggest that the company knows all too well the value of this kind of vast data surveillance. Should we all just leave Facebook? That may sound attractive but it is not a viable solution. In many countries, Facebook and its products simply are the internet. Some employers and landlords demand to see Facebook profiles, and there are increasingly vast swaths of public and civic life ? from volunteer groups to political campaigns to marches and protests ? that are accessible or organized only via Facebook. The problem here goes beyond Cambridge Analytica and what it may have done. What other apps were allowed to siphon data from millions of Facebook users? What if one day Facebook decides to suspend from its site a presidential campaign or a politician whose platform calls for things like increased data privacy for individuals and limits on data retention and use? What if it decides to share data with one political campaign and not another? What if it gives better ad rates to candidates who align with its own interests? A business model based on vast data surveillance and charging clients to opaquely target users based on this kind of extensive profiling will inevitably be misused. The real problem is that billions of dollars are being made at the expense of the health of our public sphere and our politics, and crucial decisions are being made unilaterally, and without recourse or accountability. Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) is an associate professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, the author of ?Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest? and a contributing opinion writer. ======================================== 21. IVAN ILYIN, PUTIN?S PHILOSOPHER OF RUSSIAN FASCISM | Timothy Snyder ======================================== NYR Daily / New York Review of Books 16 March 2018 This is an expanded version of Timothy Snyder?s essay ?God Is a Russian? in the April 5, 2018 issue of The New York Review. ?The fact of the matter is that fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness.? ?Ivan Ilyin, 1927 ?My prayer is like a sword. And my sword is like a prayer.? ?Ivan Ilyin, 1927 ?Politics is the art of identifying and neutralizing the enemy.? ?Ivan Ilyin, 1948 The Russian looked Satan in the eye, put God on the psychoanalyst?s couch, and understood that his nation could redeem the world. An agonized God told the Russian a story of failure. In the beginning was the Word, purity and perfection, and the Word was God. But then God made a youthful mistake. He created the world to complete himself, but instead soiled himself, and hid in shame. God?s, not Adam?s, was the original sin, the release of the imperfect. Once people were in the world, they apprehended facts and experienced feelings that could not be reassembled to what had been God?s mind. Each individual thought or passion deepened the hold of Satan on the world. And so the Russian, a philosopher, understood history as a disgrace. Nothing that had happened since creation was of significance. The world was a meaningless farrago of fragments. The more humans sought to understand it, the more sinful it became. Modern society, with its pluralism and its civil society, deepened the flaws of the world and kept God in his exile. God?s one hope was that a righteous nation would follow a Leader into political totality, and thereby begin a repair of the world that might in turn redeem the divine. Because the unifying principle of the Word was the only good in the universe, any means that might bring about its return were justified. Thus this Russian philosopher, whose name was Ivan Ilyin, came to imagine a Russian Christian fascism. Born in 1883, he finished a dissertation on God?s worldly failure just before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Expelled from his homeland in 1922 by the Soviet power he despised, he embraced the cause of Benito Mussolini and completed an apology for political violence in 1925. In German and Swiss exile, he wrote in the 1920s and 1930s for White Russian exiles who had fled after defeat in the Russian civil war, and in the 1940s and 1950s for future Russians who would see the end of the Soviet power. A tireless worker, Ilyin produced about twenty books in Russian, and another twenty in German. Some of his work has a rambling and commonsensical character, and it is easy to find tensions and contradictions. One current of thought that is coherent over the decades, however, is his metaphysical and moral justification for political totalitarianism, which he expressed in practical outlines for a fascist state. A crucial concept was ?law? or ?legal consciousness? (pravosoznanie). For the young Ilyin, writing before the Revolution, law embodied the hope that Russians would partake in a universal consciousness that would allow Russia to create a modern state. For the mature, counter-revolutionary Ilyin, a particular consciousness (?heart? or ?soul,? not ?mind?) permitted Russians to experience the arbitrary claims of power as law. Though he died forgotten, in 1954, Ilyin?s work was revived after collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and guides the men who rule Russia today. The Russian Federation of the early twenty-first century is a new country, formed in 1991 from the territory of the Russian republic of the Soviet Union. It is smaller than the old Russian Empire, and separated from it in time by the intervening seven decades of Soviet history. Yet the Russian Federation of today does resemble the Russian Empire of Ilyin?s youth in one crucial respect: it has not established the rule of law as the principle of government. The trajectory in Ilyin?s understanding of law, from hopeful universalism to arbitrary nationalism, was followed in the discourse of Russian politicians, including Vladimir Putin. Because Ilyin found ways to present the failure of the rule of law as Russian virtue, Russian kleptocrats use his ideas to portray economic inequality as national innocence. In the last few years, Vladimir Putin has also used some of Ilyin?s more specific ideas about geopolitics in his effort translate the task of Russian politics from the pursuit of reform at home to the export of virtue abroad. By transforming international politics into a discussion of ?spiritual threats,? Ilyin?s works have helped Russian elites to portray the Ukraine, Europe, and the United States as existential dangers to Russia. * Ivan Ilyin was a philosopher who confronted Russian problems with German thinkers. This was typical of the time and place. He was child of the Silver Age, the late empire of the Romanov dynasty. His father was a Russian nobleman, his mother a German Protestant who had converted to Orthodoxy. As a student at Moscow between 1901 and 1906, Ilyin?s real subject was philosophy, which meant the ethical thought of Immanuel Kant (1724?1804). For the neo-Kantians, who then held sway in universities across Europe as well as in Russia, humans differed from the rest of creation by a capacity for reason that permitted meaningful choices. Humans could then freely submit to law, since they could grasp and accept its spirit. Law was then the great object of desire of the Russian thinking classes. Russian students of law, perhaps more than their European colleagues, could see it as a source of political transformation. Law seemed to offer the antidote to the ancient Russian problem of proizvol, of arbitrary rule by autocratic tsars. Even as a hopeful young man, however, Ilyin struggled to see the Russian people as the creatures of reason Kant imagined. He waited expectantly for a grand revolt that would hasten the education of the Russian masses. When the Russo-Japanese War created conditions for a revolution in 1905, Ilyin defended the right to free assembly. With his girlfriend, Natalia Vokach, he translated a German anarchist pamphlet into Russian. The tsar was forced to concede a new constitution in 1906, which created a new Russian parliament. Though chosen in a way that guaranteed the power of the empire?s landed classes, the parliament had the authority to legislate. The tsar dismissed parliament twice, and then illegally changed the electoral system to ensure that it was even more conservative. It was impossible to see the new constitution as having brought the rule of law to Russia. Employed to teach law by the university in 1909, Ilyin published a beautiful article in both Russian (1910) and German (1912) on the conceptual differences between law and power. Yet how to make law functional in practice and resonant in life? Kant seemed to leave open a gap between the spirit of law and the reality of autocracy. G.W.F. Hegel (1770?1831), however, offered hope by proposing that this and other painful tensions would be resolved by time. History, as a hopeful Ilyin read Hegel, was the gradual penetration of Spirit (Geist) into the world. Each age transcended the previous one and brought a crisis that promised the next one. The beastly masses will come to resemble the enlightened friends, ardors of daily life will yield to political order. The philosopher who understands this message becomes the vehicle of Spirit, always a tempting prospect. Like other Russian intellectuals of his own and previous generations, the young Ilyin was drawn to Hegel, and in 1912 proclaimed a ?Hegelian renaissance.? Yet, just as the immense Russian peasantry had given him second thoughts about the ease of communicating law to Russian society, so his experience of modern urban life left him doubtful that historical change was only a matter of Spirit. He found Russians, even those of his own class and milieu in Moscow, to be disgustingly corporeal. In arguments about philosophy and politics in the 1910s, he accused his opponents of ?sexual perversion.? In 1913, Ilyin worried that perversion was a national Russian syndrome, and proposed Sigmund Freud (1856?1939) as Russia?s savior. In Ilyin?s reading of Freud, civilization arose from a collective agreement to suppress basic drives. The individual paid a psychological price for sacrifice of his nature to culture. Only through long consultations on the couch of the psychoanalyst could unconscious experience surface into awareness. Psychoanalysis therefore offered a very different portrait of thought than did the Hegelian philosophy that Ilyin was then studying. Even as Ilyin was preparing his dissertation on Hegel, he offered himself as the pioneer of Russia?s national psychotherapy, travelling with Natalia to Vienna in May 1914 for sessions with Freud. Thus the outbreak of World War I found Ilyin in Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg monarchy, now one of Russia?s enemies. ?My inner Germans,? Ilyin wrote to a friend in 1915, ?trouble me more than the outer Germans,? the German and Habsburg realms making war against the Russian Empire. The ?inner German? who helped Ilyin to master the others was the philosopher Edmund Husserl, with whom he had studied in G?ttingen in 1911. Husserl (1859?1938), the founder of the school of thought known as phenomenology, tried to describe the method by which the philosopher thinks himself into the world. The philosopher sought to forget his own personality and prior assumptions, and tried to experience a subject on its own terms. As Ilyin put it, the philosopher must mentally possess (perezhit?) the object of inquiry until he attains self-evident and exhaustive clarity (ochevidnost). Husserl?s method was simplified by Ilyin into a ?philosophical act? whereby the philosopher can still the universe and anything in it?other philosophers, the world, God? by stilling his own mind. Like an Orthodox believer contemplating an icon, Ilyin believed (in contrast to Husserl) that he could see a metaphysical reality through a physical one. As he wrote his dissertation about Hegel, he perceived the divine subject in a philosophical text, and fixed it in place. Hegel meant God when he wrote Spirit, concluded Ilyin, and Hegel was wrong to see motion in history. God could not realize himself in the world, since the substance of God was irreconcilably different from the substance of the world. Hegel could not show that every fact was connected to a principle, that every accident was part of a design, that every detail was part of a whole, and so on. God had initiated history and then been blocked from further influence. Ilyin was quite typical of Russian intellectuals in his rapid and enthusiastic embrace of contradictory German ideas. In his dissertation he was able, thanks to his own very specific understanding of Husserl, to bring some order to his ?inner Germans.? Kant had suggested the initial problem for a Russian political thinker: how to establish the rule of law. Hegel had seemed to provide a solution, a Spirit advancing through history. Freud had redefined Russia?s problem as sexual rather than spiritual. Husserl allowed Ilyin to transfer the responsibility for political failure and sexual unease to God. Philosophy meant the contemplation that allowed contact with God and began God?s cure. The philosopher had taken control and all was in view: other philosophers, the world, God. Yet, even after contact was made with the divine, history continued, ?the current of events? continued to flow. Indeed, even as Ilyin contemplated God, men were killing and dying by the millions on battlefields across Europe. Ilyin was writing his dissertation as the Russian Empire gained and then lost territory on the Eastern Front of World War I. In February 1917, the tsarist regime was replaced by a new constitutional order. The new government tottered as it continued a costly war. That April, Germany sent Vladimir Lenin to Russia in a sealed train, and his Bolsheviks carried out a second revolution in November, promising land to peasants and peace to all. Ilyin was meanwhile trying to assemble the committee so he could defend his dissertation. By the time he did so, in 1918, the Bolsheviks were in power, their Red Army was fighting a civil war, and the Cheka was defending revolution through terror. World War I gave revolutionaries their chance, and so opened the way for counter-revolutionaries as well. Throughout Europe, men of the far right saw the Bolshevik Revolution as a certain kind of opportunity; and the drama of revolution and counter-revolution was played out, with different outcomes, in Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Nowhere was the conflict so long, bloody, and passionate as in the lands of the former Russian Empire, where civil war lasted for years, brought famine and pogroms, and cost about as many lives as World War I itself. In Europe in general, but in Russia in particular, the terrible loss of life, the seemingly endless strife, and the fall of empire brought a certain plausibility to ideas that might otherwise have remained unknown or seemed irrelevant. Without the war, Leninism would likely be a footnote in the history of Marxist thought; without Lenin?s revolution, Ilyin might not have drawn right-wing political conclusions from his dissertation. Lenin and Ilyin did not know each other, but their encounter in revolution and counter-revolution was nevertheless uncanny. Lenin?s patronymic was ?Ilyich? and he wrote under the pseudonym ?Ilyin,? and the real Ilyin reviewed some of that pseudonymous work. When Ilyin was arrested by the Cheka as an opponent of the revolution, Lenin intervened on his behalf as a gesture of respect for Ilyin?s philosophical work. The intellectual interaction between the two men, which began in 1917 and continues in Russia today, began from a common appreciation of Hegel?s promise of totality. Both men interpreted Hegel in radical ways, agreeing with one another on important points such as the need to destroy the middle classes, disagreeing about the final form of the classless community. Lenin accepted with Hegel that history was a story of progress through conflict. As a Marxist, he believed that the conflict was between social classes: the bourgeoisie that owned property and the proletariat that enabled profits. Lenin added to Marxism the proposal that the working class, though formed by capitalism and destined to seize its achievements, needed guidance from a disciplined party that understood the rules of history. In 1917, Lenin went so far as to claim that the people who knew the rules of history also knew when to break them? by beginning a socialist revolution in the Russian Empire, where capitalism was weak and the working class tiny. Yet Lenin never doubted that there was a good human nature, trapped by historical conditions, and therefore subject to release by historical action. Marxists such as Lenin were atheists. They thought that by Spirit, Hegel meant God or some other theological notion, and replaced Spirit with society. Ilyin was not a typical Christian, but he believed in God. Ilyin agreed with Marxists that Hegel meant God, and argued that Hegel?s God had created a ruined world. For Marxists, private property served the function of an original sin, and its dissolution would release the good in man. For Ilyin, God?s act of creation was itself the original sin. There was never a good moment in history, and no intrinsic good in humans. The Marxists were right to hate the middle classes, and indeed did not hate them enough. Middle-class ?civil society? entrenches plural interests that confound hopes for an ?overpowering national organization? that God needs. Because the middle classes block God, they must be swept away by a classless national community. But there is no historical tendency, no historical group, that will perform this labor. The grand transformation from Satanic individuality to divine totality must begin somewhere beyond history. According to Ilyin, liberation would arise not from understanding history, but from eliminating it. Since the earthly was corrupt and the divine unattainable, political rescue would come from the realm of fiction. In 1917, Ilyin was still hopeful that Russia might become a state ruled by law. Lenin?s revolution ensured that Ilyin henceforth regarded his own philosophical ideas as political. Bolshevism had proven that God?s world was as flawed as Ilyin had maintained. What Ilyin would call ?the abyss of atheism? of the new regime was the final confirmation of the flaws of world, and of the power of modern ideas to reinforce them. After he departed Russia, Ilyin would maintain that humanity needed heroes, outsized characters from beyond history, capable of willing themselves to power. In his dissertation, this politics was implicit in the longing for a missing totality and the suggestion that the nation might begin its restoration. It was an ideology awaiting a form and a name. * Ilyin left Russia in 1922, the year the Soviet Union was founded. His imagination was soon captured by Benito Mussolini?s March on Rome, the coup d??tat that brought the world?s first fascist regime. Ilyin was convinced that bold gestures by bold men could begin to undo the flawed character of existence. He visited Italy and published admiring articles about Il Duce while he was writing his book, On the Use of Violence to Resist Evil (1925). If Ilyin?s dissertation had laid groundwork for a metaphysical defense of fascism, this book was a justification of an emerging system. The dissertation described the lost totality unleashed by an unwitting God; second book explained the limits of the teachings of God?s Son. Having understood the trauma of God, Ilyin now ?looked Satan in the eye.? Thus famous teachings of Jesus, as rendered in the Gospel of Mark, take on unexpected meanings in Ilyin?s interpretations. ?Judge not,? says Jesus, ?that ye not be judged.? That famous appeal to reflection continues: For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother?s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother?s eye. For Ilyin, these were the words of a failed God with a doomed Son. In fact, a righteous man did not reflect upon his own deeds or attempt to see the perspective of another; he contemplated, recognized absolute good and evil, and named the enemies to be destroyed. The proper interpretation of the ?judge not? passage was that every day was judgment day, and that men would be judged for not killing God?s enemies when they had the chance. In God?s absence, Ilyin determined who those enemies were. Perhaps Jesus? most remembered commandment is to love one?s enemy, from the Gospel of Matthew: ?Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.? Ilyin maintained that the opposite was meant. Properly understood, love meant totality. It did not matter whether one individual tries to love another individual. The individual only loved if he was totally subsumed in the community. To be immersed in such love was to struggle ?against the enemies of the divine order on earth.? Christianity actually meant the call of the right-seeing philosopher to apply decisive violence in the name of love. Anyone who failed to accept this logic was himself an agent of Satan: ?He who opposes the chivalrous struggle against the devil is himself the devil.? Thus theology becomes politics. The democracies did not oppose Bolshevism, but enabled it, and must be destroyed. The only way to prevent the spread of evil was to crush middle classes, eradicate their civil society, and transform their individualist and universalist understanding of law into a consciousness of national submission. Bolshevism was no antidote to the disease of the middle classes, but rather the full irruption of their disease. Soviet and European governments must be swept away by violent coups d??tat. Ilyin used the word Spirit (Dukh) to describe the inspiration of fascists. The fascist seizure of power, he wrote, was an ?act of salvation.? The fascist is the true redeemer, since he grasps that it is the enemy who must be sacrificed. Ilyin took from Mussolini the concept of a ?chivalrous sacrifice? that fascists make in the blood of others. (Speaking of the Holocaust in 1943, Heinrich Himmler would praise his SS-men in just these terms.) Ilyin understood his role as a Russian intellectual as the propagation of fascist ideas in a particular Russian idiom. In a poem in the first number of a journal he edited between 1927 and 1930, he provided the appropriate lapidary motto: ?My prayer is like a sword. And my sword is like a prayer.? Ilyin dedicated his huge 1925 book On the Use of Violence to Resist Evil to the Whites, the men who had resisted the Bolshevik Revolution. It was meant as a guide to their future. What seemed to trouble Ilyin most was that Italians and not Russians had invented fascism: ?Why did the Italians succeed where we failed?? Writing of the future of Russian fascism in 1927, he tried to establish Russian primacy by considering the White resistance to the Bolsheviks as the pre-history of the fascist movement as a whole. The White movement had also been ?deeper and broader? than fascism because it had preserved a connection to religion and the need for totality. Ilyin proclaimed to ?my White brothers, the fascists? that a minority must seize power in Russia. The time would come. The ?White Spirit? was eternal. Ilyin?s proclamation of a fascist future for Russia in the 1920s was the absolute negation of his hopes in the 1910s that Russia might become a rule-of-law state. ?The fact of the matter,? wrote Ilyin, ?is that fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness.? Arbitrariness (proizvol), a central concept in all modern Russian political discussions, was the bugbear of all Russian reformers seeking improvement through law. Now proizvol was patriotic. The word for ?redemptive? (spasytelnii), is another central Russian concept. It is the adjective Russian Orthodox Christians might apply to the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, the death of the One for the salvation of the many. Ilyin uses it to mean the murder of outsiders so that the nation could undertake a project of total politics that might later redeem a lost God. In one sentence, two universal concepts, law and Christianity, are undone. A spirit of lawlessness replaces the spirit of the law; a spirit of murder replaces a spirit of mercy. * Although Ilyin was inspired by fascist Italy, his home as a political refugee between 1922 and 1938 was Germany. As an employee of the Russian Scholarly Institute (Russisches Wissenschaftliches Institut), he was an academic civil servant. It was from Berlin that he observed the succession struggle after Lenin?s death that brought Joseph Stalin to power. He then followed Stalin?s attempt to transform the political victory of the Bolsheviks into a social revolution. In 1933, Ilyin published a long book, in German, on the famine brought by the collectivization of Soviet agriculture. Writing in Russian for Russian ?migr?s, Ilyin was quick to praise Hitler?s seizure of power in 1933. Hitler did well, in Ilyin?s opinion, to have the rule of law suspended after the Reichstag Fire of February 1933. Ilyin presented Hitler, like Mussolini, as a Leader from beyond history whose mission was entirely defensive. ?A reaction to Bolshevism had to come,? wrote Ilyin, ?and it came.? European civilization had been sentenced to death, but ?so long as Mussolini is leading Italy and Hitler is leading Germany, European culture has a stay of execution.? Nazis embodied a ?Spirit? (Dukh) that Russians must share. According to Ilyin, Nazis were right to boycott Jewish businesses and blame Jews as a collectivity for the evils that had befallen Germany. Above all, Ilyin wanted to persuade Russians and other Europeans that Hitler was right to treat Jews as agents of Bolshevism. This ?Judeobolshevik? idea, as Ilyin understood, was the ideological connection between the Whites and the Nazis. The claim that Jews were Bolsheviks and Bolsheviks were Jews was White propaganda during the Russian Civil War. Of course, most communists were not Jews, and the overwhelming majority of Jews had nothing to do with communism. The conflation of the two groups was not an error or an exaggeration, but rather a transformation of traditional religious prejudices into instruments of national unity. Judeobolshevism appealed to the superstitious belief of Orthodox Christian peasants that Jews guarded the border between the realms of good and evil. It shifted this conviction to modern politics, portraying revolution as hell and Jews as its gatekeepers. As in Ilyin?s philosophy, God was weak, Satan was dominant, and the weapons of hell were modern ideas in the world. During and after the Russian Civil War, some of the Whites had fled to Germany as refugees. Some brought with them the foundational text of modern antisemitism, the fictional ?Protocols of the Elders of Zion,? and many others the conviction that a global Jewish conspiracy was responsible for their defeat. White Judeobolshevism, arriving in Germany in 1919 and 1920, completed the education of Adolf Hitler as an antisemite. Until that moment, Hitler had presented the enemy of Germany as Jewish capitalism. Once convinced that Jews were responsible for both capitalism and communism, Hitler could take the final step and conclude, as he did in Mein Kampf, that Jews were the source of all ideas that threatened the German people. In this important respect, Hitler was indeed a pupil of the Russian White movement. Ilyin, the main White ideologist, wanted the world to know that Hitler was right. As the 1930s passed, Ilyin began to doubt that Nazi Germany was advancing the cause of Russian fascism. This was natural, since Hitler regarded Russians as subhumans, and Germany supported European fascists only insofar as they were useful to the specific Nazi cause. Ilyin began to caution Russian Whites about Nazis, and came under suspicion from the German government. He lost his job and, in 1938, left Germany for Switzerland. He remained faithful, however, to his conviction that the White movement was anterior to Italian fascism and German National Socialism. In time, Russians would demonstrate a superior fascism. * From a safe Swiss vantage point near Zurich, Ilyin observed the outbreak of World War II. It was a confusing moment for both communists and their enemies, since the conflict began after the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany reached an agreement known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Its secret protocol, which divided East European territories between the two powers, was an alliance in all but name. In September 1939, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, their armies meeting in the middle. Ilyin believed that the Nazi-Soviet alliance would not last, since Stalin would betray Hitler. In 1941, the reverse took place, as the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. Though Ilyin harbored reservations about the Nazis, he wrote of the German invasion of the USSR as a ?judgment on Bolshevism.? After the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in February 1943, when it became clear that Germany would likely lose the war, Ilyin changed his position again. Then, and in the years to follow, he would present the war as one of a series of Western attacks on Russian virtue. Russian innocence was becoming one of Ilyin?s great themes. As a concept, it completed Ilyin?s fascist theory: the world was corrupt; it needed redemption from a nation capable of total politics; that nation was unsoiled Russia. As he aged, Ilyin dwelled on the Russian past, not as history, but as a cyclical myth of native virtue defended from external penetration. Russia was an immaculate empire, always under attack from all sides. A small territory around Moscow became the Russian Empire, the largest country of all time, without ever attacking anyone. Even as it expanded, Russia was the victim, because Europeans did not understand the profound virtue it was defending by taking more land. In Ilyin?s words, Russia has been subject to unceasing ?continental blockade,? and so its entire past was one of ?self-defense.? And so, ?the Russian nation, since its full conversion to Christianity, can count nearly one thousand years of historical suffering.? Although Ilyin wrote hundreds of tedious pages along these lines, he also made clear that it did not matter what had actually happened or what Russians actually did. That was meaningless history, those were mere facts. The truth about a nation, wrote Ilyin, was ?pure and objective? regardless of the evidence, and the Russian truth was invisible and ineffable Godliness. Russia was not a country with individuals and institutions, even should it so appear, but an immortal living creature. ?Russia is an organism of nature and the soul,? it was a ?living organism,? a ?living organic unity,? and so on. Ilyin wrote of ?Ukrainians? within quotation marks, since in his view they were a part of the Russian organism. Ilyin was obsessed by the fear that people in the West would not understand this, and saw any mention of Ukraine as an attack on Russia. Because Russia is an organism, it ?cannot be divided, only dissected.? Ilyin?s conception of Russia?s political return to God required the abandonment not only of individuality and plurality, but also of humanity. The fascist language of organic unity, discredited by the war, remained central to Ilyin. In general, his thinking was not really altered by the war. He did not reject fascism, as did most of its prewar advocates, although he now did distinguish between what he regarded as better and worse forms of fascism. He did not partake in the general shift of European politics to the left, nor in the rehabilitation of democracy. Perhaps most importantly, he did not recognize that the age of European colonialism was passing. He saw Franco?s Spain and Salazar?s Portugal, then far-flung empires ruled by right-wing authoritarian regimes, as exemplary. World War II was not a ?judgment on Bolshevism,? as Ilyin had imagined in 1941. Instead, the Red Army had emerged triumphant in 1945, Soviet borders had been extended west, and a new outer empire of replicate regimes had been established in Eastern Europe. The simple passage of time made it impossible to imagine in the 1940s, as Ilyin had in the 1920s, the members of the White emigration might someday return to power in Russia. Now he was writing their eulogies rather than their ideologies. What was needed instead was a blueprint for a post-Soviet Russia that would be legible in the future. Ilyin set about composing a number of constitutional proposals, as well as a shorter set of political essays. These last, published as Our tasks (Nashi zadachi), began his intellectual revival in post-Soviet Russia. These postwar recommendations bear an unmistakable resemblance to prewar fascist systems, and are consistent with the metaphysical and ethical legitimations of fascism present in Ilyin?s major works. The ?national dictator,? predicted Ilyin, would spring from somewhere beyond history, from some fictional realm. This Leader (Gosudar?) must be ?sufficiently manly,? like Mussolini. The note of fragile masculinity is hard to overlook. ?Power comes all by itself,? declared Ilyin, ?to the strong man.? People would bow before ?the living organ of Russia.? The Leader ?hardens himself in just and manly service.? In Ilyin?s scheme, this Leader would be personally and totally responsible for every aspect of political life, as chief executive, chief legislator, chief justice, and commander of the military. His executive power is unlimited. Any ?political selection? should take place ?on a formally undemocratic basis.? Democratic elections institutionalized the evil notion of individuality. ?The principle of democracy,? Ilyin wrote, ?was the irresponsible human atom.? Counting votes was to falsely accept ?the mechanical and arithmetical understanding of politics.? It followed that ?we must reject blind faith in the number of votes and its political significance.? Public voting with signed ballots will allow Russians to surrender their individuality. Elections were a ritual of submission of Russians before their Leader. The problem with prewar fascism, according to Ilyin, had been the one-party state. That was one party too many. Russia should be a zero-party state, in that no party should control the state or exercise any influence on the course of events. A party represents only a segment of society, and segmentation is what is to be avoided. Parties can exist, but only as traps for the ambitious or as elements of the ritual of electoral subservience. (Members of Putin?s party were sent the article that makes this point in 2014.) The same goes for civil society: it should exist as a simulacrum. Russians should be allowed to pursue hobbies and the like, but only within the framework of a total corporate structure that included all social organizations. The middle classes must be at the very bottom of the corporate structure, bearing the weight of the entire system. They are the producers and consumers of facts and feelings in a system where the purpose is to overcome factuality and sensuality. ?Freedom for Russia,? as Ilyin understood it (in a text selectively quoted by Putin in 2014), would not mean freedom for Russians as individuals, but rather freedom for Russians to understand themselves as parts of a whole. The political system must generate, as Ilyin clarified, ?the organic-spiritual unity of the government with the people, and the people with the government.? The first step back toward the Word would be ?the metaphysical identity of all people of the same nation.? The ?the evil nature of the ?sensual?? could be banished, and ?the empirical variety of human beings? itself could be overcome. * Russia today is a media-heavy authoritarian kleptocracy, not the religious totalitarian entity that Ilyin imagined. And yet, his concepts do help lift the obscurity from some of the more interesting aspects of Russian politics. Vladimir Putin, to take a very important example, is a post-Soviet politician who emerged from the realm of fiction. Since it is he who brought Ilyin?s ideas into high politics, his rise to power is part of Ilyin?s story as well. Putin was an unknown when he was selected by post-Soviet Russia?s first president, Boris Yeltsin, to be prime minister in 1999. Putin was chosen by political casting call. Yeltsin?s intimates, carrying out what they called ?Operation Successor,? asked themselves who the most popular character in Russian television was. Polling showed that this was the hero of a 1970s program, a Soviet spy who spoke German. This fit Putin, a former KGB officer who had served in East Germany. Right after he was appointed prime minister by Yeltsin in September 1999, Putin gained his reputation through a bloodier fiction. When apartment buildings in Russian cities began to explode, Putin blamed Muslims and began a war in Chechnya. Contemporary evidence suggests that the bombs might have been planted by Russia?s own security organization, the FSB. Putin was elected president in 2000, and served until 2008. In the early 2000s, Putin maintained that Russia could become some kind of rule-of-law state. Instead, he succeeded in bringing economic crime within the Russian state, transforming general corruption into official kleptocracy. Once the state became the center of crime, the rule of law became incoherent, inequality entrenched, and reform unthinkable. Another political story was needed. Because Putin?s victory over Russia?s oligarchs also meant control over their television stations, new media instruments were at hand. The Western trend towards infotainment was brought to its logical conclusion in Russia, generating an alternative reality meant to generate faith in Russian virtue but cynicism about facts. This transformation was engineered by Vladislav Surkov, the genius of Russian propaganda. He oversaw a striking move toward the world as Ilyin imagined it, a dark and confusing realm given shape only by Russian innocence. With the financial and media resources under control, Putin needed only, in the nice Russian term, to add the ?spiritual resource.? And so, beginning in 2005, Putin began to rehabilitate Ilyin as a Kremlin court philosopher. That year, Putin began to cite Ilyin in his addresses to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, and arranged for the reinterment of Ilyin?s remains in Russia. Then Surkov began to cite Ilyin. The propagandist accepted Ilyin?s idea that ?Russian culture is the contemplation of the whole,? and summarizes his own work as the creation of a narrative of an innocent Russia surrounded by permanent hostility. Surkov?s enmity toward factuality is as deep as Ilyin?s, and like Ilyin, he tends to find theological grounds for it. Dmitry Medvedev, the leader of Putin?s political party, recommended Ilyin?s books to Russia?s youth. Ilyin began to figure in the speeches of the leaders of Russia?s tame opposition parties, the communists and the (confusingly-named, extreme-right) Liberal Democrats. These last few years, Ilyin has been cited by the head of the constitutional court, by the foreign minister, and by patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. After a four-year intermission between 2008 and 2012, during which Putin served as prime minister and allowed Medvedev to be president, Putin returned to the highest office. If Putin came to power in 2000 as hero from the realm of fiction, he returned in 2012 as the destroyer of the rule of law. In a minor key, the Russia of Putin?s time had repeated the drama of the Russia of Ilyin?s time. The hopes of Russian liberals for a rule-of-law state were again disappointed. Ilyin, who had transformed that failure into fascism the first time around, now had his moment. His arguments helped Putin transform the failure of his first period in office, the inability to introduce of the rule of law, into the promise for a second period in office, the confirmation of Russian virtue. If Russia could not become a rule-of-law state, it would seek to destroy neighbors that had succeeded in doing so or that aspired to do so. Echoing one of the most notorious proclamations of the Nazi legal thinker Carl Schmitt, Ilyin wrote that politics ?is the art of identifying and neutralizing the enemy.? In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Putin?s promises were not about law in Russia, but about the defeat of a hyper-legal neighboring entity. The European Union, the largest economy in the world and Russia?s most important economic partner, is grounded on the assumption that international legal agreements provide the basis for fruitful cooperation among rule-of-law states. In late 2011 and early 2012, Putin made public a new ideology, based in Ilyin, defining Russia in opposition to this model of Europe. In an article in Izvestiia on October 3, 2011, Putin announced a rival Eurasian Union that would unite states that had failed to establish the rule of law. In Nezavisimaia Gazeta on January 23, 2012, Putin, citing Ilyin, presented integration among states as a matter of virtue rather than achievement. The rule of law was not a universal aspiration, but part of an alien Western civilization; Russian culture, meanwhile, united Russia with post-Soviet states such as Ukraine. In a third article, in Moskovskie Novosti on February 27, 2012, Putin drew the political conclusions. Ilyin had imagined that ?Russia as a spiritual organism served not only all the Orthodox nations and not only all of the nations of the Eurasian landmass, but all the nations of the world.? Putin predicted that Eurasia would overcome the European Union and bring its members into a larger entity that would extend ?from Lisbon to Vladivostok.? Putin?s offensive against the rule of law began with the manner of his reaccession to the office of president of the Russian Federation. The foundation of any rule-of-law state is a principle of succession, the set of rules that allow one person to succeed another in office in a manner that confirms rather than destroys the system. The way that Putin returned to power in 2012 destroyed any possibility that such a principle could function in Russia in any foreseeable future. He assumed the office of president, with a parliamentary majority, thanks to presidential and parliamentary elections that were ostentatiously faked, during protests whose participants he condemned as foreign agents. In depriving Russia of any accepted means by which he might be succeeded by someone else and the Russian parliament controlled by another party but his, Putin was following Ilyin?s recommendation. Elections had become a ritual, and those who thought otherwise were portrayed by a formidable state media as traitors. Sitting in a radio station with the fascist writer Alexander Prokhanov as Russians protested electoral fraud, Putin mused about what Ivan Ilyin would have to say about the state of Russia. ?Can we say,? asked Putin rhetorically, ?that our country has fully recovered and healed after the dramatic events that have occurred to us after the Soviet Union collapsed, and that we now have a strong, healthy state? No, of course she is still quite ill; but here we must recall Ivan Ilyin: ?Yes, our country is still sick, but we did not flee from the bed of our sick mother.?? The fact that Putin cited Ilyin in this setting is very suggestive, and that he knew this phrase suggests extensive reading. Be that as it may, the way that he cited it seems strange. Ilyin was expelled from the Soviet Union by the Cheka?the institution that was the predecessor of Putin?s employer, the KGB. For Ilyin, it was the foundation of the USSR, not its dissolution, that was the Russian sickness. As Ilyin told his Cheka interrogator at the time: ?I consider Soviet power to be an inevitable historical outcome of the great social and spiritual disease which has been growing in Russia for several centuries.? Ilyin thought that KGB officers (of whom Putin was one) should be forbidden from entering politics after the end of the Soviet Union. Ilyin dreamed his whole life of a Soviet collapse. Putin?s reinterment of Ilyin?s remains was a mystical release from this contradiction. Ilyin had been expelled from Russia by the Soviet security service; his corpse was reburied alongside the remains of its victims. Putin had Ilyin?s corpse interred at a monastery where the NKVD, the heir to the Cheka and the predecessor of the KGB, had interred the ashes of thousands of Soviet citizens executed in the Great Terror. When Putin later visited the site to lay flowers on Ilyin?s grave, he was in the company of an Orthodox monk who saw the NKVD executioners as Russian patriots and therefore good men. At the time of the reburial, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was a man who had previously served the KGB as an agent. After all, Ilyin?s justification for mass murder was the same as that of the Bolsheviks: the defense of an absolute good. As critics of his second book in the 1920s put it, Ilyin was a ?Chekist for God.? He was reburied as such, with all possible honors conferred by the Chekists and by the men of God?and by the men of God who were Chekists, and by the Chekists who were men of God. Ilyin was returned, body and soul, to the Russia he had been forced to leave. And that very return, in its inattention to contradiction, in its disregard of fact, was the purest expression of respect for his legacy. To be sure, Ilyin opposed the Soviet system. Yet, once the USSR ceased to exist in 1991, it was history?and the past, for Ilyin, was nothing but cognitive raw material for a literature of eternal virtue. Modifying Ilyin?s views about Russian innocence ever so slightly, Russian leaders could see the Soviet Union not as a foreign imposition upon Russia, as Ilyin had, but rather as Russia itself, and so virtuous despite appearances. Any faults of the Soviet system became necessary Russian reactions to the prior hostility of the West. * Questions about the influence of ideas in politics are very difficult to answer, and it would be needlessly bold to make of Ilyin?s writings the pillar of the Russian system. For one thing, Ilyin?s vast body of work admits multiple interpretations. As with Martin Heidegger, another student of Husserl who supported Hitler, it is reasonable to ask how closely a man?s political support of fascism relates to a philosopher?s work. Within Russia itself, Ilyin is not the only native source of fascist ideas to be cited with approval by Vladimir Putin; Lev Gumilev is another. Contemporary Russian fascists who now rove through the public space, such as Aleksander Prokhanov and Aleksander Dugin, represent distinct traditions. It is Dugin, for example, who made the idea of ?Eurasia? popular in Russia, and his references are German Nazis and postwar West European fascists. And yet, most often in the Russia of the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is Ilyin?s ideas that to seem to satisfy political needs and to fill rhetorical gaps, to provide the ?spiritual resource? for the kleptocratic state machine. In 2017, when the Russian state had so much difficulty commemorating the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ilyin was advanced as its heroic opponent. In a television drama about the revolution, he decried the evil of promising social advancement to Russians. Russian policies certainly recall Ilyin?s recommendations. Russia?s 2012 law on ?foreign agents,? passed right after Putin?s return to the office of the presidency, well represents Ilyin?s attitude to civil society. Ilyin believed that Russia?s ?White Spirit? should animate the fascists of Europe; since 2013, the Kremlin has provided financial and propaganda support to European parties of the populist and extreme right. The Russian campaign against the ?decadence? of the European Union, initiated in 2013, is in accord with Ilyin?s worldview. Ilyin?s scholarly effort followed his personal projection of sexual anxiety to others. First, Ilyin called Russia homosexual, then underwent therapy with his girlfriend, then blamed God. Putin first submitted to years of shirtless fur-and-feather photoshoots, then divorced his wife, then blamed the European Union for Russian homosexuality. Ilyin sexualized what he experienced as foreign threats. Jazz, for example, was a plot to induce premature ejaculation. When Ukrainians began in late 2013 to assemble in favor of a European future for their country, the Russian media raised the specter of a ?homodictatorship.? The case for Ilyin?s influence is perhaps easiest to make with respect to Russia?s new orientation toward Ukraine. Ukraine, like the Russian Federation, is a new country, formed from the territory of a Soviet republic in 1991. After Russia, it was the second-most populous republic of the Soviet Union, and it has a long border with Russia to the east and north as well as with European Union members to the west. For the first two decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian-Ukrainian relations were defined by both sides according to international law, with Russian lawyers always insistent on very traditional concepts such as sovereignty and territorial integrity. When Putin returned to power in 2012, legalism gave way to colonialism. Since 2012, Russian policy toward Ukraine has been made on the basis of first principles, and those principles have been Ilyin?s. Putin?s Eurasian Union, a plan he announced with the help of Ilyin?s ideas, presupposed that Ukraine would join. Putin justified Russia?s attempt to draw Ukraine towards Eurasia by Ilyin?s ?organic model? that made of Russia and Ukraine ?one people.? Ilyin?s idea of a Russian organism including Ukraine clashed with the more prosaic Ukrainian notion of reforming the Ukrainian state. In Ukraine in 2013, the European Union was a subject of domestic political debate, and was generally popular. An association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union was seen as a way to address the major local problem, the weakness of the rule of law. Through threats and promises, Putin was able in November 2013 to induce the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, not to sign the association agreement, which had already been negotiated. This brought young Ukrainians to the street to demonstrate in favor the agreement. When the Ukrainian government (urged on and assisted by Russia) used violence, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens assembled in Kyiv?s Independence Square. Their main postulate, as surveys showed at the time, was the rule of law. After a sniper massacre that left more than one hundred Ukrainians dead, Yanukovych fled to Russia. His main adviser, Paul Manafort, was next seen working as Donald Trump?s campaign manager. By the time Yanukovych fled to Russia, Russian troops had already been mobilized for the invasion of Ukraine. As Russian troops entered Ukraine in February 2014, Russian civilizational rhetoric (of which Ilyin was a major source) captured the imagination of many Western observers. In the first half of 2014, the issues debated were whether or not Ukraine was or was not part of Russian culture, or whether Russian myths about the past were somehow a reason to invade a neighboring sovereign state. In accepting the way that Ilyin put the question, as a matter of civilization rather than law, Western observers missed the stakes of the conflict for Europe and the United States. Considering the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a clash of cultures was to render it distant and colorful and obscure; seeing it as an element of a larger assault on the rule of law would have been to realize that Western institutions were in peril. To accept the civilizational framing was also to overlook the basic issue of inequality. What pro-European Ukrainians wanted was to avoid Russian-style kleptocracy. What Putin needed was to demonstrate that such efforts were fruitless. Ilyin?s arguments were everywhere as Russian troops entered Ukraine multiple times in 2014. As soldiers received their mobilization orders for the invasion of the Ukraine?s Crimean province in January 2014, all of Russia?s high-ranking bureaucrats and regional governors were sent a copy of Ilyin?s Our Tasks. After Russian troops occupied Crimea and the Russian parliament voted for annexation, Putin cited Ilyin again as justification. The Russian commander sent to oversee the second major movement of Russian troops into Ukraine, to the southeastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in summer 2014, described the war?s final goal in terms that Ilyin would have understood: ?If the world were saved from demonic constructions such as the United States, it would be easier for everyone to live. And one of these days it will happen.? Anyone following Russian politics could see in early 2016 that the Russian elite preferred Donald Trump to become the Republican nominee for president and then to defeat Hillary Clinton in the general election. In the spring of that year, Russian military intelligence was boasting of an effort to help Trump win. In the Russian assault on American democracy that followed, the main weapon was falsehood. Donald Trump is another masculinity-challenged kleptocrat from the realm of fiction, in his case that of reality television. His campaign was helped by the elaborate untruths that Russia distributed about his opponent. In office, Trump imitates Putin in his pursuit of political post-truth: first filling the public sphere with lies, then blaming the institutions whose purpose is to seek facts, and finally rejoicing in the resulting confusion. Russian assistance to Trump weakened American trust in the institutions that the Russia has been unable to build. Such trust was already in decline, thanks to America?s own media culture and growing inequality. Ilyin meant to be the prophet of our age, the post-Soviet age, and perhaps he is. His disbelief in this world allows politics to take place in a fictional one. He made of lawlessness a virtue so pure as to be invisible, and so absolute as to demand the destruction of the West. He shows us how fragile masculinity generates enemies, how perverted Christianity rejects Jesus, how economic inequality imitates innocence, and how fascist ideas flow into the postmodern. This is no longer just Russian philosophy. It is now American life. March 16, 2018, ======================================== 22. FRANCE: GADDAFI RELATIONS HAUNT SARKOZY IN 2007 CAMPAIGN FINANCING CASE Text by Tracy Mcnicoll ======================================== France 24, 2018-03-20 With former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in custody for questioning on Tuesday over allegations Gaddafi?s Libya financed his 2007 campaign, FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the intricate, five-year-long investigation's key facts and figures. http://www.france24.com/en/20180320-france-libya-sarkozy-gaddafi-relations-haunt-2007-campaign-financing-case-custody _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 17:10:58 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 02:40:58 +0530 Subject: SACW - 28 March 2018 | Burma: Rohingyas biased history / Bangladesh: Workers Rights, Safety / India-Pakistan: Growing Danger / Pakistan: war on journalists; women's rights / India: Freedom To Love & Democracy ; disarmament seminar / China: Rain Making / France: The Paris attack suspect / New Military-Industrial Complex of Big Data / Mass Psychology in the Age of Trump Message-ID: <1739581E-34E1-4EF1-B5A3-DA9080932E96@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 28 March 2018 - No. 2979 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Rohingyas & Oxford?s Neo-Orientalism: Concoction of biased history | C R Abrar 2. Bangladesh: CGWR Research Report on Workers Rights, Safety - Five years after Rana Plaza Diasater 3. Full audio Ravish Kumar on Freedom To Love and Democracy in India 4. Select audio recordings from the Delhi seminar (March 2018) on The Landmark Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons Opportunities and Challenges 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Liberal Dogmatism | Irfan Engineer - India: News report reveals contact between police and Dera Sacha Sauda followers in Haryana before Ram Rahim verdict - India: Rewriting of History and Sectarian Nationalism | Ram Puniyani - India - West Bengal: police personnel injured in clashes over Ram Navami rally - India: In Bad Faith - Lingayats? claim to ?separate religion? status is untenable | Tahir Mahmood - India: Break the mould, end the siege | Harbans Mukhia - Riot: West Bengal, 2017-Basirhat, Baduria, Tentulia - Fact Finding Report edited by Subha Protim Roy Chowdhury - India: Citizenship rights, not burka | Suhas Palshikar - India: Why Ankit Saxena's murder has been easily forgotten | Tani S Bhargava - India: ?Hindu liberalism shouldn?t need the crutches of Muslim liberalism? Asghar Ali Engineer 2004 response to Ramachandra Guha - India: Why Political Parties Play Upon Fears of Muslims - Political opportunism requires a consolidated community, living in perpetual fear - India: Lingayat leadership is under an erroneous belief that recognition of a religious community depends on law - India: Cow Vigilantism - Crime, Community and Livelihood - Press Conference and Release of PUDR Report (22 March 2018) - India: The Communal Politics of Eviction Drives in Assam - India: Jawaharlal Nehru?s views on religion and secularism as read by Rajeev Bhargava ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Pakistan?s military is waging a quiet war on journalists | Kiran Nazish 7. Pakistan: Which political party has done the most and the least for the advancement of women?s rights? 8. Pakistan - India: What?s Happening At The Loc Is Very Dangerous, Says Pakistani Nuclear Physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy 9. India: Break the mould, end the siege | Harbans Mukhia 10. India: Will a rising East Wind hit Modi govt in 2019? | Bharat Bhushan 11. Why these Indian millennials are choosing arranged marriage | Moni Basu 12. India: How to Talk about Sex Without Offending People - Malayalam writer Nalini Jameela on her new book | Pooja Pillai 13. China needs more water. So it's building a rain-making network three times the size of Spain 14. France: The Paris attack suspect is in jail. But still he is inspiring others | Iman Amrani 15. Germany: How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution | Aditya Chakrabortty 16. The New Military-Industrial Complex of Big Data Psy-Ops | Tamsin Shaw 17. Adventures in the Trump Twittersphere | Zeynep Tufekci 18. Mass Psychology in the Age of Trump: Why is Trump driving liberals berserk? | John T. Jost Orsolya Hunyady ======================================== 1. ROHINGYAS & OXFORD?S NEO-ORIENTALISM: CONCOCTION OF BIASED HISTORY | C R Abrar ======================================== Dr Jacques Leider is reputed for his denial of Rohingya identity, their unique history, and the crime of genocide the group has been subjected to for decades. http://www.sacw.net/article13696.html ======================================== 2. BANGLADESH: CGWR RESEARCH REPORT ON WORKERS RIGHTS, SAFETY - FIVE YEARS AFTER RANA PLAZA DIASATER ======================================== Bangladesh has been emblematic of low wages, poor working conditions, union-avoidance, and a series of mass fatality disasters in garment factories, culminating in the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013. With the five-year anniversary of the catastrophe approaching , the question arises as to whether the intervening years have seen meaningful gains for workers. http://www.sacw.net/article13694.html ======================================== 3. FULL AUDIO RAVISH KUMAR ON FREEDOM TO LOVE AND DEMOCRACY IN INDIA ======================================== Full audio of the keynote address in Hindi at Festival 2018 (Wordcraft & Dept of English Ramjas College) by India?s prominent journalist and TV anchor Ravish Kumar on personal freedoms, right to love and democratic society. The talk was held at Ramjas college, University of Delhi on 15 March 2018. The first recording is that of Mukul Mangalik introducing Ravish Kumar to the audience. The second audio is the full talk by Ravish Kumar. [This recording by sacw.net audio archive is hosted here for public educational purposes] http://www.sacw.net/article13693.html ======================================== 4. SELECT AUDIO RECORDINGS FROM THE DELHI SEMINAR (MARCH 2018) ON THE LANDMARK TREATY PROHIBITING NUCLEAR WEAPONS OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES ======================================== Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation (AIPSO) organised an international seminar on the theme ?The Landmark Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons - Opportunities and Challenges? on 24th and 25th March 2018 in Deputy Speakers Hall at Constitution Club, New Delhi. This will be followed by a Dialogue with Decision makers and shapers to highlight the need for abolition of nuclear weapons. Posted below are few audio recordings from the seminar made available here via sacw.net audio archive http://www.sacw.net/article13695.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Liberal Dogmatism | Irfan Engineer - India: News report reveals contact between police and Dera Sacha Sauda followers in Haryana before Ram Rahim verdict - India: Rewriting of History and Sectarian Nationalism | Ram Puniyani - India - West Bengal: police personnel injured in clashes over Ram Navami rally - India: In Bad Faith - Lingayats? claim to ?separate religion? status is untenable | Tahir Mahmood - India: Break the mould, end the siege | Harbans Mukhia - Riot: West Bengal, 2017-Basirhat, Baduria, Tentulia - Fact Finding Report edited by Subha Protim Roy Chowdhury - India: Citizenship rights, not burka | Suhas Palshikar - India: Why Ankit Saxena's murder has been easily forgotten | Tani S Bhargava - India: ?Hindu liberalism shouldn?t need the crutches of Muslim liberalism? Asghar Ali Engineer 2004 response to Ramachandra Guha - India: Why Political Parties Play Upon Fears of Muslims - Political opportunism requires a consolidated community, living in perpetual fear - India: Lingayat leadership is under an erroneous belief that recognition of a religious community depends on law - India: Cow Vigilantism - Crime, Community and Livelihood - Press Conference and Release of PUDR Report (22 March 2018) - India: The Communal Politics of Eviction Drives in Assam - India: Jawaharlal Nehru?s views on religion and secularism as read by Rajeev Bhargava -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. PAKISTAN?S MILITARY IS WAGING A QUIET WAR ON JOURNALISTS: As activists and journalists are kidnapped, entire regions of the country are going silent. by Kiran Nazish ======================================== vox.com, March 27, 2018 DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan ? On December 2, 2017, 40-year-old Raza Khan, a Pakistani political activist, disappeared from his home. When Raza wouldn?t answer his phone, Khan?s brother went to his residence in Lahore. He found the lights on, the curtains drawn, and the doors locked ? but no sign of Raza. It wasn?t until one of Raza?s activist colleagues visited the house that they found a clue to why he?d disappeared: Raza?s computer was missing. Diep Saeeda, Reza?s colleague, immediately thought that one of Pakistan?s notorious intelligence agencies had taken him. ?It could be no one else,? she told me. Saeeda visited police stations, hospitals, restaurants, and the morgue, looking for any trace of Raza. But she turned up nothing, and the authorities had no information either. Almost three months later, Raza is still missing, and it?s become clear that his disappearance is part of a larger trend. Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for activists and reporters: According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, nearly 10,000 people have gone missing in the country since 2001, with nearly 3,000 still unaccounted for. In 2016 alone, there were 728 disappearances. The HRCP and human rights activists say these numbers are significantly underreported. Pakistan?s powerful and secretive security establishment ? which ranges from its feared intelligence agency, the ISI, to the country?s military, which has carried out three coups since its inception in 1947 ? has long used abductions to silence anyone who dares to question and expose their actions. This matters, of course, for ordinary Pakistanis, who can?t speak freely about their government. It also affects Pakistani lawmakers, whose ability to craft legislation is hampered by the lack of information. But the disappearances have real consequences for the rest of the world as well. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump took aim at Pakistan?s government and what he called their failure to assist the US in the global war on terror. ?The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit,? he wrote. ?They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help.? While many may disagree with the US president?s view, his tweet speaks to a larger issue: Pakistan, which is a nuclear power, is battling its own war on terror. Many parts of the country, including Waziristan, on its porous border with Afghanistan, have turned into safe havens for militants and terror groups. The Pakistani military has been accused of working closely with and even aiding terrorists there. So as Pakistan becomes a black hole of information due to the lack of reporting and independent voices on the ground, we lose sight of what?s actually taking place. This not only complicates global efforts to counter terrorism but puts the region and the world at large at risk. In January, the Trump administration announced it would suspend $900 million in security aid to Pakistan until the country got serious about cracking down on terrorist groups like the Taliban and Haqqani network. But without objective observers and reporting in the region, there?s no way to verify if this is happening. Pakistan?s intelligence agencies operate like an independent arm of the state Back in 2015, I experienced the power of the country?s deep state firsthand. In April, Sabeen Mahmud, a friend of mine and one of the country?s most prominent free speech activists, hosted a panel about disappearances in the country?s largest province, Balochistan. The Pakistani government is fighting a separatist uprising there of Baloch nationalists, and though accurate numbers are difficult to find, more than 20,000 people have reportedly gone missing. The same evening, after the panel concluded, Mahmud was shot and killed by unknown gunmen. I wrote about her death for an Indian magazine and started receiving threats myself from agents with ISI, Pakistan?s infamous government intelligence agency. They repeatedly told me, both in person and over the phone, that I was going to be killed like my friend Sabeen, ?and no one will find who did it.? I also learned that killing one person and then using their death to generate more fear was a common tactic that the Pakistani intelligence agencies used against journalists. It leads to self-censorship, and it works almost every time. I was no exception. Since the ISI threatened my life, I?ve been too afraid to live and report in Pakistan, and currently divide my time between New York and Turkey. It?s important to note that Pakistan?s government, although democratically elected, does not have the power to control or influence the far-reaching and powerful military establishment. Intelligence agencies gained more power after 9/11; the ISI in particular received funding and resources from the US and Pakistani governments to help fight the war on terror. The new resources helped the ISI expand its influence and freedom to act however it saw fit, and it began operating much like an independent arm of the government. The intelligence agencies hold so much power that even the police can?t touch them. An officer at Peshawar?s police headquarters told me the police see several abduction cases a week but can?t write up official police reports. ?We have orders not to meddle in such cases that might be part of an anti-terror campaign,? he told me. ?The military ? is an institution with higher power.? And despite criticism and warnings from international groups, and pledges by the government of Pakistan, these disappearances seem to be getting worse. Last year, Pakistan?s Commission on Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances ?received nearly 300 cases of alleged enforced disappearances from August to October 2017, by far the largest number in a three month period in recent years,? according to the commission. And in early 2017, three Pakistani bloggers who were critical of the government disappeared for weeks, without a trace. When they were released, all three described torture and sexual abuse at the hands of Pakistani security personnel. Protesters hold images of three bloggers who disappeared during a rally in Lahore on January 12, 2017. Protesters hold images of three bloggers who disappeared during a rally in Lahore on January 12, 2017. Rana Sajid Hussain/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images Waqass Goraya, one of the bloggers, said he was detained by a government organization with ties to the Pakistani military. ?More and more people are being harmed ? our friends, our colleagues ? so how can we stop [speaking out]? Someone has to stand up,? he told the BBC. Goraya currently lives in the Netherlands, where he continues his activism from afar. Reporting on the Pakistani military?s abuses is important. It?s also really dangerous. Trump alluded in his January tweet to the Pakistani military?s reputation for working closely with terrorist groups. This extends back several decades: In the 1980s, the US covertly sent about $5 billion to Pakistan to fund militant groups to help fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan continued to train and fund militants to help in the fight over Kashmir, a disputed border area between India and Pakistan. The US ramped up funding to Pakistan again in the wake of 9/11 in exchange for Pakistan?s help in fighting the war on terror. US officials say, however, that they have not seen results and that much of the money has been lost due to corruption, or ended up in the hands of terrorist groups. In 2011, Saleem Shahzad, a freelance journalist, reported about how Pakistani naval officers were involved in aiding a terrorist attack on Pakistani naval headquarters in Mehran, a short distance from the capital of Karachi. Afterward, Shahzad was brutally murdered. His death received much publicity, and since then, it appears that no Pakistani journalists have dared to report in depth about the military?s links with terrorist groups. Pakistani journalists offer funeral prayers for their slain colleague Syed Saleem Shahzad outside the National Press Club in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday, June 1, 2011. Pakistani journalists offer funeral prayers for their slain colleague Syed Saleem Shahzad outside the National Press Club in Islamabad on Wednesday, June 1, 2011. B.K. Bangash/AP ?Anyone who reports on Balochistan, or terrorism in Pakistan, knows that the military agencies will come after them,? said Khushal Khan, a research officer at the HRCP. Waziristan, the restive region on the Western border with Afghanistan, is one of the most underreported places in the country. There?s almost no information that hasn?t been vetted or censored by the military going in or out. The Pakistani military has claimed several times that they defeated terrorism in this area and forced out the terrorists ? but the military refuses to let journalists or NGOs visit the area to verify their claims. Anyone who attempts to report on what?s happening in Pakistan now runs the risk of disappearing. When I was investigating abductions of civilians from Waziristan in 2015, my sources were threatened and told that they ?should not speak to journalists.? A leading activist in the region, Manzoor Pashteen, told me that hundreds of people who have been critical of the military in the region disappeared in 2017, and dozens more have vanished this year. ?Every other day I get a call ? [someone] is missing or someone?s body has been found,? Pashteen said. Last month, when I visited Dera Ismail Khan, a city near Waziristan, I met with more than a dozen civilian sources who said they knew people who had been abducted from the region. The people who were taken had direct knowledge of the alleged close relationship between the Pakistani military and terrorist groups like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, my sources told me. In November 2017, Pashteen was abducted by intelligence agencies that told him to stop working as an activist and speaking out against the military establishment. But Pashteen said he would continue to be vocal against the continuing abductions. ?What kind of state is this, against its own people?? Pashteen asked me. ?This country is also ours, and the state needs to stop treating us like terrorists.? Kiran Nazish is an independent journalist covering South Asia and the Middle East. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Al Jazeera, and other news outlets. She is a former senior fellow at New America. ======================================== 7. PAKISTAN: WHICH POLITICAL PARTY HAS DONE THE MOST AND THE LEAST FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN?S RIGHTS? ======================================== Newsline, March 27, 2018 The Big Question: Afiya Zia It has been the PML-N, especially in Punjab. Not just in terms of legislation but also in policy implementation, institutional strengthening for pro-women work, putting women in leadership positions and in flagship programmes. The liberal PPP pales out in comparison and the less said about the non-existent PTI work for women, the better. Manifestos are fairly redundant. They shouldn?t be, but it seems that with the ?death of ideology? they?ve become just formalities. I don?t expect any radical shift or effort being put in by any of the parties, with the exception of AWP (Awami Workers Party). Political party workers of PPP and PML factions and some nationalist parties workers will not be reinventing their manifestos despite the major economic changes witnessed in the country. Civil society rarely lobbies for updated or specific amendments for manifestos ? again with the exception of Women?s Action Forum (WAF), which has drawn up a women?s manifesto for every election. They demand attention to the impact of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) on women and working classes etc. But most supporters, especially of the PTI, mostly just troll on issues. So the shift has come from a generation that wants to debate interactively, moralistically and superficially rather than on substance. At best, laws will be discussed and dissected but not policies. This distinction is interesting. In any case, I bet hardly anyone you ask this question of will have any idea what the manifesto of the party they support says. But they?ll know micro details of other features ? personal and other data. The manifestos of religious parties are very interesting. Only some old-school journalists (Zia ur Rehman, Ali Arqam) look into these aspects of parties. I don?t even understand how a party that says it?s for the ?youth? isn?t invested in resurrecting student unions ? which organised sector of the youth can then seriously claim to represent or contribute to the party?s policies and offer a representative manifesto on youth issues? Women activists of the PPP marching to mark International Women?s Day in Karachi. In terms of vision, the PPP used to be the most progressive on women?s issues but today the AWP and some nationalist parties have strong feminist undertones to their stated positions and manifestos. Women?s groups should be throwing their weight behind WAF?s demands which include the call for a progressive and substantive divorce law, regulation of their work in the informal sector, secularisation of state and society, gender-responsive budgeting in all public sector institutions, restrictions on vigilantism and media-led misogyny, repeal of discriminatory laws and the death penalty, housing and social protection for the poor and immediate merger and reforms for FATA with the inclusion of women in the process. WAF would also demand of parties that they adopt WAF?s stance that Violence Against Women is Violence Against the State. So essentially, the PPP and PML-N have passed several progressive laws for women ? this is important and they should be given due credit. And now it?s time to focus ? not just on their ?implementation,? but on policies that support and strengthen institutions that apply the principles of women?s equality. It would be good if parties started empowering the provincial women?s commissions as conduits to carry out their mandates because these are the sites which make laws and policies meaningful. Parties will be taken seriously on the woman question when they start promoting women from within their party cadres and awarding them leadership roles, provided these women are strong on women?s, minority and human rights. At the moment the ANP is the only party I know of, that doesn?t separate women into ?wings? but includes them like equal adults in the mainstream party. Zohra Yusuf With general elections just four months away, political parties are yet to make public their manifestos. However, judging by the legislation and positions taken, it is reassuring to know that all political parties are responsive to issues concerning women. Going by past performance, the Pakistan People?s Party has demonstrated its commitment to women?s rights more categorically than other parties. The PPP government, last in power between 2008 and 2013, enacted the highest number of pro-women legislation in Pakistan?s history. The groundbreaking bills passed covered issues such as sexual harassment at the workplace, ban on customary laws and practices that violated the rights of women, while the National Commission on the Status of Women was given autonomy and the bill for setting up the National Commission on Human Rights was signed. The Sindh provincial legislature enacted laws against domestic violence and child marriage. Moreover, for the first time, a woman was appointed Speaker of the National Assembly. Benazir Bhutto?s election as prime minister in 1988 brought a sense of euphoria among Pakistani women. She created history by becoming the first Muslim woman prime minister in the world. While unable to undo many of the discriminatory laws introduced by the regime of Zia-ul-Haq she, nevertheless, took several tangible steps for women?s empowerment. These included setting up of First Women Bank, women police stations and the appointment of women as high court judges. At the provincial level, the PML-N has taken the lead in ensuring women?s rights. Its Provincial Commission on the Status of Women is both credible and active. Domestic violence has been outlawed and a well-equipped women?s protection centre has been set up as a pilot project in Multan. Additionally, enforcement of pro-women laws has been more effective than in Sindh. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (an alliance of religious parties), that formed the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2012, was certainly the most anti-women party. While in power, its policies closely followed those of the routed Taliban in Afghanistan. The ?Hasba? bill that it tried to introduce would have meant strict segregation and denied women many fundamental rights. Its component parties continue to hinder women?s progress. A commitment to ensure women?s greater participation in the political process should be one of the key promises in the manifestos of all political parties. It could be the beginning of change in many aspects of a woman?s life. Haris Gazdar Our social institutions are very patriarchal and there is a debate about whether and to what extent the state counters or reinforces patriarchy. The formal makeup of the state ? as expressed in the constitution ? is liberal in the sense that it recognises the political equality of individuals regardless of sex. Moreover, the state is formally based on a social contract among individuals rather than patriarchal collectives such as family, clan or tribe. We have a long way to go, and I believe that those politics which strengthen this liberal aspect of the state advance, in the long term, the rights of women. So, political parties that stand up for this social contract do good, while those that give primacy to patriarchal collectives such as the nation, religious sect, tribe and family do the reverse. In practical terms some parties have been known to steer progressive legislation for women?s rights, and others have often opposed such legislation. I think that besides legislation, policy and programme design can endorse patriarchy or quietly undermine it. One example is income support. Before the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) most cash transfer programmes in Pakistan recognised the male head of the household as the primary beneficiary, and women only in cases where male heads were not available. BISP changed this and made women the primary beneficiaries. Going forward, one issue that interests me greatly is the recognition, protection and promotion of the rights and wellbeing of women agricultural workers. Although women constitute over half of the agricultural workforce in Pakistan, their contribution remains hidden and unrecognised ? in official statistics, in policy, in terms of wages and working conditions, and in the way that communities and families assign importance to their economic contribution. This has to change. I would like to see proactive laws and policies for the recognition, protection and promotion of the rights of women as workers, particularly in the agricultural sector. I would like to see the issue debated, placed in party manifestos and taken forward. Zubeida Mustafa In my opinion, no political party in Pakistan has really done much for the advancement of women?s rights. The fact is all parties pay lip service to the women?s cause because they know that if they don?t profess to be supportive of women, they would not enjoy much electoral backing in an election. But that hardly means that they genuinely try to improve conditions for women. How would one judge a political party?s achievements on the women?s issue? First, one can assess the stance of a party ? its posture and not so much what it actually does. Secondly, one can evaluate what has actually been done on the ground. Using the two criteria, I find that most parties in Pakistan have adopted a very ?correct? stance on women. Their manifestos have all said the right things at the right time. Which means that political parties generally cannot be faulted for the stand they take on the gender issue. But it is also clear that they evade specifics in their election manifestos and party policy statements. No measurable goals are mentioned so that the party is not pinned down to concrete action. Thus the Jamaat-e-Islami qualifies every mention of women?s rights with the phrase, ?as guaranteed by the Shariah.? How can one interpret this? It is an easy way of escaping responsibility for any wrong that is done. On the second criterion ? action on the ground ? we find the situation rather ambivalent. For instance, the Pakistan People?s Party stands head and shoulders above the others in promoting pro-women laws. This tradition goes back to the days of Z.A. Bhutto which also coincided with the first International Women?s Conference in 1975 when Nusrat Bhutto led Pakistan?s delegation to Mexico. Benazir Bhutto was the prime minister in 1996, when her government ratified CEDAW which had been in force since 1981 with Pakistan not committing itself to the specified guidelines. Senior PTI members hold a meeting with women members of the party at Banigala. The PPP was instrumental in getting many women-friendly laws adopted such as Domestic Violence (Prohibition) Act, Child Marriage Restraint Act, Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act and so on. These laws have had the backing of the PPP and that is why Sindh, where the PPP rules the roost, has been the first province to adopt many of these laws, when other provinces ruled by other parties have been slower. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami rule in a coalition, still has no domestic violence law. One can say the PPP has the right stance. But this did not lead to a remarkable enhancement in the status of women. Women continue to be victims of patriarchy. Other parties have failed to do even this. Karamat Ali In my view, women?s issues have not been on the priority list of most political parties in Pakistan. It was the Communist Party of Pakistan that took the lead and established the Democratic Women?s Association (Anjuman-e-Jamhuriyat Pasand Khawateen), in the early days after Partition. It was led by the gutsy Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan. However, if one had to identify one party that has done a certain amount of work for the advancement of women, it would have to be the PPP. One can trace it down to the first PPP government, when one saw workers? participation in politics and key institutions increase, significantly, and many women also joined mainstream politics, irrespective of class differences. In Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?s government, Begum Nusrat Bhutto was quite assertive; she brought women rights issues to the fore for the first time. She participated in the first United Nations Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975. Begum Ra?ana Liaquat Ali Khan, who had been an important member of the original Muslim League, later joined PPP and was appointed the first female governor of the province of Sindh on February 15, 1973. Both Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto led the resistance movement against the dictatorial Martial Law regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, which eventually resulted in the formation of WAF. The female leadership of the PPP also played a prominent role during the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in 1983, as did the Sindhiani Tehreek. Benazir?s election as Prime Minister in 1988 proved to be highly significant in advancing the cause of women in Pakistan. It was a momentous, path-breaking event that made waves not just in Pakistan, but also in the rest of the Muslim world. The PPP government also took practical measures for the advancement of women. But it was General Musharaf who introduced 18 per cent representation of women in parliament and 33 per cent in local government institutions through reservation. However, even today, the reserved seats for women in Parliament and the provincial assemblies are less than 18 per cent. Despite their small numbers, the performance of women parliamentarians is much better than their male counterparts. Incidentally civil society had submitted a memorandum to the present Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms for bringing changes in the current electoral system, but they did not consider any of the recommendations. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto delivering the keynote address at the fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The second Benazir government, from November 1993 to August 1996, also took some practical measures for women like the appointment of women judges in the Sindh and Lahore High Courts and established separate women?s police stations across the country. In her second tenure, Benazir Bhutto took part in the Fourth UN World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995 that put forward a platform of action that made it incumbent on governments to ensure women?s equality, empowerment and justice. But unfortunately, she was overthrown yet again. The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), which has had the chance of leading the federal and the Punjab Government for three terms since 1990, has done virtually nothing for the advancement of women in Pakistan. In fact, the introduction of the Shariat Bill under the 15th Constitutional Amendment in 1998 by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif was considered a regressive step and women?s organisations had opposed it vociferously. As far as the cause of women?s advancement is concerned, we have the glaring example of a South Asian country, Nepal, before us, where the people not only restored democracy by overthrowing monarchy, but framed a very progressive Constitution, which ensures 33 per cent reserved seats for women both in the Parliament and the local government. Every political party is bound to nominate women for at least 33 per cent seats in the general elections. Besides the 33 per cent reserved seats, about seven to eight per cent women have been elected on the general seats as well. Ms Bidhya Devi Bhandari, a long-time member of the South Asian Labour Forum and Peoples? SAARC, is the second President of the country. Nepal?s present Parliamentary Speaker and the Chief Justice of the Nepalese Supreme Court are also women. ======================================== 8. PAKISTAN - INDIA: WHAT?S HAPPENING AT THE LOC IS VERY DANGEROUS, SAYS PAKISTANI NUCLEAR PHYSICIST PERVEZ HOODBHOY ======================================== Mumbai Mirror March 25, 2018 By Danish Khan, Mumbai Mirror | INTERVIEW: Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistani Nuclear Physicist The Pakistani nuclear physicist on how casualties on both sides are increasing and why leaders in India and Pakistan must step up. Pakistani nuclear physicist and scholar Pervez Hoodbhoy has been a tireless crusader for rationalism and freedom of speech. Through his writings, activism, and teaching, Hoodbhoy has emerged as one of the wellknown members of the Pakistani intelligentsia. Born in Karachi, Hoodbhoy completed his PhD in nuclear physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1978, and has been a visiting faculty in institutes around the world. He was one of the earliest to describe A Q Khan, considered the father of Pakistan?s nuclear programme, to be a ?bomb-maker and not a scientist?. In a hurried visit to United Kingdom where he had come to meet his daughter and attend a seminar organised by the London based Democracy Forum, Hoodbhoy spoke on Indo-Pak relations, the Army in Pakistan, and the teaching of history. What are your thoughts on the harassment of diplomats in both the countries? The way in which India and Pakistan are dealing with each other?s diplomats is descending to a new low in civility. One is absolutely astonished that door bells are being rung at three in the morning; that Indian diplomats in Pakistan are being denied membership in Islamabad club ? this is not the way for two countries who will be forever in proximity with each other to behave. And this reflects the rise of ultra-nationalist sentiments in India and the assertion of the Pakistani establishment in opposition to the former government of Nawaz Sharif. On one hand you have Indian nationalism, which is definitely on the rise, and on the other hand, within Pakistan there has been a rise in the relative power of the Army with respect to the civilian government. How do you see the relationship between India and Pakistan evolve in the long term? Presently, it is very hard to say how things will go because domestic politics is so important in determining international relations between Pakistan and India. In the long term, India and Pakistan have to make peace with each other ? they have to trade, establish means where people from both sides can go from one side of the border to the other. But in the short run, things are not looking good because of domestic politics. What?s happening at the LoC is very dangerous. There is shelling practically every day. The Indian doctrine which is represented in the Pakistani doctrine now is: For every one violation of the other side, we shall do two from our side, and then as weapons change from hand held to automatic to artillery, this is going to get worse. The casualties on both sides are increasing and this is not a tenable situation and cannot continue for long. At this time, the political leadership of both the countries have to step up and say ?enough of this?. With Nawaz Sharif gone, the Army in Pakistan seems to have an upper hand. What drives the Army to take charge of the country?s administration? The Pakistani Army feels that they (civilians) are not sufficiently educated, sufficiently well-versed in the running of public affairs and are corrupt and incompetent. There is a feeling in the Army that ?we are the real stakeholders of Pakistan ? the true patriots?. In the past, there has been martial law but I do not believe there will be a martial law in the next few years. However, an attempt will be made to have an army-friendly government unlike the government of Nawaz Sharif and a lot of effort is being expended to ensure Sharif is forever banned from politics. In fact, the recent steps such as the senate elections testify to that and the corruption case against him achieve that to an extent. But in his place, there will be an alternative, perhaps in the form of Imran Khan, who is much more pliable and willing to listen to the Army. You have spoken against wrongful depiction of events in history books. Tell us some of the most brazen things that you have encountered. In a conversation with the then vicechancellor of my university, Dr Daler Khan of Quaid-e-Azam University, I once complained that Pakistani school and college books were filled with inaccuracies and sometimes outright lies. I quoted examples of two extreme distortions of history: Our supposed victory over India in the 1965 war and the separation of East Pakistan in 1971. ?You don?t have to tell the truth all the time, he said, else our students won?t learn to love Pakistan. It is all for a greater good?, he said. Has social media aided the distortion and misrepresentation of historical facts? For the untutored mind, social media is exceedingly dangerous. Every kind of nonsense can get freely propagated, in some cases achieving a life of its own. By tracking conversations on political and historical matters, one can get to see how ignoramuses mutually support and reinforce each other?s views while totally rejecting evidence that might stand in the way. Contrary opinions get shouted down abusively. The anonymity of the internet makes possible the use of language, which would be considered impermissible in face-to-face discussions. ======================================== 9. INDIA: BREAK THE MOULD, END THE SIEGE by Harbans Mukhia ======================================== The Indian Express March 23, 2018 The stereotype of a single Muslim identity has been exploited by the ?secular? parties and the communalist parivar. It needs to be broken to achieve genuine social transformation. Harsh Mander (?Sonia, sadly?, March 17) and Ramachandra Guha (?Liberals, sadly?, March 20) have both expressed legitimate concerns about the situation of Indian Muslims in the current socio-political scenario and understandably each has a variant diagnosis and therefore a variant solution. Without going into the merits of either, I suggest that the analysis of the problem demands that we traverse a little longer distance into history and take a more general view. The two major proponents of the two-nation-theory, V D Savarkar and M A Jinnah, also shared a political strategy, that is of creating a siege mentality for their respective communities, the Hindus and the Muslims, each imagined as exclusive, internally cohesive and facing a threat from the other. If Savarkar?s support to divisive politics was halted because an alternative vision of Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress had an immensely wider social acceptance, Jinnah was largely spared the travails of an alternative even though it was not completely absent. What has, however, survived the Partition is the siege mentality, pervasive among Indian Muslims and now being laboriously cultivated among Hindus. The mentality among the Muslims has been reinforced by almost every political and social grouping around. The association of guilt for the Partition, thrust on the manifold more numerous Muslims who stayed back than those who went away, is never allowed to pass into silence. The single driving force of the RSS and its extensive parivar is intense hostility, indeed hatred, for the Muslims, with frequent violent expression as communal riots, pushes the community into defensive isolation. This has come electorally handy for the Congress: Vote for us is the price of protection; else, see the RSS sword hanging on your head? The sangh parivar is, especially under the present political leadership, assiduously carrying out M S Golwalkar?s mission of disenfranchising the Muslims by seeking to consolidate the 80 plus per cent Hindu vote-bank, adding a massive dose to the Muslims? defensiveness and insularity. The leadership of the Muslim community, largely abandoned into the hands of imams, could only make itself indispensable by highlighting the siege that had entrapped the community and suggesting that the way out is by going back to a more puritanical Islam with all its attendant rituals, including its supposed dress codes and issuing the most absurd fatwas on the most absurd issues. The liberal Muslims too have only weakly driven home to the community the challenges of the 20th and 21st century and the need for meeting these with contemporary modes of thinking and mobilisation of its own internal resources alongside what the state has to offer. They have been mainly concerned with the alleged decline of Urdu, the denial of government jobs and educational opportunities; the responsibility for the backwardness of the community remains entirely outside of itself. In other words, everyone, including the community, has contributed to the strengthening of the single Muslim identity, especially vulnerable to political exploitation both by the ?secular? parties as much as by the communalist parivar. It is not as if no voices of dissent within the community and therefore, challenge to these dominant forces have ever been raised. Besides individuals, the most telling instance of activism on its behalf was the Shah Bano case when strong voices of men like Arif Muhammad Khan and numerous Muslim women were getting a growing public audience and approval for the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court in favour of the abandoned lady and warning the government against overriding it. But the political leadership, at the helm of which stood the impeccably secular leader Rajiv Gandhi, was persuaded that the Muslim community could not be trusted with any voice other than that of the imams. The fear of losing the Muslim vote if the imams were ignored lurked in the background. A great symbolic opportunity to break the siege was lost. The consequences of it are still with us. Succumbing to the imams did not fetch Rajiv Gandhi the Muslim votes, but it gave social acceptance to the sangh charge of minority appeasement and, far more than Advani?s rath yatra, boosted the political fortunes of the BJP. Incidentally, succumbing to the Muslim clergy has never yielded political dividends to any party: The CPM too found it to its own cost when the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government in West Bengal did not waste even minutes throwing out Taslima Nasreen from Kolkata on the eve of elections when half a dozen little-known Muslims demanded it. Her ousting did not bring Muslim votes to the party. Conclusive proof, if it was needed, that Muslims do not vote as per the diktats of their clergy. But the political class goes by the stereotypes it has itself created: No proofs have any relevance here. The problem then is not of wearing skull caps and burkas, or of Rahul Gandhi visiting temples on the eve of elections or visiting all places of worship all the year round. It is one of breaking the single mould into which the entire community has been cast over the past hundred odd years and this mould is one of siege. When we speak of the Hindu community, we immediately highlight the innumerable divisions within, caste divisions in particular, but the Muslims have just one identity, never mind the numerous differences and stratifications among them and the multiple times they have demonstrated these. The inherited single mould gets reinforced again and again by the addition of a sense of fear and insecurity which has been part of the deal handed out to the community and for breaking out of which the community has shown rather feeble energy, some instances notwithstanding. The endeavour to break out has to be led from within the community, boldly taking risks and standing up for the community and for India. Not easy, especially when a militant majoritarian threat is looming large on it, but when were social transformations easy? ======================================== 10. INDIA: WILL A RISING EAST WIND HIT MODI GOVT IN 2019? Bharat Bhushan ======================================== The Asian Age March 23, 2018 The BJP and its allies should have nothing to fear from a debate in the Lok Sabha where they outnumber the Opposition. With the Narendra Modi government blocking the admission of the Opposition?s no-confidence motion, it is quite possible that the Lok Sabha will continue to be adjourned on flimsy pretexts till the Budget Session ends on April 6. Although this will deny the Opposition a parliamentary forum to criticise the government, recent moves suggest that it might not prevent them from coming together before the 2019 general election. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha daily throws up her hands saying that because of disruptions in the House she is unable to count 50 MPs who need to stand up in favour of admitting the no-confidence motion. At first it was the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs agitating in the Well of the House demanding a debate on the Nirav Modi fraud and special status for Andhra respectively. Then the no-confidence motion galvanised the non-BJP Opposition parties. Since March 18, it is the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MPs who have forced adjournments. Political observers believe that they are inadvertently or willingly playing into the hands of the parliamentary floor managers of the ruling BJP. The no-confidence motion is not about the numbers in the Lok Sabha. On that count, the government is safe. It is about debating the performance of the government. It would seem that the Modi government does not want a live telecast of the Opposition lambasting it, following its resounding electoral defeats in the Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Araria Lok Sabha byelections. The BJP and its allies should have nothing to fear from a debate in the Lok Sabha where they outnumber the Opposition. However, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi the government has a leader who will not stand for any public criticism of his government. Unlike veteran BJP leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, he is not a product of parliamentary discussions. He has little use for parliamentary debate ? unless he himself is holding forth ? and sees it only as an opportunity for an ?unworthy? Opposition to attack him. While the government?s record can be criticised on a host of issues, perhaps the one that scares the Modi government most is a debate on the `13,580-crore bank fraud perpetrated by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi right under the eyes of this government. After all, the Opposition jibe ?Chhota Modi? has now stuck to Nirav Modi, and the irony of the PM using the intimate form ?hamare Mehulbhai? ? literally, ?my brother Mehul? ? to single out Choksi at a public function at his residence is not lost in the public?s perception. The government thinks that it may have successfully pushed the ?Chhota Modi? issue to the background by publicly pursuing corruption cases against the son of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and announcing the death of 39 Indian workers in Iraq. But a debate on a no-confidence motion would reopen the issue and allow the Opposition to consolidate. Yet the BJP cannot be unaware of a series of recent developments indicating that a realignment of Opposition forces is taking place. In the Lok Sabha bypolls in UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were brought together by fear of BJP president Amit Shah breaking their parties through promises of power and pelf. It is a strategy he has successfully followed elsewhere in the country. The electoral alliance in UP has spoiled the political atmosphere for the BJP in the run-up to 2019. The manic support that existed for Mr Modi in 2013 before the last general election, with crowds chanting ?Modi-Modi?, is completely absent today. The SP-BSP victory and their intention to work together has effectively exorcised the Modi-mania or whatever support was left for the BJP after its disastrous economic policies and its violently divisive Hindutva drive. Even the windsock of Indian politics, Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the BJP, appeared to be politically repositioning himself with his comment that the ?NDA needs to take along all sections of society?, though he has since recanted. And the man who-could-have-been-king until he chose political hara-kiri, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United), has begun to argue for building ?an inclusive society? and to appreciate some virtues in the way the Congress governs. Recently a virtual political nobody like Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bahujan Samaj Party got away with the threat that he would not vote for the BJP candidate in the coming Rajya Sabha elections in UP unless he was given an ?appointment? with BJP president Amit Shah. These straws seem to indicate a rising wind against the Modi government. The last 10 days alone have seen a number of initiatives aimed at taking on the BJP frontally. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi?s dinner for the Opposition attracted 20 political parties; while Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar is holding a similar event on March 27; even the TDP has broken its alliance with the BJP to move a no-confidence motion against the government; Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has held a meeting with K. Chandrashekhar Rao of the TRS to explore the formation of a non-BJP, non-Congress alliance of regional parties; Congress president Rahul Gandhi has called on Sharad Pawar; and at the 84th plenary session of the Congress a political resolution has been adopted calling for ?a pragmatic approach to cooperation with all like-minded parties? and ?a common workable programme? against the BJP in the next general election. Of these moves, Ms Banerjee and Mr Rao?s proposed ?federal front? has the potential to divide the non-BJP Opposition. In trying to battle the Congress in their respective regions, these leaders may undermine the larger national level struggle of the Opposition to oust the BJP. As of now, however, these are exploratory moves and their outcomes are uncertain. It may be too early to judge whether the rising East Wind will grow strong enough to wither the Narendra Modi government in 2019. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 11. WHY THESE INDIAN MILLENNIALS ARE CHOOSING ARRANGED MARRIAGE by Moni Basu ======================================== (CNN)In many ways, Naina is no different than millennial women I know in the United States. She is 20 and finishing a degree in psychology at a Delhi university. She wears Zara skinny jeans and H&M T-shirts and hangs out with her girlfriends at one of Delhi's myriad American-style malls and coffee shops. She listens to R&B and EDM on Apple Music; her favorite song is "She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5. Cable TV is so yesterday; she streams shows and movies on Netflix. Her favorite? "Something Borrowed," in which a young woman falls in love with her best friend's fianc?. But when it comes to marriage, Naina's views might shock American women her age. She reflects a way of thinking long engrained in the culture of my homeland: Your parents know best. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/21/world/arranged-marriage-christiane-amanpour-sex-love-around-world-delhi/index.html ======================================== 12. INDIA: HOW TO TALK ABOUT SEX WITHOUT OFFENDING PEOPLE Malayalam writer Nalini Jameela on her new book and why her unconventional views about sexual relationships have been seeded in practicality. by Pooja Pillai ======================================== The Indian Express, March 25, 2018 When Nalini Jameela burst onto the Malayalam literary landscape in 2005 with her book Oru Laingikathozhilaliyute Aathmakatha (2007, The Autobiography of a Sex Worker), there were indignant protests from every possible side. Guardians of morality and some feminist groups ? usually at loggerheads with each other ? took umbrage at what they saw as a ?glorification? of prostitution. The former feared that this would have a deleterious effect on the morals of society, while the latter condemned what they saw as Jameela?s attempt to show sex workers as mere bodies for transaction. The loudest protests came from the literary establishment. The book was ?prurient?, said the titans of contemporary Malayalam literature, with writer M Mukundan lamenting that great novels in the future won?t be written by great (male) authors but by (female) sex workers. As denouncements of this type have the effect of arousing rather than suppressing curiosity, the book became a bestseller: it sold 13,000 copies, went into six editions within 100 days of publication and brought its writer a great deal of international renown. [ . . . ] http://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/how-to-talk-about-sex-without-offending-people-5110176/ see also: BJP MLA'S ADVICE TO GIRLS: DON'T MAKE BOYFRIENDS, YOU'LL BE SAFE https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/bjp-mlas-advice-to-girls-dont-make-boyfriends-youll-be-safe/articleshow/63455219.cms ======================================== 13. CHINA NEEDS MORE WATER. SO IT'S BUILDING A RAIN-MAKING NETWORK THREE TIMES THE SIZE OF SPAIN ======================================== South China Morning Post Monday, 26 March, 2018 Vast system of chambers on Tibetan plateau could send enough particles into the atmosphere to allow extensive clouds to form China is testing cutting-edge defence technology to develop a powerful yet relatively low-cost weather modification system to bring substantially more rain to the Tibetan plateau, Asia?s biggest freshwater reserve. The system, which involves an enormous network of fuel-burning chambers installed high up on the Tibetan mountains, could increase rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion cubic metres a year ? about 7 per cent of China?s total water consumption ? according to researchers involved in the project. Tens of thousands of chambers will be built at selected locations across the Tibetan plateau to produce rainfall over a total area of about 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 square miles), or three times the size of Spain. It will be the world?s biggest such project. The chambers burn solid fuel to produce silver iodide, a cloud-seeding agent with a crystalline structure much like ice. The chambers stand on steep mountain ridges facing the moist monsoon from south Asia. As wind hits the mountain, it produces an upward draft and sweeps the particles into the clouds to induce rain and snow. [One of the fuel-burning chambers that have been deployed on the Tibetan plateau. Photo: maduo.gov.cn] ?[So far,] more than 500 burners have been deployed on alpine slopes in Tibet, Xinjiang and other areas for experimental use. The data we have collected show very promising results,? a researcher working on the system told the South China Morning Post. The system is being developed by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation ? a major space and defence contractor that is also leading other ambitious national projects, including lunar exploration and the construction of China?s space station. China builds ?world?s biggest air purifier? (and it seems to be working) Space scientists designed and constructed the chambers using cutting-edge military rocket engine technology, enabling them to safely and efficiently burn the high-density solid fuel in the oxygen-scarce environment at an altitude of over 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), according to the researcher who declined to be named due to the project?s sensitivity. While the idea is not new ? other countries like the United States have conducted similar tests on small sites ? China is the first to attempt such a large-scale application of the technology. The chambers? daily operation will be guided by highly precise real-time data collected from a network of 30 small weather satellites monitoring monsoon activities over the Indian Ocean. The ground-based network will also employ other cloud-seeding methods using planes, drones and artillery to maximise the effect of the weather modification system. Is Mekong River set to become the new South China Sea for regional disputes? The gigantic glaciers and enormous underground reservoirs found on the Tibetan plateau, which is often referred to as Asia?s water tower, render it the source of most of the continent?s biggest rivers ? including the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Brahmaputra. The rivers, which flow through China, India, Nepal, Laos, Myanmar and several other countries, are a lifeline to almost half of the world?s population. But because of shortages across the continent, the Tibetan plateau is also seen as a potential flashpoint as Asian nations struggle to secure control over freshwater resources. Despite the large volume of water-rich air currents that pass over the plateau each day, the plateau is one of the driest places on Earth. Most areas receive less than 10cm of rain a year. An area that sees less than 25cm of rain annually is defined as a desert by the US Geological Survey. Rain is formed when moist air cools and collides with particles floating in the atmosphere, creating heavy water droplets. Resource-hungry China is in overdrive as it wages water wars by stealth The silver iodide produced by the burning chambers will provide the particles required to form rain. Radar data showed that a gentle breeze could carry the cloud-seeding particles more than 1,000 metres above the mountain peaks, according to the researcher. A single chamber can form a strip of thick clouds stretching across more than 5km. ?Sometimes snow would start falling almost immediately after we ignited the chamber. It was like standing on the stage of a magic show,? he said. The technology was initially developed as part of the Chinese military?s weather modification programme. China and other countries, including Russia and the United States, have been researching ways to trigger natural disasters such as floods, droughts and tornadoes to weaken their enemies in the event of severe conflict. Efforts to employ the defence technology for civilian use began over a decade ago, the researcher said. One of the biggest challenges the rainmakers faced was finding a way to keep the chambers operating in one of the world?s most remote and hostile environments. ?In our early trials, the flame often extinguished midway [because of the lack of oxygen in the area],? the researcher said. But now, after several improvements to the design, the chambers should be able to operate in a near-vacuum for months, or even years, without requiring maintenance. China diverts 10 billion cubic metres of water to arid north They also burn fuel as cleanly and efficiently as rocket engines, releasing only vapours and carbon dioxide, which makes them suitable for use even in environmentally protected areas. Communications and other electronic equipment is powered by solar energy and the chambers can be operated by a smart phone app thousands of kilometres away for through the satellite forecasting system. The chambers have one clear advantage over other cloud-seeding methods such as using planes, cannons and drones to blast silver iodide into the atmosphere. ?Other methods requires the establishment of a no-fly zone. This can be time-consuming and troublesome in any country, especially China,? the researcher said. [One of the chambers in operation in Xinjiang autonomous region. Photo: xjqx.cn] The ground-based network also comes at a relatively low price ? each burning unit costs about 50,000 yuan (US$8,000) to build and install. Costs are likely to drop further due to mass production. In comparison, a cloud-seeding plane costs several million yuan and covers a smaller area. One downside of the burning chambers, however, is that they will not work in the absence of wind or when the wind is blowing the wrong direction. This month, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation signed an agreement with Tsinghua University and Qinghai province to set up a large-scale weather modification system on the Tibetan plateau. In 2016 researchers from Tsinghua, China?s leading research university, first proposed a project ? named Tianhe or Sky River ? to increase the water supply in China?s arid northern regions by manipulating the climate. The project aims to intercept the water vapour carried by the Indian monsoon over the Tibetan plateau and redistribute it in the northern regions to increase the water supply there by five to 10 billion cubic metres a year. Chinese engineers plan 1,000km tunnel to make Xinjiang desert bloom The aerospace corporation?s president, Lei Fanpei, said in a speech that China?s space industry would integrate its weather modification programme with Tsinghua?s Sky River project. ?[Modifying the weather in Tibet] is a critical innovation to solve China?s water shortage problem,? Lei said. ?It will make an important contribution not only to China?s development and world prosperity, but also the well being of the entire human race.? Tsinghua president Qiu Yong said the agreement signalled the central government?s determination to apply cutting-edge military technology in civilian sectors. The technology will significantly spur development in China?s western regions, he added. The contents of the agreement are being kept confidential as it contains sensitive information that the authorities have deemed unsuitable to be revealed at the moment, a Tsinghua professor with knowledge of the deal told the Post. [Scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing first devised the plan for the ?Sky River?. Photo: Shutterstock] Climate simulations show that the Tibetan plateau is likely to experience a severe drought over the coming decades as natural rainfall fails to replenish the water lost as a result of rising temperatures. ?The satellite network and weather modification measures are to make preparations for the worst-case scenario,? the Tsinghua researcher said. The exact scale and launch date for the programme has not been fixed as it is pending final approval from the central government, he said. Debate is also ongoing within the project team over the best approach for the project, he added. While some favour the use of the chambers, others prefer cloud-seeding planes as they have a smaller environmental footprint. Spring is coming earlier to the Tibetan plateau and it could affect the lives of millions Ma Weiqiang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences? Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, said a cloud-seeding experiment on such a scale was unprecedented and could help answer many intriguing scientific questions. In theory, the chambers could affect the weather and even the climate in the region if they are built in large enough numbers. But they might not work as perfectly in real life, according to the researcher. ?I am sceptical about the amount of rainfall they can produce. A weather system can be huge. It can make all human efforts look vain,? Ma said. Beijing might not give the green light for the project either, he added, as intercepting the moisture in the skies over Tibet could have a knock-on effect and reduce rainfall in other Chinese regions. This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Scientists test military tech for world?s biggest rain-making network Scientists test military tech for rain network ======================================== 14. FRANCE: THE PARIS ATTACK SUSPECT IS IN JAIL. BUT STILL HE IS INSPIRING OTHERS Iman Amrani ======================================== The Guardina 28 March 2018 Salah Abdeslam is becoming a figurehead for would-be terorrists across Europe, as the latest French atrocity shows ?In just a few sentences, Salah Abdeslam elevated himself from a deluded criminal to a potentially dangerous spokesman.? Abdeslam (right) on trial in Brussels in February. Photograph: Emanuel Dunand/EPA Last Friday, 25-year-old Redouane Lakdim killed four people and injured 16 others after taking hostages in a supermarket in south-west France. It has since emerged that he was known to French intelligence services, who were concerned he was at risk of Islamist radicalisation. Lakdim himself was shot dead, but his motive for the attack shines a light on the continuing threat posed by another Islamist extremist, still being held behind bars. Lakdim had demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor from the group behind the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people. Abdeslam had evaded the security services for months, but was eventually caught hiding in Molenbeek, the suburb of Brussels where he lived and grew up. From his maximum security cell in France, Abdeslam has become infamous, receiving messages from women who want to bear his children, and numerous media interview requests. He has refused to speak, even to his lawyers, yet his silence has seen his influence grow. He appears defiant in the face of the French and Belgian justice systems, which are viewed by many black and Arab youngsters as being prejudiced against them. In Molenbeek during the week of the hearing, I felt a degree of sympathy for him. One young man said: 'He has a point.' The profiles of most would-be jihadis usually include some history of petty crime ? Lakdim himself had drug and firearms convictions ? and often some time in prison, which is where many young men have been radicalised. Abdeslam?s defiance appeals beyond the walls of his prison, to those people who have been through the judicial system or view it with distrust. The power dynamic has changed, and everyone from the French media to the victims? families is waiting with bated breath to see if he will break his silence and give answers about what happened on the night of the Paris attacks. Why did he not blow himself up like his older brother, Brahim, who killed himself and several others in the Comptoir Voltaire cafe, yards from the Bataclan concert hall? Was the explosive belt believed to be his, which was found in a bin, faulty, or did he change his mind? Timeline The Paris and Brussels attacks Yet if young men are attracted to jihadism because it feels thrilling and violent, like something out of a movie, then Abdeslam?s story has dangerous potential for at-risk youth. He has fashioned himself into the ultimate antihero, a prisoner of the state appealing to his community on the outside. His choice of words makes him even more dangerous. In court last month, he spoke only to say that his silence was his form of defence. ?What I observe is that Muslims are judged, treated in the worst of ways,? he said. ?They are judged mercilessly. There is no presumption of innocence, there is nothing, we?re immediately guilty, voil?. My silence does not mean that I am guilty: it is my defence.? In just a few sentences, Abdeslam elevated himself from a deluded criminal to a potentially dangerous spokesman for disillusioned young Muslims across Europe. He finished by saying: ?Judge me, do what you want to do. I place my confidence in Allah. I have not fear of you.? 2:14 'Quest for justice': former Isis hostage on capture of ?Beatles? ? video Sven Mary, Abdeslam?s lawyer in Belgium, referred to his client as ?stoic?. Journalists in court scoffed at this description, but Abdeslam?s performance wasn?t for their benefit. In Molenbeek the week of the hearing, I felt a degree of sympathy for him. One young man said to me: ?He has a point.? Others told me they didn?t believe the system would allow him a fair trial. The French and Belgian authorities must not confirm these prejudices. Abdeslam?s story is being watched around the world, and the process needs to be seen as being completely fair, upholding justice and showing that European courts hold the moral authority. Nicolas H?nin was kidnapped in Syria in 2013 by a group of Islamic State fighters that included two members of the group of British nationals known as ?the Beatles?. When they were arrested last month, H?nin was vocal about how a fair trial was essential to prevent further radicalisation. He?d experienced first-hand anger fuelled by images of Guant?namo Bay detention camp. ?Why do you think [our captors] put us in these stupid orange jumpsuits? Why do you think they waterboarded some of us? It?s because they were mocking Guant?namo,? said H?nin. ?Guant?namo was actually one of their reasons for their engagement in extremism and jihad, so if we perpetrate this kind of atrocity, we are not helping our quest for justice.? French supermarket siege: memorial service held for victims Read more Given such a difficult figure as Abdeslam, it can be hard to ensure justice is seen to be done by even the most disillusioned of watchers. There has never been a case like this. But as last Friday?s attack shows, we cannot get it wrong. We cannot allow Abdeslam to build himself into a living martyr, to use his platform to speak for frustrated young Muslims, or inspire them to strike in his name. Abdeslam may not give us the answers we are looking for, but we already know that there is a real problem among some disillusioned youngsters across Europe. These young men are often not particularly religious, but have limited prospects, and live on the fringes of society. We need to find a way to bring them back into mainstream society and away from the messages peddled by Isis. That means building trust between communities, police and the justice system. We must not let him be the most prominent voice, even in his silence, appealing to those who feel angry, violent or lost. Abdeslam?s trial on terror charges over the Paris attacks will not begin in full until 2019; but whatever the final verdict, if things continue as they are, he will remain a threat, and a symbol for all those whose aim is to pitch Muslims against the west. ? Iman Amrani is a Guardian multimedia journalist ======================================== 15. GERMANY: HOW A SMALL TOWN RECLAIMED ITS GRID AND SPARKED A COMMUNITY REVOLUTION by Aditya Chakrabortty ======================================== The Guardian 28 Feb 2018 The latest article in our new economics series looks at what happened when a German utilities contract expired, and one man thought his neighbours could take over A general view of Wolfhagen in Germany. ?Wolfhagen, a somnolent town whose biggest previous claim to fame was that one of the Brothers Grimm had stayed there.? Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images Martin R?hl never imagined this fight would define the rest of his life. Not for a moment did he reckon it would become so epic in length, in scale, in consequences. He just thought his speck of a town should run its own electricity supply. A modest proposal, but in the Germany of 2003 it was highly unusual. Gerhard Schr?der was still chancellor and, although a social democrat, was pushing through more privatisations of public assets than any other leader in German history. This was in a Europe that had learned from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to stop worrying and start loving the private sector. Now here, swimming against history?s current, was one orderly, slightly anxious engineer. German politicians don?t privatise because they believe it will lead to better services. They mainly want the euros On R?hl?s side were evidence, arguments and expertise. What he lacked was his multinational opponent?s money and firepower. The mismatch produced a battle that lasted years, that set off ripples around Germany and whose lessons should be pondered by anyone who wonders whether Britain could improve how it runs its electricity and gas, its water, its train services. And it kicked off in Wolfhagen, a somnolent town whose biggest previous claim to fame was that one of the Brothers Grimm had stayed in one of its half-timbered buildings. Fifteen years ago, Wolfhagen was like thousands of other German towns and cities in leasing its electrical grid for its 14,000 residents to one of the world?s largest energy companies, E.ON. But two things made this place different. First, it still had a Stadtwerke, or municipally owned electricity supplier. Second, it had R?hl, who?d only recently become the Stadtwerke?s boss. R?hl spotted that E.ON?s 20-year licence was approaching its expiry. Rather than just sign again on the dotted line, he thought Wolfhagen ought to reclaim the grid for itself ? and pressed the case repeatedly upon the local council for months. For all the legal and financial advice he?d garnered, R?hl was not at all sure he?d persuade the politicians. ?Lots of people were saying something totally different.? Yet, ?I knew it was legal and correct, and morally right.? Perhaps it was his passion that enthused councillors, but ?everyone said, ?Well if it?s good for Wolfhagen, it?s good for us. Let?s do it.?? Now this small-town hick had to tell one of the giants of the energy world that the council no longer needed their services. How did E.ON take it? ?Well ? ? He remembers a scrap of English understatement: ?They were not amused.? The Germans have a name for what R?hl was about to do: Rekommunalisierung. One of those satisfyingly ungainly bits of Deutsch, it denotes a town or city reclaiming ownership of its public utilities. The term was partly spread by Wolfhagen?s epic fight for control over its power supply. The British have their own word: lunacy. No matter how bad our privatised utilities get, any politician who suggests taking them back into public ownership may as well count the hairs on their palms. Rail franchises can collapse in a single afternoon. Energy giants (including E.ON) face accusations of overcharging the public. Water companies can deny the taxman his dues and the public their investment, while shovelling billions into the pockets of shareholders. For decades, Britons have paid through the nose for someone else ? often based thousands of miles offshore ? to rip them off. Now a clear majority of voters, even true-blue Tories, want public ownership of basic utilities. Yet to call for that very thing, as Labour?s Jeremy Corbyn does today, is to face the molten wrath of the rightwing press, the trade lobbyists and the Conservative party. To resist the ideological extreme that the private sector must always run our public services is to be denounced as an extremist ideologue. R?hl faced his own denunciations from E.ON. ?They said we couldn?t do it. That the lights would go out. They said we were uneconomical ? either the town would have to subsidise energy or residents would have to pay more.? All ?bullshit?, he says. Yet the fight brought sleepless nights and days besieged by worry that he wasn?t up to the job. He realised he was attacking E.ON?s business model. ?For them it was like, ?If [Wolfhagen] want their grid back then maybe everyone does.? I was part of the breaking of the dam. So they had to give it their all.? And the amount they wanted to be compensated for the grid was far higher than the town?s starting bid. Kai Mellinghorf poses in his cinema. ?Kai Mellinghoff is the third generation of his family to run the town?s cinema.? Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images Approached for comment on these and other issues, E.ON said: ?Wolfhagen was one of the first cases of remunicipalisation in Germany. Many commercial, technical and legal questions were not clarified. That?s why both sides negotiated for so long.? The multinational went back and forth with R?hl for three years, before compromise was reached in 2006. E.ON?s payoff was cobbled together by loans for local banks. His town had won control of its own grid. One epic battle had ended, but many more were to follow, across Germany. A two-hour train ride from Wolfhagen lies Frankfurt, where I met the closest thing Germany has to a professor of privatisation studies. Tim Engartner can list the family silver flogged by his country ? the airline Lufthansa, Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom. But, crucially, unlike their Westminster counterparts, German politicians don?t privatise because they believe it will lead to better services. They mainly want the euros. ?Selling public assets gives them a huge windfall to spend on roads or social projects.? This lack of dogmatism has two major consequences. First, it gives half a chance to any Martin R?hl who can show that public control will yield even more euros for those essential works. Second, when a privatisation leads to worse services or higher prices, politicians can be pressured into reversing it. In the east German city of Potsdam, the privatisation of water pushed charges up by a third within two years ? so it was cancelled. City after city has taken back bin collection in-house. And then there?s energy. In 2005, Wolfhagen was into the final straight of taking its grid into public hands. Since then 284 municipalities, including the second-biggest city ofHamburg, have followed suit. Such cases don?t get much of a showing in the British press. The pundits and policy wonks who equate public ownership with Red Robbo, Bakelite phones and stale British Rail sandwiches never mention that across Europe there have been 567 instances of public services being taken into public ownership since the year 2000. Everything from care homes for the elderly to bus companies is now run by continental towns and cities. In the 1870s, Birmingham was the birthplace of municipal socialism: the city?s then-mayor, Joseph Chamberlain, bought the gas and waterworks and ran them for a public profit. Nearly 150 years later, Europe is pioneering a new form of municipal socialism, while Theresa May?s ministers try the most motley methods to keep the failed East Coast mainline out of the public sector. Even so, Wolfhagen stands out. It?s where the Japanese and South Koreans fly in just to take lessons. Visit the Stadtwerke today and R?hl?s successor, Alexander Rohrssen, will list its achievements. A profit every year, which has not only paid off the bank loans but funds the town?s kindergartens. Generally cheaper electricity than most competitors, including E.ON. The number of staff has almost doubled and this still-small enterprise has won national prizes for its innovation on reducing energy use. A pretty street in Wolfhagen. ?Wolfhagen stands out. It?s where the Japanese and South Koreans fly in just to take lessons.? Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images But to see the real difference made by public ownership you need to head into the middle of the town, to a small cinema that opened in 1948. Kai Mellinghoff is the third generation of his family to run it. He barely remembers the battle with E.ON: ?It was in the paper, but people weren?t moved by it.? A few months afterwards, however, R?hl came to him with a proposal. He wanted to hire the cinema to screen environmental films. It was 2006, the year of Al Gore?s An Inconvenient Truth. Tickets were either free or cheap, all 90 of the red plush seats were filled. This was an event. After the film, there might be a speaker on climate change or electric cars, and the audience would be invited on to Mellinghoff?s terrace. He shows me its postcard view of the timber rooftops of his town and the woods beyond. Out here, the townspeople would clutch glasses of wine and discuss the film, the environment and what part they could play in preserving it. In 2011 Preston hit rock bottom. Then it took back control R?hl wanted the now-public Stadtwerke to go 100% renewable by 2015; these evenings were his way of spreading the idea. Renewables meant a forest of solar panels, and giant wind turbines on the mountain that overlooks Wolfhagen. The prospect split the town in two: opponents of the wind farm produced mock-up posters of turbines looming out of a napalmed forest and leering down at locals. The Ancient Greeks would have known what to call Mellinghoff?s terrace. It was an agora, a place for citizens to discuss politics. For all its fury, the debate turned the Stadtwerke from a company under new management to an asset in which everyone had a stake. That bond got closer after Wolfhagen had adopted the renewables pledge. To raise the millions needed to build the wind farm, the town sold a quarter of the energy firm?s shares to locals in a citizens? co-op. The co-op has seats on the board of the company, giving residents a direct say over how their utility is managed. Even after all the years of fighting, I ask, would R?hl recommend Britons do the same with their utilities? He ponders all the failures of British privatisation ? with a special, sad mention of ?your rail system?. (Every German I meet uses the same regretful tone about British trains, as if discussing a child with behavioural problems.) Then he says something that sounds uncannily resonant to anyone in Brexit Britain. ?Germans say we can?t make decisions because everything is decided in Brussels or by big companies. If you can improve your standard of living and make your own choices, that has to be good.? One snowy afternoon, Iris Degenhardt-Meister walks me up the mountain to see the wind turbines up close. Over the couple of kilometres uphill, she laughs while rehearsing the charged town debates of a decade ago, as if remembering university pranks. A civil servant, she?s also a co-op director. The shares give her a decent dividend, albeit capped by a Gierbremse, or greed brake. As for the turbines: ?We love them!? She can identify each one. That way lies eins, over there is vier. I ask a question that would be absurd in privatised Britain: does she feel they belong to her? ?Yes!? A pause to consider the size of the co-op?s stake. ?After all, we own a quarter of them.? Additional reporting by Josie Le Blond ======================================== 16. THE NEW MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OF BIG DATA PSY-OPS by Tamsin Shaw ======================================== NYR Daily March 21, 2018 Bryan Bedder/Getty Images Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica, addressing the Concordia Summit in New York, September 19, 2016 Apparently, the age of the old-fashioned spook is in decline. What is emerging instead is an obscure world of mysterious boutique companies specializing in data analysis and online influence that contract with government agencies. As they say about hedge funds, if the general public has heard their names that?s probably not a good sign. But there is now one data analysis company that anyone who pays attention to the US and UK press has heard of: Cambridge Analytica. Representatives have boasted that their list of past and current clients includes the British Ministry of Defense, the US Department of Defense, the US Department of State, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and NATO. Nevertheless, they became recognized for just one influence campaign: the one that helped Donald Trump get elected president of the United States. The kind of help the company offered has since been the subject of much unwelcome legal and journalistic scrutiny. Carole Cadwalladr?s recent expos? of the inner workings of Cambridge Analytica shows that the company, along with its partner, SCL Group, should rightly be as a cautionary tale about the part private companies play in developing and deploying government-funded behavioral technologies. Her source, former employee Christopher Wylie, has described the development of influence techniques for psychological warfare by SCL Defense, the refinement of similar techniques by SCL Elections through its use across the developing world (for example, a ?rumor campaign? deployed to spread fear during the 2007 election in Nigeria), and the purchase of this cyber-arsenal by Robert Mercer, the American billionaire who funded Cambridge Analytica, and who, with the help of Wylie, Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, and the company?s chief executive Alexander Nix, deployed it on the American electorate in 2016. But the revelations should also prompt us to ask deeper questions about the kind of behavioral science research that enables both governments and private companies to assume these powers. Two young psychologists are central to the Cambridge Analytica story. One is Michal Kosinski, who devised an app with a Cambridge University colleague, David Stillwell, that measures personality traits by analyzing Facebook ?likes.? It was then used in collaboration with the World Well-Being Project, a group at the University of Pennsylvania?s Positive Psychology Center that specializes in the use of big data to measure health and happiness in order to improve well-being. The other is Aleksandr Kogan, who also works in the field of positive psychology and has written papers on happiness, kindness, and love (according to his r?sum?, an early paper was called ?Down the Rabbit Hole: A Unified Theory of Love?). He ran the Prosociality and Well-being Laboratory, under the auspices of Cambridge University?s Well-Being Institute. Despite its prominence in research on well-being, Kosinski?s work, Cadwalladr points out, drew a great deal of interest from British and American intelligence agencies and defense contractors, including overtures from the private company running an intelligence project nicknamed ?Operation KitKat? because a correlation had been found between anti-Israeli sentiments and liking Nikes and KitKats. Several of Kosinski?s co-authored papers list the US government?s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, as a funding source. His r?sum? boasts of meetings with senior figures at two of the world?s largest defense contractors, Boeing and Microsoft, both companies that have sponsored his research. He ran a workshop on digital footprints and psychological assessment for the Singaporean Ministry of Defense. For his part, Aleksandr Kogan established a company, Global Science Research, that contracted with SCL, using Facebook data to map personality traits for its work in elections (Kosinski claims that Kogan essentially reverse-engineered the app that he and Stillwell had developed). Kogan?s app harvested data on Facebook users who agreed to take a personality test for the purposes of academic research (though it was, in fact, to be used by SCL for non-academic ends). But according to Wylie, the app also collected data on their entire?and nonconsenting?network of friends. Once Cambridge Analytica and SCL had won contracts with the State Department and were pitching to the Pentagon, Wylie became alarmed that this illegally-obtained data had ended up at the heart of government, along with the contractors who might abuse it. This apparently bizarre intersection of research on topics like love and kindness with defense and intelligence interests is not, in fact, particularly unusual. It is typical of the kind of dual-use research that has shaped the field of social psychology in the US since World War II. Much of the classic, foundational research on personality, conformity, obedience, group polarization, and other such determinants of social dynamics?while ostensibly civilian?was funded during the cold war by the military and the CIA. The cold war was an ideological battle, so, naturally, research on techniques for controlling belief was considered a national security priority. This psychological research laid the groundwork for propaganda wars and for experiments in individual ?mind control.? The pioneering figures from this era?for example, Gordon Allport on personality and Solomon Asch on belief conformity?are still cited in NATO psy-ops literature to this day. The recent revival of this cold war approach has taken place in the setting of the war on terror, which began in 1998 with Bill Clinton?s Presidential Decision Directive 62, making terrorism America?s national security priority. Martin Seligman, the psychologist who has bridged the military and civilian worlds more successfully than any other with his work on helplessness and resilience, was at the forefront of the new dual-use initiative. His research began as a part of a cold war program of electroshock experiments in the 1960s. He subjected dogs to electric shocks, rendering them passive to the point that they no longer even tried to avoid the pain, a state he called ?learned helplessness.? This concept then became the basis of a theory of depression, along with associated ideas about how to foster psychological resilience. In 1998, Seligman founded the positive psychology movement, dedicated to the study of psychological traits and habits that foster authentic happiness and well-being, spawning an enormous industry of popular self-help books. At the same time, his work attracted interest and funding from the military as a central part of its soldier-resilience initiative. Seligman had previously worked with the CIA and even before September 11, 2001, his new movement was in tune with America?s shifting national security priorities, hosting in its inaugural year a conference in Northern Ireland on ?ethno-political conflict.? But it was after the September 11 attacks that terrorism became Seligman?s absolute priority. In 2003, he said that the war with jihadis must take precedence over all other academic research, saying of his colleagues: ?If we lose the war, the laudable, but pet projects they endorse, will not be issues? If we win this war, we can go on to pursue the normal goals of science.? Money poured into the discipline for these purposes. The Department of Homeland Security established Centers of Excellence in universities for interdisciplinary research into the social and psychological roots of terrorism. Elsewhere, scholars worked more obliquely on relevant behavioral technologies. Some of the psychological projects cultivated under the banner of the war on terror will be familiar to many readers. Psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt and Steven Pinker, and their colleagues in other disciplines (most prominently, the Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein) rehabilitated the cold war research on ?group polarization? as a way of understanding not, this time, the radicalism that feeds ?totalitarianism,? but the equally amorphous notion of ?extremism.? They sought to combat extremism domestically by promoting ?viewpoint diversity? both on campus (through organizations such as the Heterodox Academy, run by Haidt and funded by libertarian billionaire Paul Singer) and online, suggesting ways in which websites might employ techniques from social psychology to combat phenomena such as ?confirmation bias.? Their notion of ?appropriate heterogeneity? (Sunstein) in moral and political views remains controversial. Seligman himself saw the potential for using the Internet to bring his research on personality together with new ways of gathering data. This project began shortly after the September 11 attacks, with a paper on ?Character Strengths Before and After September 11,? which focused on variations in traits such as trust, love, teamwork, and leadership. It ultimately evolved into the innovative World Well-Being Project at Penn. Seligman also fostered links with Cambridge University, where he is on the board of the Well-Being Institute that employs the same kind of psychometric techniques. The aim of these programs is not simply to analyze our subjective states of mind but to discover means by which we can be ?nudged? in the direction of our true well-being as positive psychologists understand it, which includes attributes like resilience and optimism. Seligman?s projects are almost all funded by the Templeton Foundation and may have been employed for entirely civilian purposes. But in bringing together the personality research and the behavioral technologies that social psychologists had for decades been refining with the new tool of big data (via the astonishing resources provided by social media), it has created an important template for what is now the cutting-edge work of America?s intelligence community. In 2008, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates commissioned the Minerva Initiative, funded by the DoD, which brought researchers in the social sciences together to study culture and terrorism, and specifically supported initiatives involving the analysis of social media. One of the Cornell scientists involved also participated in the famous and controversial Facebook study of emotional contagion. Less well known is the Open Source Indicators program at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA (a body under the Director of National Intelligence), which has aimed to analyze social media in order to predict social unrest and political crises. In a 2014 interview, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, speaking then as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that such open-source data initiatives, and in particular the study of social media such as Facebook, had entirely transformed intelligence-gathering. He reported that traditional signals intelligence and human intelligence were increasingly being replaced by this open-source work and that the way in which intelligence agents are trained had been modified to accommodate the shift. A growing portion of the military?s $50 billion budget would be spent on this data analytics work, he claimed, creating a ?gold rush? for contractors. A few weeks after this interview, Flynn left the DIA to establish the Flynn Intel Group Inc. He later acted as a consultant to the SCL Group. Carole Cadwalladr reported in The Observer last year that it was Sophie Schmidt, daughter of Alphabet founder Eric Schmidt, who made SCL aware of this gold rush, telling Alexander Nix, then head of SCL Elections, that the company should emulate Palantir, the company set up by Peter Thiel and funded with CIA venture capital that has now won important national security contracts. Schmidt threatened to sue Cadwalladr for reporting this information. But Nix recently admitted before a parliamentary select committee in London that Schmidt had interned for Cambridge Analytica, though he denied that she had introduced him to Peter Thiel. Aleksandr Kogan and Christopher Wylie allowed Cambridge Analytica to evolve into an extremely competitive operator in this arena. It was by no means inevitable that dual-use research at the intersection of psychology and data science would be employed along with illegally-obtained caches of data to manipulate elections. But dual-use research in psychology does seem to present a specific set of dangers. Many areas of scientific research have benefited from dual-use initiatives. The National Cancer Institute began its life in the early 1970s as part of a coordinated program examining the effects of tumor agents developed as bio-weapons at Fort Detrick. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, similarly, researched the effects of militarily manufactured hazardous viruses. This was the foundation of a biotechnology industry that has become a paradigm case of dual use and has led, in spite of its more sinister side, to invaluable medical breakthroughs. But the development of behavioral technologies intended for military-grade persuasion in cyber-operations is rooted in a specific perspective on human beings, one that is at odds with the way they should be viewed in democratic societies. I?ve written previously about the way in which a great deal of contemporary behavioral science aims to exploit our irrationalities rather than overcome them. A science that is oriented toward the development of behavioral technologies is bound to view us narrowly as manipulable subjects rather than rational agents. If these technologies are becoming the core of America?s military and intelligence cyber-operations, it looks as though we will have to work harder to keep these trends from affecting the everyday life of our democratic society. That will mean paying closer attention to the military and civilian boundaries being crossed by the private companies that undertake such cyber-operations. In the academic world, it should entail a refusal to apply the perspective of propaganda research more generally to social problems. From social media we should demand, at a minimum, much greater protection of our data. Over time, we might also see a lower tolerance for platforms whose business model relies on the collection and commercial exploitation of that data. As for politics, rather than elected officials? perfecting technologies that give them access to personal information about the electorate, their focus should be on informing voters about their policies and actions, and making themselves accountable. ======================================== 17. ADVENTURES IN THE TRUMP TWITTERSPHERE by Zeynep Tufekci ======================================== The New York Times, March 31, 2016 EVERY morning since August, I have steeled myself to enter an alternate universe. I scroll through social media feeds where people are convinced that Congress funds the Islamic State, that our president hates this country and wants it to fail and that Donald J. Trump is the only glimmer of hope in this bleak landscape. It?s my look at a list of Twitter users whom I?ve identified as Trump supporters. Some accounts have only a few followers while some have tens of thousands. (No one comes close to Mr. Trump himself, at more than seven million.) They include people of many professions and backgrounds. I found them by reading at responses to news media or political accounts, and then went on to seek out other accounts they followed. It?s a large, sprawling network. As an academic, I study social media and social movements, from the uprising in Egypt to Black Lives Matter. As I watched this election season unfold, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the power of the Trump social media echo chamber. What I?ve been reading has surprised even my jaded eyes. It?s a world of wild falsehoods and some truth that you see only rarely in mainstream news outlets, or hear spoken among party elites. It?s popular to argue today that Mr. Trump?s success is, in part, a creation of the traditional news media ? cable networks that couldn?t get enough of his celebrity and the ratings it brought, and newspapers that didn?t scrutinize him with enough care. There is some truth in that, but the contention misses a larger reality. Mr. Trump?s rise is actually a symptom of the mass media?s growing weakness, especially in controlling the limits of what it is acceptable to say. For decades, journalists at major media organizations acted as gatekeepers who passed judgment on what ideas could be publicly discussed, and what was considered too radical. This is sometimes called the ?Overton window,? after Joseph P. Overton of the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who discussed the relatively narrow range of policies that are viewed as politically acceptable. What such gatekeepers thought was acceptable often overlapped with what those in power believed, too. Conversations outside the frame of this window were not tolerated. For worse, and sometimes for better, the Overton window is broken. We are in an era of rapidly weakening gatekeepers. When I first came to this country from Turkey as a graduate student in the late 1990s, I was something of an anomaly: an adult foreigner with white skin who was fluent in English but not a native. Though I was a newcomer culturally, many people in my new home, Austin, Tex., assumed I was born and raised here. I have a bit of an accent, but my appearance seemed to overwhelm their ear. Curious about my new country, I soaked up conversations. Sometimes, they went very, very wrong in ways I couldn?t understand. It would go something like this: I would be chatting with a seemingly nice person who would complain that a brother-in-law had lost a job. As I sympathetically listened, there would be a brief, unrelated mention of a black man who was hired for some other job. Just as I was squinting to try to comprehend the point, a vile and thunderous racist rant would be unleashed. I ran back to my classmates who were born in this country, in horror, wondering what had happened. ?Oh, you don?t know the code,? they told me with a laugh. ?The code? was their shorthand for how racists sent out feelers to find kindred spirits. Since many people of all races opposed racism, racial identity itself was no guarantee of agreement. I didn?t know the markers of this ?code,? so I sometimes failed to recognize them, or responded inadequately to them. Today, this feeling-out process happens online and is much quicker, resulting in cascading self-affirmation. People naturally thrive by finding like-minded others, and I watch as Trump supporters affirm one another in their belief that white America is being sold out by secretly Muslim lawmakers, and that every unpleasant claim about Donald Trump is a fabrication by a cabal that includes the Republican leadership and the mass media. I watch as their networks expand, and as followers find one another as they voice ever more extreme opinions. After many months of observing Mr. Trump?s supporters online, I wanted to see this phenomenon in person, so this month I attended a Trump rally in Fayetteville, N.C. I tried a few conversations that sought to challenge the attendees? beliefs, but they went nowhere for a simple reason: His supporters and I did not share the same factual universe. At one point, I heard Mr. Trump declare that Congress had funded the Islamic State. I looked around, bewildered, as there was no reaction from the crowd. My social media forays confirm that even that was not an uncommon belief. Mr. Trump doesn?t only speak outrageous falsehoods; he also voices truths outside the Overton window that have been largely ignored, especially by Republican elites. For example, academic research shows that rather than deep cuts, Tea Party voters actually favor government programs, as long as they perceive a benefit for themselves. It?s fairly obvious that the current model of global trade provides a lot more benefits to corporations than to workers, and yet it took Mr. Trump?s rise to have this basic issue widely covered. In Fayetteville, Mr. Trump complained that much of the military?s expensive weaponry had been purchased simply because the large corporations selling it had political clout. As he said this, the people around me, many of them from military families, leapt to their feet in approval. The demagogy that Mr. Trump deploys didn?t come out of nowhere, but was encouraged by the Republican leadership. In 2012, Mitt Romney effusively accepted Mr. Trump?s endorsement even though the tycoon had repeatedly questioned President Obama?s citizenship. In this election, the Republican Party may have hoped to engineer a controlled fire that would burn only political opponents ? the current president, say, or Democrats as a whole, but not their preferred candidates. That?s a technique that may have worked in the era of mass media. Instead, it now rages, uncontrolled, on social media. Many of the Trump supporters whom I?ve been following say that they no longer trust any big institutions, whether political parties or media outlets. Instead, they share personal stories that support their common narrative, which mixes falsehoods and facts ? often ignored by these powerful institutions they now loathe ? with the politics of racial resentment. Mr. Trump has been criticized for not conducting internal polling to adjust his message, as major campaigns generally do. He does something better, though. He uses Twitter as a kind of gut focus-group polling to pick up and amplify messages that resonate. Also, while his rally speeches may seem rambling, after having watched many, I believe he uses crowd response to refine his message. He is not a bumbling celebrity; he is a politician deeply in touch with his own, polarized base. The Trump phenomenon is not simply a creation of newspaper columnists or cable news bookers who initially thought his candidacy was a joke to be exploited for ratings. His emergence shows the strength of his supporters, united on social media, who believe that the media is a joke. Mr. Trump and his fans have broken the Overton window, and there is no going back. Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina and a contributing opinion writer. ======================================== 18. MASS PSYCHOLOGY IN THE AGE OF TRUMP Why is Trump driving liberals berserk? Is it him or us?or both? By John T. Jost Orsolya Hunyady ======================================== Democracy from Spring, No. 48 It has been more than a year now, and while the initial shock may have worn off, the horror of President Trump, for liberals, has not. Weekly, daily, sometimes hourly, Trump does something that liberals experience as not merely wrong or politically abhorrent, but something that violates all the norms and principles of public life that we hold most dear. He drives liberals crazy in ways that even Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush never did. Why? What is it about Trump?s personality, his followers, and the brand of authoritarian conservatism they share? And what is it about liberals that renders them so apoplectic in this situation? Pop psychologists and pundits have brushed up against these questions, but no one has quite wrestled them to the ground. We think we know why Trump makes liberals go berserk. The answer is only partly about Trump. It also has to do with the essential characteristics of liberal ideology and psychology, that is, the very qualities that make liberals ?liberal.? We?ll get there, but first we need to establish a few points about conservatism, authoritarianism, Trump?s personality, and the psychology of the liberal mindset. The Slippery Slope from Conservatism to Authoritarianism Let us acknowledge that there is something human and intrinsically valuable about the ?conservative? impulse to preserve social, economic, and political legacies. As the late Marxist philosopher Gerald A. Cohen pointed out, nearly all of us possess a ?natural? bias in favor of existing value and are often heard bemoaning the fact that ?things ain?t what they used to be.? When political conservatives tout the importance of the nuclear family or the Constitution or even American exceptionalism, they strike a chord that resonates with most if not all of us. The understandable, even admirable reverence for tradition can, however, easily slip into more dangerous forms of ideological calcification that wittingly or unwittingly prop up existing forms of exploitation and oppression and stifle opportunities for progress, equality, and social change. Thus, Cohen added that he could never be a conservative about matters of social justice, ?because what conservatives like me want to conserve is that which has intrinsic value, and injustice lacks intrinsic value (and has, indeed, intrinsic disvalue).? The challenge, for all of us living in a liberal democracy, is to distinguish clearly between elements of the societal status quo that possess intrinsic value and those that do not, and to conserve only the former. No doubt, this is more easily said than done. More than any other political system, democracy?as Plato pointed out long ago?has the inherent ability to actualize its own demise. By manipulating the democratic process, elites can limit the freedoms of individuals or social groups and put in place leaders who are not democratically inclined. In a very concrete sense, democracy depends upon ordinary citizens? capacities and motivations to absorb democratic values and tolerate those with diverse social, cultural, ethnic, and ideological backgrounds. These are precisely the values that those on the right wing have been attacking for years, and they have exploited the inherent popularity of conservative ideology to do so. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford observed a close connection between the holding of extremely conservative, system-justifying values and authoritarian tendencies. They took a multi-methods approach, conducting structured interviews and administering questionnaires and projective tests to countless samples of American adults. Among other things, they observed that people who endorsed statements like ?America may not be perfect, but the American Way has brought us about as close as human beings can get to a perfect society? were also more likely to express prejudice, anti-Semitism, and anti-democratic sentiments. Conversely, ?liberals? who felt that ?poverty could be almost entirely done away with if we made certain basic changes in our social and economic system? were less likely to exhibit authoritarian tendencies. Ever since the Democratic Party first took a strong leadership role on the issue of civil rights for African Americans in the 1960s, authoritarian tendencies have consistently predicted support for Republican presidential candidates. Social scientists have long known that highly threatening historical periods are accompanied by an increase in authoritarianism in the general population. Thus, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a predictable uptick in support for authoritarian conservatism, as well as decreased commitment to tolerance and the protection of civil liberties. Similar shifts have occurred in response to bombing and terrorist attacks in India, Israel, and throughout Europe. The fear of terrorism has broadened to encompass the so-called ?migrant crisis.? And there is plenty of reason for economic anxiety after 40 years of flat wages (despite increased worker productivity) under capitalist economic systems that have become more and more efficient at exploiting resources of labor. Whatever the proximal psychological causes, we are bearing witness?all over the world?to the rebirth of extreme right-wing movements that thrive under conditions of anxiety. These movements promise a return to ?traditional? (often religious) values, a curtailing of reproductive and other rights of women (as well as sexual minorities), and a revival of nationalistic (often ethnic) pride and the ?restoration? of national boundaries, along with a dismantling of the ?administrative? welfare state and the imposition of illiberal reforms and vindictive immigration policies. Once in power, they flirt with (and sometimes embrace) totalitarian practices, such as intimidating and even incarcerating protestors, journalists, academics, and any others whom they find potentially threatening or disruptive. With the support of conservative voters, illiberal governments have gained power in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and many other countries. Radical right-wing parties are also resurgent in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom. Understanding mass psychology in this day and age, and the ways in which authoritarian politicians have so successfully tapped into it, is of paramount importance for understanding how this happened and how it can be fought; that is, for the long-term preservation of democratic systems. Trump This! Authoritarianism by the Book Even before Donald Trump was elected President, many worried that his campaign style signaled a sea change in American politics?a new danger that right-wing authoritarianism would finally triumph at home. Other Republicans had been accused of dog-whistle politics, using coded language to cue fairly subtle racial biases, but Trump makes comments that come off as overtly, unabashedly racist, sexist, and xenophobic. To some citizens, these comments are taken as evidence of Trump?s authenticity?a breath of ?fresh air??and principled opposition to ?political correctness.? To others, it has been shocking to see a successful candidate for President using crass language and defending violence. According to Time, Trump said he?d ?like to punch protesters in the face and offered to pay the legal fees of supporters who did.? His rallies were ?punctuated by his roar??Get ?em out!??when a dissenter [began] chanting or raising a sign.? Whatever the psychological causes, we are witnessing the rebirth of extreme right-wing movements that thrive under anxiety. The reality of the situation throws into stark relief the fact that political scientists today are working with an impoverished conception of authoritarianism?one that emphasizes little more than child-rearing values of obedience and conformity. Contemporary researchers often distance themselves from Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, in part because of methodological problems that were not as obvious in the 1940s as they are now, but also because these authors were influenced by Marx and Freud, who have fallen out of fashion. Some social scientists have backed off from using the concept of authoritarianism altogether for fear of alienating social conservatives. Others simply put a smiley face on authoritarianism, claiming that in-group loyalty, obedience to authority, and the desire for ?purity? are legitimate moral values that liberals ought to respect rather than suspect. It is worth recalling that Adorno and his colleagues identified nine characteristics of the authoritarian syndrome (not just one or two or three): (1) aggression against those who deviate from ?the norm,? (2) submission to idealized moral authorities, (3) uncritical acceptance of conventional values, (4) mental rigidity and a proclivity to engage in stereotypical thinking, (5) a preoccupation with toughness and power, (6) exaggerated sexual concerns, (7) a reluctance to engage in introspection, (8) a tendency to project undesirable traits onto others, and (9) destructiveness and cynicism about human nature. These characteristics provide an uncanny description of Donald Trump. It is as if he has been doing authoritarianism by the book. It is unnecessary to analyze every one of these characteristics, but let?s consider a few. Not only has Trump courted violent aggression against detractors, he has demanded submission from peers, including Republican opponents during the primary debates, whom he belittled in various ways. Is Trump preoccupied with toughness and power? Here is how he announced a presidential endorsement from boxer (and convicted rapist) Mike Tyson: ?Iron Mike. You know, all the tough guys endorse me?.?.?.?when I get endorsed by the tough ones, I like it, because you know what? We need toughness now. We need toughness.? And is Trump preoccupied with sexual concerns? How else can we understand bizarre comments about his daughter?s ?figure? and the menstrual cycles of female journalists?as well as his claim that Hillary Clinton was ?schlonged? when she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008? It is also a useful thought experiment to imagine what authoritarian conservatives would have done if Obama had been accused of cheating on his wife with an adult film actress, as Trump has been. As for reluctance to engage in introspection, Trump admitted in a 2014 interview: ?I don?t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see.? In other words, Trump perfectly exemplifies the ?authoritarian syndrome,? and surveys confirm that Trump supporters differ from other voters?including other Republicans?in terms of their affinity for right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. Regardless of whether he has truly significant mental health problems?narcissism, sociopathy, or some other personality disorder?his behavior is crazy-making. He tweets one thing, then the opposite. Policies that may affect millions of people, especially immigrants, are dashed off on a whim, inspired by the latest rant on ?Fox and Friends.? ?Why are we taking people from ?shithole? countries?? asks the President of the United States, in all seriousness. Cavalierly, he tosses paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. Does this mean that Trump has pulled off an authoritarian coup? Certainly not. His government is disorganized and largely ineffective, and in terms of policy he has accomplished little other than tax cuts for the rich and the dismantling of certain forms of economic regulation during the first year of his presidency. But many of his appointments to the judiciary and various governmental units will inflict harm on liberal causes, including the environment, for decades to come. These are angst-ridden times for American liberals, even if the illiberal ambitions of the President?and, worse, many of his supporters (our friends, our co-workers, our family members)?will fail in the long run. In the long run, as they say, we will all be dead. The Liberal Conundrum: Tolerating the Intolerable A mad social scientist could not have devised a character who is more antithetical to the liberal worldview than Donald Trump?even a staunch conservative with a more disciplined commitment to right-wing ideals. Trump is unique in his ability to provoke, upset, and irritate those with liberal sensibilities. No doubt this is part of his appeal to a certain segment of the population?the ones who have been told since Nixon that ?liberal elites? were laughing at them. The writer Katha Pollitt confesses that, ?I sometimes feel like I?m a different person now. I?m fidgety and irritable and have trouble concentrating?.?.?.?But the main difference is that I hate people now. Well, not all people, of course. Just people who voted for Trump. People who do their own ?research? on the Internet and discover there that President Obama is a Muslim and Michelle Obama is a man.? Likewise, Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times observes, ?What now passes for ordinary would have once been inconceivable. The government is under the control of an erratic racist who engages in nuclear brinkmanship on Twitter.?.?.?.?It?s been a year, and sometimes I?m still poleaxed by grief at the destruction of our civic inheritance.? What precisely is it about Trump that drives liberals to these cataclysmic views? The answer has to do as much with liberals as with Trump himself. First, there is the nature of liberal ideology itself, which?because of its peculiar characteristics and internal contradictions?contributes to the present situation. Second, there are psychological factors, the dispositional tendencies of those who are drawn to liberal ideology. These two elements are related because there is a close and reciprocal connection?what Max Weber called an ?elective affinity??between psychological needs on one hand and the philosophical contents of an ideology on the other. The Tensions in Liberal Ideology and Psychology Liberalism as an ideology is a system of values. The distinctive ideological contents of liberalism are openness to social change (or progressivism) and the promotion of social, economic, and political equality. If a conflict arises for liberals but not for conservatives, it is probably because liberalism prioritizes equality above all else. The liberal call for diversity (and, by extension, pluralism) is, among other, things, a call to treat different values equally?to avoid elevating one over others in terms of status and respect. This applies even to conservatism. On some abstract level, liberals feel compelled to proclaim that conservative intuitions are equally acceptable, equally valuable, and equally valid to their own intuitions. At the same time, when it comes to the specific content of conservative opinions (on affirmative action, universal health care, Social Security, gun control, climate change, gay rights, and so on), liberals are convinced that conservatives are dead wrong. Strictly speaking, this conflict is not resolvable and is manifested as genuine ambivalence. The hate speech debate illustrates the conflict. On one hand, it is impermissible, understandably so, for liberals to simply declare certain kinds of speech or ideas or values off-limits. And yet hate speech severely undermines liberal values, and, to the extent that it gains traction, undermines liberal-democratic societies. What often follows for the liberal in such a quandary is a quixotic, obsessional attempt to identify precisely what qualifies as ?hate speech.? One way in which liberals cope with the contradiction is to be permissive in theory, but to become more prohibitive when it comes to specific cases (like Richard Spencer), without ever being able to resolve the inconsistency. Another manifestation of liberal ambivalence is to advocate (relentlessly) for increased open-mindedness (?we should listen to Trump supporters and figure out what we are missing?), while at the same time slamming Trump himself. Liberals want to validate the needs and desires of fellow citizens that gave rise to the Trump vote without validating the vote itself. They struggle to separate Trump and his actions from the people who elevated him to power, and in doing so, they retain the ability to be empathetic and critical. It is an ingenious trick of the unconscious, the essence of compartmentalization: Trump is not the same as his followers; his followers are not all like him. Do conservatives engage in similar contortions of a political psychological nature? No, because their philosophy (and their psychology) does not require it. Liberals, therefore, face a special conflict that they are especially ill-equipped to resolve: between tolerance and the ?tolerance of intolerance.? If the conflict is unavoidable, and ultimately unresolvable, one can commit to one side only at the expense of the other. If the liberal decides that openness and acceptance matter above all, that we should never treat anyone as ?the other,? and that we always need to listen, this inevitably comes at the expense of progressive political goals, including the single-minded pursuit of ideological opposition to the conservative agenda. If, instead, she decides that enough is enough, that the time to fight is now, she is accused?even by fellow liberals?of being ?closed-minded,? prejudiced, intolerant, and hypocritical?and, indeed, comes to worry herself that this may be the case. Fifty years ago, Bob Dylan chastened himself for ?fearing not that I?d become my enemy in the instant that I preach.? Today many liberals are virtually paralyzed by such a fear. The liberal conundrum cannot really be resolved, and in this way the suffering under Trump and his ilk is compounded and quite possibly prolonged. The conflict in liberal political ideology manifests itself in liberal psychology as well. We have recently conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of 181 studies based on more than 130,00 research participants, and it reveals that, in comparison with conservatives, liberals exhibit the following psychological characteristics: openness to new experiences, tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty, cognitive flexibility and complexity, and need for cognition (or enjoyment of thinking). Liberals also score lower than conservatives on measures of dogmatism and personal needs for order, structure, and cognitive closure. To be sure, there are epistemic virtues associated with a more ?deliberative? thinking style: Liberals are less likely than conservatives to exhibit self-deception, and they are generally less receptive to conspiracy theories and ?pseudo-profound? bullshit. But the prototypical liberal is also someone who exhibits the defense mechanism of intellectualization and may engage in compartmentalization and other forms of obsessional thinking, which divorce feelings from thought and action. The liberal wants, sometimes desperately, to maintain hope and trust in the positive aspects of human nature, even when it comes to those who are self-declared enemies of liberalism. She sees herself as driven by compassion and is therefore uncomfortable (or ambivalent) about her own competitive and aggressive impulses. Liberals promote the ideal of cooperation and the metaphor of government-as-caretaker (or, in George Lakoff?s phrase, ?the nurturant parent?), and they place a strong emphasis on equality and acceptance of difference. And it is true that values such as care and cooperation can, to some degree, provide a psychological bulwark against feelings of guilt, anger, resentment, and helplessness. But there are downsides as well. Politics is not?and probably never will be?as rational as the liberal would like. The Problem with Trump We are now equipped to answer the question: Why does Trump?even more than other conservatives?make liberal brains go haywire? It is because he makes it impossible, in practice, for liberals to be tolerant (egalitarian), rational, and optimistic about human nature?three things that are essential aspects of liberal ideology and liberal psychology. Trump makes it preposterous, in other words, for liberals to be ?liberal? in the usual sense. Even Reagan and Bush, for all their dog-whistling, never resorted to language that was explicitly authoritarian, racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic. But Trump does so regularly; he states that some neo-Nazis are ?very fine people.? Liberals cannot in good conscience tolerate these ?values??or treat them as equally valid (or ?moral? or ?tribal?), when their opposites are readily available. Second, while other Republicans (and some Democrats, too, of course) have lied in office, no one has ever displayed so little regard for the truth. How can anyone who deeply values reason and scientific evidence countenance the biggest conservative bullshitter of them all, a man in power who appears to care not one whit about the facts of the matter on issue after issue? Any observation he dislikes, no matter how grounded in reality, is dismissed as ?fake news.? On top of all this, liberals must somehow come to terms with the fact that roughly half of the Americans who voted wanted to put him in office. And 35 percent appear willing to stand by him no matter what, even if?as he boasted during the campaign?he were to ?stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody.? Our faith in tolerance, reason, and humanity, in our neighbors, in our liberal-democratic institutions, all of it seems to be shattering in real time. This is because Trump?s personality, even more than his politics, oozes authoritarian ugliness. The fact that his authoritarianism is so utterly ordinary, shared by millions around the world, gives no comfort. To take the anti-intellectual crudeness of his persona, his incessant bullying, his disdain for the cherished norms of liberal democracy, and his erratic behavior from ?The Apprentice? and move them into the West Wing?this is a special kind of affront to ?blue America.? Trump feels vindicated by the mere fact of having been elected President?a fact that he brings up constantly. He has more power than any one person in this country to influence the lives of millions, yet he shows no signs of comprehending the significance or moral responsibility of this. Why not destroy the families of immigrants? They?re not even white. Like a spoiled, spiteful, indifferent king, he makes no pretense of listening to or representing us?half the nation?in any way. In this respect, he is worse?more personally contemptuous of liberal norms, traditions, and accomplishments?than Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. If Trump were more religious he would resemble a pre-Enlightenment figure; it would be difficult to find a less scientifically informed member of the upper class. And yet the whole country, it seems, is held hostage to his narcissistic wounds, authoritarian rants, and Twitterstorms. Liberals share a miserable concoction of disenchantment, astonishment, and outrage, but?like a herd of cats?their notions about what has happened since November 8, 2016 (and why) differs wildly from person to person. To be sure, many are committed to some form of ?resistance,? but others worry that the problem lies with us. Thus, Pollitt agonizes, ?I know what you?re thinking: you are the problem, Katha, alienating Trump voters with your snobbish liberal elitism and addiction to ?identity politics.?? Some liberals hit the conservative think-tank circuit to blame ?cultural Marxists? for our nation?s woes. Others worry that we liberals are just not tolerant enough. Is liberal ?political correctness? to blame for the rise of Trump and alt-right? Perhaps we have not listened closely enough to our conservative brethren. Should we ?take our fingers out of our ears?? Are we overreacting? More pertinent than ever is Robert Frost?s admonition that ?A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.? Or, to put it in game-theoretic terms, liberals just can?t help wanting to cooperate (at least some of the time) with conservatives, while American conservatives always defect. Now, in the face of authoritarian demagoguery and a ?predatory world view,? liberals must realize ?how ineffectual were Obama?s nostrums of bipartisan cooperation, conciliation, and reasonable compromise, or Hillary Clinton?s insistence that America is great because it is good,? as the noted psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin puts it. Even if we assume that some diversity of opinion is expected, useful, and healthy within a community that otherwise shares a given value system (like democracy), could it be that ?liberal? responses are too fragmented, too ramified, and too idiosyncratic to constitute a coherent form of opposition to Trumpism? Is there a sense in which liberals are unwittingly participating in self-sabotage, holding themselves back from doing what it takes to reclaim their country? At least some of the reactions to Trump?s presidency that have taken the form of introspection or ?self-examination? (something that would never even occur to the authoritarian conservative) reflect a psychological discomfort with placing blame squarely onto ?the other.? To be sure, rational, objective analysis and a dedication to learning from the past (even the recent past) are indispensable characteristics of sound democratic deliberation. But a failure to distinguish between important and unimportant details is unhelpful and, in the language of attachment theory, avoidant. A woman registering voters for Jill Stein insists that Hillary Clinton is just as bad as Donald Trump and glides away, saying that it doesn?t matter anyway, because Trump could never win the election? Conservatives hammer liberals for being too ?idealistic??indeed unrealistic about the selfish, ?dark side? of human nature?as well as hypocritical and elitist (even as liberals take up the cause, if not the lifestyle, of the underdog). There is some truth to this. As Benjamin points out, liberal political failures often stem from ?an inability to acknowledge harming, to admit that such destructive, anti-democratic forces are and have always been part of our legitimated political structure.? Much more than liberals, conservatives take the ?dark side? for granted?and many justify it, advocating for the very things that call it out: the relentless pursuit of material self-interest, competition, power, discipline, obedience, and conformity. Conservative politicians demonstrate a willingness to bend or break the rules, to do everything ?necessary??or more precisely, possible (such as gerrymandering, voter suppression, and outright obstruction)?to win. For nearly a year, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully prevented Congress from even considering President Obama?s nomination for the Supreme Court so that they could install one of their own after Trump was elected. Liberals may feel betrayed, but what do they do about it? What can they do?without turning into ?the enemy?? Joining the Fray None of what we are saying should be taken to suggest that there is a dearth of effective, creative, passionate, and courageous activists (or would-be activists) on the liberal left who are capable of meeting the challenges of our time. There are. Many ?liberals? (whether or not they embrace the term) report being galvanized by the Trump presidency, the Charlottesville riots, ongoing sexual harassment scandals, and other recent events. They resolve to take a stronger, more active political stance than ever before. And, historically speaking, we should never forget that most of the things that Americans truly celebrate are, in fact, liberal victories over illiberal institutions and arrangements, from the eradication of slavery to the defeat of the Nazis. Liberals should be proud of their historical legacy, and they should own it. But every one of those victories was hard fought: They took persistence, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to winning. It may yet turn out that Trump?s presidency will mobilize the liberal left in ways that are innovative, far-reaching, and enduring. But it is part of the liberal conundrum to worry that whenever we take truly decisive action we are becoming just like conservatives: closed-minded, prejudiced, biased, intolerant, hypocritical, and so on. Every day Trump gives liberals new reasons to be despondent, livid, and contemptuous of what he is doing, how he is doing it, and what he represents. But these feelings are themselves a source of threat for liberals?and where threats emerge, defenses rally. At an unconscious level, many liberals turn inward?to a place of self-doubt, even self-recrimination. ?And of course, I hate myself, too,? writes Pollitt. Fortunately, she has not stopped fighting, but these dynamics hamper many a liberal?s ability to take effective?indeed, combative?measures to vanquish the right. The liberal conundrum cannot be resolved ideologically (philosophically) or personally (psychologically). We lash out at our political opponents and regret it almost immediately. We try to maintain a sober, rational distance from our own emotions, because we cannot trust their epistemic value. Our adversaries, meanwhile, are all ?guts-and-glory,? with no time for introspection, no energy for deliberation, and certainly no patience for us. Some conservatives, it must be recognized, are appalled by Trump?s behavior. From David Frum and Bill Kristol to Jeff Flake and Mitt Romney, conservatives who know something of history and philosophy, freedom and tolerance, reason and democracy are finally as horrified as liberals at the direction the country is headed in. But too many conservatives are not. They deflect criticism of the President reflexively by engaging in ?whataboutism??shifting the topic of conversation to the failings of Obama or Clinton or Al Franken or whomever. While many conservatives understandably dismiss the liberal?s tentative, ambivalent entreaties, the half-hearted attempts to ?reach out,? ?open-minded? liberals attack one another for not being tolerant enough. Every now and then, frustration peaks, and rage boils over. We unload, finally, on the men in power?they are racists, sexual predators, plutocrats, polluters, quislings, and worse. We are not wrong, but it doesn?t feel entirely right to participate in the culture of denunciation either, at least not for long. There is a certain continuity to liberal ideology in Western political thought, and there is also something quite distinctive to what we, in the twenty-first century, consider to be the ?liberal left? in the United States. Sometimes liberals forget that liberalism does not exist in a vacuum; it is yoked, inextricably, to its conservative counterpart?and American ?conservatism? has changed quite radically over the past few decades. The effectiveness of the ?progressive agenda? therefore does depend, in one sense, on how attuned it is to what is happening on the other side and how well it counters that. Ideological rigidity undermines success. But so, too, does any lack of resolve or unity in opposition. For Lincoln and FDR, as Jessica Benjamin writes, ?the willingness to identify and call out enemies was a crucial action.? Today conservatives are far more comfortable than liberals with the zero-sum nature of ideological legitimacy, competition, and conflict. Liberals would be better off ?owning? the struggle in this historical moment. Rather than playing out our own internal contradictions, we should try to become as fully aware of them as possible. The situation forces a confrontation, a battle for America?s future, perhaps?a bitter conflict that most liberals wish to avoid, that they will never be enthusiastic about. Liberals must also face up to the fact that ?the powers that be? will never side with them for long, and that is one reason why liberal guilt is so misplaced: The liberal left does not set the political landscape in the United States, and never really has. Liberals today are in the unenviable position of responding to whatever is taking place, outside of their control. This is an unpleasant state for anyone to be in. But for liberals to be put here by Donald Trump, of all people, this is an indignity that is practically unbearable. In a preface to The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilhelm Reich wrote that ??fascism? is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man?s character.? The fact that authoritarian inclinations are so mundane and quotidian means that they are a constant danger?and a constant source of anxiety for the liberal. It would be foolish at this historical moment to suggest that fascism has come to America. It has not. But to many of us, it feels as if we are closer to it than we ever thought possible. Read more about Donald TrumpLiberalismpsychology John T. Jost is Professor of Psychology and Politics and Co-Director of the Center for Social and Political Behavior at New York University. Orsolya Hunyady is a Psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 18:26:08 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 03:56:08 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_3_April_2018_=7C_Rohingyas_/_Sri_Lanka?= =?windows-1252?Q?=3A_Religious_Violence_/_Pakistan=3A_Malala=27s?= =?windows-1252?Q?_visit=3B_Left_revival_/_India-Pakistan_ties_-_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Indus_Water_Treaty_/_India=3A_Foreign_hand_in_t?= =?windows-1252?Q?he_Sangh_/_Russia=3A_State_plus_Orthodox_Church?= =?windows-1252?Q?_may_produce_a_monster_/_Facebook_Isn=92t_Just_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Violating_Our_Privacy?= Message-ID: <70D6E1F8-7E60-4C56-B0BB-9041620ACA66@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 3 April 2018 - No. 2980 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Avoiding ?religious? violence in Sri Lanka | Asoka Bandarage 2. Rohingyas: Pawns in the geopolitical chessboard | Tapan Bose 3. Ahmed Rashid speaking at Pakistan-Afghanistan Pukhtun Festival 2018 4. Commentary on Malala-hating business in Pakistan 5. Pakistan: Revival of the Left | Rashed Rahman 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Bengal communal clashes: Both Hindus and Muslims find themselves homeless and insecure in Raniganj and Asansol - India: How BJP Won Without Winning in staunchly Christian Nagaland - India: Hindi belt Hindutva's violent and divisive Ram Naomi - a cultural threat to the Bengali way of life - India: As BJP Raises Communal Pitch in Bihar, Nitish is Forced to Play Bystander | Manoj Chaurasia - India: Making Postcard News founder?s arrest about fake news rather than communal hatred is risky - India: BJP has already appointed RSS 'pracharaks' in key positions in educational institutions, it is now attempting to instal RSS pracharaks - India: Foreign hand in the Sangh - RSS has championed chauvinist ideas from Europe | Parnal Chirmuley - India: My dear Bihari's please stay away from communal violence - Ravish Kumar ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Sri Lanka: The No Confidence Motion (NCM) and its Political Stakes | Jayadeva Uyangoda 8. India-Pakistan ties: time to reach out across the border | Happymon Jacob 9. Pakistan: Militant threat in Punjab - Editorial, Dawn 10. Pakistan Tests Nuclear-Capable, Submarine-Launched Missile With A Range Of450Km 11. Indus Water Treaty Not A Weapon Against Pakistan |Bharat Bhushan 12. A Mighty Wind | Max Rodenbeck 13. Nonsense to say modern science existed in ancient Greece or India: Steven Weinberg | Subodh Varma 14. Against the law - editorial, The Telegraph 15. Spain's military in row over flags at half mast for Easter | Stephen Burgen in Barcelona 16. It?s about Russia, not God: ?State plus Orthodox Church may produce a monster? | Ana?s Llobet 17. Facebook Isn?t Just Violating Our Privacy | Noam Cohen ======================================== 1. AVOIDING ?RELIGIOUS? VIOLENCE IN SRI LANKA by Asoka Bandarage ======================================== Sinhalese Buddhist extremism has been vehemently condemned for the violence by the United Nations, Western governments, media, academia, and non-governmental organizations and their Sri Lankan counterparts. There is no question that violence by any group against another must be condemned and perpetrators must be held accountable. However, in order to avoid descent into further ?religious? violence, it is important to move beyond a simplistic depiction of a majority aggressor and a minority victim and consider the multiple historical and social structural causes of the conflict. http://www.sacw.net/article13700.html ======================================== 2. ROHINGYAS: PAWNS IN THE GEOPOLITICAL CHESSBOARD by Tapan Bose ======================================== The protracted Rohingya refugee crisis and in particular the latest cycle of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people fleeing the massive military crackdown on an un-armed minority community should not be viewed as an isolated event. It should be examined in the context of the rivalry between China and the US, the West and India for control over Myanmar?s economic and mineral resources. http://www.sacw.net/article13705.html ======================================== 3. AHMED RASHID SPEAKING AT PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN PUKHTUN FESTIVAL 2018 ======================================== Intervention by Ahmed Rashid at the Panel on Regional Peace on 1 April 2018 as part of Pakistan-Afghanistan Pukhtun Festival 2018 held in Pakistan http://www.sacw.net/article13704.html ======================================== 4. PAKISTAN: MALALA IS THE MESSAGE | GHAZI SALAHUDDIN / MALALA-HATING AND OUR XENOPHOBIA-RADICALISATION COMPLEX | RAZA RUMI / MALALA RETURNS TO PAKISTAN AN NPR REPORT ======================================== Commentary on Malala-hating business in Pakistan. It is a sad reflection on the state of our society that a young woman who is Pakistan?s pride and honour in a global context is despised by such a large number of people in her own country. http://www.sacw.net/article13702.html ======================================== 5. PAKISTAN: REVIVAL OF THE LEFT by Rashed Rahman ======================================== The task of reviving the Left to once again become an effective player in the polity has been exercising minds in the surviving Left parties and groups for long but the achievement of this goal has proved difficult. It is therefore heartening to note the follow-up of the meeting of 10 Left parties and groups in Lahore on December 29, 2017 by the formation of a 17-parties/groups? platform dubbed Lahore Left Front (LLF) http://www.sacw.net/article13703.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Bengal communal clashes: Both Hindus and Muslims find themselves homeless and insecure in Raniganj and Asansol - India - Bihar: With Allies Like These, Nitish Kumar Needs No Enemies - India: RSS propagandists claims freedom fighter Rajguru was a swayamsevak . . . - India: BJP Dalit leaders stall Amit Shah?s Mysuru speech, ask for Anantkumar Hegde?s expulsion - India: How BJP Won Without Winning in staunchly Christian Nagaland - India: Hindi belt Hindutva's violent and divisive Ram Naomi - a cultural threat to the Bengali way of life - India: As BJP Raises Communal Pitch in Bihar, Nitish is Forced to Play Bystander | Manoj Chaurasia - India: Making Postcard News founder?s arrest about fake news rather than communal hatred is risky - India: BJP has already appointed RSS 'pracharaks' in key positions in educational institutions, it is now attempting to instal RSS pracharaks - India: Foreign hand in the Sangh - RSS has championed chauvinist ideas from Europe | Parnal Chirmuley - India - Ram Navami violence: His son dead, Asansol Imam says if you retaliate, will leave town - India: My dear Bihari's please stay away from communal violence - Ravish Kumar - India: Ghettoes of the mind - Making several mistakes at once | Mukul Kesavan - India: Aurangabad communal clashes of 25-26 March 2018: 148 persons booked; BJP worker behind Ram Navami rally flees - India: Mahesh Vikram Hegde, the peddler of communally sensitive rumours and fake news arrested in Karnataka -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. SRI LANKA: THE NO CONFIDENCE MOTION (NCM) AND ITS POLITICAL STAKES by Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda ======================================== groundviews.org April 1, 2018 Is there a low ? cost way out from the present crisis boiling within the Maithripala Sirisena- Ranil Wickremasinghe administration? During the past few days, a number of well -wishers of the present government posed this question to me in personal conversations. All of them are people who have contributed in a variety of ways to the political change of January 2015. They are now deeply worried about the inevitable disintegration of the yahapalanaya regime, with two other inevitabilities ? rendering irrelevant the reform mandate of 2015 and the returning to power of the unreformed Rajapaksa camp with a plainly authoritarian political agenda. Still there are no signs of a new option emerging, embodying the democratic and humanistic ideal of our society. In these conversations, I have also been repeatedly reminded of a bitter political truth. We as citizens who are seriously committed to social and political change may bring politicians of various hues into power through the democratic process. That we do with the hope that politicians and their parties would be truthful to the mandate we, and our fellow citizens, frame and give them. In power, they pay no heed to the concerns of the citizens who authorized them to rule. With scant regard for the popular trust placed on them, the politicians have the habit of running away with political power. At times, they might even get into self-destructive power fights among themselves, as it is happening now, fully ignoring why the people placed their trust on them. Worst still, they show no understanding of why they have been entrusted with political power to begin with. This is the stuff that causes disillusionment with democracy. Negotiated Solution? While I was thinking about this dacoit behavior of our political class, another friend queried whether it would be possible for some prominent sympathizers of the regime to talk to the two leaders, the President and the Prime Minister, and persuade them to work out a negotiated settlement before April 04. That is a proposal coming out of a genuine worry about the consequences of the no confidence motion (NCM) against the prime minister, whether it gets through or not. In whatever way the NCM ends, the ultimate winner would be the joint opposition, as long as Sirisena and Wikremasinghe are locked in their continuing power struggle as adversaries. Meanwhile, at the risk of giving too much political credit to the Joint Opposition, one has to still acknowledge the plain truth that the JO has succeeded through this NCM to turn the two power centres of the yahapalanayagovernment into enemy camps. They have been working on this strategy for some time and it has succeeded. The JO?s success is due to variety of reasons, both external and internal to the regime. Key among the latter is the fact that neither of our two leaders had a sincere understanding of why the majority of Sri Lankan voters in 2015 gave them a mandate, not just once, but twice. Not being faithful to the popular mandate, they allowed the government to degenerate into what it is now. Escalation Given the intensity with which the conflict between the two camps of the government has been escalating during the past few days, there is hardly any political space for a third party ? even that of a group of sympathizers ? to intervene and de-escalate the unfolding power struggle. What we are witnessing in Sri Lanka at present is an unusual power struggle. It is one between two centers of power within the same government that are elected on the same popular mandate and therefore are expected to work in cooperation and mutual trust. With all its shortcomings that are coming to the surface now, the spirit of the 19thAmendment to the Constitution also expected the President and the Prime Minister to work in unison. Some conflicts have a tendency to develop slowly over a time and then escalate rapidly and end in a big-bang type finale, with destructive consequences for all. The present conflict within the yahapalanayaregime seems to be of that type. Its intensity and escalation seem to rest on two dimensions of the conflict ?political and personal. The minds of both President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe seem to be so closed on each other that the political rivalry and personal bitterness between them are closely intertwined. It is quite revealing that in this simmering crisis, neither of them has so far uttered a single word of support or sympathy for the other that could have made de-escalation of their rivalry even faintly possible. Thus, this is such an unusual instance of political and personal betrayal and enmity being played out in the public arena, and at the level of state power, that one has to turn to Roman history or feudal monarchies to see some parallels. It is a modern version of the conflict between the King and his Prime Minister, with courtiers poisoning the mind of the King to serve their own agendas. Meanwhile, the NCM is scheduled for April 04. There is hardly any time now for the two leaders to realize that their on-going power struggle will only devour them. Choices Made The conflict between the President and the Prime Minister has some specific features. The behavior of the two sides so far suggests that the conflict has been maturing over a period of two years. Its transition to an open power struggle probably occurred towards the end of last year and it exploded openly during the local government election. Meanwhile, the escalation of the conflict and setting up the goal of a unilateral outcome appeared to be the strategic choice first made by President Sirisena and his team. In contrast, Prime Minister Wickremasinghe?s response during the local government election campaign has been a low-key and measured one, probably expecting a turn towards de-escalation. However, the intervention made by the JO through its NCM altered the conflict trajectory, redrawing the battle lines. Now, the whole conflict revolves around, and is reduced to, a singe issue: Should or shouldn?t Ranil Wickremasinghe continue as the Prime Minister? President Sirisena?s stand seems to be very firm that Wickremasinghe should not. Consequences of NCM What will happen if the NCM is passed by a majority of MPs on the day of its debate and voting? Still we don?t know whether the NCM is against both the Prime Minister and the government. The constitution does not provide for a NCM in the prime minister as such. Thus, if an NCM were passed against a PM, it would not have constitutionally binding consequences. Nevertheless, it would be difficult, politically and ethically, for a PM who has lost the confidence of the majority of members of parliament, to continue. In such a scenario, Mr. Wickremasinghe would be forced to resign due to political and ethical reasons, rather than mandatory constitutional consequences. Only an NCM in the government will have constitutionally binding outcomes. Once a majority of MPs passed such an NCM, then, the consequences can be gleaned from Clause 48 (2) of the Constitution. It says that ?the Cabinet of Ministers shall stand dissolved? and ?the President shall ? appoint a Prime Minister, Ministers of the cabinet of Ministers, Ministers who are not members of the Cabinet of Ministers, and Deputy Ministers.? Then, the Cabinet being automatically dissolved, the Prime Minister can only be deemed to have resigned too. With regard to the Prime Minister, there seems to be some ambiguity in this clause. Perhaps, in order to avoid this legal ambiguity, the JO may have drafted the NCM as one against both the Prime Minister and the government. In the event of passing of the NCM in the government and the PM, and if the NCM drafted as one directed against both the PM and the government, it will have some drastic political consequences. The President would be under pressure to appoint a new PM from the SLFP, and that is most likely to be his first choice too. That will alter the balance of power between the UNP and SLFP in the coalition government decisively in favour of the President. If the President wants to play a slightly Machiavellian game, he can even appoint a UNP frontrunner as the replacement for Mr. Wickremasinghe. In such an eventuality, President Sirisena?s own political project, which suffered a setback at the local government elections in January, will get a new boost too. A bruised and weakened UNP will certainly see an escalation of its internal power struggle. Thus, a successful NCM will herald a new phase for (a) the yahapalanayaregime with the UNP as a chastised partner, and (b) the UNP as a political party without Ranil Wickremasinghe as its leader. If NCM Defeated Now, what would be the consequences if this NCM was defeated? The scenarios would be more than interesting, because of the fact that President Sirisena appears to be backing the NCM proposed by the JO. Several SLFP ministers who are close to President Sirisena have already stated that they would vote in favor of the NCM. They have also indicated, without being contradicted, that they represent President Sirisena?s position. Thus, if the NCM, backed by the President?s SLFP, was to be defeated, it would certainly weaken the position of President Sirisena within the coalition government and bring the UNP back to the reckoning as the key power center of the government. President Sirisena? s bargaining power with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the breakaway party of the SLFP, will also diminish It would also be a serious setback to President Sirisena?s new project of emerging as the new ?national leader? of the country with a new political vision different from that of both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremasinghe. Meanwhile, if there is cross voting in favour of the Prime Minister, another internal division within the he SLFP led by President Sirisena cannot be ruled out either. A few UNP MPs might also opt for cross voting. UNP Even if Prime Minister Wickremasinghe escapes parliamentary censure, his position as the UNP leader does not seem to remain secure any longer. Many disgruntled UNP MPs might still vote against the NCM on condition that Wickremasinghe would give way to a new leader and a new set of party managers immediately. His old practice of procrastination by appointing party committees in times of crisis and then waiting for committee reports until he could reconsolidate his position is not likely to work this time around. What is likely to be most significant is that whatever the outcome of the NCM, the class and cultural character of the UNP leadership is set to change, and change decisively. The Royal College old boys will be forced to take a backseat in the party affairs. Given these discernible political consequences, we can assume with confidence that the stakes on the No Confidence Motion are quite high. Therefore, many surprises can spring up during the next three days, and three days could prove be a long time in politics. ======================================== 8. INDIA-PAKISTAN TIES: TIME TO REACH OUT ACROSS THE BORDER by Happymon Jacob ======================================== The Hindu March 30, 2018 India and Pakistan must seize the resolution of the diplomatic spat to normalise bilateral ties Islamabad?s decision to send High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood back to India just in time to host the Pakistan National Day reception in New Delhi, and New Delhi?s decision to send the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers? Welfare, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, to attend the reception indicate that good sense may have prevailed on both sides. More pertinently, since the 19th of this month, India and Pakistan have not fired at each other across the border in Jammu and Kashmir barring one exception, a welcome calm after several weeks of incessant ceasefire violations. And yet, unless the two governments are willing to discuss and resolve the triggers that may have led to a series of incidents of harassment of diplomatic personnel, we may see a repeat of such incidents. Harassment of High Commission personnel requires critical attention because maintenance of diplomatic courtesies is not just a matter of instrumentality and convenience, but also represents the civility of the host state and its people. Put differently, how we, and Pakistan, treat the representatives of each other reflects what we essentially are as nations. Waylaying a diplomat?s vehicle carrying young children is disgraceful. Disruption of utilities Reports indicate that there were two proximate causes behind the recent diplomatic stand off. The first one appears to be the disruption of utilities to the under-construction residential complex of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, a property adjacent to the present High Commission building. Pakistani authorities also raided the complex and expelled Pakistani service providers. India termed this unjustifiable given that the complex, duly authorised by the Pakistani authorities, was being constructed to house its diplomatic personnel. Pakistan responded that while the Indian housing complex in Islamabad is at an advanced stage of construction, a request by Pakistan to allow construction of a housing complex within its High Commission premises in New Delhi has not yet been approved by the authorities, despite reminders. Club membership The second issue was of club memberships for diplomats. Pakistan has refused to admit Indian diplomats to the Islamabad Club in retaliation for corresponding Indian clubs charging what it considers exorbitant amounts for membership. India points out that the government cannot interfere with how private clubs manage their membership procedures. Pakistan, however, argues that there should be a Memorandum of Understanding for reciprocal club memberships for each other?s diplomats. While letting the other side carry out construction of their respective residential complexes can be worked out at the government-to-government level, the membership of private clubs is a more complicated issue. Disagreements and spats stemming from these issues, in the generally tense atmosphere of ceasefire violations and the resultant political rhetoric, have led to highly undesirable acts of harassing diplomatic personnel who are protected under the 1961 Vienna Convention. It is also of concern that the two establishments allowed routine disagreements to become a major diplomatic stand off at a time when relations are so tense. Aggressive surveillance of each other?s diplomatic personnel is nothing new in the India-Pakistan context. Back in 1990, during the initial years of the insurgency in Kashmir and the heightened fears of an India-Pakistan military escalation, it had become particularly difficult for diplomats to work in each other?s countries. The situation was far worse than it is today, and yet the two Foreign Secretaries were able to reach an agreement on the treatment of diplomatic personnel. They agreed to a code of conduct by August 1992 that year ?to protect diplomatic personnel, guaranteeing them freedom from harassment?. Over and above the political sanction given to such harassment of diplomatic personnel, there was also a feeling at the time that much of the harassment happened because the local authorities were not properly informed about how to deal with the High Commission staff of the ?enemy? country. Hence the two sides further decided to translate the code of conduct into Hindi and Urdu and make it available to local police stations and lower-ranking officials. However, such thoughtful measures never stopped the habitual mistreatment of the ?rival? state?s diplomats. This brings us to an indirectly related topic ? of dealing with each other?s spies. How should India treat Pakistani spies caught in India and vice versa? For the record, both countries have claimed that they do not carry out espionage in each other?s countries. When their operatives get caught, they routinely feign ignorance even though when released from the captor?s custody, the former spies cross over to their own country to claim that they were indeed engaged in espionage on the other side. What is worse is that undercover operatives are often subjected to the most inhumane forms of torture by the captors if they happen to get caught. Dealing with spies Moving forward, we must admit and acknowledge that first, our countries spy. Second, that espionage is very much part of statecraft that all modern states engage in, as do India and Pakistan. To claim otherwise would be no less than laughable hypocrisy masquerading as pious platitudes. Third, that those engaged in espionage should be expelled rather than tortured or killed. As a matter of fact, the Cold War was replete with instances of spy exchanges with or without the general public knowing about it. As recently as in 2010, Russia and the U.S. exchanged spies in the city of Vienna. India and Pakistan should also, therefore, look at the issue of espionage as part of essential statecraft and deal with spies in a professional and humane manner. Hypernationalism and grandstanding can make professional handling of these issues difficult. Sorry state of contact The state of communication between India and Pakistan is at its lowest ebb in more than a decade: the Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs) have not considered it appropriate to meet despite constant firing across the J&K border; contacts between the respective High Commissions and the host governments have been reduced to ?demarches?, ?summons?, ?notes verbale? and stern warnings; and high-level political contacts, such as the visit of Pakistan's Commerce Minister Pervaiz Malik to India, have been called off. While the discreet meetings of the National Security Advisors are welcome, they have hardly achieved anything. Given that the year ahead is critical for India and Pakistan and the bilateral relationship, the focus should be on enhancing and improving communication. On the positive side, however, there has been some subtle messaging from the Pakistani side about its desire to normalise ties with India. In a rare interaction with a group of Pakistani journalists, Pakistan?s army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, laid out his view of the country?s future course. A close reading of his recent and earlier statements suggests that there is a desire on the part of the Pakistan army to normalise relations with India, something decision-makers in New Delhi should capitalise on. Clearly, for this to happen, Pakistan should also initiate tough action against anti-India terrorist groups based in Pakistan. The fact that the Indian High Commissioner and the defence attach? were in attendance at the military parade to mark Pakistan Day in Islamabad indicates that the channels of communication have begun to open up. The two sides must build on it. Happymon Jacob teaches Indian Foreign Policy at JNU and curates an online archive on the India-Pakistan conflict, Indo-Pak Conflict Monitor ======================================== 9. PAKISTAN: MILITANT THREAT IN PUNJAB - EDITORIAL, DAWN ======================================== Dawn March 31, 2018 Editorial IT is a reality check and a warning against complacency. The recent arrest of members of a ?group of terrorists? linked with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan from Lahore, Gujranwala and some other districts in Punjab is a grim reminder of the widespread threat that continues to persist in the province in spite of a considerable decrease in militant violence over the last couple of years. The suspects were said to be responsible for launching at least two suicide attacks from a madressah in Lahore last year against army personnel on Bedian Road and policemen on Ferozepur Road. The provincial counterterrorism department claimed that the militants had planned to target the Pakistan Super League matches in Lahore this month. They also had plans to hit politicians and imambargahs just before their network was busted by the department in a joint operation with the Intelligence Bureau. Advertisement The capture of these militants indicates that Punjab has still to come out of a phase in which it is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, besides being viewed as a nursery of terrorism. It appears that all the calls to the people to celebrate victory against terrorism outfits have been premature. The so-called intelligence-based crackdown on militants including sectarian groups in the province, launched as part of a nationwide operation in the aftermath of the 2014 APS attack in Peshawar, has succeeded only to a point in the effort to secure the people ? even those living in major cities where the law-enforcement agencies carry out stronger checks. Indeed, the agencies have hunted down a number of militants over the last few years, averting several potential terrorist attacks. The perpetrators of several sectarian and terrorist strikes across the province have also been captured, killed or convicted. But the fact remains that the government has not been able to completely dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. Much deradicalisation also needs to be carried out at various levels. Politicians, including those belonging to the ruling PML-N, openly associate themselves with one extremist group or the other if that can help prop up their electoral chances. It is well known that a majority of militant attacks in Pakistan are ordered, planned and financed by the TTP leadership based in neighbouring Afghanistan. The state has provided Kabul with strong evidence about the existence of sanctuaries of the banned TTP and Jamaatul Ahrar in that country, and has asked the Afghan government to take effective action against them. It is important to sever the links that sustain terrorist networks ? including the sponsors of terrorism and its local facilitators. This, however, doesn?t mean that we neglect the task of monitoring our own territory while concentrating obsessively on the threat emanating from across the border. There must be no hesitation in dismantling militant infrastructure across the country. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN TESTS NUCLEAR-CAPABLE, SUBMARINE-LAUNCHED MISSILE WITH A RANGE OF 450KM ======================================== https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pakistan-tests-nuclear-capable-submarine-missile/story-DtqmqA4KQpR5kJmbKPb9lJ.html ======================================== 11. INDUS WATER TREATY NOT A WEAPON AGAINST PAKISTAN Bharat Bhushan @Bharatitis ======================================== Bloomberg | Quint 29 March 2018 Time and again, hawks in India have threatened to ?weaponise? the waters of the Indus River basin to teach Pakistan a lesson. This often happens on the eve of a meeting of the Indus Water Commissioners or whenever hostilities escalate. After a gap of a year, the Permanent Indus Commission is meeting in Delhi on March 29 and 30. Barely days before the meeting, Union Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari, has threatened to reduce the flow of water to Pakistan. Although he was speaking at an agricultural leadership summit in Rohtak and his statements may have been aimed at assuaging farmers of water-starved Haryana, coming on the eve of the PIC meeting, Gadkari?s statement is likely to be misunderstood. Pakistani paranoia about water makes it a barometer of hostility with India. Pakistan receives most of its waters from the Indus basin. Of late, some in Pakistan have come to believe that India may control its dams to either deny water or create floods downstream. The Indus Waters Treaty divides the six major rivers of the basin between India and Pakistan. The three western rivers?Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum?are allocated to Pakistan and the three eastern ones?Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas?to India. Referring to the three eastern rivers of the Indus Basin, Gadkari said that three dams would be built in Uttarakhand to prevent the unutilised share of India in the river waters from flowing to Pakistan. As none of the rivers of the Indus Basin flow through Uttarakhand, Gadkari probably meant Himachal Pradesh. The hydroelectric power potential of the three eastern rivers is estimated to be 18,600 Megawatt. Of this, only 11,406 Megawatt is either being used or is part of plans for usage. Constructing more dams and further diversion of water for irrigation could reduce the flow to Pakistan. This is not the first time that India has threatened to throttle water supply in the Indus Basin. In the wake of a terrorist attack on an army camp in Uri in September 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proclaimed that ?blood and water and cannot flow together.? He threatened to ?review? the IWT and ?exploit to the maximum? the waters of the western rivers allocated to Pakistan. India is allowed 20 percent non-consumptive water use in these rivers but uses much less. In the aftermath of the Uri attack, India suspended the meeting of the PIC. Eventually, the meeting took place in March 2017. Then again, after a Pakistani army court sentenced an alleged Indian spy, Kulbhushan Jadhav, to death, India cancelled the meeting of the Water Secretaries of the two countries. India as the upper riparian has positional advantage in controlling the flow of the Indus Basin Rivers. But it lacks the hydrological infrastructure to misuse this advantage. That, however, does not prevent a water-scarce Pakistan from hyping India?s advantages and intentions. Aware of this, Indian leaders have tended to feed that fear. The IWT, however, has survived several wars and upheavals in bilateral relations. There is little reason to convert a successful treaty into a liability for it has both an interesting history and an exemplary dispute resolution mechanism. It is an unusual treaty as it does not divide the waters of a river between an upper riparian and a lower riparian country. Instead, it divides the six major rivers of the basin between the two. Although it is a bilateral treaty, it also has the World Bank as a signatory to certain specified provisions. Anticipating differences between the two countries, the IWT also provides for a three-level escalation for dispute resolution. The IWT disputes between India and Pakistan arise because of different interpretations of the treaty provisions for constructing run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects by India on the rivers allotted to Pakistan. While not all run-of-the-river projects require water storage as the name itself suggests, some of them do. After the stored water is used to run turbines it flows back into the main river course. Whenever India initiates a run-of-the-river project on the western rivers, it has to get PIC approval. Irrespective of the outcome of the PIC meeting and the India factor, Pakistan is moving towards a water crisis. In the early 1950s, Pakistan was a water abundant economy with a per capita water availability of 5,260 cubic metres per annum. By 2013 this had gone down to 964 cubic metres and by 2035, Pakistan is expected to become an ?absolute water-scarce country? with less than 500 cubic metres per capita per annum water availability. Pakistan?s water woes are intensified by its high population growth rate, poor water utilisation, inadequate investment in dams, existing big dams like Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma Barrage losing storage capacity due to silting and huge conveyance losses in canals and urban municipal pipelines. That India is not to blame for the water woes of Pakistan was settled by Pakistan Senate?s Standing Committee on Water and Power in July 2015. It held that India was using less than its allocated share in the western rivers under the IWT and was therefore not responsible for Pakistan?s water shortage. There is no reason, therefore, for India to deliberately portray itself as a villain in Pakistan?s water woes. If it cannot help the people of Pakistan, then it should not unnecessarily alienate them while taking on the Pakistani State. That only takes the public pressure away from the mismanagement of water by the State to wrongly shift the blame onto India. Bharat Bhushan is a journalist based in Delhi. ======================================== 12. A MIGHTY WIND Max Rodenbeck ======================================== The New York Review of Books April 19, 2018 Issue How the BJP Wins: Inside India?s Greatest Election Machine by Prashant Jha New Delhi: Juggernaut, 235 pp., $25.50 When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics by Milan Vaishnav Yale University Press, 410 pp., $40.00 Hawa, a Hindi word for wind or air, carries a subtler meaning in Indian politics. A politician?s hawa is the tailwind that propels him to victory; it is the superior momentum that comes with being on a roll. For the past five years in the world?s biggest democracy, one man, one party, and one ideological current have pretty much cornered all the hawa. A puffing guardian spirit tangibly energizes Narendra Modi, India?s prime minister; despite his modest stature, the bearded sixty-seven-year-old can fill a room with a swirling air of quiet purpose or, some would say, menace. All across the country hawa can be felt ruffling the ubiquitous orange flags of his Bharatiya Janata, or Indian People?s Party (BJP), and stirring the long-suppressed ambitions of the Sangh Parivar, the ?family? of Hindu nationalist groups that is the party?s ideological home. Modi, his party, and the Sangh have made remarkable gains since he assumed the BJP leadership in 2013. Before his rise, the party in various avatars had at times won power in some of India?s thirty-six states and territories. It had even led coalition governments in the capital, Delhi. Ideologically the BJP had long been the strongest challenger to the Indian National Congress, the legacy party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru?s freedom struggle: since before independence in 1947, the Sangh?s dream of a muscular Hindu rashtra, or nation, has stood in contrast to the Congress?s vision of a secular India that gains strength from diversity. ADVERTISING Yet before Modi was plucked from his post as chief minister of the state of Gujarat (roughly equivalent to an American governor) and made the party?s candidate for prime minister, the BJP had seldom excelled outside the ?cow belt,? a socially conservative and largely Hindi-speaking northwestern wedge of the Indian diamond. Other Indians, whether minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, or just differently observant Hindus, generally shunned the Sangh ?family?: they were earnest and devoted, yes, but also frightening; it was an extreme Hindu nationalist, after all, who shot Gandhi in 1948. The BJP could raise an occasional clamor, but the actual agenda of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism?demands such as banning beef, ending the alleged ?appeasement? of minorities by politicians seeking their votes, building a temple to the god Ram on the ruins of a mosque at his supposed birthplace, being extra-tough on Pakistan, or replacing ?Western? modes of thinking and behaving with ostensibly ?authentic? Indian ones like Ayurvedic medicine or rather vague notions of ?Indian? economics?gained only slow and uneven traction in practice. Modi has changed all that. In 2014 he led the BJP to one of the most dramatic electoral upsets in India?s seventy years as a democracy. The party not only captured 282 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament?the first time in thirty years that any party had won a full majority without the need for a coalition. It scored a record ?strike rate,? winning two of every three constituencies its candidates contested. The BJP more than doubled the number of its own MPs. It humiliated Congress, slashing the outgoing party?s seats by nearly four fifths to a paltry forty-four. More political triumphs have followed. Having started with just seven in January 2014, the party and smaller allies now control nineteen states and territories that together account for nearly two thirds of India?s people?a feat not paralleled since Congress?s heyday in the 1960s. In March 2017 the BJP captured the biggest prize, Uttar Pradesh, a state with 220 million people, winning a stunning three quarters of all seats in the state legislature. In December it won an unprecedented sixth term in Gujarat, Modi?s home state, despite furious efforts by Congress to rally what has traditionally proven to be India?s most reliable political force, anti-incumbency. And in March the BJP captured three small states in the remote, ethnically complex northeast, proving its growing strength beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland. The state votes carry more than local significance. Under India?s singularly elaborate constitution, state legislators hold a crucial body of votes in indirect elections for members of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the national parliament. This means it is merely a matter of time, as more Rajya Sabha members? six-year terms expire at intervals over the coming months and more state elections are held, until the party gains an outright majority in India?s equivalent of the US Senate, too. The country?s titular but not altogether toothless president and vice-president are also indirectly elected; when these offices opened up last summer the BJP deftly engineered the installation of two stalwarts for five-year terms. Both men happen to be, like Modi himself, former pracharaks, or ?apostles,? of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the organizational mother ship of the Hindu-nationalist family. In other words, India?s three top-ranking public officials have all served as unpaid foot soldiers in an organization that was once banned for alleged links to violent extremism. Modi?s choice for chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is equally telling. He is not just another gray, reliable RSS graduate. Yogi Adityanath is a forty-five-year-old Hindu priest and the founder of his own extreme-right Hindutva youth group with a penchant for bigoted vigilantism. His most vigorous initiative so far: repainting public buildings, walls, and highway medians in bright, pious orange. The Hindutva agenda is advancing in other ways, not as fast as some might like, but the RSS knows the value of patience. Founded in 1925 and now with some 60,000 branches, the brotherhood is not about to blow its best chance yet of transforming India into the proud Hindu nation that its founding ideologues, who were contemporaries and admirers of European fascism, long dreamed of. The RSS can see that BJP governments, both local and national, still face strong resistance when they try such things as imposing stricter bans on beef or ?reforming? school curricula to downplay India?s millennium of rule by Muslim dynasties, so it instead spotlights romantic tales of Hindu resistance and Indian preeminence in philosophy, art, and science. The Sangh ?family? appreciates Modi?s blend of tactically nimble political instinct with strategic commitment to their cause. While Modi?s benign fatherly image has raised respect for the movement at home and abroad, his government has quietly inserted loyalists wherever possible in India?s establishment, from the boards of state-owned companies to top posts in state universities and research institutes. It has also aggressively?and quite effectively?bullied much of India?s mainstream press into toeing the party line. The Fox News?like stridency of Modi?s media claque does not seem to bother most voters, and many have also cheered what amounts to a quiet purge of the Congress-era mandarins who have long occupied the commanding heights in public life. Yet even among those who welcomed the BJP?s 2014 promise to make India ?Congress-free,? some have begun to suspect that team Modi?s aim may be not merely to overcome but rather to destroy the once-dominant rival party, and not just to guide the national agenda but to capture the Indian state and hold it for keeps. Modi and his men are happy to encourage assumptions that the current political trend represents some kind of natural and permanent ?return? to Hindu roots. Despairing opponents, for their part, tend to consider Modi?s success part of an equally inexorable global wave of strongman populism: from his appeal to voter anger, to his accusations of enemies, to his televisual talent for sound bites and gestures, he much resembles Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, or Rodrigo Duterte. With dreary regularity in Delhi as much as in London or New York, shoulders shrug and palms spread as it is explained that witless Indian voters have succumbed to some kind of wicked zeitgeist. Yet as Prashant Jha makes very clear in his concise and persuasively researched How the BJP Wins, the combination of hawa, personal charisma, and revived Hindu spirit cannot adequately explain the Modi phenomenon. Jha, a Nepalese reporter who has covered numerous Indian elections for the Hindustan Times, an English-language daily, does not downplay Modi?s wizardry as a politician. Nor does he underestimate the accelerating social churn that has made many Indians, especially the young and upwardly mobile, impatient for the kind of sweeping change that the BJP promises?shedding shop-worn terms like ?secular? and ?liberal,? replacing effete cosmopolitans with proud Hindus, and tossing out the whole tired Nehru-Gandhi dynasty whose grasp on the rusty old Congress lingers now into a fourth post-independence generation. (Rahul Gandhi, the current party head, inherited the post from his mother, Sonia, his father, Rajiv, his grandmother Indira, and his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru?whose father had also twice been Congress party president.) Even so, Jha, a sharp and experienced observer of Indian electoral mechanics, is more disposed to ascribe the BJP?s success to prose than to poetry, to hard work, not luck. The party?s repeated victories, in this telling, are a result not of favorable hawa or of Congress fatigue but of discipline, focused leadership, consistent messaging, deep pockets, ruthless tactics, and fancy footwork. By carefully unpacking factors that have propelled the Modi wave, Jha usefully demystifies its power. Modi?s fabled charisma, for instance, turns out to be less a product of visionary statesmanship than of such political advantages as modest origins and a lack of family encumbrances (he abandoned a first wife early in his career and remains unattached and childless), combined with an actor?s skills: a command of poise and delivery, a professional feel for favorable colors and light and camera angles, and an ability to sense, embody, and channel an audience?s feelings?particularly resentment. Observing a speech of Modi?s in last year?s Uttar Pradesh campaign, Jha writes: He projects himself as the man fighting the good battle, on the side of the people, victimized by the bad guys. But while willing to fight, he also positions himself as a leader who can throw it all away, for he has no vested interests, nothing to lose. He also acknowledges the pain, but taps into the sense of righteousness, the sense of sacrifice and makes citizens feel they are participants in a great national mission, distinct from the prosaic and the banal. Last year?s election in Uttar Pradesh, a poor and unruly state, came as Indians were struggling to recover from a sudden, controversial move by the national government to scrap all large-denomination banknotes. Modi had billed the drastic policy as hard medicine to purge the economy of so-called black money in the hands of criminals and corrupt people, although, given that there were not enough small-denomination notes to replace high-value ones and the central bank could not print new bills fast enough, its main effect was to squeeze hundreds of millions of day laborers and small traders and anyone with even modest savings in cash, which is to say, the poor. Yet Modi?s ability to tap into class envy had the magical effect of displacing any blame for the pain that he had so obviously and directly caused. On stage, Jha observes, the prime minister gloated over the imagined suffering of the rich. At one rally he jauntily demanded to know, ?What can they do to me? I am a fakir; I will take my bag and leave.? He then laughed and shared his satisfaction that the rich used to say ?money, money, money.? ?Now, they only say Modi, Modi, Modi.? Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images BJP leader Amit Shah arriving at a press conference at party headquarters, New Delhi, December 2017 His skill at stoking resentment is at its most subtle when it comes to chronic tensions between India?s 80 percent Hindu majority and 15 percent Muslim minority. Lower-ranking party members may resort to bluntly sectarian language or outright lies to stir up crowds. Jha quotes one party official admitting that the whole point is to unite Hindus by making them feel like victims. Another confesses to him, ?We want anti-Muslim polarization. Why pretend otherwise?? Unlike when he was a state official, Modi as prime minister no longer stoops to undiluted Islamophobia. But with his trademark upheld wagging finger, he is a master of insinuation, with much the same effect. On the stump in Uttar Pradesh, Modi pledged that every town with a Muslim cemetery should also have a Hindu crematorium, and every village that got electricity in Ramadan must get it for Hindu festivals, too. He did not need to cite any particular places where such conjectural disparities actually exist. They very likely do not: Muslims in the state are generally worse off than Hindus. But the very suggestion that Muslims might be favored fell on ground fertilized by generations of Hindutva activists blaming Congress for allegedly ?appeasing? the minority with sweeteners as part of its unseemly ?vote bank? politics. Congress is hardly alone among Indian parties in pitching sops to particular interest groups, but constant hammering by the BJP has succeeded in making its rival look particularly ?soft? on Muslims. Although many in the BJP bear no personal animosity to Muslims, the party has long found that chauvinism wins more votes than it loses. It is not by chance that its fortunes have risen since the 1980s in tandem with the level of menace felt from global jihadism and from India?s perpetually hostile and increasingly Islamized neighbor Pakistan. In election after election, large numbers of Hindus have indeed responded to alarm about such things as ?love jihad??an imagined campaign by Muslim men to seduce Hindu women?by voting for the BJP. Under Modi the party has also adopted more sophisticated tactics to appeal to its Hindu vote bank. Given the elaborate social hierarchy that conservative Hinduism enshrines, it is not surprising that the BJP has traditionally been associated with higher-ranking castes. Modi has changed that. Not only has he fully exploited his own lower-caste origins to widen the party?s appeal, and even made efforts to woo Dalits?the bottom-rung outcastes who make up some 17 percent of India?s population.* As Jha shows, the BJP has also forged powerful constituencies by skillfully exploiting the mutual resentments of rich and poor toward rising middle-class groups. During the 1980s, India widely adopted policies of affirmative action that in many northern states had the effect of empowering the mid-ranking castes that proved most socially mobile. In the intervening decades, groups traditionally associated with proud rural small-holdings, such as the Marathas in Maharashtra, the Jats in Haryana, and the Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh, have gained outsize political clout in state capitals, winning jobs and contracts and influence. Precisely because of this, says Jha, a range of other castes?both the traditionally powerful and the more marginalized?feel alienated. And thus, the trick is to mobilize these castes and construct a coalition against the dominant caste. In many of the BJP?s most successful campaigns, this politics of intercaste resentment has proved just as crucial as the party?s carefully cultivated grudge against ?nonindigenous? religious minorities. (Hindutva ideologues make a pointed distinction between Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, who are considered properly Indian, and Muslims and Christians, who are somewhat suspect?regardless of the fact that these big monotheistic faiths reached the subcontinent 1400 and 1900 years ago, respectively.) The man often credited as the brains behind the Modi-era BJP?s electoral engineering is Amit Shah, a tough fellow Gujarati who outdoes his master in Stakhanovite devotion to the cause. According to Jha, the prime minister?s consigliere began working on last year?s Uttar Pradesh election in 2014, with a plan to extensively expand the party?s organizational base. Within just four months, Shah?s recruitment drive, largely run using cell phone message services that also created a useful database for quick mobilization at election time, multiplied party membership in the state by more than ten times. Expanded across India, Shah?s registration effort soon brought the BJP?s rolls to over 100 million members, making it the world?s biggest political party. The surge did not just mean more bodies for rallies and door-to-door canvasing. Jha points out two important side effects. The huge new numbers quietly but radically changed the party?s demographics, tilting its base away from upper castes to reflect a broader appeal. They also allowed for a stealthy purge of the party?s former leaders, who found themselves outflanked by a new generation marked more by loyalty to Modi than by ideological affinity. Among the party?s old guard, many disdain Modi as a dangerous upstart; L.K. Advani, a former party grandee, once damned the ambitious Gujarati with faint praise as ?a brilliant events manager.? But such opinions now carry no weight. Apart from its huge size, Shah?s organizational genius, and Modi?s drawing power, the daunting political machine that Shah has built enjoys another asset. Wary of being tainted by extremist tendencies that have often surfaced on the fringes of the Sangh, the BJP has traditionally preferred to keep the RSS at arm?s length. Not so Modi. Jha informs us that the future prime minister?s own personal mentor in the Hindutva group in the 1980s, during his long years as a low-level pracharak in Gujarat, was none other than the father of the current RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat. Born only six days apart in September 1950, Modi and the Sangh patriarch have brought their organizations into a much tighter alliance. The support staff of every major BJP leader, from Amit Shah downward, is made up of Sangh alumni, says Jha. At Bhagwat?s call, the RSS?s estimated five million highly disciplined acolytes can deploy wherever needed to bolster the BJP?s own ground forces. Bhagwat recently boasted that he could mobilize his entire following in just three days, whereas the Indian army would take six months. Spokesmen quickly explained that he intended no insult to India?s fighting men, but the remark nevertheless made clear that the RSS sees itself as being more true to the Indian nation than the state itself. The BJP?s own superior discipline and tight chain of command may explain why, in recent years, the party has made surprising gains simply by catching Congress asleep at the wheel. In the state of Assam the BJP cleverly convinced a talented young Congress leader to defect, shifting a crucial number of votes. In both Manipur and Goa last year the party actually won fewer seats than Congress, but so swiftly wooed coalition partners that it had cobbled together governments and gotten them sworn into office before Congress realized what had happened. In indirect voting to fill a vacant Rajya Sabha seat from the state of Haryana in 2016, a dozen Congress members of the state assembly inadvertently betrayed their own candidate by using the wrong pen to mark their ballots. India?s powerful election commission had stipulated the use of violet ink, but enough Congress votes to turn the result were nullified for being in the wrong color to allow the BJP?s man to scamper off with the seat. Whether someone had switched the pen in the booth or persuaded the Congress deputies to make a ?mistake? has not been established. Indian democracy is not a dainty game. In all the cases just cited, money is likely to have had a part. Just as India?s first-past-the-post rules mean that an advantage of just a few points in voting share may translate into an outsize gain in seats, political funding has a tendency to slosh disproportionately to the winners, to people who can ?get things done? for donors. In recent years the BJP has mopped up an ever-growing share of this pool; the election commission says that 80 percent of all corporate political funding in Gujarat in the three years before November?s election went to Modi?s party. As Milan Vaishnav points out in When Crime Pays, a thorough, disturbing, and often amusing scholarly analysis of the seamy side of Indian politics, this imbalance may be seen as payback. In the 1960s, Congress received as much as thirty times more in corporate donations than any other party. Such advantages can be critical in districts where vote-buying is the norm. Vaishnav, who runs the Carnegie Endowment?s South Asia program, follows a campaign in the state of Andhra Pradesh; a candidate who happens to be a friend revealed that three quarters of his budget was earmarked for buying votes. In recent reporting from northeast India, where three small states voted this winter, Jha discovered that virtually all votes in Nagaland are paid for, sometimes several times over as voters accept handouts from all and sundry. Not surprisingly the BJP and its allies handily captured Nagaland, as well as the two other states in play. This is an expensive business. Vaishnav cites one study that puts the overall cost of India?s 2014 national election at $5 billion, in the same ballpark as the $6.5 billion that the US?a country whose GDP is almost ten times greater than India?s?spent on presidential and congressional elections in 2016. His candidate friend personally shelled out close to $2 million in a race for the Andhra Pradesh state assembly. That is more than thirty times the legal limit, yet Vaishnav was laughingly told that other candidates spent far more. In some states, inducements are paid in kind rather than cash. Kitchen appliances are the favored payoff in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Election officials in Gujarat, an officially dry state, seized 500,000 bottles of liquor during its 2012 state elections?most of this presumably intended as sweeteners for voters. Small wonder that a very large proportion of candidates, for the BJP as well as other parties, tend to be either scions of political dynasties, very wealthy, or criminals. Of the BJP?s 285 incoming members of parliament in 2014, Vaishnav observes, a third had been charged in ongoing criminal cases and a fifth were facing prosecution for jailable offenses, up to and including rape and murder. More shockingly, a ten-year database of state and national elections compiled by Vaishnav showed that candidates with criminal cases were three times more likely to win than others. This suggests that they are more skilled either at buying or intimidating voters or at persuading them that they are better placed to ?get things done? than law-abiding rivals. Why go into politics? It appears to be a sound investment. Despite India?s relative economic liberalization since the suffocating, regulation-heavy ?License Raj? of the post-independence period, the crankiness of its bureaucracy and the trickiness of its laws still offer immense opportunity for agents, such as politicians, who can steer clients toward safety or profit. A 2013 study cited by Vaishnav shows that the declared wealth of sitting legislators after a single term in office rose by an average of 222 percent. Modi himself has maintained an unusually clean record and, at least for its first few years, his administration has been relatively free of the odors that clung to the last Congress coalition. At a lower level, however, there is little difference between the two parties on this score. Tellingly, they recently collaborated to insert an unobtrusive clause in the latest annual budget that has the effect of absolving both from any prior violations of rules restricting foreign political donations. Having promised to clean up the system, Modi?s government has also pushed through campaign finance ?reforms? that actually make it easier for Indian donors to remain anonymous. Until very recently, Delhi pundits were virtually unanimous in tipping Modi as a shoo-in to win the next national elections, scheduled for the spring of 2019. Given all his party?s strengths and the weakness of Congress, many predicted that the BJP would again secure a full majority on its own. This would keep Modi in power, and likely controlling both houses of parliament, through 2024. But Indian politics are unusually volatile and fickle. As more stories of corruption have inevitably begun to stick and loudly touted policies have mired in Indian realities, the hawa seems to be slowly dying down. Congress remains a weak and wobbly opponent, but it is gathering strength and purpose as Modi?s many critics begin to see India?s grand old party as the only force capable of stopping the BJP juggernaut. The smart money is still on Modi, but recent trends suggest that he would be wise to call an early election, or he may see himself returned to power with a reduced majority, dependent on coalition allies. That might at least crimp his style. * See Pankaj Mishra, ?God?s Oppressed Children,? The New York Review, December 21, 2017. ======================================== 13. NONSENSE TO SAY MODERN SCIENCE EXISTED IN ANCIENT GREECE OR INDIA: STEVEN WEINBERG Subodh Varma ======================================== The Times of India March 22, 2015 Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg is often called one of the most influential living scientists in the world. Besides his seminal work on particle physics and several other books on science, the 82-year-old American has just come out with an account of the birth of modern science titled 'To Explain the World'. He talks to Subodh Varma about the tension that exists between religious belief and science: Many people believe that much of modern science already exists in ancient texts or teachings of their respective religions. In India, for example, the Hindu rightwing claims that many scientific and technological achievements of modern times like the aircraft, nuclear bombs, plastic surgery, etc were discovered 3,000 to 10,000 years ago. Is that possible? It is nonsense to suppose that modern scientific and technological knowledge was already in the hands of people thousands of years ago. Though much has been lost, we have enough ancient texts from Greece, Babylon, India, etc to show not only that early philosophers did not know these things, but that they had no opportunity to learn them. What is the difference in the 'science' of ancient times and modern times? We have learned to keep questioning past ideas, formulate general principles on the basis of observation and experiment, and then to test these principles by further observation and experiment. In this way, modern physical science (and to an increasing extent, biological science as well) has been able to find mathematical laws of great generality and predictive power. Our predecessors in the ancient and medieval world often believed that scientific knowledge could be obtained by pure reason, and where they understood the importance of observation, it was passive, not the active manipulation of nature that is characteristic of modern experiment. Further, their theories of the physical world were often muddled with human values or religious belief, which have been expunged from modern physical science. Why did modern science arise in the 17th century? Why not earlier or later? It is impossible to say why the scientific revolution occurred precisely when and where it did. Still, we can point to several developments in former centuries that prepared the ground for the scientific revolution. One was the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, which led to an increased concern with the real world and a turning away from scholastic theology. Another was the invention of printing with moveable type, which made it possible for the books of scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo to circulate rapidly throughout Europe. Looking further back, we can point to the growth of universities from the 13th century onward. Although these grew out of schools associated with Christian cathedrals, they became havens for secular scientific research, for Buridan and Oresme at Paris, for Galileo at Padua and Pisa, and for Newton at Cambridge. Despite stupendous advances in science, its acceptance still seems to be limited in society. In fact, you have publicly taken on antiscience lobbyists like climate change deniers or anti-evolutionists... There are few people today who will deny the value of science, but there are many who are terribly confused about the content of scientific knowledge. They doubt the conclusions of geophysicists regarding global warming, and they think that it is still an open question whether evolution through natural selection is responsible for the origin of species. It is good to keep an open mind, even about the conclusions of experts, but there comes a point at which issues become settled. It is silly to keep an open mind about whether the Earth is flat. Does a person have to abandon religion in order to become a scientist? Certainly not. There are fine scientists (though not many) who are quite religious. But there is a tension between science and religious belief. It is not just that scientific discoveries contradict some religious beliefs. More importantly, when one experiences the care and open-mindedness with which scientists seek truth, one may lose some respect for the pretensions of religion to certain knowledge. You have earlier written about the 'beauty' of science. What does that mean? By seeking scientific knowledge over many centuries, we have developed a sense of the sort of scientific principle that is likely to describe nature, and we have come to think of such principles as beautiful, in the same way that a designer of sailboats develops a sense of the sort of design that will sail well, and comes to think of such sailboats as beautiful. There is no simple prescription for the beauty of a scientific theory, but it surely includes rigidity, the property that the details of the theory cannot easily be altered without destroying the consistency of the theory. ======================================== 14. AGAINST THE LAW - EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH ======================================== The Telegraph March 30, 2018 Editorial Icons can serve as a means of intimation. The Hindu right-wing seems to be creating its own pantheon of heroes to convey a rather chilling message to the nation. On the occasion of Ram Navami in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Hindutva outfits took out a tableau in praise of Shambhulal Regar. The irony is palpable. Regar is accused of murdering a Muslim man who, the killer alleged, was involved in love jihad ? one of the most polarizing campaigns that Hindutva's legions have come up with to sow the seeds of discord among communities. The murder-accused was being feted on the occasion of a birth of a mythical king, who is known for upholding the principles of justice and inclusion. The propensity to transform villains into heroes is noticeable not only among the fringe but also in the centre. In recent times, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Bihar denounced the first information report issued against his son for incitement as a "piece of garbage". Again, in Jammu, a BJP functionary had participated in a march ? the tri-colour was taken out during the procession ? to protest against the arrest of a man who has been accused of raping and killing an eight-year-old girl from a nomadic group. Of course, it is not the BJP alone that is guilty of endorsing criminals. This kind of pandering to offenders seems to be endemic to India's political culture. What else can explain the fact that over 30 per cent of the elected members of the current Lok Sabha have criminal records? What is interesting is that the criminalization of politics continues in violation of the laws that are meant to check such a malaise. Five years ago, the Supreme Court had ruled that holders of public office penalized with a prison sentence of over two years would be disqualified automatically. In recent times, the apex court has also wondered whether convicted criminals can head political parties, a practice that reportedly finds favour with the Centre. Political patronage of criminals leads to serious lapses. Bona fide institutions, such as the police, are brought under pressure to go easy on the lawless. Weak evidence, resulting in poor conviction rates, is the fruit of such intimidation. But institutional lapses offer a partial explanation for the deification of criminals. In a deeply iniquitous society, these figures are seen as legitimate conduits between resources and the people's rights over them. This purported image of benevolence is the key to the public acceptance of leaders with chequered records. ======================================== 15. SPAIN'S MILITARY IN ROW OVER FLAGS AT HALF MAST FOR EASTER Stephen Burgen in Barcelona ======================================== The Guardian 29 March 2018 National ombudsman criticises ruling at all military installations as country is constitutionally a secular state All Spanish military installations have been ordered to fly the flag at half mast over Easter. Photograph: Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP A constitutional row has broken out after Spain?s ministry of defence ordered all military installations to fly the flag at half mast over Easter to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. It is the second year running that the defence ministry has issued an order to the effect that ?from 14.00 on Holy Thursday until 00.01 on Resurrection Sunday the national flag must be flown at half mast at all military units, bases, centres and barracks, as well as the ministry of defence and its regional departments?. A defence ministry spokesman said that flying the flag at half mast for religious reasons was ?in keeping with tradition? and was ?part of the secular tradition of the armed forces?. But Francisco Fern?ndez Marug?n, the national ombudsman, criticised the move on the grounds that Spain is constitutionally a secular state. Article 16.3 of the 1978 Spanish constitution states: ?No religion shall have a state character. The public authorities shall take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and shall consequently maintain appropriate cooperation relations with the Catholic church and other confessions.? In a study carried out in 2018 by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research, 68.5% of Spaniards identified themselves as Catholics and 26.4% as atheists. There are approximately 2 million Muslims and 50,000 Jews in Spain. Fewer than half of Spanish Catholics ever attend mass. Fern?ndez Marug?n rejected the argument put forward by the ministry, led by Mar?a Dolores de Cospedal, based on a 2017 ruling that members of the armed forces are authorised ?to take part in celebrations of a religious nature in which the military traditionally takes part?. He argued that the ruling did not anticipate ?military funeral honours for religious motives, such as the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?. The ombudsman said that ?even if this tradition has acquired a ?secular? connotation over the years there is no doubt that it also has a religious one?, adding that ?these practices could lead people to think that the state was more inclined to honour one religion than another? and that a non-confessional state had to demonstrate neutrality in regard to the various religions. ======================================== 16. IT?S ABOUT RUSSIA, NOT GOD: ?STATE PLUS ORTHODOX CHURCH MAY PRODUCE A MONSTER? by Ana?s Llobet ======================================== Le Monde Diplomatique April 2018 Putin and his government have built a mutually beneficial relationship with the resurgent Orthodox Church, a key element of the country?s new nationalism. When Kirill, patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, consecrated the new church of the Sretensky monastery last May, President Vladimir Putin was there. Afterwards he presented the patriarch with a 400-year-old icon of John the Baptist, which had hung in his office at the Kremlin; it now graces the altar of the church. This would have seemed odd a few decades ago: the church is not far from the Lubyanka, headquarters of the FSB and a symbol of the heavy repression of the 1930s, and is dedicated to the memory of the martyrs of anti-religious persecution. The decision to consecrate it in the centennial year of the February and October revolutions was ?deeply symbolic,? Putin said after the ceremony. ?We know how fragile civil peace is [and] we must not forget how hard it is to heal the wounds born of schisms. Therefore it is our common duty to do all that we can to preserve the unity of the Russian nation.? The Orthodox Church did not disappear entirely during the Communist era, but it was a difficult time: the Bolsheviks violently persecuted the clergy, who had close links to the autocracy they were fighting, and by the second world war only 250 parishes remained active, compared with 54,000 in 1914. When Nazi Germany invaded, Stalin rehabilitated the Church to support mobilisation, in the long tradition of Russian holy wars against barbarian invaders. The reinstatement of the clergy in 1943 was under the close supervision of the secret police and the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, and though discreet worship was tolerated, the Church was prohibited from taking any part in public life. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, more Russians have turned to God: in 1991, only a third described themselves as Orthodox, but by 2012 that figure was almost three-quarters; Muslims were just a small minority (7%). FULL TEXT AT: https://mondediplo.com/2018/04/12russia-church ======================================== 17. FACEBOOK ISN?T JUST VIOLATING OUR PRIVACY by Noam Cohen ======================================== The New York Times March 29, 2018 Even as it issues full-page apologies in print newspapers promising ritualistically ?to do better,? Facebook and its allies have minimized the importance of the seismic revelation that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in 2016, had gained access to the private information of about 50 million Facebook users. Some executives have pointed out that the mechanism that until a few years ago allowed a researcher with 270,000 app downloads to have access to 50 million profiles wasn?t exactly a secret, and, besides, Facebook users nominally agreed to the sharing of these profiles so that apps would perform better. The company?s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, took to Twitter to complain that Facebook and other ?platforms? were being held to a double standard concerning the profiles, since they may well ?have been criticized as monopolists for locking them down.? Others poured cold water on the idea that Cambridge Analytica was able to use these profiles as grist for its research on swaying voters by cracking the code of human intention. Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and a Facebook board member, doesn?t tweet anymore, but he ?likes? hundreds of tweets a week, a group that recently included a string that mocked the public?s fear that new media forms can be turned into ?weapons of total mind control.? Perhaps these are the wrong reasons for outrage, but that doesn?t mean we shouldn?t be outraged. What Facebook is selling to political campaigns is the same thing Uber is selling to its drivers and customers and what YouTube is selling to advertisers who hope to reach an audience of children ? namely, the right to bypass longstanding rules and regulations in order to act with impunity. When you look at the Facebook data leak scandal this way, you realize that Facebook?s irresponsibility isn?t merely an abuse of a personal relationship ? what its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, called ?a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us? ? but also an abuse of a civic relationship. Selling relief from government scrutiny of elections is a different kind of threat to the social fabric than selling relief from government scrutiny of commerce, especially in light of our country?s record of denying voting rights to African-Americans. Facebook can?t be allowed to be a tool for enemies of democracy because it fears that regulation could hurt its bottom line. What was valuable about allowing a presidential campaign to evade regulation? Well, to start, we know that Facebook, unlike a small-market TV station, didn?t care about Russians buying political ads, even when they paid in rubles. That?s a shock to our political system, which is meant to protect against foreign interference. But more menacing is the prospect that the Trump campaign and its allies may have been given free license by Facebook to suppress African-American turnout through ?dark ad posts? that disappeared after viewing. Shortly before the election, a senior official with the Trump campaign bragged to the Bloomberg reporters Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg, ?We have three major voter suppression operations underway,? which the article described as targeting ?idealistic white liberals, young women, and African-Americans.? Brad Parscale, who ran the Trump campaign?s digital advertising, is quoted in the same piece discussing his plan to use dark ad posts of an animation of Hillary Clinton referring in 1996 to some African-Americans as ?super predators.? Parscale suggested that the campaign would use this image to discourage a demographic category described by the reporters as infrequent black voters in Florida. ?Only the people we want to see it, see it,? he explained. ?It will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out.? Some of the dark Facebook ads, bought by suspected Russian fronts, have been released as part of congressional investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and these include an ad meant to depress black support for Hillary Clinton by referring to conspiracy theories involving her husband. What other dark Facebook ads might have been placed on behalf of the Trump campaign to suppress black turnout? Were there classic examples of voter suppression, like publishing the wrong Election Day date or falsely warning that you can be arrested at your polling place if you owe payment on a traffic ticket? We don?t know ? the dark ads have disappeared and Facebook won?t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers. Facebook?s vast and well-designed platform offered the Trump campaign and its supporters cheap, direct access to African-American voters ? and along with this the chance to mislead and intimidate. In the past, candidates intent on suppressing the black vote ran up against technological barriers. They had to work with fliers and obscure radio ads, since reputable media outlets, unlike Facebook, tended to push back against racially inflammatory, untrue political advertising. Fliers and radio ads leave a public residue, too. The election of 2016, the first after Barack Obama?s presidency, was notable for a seven-percentage-point decrease in African-American turnout, from 66.6 percent in 2012 to 59.6 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. This was the first decline in 20 years in a presidential election and the largest ever recorded. The 2016 turnout rate was also below even the rate for the 2004 election, when John Kerry was the Democratic candidate. At a hearing with the top lawyers from Facebook, Google and Twitter about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota began by emphasizing the stakes involved. ?I come at this with the simple idea that our democracy was formed to be self-governing,? she said, adding that American citizens have ?a right of freedom to make their own decisions ? and I think that was interfered with by Russians and also others.? This simple idea of the United States as a self-governing community wasn?t the focus of the many mea culpa interviews Mr. Zuckerberg gave after reports of the data breach. He was focused on the individual. ?A lot of the most sensitive issues that we faced today are conflicts between our real values, right?? he said in an interview with Recode. ?Freedom of speech and hate speech and offensive content. Where is the line, right?? Todd A. Cox, the director of policy of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sees the question of our ?real values? a bit differently. ?There has been a lot of agonizing and struggling over the place of First Amendment,? he told me. ?I would like the discussion to turn on what role does the 14th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act, 15th Amendment play? ? the guarantees of equal protection under the law and of the right of African-Americans to vote. That is, in addition to Facebook?s libertarian, Silicon Valley perspective that sees only the personal questions ? my right to say what I want, my privacy ? we must consider the collective questions: How do we protect historically discriminated groups? How do first we make sure everyone is able to speak through free, fair elections before we argue about what they can say? This week, Facebook delayed the release of its home assistant devices and unveiled yet another attempt to make its privacy settings clear and easy to use. ?We?ve heard loud and clear that privacy settings and other important tools are too hard to find, and that we must do more to keep people informed,? Facebook?s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, and deputy general counsel, Ashlie Beringer, said in a statement announcing the new privacy system. Facebook is insistent on seeing its failures as harming individuals, never society as a whole. The legal scholar Alexander Bickel was fond of saying, ?No answer is what the wrong question begets.? Facebook has been asking the wrong question consistently for more than a decade, which is why its privacy scandals can seem like the longest running show in Silicon Valley. Recent events have offered us a chance to reframe the question about how to fix Facebook. It is one that all Americans should have a voice in answering. Noam Cohen (@noamcohen) is the author of ?The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball.? _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Fri Apr 6 17:01:37 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 02:31:37 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_7_April_2018_=7C_Sri_Lanka=3A_Office_of_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Missing_Persons_/_Pakistan=3A_Textbooks_/_Genom?= =?windows-1252?Q?ic_Formation_of_South_Asia_/_India-Pakistan=3A_?= =?windows-1252?Q?-_making_nuclear_war_likely_/_India=3A_through_?= =?windows-1252?Q?the_glass_darkly_/_From_Malala_to_Parkland_/_Ch?= =?windows-1252?Q?ina=3A_Communist_Party_Abandoning_Workers_/_Kor?= =?windows-1252?Q?ea=92s_island_of_ghosts?= Message-ID: <021ED819-FCB2-47E8-B9AE-1134841D54FE@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 7 April 2018 - No. 2981 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. How Pakistani school textbooks mould its students? skewed worldview | Madiha Afzal 2. Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia / Tony Joseph on How The Indians & South Asians, Came to Be / David Reich on use and abuse of ancient DNA 3. India: Statement by Bebaak Collective on role of right wing forces in the aftermath of triple talaq judgement 4. USA: Our employer shouldn?t be in the business of war - Open letter signed by Google employees 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Communal Riots in bihar - Harmony on the Surface, Deep Wounds Beneath (report by NewsClick) - India: Editorial in The Hindu on violence over Ram Navami processions - India: Students of madrassas and pathshalas may have to kiss their job future goodbye - Editorial, DNA - India: HC tells Gujarat Police not to arrest Teesta Setalvad, associate till May 2, 2018 - India: Who is harassing Teesta Setalvad and why - Sabrang's Official Statement on latest false FIR - Gurus and Gifting: Dana, the math reform campaign, and competing visions of Hindu sangathan in twentieth-century India - India: The Maulana who set aside personal grief and calmed a frenzied mob must get justice - Editorial, The Times of India - Press Release by CPI(M) on Communal Riots in Parts of West Bengal - Liberal democrats owe it to themselves to choose their words and fora responsibly | Javed Anand - In both religion and law, polygamy has no place | Tahir Mahmood - India: Nilanjana Bhowmick on Noida's Thriving Militant Hinduism - India - Tripura: on takeover of minority graveyard land by BJP leaders - India: Shameful display of Hindutva terror in festive processions | M Shamsur Rabb Khan ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. From Malala to Parkland, why are the victims demonised? | Nesrine Malik 7. Office of Missing Persons Provides ?Audacity Of Hope? to Sri Lanka | D.B.S.Jeyaraj 8. India and Pakistan are quietly making nuclear war more likely | Tom Hundley 9. IAF to launch war games to hone fighting skills on Pakistan, China fronts | Rajat Pandit 10. Data exposes what India & Pakistan don?t reveal about the constant ?ceasefire violations? | Happymon Jacob 11. India through the glass darkly | Latha Jishnu 12. India: Article 370 has acquired permanent status - Supreme Court | Dhananjay Mahapatra 13. India?s political class has failed to realise the gravity of the employment crisis | Editorial, Hindustan Times 14. Not Mei Lin?s Republic | Bindu Menon 15. China?s Communist Party Is Abandoning Workers | Harvey Thomlinson 16. While Facebook faces the music, maybe it is time to #DeleteWhatsApp | Vivek Wadhwa 17. The ISIS Files | Rukmini Callimachi Photographs by Ivor Prickett 18. On Jeju, Korea?s island of ghosts, the dead finally find a voice | Andrew Salmon 19. 'Being cash-free puts us at risk of attack': Swedes turn against cashlessness | David Crouch in Gothenburg 20. The shame of antisemitism on the left has a long, malign history | Philip Spencer ======================================== 1. HOW PAKISTANI SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS MOULD ITS STUDENTS? SKEWED WORLDVIEW | Madiha Afzal ======================================== Excerpt from Pakistan Under Siege by Madiha Afzal (Penguin Random House India) http://www.sacw.net/article13708.html ======================================== 2. GENOMIC FORMATION OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA / TONY JOSEPH ON HOW THE INDIANS & SOUTH ASIANS, CAME TO BE / DAVID REICH ON USE AND ABUSE OF ANCIENT DNA ======================================== The Nazi ideology of a ?pure? Indo-European-speaking Aryan race with deep roots in Germany, traceable through artifacts of the Corded Ware culture, has been shattered by the finding that the people who used these artifacts came from a mass migration from the Russian steppe, a place that German nationalists would have despised as a source. The Hindutva ideology that there was no major contribution to Indian culture from migrants from outside South Asia is undermined by the fact that approximately half of the ancestry of Indians today is derived from multiple waves of mass migration from Iran and the Eurasian steppe within the last five thousand years. http://www.sacw.net/article13706.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: STATEMENT BY BEBAAK COLLECTIVE ON ROLE OF RIGHT WING FORCES IN THE AFTERMATH OF TRIPLE TALAQ JUDGEMENT ======================================== We strongly believe that the right wing groups have united with various political parties and religious organizations to oppress the voices of all the progressive Muslim women who created democratic spaces for themselves, are talking differently and opposing the bill from a gender rights perspective, which is indeed away from the religious perspective http://www.sacw.net/article13712.html ======================================== 4. USA: OUR EMPLOYER SHOULDN?T BE IN THE BUSINESS OF WAR - OPEN LETTER SIGNED BY GOOGLE EMPLOYEES ======================================== In this open letter to Google?s CEO, over 3,000 employees urged the company not to work on a Pentagon ?AI surveillance engine? used for drone warfare http://www.sacw.net/article13709.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== India: Rakesh Sinha says psuedo-secular intelligentsia has fractured the concept of Indian citizenship, kept Muslims in an impermeable silo India: Communal Riots in bihar - Harmony on the Surface, Deep Wounds Beneath (report by NewsClick) India: Editorial in The Hindu on violence over Ram Navami processions India: Students of madrassas and pathshalas may have to kiss their job future goodbye - Editorial, DNA India: HC tells Gujarat Police not to arrest Teesta Setalvad, associate till May 2, 2018 India: Who is harassing Teesta Setalvad and why - Sabrang's Official Statement on latest false FIR Vikash Singh on neoliberal precariousness and religion - Kanwarias in India Gurus and Gifting: Dana, the math reform campaign, and competing visions of Hindu sangathan in twentieth-century India India: The Maulana who set aside personal grief and calmed a frenzied mob must get justice - Editorial, The Times of India Press Release by CPI(M) on Communal Riots in Parts of West Bengal India: Teetsa Setalvad, Javed Anand seek pre-arrest bail move Bombay High Court India: marginalisation of Muslims - Doing away the burka and skull-cap will not end it | Shamsur Rahman Faruqi Liberal democrats owe it to themselves to choose their words and fora responsibly | Javed Anand In both religion and law, polygamy has no place | Tahir Mahmood India - West Bengal: Swapan Dasgupta on the explosion of political Hindutva, as personified by the Ram Navami celebrations India: Nilanjana Bhowmick on Noida's Thriving Militant Hinduism India - Tripura: on takeover of minority graveyard land by BJP leaders India: Secularism anyone? Madhya Pradesh state gives ministerial (MoS) status to five religious leaders India: Shameful display of Hindutva terror in festive processions | M Shamsur Rabb Khan -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. FROM MALALA TO PARKLAND, WHY ARE THE VICTIMS DEMONISED? Nesrine Malik ======================================== The Guardian 5 April 2018 The Nobel prize winner and the Florida school children have been vilified. It?s because the powerful want to stay in control Malala Yousafzai is one of the world?s best-known figures, a Nobel prizewinner and a global advocate for female education. She went from being a schoolgirl in the Swat valley of Pakistan to a global figure, all before the age of 20, and throughout she has maintained an almost preternatural poise and unwavering loyalty to her home country. Last week she returned to Pakistan for the first time since she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman six years ago. Yet her visit was marred by a grotesque coordinated campaign, where private school teachers announced an ?I am not Malala? day. Children were made to wear black armbands, hold up placards and sit through lectures on why Malala should be condemned. 'Happiest day of my life': Malala returns to Pakistan for first time since Taliban shooting Read more This is not a recent phenomenon. Almost from the moment she was shot, conspiracy theories swirled around the young girl. As Malala lay in her hospital bed, half her head shattered, the whispers started. The shooting was all fake so that she would be granted asylum in the west. Her father had coordinated the whole thing. She was taking advantage of the situation in order to make money by portraying Pakistan as a place of perpetual victimhood, feeding western stereotypes. Inevitably, there were allegations that it was all a CIA conspiracy to undermine Pakistan and sully its reputation abroad. The more Malala?s stature increased, the more feverishly she was attacked. The reaction is not confined to trolls or particularly conservative parts of Pakistan society. It has crossed over into the mainstream, where even in liberal circles people snidely cast aspersions on her. It has all gone rather too well for her, hasn?t it? And her father, who pushed her into the limelight and put her at risk: he is just a bit too pushy, is he not? Of course, no one is suggesting that the poor girl wasn?t shot at all, but one can ask who is financing it all. It?s enough to shake your faith in humankind that this is the reception Malala experienced. Yet sadly her example is not unique. Attacks on spokespeople for obviously virtuous causes are not confined to countries in the grip of tribalism or religious fundamentalism. They often take place in liberal, less feudal societies. This is why, in Britain, concern expressed publicly by popular figures is dismissed as ?attention seeking? or ?virtue signalling?. Celebrities such as the singer Lily Allen and the TV presenter and ex-footballer Gary Lineker, for example, are told to stick to what they know rather than engaging with the plight of child refugees. And those refugees in turn are condemned as too old or not poor enough. Emma Gonz?lez, a survivor of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school, has been dismissed as a ?frothing-at-the-mouth moonbat? by a Republican politician. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA Survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, this February, in which 17 students and teachers were killed, have been attacked in ways that mirror Malala?s character assassination. First they were dismissed as fake, ?crisis actors?; then their moral and physical fibre was questioned. An unverified photo of Malala wearing jeans and high-heeled boots circulated on social media and attracted abuse for her allegedly scandalous fashion choices (she has never been seen without a headscarf). Emma Gonz?lez, one of the more prominent Parkland student campaigners, has been called a ?skinhead lesbian? by a Republican candidate. He also called David Hogg, another survivor, a ?moron? and a ?bald-faced liar?. All three have been Photoshopped on to images that were then circulated as real on social media in order to ?prove? that they are stooges for some liberal lobby. The result is that the smear campaigns, so vicious and unrelenting, sow seeds of doubt in the larger population. More importantly, they end up diverting the conversation away from the core issue ? the fundamental flaw in a society that has failed to protect its children, those most innocent of victims, and fixates instead on the figurehead as corrupt or as a vehicle of sinister puppeteers. These figureheads are also not held to be competent agents of political change and so are seen as upstarts, precocious transgressors, pretentious people who think they are better than everybody else. This is an impulse that is suspicious of activism when carried out by everyday people, even those who have been unwillingly thrust into the spotlight by traumatic events. In the case of the young, the smear campaigns have to be especially vicious because there is so little information available that would easily discredit them. They have no history, no romantic past, no adult failings or idiosyncrasies. Society has a problem with public campaigners because they are symbols of all the threats that encroach upon its comforting myths and hierarchies. It is not really about gun control in America or about girls? education in Pakistan or about providing safe harbour to refugees. It is about upholding the status quo in all the ways that ensure our small relative superiorities are enshrined; and it is about our prejudices as to who gets to advocate or campaign. The pompous head of the private school association in Pakistan that planned the anti-Malala day does not like it that a random young woman wields more influence than him, so he tries to tear her down. A politician is a little irritated that a cocky teen?s voice is beginning to be louder than his, and so he scoffs at him. Collectively, in less obvious ways, we become mired in the business of questioning the messengers at the expense of the vulnerable. The Pakistani headteacher was, inadvertently, correct: there is only one Malala. But there are many of her abusers? impulses in all of us. ? Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist ======================================== 7. OFFICE OF MISSING PERSONS PROVIDES ?AUDACITY OF HOPE? TO SRI LANKA by D.B.S.Jeyaraj ======================================== Daily Mirror 3 March 2018 Let me begin on a very personal note. The first major emotional upheaval I underwent as a result of losing a very loved one, was when I lost my maternal grandfather in December 1968. I was 14 years old at that time. I was inordinately fond of him and he of me, his eldest grandchild. My grandfather had been ailing for some time and his impending demise was expected. Both his children, their spouses and all his grandchildren were around his bed when my grandfather breathed his last. We were living in Kollupitiya at that time and my grandfather passed away peacefully at our residence. The doctor came and certified his death there. The undertakers took the body away, embalmed it and brought it back in a coffin for people to pay their respects. The funeral service was at our home. The burial was at Kanatte. A memorial service was held two months later in a Methodist Church in Colombo. A memorial monument was duly erected at Kanatte. Why I relate all these details is to emphasise that I was witness to each and every aspect of my grandfather?s final farewell to this world - from his deathbed to tombstone. I knew fully well that my grandfather had died and that he was not among the living yet I refused to accept that he was dead. Being quite young and having been so fond of him I could not cope with his loss. We were living at the bottom of the lane (Aloe Avenue) by the seaside then. All such illusions were shattered when war came to Sri Lanka. War is nothing but nasty, brutal destruction. There is nothing laudable in it except perhaps the individual bravery of those courting death for what they thought was a just cause. I was learning Tennyson?s ?break, break, break? in my GCE (OL) English Literature class. The poem written by Tennyson over the loss of his friend Arthur Hallam resonated very much with me then. I would sit on the rocks along the Colpetty beach just as Tennyson did ?at the foot of thy crags O?sea? and think of my ?Appa? as I called my grandfather. (I called my father Papa & grandfather Appa).The lines ?But O? for the touch of a vanish?d hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!? would strike responsive melancholy chords in my heart. Still, the loss was too much to bear then. I just could not accept the fact that my grandfather was dead and gone. I started imagining that he was really alive and that he never died. Whenever I saw an elderly male who bore a resemblance to my grandfather, I would go up to him and stare intently at the point of embarrassment. Sometimes while travelling alone by bus, I would see someone who looked like him on the pavement, get down at the next halt and run back only to be disappointed. Far worse was the thought that like Jesus Christ, my grandfather too had risen from the dead. I would go to Borella, look at his grave and then wander around Kanatte hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Burden Of ?Sorrowful Affection? Finally, I was liberated from this burden of ?sorrowful affection?. Due to certain reasons, my family relocated from Colombo to Jaffna in December 1969 just one year after my grandfather?s death. While my parents and siblings lived at Chavakachcheri, I was boarded at Jaffna College, Vaddukkoddai. The change of environment and the different experience of living in the North as opposed to that of living in Colombo brought about a change in me. I stopped imagining that my grandfather was alive and began adjusting to life after his death. With the passage of time the sorrow and grief lessened but never ever went away. And then, of course, there were other losses and deaths. (I lost my parents, sister and close relatives and friends over the years). Then there was the escalation of the ethnic conflict and its consequences. I began losing track of the people whom I knew who died or disappeared or went missing or were injured or got displaced as a result of the ethnic conflict. Why I recount my experience of almost half a century ago is to show how the loss of a loved one could have a traumatic effect on people. In my case, I had seen the death, funeral, burial and memorial service of my grandfather and even knew the grave in which he lay. There was full closure. Yet I could not for many long months accept his death or come to terms with the fact that he was no more. This experience makes me ultra-sensitive to the agony and pain suffered by those who have undergone loss without proper closure particularly those who do not know what has happened to their loved ones. Still, the loss was too much to bear then. I just could not accept the fact that my grandfather was dead and gone. I started imagining that he was really alive and that he never died When a loved one disappears or is made to disappear and you have no news at all about the missing person how does one cope with that loss? How can memory be consoled when there is no knowledge of what had happened to a loved one? How can a troubled heart be pacified by the mind if no one knows the fate of what befell a loved one? For many decades I have been writing on politics of Sri Lanka. The island?s politics has for long been overshadowed and even overwhelmed by an armed conflict. War has its own consequences and its distinct fall-out. Very often the original causes of war are forgotten and even replaced by new problems and grievances. When I was young and read about the war in newspapers and saw battle scenes on screen, I had a romanticised outlook on war. I regarded war as a noble adventure and fighting as heroic. All such illusions were shattered when war came to Sri Lanka. War is nothing but nasty, brutal destruction. There is nothing laudable in it except perhaps the individual bravery of those courting death for what they thought was a just cause. The war in Sri Lanka was a dirty war. It was not fought by soldiers carrying the UN Human Rights Charter in one hand and love in their hearts as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa once stated. The Tigers and other militant fighters were no saints either. An inevitable consequence of the war was the phenomenon known as Enforced Disappearances. A very large number of people in Sri Lanka disappeared or were made to disappear or went missing as a result of the conflict regarded at one time as South Asia?s longest war. The well-known Human Rights Organization, ?Human Rights Watch?(HRW) observed thus in a statement: ?Tens of thousands of people were forcibly disappeared in Sri Lanka since the 1980s, including during the last months of the war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009...... The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances ranks Sri Lanka as the country with the second highest number of disappearances in the history of its tenure.? ?Most of those reported disappeared during the three-decade long conflict between government forces and the LTTE were ethnic Tamils. A short-lived but violent insurgency with a majority Sinhala militant group in the country?s South in the late 1980s also led to many enforced disappearances and other abuses by both sides. Various Commissions of Inquiry established by successive Sri Lankan Governments in response to pressure from victims? groups and others have produced reports that have largely remained unpublished and have not resulted in criminal prosecutions of those responsible.? For people whose loved ones pass away tragically in an accident or are killed through violence the struggle to cope is more painful. The worst, however, is for those whose loved ones are made to disappear or have gone missing. Enforced Disappearances Phenomenon The HRW statement focuses on enforced disappearances during the war and its aftermath and also highlights the fact that most victims were Tamils. But disappearances did not occur only during the ethnic conflict and neither was the enforced disappearances phenomenon a Tamil monopoly. People of all ethnicities were victimised but the bulk of war victims were certainly Tamils. A large number of Sinhala youths were made to disappear when the State ruthlessly suppressed the bloody insurgencies led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 1971 and 1988/89. As a journalist writing about politics and war in Sri Lanka, I had to write about missing persons too. There were some disappearances like those of Fr. Thiruchelvam Nihal Jim Brown the Allaippiddy Parish Priest and Eastern University Vice-Chancellor Prof.S. Raveendranath about which I wrote extensively. There were other disappearances about which I did not write in very great detail. Time, media space and scanty information being the reasons. Very few Sri Lankan journalists wrote about disappearances and irked the powers that be then. There were many disappearances about which nothing was written. They have become part of official and unofficial statistics. Yet every single case of a missing person has a heart-rending story behind it. A missing person may be treated by officialdom as a mere statistic but he or she has a family and many loved ones who yearn for some reliable information about what has happened to him or her. The disappearance of loved ones is not something restricted to one community or one ethnicity alone. It is correct that the Tamil people have suffered more than other ethnicities proportionately. Yet, the Sinhala people to have suffered immensely during the JVP insurgency of 1988-89. The State ruthlessly suppressed the JVP revolt then. Thousands were killed and thousands simply disappeared. Many years ago before Chandrika Kumaratunga came to power, Dr Manoranee Saravanamuttu the mother of Richard de Zoysa was in Canada for an event organized by the University of Toronto. Apart from meeting her at seminars and dinners, I also had a one to one conversation with Aunty Manoranee for about ten hours at the university?s Massey College where she was staying. During that very long conversation, she told me so many harrowing tales about the deaths and disappearances in the south during 1988-90. She told me that the bulk of the victims were from socio-culturally underprivileged caste groups and that there was no strong voice raised, on their behalf. She told me about the activities of the Mothers Front and how the common experience of loss, deprivation, suffering and sorrow brought the Tamil speaking and Sinhala speaking mothers, daughters, wives and sisters together and how the state resented it. I have never and will never forget that conversation. As I mentioned earlier I had found it very difficult to cope with the death of my grandfather who died peacefully of natural causes. I could not accept it for long although there was full closure. For people whose loved ones pass away tragically in an accident or are killed through violence the struggle to cope is more painful. The worst, however, is for those whose loved ones are made to disappear or have gone missing. For them, the lack of knowledge and uncertainty is sheer agony. There is no closure after death for them because they are not sure whether their loved ones are among the dead or the living. All that they need or want is some official pronouncement of what had really happened. Reason tells them that persons gone missing for so long cannot be among the living but their hearts full of love for the lost loved ones refuse to accept the loss as permanent. The heart has reasons which reason itself may not understand. Humans are not systems of intellect alone. They are bundles of emotion too. They mourn and they yearn. They grieve and they hope. ?Audacity Of Hope? Sustains Loved Ones It is this ?audacity of hope? (To borrow from Barack Obama) that sustains these loved ones of the missing persons to pursue with their quest of seeking the truth about their loved ones. It is this audacity of hope which compels someone like Sandya Priyangani Ekneligoda to prolong her search for the truth about what really happened to her husband Prageeth, the well-known cartoonist and journalist. It is this audacious hope, which makes the mothers, spouses, sisters and daughters of the disappeared in the North and East to persist with their search for the truth about their loved ones. They demonstrate with placards, go on protest fasts, walk-in processions, sign numerous petitions and above all observe regular religious rites seeking the truth about their loved ones. In the process, they are very often exploited by crafty politicians, misguided priests, mercenary NGO operatives, so-called civil society activists and publicity seekers. Regardless, they go on motivated only by their love and devotion to their loved ones. I once asked an old mother why she continued in her quest to find out about her son who went missing over a decade ago. She answered me thus in Tamil ?Money (son) Nee Kaanaamap Ponaa, undai ?Komma? (Mother) unnai ippadi Theda Maattavey?? (If you go missing won?t your mother search for you like this?). She went on to say ?Avanukku Enna Nadanthathendu Theriyealleiye.Unmai theriya Vaenum Avan irukkiraanaa? illaiyaa?endu. Illaiyendu thelivaaichchonnal enakku kavalai endaalum nimmathi ? (I don?t know what has happened to him. I must know the truth about him, whether he is alive or dead? If I am told clearly that he is no more then I will be sad but would be at peace). And then she said wistfully ?Aetho enakkoru nambikkai. Avan Engeyo Irukkiraan. Avanaik Kandupidichidalaam Endu?( Somehow, I have a belief that he is there somewhere. I feel he can be found). This then is the audacity of hope. Alexander Pope wrote ?Hope springs eternal in the human breast?. Cicero stated, ?Dum Spiri Spero? (While I breathe, I hope). As a journalist, it has been my duty to interact with a cross-section of people from all walks of life. This has resulted in my keeping in touch with those in power and authority as well as being accessible to the powerless, ordinary people. It goes with the territory. The challenge is to know the ?truth? through interacting with the common people and then speak that ?truth? to power. There are many, many sad moments for journalists who feel and empathise. As a safety mechanism, you construct a cocoon around yourself because if you are what is termed as a ?bleeding heart liberal? you may very well bleed to death. There are mothers and sisters of soldiers who still shed tears urging us to at least find a bone fragment of their sons and brothers who went missing during the years of conflict if they are to come to terms with what they have been told ? that these soldiers are no more For me, some of the most poignant moments in my journalistic vocation have been when those dear and near to the missing persons seek my aid to help seek information about their loved ones. They approach me directly or someone approaches me on their behalf and seeks my help to find out about their missing loved ones. It is very painful and emotionally debilitating to reply that I won?t be able to help because I am helpless in this. There is no one to ask or seek answers from in this regard. I have tried several times in the past to find out about people taken away without a trace or made to disappear but always came up against a stonewall of silence from those in power. As journalists we are supposed to seek the truth but what does one do in situations like this? What is the definite reply one can give to these families about their missing loved ones? More importantly what is the response of the State or those in power to these questions? Minister Mangala Samaraweera Mangala Samaraweera in his previous avatar as Minister of Foreign Affairs aptly described the predicament of the people in this situation and the dilemma faced by those in authority in a statement tabled in Parliament on August 11, 2016. Mangala in his statement said - ?As you know, there is no corner of this blessed and beloved country of ours, that has not been drenched by the tears of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children who have wept and continue to weep, not knowing where their loved ones are, or what happened to them. They only know that they are missing. They don?t know whether they are dead or alive.? ?Tears and pain have no ethnicity, no religion, no race, no caste: All their tears are the same. The grief they feel, their anguish, their pain is personal, but the same. Their suffering cannot be explained in words. Every day, there are people in this country who go to sleep at night, praying that their loved ones will return. There are mothers who are paralyzed with grief; they are lost in time; unable to continue with their day-to-day lives, worrying whether their sons, wherever they may be, have enough food to eat, or whether they are being treated alright; wondering how much they may have grown, or how much they may have changed since they last saw them. These people are torn between hope and despair, and are unable to live meaningful lives.? The war in Sri Lanka was a dirty war. It was not fought by soldiers carrying the UN Human Rights Charter in one hand and love in their hearts as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa once stated. The Tigers and other militant fighters were no saints either. ?When one sees a dead body, no matter how unbearable the pain of loss may be, there is closure, because there is a knowledge that one?s loved one is no more. But how can one find closure, and how can one be expected to find closure when there is no knowledge of what has happened to someone?? ?There is probably no district, and certainly no province in this country which has been untouched by the phenomena of someone going missing ? either in the 1970s, the 80s, the 90s, or later. In my electorate in Matara, there are mothers who still go from astrologer to astrologer trying to find out what happened to their children who went missing in the 80s and 90s, and some even as far back as the 70s. They still live in hope.? ?There are mothers and sisters of soldiers who still shed tears urging us to at least find a bone fragment of their sons and brothers who went missing during the years of conflict if they are to come to terms with what they have been told ? that these soldiers are no more. Without that, they say they cannot come to terms with the fact that their loved ones are no more. They have only heard, they say, that a camp was overrun but received no further details. They have received no evidence that their loved ones are dead. So they wait and they wait forever, without carrying out the last rites; without giving alms to confer merit on the departed. Is this what the families of our soldiers deserve?? ?As a responsible State, can we continue to ignore their tears and their pleas? Can we just say to them that we don?t know what happened to their loved ones, and ask them to accept that they are dead? Can we expect them to take whatever few thousand rupees that is given to them as compensation and lead normal lives?? ?Can we, as a responsible State, just tell them that all the people who are missing ? and this includes soldiers, policemen, and other security forces personnel ? have all probably gone overseas and are now leading new lives under new identities, and so, they are best forgotten? Can we, as a responsible State, say that no country in Asia or no country in NATO has established an Office to ascertain the fate of those who have gone missing and that therefore, we should also not make any attempt to find out what happened to the Missing in our country, to provide answers to families or loved ones?? ?Those Who Went Missing Are Our Citizens? ?These are our citizens: those who went missing are our citizens; those who grieve are also our citizens. Don?t we, as a responsible State, have a duty to try to alleviate their agony? Try to at least help them find an answer; or try to help them find closure? ?If this is not the compassion that Gautama Buddha has taught us, then, what is? It certainly cannot be the symbolic chanting of Gathas, or offering of flowers, or building new statues and temples. We have to be able to reach out to our fellow citizens who are suffering; who have been suffering for years and years, and alleviate their pain. ?If the loved ones they seek are no more, we have to be able to help them find the truth. We have to help them to come to terms with the truth. We must assist them in their process of healing. We must help them to continue with their lives in a meaningful way, and be productive citizens of our country. How can we say that we are guardians of the noble teachings of the Buddha if we don?t practise his Teachings? Can we, as the compassionate nation we claim to be, shut out the grief of a large number of our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, and our children, and be deaf and blind to their pain, their wailing, their silent agony, their psychological trauma and their tears?? ?For some, this emotive and heart-wrenching issue is a mere numbers game. They try to justify the numbers by saying such and such a number is overseas and accuse countries for not sharing information. This is not the way to approach this issue. It is not a matter of numbers. It is a matter of individuals. It is a matter of human beings. It is a matter concerning our citizens, and it is a matter of creating mechanisms that are credible which enable people to share information, even entities in countries in which some who are reported as missing may be leading new lives under new identities. I am sure there is duplication and errors in the various records maintained by various different entities. With the setting up of this Office, by an Act of Parliament, we will finally have a credible mechanism that will be in a position to centralize data at national level, integrating all information with regard to missing persons currently being maintained by different agencies, as recommended by the LLRC, way back in 2011.? The regime change in Sri Lanka on January 8, 2015, saw a glimmer of light emerge at the end of the dark tunnel. The newly installed Sirisena - Wickremesinghe Govt. adopted a series of progressive measures. Among these was the attempt to institutionally tackle the missing persons issue. On August 11, 2016, the Island nation?s Parliament passed legislation to set up an Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in the country. The then Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera hailed the passage of the OMP bill as ?historic?. Addressing a news briefing soon after the Bill had been ratified, he said the new law would give relief to the loved ones of thousands from the North and South of the country who had disappeared. ?This is the first step towards rectifying the mistakes during the past 68 years,? said the Minister who had a long history of championing the cause of persons made to go missing through enforced disappearances. Four Main Functions Of OMP In a public statement issued earlier in August, the Foreign Minister explained basic details about the envisaged Office of Missing Persons Bill. In that statement he said: ?The Bill outlines four main functions for the OMP -- (i) Searching and tracing of missing persons; (ii) Clarifying the circumstances in which such persons went missing and their fate; (iii) Making recommendations to relevant authorities to reduce such incidents of missing and disappeared persons and (iv) Identifying proper avenues of redress. As such, it is not a law-enforcement or judicial agency but a truth-seeking investigative agency.? Mangala Samaraweera went on to say: ?The Office on Missing Persons is a truth-seeking investigative agency. It does not make judgements on disputes. In fact, the legislation states that ?the findings of the OMP shall not give rise to any criminal or civil liability.? Its primary function is to establish whether a missing person is dead or alive and, if he or she is dead, discover when, how and where they died.? Despite the aura of hope and optimism exuded by ex-Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera progress on the OMP front was very slow. The process was extremely slow but then this has been the tragedy of this blessed island since independence - Whatever that is bad is done very quickly while whatever that is good is done at a painstakingly slow pace. So the OMP process moved forward not by leaps and bounds but in fits and starts. Though the legislation was passed in August 2016 to set up the office of missing persons, it began assuming operational form only a year later. President Maithripala Sirisena signed the gazette notification operationalising the OMP in September 2017. The Acting Secretary General of the Constitutional Council called for applications to appoint members to the OMP in October 2017. Applications were called from persons with previous experience in; fact-finding or investigation, human rights law, international humanitarian law, humanitarian response, or possessing other qualifications relevant to the carrying out the functions of the OMP. There were over 300 applications and the selections were made through an open and competitive process conducted by the Constitutional Council. After intensive perusal and much deliberation, the Constitutional Council which includes political leaders with diverse viewpoints such as Ranil Wickremesinghe (UNP), Rajavarothayam Sampanthan (ITAK), John Seneviratne (SLFP), Champika Ranawaka (JHU) and Vijitha Herath (JVP) arrived at the unanimous decision. UN Human Rights Council Sessions Meanwhile, Mangala Samaraweera in his new avatar as Finance minister allocated 1.3 Billion rupees towards the office of missing persons in the 2018 budget presented in November 2017. The names of the OMP nominees were submitted to the President by December 2017.If the President did not approve or wanted changes he was required to send the nominee list back to the Constitutional Council(CC) within two weeks. Since he did not do so, it was obvious that the President was in agreement with the CC. However, presumably because of the local Govt. poll on February 10, 2018, President Sirisena made no forward movement on the matter and virtually ?sat? on the list. Finally, President Sirisena moved and on the last day of February formally appointed the chairman and other council members of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) with effect from March 1st, 2018. Again, it may not be entirely a coincidence that the UN Human Rights Council sessions begin in Geneva during March. The Chairman of the OMP is the reputed Human Rights and Constitutional Lawyer, President?s Counsel Saliya Peiris. The other members are academic- lawyer and well-known human rights activist - Dr Sriyani Nimalka Fernando, Retd Major - General Mohanti Antoinette Peiris, Women?s Rights activist and lawyer - Ms Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy, Lawyer cum Researcher -Mirak Rahim, Lawyer cum researcher T. Somasiri Liyanage and Human Rights worker Kanapathipillai Venthan. They will serve initially for a term of three years. The OMP work will be coordinated by the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms (DCRM) headed by Mano Tittawella of which former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is in overall charge as head of the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation. A certain amount of gender and ethnic balance has been achieved in the composition of the OMP body. Sufficient attention has also been given to real life experience as opposed to academic qualifications alone. Ms Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy is someone whose husband went missing while they were living in Mullaitheevu. She is now in Batticaloa and actively involved with an organization called ?Women in Need? focusing on women?s issues. Lawyer Somasiri Liyanage is someone who worked comprehensively in compiling the report on the prison riots. Mirak Raheem has been associated for many years with the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) as a researcher on human rights, reconciliation and minority rights issues. Kanapathipillai Venthan is a human rights activist who has rendered yeoman service to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in helping to trace missing persons. Nimalka Fernando?s track record as a human rights activist is impeccable. She has courageously withstood charges of traitorous acts and death threats by regularly going to Geneva for the UNHRC sessions. The inclusion of Maj-Gen (retd) Mohanti Peiris in the OMP is very interesting and most welcome.An old girl of Uduvil girls high school in Jaffna, Mohanti passed out as a lawyer and joined the Army?s Legal Affairs Division and went right up the promotional ladder to end up and retire as Major - General. Mohanti herself hails from a family of distinguished lawyers in Jaffna. Her father Selvaratnam, as well as his brothers Thambiratnam and Sabaratnam, were a well-known trio of lawyer brothers. She is married to Brigadier (retd) Basil Peiris. Given the current context where the armed forces are being blamed for many cases of disappearances and missing on the one hand while families of defence personnel reported missing in action blame the military top brass with disbelief on the other, Maj-Gen Mohanti Peiris will face an uphill task in discharging her duties in the OMP. Those who know her well opine that she will complete her mission successfully. Transitional Justice Mechanisms According to the Presidential Media Unit, the OMP?s main mission will be to determine the status of all missing persons in Sri Lanka and will be the first pillar of the transitional justice mechanism through which the government hopes to bring about reconciliation and lasting peace. The OMP is the first pillar of Sri Lanka?s four transitional justice mechanisms under design and implementation. The others are Office to handle reparations, a truth and reconciliation commission and a judicial mechanism to address allegations of wartime abuses. The Presidential Media Unit also said that the OMP would be an independent body reporting to Parliament and was expected to bring a degree of closure to surviving family members of Sri Lanka?s internal conflicts. It would also set the stage for sustainable reparations for victims and their families. So the long-awaited Office on Missing Persons (OMP) has become operational at last. It is too early to speculate on how the Office of Missing Persons would function in the future and how it would tackle the prickly issue of missing persons and disappearances. There are also perplexing doubts about the future when Mahinda Rajapaksa and his political minions orchestrate a pseudo-patriotic backlash against the OMP. How will the Sirisena -Wickremesinghe Govt. that is united by name and divided in practice respond? Will the ?predictably unpredictable? President brandish his sword against those opposing the OMP or will he twirl his ?kaduwa? inwards to cause self-inflicted injuries? Will the functions of the OMP be restrained and be used merely as a showcase to appease international opinion? These are all valid questions and no answers can be forthcoming at this point in time. Nevertheless, the setting up of an office of missing persons is by itself an accomplishment. More importantly, it signifies that the Sri Lankan nation has shed its customary denial mode and realistically acknowledged the existence of the missing persons problem. May the setting up of the Office on Missing Persons symbolically determine that no Sri Lankan will ever go missing again and that no Sri Lankan family will languish in the future about their missing loved ones. Magic of This Moment For a nation long denied positive gains on the human rights front the setting up of the OMP and commencing operations is a significant milepost. These events are like silver linings in dark clouds. We need such happenings to feel good and to retain our sanity. This then is our day and let us seize that day. Whatever the future may be, this is our magical moment. Let us then capture the magic of this moment. D.B.S.Jeyaraj can be reached at dbsjeyaraj at yahoo.com ======================================== 8. INDIA AND PAKISTAN ARE QUIETLY MAKING NUCLEAR WAR MORE LIKELY Both countries are arming their submarines with nukes. by Tom Hundley ======================================== vox.com - April 2, 2018 KARACHI, Pakistan ? The Karachi Naval Dockyard, home port and strategic nerve center for Pakistan?s fleet, sits on a sliver of land bracketed between Port Grand, a ?family fun? pier that features kiddie rides and a panoramic view of warships at anchor, and Machar Colony, a sprawling slum where cattle graze on garbage and a million human inhabitants live in nearly unimaginable squalor. It was here, during the quiet predawn of May 6, 2014, that four rogue naval officers walked up the gangway of the PNS Zulfiqar, a 4,000-ton frigate that was preparing to put to sea. A guard inspected their ID badges and saluted. Once on board, their plan was to join up with another group of six militants disguised in marine uniforms who were approaching the Zulfiqar in an inflatable dinghy. Together they hoped to hijack the ship and use it to attack a US Navy patrol in the Indian Ocean. But an alert sailor on board the frigate noticed something was wrong. The men in the dinghy were armed with AK-47s ? not the standard weapons used by Pakistani marines. When he challenged the group in the dinghy, a gunfight quickly erupted. While the attackers fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, the sailor shredded the dingy with an anti-aircraft gun, killing all six. Hearing the commotion, navy commandos from another vessel rushed to the scene, but it still took several hours to regain control of the ship from the four rogue officers already on board. Eventually all of them were killed, the last one blowing himself up after he was cornered. The audacity of a bloody attack inside one of the most heavily secured naval facilities in Pakistan was jarring enough. Even more jarring was the source of the attack: al-Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for the strike and praised the dead men as ?martyrs.? Five more naval officers implicated in the plot were later arrested, charged with mutiny, and sentenced to death. The Zulfiqar incident is the most serious in a long string of deadly security breaches at Pakistani military installations, from multiple attacks on nuclear facilities near Dera Ghazi Khan (2003 and 2006) and on the air force bases at Sargodha and Kamra (2007 and 2012) to the the gruesome 2014 attack on a school for the children of military officers in Peshawar that left more than 140 people dead, including 132 children. But even if Pakistani bases have been hit before, the Zulfiqar strike is particularly alarming. That?s because Pakistan is preparing to arm its submarines and possibly some of its surface ships with nuclear weapons ? which means terrorists who successfully fight their way into a Pakistani naval base in the future could potentially get their hands on some of the most dangerous weapons on earth. The Pakistan navy is likely to soon place nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on up to three of its five French-built diesel-electric submarines. It has also reached a deal with China to buy eight more diesel-electric attack submarines that can be equipped with nuclear weapons. These are scheduled for delivery in 2028. Even more disturbing, Pakistani military authorities say they are considering the possibility of putting nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on surface vessels like the Zulfiqar. "The new generation of nuclear submarines increases the risk of a devastating war between India and Pakistan" Pakistan says its decision to add nuclear weapons to its navy is a direct response to India?s August 2016 deployment of its first nuclear submarine, the Arihant. A second, even more advanced Indian nuclear submarine, the Arighat, began sea trials last November, and four more boats are scheduled to join the fleet by 2025. That will give India a complete ?nuclear triad,? which means the country will have the ability to deliver a nuclear strike by land-based missiles, by warplanes, and by submarines. The submarine is the key component. It?s considered the most ?survivable? in the event of a devastating first strike by an enemy, and thus able to deliver a retaliatory second strike. In the theology of nuclear deterrence, the point of this unholy trinity is to make nuclear war unwinnable and, therefore, pointless. When it comes to India and Pakistan, by contrast, the new generation of nuclear submarines could increase the risk of a devastating war between the two longstanding enemies, not make it less likely. India and Pakistan have gone to war four times since 1947, when Britain partitioned what had been a single colony into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. They have been in a state of constant hostility ever since, and for the past two decades, they have been locked in a frightening nuclear arms race on land. Pushing the contest into the Indian Ocean makes the situation even more dangerous by loosening the chain of command and control over the weapons, increasing the number of weapons, and placing them in an environment where things tend to go wrong. ?The nuclearization of the Indian Ocean has begun,? Zafar Jaspal, a nuclear security expert at Islamabad?s Quaid-i-Azam University, told me. ?Both states have now crossed the threshold.? This should be setting off alarms throughout the international community. Growing numbers of nuclear weapons will soon be deployed to submarines patrolling some of the most bitterly contested waters on earth ? and controlled by jittery and potentially paranoid officers on perpetual high alert about a surprise attack from the other side. The result is a game of nuclear chicken every bit as dangerous as the ?my button is bigger than yours? competition between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un on the Korean Peninsula. The difference here is that this one is going almost completely unnoticed. Putting nukes on submarines makes a nuclear war much more likely The modern nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine is arguably the most fearsome weapon ever conceived. The US Navy?s 18 Ohio-class boats can each carry 154 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. They can travel beneath the sea for months, virtually undetectable, and their range is limited only by the crew?s endurance and food supply. When we talk about nuclear submarines, we talk about two different, but related, things: what powers the subs, and what kinds of weapons they carry. The US, Russia, the UK, France, and China have nuclear-powered submarines that are also armed with nuclear weapons. Israel is thought to have submarines that are armed with nuclear warheads, but they?re powered by diesel-electric generators. That matters because those types of submarines, unlike the nuclear-powered ones made by America and other major world powers, are noisy ? and thus easier to track ? and can generally stay underwater for only a week or two at most. India has spent billions of dollars to join that exclusive club ? and came close to disaster. The $2.9 billion Arihant nearly sank a few months after its commissioning when a hatch was left open and seawater flooded the propulsion compartment. The embarrassing mishap, blamed on ?human error,? was hushed up by the ministry of defense. Even India?s senior political leadership was kept in the dark. The boat has been undergoing extensive repairs since last February, according to a January 8 report in the newspaper the Hindu, which was the first to report the entire saga. Meanwhile, India?s ?other? nuclear submarine, the INS Chaka ? an Akula-class submarine on loan from Russia primarily for training purposes ? is also in dry dock after an unspecified accident damaged its sensitive sonar equipment. In February, Russia sent India a $20 million bill for repairs. Pakistan, for its part, announced last year that it had successfully test-fired a submarine-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. That was a clear indication that the country wanted to start arming its submarines with nukes. It had already signaled that it was willing to put nukes on some of its surface ships. The problem is that putting nukes at sea significantly weakens the chain of command and control over the weapons, which means the risk of an accidental exchange of fire ? or full-on nuclear war ? between India and Pakistan will increase exponentially. Up until now, both Pakistan and India have implemented rigorous checks to keep their weapons safe and eliminate the possibility of inadvertent or rogue launches. In India, ultimate authority in the chain of command and control rests with the country?s civilian political leadership. In theory, Pakistan?s nuclear trigger is also in civilian hands. A body called the National Command Authority, headed by the prime minister, must authorize any decision to use nuclear weapons. But in reality, it is the military, widely regarded as the most stable and disciplined institution in the country, that controls all aspects of the country?s nuclear program. Equally important, both India and Pakistan have kept their warheads and delivery systems ?de-mated? ? that is, the nuclear warhead is stored far away from the missile that would deliver it. Or in the case of India?s bombs, the trigger or detonator is kept far from the fissile core. But at sea ? and especially when you go beneath the sea ? this is pretty much impossible. The warheads and missiles have already been assembled and stored in the same place, and individual submarine captains have significant freedom to decide whether to launch their nukes. ?The new danger for both countries is that the problem of command and control over the submarines becomes very tenuous,? said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani nuclear physicist and frequent visiting scholar at Princeton University, where we spoke last summer. ?With land-based weapons, the warhead is separated from the delivery system. You can?t do that with warheads on a submarine. When it leaves the port, it is already armed.? Hoodbhoy said that leaves military planners with two options: ?Either you do not give the arming code to the captain ? or you give it to him before he leaves the port and he can, of his own accord, launch a nuclear missile.? In submarine warfare, the glaring weak link in the chain of command has always been communication between the sub beneath the sea and the central command. Normal radio waves cannot penetrate the ocean?s depths. To communicate with a submerged submarine, very low frequency (VLF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) radio transmissions are necessary. These frequencies cannot carry voice communications, only coded messages or ? at a snail?s pace ? text messages. It?s also difficult for the subs to receive communications of any kind if they?re submerged too deeply. These communications are also strictly one-way; subs can hear what ground commanders are telling them but can?t reply or ask questions. ?Essentially the submarine is on its own,? said Hoodbhoy, adding that ?it can?t communicate back? unless it sticks an antenna above the surface and potentially reveals its location. Hiding beneath the ocean, almost impossible to detect, nuclear submarines have the great advantage of being able to survive a nuclear strike by an enemy nation and launch a devastating second-strike response. The same can?t be said for the land-based VLF transmitters that give the subs their orders. These are impossible-to-hide sitting ducks, vulnerable to enemy attack in a first strike. Knock out these installations and the submarines are operating blind. If you watch Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman fight it out in the underwater thriller Crimson Tide, you get a pretty accurate picture of how things can go south quickly in the extreme isolation of a nuclear submarine cut off from its centralized command. Pakistan and India went to the nuclear brink during a 1999 war in the disputed territory Kashmir, coming closer to pulling the trigger than even the US and Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Kashmir issue continues to roil both countries, so it?s not hard to imagine a Crimson Tide scenario in which an Indian submarine commander, aware that his country is under attack, receives an incomplete or unclear order to launch. What does he do? Here?s another scenario: India knocks out Pakistan?s only VLF transmitter in Karachi. The beleaguered commander of one of Pakistan?s diesel-electric submarines ? lost in the fog of war, unable to communicate with the National Command Authority, and under attack by one of India?s highly capable anti-submarine hunters ? launches a cruise missile. Is it armed with a conventional warhead or a nuclear warhead? Do Indian authorities wait until it hits a major population center to find out? Or do they order an immediate retaliatory attack? Experts who have modeled an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange say that once the first nuke is launched, it would be nearly impossible for either side to deescalate. That means each side would likely attempt to unleash its entire arsenal of 100 or more nuclear weapons on the other side?s population centers. The ensuing firestorm would release a cloud of radioactive ash that would darken skies, cool temperatures, and disrupt agriculture around the globe for a decade or more. Millions would die, and millions more would be faced with displacement and starvation as we enter what scientists have termed nuclear winter. In many ways, the power to start ? or prevent ? such devastation rests in the hands of individual submarine commanders. During the Cold War, US submarines had a ?two-man rule? that required a commander (Hackman?s character in Crimson Tide) and executive officer (the part played by Washington) to agree that a launch order was valid. As Cold War tensions eased, the two-man rule was replaced by a more rigorous system of checks that require the sub commander to utilize an externally provided code in order to launch. India has not said how it will maintain control of its submarines. ?There?s a lot of confusion and not much clarity on this,? said Yogesh Joshi, an analyst at Stanford University who is writing a book on India?s nuclear submarine program. ?They are acting as if this is something still in the future, something they can think about later.? The situation will become even more fraught if Pakistan follows through on its threat to arm its surface vessels with nuclear weapons. In that scenario, some ships will carry nuclear weapons and some won?t. This ambiguity creates all kinds of new pathways for mistakes, misunderstandings, miscalculations, and mischief. If a missile is launched from one of these ships, how will India know whether it is a nuke or not? ?That will lead us to Armageddon,? warned Abhijit Singh, a former Indian naval officer and current senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi think tank. The other big worry, especially with regard to Pakistan, is that nuclear weapons will somehow fall into the hands of terrorists. With Pakistan?s existing land-based arsenal, the warheads and missiles are stored separately in a series of heavily guarded secret locations. That can?t be done with ships and submarines. The weapons will have to be handled and stored at the Naval Dockyard in Karachi or at the newer Ormara facility in Balochistan. Either way, terrorists will know exactly where they have to go to get what they want. And al-Qaeda has already shown a willingness and capability to hit those facilities. Naval Station Mehran, a sprawling base in Karachi that is headquarters for the navy?s air fleet, is adjacent to the Pakistan air force?s giant Faisal base, a likely repository of nuclear components. In 2011, a team of 15 to 20 heavily armed militants breached the security perimeter at Mehran, made their way to the heart of the base, and destroyed two P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft. Pakistani commandos and security personnel spent nearly 18 hours fighting to retake the base, and at least 13 of them died in the effort. The Pakistani Taliban initially claimed responsibility, but later there were credible suggestions that al-Qaeda may have carried out the attack. Either way, the ease with which the attackers entered the base ? and their focus on destroying the most valuable military assets ? suggested they had inside help. When the Mehran base came under attack, both Pakistan and India immediately put their nuclear assets on high alert because of its proximity to one of Pakistan?s key nuclear stockpiles. The incident left both sides uneasy about the security of their most destructive weapons. ?The Pakistan navy was always known to be a highly professional force. Now all of that seems to have changed,? Singh, the former Indian naval officer, told me. ?The systemic infiltration of the navy by these radicalized elements is shocking to us,? Although these incidents are cause for alarm, most experts agree that Pakistan has done a good job safeguarding its nuclear weapons. Protecting the nukes ? from India, from homegrown terrorists, and from the US military, which has spent millions of dollars helping Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal but still remains a suspect ally ? is Pakistan?s highest priority. The supervision of the nation?s nuclear arsenal is managed by an elite agency within the military called the Strategic Plans Division. Rising above the morass of Pakistan?s domestic politics, the SPD projects an image of calm professionalism. In Islamabad, I met with Brig. Gen. Zahir Kazmi, director of the SPD?s arms control and disarmament branch, who made the case that Pakistan ?is very much alive? to the dangers of managing nuclear weapons at sea. ?We are confident but not complacent,? he said. Kazmi recognized the responsibility of safeguarding the weapons in the face of a challenging domestic security environment but bristled at any suggestion from an American that Pakistan?s military might not be up to the task of protecting its most important assets. ?Managing nuclear safety and security is not a white man?s burden only,? he said. ?Pakistan is managing its responsibilities quite well. There is a deliberate tendency to forget that Pakistan?s record is as good, if not better, than that of the US.? America?s role in the growing numbers of nukes in the Indian Ocean has been one of muddled ambiguity. In 2008, the US signed a commercial agreement that allows India to share in most of the benefits of the Nuclear Suppliers Group even though India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This bending of the rules allows India to import uranium for civilian energy projects, freeing up domestic capacity for production of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) needed to fuel the reactors on its new submarines. Last summer, the US signaled a sharper tilt toward India by conducting joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean with India and Japan. This was meant as a warning to China, with its growing ambitions in the Indian Ocean, but it did little to calm anxieties in Pakistan. Meanwhile, in his very first tweet of 2018, President Trump abruptly and unexpectedly cut off military aid to Islamabad. ?The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit,? Trump tweeted on New Year?s Day. ?They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No More!? Aside from the oddity of conducting foreign policy via Twitter, the public scolding was taken in Islamabad as a humiliating insult, further complicating ties with an admittedly difficult but necessary US ally in Washington?s never-ending ?war on terror.? The cold war between India and Pakistan seems to be heating up As the Indian Ocean arms race accelerates, both India and Pakistan are rethinking when and how they might take the nightmare step of launching the doomsday weapons at each other. Their nuclear rivalry goes back to May 1998, when both countries shocked the world with a series of nuclear tests. Five years later, India declared its ?no first use? doctrine. India?s political leadership has made clear that it views nukes as political weapons ? a way to project global power and perhaps win a seat on the United Nations Security Council ? not as war-fighting weapons. India?s military, however, has been frustrated by Pakistan?s tactic of allowing terror groups to fight a low-grade proxy war against India. Pakistan calculates that it can use this tactic to hurt India without fear of retaliation because India would be afraid of provoking a nuclear response. The 2001 attack on India?s parliament building and the 2008 Mumbai attack are the most notorious examples of this. Both were carried out by Pakistan-based militants with well-established links to Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the military?s powerful spy agency. Terrorism is the classic underdog?s tactic. Pakistan is clearly the underdog in any nonnuclear matchup with India, but it is certainly the world?s first nuclear-armed underdog to successfully apply the tactic against a nuclear rival. Infuriated by what it sees as a kind of blackmail, India?s military is looking to develop strategies in which it could apply its superior conventional force to punish Pakistan without provoking a nuclear response. Pakistan, meanwhile, has tweaked its nuclear doctrine from ?credible minimum deterrence? to something it calls ?full spectrum deterrence,? which apparently countenances the use of low-yield tactical battlefield nuclear weapons on its own territory in the event of an Indian incursion ? another unsettling first in the annals of nuclear deterrence. During the Cold War, the dynamic that drove the US-Soviet arms race was MAD ? mutually assured destruction ? which saw both sides accumulate vast arsenals with tens of thousands of warheads. The logic was that each side possessed such overwhelming destructive power that neither would ever dare use it. Both sides understood that a nuclear war would be unwinnable and, therefore, unthinkable. A reverse ? and equally perverse ? dynamic propels the India-Pakistan rivalry. As India searches for ways to use its overwhelming conventional military advantage, a nervous Pakistan is forced to keep lowering the threshold for nuclear retaliation. As a result, there have been recent signals that India is rethinking or reinterpreting its no-first-use doctrine. A 2016 book by Shivshankar Menon, a respected national security adviser in the previous government, caused a stir by declaring ?a potential grey area as to when India would use nuclear weapons first.? Menon suggested India would be prepared to order a preemptive strike if it appeared Pakistan was about to use its nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party floated a similar idea in 2014, urging a more flexible nuclear doctrine to deal with Pakistan. And while Modi himself says he remains committed to no first use, his previous defense minister, Manohar Parrikar, argued that India needed a less restrictive nuclear doctrine. If nothing else, Indian generals are speaking much more aggressively since they completed the full nuclear triad, which gives them an assured way of hitting Pakistan even if India has been hit by a nuclear attack. In January, Gen. Bipin Rawat, the army?s new chief of staff, declared that India was prepared to test Pakistan?s threat to use nuclear weapons if a new war broke out. ?We will call their bluff,? Rawat said. ?If given the task, we will not say we cannot cross the border because they have nuclear weapons.? And that?s why this all matters so much for the two countries and their hundreds of millions of citizens ? and the world as a whole. India and Pakistan are mortal enemies that have dozens of nuclear warheads aimed at each other. That was scary when those nukes were only on land. It?s a much scarier situation now that those nukes have been put onto submarines that move deep underwater, holding the deadliest payloads imaginable. Tom Hundley is a senior editor at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. ======================================== 9. IAF TO LAUNCH WAR GAMES TO HONE FIGHTING SKILLS ON PAKISTAN, CHINA FRONTS Rajat Pandit | TNN | April 6, 2018 ======================================== https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/iaf-to-launch-wargames-to-hone-fighting-skills-on-pakistan-china-fronts/articleshow/63647191.cms ======================================== 10. DATA EXPOSES WHAT INDIA & PAKISTAN DON?T REVEAL ABOUT THE CONSTANT ?CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS? Happymon Jacob ======================================== The Print 3 April, 2018 On the ground, there is no commonly-agreed rule among the Indian and Pakistani armies and the BSF and Pakistan Rangers for counting ceasefire violations. The border between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has been the scene of unrelenting firing for more than a year now ? in the first two months of this year alone, India has reported 633 ceasefire violations (CFVs) and Pakistan around 400. This follows the trend of violence set in 2017 which was the bloodiest year since the ceasefire agreement (CFA) came into effect in 2003. Ceasefire violations along the India-Pakistan border in J&K have been a major cause of political, military and diplomatic escalation between the two rivals over the past several years. And yet research on what triggers CFVs is extremely limited, and consequently ill-informed propaganda is often passed off as reasoned analysis. Official and non-official reports published in India and Pakistan routinely blame each other for initiating and sustaining CFVs that violate the 2003 CFA between the two armies. A closer look at the causes of CFVs, when and where they take place, however, offers a much more nuanced and often counter-intuitive understanding of the causes of CFVs. Data available on Indo-Pak Conflict Monitor, a recently-launched online archive, which analyses official and non-official CFV data from India and Pakistan for the past 16 years, help demythify several deeply-entrenched popular notions around ceasefire violations and their causes. Understanding CFVs It is important to understand certain basic facts in order to appreciate the complexity involved in explaining ceasefire violations. First of all, the ceasefire agreement of 2003 was not a written down agreement signed by the two countries. Unlike the previous ceasefires of 1948, 1965 and 1972, all of which were also war-termination agreements, the 2003 CFA came at the end of a particularly tense period between India and Pakistan. Negotiated through the back channel by the RAW and ISI chiefs in mid-2003, the telephone conversation between the two DGMOs on 23 November became the basis of a ceasefire. Note that there were no agreed principles or norms associated with the agreement as it was a mere phone conversation that ended the firing. For reference, India in 2002 had reported 4,134 ceasefire violations which came down to just four in 2004, thanks to the ceasefire agreement. Secondly, there is no clarity with regard to how CFVs are counted. On the ground, there is no commonly-agreed rule among the Indian and Pakistani armies and the BSF and Pakistan Rangers for counting CFVs. In general, a violation usually does not consist of one shot. One CFV might be thousands of shots fired by a range of weapons from personal firearms to heavy artillery across multiple areas within a period of 24 hours in reaction to an initial violation. Speculative firing that soldiers undertake for a variety of reasons is not counted as a violation. Firing on one?s own side is also not counted as a CFV. Moreover, stray firing without effect often doesn?t get counted. We must also note that not all CFVs are reported to the top rungs of the government on either side or, sometimes, even up the chain of command of the force manning the border. Reporting depends on a variety of factors, including whether it might be advantageous to those patrolling the border ? whether Pakistani or Indian ? to play up or play down violations in a particular area. Lot of subjectivity goes into counting CFVs ? local level decision on what should be counted as a CFV. What then emerges is a complicated picture on what constitutes a CFV. The perfect symmetry of CFVs Contrary to popular perceptions in either country, both the Indian and Pakistani sides violate the ceasefire agreement. As a matter of fact, the sequence of violations over the past 16 odd years indicates precisely that. More importantly, CFVs initiated by one side are usually responded to by the other side using roughly the same calibre, creating a near perfect symmetry of violations between the two sides (see graph). During 2017, however, there was a clear increase in the firing from the Indian side indicating a strategy of disproportionate bombardment from the Indian side. Data for the past two months indicate that Pakistan has fired more than the Indian side. Moreover, in the past fortnight since the 19 March, Indian forces have desisted from firing back in response to Pakistani firing. Demythifying CFVs What causes ceasefire violations? Indian side offers a uni-causal explanation: ceasefire is violated by the Pakistani side to provide covering fire to terrorists infiltrating into the Indian side of J&K. Pakistan, on the other hand, blames India of engaging in unprovoked firing targeted at the former?s civilian population. However, an analysis of the CFV data for the past 16 years shows that such violations have multiple causes which are not understood properly. These include: construction, repair or enhancement of defence works on either side of the dividing line by the respective forces; lack of proper mechanisms to regulate the crossing of civilians from one side to the other; occasional lack of territorial clarity as to which piece of land falls on whose side which arises due to an absence of proper territorial demarcation of the LoC, and; reaction to political and diplomatic developments on either side. In short, what this means is that several little-known local level military factors often trigger CFVs that could last for days. Such tension on the LoC in Kashmir and IB in Jammu may not have been sanctioned by the military or political higher-ups in India or Pakistan. Data gathered by the monitor also tells us the locations where most CVFs take place. The areas most affected by ceasefire violations on the Indian side are Poonch and Jammu, followed by Samba and Rajouri. On the Pakistani side, Sialkot, Rawalakot, and Kotli have reported high incidence of CFVs. These locations essentially face each other across the international border and LoC. How to limit CFVs? Several measures can be taken by the two sides to control CFVs. For one, the 2003 CFA should be written down clarifying the principles, norms, dos and don?ts that are required to sustain the CFA. Second, the two sides should consider finalising the ground rules agreement of 1961 to manage the International Border in the Jammu sector. Third, provide for regular biannual meetings of DGMOs. Frequency of structured flag meetings between local commanders should also be increased. Finally, it would be useful to jointly identify sensitive sectors so that the specific related issues can be understood and resolved at senior levels. (Happymon Jacob is an associate professor of disarmament studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and curates an online archive on the India-Pakistan conflict, Indo-Pak Conflict Monitor) ======================================== 11. INDIA THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY by Latha Jishnu ======================================== Dawn 2 April 2018 https://www.dawn.com/news/1399078/india-through-the-glass-darkly MAHATMA Gandhi, revered as the father of the nation for helping to free India from the British, has made a sudden exit from history. Millions of schoolchildren will never know what happened to Gandhi after independence since new textbooks have carefully scrubbed out any reference to his assassination by a militant Hindu who was once a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the mothership of Hindu nationalism. That Gandhi fell to bullets pumped into him by a right-wing Hindu killer is being hidden from a new generation as the Hindu right turns myths and an imagined past into a new history of India tailored to meet political ends. History has always been a contested arena in India, where the past has been interpreted through the ideological lens of the left and the rest, but never before have outright lies been peddled as facts. Indoctrination to turn out a nationalist generation, that is, children who will believe that the past was one of unrivalled Hindu supremacy in all fields, from science to war, is in full swing in the states where the BJP, the RSS?s political offspring, is in power. And here, history is being turned completely on its head. In Rajasthan, textbooks proclaims that Mughal Emperor Akbar lost the famous Battle of Haldighatti to Rana Pratap, the ruler of Mewar, in 1576, while students in the rest of India are taught that Rana Pratap lost to the Mughal forces led by Raja Man Singh, a fellow Rajput. In Madhya Pradesh, another BJP-ruled state, children are being taught a whopper: that India won the 1962 war against China, although we came off badly in the confrontation. But for the Hindu right wing, the ressentiment over the defeat continues to colour India?s relations with its large neighbour. The falsification of history is not the only danger the young ? and the old ? are going through. The falsification of history, though, is not the only danger the young ? and the old ? are going through. The belittling of science is an even greater threat as India slips further into obscurantism under a regime that glorifies myths as evidence of scientific prowess. Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s claim at the Indian Science Congress early into his tenure that the elephant-headed god Ganesha was proof that India was skilled in plastic surgery in ancient times has been roundly criticised; Indians have learned to live down that embarrassment. But his breathtaking audacity in denying climate change during a nationally televised programme for schoolchildren has left everyone dumbstruck and provided little solace that the country can deal with one of the gravest challenges confronting it. When a schoolgirl asked how India could protect the environment, the prime minister was dismissive. Climate has not changed but people have changed and destroyed the environment. For good measure he added that the elders often complain that it is colder only because their tolerance level has dipped and not because of climate change. India has come a very long way from Nehru?s ideal of building a rational society by fostering the scientific temper in the people. The BJP loses no opportunity to belittle and abuse its first prime minister and the new textbooks have practically erased Nehru even though the foundation for the country?s modern secular state and its scientific prowess in everything from space technology to software was laid during his time. What the BJP provides is never-ending embarrassment that makes India look ridiculous. Most recently there was more humiliation as the country?s education minister cla?i?med that Darwin?s theory of evolution is ?scientifically wrong? since no one has seen ?an ape turning into a man?. And soon after Stephen Hawking?s death, the science and technology minister Harsh Var?dhan claimed that the renowned physicist and cosmologist had said that the Vedas have a theory that is superior to Albert Einstein?s e=mc2 theory of relativity. The contempt for proven scientific knowledge, coupled with the saffron brigade?s campaign to promote a dubious ?swadeshi science? that aims to combine ?Bharatiya heritage with a harmonious synthesis of physical and spiritual sciences?, augurs ill for the country. So the ministerial prescription for agricultural distress is yogic farming (yoga by farmers for ?vibrations of peace, love and divinity to seeds and land?) or havans, the ritual burning of ghee and firewood to bring rains! Juxtapose this with what is happening on the political front. As religious bigotry and old hatreds are stoked across the most backward stretches of northern India and fomented in opposition states, communal clashes and horrific caste violence are ripping apart the fragile social fabric of a country that is confronting a demographic nightmare. India is an extraordinarily young country. Half of its population of 1.3 billion is under the age of 25, and two-thirds are less than 35. By 2027, all of this will add up to a staggering workforce of a billion people, the largest in the world. How is India going to cope with such a vast sea of humanity looking for jobs, the legion which has neither the education nor the skills to be productive workers? Steeped in the mediaevalism of the times and with nothing going for them, how will this generation transform India into a superpower that its rulers claim it will soon be? Caught up in its agenda of creating a Hindu nation and faulty economic policies, the government has quietly jettisoned its plans to provide skills to 500 million young people by 2022, having trained less than a fraction so far. The BJP, it appears, has more important tasks at hand. The biggest chunk of the young are in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh where a priest runs the state and is hell-bent on creating communal tensions. He does not even pretend to have a development agenda and is used by the ruling party to drum up support for Hindutva across India. The other sizable mass is in Bihar which is now notorious for frequent communal flare-ups and not much else. What India needs is the miracle of quality education, specialised skills and a host of openings in factories and offices for millions. Will havans and deep breathing do the trick? The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 12. INDIA: ARTICLE 370 HAS ACQUIRED PERMANENT STATUS - SUPREME COURT Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN | Apr 4, 2018 ======================================== NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said Article 370 of the Constitution, conferring special status on Jammu and Kashmir and limiting the Central government's power to make laws for the state, had acquired permanent status through years of existence, making its abrogation impossible. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/article-370-has-acquired-permanent-status-supreme-court/articleshow/63603527.cms ======================================== 13. INDIA?S POLITICAL CLASS HAS FAILED TO REALISE THE GRAVITY OF THE EMPLOYMENT CRISIS Editorial, Hindustan Times ======================================== Hindustan Times April 03, 2018 editorial Our education system, barring a few exceptions, has failed to impart the skills to India?s young job-seekers to even compete for high-skill and better paying jobs in the private sector. Twenty-five million people have applied for 90,000 blue collar jobs recently advertised by Indian Railways. This statistic captures the fundamental divide in the Indian economy. All talk of young Indians being engaged in the knowledge-based digital economy and creating potential unicorns is valid only for a minuscule minority. An overwhelming majority is desperately looking for government jobs, even if it involves daily drudgery. The preference for government jobs has traditionally come from three reasons. Interestingly, two of these are rapidly becoming less relevant. One, the majority of jobs with secure incomes and social security are still in the public sector. The latest data (for 2011-12) from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy puts this figure at 60%. Two, the reservation policy gives a better chance of landing these jobs to almost half of India?s population, those belonging the scheduled castes and tribes and other backward classes. The public sector is not going to be generating enough jobs to meet India?s employment challenge. And in many states, cut-offs in reserved categories are already on a par with or even above the scores for unreserved seats. The third reason is still valid. A large number of public sector jobs do not require any special skill. A person just needs the minimum educational qualification to apply for these jobs. The third reason is the biggest threat to India?s demographic dividend. Our education system, barring a few exceptions, has failed to impart the skills to India?s job-seekers to even compete for skill and better paying jobs in the private sector. India?s political class has failed to realise the gravity of the problem. This government?s political detractors accuse it of derailing employment growth due to its policies. The government says it is fostering entrepreneurship as a way to create jobs. It is disappointing that the fundamental challenge described above is not even being discussed. 2014 was no ordinary mandate in India?s political history. Does young India think not enough has been done with it? We will know a year from now. ======================================== 14. NOT MEI LIN?S REPUBLIC A sweeping novel reaches back to an early Chinese worker in Assam, and tells the story of his hapless descendant and his kinsmen during the 1962 War Bindu Menon ======================================== Outlook Magazine 09 April 2018 ? Books Review Chinatown Days By Rita Chowdhury Pan Macmillan | Pages: 400 | Rs. 599 In 1962, the ?Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai? construct was splintered by the Sino-?Indian border conflict, sowing seeds of mistrust between the two neighbours. The war is remembered in many ways: as betrayal, as blunder, as political turning point, and as a continuing irritant in ties bet?ween the two nations. But what rem?ains a blip in memory is the tragic upheavals faced by the Chinese community in India. Thousands of Chinese settlers were forced to leave their homes overnight following a frenzy of anti-China sentiment and bundled off by train to a large internment camp in Rajasthan?s Deoli. Families were torn apart, properties confiscated, business establishments looted, livelihoods lost and the ethnic conclaves called Chinatowns reduced to ghost towns. Advertisement opens in new window Rita Chowdhury?s Chinatown Days, an English translation of her acclaimed Ass??amese work Makam, brings to life this shameful chapter. The novel wea?ves in mul?tiple strands of narratives, histories and timelines to bring a heart-rending tale of the disruptions faced by the Ass?a?mese-Chinese settlers of the town of Makum. The novel opens with Arunabh Bora, an Assamese novelist, recalling his meeting with an angry Chinese writer, Lailin Tham, in Canada. Lailin?s hatred for India and Indians unlocks the ?doors of an unimaginable past?. That past is revealed to be Makum, with its tea gardens and a large community of mixed Assamese-Chinese descent who inhabit the Cheena?patti (Chinatown). Early Chinese imm??i??grants who worked in the tea estates had married local women and spawned a community that assimilated both cultures. Chowdhury gives us more than a glimpse of Makum?s idyllic life, through the Chinese New Year celebrations, the shy courtship of two young lovers, Mei Lin and Pulok Baruah, football matches and inter-community weddings. Until gun??fire from across the border changes it all one October dawn of 1962. The Ass?am?ese-Chinese are branded as enemies. Their thriving businesses suffer, they are ostracised and rounded up as PoWs. The viciousness of war doesn?t even spare newlyweds Pulok and Mei Lin, despite their love holding out against the envelop?ing darkness of hate. Mei Lin is torn away from Pulok and forced into the ?Enemy Train? to the faraway detention camp. Advertisement opens in new window The community, which believed their ?destinies were mixed with the soil of Assam?, finds itself banished to the deserts of Rajasthan. But worse is to follow. Many, including a pregnant Mei Lin, are deported to China, where they again become outcasts. Forced into hard labour in Maoist China, they are despised by the locals, who see them as enemies and usurpers of land. The refugees, who were better off in India, learn to live on meagre rations and Communist indoctrination. Many Indian-Chinese were rounded off and sent off to the internment camp in Deora, Rajasthan. Cruelly, some were deported to China, where they faced severe ostracism. Chowdhury has given us a vast canvas, spanning almost two centuries and peopled by an array of characters. Mei Lin?s ancestry is traced to Ho Han, one of the first Chinese immigrants brought to Upper Assam, when dense forests were making way for tea plantations. It was also the time when the British were looking to supplant Chinese mon?opoly over tea to satiate its national obs?ession for the beverage. In the early 1820s, a Scottish explorer and trader, Robert Bruce, discovered that a plant in the upper reaches of Assam produced a brew similar to tea. But it wasn?t until over a decade later that his brother Charles, an East India Company official, introduced Assam tea to the West. This changed the course of tea trade. As tea gardens mushroomed in the Northeast, Chinese junks ferried skilled labourers from the Canton region. Advertisement opens in new window Ho Han, Mei Lin?s great grandfather, came as one and made India his home. Chowdhury captures the horrors of the slave trade through the life of Ho Han, who is sold first as a four-year-old by his impoverished father in famine-ridden China and then shipped again along with other slaves to work in the many colonies of the British Empire. This tale of enduring migration is shared through private, fragmented mem?ories of people who Chowdhury met. Her extensive research is evident, as she details the run-up to the war, the vacillating political climate, and the anxieties of a community, viewed merely as collateral damage by the state. The futility of war is echoed by Arunabh as he reads out from his novel within the novel: ?The Sino-Indian war is just a chapter of history. But there remains a wound that will never heal.... There rem?ains a multitude of rootless people who will carry with them a legacy of loss to the end of time....? Amid the bleakness, Ho Han and Mei Lin stand out, with their quiet fortitude and optimism, epitomising the Ernest Heming?way code of the hero. Of grace under pressure. ======================================== 15. CHINA?S COMMUNIST PARTY IS ABANDONING WORKERS by Harvey Thomlinson ======================================== The New York Times April 2, 2018 HONG KONG ? China is a sea of labor unrest. During the first 10 weeks of this year there were more than 400 publicly reported strikes, more than double the number during the comparable period last year. President Xi Jinping?s government has responded with a firm hand: Labor activists are being arrested and assaulted simply for demanding their wages. As China?s rate of economic growth has slowed over the past few years, China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based organization, tracked a surge in reported strikes ? most likely a small measure of all the actual strikes ? from fewer than 200 in 2011 to 1,256 in 2017. Government data indicates a 38 percent increase in the number of labor dispute cases heard by Chinese courts, from 589,244 in 2011 to 813,589 in 2015. Mirroring the recent trend of manufacturing moving from the coasts to the middle of the country, the most labor strife this year appears to be happening in central provinces such as Henan, Jiangsu and Anhui. And the unrest isn?t affecting only traditional industries like manufacturing. White-collar workers and new-economy industries like e-commerce and green tech are also dealing with labor struggles. In January, hundreds of teachers from all over China assembled in Beijing to bring attention to missing pensions and other perks. Last month, workers at a solar power factory in Guizhou Province staged a sit-in, and poorly paid taxi-app drivers protested in Shandong and Guangxi. Medical staff in Hebei demonstrated in February over unequal pay and the nonpayment of social insurance. Labor activists are also organizing online. In Spring 2016, the Walmart Chinese Workers? Association, an independent group of China employees of the retailer, opposed a change that would have permitted Walmart to schedule long shifts for workers without paying them overtime. The activists used the popular WeChat messaging service to organize strikes that forced their employer to retract the new policy. The government?s default approach to labor disputes has been to treat them as a threat to law and order. After a widely reported miners? strike in the northeastern city of Shuangyashan in 2016, for example, the Public Security Bureau arrested 30 people for what it called serious criminal charges. Miners in Hebei and construction workers in Hubei were beaten last month just for protesting to get their wages. In Guangdong Province, activists like Meng Han of the Panyu Migrant Workers Center, a now dissolved grass-roots group that helped local workers with collective bargaining, have been jailed. The fact is that in most strikes Chinese workers are demanding only to be paid wages and benefits that are owed to them, and for their legal right to collective bargaining. Still, why are strikes on the rise? The slowing economy has squeezed manufacturers and service-oriented companies. Many owners have responded by simply not paying workers. Many companies close shop overnight, surprising workers with the closure and the news that they won?t be paid wages that are owed to them. Meanwhile, it appears that workers are becoming more aware of their legal rights to demand pay and benefits. The 2008 China Labor Contract Law, successor to the 1995 China Labor Law, codifies wide-ranging protections for Chinese workers, including the right to collectively bargain. The law was drafted to help raise living standards but has always been unpopular with big business and its political friends. Yet in 2015 President Xi Jinping urged the sole official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, to come up with a plan to improve workplace representation. Experts say that five million to six million workers could lose their jobs in the coming years as the economy continues modernizing. If history is any guide, the result of the job losses is likely to be more unrest. And a government that denies hard-pressed workers a legitimate channel to express their grievances is inviting trouble. As strikes continue, workers broaden their demands and are driven to more extreme measures. By ensuring that workers can use their legal right to collective bargaining, the government could help families to share more of the rewards of growth and give a boost to the rebalancing of the economy. This was the story of America?s postwar boom years, when strong unions helped to expand the middle class. The Communist Party should fully embrace its historical claim to representing workers. By enforcing legal protections the party may find that higher household incomes are a solution to slower growth as well as to the country?s more serious ills of unfairness and inequality. Harvey Thomlinson is the author of the novel ?The Strike.? A version of this article appears in print on April 3, 2018 in The International New York Times ======================================== 16. WHILE FACEBOOK FACES THE MUSIC, MAYBE IT IS TIME TO #DELETEWHATSAPP It is time to hold all the social media companies accountable for their massive breaches of our privacy Vivek Wadhwa ======================================== Hindustan Times April 04, 2018 WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton expressed outrage at Facebook?s privacy policies by tweeting: ?It is time. #deletefacebook?.(Reuters File Photo) WhatsApp differentiates itself from Facebook by touting its end-to-end encryption. ?Some of your most personal moments are shared with WhatsApp?, it says, so ?your messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, and calls are secured from falling into the wrong hands?. A WhatsApp founder recently expressed outrage at Facebook?s privacy policies by tweeting ?It is time. #deletefacebook?. But WhatsApp may need to look in the mirror. Its members may not be aware that when using WhatsApp?s ?group chat? feature, they are susceptible to the same type of data harvesting and profiling that Cambridge Analytica employed on Facebook. WhatsApp goes further, making available mobile phone numbers, which can be used to accurately identify and locate group members. WhatsApp groups are designed to enable discussions between family and friends. Businesses also use them to provide information and support. The originators of groups can add contacts from their phones or create links enabling anyone to opt in. These groups, which can be found through web searches, discuss topics as diverse as agriculture, politics, pornography, sports, and technology. Researchers in Europe demonstrated that any tech-savvy person can obtain treasure troves of data from WhatsApp groups by using nothing more than an old Samsung smartphone running scripts and off-the-shelf applications. Kiran Garimella, of ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, in Switzerland sent me a draft of a paper he co-authored with Gareth Tyson, of Queen Mary University, UK, titled ?WhatsApp, doc? A first look at WhatsApp public group data?. It details how they were able to obtain data from nearly half a million messages exchanged between 45,754 WhatsApp users in 178 public groups over a six-month period, including their mobile numbers and the images, videos, and web links that they had shared. The groups had titles such as ?funny?, ?love vs. life?, ?XXX?, ?nude?, and ?box of?ce movies?, as well as the names of political parties and sports teams. The researchers obtained lists of public WhatsApp groups through web searches and used a browser automation tool to join a few of the roughly 2,000 groups they found?a process requiring little human intervention and easily applicable to a larger set of groups. Their smartphones began to receive large streams of messages, which WhatsApp stored in a local database. The data is encrypted, but the cipher key is stored inside the RAM of the mobile device itself. This allowed the researchers to decrypt the data using a technique developed by Indian researchers, LP Gudipaty and KY Jhala. It was no harder than using a key hidden atop a door to enter a home. The researchers? goal was to determine how WhatsApp could be used for social science research. They plan to make their dataset and tools publicly available after they anonymise the data. Their intentions are good, but their paper has exposed the flaws of the application, and how easily marketers, hackers, and governments can take advantage of the WhatsApp platform. Indeed, The New York Times recently published a story on the Chinese government?s detention of human rights activist, Zhang Guanghong, after monitoring a WhatsApp group of Guanghong?s friends, with whom he had shared an article that criticised China?s president. The Times speculated that the government had hacked his phone or had a spy in his group chat; but gathering such information is easy for anyone with a group hyperlink. This is not the only fly in the WhatsApp ointment that this year has revealed. Wired reported that researchers from Ruhr-University Bochum, in Germany, found a series of flaws in encrypted messaging applications that enable anyone who controls a WhatsApp server to ?effortlessly insert new people into an otherwise private group, even without the permission of the administrator who ostensibly controls access to that conversation?. Gaining access to a computer server requires sophisticated hacking skills or the type of access that only governments can gain. But as Wired wrote, ?the premise of so-called end-to-end encryption has always been that even a compromised server shouldn?t expose secrets?. Researcher Paul R?sler has said: ?The confidentiality of the group is broken as soon as the uninvited member can obtain all the new messages and read them? If I hear there?s end-to-end encryption for both groups and two-party communications, that means adding of new members should be protected against. And if not, the value of encryption is very little?. WhatsApp also announced in 2016 that it would be sharing user data, including phone numbers, with Facebook. In an exchange of emails, the company told me that it does not track location within a country and does not share contacts or messages, which are encrypted, with Facebook. But it did confirm that it shares phone numbers, device identifiers, operating system information, control choices, and usage information with the ?Facebook family of companies?. That leaves open the question as to whether Facebook could then track those users in greater detail even if WhatsApp doesn?t. Facebook and its ?family of companies? are being much too casual about privacy, as we have seen from the Cambridge Analytica revelations, harming freedom and democracy. It is time to hold them all accountable for their massive breaches of our privacy. This is the first in a series of articles on data privacy Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University at Silicon Valley and author of The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future ======================================== 17. THE ISIS FILES by Rukmini Callimachi Photographs by Ivor Prickett ======================================== We unearthed thousands of internal documents that help explain how the Islamic State stayed in power so long. On five trips to battle-scarred Iraq, journalists for The New York Times scoured old Islamic State offices, gathering thousands of files abandoned by the militants as their ?caliphate? crumbled. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/04/world/middleeast/isis-documents-mosul-iraq.html ======================================== 18. ON JEJU, KOREA?S ISLAND OF GHOSTS, THE DEAD FINALLY FIND A VOICE by Andrew Salmon ======================================== Asia Times, 3 April 2018 70 years ago, an estimated 30,000 people were massacred in an anti-communist blitz on today's vacation island of Jeju. Now, fingers point at America Go Wan-soon won?t forget the day the soldiers came. Then seven years old, she was sitting in her home in the seaside village of Bukchon when troops burst in. Go, her mother and three-year-old brother were herded outside at bayonet point. Houses were going up in flames. They were dragged to the yard of the elementary school, which was ringed by soldiers. ?It was crowded, full of people,? she recalled. ?I thought, ?Why so many? What is it??? Many people, she noticed, were holding hands. Fearfully, Go sat behind a low wall. When her little brother wailed, a soldier smashed him over the head with a stick. ?He went very silent.? Then Go heard the ripping sound of automatic gunfire. People toppled to the ground. She ?crawled like an ant? through a nightmare. ?I saw a bloody leg, I saw a baby on top of a mother?s breast, looking for milk, but the mother was already dead,? she said. ?Heads were separated, all the bodies were mixed together, the soil was dark with blood ? it shone in the sun.? Go sheltered in a narrow street. ?All the houses were burning, ashes were flying around,? she said. An old woman sat in front of her blazing home, her hair on fire. Soldiers appeared. Go heard the click of rifle bolts, then a jeep pulled up. A voice ordered, ?Cease fire!? The troops departed. The village had been attacked in revenge for the death of two soldiers, killed nearby in an ambush by partisans. In the smoldering ruins, ?bodies lay scattered like radishes in a field,? Go said. Among the dead lay her aunt, breasts and belly ripped open by bayonets. She was instructed to cover cadavers with blankets ?so crows would not peck out their eyes.? Go, now 77, paused in her account. ?When I remember, it breaks my heart.? Survivor Go Wan-soon stands in front of the memorial to the dead children of Bukchon village. Photo: Asia Times /Andrew Salmon In the months that followed, there were more traumas. Her uncle ?disappeared? ? she heard soldiers had tied rocks to his body and hurled him into the sea. Her little brother died from the after-effects of his head wound. Go almost died of starvation in the ruins. And at night, she heard of spectral encounters. ?People said they saw a white skirt, a white top ? there were ghosts,? she said. ?I could not go to some places, I was so scared.? Bukchon was, in fact, just a small part of a much wider tragedy. Goh is one of the last witnesses to what Koreans today call ?Sa-Sam? (literally ?4:3? or April 3rd), the biggest ? but probably least known ? massacre in recent Korean history. Up to 30,000 people were killed on Jeju Island amid a murderous counter-insurgency campaign in 1948-49, prior to the Korean War, which started in June 1950. Black secrets of a sunlit paradise This gruesome history is not known by most of the millions of Chinese who visit Jeju (also spelled Cheju), 80 kilometers off South Korea?s south coast, with visa-free access, or the South Korean honeymooners who flock here. Dubbed ?the Hawaii of Korea,? Jeju is famed for its sparkling water, women divers and picturesque dormant volcano, Mount Halla. It welcomes visitors with brochures advertising mazes, a dinosaur theme park, a ?Hello Kitty? museum ? even a museum of eroticism. Few visitors are aware that Jeju International Airport?s runway was paved over a mass grave. Visitors to Jeju Island may be shocked to learn that the runway at the international airport paves over mass graves. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon Today, President Moon Jae-in spoke at a ceremony on the island to mark the 70th anniversary of the uprising, the massacre, and the decades-long cover-up. ?Despite the lingering tragedy and deep sorrows that have led to tears, spring will blossom here in Jeju like late blossoms in full bloom,? he told a crowd of thousands. ?You have not forgotten the incident? we are overcoming the time of silence.? A message of reconciliation from Pope Francis was also read out. 4000 gravestones to the missing of the Jeju massacre stand at the April 3 Peace Park. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon ?Red hunt? In 1945, Korea was divided by the USA and the USSR following the defeat of Imperial Japan. In the South, UN-mandated elections were scheduled for May 1948 against considerable opposition; both Labor Party leftists and some nationalists resisted on the grounds that elections would reinforce division. In a demonstration in Jeju on March 1, a child was trampled by police and six demonstrators shot. A general strike spurred hundreds of arrests. On April 3, 1948 ? the date from which the subsequent conflagration takes its name ? 500 to 700 partisans attacked police outposts island-wide. Some had ties to North Korea; others were aggrieved at local misgovernance. So significant are the day?s events that in ?The War for Korea, 1945-50? (2005, University of Kansas Press) US military historian Allan Millett considers 4:3 the start of the Korean War. The conventional date, however, is 25 June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. In response, Seoul deployed police, troops and ? most notoriously ? the ?Northwest Youth Corps,? a paramilitary manned by fanatical Christians who had been forced to flee North Korea. Adding to the distrust, some troops deserted and joined partisans in the hills. With the line between combatants and non-combatants blurred, a ?Red hunt? was unleashed across Jeju?s 700 square miles. The population was herded into coastal villages protected by militias with bamboo spears; Jeju?s rugged interior became a free-fire zone. On this killing ground, subject to scorched-earth tactics, people hid from sweeps in volcanic caves and tunnels. There, in claustrophobic blackness, they were hunted by troops using thermite grenades. Villages were razed. Bloodied bodies of dead partisans were displayed in public. Many of those captured were shipped to mainland prisons, never to return. Only in the campaign?s final stages were amnesties offered and aid distributed. Seoul declared victory in April 1949, but there were more killings ahead. Hundreds of leftists were shot in 1950 in the early stage of the Korean War, in ?preventative execution.? Jeju officials today estimate a total butcher?s bill of 25-30,000 dead ? 10% of the island?s population, a fifth of them women. A guide stands in front of a pit where leftists were executed during the early stage of the Korean War. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon Cover-up, remembrance and reconciliation Members of the Northwest Youth Group settled on Jeju, establishing churches and communities; some became senior figures in the police and politics. And under military governments in Seoul, what happened on the ?Red Island? was suppressed for decades. A memorial raised by islanders to their dead was destroyed in the 1960s. In 1978 a sympathetic novel about the massacre was published, but withdrawn shortly after and its author imprisoned. An early monument to the massacre was torn down by South Korea?s authoritarian government as part of efforts to cover up the scale of the killings. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon An early monument to the massacre was torn down by South Korea?s authoritarian government in a bid to cover up the scale of the killings. Photo: Andrew Salmon Anyone connected to partisans was ostracized. ?I could not get a job, I could not speak out,? said Go, the massacre survivor. ?Everyone thought Bukchon people were communists: I had to give up all my dreams.? Bereaved families were silent. ?It is very easy, even today, to blame someone saying, ?You are a communist, you are pro-North Korea!?? said Kim Eun-hee, head of research at the Jeju 4:3 Peace Memorial. ?If anyone was related to the uprising, they could not get a job; if you were the bereaved family members of police or army, it was different.? It was only after democratization in 1987 that a Jeju newspaper was able to start an investigation. Books, films and TV dramas followed. Finally, liberal president Roh Moo-hyun visited Jeju and delivered an apology in 2003. Today, some 109 civic groups, funded largely by the island?s local government, research, excavate remains and commemorate the killings. The Jeju 4:3 Peace Memorial was raised in 2000. It includes a domed shrine with names of the dead, plus 4,000 graves of those lost in prisons on the mainland, and a museum. The memorial in Bukchon to children slain in the village. It replicates their scattered bodies. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon Even today, the extent of the killings remains little known; many still find it hard to break the habit of years gone by and speak out. ?A Korea History for International Readers? (Humanist, 2010) by the Association of Korean History Teachers devotes entire chapters to Japanese colonial atrocities; yet the Korean-on-Korean killings on Jeju merit one line. ?Not many people know what happened on this island 70 years ago,? said Yang Yoon-kyung, chairman of the 60,000-member Association of Bereaved Families. ?This pains us.? Across Jeju, there is an almost desperate urge to inform the world. Last month, a restaurateur refused payment for drinks, imploring a visiting reporter to write the story. ?Please let people know,? pleaded Kim. Still, there are contradictory narratives about ?4:3.? While some partisans certainly had North Korean connections, Jeju tour guides label them pan-Korean nationalists. Go, the massacre survivor, is even-handed. ?During the day, the soldiers and police bullied us,? she said. ?At night, the armed resistance came down and bullied us.? The numbers killed are questioned by some. Millett, in his history, cites census figures between 1946 (233,445) and 1949 (253,164) which actually show a rise in the island?s population. But even Millett concedes that the peace won was ?Carthaginian? ? a reference to the city famously annihilated by Rome. There are no surviving partisans: Only a handful escaped to Japan. The victors ? those who did the killing ? never confessed and were never punished for their excesses. ?Not a single person has spoken up from the police or paramilitaries,? Kim said. ?Maybe they are ashamed.? Still, there have been reconciliatory moves between representatives of victims and the security forces. ?Every year, we meet and we pay respects at different memorial parks; we go together,? said Han Ha-young, chairman of the Jeju City branch of the Bereaved Families Association. ?The police officers were also victims.? Younger people dispute this. ?Deep inside their hearts, they still hate each other,? said Kim. ?We are very uncomfortable with the word ?reconciliation,?? a tour guide admitted. America?s role? While no US troops were directly engaged, the April uprising started under the US Military Government in Korea, which held power from September 1945 to August 1948. US officers ? though critical of the Jeju governor ? advised and supplied South Korean forces and praised counter-insurgency operations, while US vessels patrolled the waters, intercepting insurgents boats. A photo in the Peace Museum shows US officers, who authorized a crackdown that became a massacre. Photo: Asia Times/ Andrew Salmon ?I feel that the US government was heavily responsible for this, it happened during the US military government,? said Yang Jo-hoon, chairperson of the Jeju 4-3 Peace Foundation. ?Now is the moment to ask the US for responsibility.? Members of the Bereaved Families Association have met US academics, researchers and individual senators, but were advised to make Jeju a government-government issue. To this end, the foundation is collecting 100,000 signatures for a petition to present to US officials. However, Moon, in his remarks today, made no mention of the US role or responsibility. Survivors of the ?4:3 incident? are passing, but 70 years later, still bear psychological scars. ?We have depression, we are traumatized,? Go said. Recalling the post-massacre lack of food, she said, ?I still cannot bear it when my stomach is empty ? I feel scared.? In Bukchon ? known as ?The Village with No Men? after the massacre ? body-sized black stones are crafted in a memorial artwork. It includes a rough, rock sculpture of a dead, nursing mother. A more intimate monument of black stone erected to commemorate the dead children stands in a copse of pines where the wind blows in from the sea. Visitors have placed sweets and toys in its recesses. In her twilight years, Go finds some contentment in the monuments and freedom to speak. ?This is the peak of my life: I am happy I can speak up about those killed souls,? she said. ?Now, I am ready to die in front of you.? ======================================== 19. 'BEING CASH-FREE PUTS US AT RISK OF ATTACK': SWEDES TURN AGAINST CASHLESSNESS David Crouch in Gothenburg ======================================== Sweden?s central bank governor has called for public control over its payment system. Others say a fully digital system is vulnerable to fraud and attack https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/being-cash-free-puts-us-at-risk-of-attack-swedes-turn-against-cashlessness ======================================== 20.THE SHAME OF ANTISEMITISM ON THE LEFT HAS A LONG, MALIGN HISTORY Philip Spencer ======================================== The Guardian 1 April 2018 The origins of today?s crisis in Labour date back to the 19th century, and ever since Jews have been seen as a problem by a strain of socialist thought Demonstrators in Parliament Square protesting against antisemitism in the Labour party. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Images So, we?re back to the ?Jewish Question?? The current antisemitism crisis on the left has not come out of nowhere. Instead, it has its roots in a tradition on the left itself, which, at best, has always had difficulty in responding swiftly to antisemitism and, at worst, excused or condoned, even promoted it. It is not, of course, the only tradition on the left, but unless we understand this history, we won?t get very far in resolving today?s crisis. We need, above all, to think about why some on the left have always seen Jews as a problem and why they have helped the idea of a ?Jewish Question? to re-emerge with such potency. At root is the thought that if antisemitism exists, it must have something to do with how Jews supposedly behave. That supposed behaviour may be described in different ways ? sometimes it has an economic character, sometimes a social one, sometimes a political one. But what is common is the idea that Jews are to blame for antisemitism and that to protest against them is understandable, or even necessary. This first became a serious problem on the left in the late 19th century, as antisemitism first became a political force in the modern world. Some on the left flirted with the response that there might be something progressive about antisemitism: that it was a kind of anti-capitalism, however crude, which could be harnessed to the socialist cause. They also thought that philosemitism was more of a problem, because it supposedly encouraged Jews to make too much of (or even fabricate) antisemitism and to resist assimilation. One criticism of this approach at the time was to call it the ?socialism of fools?, a problematic formulation because it suggested that antisemitism was still some kind of socialism. As antisemitism was radicalised by the Nazis ? it no longer being enough to exclude Jews when they should be wiped off the face of the Earth ? this way of thinking made it difficult for too many on the left to prioritise solidarity with Jews. Neither the Social Democrats nor the Communists in Germany made opposition to antisemitism a major issue, nor did the Resistance across Europe. The fear was that to highlight the fight against antisemitism would alienate potential supporters. This is not to ignore some wonderful examples of solidarity, though the repeated invocations of Cable Street can give a misleading picture. The Communist party soon switched to loyally supporting the Hitler-Stalin pact, which effectively delivered large numbers of Jews up to the Nazis. ?The repeated invocations of Cable Street [the 1936 anti-facist demonstration in London] can give a misleading picture.? Photograph: David Savill/Getty Images When the Soviet Union was finally forced to fight the Nazis, the suffering of Jews was deliberately and repeatedly downplayed. But after the war, things got much worse. The Soviet Union not only suppressed knowledge of what had been done to Jews but launched its own vicious antisemitic project, one that would have culminated in another genocide had Stalin not died. Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you Read more This campaign matters because it was around this time that some key elements of today?s antisemitism on the left were first formulated. The charge laid against Jews then was that they were cosmopolitans and Zionists. This may seem like a bizarre contradiction: how can one, after all, be both a cosmopolitan and a Zionist? But what connected them is the idea that Jews are a problem, that as cosmopolitans they are more loyal to each other across national borders and, as Zionists, are loyal to another, foreign state. The charge of cosmopolitanism is heard less frequently these days, though one finds echoes of it in the idea that Jews are responsible for the evils of globalisation. The charge of Zionism, though, has now become absolutely central to today?s version of the ?Jewish Question?. What began as a Stalinist cry was taken up in some on the New Left, which helped shape the world view of Jeremy Corbyn and many of his supporters. For both Stalinists and that part of the New Left, Zionism is a racist ideology that pits the interests of Jews against the interests of everyone else. Furthermore, the state of Israel is an integral part of the western imperialist power structure that exploits and oppresses the rest of the world and the Palestinians in particular, whose land Jews have plundered and colonised and whom they keep in a state of permanent subjugation. Advertisement The Soviet Union formulated its approach within the context of the cold war, when it often appeared to support anti-colonial, national liberation struggles, although only for strategic reasons. Those on the left who (rightly if often too uncritically) supported those struggles, especially in Vietnam, where the Americans were so clearly the enemy, slipped fatally, however, into embracing this anti-Zionism into their world view, even though the Israel-Palestine conflict had such clearly different roots. At the same time, they found it unbearable to acknowledge what was glaringly obvious ? that the establishment of the state of Israel was profoundly connected to the Holocaust, which had changed everything for Jews. To integrate anti-Zionism into an anti-imperialist, anti-western, anti-American world view therefore also meant either denying or (better) reinterpreting the Holocaust. Holocaust denial is not an accidental feature of today?s antisemitism, but it is more common to downplay what happened to Jews as Jews. So the Holocaust has to be thought about only in universal terms, as only one genocide among many and one that supposedly excludes the others. (Actually, of course, it is the other way around: thinking about the Holocaust helps people think about other genocides.) Indeed, some have gone further. Not content with accusing Israel of being like apartheid South Africa, it is supposedly guilty of genocide itself? against the Palestinians. If such purported behaviour makes people antisemitic, it is understandable and part of a fundamentally progressive view of the world, which can be harnessed to the cause. We are back then to where we started, with Jews as the problem, only with this difference: what was previously attributed to Jews inside nation states is now attributed to the Jewish state on the international stage. There has always been, though, another tradition on the left, which has never accepted the very idea of a ?Jewish Question?. What it understands is that there is a question of antisemitism; that Jews are not responsible for antisemitism but antisemites are; that Jews are not a problem but antisemites are. Antisemitism is not something that should be excused or condoned. It has to be fought wherever it shows its face, even ? and sadly now more than ever ? when that face is on the left. Philip Spencer is emeritus professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Kingston University and a visiting professor in politics at Birkbeck College He is the co-author with Robert Fine of Anti-Semitism and the Left: On the return of the Jewish Question, Manchester University Press, 2017 _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Apr 10 19:04:09 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 04:34:09 +0530 Subject: SACW - 11 April 2018 | Sri Lanka: Caste, The Sangha & State office / Bangladesh: Free Speech / Pakistan: Geo News Blackout / India: Kashmiri youth; Dalits; Retrograde kulaks; Attack on Educational Institutions / Illiberal Leaders Attack Civil Society / fake doctors Message-ID: <0805A0B4-A179-4886-A50C-A362B77730D3@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 11 April 2018 - No. 2982 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sad reality of the crisis facing free speech in Bangladesh | Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury 2. India: March For Science 2018 - Call For Protest In Delhi On 14 April And Charter Of Demands 3. India: Detention And Prevention Of Activists From Participating In Public Meeting On ?Uranium Mining Impacts? At Kadapa, Unlawful And Undemocratic - Statement By NAPM 4. India: The Politics of Retrograde Farmers Movements And The Right-Wing 5. Call For Solidarity With Brazilian People Versus Coup Regime, As Lula Enters Jail 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India-Kashmir: Local muslims face coninued social boycott from the majority Buddhist community since 2012 - India: Exposing fault lines: the violence over Ram Navami processions - Editorial, The Hindu - India: A hatred filled Ram Navmi - reports from Bihar, Rajasthan and Bengal - selected reports - Islamist parties join hands to ?establish sharia? in Pakistan - India: The RSS the parent body of the BJP is fast getting a never-before grip on India - India: Bihar districts that witnessed communal violence in our times almost coincide with those having witnessed the same in the 1890s and the 1920s - India: The return of identity politics and its hefty cost - Editorial comment in business paper Livemint - India has never been as divided since Partition | Harsh Mander - Muslims: In the margins or pushed out? Ramachandra Guha - What makes Indian vegetarians different from Westerners | Aseem Hasnain & Abhilasha Srivastava - India: Law suit against Priya Varrier song says winking forbidden in Islam - India: State Body Objects to Papers on Adivasi Religion a seminar is postponed ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Bangladesh: For peace to prevail - Editorial, Dhaka Tribune 8. Pakistan: The curious case of Geo News suspension | Marvi Sirmed 8.1 Blackout For Pakistani TV Channel Amid Tug-Of-War With Military | Frud Bezhan 9. Pakistan - Karachi: Delimitation & identity politics | Tahir Mehdi 10. Sri Lanka: Acquiescence To Oppression - Caste, The Sangha & Government Office | S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole 11. Waiting For Moderators: Kashmiri youth are no longer amenable to sagacious advice | Bharat Bhushan 12. India and Pakistan are quietly making nuclear war more likely | Tom Hundley !3. India: ?Unless Dalits build bridges with oppressed people across castes, there is no future for Dalit politics? | Anand Teltumbde 14. India: Toxic waste, callous treatment | Rasheed Kappan 15. India: Why the SC order on khaps may not be enough - Editorial, Hindustan Times 16. India has always been selective in human rights discussions, says Secretary General of Amnesty International 17. India: Two pundits on the road - They visited places far and near to learn | Niranjan Rajadhyaksha 18. Announced: People?s Tribunal on Attack on Educational Institutions in India 19. Texas Bill Prohibiting Male Masturbation Moves Closer To Becoming Law | Michael Stone 20. How Illiberal Leaders Attack Civil Society | Michael Abramowitz and Nate Schenkkan 21. A brief history of fake doctors, and how they get away with it | Philippa Martyr ======================================== 1. SAD REALITY OF THE CRISIS FACING FREE SPEECH IN BANGLADESH | Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury ======================================== Text of Speech by Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury at Skien bibliotek, Skien, Norway http://www.sacw.net/article13717.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: MARCH FOR SCIENCE 2018 - CALL FOR PROTEST IN DELHI ON 14 APRIL AND CHARTER OF DEMANDS ======================================== AIPSN has resolved that it will join hands with all organisations willing to participate on the Global March for Science, and hold joint rallies in various cities/towns in the country. It also appeals to the scientific community, progressive organisations and all right thinking people to join such rallies on 14th April 2018. http://www.sacw.net/article13715.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: DETENTION AND PREVENTION OF ACTIVISTS FROM PARTICIPATING IN PUBLIC MEETING ON ?URANIUM MINING IMPACTS? AT KADAPA, UNLAWFUL AND UNDEMOCRATIC - STATEMENT BY NAPM ======================================== 10th April, 2018: National Alliance of People?s Movements strongly condemns the high-handedness of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), a Govt. of India undertaking under the Department of Atomic Energy (headed by the Prime Minister) and the Andhra Pradesh police in misbehaving with activists of Human Rights Forum and NAPM and denying them access to the venue of a public meet yesterday in Kadapa District of Andhra Pradesh by unlawfully detaining them for a couple of hours http://www.sacw.net/article13716.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: THE POLITICS OF RETROGRADE FARMERS MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHT-WING ======================================== Two papers on the changed political economy in the countryside, the organisations of conservative Kulaks and their trajectory in India http://www.sacw.net/article13683.html ======================================== 5. CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH BRAZILIAN PEOPLE VERSUS COUP REGIME, AS LULA ENTERS JAIL ======================================== The undersigned WSF 2018 facilitating organizations call on all the Brazilian and international organizations participating in the WSF and on all world civil society, their movements and organizations of struggle, to take a clear stand against the coup that they are now seeking to be consummated with the arrest of former President Lula. http://www.sacw.net/article13714.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India-Kashmir: Local muslims face coninued social boycott from the majority Buddhist community since 2012 - India: Exposing fault lines: the violence over Ram Navami processions - Editorial, The Hindu - India: A hatred filled Ram Navmi - reports from Bihar, Rajasthan and Bengal - selected reports - Islamist parties join hands to ?establish sharia? in Pakistan - India: The RSS the parent body of the BJP is fast getting a never-before grip on India - India: Bihar districts that witnessed communal violence in our times almost coincide with those having witnessed the same in the 1890s and the 1920s - India: The return of identity politics and its hefty cost - Editorial comment in business paper Livemint - India has never been as divided since Partition | Harsh Mander - Muslims: In the margins or pushed out? Ramachandra Guha - What makes Indian vegetarians different from Westerners | Aseem Hasnain & Abhilasha Srivastava - India: Law suit against Priya Varrier song says winking forbidden in Islam - India: State Body Objects to Papers on Adivasi Religion a seminar is postponed -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BANGLADESH: FOR PEACE TO PREVAIL - EDITORIAL, DHAKA TRIBUNE ======================================== Dhaka Tribune April 06, 2018 Editorial Schools and mosques which highlight Islam as a religion of peace are essential for continued peace and prosperity All too often, the teachings of Islam have been distorted and misused by fanatics to spread hatred and create discord amongst the peace-loving citizens, of this country and the world over. But, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said: Islam is a religion of peace, and teaches tolerance and harmony. In this regard, her decision to set up nine model mosques and cultural centres is laudable, and goes a long way in introducing the real, peaceful face of Islam to the people of this country, especially the youth. The last two years have shown us the horrible consequences of extremism, and to what extent this is used by certain people to further their own political agenda. But Bangladesh cannot fall into that trap, and the PM has the right vision to solve this problem. Bangladesh has a diverse populace and we, as a nation, will not tolerate religious and communal disharmony and violence. The government has taken various steps to ensure that extremist militancy is quashed in our society, carrying out several successful raids in the past and eliminating terrorist cells. But, for a more well-rounded approach to the threat of Islamic militancy, education is crucial. Schools and mosques which highlight Islam as a religion of peace are essential for continued peace and prosperity in the region. It will allow a platform for dialogue and discussion, and inform the public via religious leaders for whom they have the utmost respect. These mosques and centres will expose the youth of this country to the true face of Islam which, as the PM has said, is essential for ?peace to prevail.? ======================================== 8. PAKISTAN: THE CURIOUS CASE OF GEO NEWS SUSPENSION Marvi Sirmed ======================================== Daily Times April 2, 2018 State information minister says action underway against cable operators who have taken the channel off air As reports emerge that Geo News has been taken off air in various areas across the country, State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb has categorically denied that her ministry has issued any directives for the suspension of the channel?s transmission. Talking to Daily Times on Sunday, she said, ?the government hasn?t shut down or suspended any channel. Why would we?? She said that the government could only take such a decision if a TV channel violated PEMRA law or the code of conduct. Even when such a violation took place, the PEMRA needed to follow the due process, she added. Aurangzeb said Geo News? suspension was in violation of PEMRA rules. She said the government had already initiated action against cable networks and cable operators found involved in the matter. ?If they don?t address the issue, all of their cable services can be suspended,? she said. The case of partial suspension of Geo TV in many areas across the country since last few days is turning out to be quite curious. No one from among the relevant authorities appears to know who is interrupting Geo News? broadcast. Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal tweeted about the matter on Sunday, ?It is a shame & we will take notice. If it was wrong for a political party to do so in Karachi some time back, how can it be right for anyone else. [sic] Only PEMRA has the legal sanction to do so. Pakistan can?t be a pariah state for freedom of expression.? Distributors, i.e. cable operators, have a huge stake in the electronic media. Speaking to Daily Times, Imran Nadeem, former general secretary of the currently inactive Cable Operators Association (CAP), said he had no knowledge of suspension of Geo News? transmission, ?except the one in DHA Karachi, which is mainly due to an ongoing conflict between Geo management and the local cable operators?. Nadeem, however, explained that digital cable distributors in Pakistan could offer no more than 70 channels to the public, while there were more than 150 channels in the country. ?This means that some channels are inadvertently pushed off air,? he said. When senior staffers at Geo News were approached, they denied having any ongoing conflict with cable operators in DHA Karachi. A journalist speaking on condition of anonymity said that cable operators in DHA Karachi were not showing Geo News since 2014. Another journalist said there had never been any such problem in the area before 2014. A senior reporter from Islamabad held that the distribution of Jang Group newspapers was stopped in DHAs for no reason in 2014. In April 2014, Geo News was shut down illegally and arbitrarily hours after its senior staffer and veteran journalist Hamid Mir survived an assassination attempt in Karachi. After the attack, Geo News directly accused the then head of the military?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency for having a role in the attack. Subsequently, not only that Geo transmission was abruptly discontinued in many parts of Pakistan especially DHAs. This was followed by a slander campaign against the owner of the media house who was accused of blasphemy in hundreds of FIRs registered against him in different cities. More recently, a top security official had reportedly told around 40 leading journalists in an off-the-record meet-the-press session that some channels, especially Geo News, were crossing red lines. While the official quoted the constitutional guarantee that no one would be allowed to malign state institutions, the provision concerning rule of law and due process were ignored, as per reports of the meeting in the media. The precise nature of the red lines was also not identified. Looking at Geo News? recent on-air behaviour, two aspects stand out. Firstly, many of its journalists and analysts have held strong views in favour of the 18th constitutional amendment and its edicts on provincial autonomy [another subject discussed in the off-the-record meeting]. Secondly, despite having many programmes and anchorpersons critical of ruling PML-N?s politics, the channel?s news bulletins have shown a sympathetic tilt towards the party, especially its emerging woman leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif. ======================================== 8.1 Blackout FOR Pakistani TV Channel Amid Tug-Of-War With Military Frud Bezhan ======================================== Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 07, 2018 09:53 GMT Pakistani media outlets and journalists often face consequences for refusing to toe the line of the country?s all-powerful military. The Pakistani military and its notorious intelligence services have long been accused of stifling the independent media and silencing opposition through intimidation, censorship, and even assassination. Now observers say Pakistan?s popular Geo TV is being punished for its tug-of-war with the military. Geo TV, part of Pakistan's largest commercial media group, Jang, was taken off the air in many parts of the country on April 1, with media watchdogs and journalists claiming foul play. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PERMA) and the Islamabad government have insisted they were not behind the suspension of the channel. Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said he launched an investigation on April 3, but the perpetrators have still not been found or named. With no claim of responsibility, many suspect the military, which has an oversized role in domestic and foreign affairs in the South Asian country. "There?s no doubt that the military is behind the blackout," says Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani military analyst and author. Last month, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa held an off-the-record briefing with a group of journalists in Rawalpindi that was widely reported. Bajwa described Geo TV as "subversive" and warned the channel that it would face consequences for crossing "red lines" by challenging the military, several reporters with knowledge about what was discussed during the briefing told RFE/RL. The military has rejected this account of events. "The military doesn?t want any channel to report about anything that is against [its] interests, certainly not in its ongoing political battle," says Siddiqa. "Geo TV is one of the few Pakistani media outlets that are ready to provide an alternative perspective." The Pakistani military did not respond to a request for comment. [ . . . ] https://www.rferl.org/a/blackout-pakistani-tv-channel-tug-of-war-military/29151371.html ======================================== 9. PAKISTAN - KARACHI: DELIMITATION & IDENTITY POLITICS Tahir Mehdi ======================================== Dawn April 08, 2018 THE relationship between the sociocultural identity of voters and their voting patterns in Pakistan is intriguing. Political parties attempt to rally voters along linguistic, tribal, caste/ biradari and religious or sectarian lines and superimpose on them the promise of economic development and good governance. For some parties, identity politics offers greater electoral capital. However, one can never be sure what works better than the other in a specific election for a particular candidate. It is even more difficult to see identity politics making its way to the delimitation of constituencies. But there has been one exception ? the politics of the MQM, as it has always exclusively represented the Mohajir community of urban Sindh. The Mohajir identity is perhaps the sole marker of its kind that could overtly express itself in the delimitation of constituencies. The delimitation commission formed for the 1970 general elections said in its report that ?refugees were given representation in Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, Lyallpur [now Faisalabad] and Dhaka to keep them intact and [to ensure] homogeneity of the population of the constituency as far as possible?. The commission did not generally consider biradari-based distinctions as sacrosanct. However, it made an exception when delimiting a constituency in Gujrat that fell in an area inhabited by the Gujjar and Rajput communities. Apart from Karachi, identity politics has been operating below the surface. The next delimitation, under the Delimitation Act 1974 after the passage of the 1973 Constitution, however, refused to consider proposals to preserve the ?settler? and ?local? status of the population in making the constituencies contiguous. The commission told the objectors that these distinctions were not in sync with the national interest. This was decried by leaders of the Mohajir community. As the latter was generally opposed to the PPP, Gen Zia placated it when he arbitrarily added seven more seats in the National Assembly, whose strength was set at 200 members by the Constitution, and gave two of these to Karachi. This continued until the next delimitation carried out by the next military ruler. By the time of the 1998 census, the Mohajir share in Karachi had gone below the 50 per cent mark. It is likely to have gone down further in the 2017 census, but the MQM currently occupies 32 of the 42 provincial seats in the metropolis though it has failed to attract other communities. This would hardly have been possible without drawing up constituencies in a manner that favoured the party. The Supreme Court had observed, while hearing a constitutional petition in 2010, that the way the boundaries of administrative units and electoral constituencies in Karachi are demarcated is helping territorialise communities instead of creating an environment that is conducive for different communities to live together in peace and harmony. It had asked the authorities to delimit Karachi again and the Election Commission of Pakistan did undertake a limited exercise but could not do so afresh for many reasons. Since language data from the latest census is not yet available, it is difficult to analyse the current delimitation of Karachi. If the commission has not given any weightage to language as ?other cognate factors to ensure homogeneity in the creation of constituencies?, the next elections are likely to have a lasting impact on identity politics in the metropolis and the identity narrative inculcated by its main proponents. Elsewhere in the country, identity politics has been operating below the surface. It does not overtly express itself in terms of electoral outcomes but it helps shape the discourse around elections. The proponents of this politics prey on any hints in electoral processes that could help them promote a narrative of victimisation of their group. The Seraikis have always found themselves on the wrong side of delimitation, across the provinces. The Pakhtun encroachment of Dera Ismail Khan, which is predominantly Seraiki, has been more than visible. In the 1988 delimitation, the district was awarded one seat against a share of 1.56 seats and in Punjab, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur were collectively given three seats against a share of 3.89. In the 2002 delimitations, the average size of the national constituencies in southern Punjab was bigger than the ones in northern and central Punjab by 8.5pc. This strengthened the Seraiki narrative of being victimised by ?Takht Lahore? and the Punjab-dominant central state. The new delimitation proposals, however, have added an interesting twist. D.I. Khan now has two of the most equal seats in KP while its Pakhtun neighbourhood has one of the most unequal seats in the country ? Bannu is the largest and Tank the second smallest constituency in the country. The anomalies in size of the southern KP districts have not caused a negative spillover into non-Pakhtun D.I. Khan this time. The same is witnessed in the case of the non-Pakhtun majority Hazara Division where two Hindko-speaking districts have unequal seats. This shows that inequality in constituency size can only be blamed on the arbitrary sizes of districts and not on active gerrymandering on the basis of the ethnicity and language of the constituents. In fact, language and ethnicity as delimiting factors have figured in the ECP?s preliminary report only in the case of Balochistan where it has been used to justify the clubbing together of certain districts in a manner that has resulted in marked inequality in the size of constituencies. The northern and central Punjab districts have lost 11 national seats, seven to other provinces, one to their own capital, Lahore, and three to the southern Punjab districts of D.G. Khan, Rajanpur and Muzaffargarh. The seats in southern Punjab are comparatively smaller too. In previous delimitations, there were 44 national constituencies in Punjab that were smaller than the provincial average by 5pc or more; 42 of these were in central and northern Punjab. But now there are 30 such seats and 24 of these fall in southern Punjab. The current delimitation counters the Seraiki narrative of victimhood in the electoral arena. But will it lead to a reverse narrative in which central Punjab complains of ?victimisation?? That will be interesting to watch though a lot will depend on the outcome of electoral contests in new constituencies and their interplay with other factors. The writer is an independent researcher with an interest in elections and governance. ======================================== 10. SRI LANKA: ACQUIESCENCE TO OPPRESSION: CASTE, THE SANGHA & GOVERNMENT OFFICE by S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole ======================================== Colombo Telegraph April 10, 2018 We are supposedly living in a secular country, notwithstanding Buddhism being the foremost religion sponsored by the state. And yet, when my friend and senior schoolmate, Mr. K.C. Nithiananthan was to come as Governor of the Northern Province, effective 6 April, it did not seem to happen and his old posting as Governor of the Western Province is still on the relevant website. On enquiry I am told that our former Governor, Reginald Cooray, who had been posted to Kandy, had been rejected by the Mahanayakes there, saying a fishing caste Christian is unacceptable but they would allow a Christian if he is of the agricultural caste. Unbelievably, negotiations happened. Cooray and Nithiananthan had a meeting in Colombo with the authorities. The government apparently bought this line by the Mahasangha and, as I gather, Cooray will go to Kurunagala and a woman of the right caste will go to the Central Province! This is against all the laws and principles we profess and a part of the fraud that Sri Lanka is ? preaching high principles and doing the opposite. Welcome to Sri Lanka, perhaps the most racist and communalist country in the world. Worse, our non-agriculturists have acquiesced by accepting their slavery ? there are so many powerful fishing caste people in government from whom we have not had a whimper. People are people, cut from the same rags I think. Wondering about this, I asked my driver who worships Arumuga Navalar and is not an agriculturist, whether he knows Arumuga Navalar?s teaching to agriculturist school children in his Paalar Paadam that if a low caste person or a dog sees his earthen cooking vessels, he ought to destroy them and buy new ones? My driver was aghast and said no one taught him that. Why just today (Sunday 8th) I drove from Jaffna to Batticaloa to attend the fiftieth ordination celebration of my good friend The Rev. Fr. Joe Mary tomorrow Monday. I settled down in my car to read my Sunday newspapers. A prominent English language Sunday newspaper had its top, page 1 story with the headline emblazoned: New Year Gift to the North: Army to free 650 acres. They take our private lands and think they are giving us a gift by vacating it? The Editor, presumably the best of the Sinhalese intelligentsia, let that headline pass thinking he is really giving us a gift of what is ours. All the way from Vavuniya through Trinco and Moothur to Batticaloa, I saw all these encroached and forcibly settled lands, wondering what our future in this country is as Tamils. I also recalled with bitterness my brother-in-law?s land which he had purchased in Keerimalai for a resort home, which has been taken over for the presidential palace. A government that promotes free trade cannot afford to violate people?s ownership rights over their property. As we reached Batticaloa, I wondered if the people of Batticaloa who worship Pattini/Kannaki and at the same time had Navalar statues erected by their MP Yogeswaran, know that Navalar decried Pattini as a low caste Jaina Chetty goddess and demanded ?What temples for that Chettichi?? The people of Batticaloa also have acquiesced to their slavery. We are all willing slaves to those who oppress us. It is the culture of oppression. The root of this master-servant relationship can be traced to the Mahavamsa where in the Second Century BC (if the Mahavamsa is to be believed) King Duttugemenu?s son, the Prince Salya, marries a low caste woman, Asokamala. For this, he is banished. The only difference now is that we are doing the same horrible low-class thinking in the twenty-first century. Lord Krishna said in the Gita that he created the castes according to their moral qualities ? the higher the qualities, the higher the caste. In Sri Lanka we have those claiming to be high castes exhibiting very low qualities in disrespecting the rights of those who are not agriculturist. Until the worldly powers of clergy are removed we will always be a third rate country. In Jaffna, we have in Neduntivu (or Nainativu) a monk who has the Navy in his service. According to a reliable professional from there, he has fathered some 10 children through Tamil women. These ladies, like the fisher caste people who accept that they cannot be governors of the Central Province, are willing concubines while he claims to be the Mahanayake of the North. These ladies have acquiesced to their oppression. I do not regard Nainativu as a part of my heritage because of how the Navy behaves and foisted criminals as our representative. I visited there for the first time only recently when a relation, on the occasion of my daughter?s marriage, gave us all a picnic-tour of Jaffna. The bus she hired took us at some point by ferry to Neduntivu. We walked about and a monk without asking any permission, came and sat on the front seat that I had been occupying. I politely told him it is a private bus, but he glared at me. I am a slave in Jaffna and knew I could not throw him out without the Navy coming to his protection. I too had acquiesced to my oppression. Should we not rethink the foremost position for a religion that brings out the worst in man ? acquiescence to our own oppression. All jobs should be open to everyone based only on qualifications. Does the government have a new policy on caste as a qualification? ======================================== 11. WAITING FOR MODERATORS: KASHMIRI YOUTH ARE NO LONGER AMENABLE TO SAGACIOUS ADVICE | Bharat Bhushan ======================================== India Today 16 April 2018 Three instances point to a crisis in Kashmir?the death of two militants Zubair Ahmed Turay and Rouf Khanday in Shopian and Aanantnag, respectively on 1 April; and Junaid, the son of Ashraf Sehrai the new chief of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) taking up arms days after the father replaced Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Each one demonstrates that moderating influences on Kashmiri youth are lacking today. I first heard of Zubair in December 2016. Some local residents of Shopian had gathered at the Dak Bungalow for a discussion with members of the Yashwant Sinha-led Concerned Citizens?s Group. Towards the end of the meeting, a bearded old man with an emotionless face and blank eyes began speaking haltingly. Advertisement opens in new window ?My son Zubair Ahmed Turay has 19 FIRs against him and has been arrested eight times under the Public Safety Act (PSA). The first FIR against him was when he was 11 years old. He has been in and out of jail since then. He is 23 now. Each time a court quashes a case against him, he is re-arrested under another PSA charge. Tell me what I should do?? Bashir Ahmed Turay asked. On May 1, 2017, Zubair escaped from illegal police custody after yet another case against him had been quashed by the High Court. He joined the Hizbul Mujahideen. Eleven months on, he was shot dead with six other militants. Zubair, an inveterate stone-pelter, had been a victim of revolving-door-detentions. Using PSA allows detention up to a year without trial. However, victims are released for a few minutes before the year ends and rearrested under the same law. Zubair had cut his teeth in the 2009 Shopian agitation against the twin rape-and-murder case. He was a good organiser and more aggressive than others. He did not listen to anyone and the local elders refused to ?guarantee his good beh?aviour? to get him released from custody. The second case involves 21-year-old Rouf, shot dead in Anantnag. He was holed up in a house with another militant whom the police convinced to surrender. Rouf?s parents were brought to the site to persuade him to surrender. When persuasion by both parents failed, the mother made a second bid, going in alone. Rouf did not budge and she came out crying. He was killed within hours. After his son, an MBA, joined the Hizbul, Sehrai said, ?Both the gun and our political struggle are important.? The third case is of Junaid. Exactly a week after Sehrai took over as TeH head, Junaid, an MBA, joined Hizbul Mujahideen?the first progeny of any Hurriyat leader taking up arms. Sehrai ?expressed no remorse. He accepted political violence, saying, ?Both the gun and our political struggle are important.? There was a time when Syed Ali Shah Geelani would claim that the Kashmir movement was peaceful. Today, no Hurriyat leader condemns violence unequivocally. However, those Kashmiris who have seen militancy in the late 1980s and in the 1990s are worried about the worsening crisis. Several factors have contributed to the present situation. They range from a persistent absence of dialogue; lack of democratic space for peaceful public protests, stone-pelting by youngsters, police retaliation with pellet guns that blind people; ?revolving-door-arrests under the PSA and the use of military force to curb militancy. The net result of all this is that youngsters in Kashmir have got accustomed to daily violence. Bereft of any experi?ence of normalcy, they are emotionally inc?lined towards militancy. Their glorification of armed militants with their inevitably short lives is not inspired from across the border, but by local militant icons. They are no longer amenable to advice from their parents, family, community elders, teachers or even religious leaders. No one is able to talk freely in an atmosphere charged with suspicion of what the other person thinks. In the absence of public debate, there is no way of predicting how youngsters think or how they will act. The only relationship the State has with them is through the security forces. And the State?s dilemma perhaps is that if it loosens its grip, then there is no knowing how many will pick up the gun. The situation is particularly acute in Shopian and Anantnag in South Kashmir. Earlier, there was hope from Indian civil society and mainstream Indian intellectuals. However, even they have failed the Kashmiris under the current political dispensation in Delhi. (The writer is a journalist based in Delhi) ======================================== 12. INDIA AND PAKISTAN ARE QUIETLY MAKING NUCLEAR WAR MORE LIKELY Both countries are arming their submarines with nukes. by Tom Hundley ======================================== https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SAAN_/conversations/messages/1784 ======================================== !3. INDIA: ?UNLESS DALITS BUILD BRIDGES WITH OPPRESSED PEOPLE ACROSS CASTES, THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR DALIT POLITICS? | Anand Teltumbde ======================================== The Times of India April 9, 2018, 2:00 AM IST TOI Q&A in The Interviews Blog | Edit Page, India, Q&A | TOI Civil rights activist Anand Teltumbde has worked extensively on Dalit issues. Currently he teaches big data analytics at Goa Institute of Management. In a conversation with Sugandha Indulkar he analyses the fallout of Supreme Court?s verdict on the SC/ST Act: Supreme Court said that people who were agitating had not read the verdict properly and were misled by vested interests. What is your opinion? This is absolutely misleading. The judgment of the Supreme Court was in response to a simple appeal of a high official, who was given anticipatory bail by the Bombay high court, to quash the case. If Supreme Court found merit, it could quash the case. But where was the question of seeing the generalised misuse of the Atrocities Act by Dalits and taking up cudgels for those who perpetrate crime? This was totally unwarranted. It invoked Articles 14 and 21, but the entire legislation in favour of the weaker sections is the constitutional exception to these Articles. Such a bland reading of the Constitution is astonishing. Dalit reaction to it is not engineered by any ?vested interest? or misreading but entirely justified. What factors have triggered Dalit anger? Dalit anger which manifested in the all-India strike on April 2 is an accumulated anger. It is an outcome of what the present government has done over the last four years. Misled by their leaders, Dalit community voted in large numbers for BJP in the last elections. PM Modi thought that by showing his bhakti to Babasaheb Ambedkar he could fool Dalits. Yes, it took some time for Dalits to realise what was going on. The ban on Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle in IIT Madras, the Rohith Vemula episode, the persistent decrease in budget provisions for Dalits, be it scholarships or component plan, the curb on reservations in universities, the cow game that jeopardised nutritional security of poor Dalits and made them prey to cow vigilante goons, and galloping rise in atrocity numbers which zoomed from 39,000 in 2013 to 47,000 in 2014. The foul-mouthed references of ministers and persistent injustice being done to youth leaders like Chandrashekhar Azad of Bhim Army cannot pass unregistered. Anger does not mean violence. Dalits do not resort to violence unprovoked. The very fact that violence happened in only BJP-ruled states, indicates some sinister plan. Provoke them to indulge in violence and gun them down so they would never dare to do it again. Ten people have lost their lives and only violence of Dalits gets projected. Where is contemporary Dalit politics headed? Independent Dalit politics was nipped in the bud. As a result Dalit politics remained divorced from the issues of Dalit masses. But now young Dalits are coming forth, realising the follies of the past. They are articulating their views confidently. It is being realised that caste politics and reservations aren?t getting them anywhere. They are disuniting them further. Unless Dalits build bridges with oppressed people across castes without using that poisonous term ?caste?, there is no future for Dalit politics. Do you agree Dalits who are well educated are disconnected from the rest? This was bound to happen. Over the last seven decades, because of reservations and other things, a class has come up among Dalits whose umbilical cord with the Dalit masses snapped long back. Their behaviour is like Trishanku, not being able to fully merge with their class on account of caste barriers and not being able to fully identify with the labouring masses of Dalits. The seeds of it were in the Dalit movement from the beginning itself. Babasaheb Ambedkar at the fag end of his life realised that whatever he had done benefitted only a small section of educated and urban Dalits and he could not do anything for the vast majority of rural Dalits. He expressed this to his followers and asked them to undertake a land struggle. It was on his prompt that three glorious land struggles took place, first in 1953 itself and thereafter in 1959 and 1964-65. How do you situate Dalit politics in the larger context of Indian politics? It is just rent seeking from mainstream politicians by brokering Dalit interests. Dalit leaders keep chanting Ambedkar and keep Dalit masses in limbo. Is BJP anti-Dalit? BJP is definitely anti-Dalit. Their ideological antecedents make a virtue of the Indian past, which clearly makes it anti-Dalit. Although for its political needs it cannot give free expression to its anti-Dalit self, its actions have proved this in ample measure. *What needs to be done to resolve the matter?* What do common people need for dignified living? They need quality education, healthcare, security of livelihood and a social climate of fraternity. Politicians have been playing people against one another in the name of caste, religion and so on just to perpetuate their class-caste rule. So, this kind of politics must stop if India has to have a future. ======================================== 14. INDIA: TOXIC WASTE, CALLOUS TREATMENT | Rasheed Kappan ======================================== Deccan Herald March 11 2018 Deadly, hazardous and toxic, untreated bio-medical waste could trap us in all in a twister of nightmarish infections. Isn't this reason enough to bring every healthcare setup in the city under a stringent regulatory system with the utmost urgency? Not so, if a damning report based by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is any indication. First, what do the rules say: The Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016 (BMW Rules) mandate every Health Care Establishment (HCE) generating BMW to take all steps to ensure that such waste is handled without any adverse effect on the human health and environment. Glaring lacuna The infectious wastes are required to be collected, transported, treated and disposed of strictly in accordance with the BMW rules. The CAG report found a glaring lacuna in the enforcement of this rule by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB): "KSPCB does not have details of the mode of treatment and disposal of BMW of 3,473 HCEs in the state. Disposal of a significant portion of the BMW using unscientific methods cannot be ruled out." The implication is clear: A disturbing number of hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres are clearly guilty of not segregating the hazardous waste. Used syringes, contaminated swabs, expired drugs and even body parts are being mixed with municipal waste. Contamination of soil and water bodies is a real danger, a readymade recipe for an outbreak of deadly diseases. Common facilities The bio-medical waste collected is treated at the city's Common Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBMWTF). But the Pollution Board has been charged with not doing enough to monitor them. Studies have indicated that the efficiency of these facilities are low since they use outdated technologies. Their incineration facilities and emission control levels have also come under question. An estimated 25 tons of BMW are generated by the healthcare units in Bengaluru every day. But how much of this ends up at the city's two CBMWTFs? This is not clear. Top KSPCB officials have themselves found during random checks that a majority of hospitals do not fully comply with the mandated BMW segregation. But the Board has been found to be lax in cracking down on the violating hospitals. Waste management experts, environmentalists and concerned citizen activists are asking why the pollution watchdog is not closing down such facilities. Deliberate mixing Healthcare establishments have been repeatedly found mixing medical and general waste. Preferring anonymity, pourakarmikas confirm that they do find the hospital waste in huge quantities at the landfills and solid waste treatment centres. Segregation of BMW is a continuous process, and this can be done efficiently only when there is continuous training. This has been found lacking even in big hospitals, notes Wilma Rodrigues from Saahas Zero Waste, a social enterprise. "This reiteration of training has to be taken right down to the cleaning person. Lab assistants too need to be vigilant about BMW," she notes. Guilty clinics Wilma also draws attention to the smaller clinics that hardly follow the BMW rules. "A lot of them don't even know that such rules exist. There is no segregation. Nor do they hand over biomedical waste to the right agencies. This violation is even worse with dental clinics where a lot of BMW is generated. Has KSPCB randomly visited such clinics?" she wonders. At a prominent private hospital in Indiranagar, proper segregation of BMW and transportation to a common treatment facility is currently on. A visit to the hospital confirmed this. But the entire process was streamlined only a year ago. An insider, who did not want to be named, reveals that before a newly trained officer took charge, the entire medical waste generated in the hospital was mixed with municipal waste and carted away to the landfills. Awareness was low and inspections too were rare. No segregation In Dasarahalli, at the BBMP Maternity Hospital, syringes, swabs and other waste were found dumped in a huge dustbin. However, there was no sign of any segregation. A hospital staffer explained the segregation would happen outside the health facility at a nearby BBMP garbage facility. But rules mandate that this process should be completed within the hospital by trained staff. Segregated or not, once the biomedical waste leaves a health facility, does the entire load reach the CBMWTF? Narendra Babu, a solid waste management specialist and equipment supplier, notes that the BMW finds its way to the municipal waste dump yards enroute. This, he alleges, is in collusion with the Palike and the garbage mafia. Environmental hazard From an environmental perspective, the unregulated dumping of BMW with municipal waste can be disastrous. "We find tons of biomedical waste in a lot a quarries where garbage is dumped. This is particularly common in Anjanapura, Kengeri, Bommasandra and other areas. Besides being extraordinarily hazardous, BMW is highly pathogenic too. Infected body parts are coming out of hospitals. Infections can spread very fast since awareness on public health is so low," notes Leo Saldanha from the Environment Support Group (ESG). The high rate of morbidity among the BBMP pourakarmikas, who are in direct contact with BMW -mixed garbage, is a clear indication of the hazards. "They are the most exposed," as Saldanha puts it. Conversations with pourakarmikas in early morning pickup vans in HAL area confirms that they do get hospital waste bags filled with used syringes, swabs and more. Landfills to water sources A recent study by ESG is another proof of how the hazardous waste finds their way to landfills. Finding fault with the treatment plant at Mavallipura, the study reveals that heavy metals are being released by the landfills into the water sources. Notes the report: "This is quite uncharacteristic of municipal garbage, indicating thereby the strong possibility that these landfills have been receiving hazardous wastes as well." This observation says it all. (With inputs from Darshan Devaiah B P & Madhuri Rao) ======================================== 15. INDIA: WHY THE SC ORDER ON KHAPS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH Editorial, Hindustan Times ======================================== Hindustan Times April 02, 2018 While the Supreme Court?s order is important, it will not stop attacks on couples altogether. To stop the custom, patriarchal mindsets that view women as property and part of an honour that needs safeguarding, have to change. Chaudhary Jitendra Singh, the head of the Dhama khap, Haryana. What is equally important is to impress upon these khap panchayats that what they are doing is illegal and it is they, and not the couples, who will face the full force of the law if they overstep the legal boundaries. Chaudhary Jitendra Singh, the head of the Dhama khap, Haryana. What is equally important is to impress upon these khap panchayats that what they are doing is illegal and it is they, and not the couples, who will face the full force of the law if they overstep the legal boundaries. (HT) In any country ---- at least in the ones that are not so feudal ---- a marriage between two consenting adults is usually an acceptable practice. Not so in many parts of India, especially in the north, where Jat community groups, comprising elderly men (khap panchayats) , can question and stop sub-caste marriages and marriages within the same clan (or gotra). They can also punish couples and their families for overstepping stifling social boundaries, even though their decisions have no legal backing. Last week, the Supreme Court made this clear and ruled that it is illegal for khap panchayats to interfere in a marriage between two consenting adults, and also to summon and punish them physically. In many cases, such punishments mean death. The court has also laid down preventive, remedial and punitive measures to stop such so-called honour killings. The initial reaction of khaps in western Uttar Pradesh to the court ruling has been one of defiance. This isn?t just bluff and bluster; it is fuelled by the fact that these khaps have strong political support because they control huge vote banks. While the Supreme Court?s order is important and can probably push state governments to take measures to deter khaps from pronouncing such arbitrary sentences and provide a safe environment for couples, it will not stop attacks on couples altogether. To stop the custom, patriarchal mindsets that view women as property and intrinsic to a code of honour that needs safeguarding, have to change. This will not happen unless families change their own belief systems, and boys and young men are taught to respect women (and included in structured gender sensitisation programmes). What is equally important is to impress upon these khap panchayats that they will face the full force of the law if they overstep the legal boundaries. Last but not the least, political parties should not let electoral concerns prevail over social ones. They should speak up strongly and unequivocally against the regressive khaps. de of the hero. Of grace under pressure. ======================================== 16. INDIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN SELECTIVE IN HUMAN RIGHTS DISCUSSIONS, SAYS SECRETARY GENERAL OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ======================================== It?s one of the few among large democracies still using the death penalty and is brazenly attacking minorities, says the Secretary General of Amnesty International http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/india-has-always-been-selective-in-human-rights-discussions/article23495531.ece ======================================== 17. INDIA: TWO PUNDITS ON THE ROAD - THEY VISITED PLACES FAR AND NEAR TO LEARN Niranjan Rajadhyaksha ======================================== LiveMint Jan 18 2013 If no one heeds your call/Walk alone, walk alone, walk alone...?Rabindranath Tagore A popular visual metaphor of Indian wisdom is that of a sage meditating in splendid solitude, in a forest or on a mountain, far removed from the messy world we live in. Yet there is also a tradition of wise men travelling through the real world in search of knowledge. The first Shankaracharya left what is now Kerala to eventually set up monasteries in four different parts of the country. Guru Nanak not only travelled through India but also reached distant places such as Baghdad and Mecca. Swami Vivekananda wandered through India for almost five years as an impoverished monk. What is true of religious teachers is also true of scholars. The usual image in our minds is of someone sitting for long hours in a library. But then there is a special category of peripatetic pundits who have travelled to learn. The two greatest examples modern India has seen are Dharmanand Kosambi and Rahul Sankrityayan. Kosambi had told his astonishing story in Nivedan, his Marathi autobiography that has recently been translated into English by Meera Kosambi, his granddaughter. He left Goa as a young man in 1899, with little money but with a burning desire to learn more about Buddhism, and to spread its message in Goa and Maharashtra. He was at the forefront of the Buddhist revival in India in the early 20th century. Kosambi?s travels took him to places such as Pune, Gwalior, Varanasi, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. He learnt Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali and English on the way. With barely a school education, he ended up teaching at Harvard University and the Leningrad Academy of Sciences. Kosambi eventually ended his life by starvation in 1947, at M.K. Gandhi?s ashram in Wardha, Maharashtra. Gandhi had said that his ashram had been sanctified by the presence of Kosambi. Sankrityayan, born Kedarnath Pandey, left his home in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, in 1910, with little more than a primary school education. His travels took him to places such as Varanasi, Ladakh, Nepal, Ceylon, Tibet, Japan and Korea. He visited the erstwhile Soviet Union twice, and, like Kosambi, taught for some time at Leningrad. Besides his native Hindi, he gained mastery over several other languages such as Sanskrit, Pali, Urdu, Tibetan, Persian, French and Russian. His political journey was fascinating as well. Sankrityayan began as a Vaishnav monk, and then became an Arya Samajist, a Buddhist, a peasant leader and finally, a Communist. He spent his final years in the hills near Mussoorie. His literary masterpiece was Volga Se Ganga, a sweeping narrative of human progress over two millennia, 6000 BC to 1922 AD, told in 19 stories. I have the Marathi translation in my library, though the English translation by Victor Kiernan has, unfortunately, been out of print for many years now. Their burning passion for knowledge united Kosambi and Sankrityayan; so did the difficulties they endured at a time when travel often meant walking great distances. The humane message of the Buddha also unites their unrelated lives. But reading about their journeys and work tells us a lot else. First, they wrote in Indian languages and have perhaps paid a price for this by being forgotten by the exclusively English-speaking elite of today. Second, these were two towering intellectuals who barely had a decent school education but ended up teaching in prestigious academic institutions. I cannot but wonder whether they would have been able to do so today, when universities have become closed shops that shoo away anybody who does not have impressive certificates. It is hard to believe that either Kosambi or Sankrityayan would have been invited to teach at a contemporary Indian university. Third, they often travelled with barely enough money to eat, yet were supported along the way by strangers who respected men of knowledge. In her introduction to Nivedan, Meera Kosambi points out: ?So it was that a young and needy Marathi-speaking Brahmin student?who was also intelligent, hard-working and courteous?could find shelter and warm hospitality in many places far from home. In a way this was an extension of the pan-Indian ethos of honouring holy men and learning in general, without regard to caste and ethnic background; and it was not only Maharashtrians who helped Dharmanand.? Finally, the journeys of these two men also show that there was an essential cultural unity in India far before there was a formal political union. It is often tempting to reach the glum conclusion that there is nothing in India but warring groups; the very lives of Kosambi and Sankrityayan, perhaps more than even the lives of more famous political leaders, reveal that there is a common cultural heritage binding India together over the centuries. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is executive editor, Mint. ======================================== 18. ANNOUNCED: PEOPLE?S TRIBUNAL ON ATTACK ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ======================================== People?s Tribunal on Attack on Educational Institutions is being organised by the People?s Commission on Shrinking Democratic Spaces on April 11-13,2018 at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi. Testimonies of close to 110 students and teachers from 35 educational institutions are on record and around 45 of them will be deposed during the tribunal. Please visit www.pcsds.in for more information and update. SEE PROGRAMME HERE: https://tinyurl.com/ybkyrtkn ======================================== 19. TEXAS BILL PROHIBITING MALE MASTURBATION MOVES CLOSER TO BECOMING LAW by Michael Stone ======================================== http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/author/mstone/ ======================================== 20. HOW ILLIBERAL LEADERS ATTACK CIVIL SOCIETY What's Happening in Central Europe Is Part of a Larger Trend by Michael Abramowitz and Nate Schenkkan ======================================== Increasingly, attacks on civil society and independent media have become normalized throughout central Europe, threatening the future of democracy in the region. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-europe/2018-04-06/how-illiberal-leaders-attack-civil-society ======================================== 21. A BRIEF HISTORY OF FAKE DOCTORS, AND HOW THEY GET AWAY WITH IT Philippa Martyr ======================================== The Conversation April 10, 2018 Impersonation of doctors is a modern phenomenon that grew out of Western medicine?s drive towards professionalism. from shutterstock.com Melbourne man Raffaele Di Paolo pleaded guilty last week to a number of charges related to practising as a medical specialist when he wasn?t qualified to do so. Di Paolo is in jail awaiting his sentence after being found guilty of fraud, indecent assault and sexual penetration. This case follows that of another so-called ?fake doctor? in New South Wales. Sarang Chitale worked in the state?s public health service as a junior doctor from 2003 until 2014. It was only in 2016, after his last employer ? the research firm Novotech ? reported him to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), that his qualifications were investigated. ?Dr? Chitale turned out to be Shyam Acharya, who had stolen the real Dr Chitale?s identity and obtained Australian citizenship and employment at a six-figure salary. Acharya had no medical qualifications at all. Cases of impersonation, identity theft and fraudulent practice happen across a range of disciplines. There have been instances of fake pilots, veterinarians and priests. It?s especially confronting when it happens in medicine, because of the immense trust we place in those looking after our health. So what drives people to go to such extremes, and how do they get away with? A modern phenomenon Impersonation of doctors is a modern phenomenon. It grew out of Western medicine?s drive towards professionalism in the 19th century, which ran alongside the explosion of scientific medical research. Before this, doctors would be trained by an apprentice-type system, and there was little recourse for damages. A person hired a doctor if they could afford it, and if the treatment was poor, or killed the patient, it was a case of caveat emptor ? buyer beware. But as science made medicine more reliable, the title of ?doctor? really began to mean something ? especially as the fees began to rise. By the end of the 19th century in the British Empire, becoming a doctor was a complex process. It required long university training, an independent income and the right social connections. Legislation backed this up, with medical registration acts controlling who could and couldn?t use medical titles. Given the present social status and salaries of medical professionals, it?s easy to see why people would aspire to be doctors. And when the road ahead looks too hard and expensive, it may be tempting to take short cuts. Today, there are four common elements that point to weaknesses in our health-care systems, which allow fraudsters to slip through the cracks and practise medicine. Shyam Acharya stole Dr Chitale?s identity to practise medicine. AAP Images 1. Misplaced trust Everyone believes someone, somewhere, has checked and verified a person?s credentials. But sometimes this hasn?t been done, or it takes a long time. Fake psychiatrist Mohamed Shakeel Siddiqui ? a qualified doctor who stole a real psychiatrist?s identity and worked in New Zealand for six months in 2015 ? left a complicated trail of identity theft that required the assistance of the FBI to unravel. Last year, in Germany, a man was found to have forged foreign qualifications that he presented to the registering body in early 2016. He was issued with a temporary licence while these were checked. When the qualifications turned out to be fraudulent, he was fired from his job as a junior doctor in a psychiatric ward. But this wasn?t until June 2017. 2. Foreign credentials Credentials from a foreign university, issued in a different language, are another common element among medical fraudsters. Verifying these can be time-consuming, so a health system desperate for staff may cut corners. Ioannis Kastanis was appointed as head of medicine at Skyros Regional Hospital in Greece in 1999 with fake degrees from Sapienza University of Rome. The degrees were recognised and the certificates translated, but their authenticity was never checked. Dusan Milosevic, who practised as a psychologist for ten years, registered in Victoria in 1998. He held bogus degrees from the University of Belgrade in Serbia ? at the time a war-torn corner of Europe, which made verification difficult. 3. Regional and remote practice It?s easier to get away with faking in regional or remote areas where there is less scrutiny. Desperation to retain staff may also silence complaints. ?Dr? Balaji Varatharaju fraudulently gained employment in remote Alice Springs, where he worked as a junior doctor for nine months. Ioannis Kastanis had worked on a distant Greek island with a population of only around 3,000 people. 4. It?s not easy to dob Finally, there are two unnerving questions. How do you tell a poorly trained but legally qualified practitioner from a faker? And who do you tell if you suspect something is off? The people best placed to spot the fakes ? other hospital and health-care staff ? work in often stressful conditions where complaints about colleagues can lead to reprisals. If the practitioner is from another ethnicity or culture, this adds an extra layer of sensitivity. It was only after ?Dr Chitale? was exposed that staff were willing to say his practice had been ?shabby?, ?unsavoury? and ?poor?. Qualified doctors, like former Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel, have also caused problems. DAN PELED/AAP Image So, why do they do it? The reasons for fakery are as diverse as the fakers. ?Dr Nick Delaney?, at Lady Cilento Children?s Hospital in Brisbane, reportedly pretended to be a doctor to ?make friends? and keep a fling going with a security guard at the same hospital. On a more sinister level, there are possible sexually predatory reasons, like those of bogus gynaecologist Raffale Di Paolo. Fake psychiatrist Mohamed Shakeel Siddiqui said he only did it to help people. There are also the less easily understood fakers, like ?Dr? Adam Litwin, who worked as a resident in surgery at UCLA Medical Center in California for six months in 1999. Questions only began to be asked when he turned up to work in his white coat with a picture of himself silk-screened on it: even by Californian standards, this was going too far. So how do we stop this happening? Part of the problem is our cultural dependence on qualifications as the passkey to higher income and social status, making them an easy target for fraudsters. Qualifications only reduce risk, but they can?t eliminate it. Qualified doctors can also cause havoc: think Jayant Patel and other bona fide qualified practitioners who have been struck off for malpractice, mutilation and manslaughter. Conversely, no one complained about ?Dr Chitale? in 11 years. The only complaints Kastanis received in 14 years were from people who thought his Ferrari was vulgar. The German junior doctor had an excellent knowledge of mental health-care procedures and language ? obtained from his time as a psychiatric patient. Most of these loopholes can be closed with time and patience. What would help is if hospital and health-care staff felt sufficiently supported to report their suspicions to their employer, rather than to their colleagues. This would foster a more open culture of flagging concerns about fellow practitioners without fear of formal or informal punishment. It might also uncover more ?Dr Chitales? before anyone is seriously harmed. Author Philippa Martyr: Lecturer, Pharmacology, University of Western Australia _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Apr 17 08:12:04 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 17:42:04 +0530 Subject: SACW - 17 April 2018 | Bangladesh: Hefazat thugs / Pakistan: Anjuman Mazareen / India: misogyny & hate in the bloodstream / A Global Agenda for Labour / Lula Goes to Prison Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 17 April 2018 - No. 2983 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Anjuman Mazareen Punjab (AMP) - the fall and rise of a social movement | Ahmed Yusuf 2. Deep misogyny and hate drives the daily matrix of social power in India: a compilation of selected commentary & URLS on the sexual brutality and rapes in Kathua and in Unnao 3. Audio: Reflections on Labour and Democracy, Left?s failure to theorise fascism and the right wing ideologies that are reigning India today | Dilip Simeon 4. ?Unspeakable horror of the Kathua and the Unnao incidents? - Open Letter to the Prime Minister of India by former state officials 5. Video: Live stream and recordings from People?s tribunal on the attack on educational institutions in India (11-13 April 2018) 6. Systemic Change and Environmental Justice in India, the United States, and Beyond 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Recast(e)ing the model minority: Behind right wing Hindu politics in the U.S. | Sirisha Naidu and Raja Swamy - India: RSS targetting electorate in coastal Karnataka to vote for ?a nationalist party? [BJP] - India: The RSS?s dangerous position on separate religion status for the Lingayats in Karnataka | Hartosh Singh Bal - India: On Coastal Karnataka in the coming 15th assembly elections - comment by Rajaram Tolpadi (Deccan Herald) - India: Mecca Masjid Blast Case of 2007 - Aseemanand, four others acquitted for lack of evidence - India: Signs of Hope in the Fight against Saffron Violence in Uttarakhand | Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Trepan Singh Chauhan - India: Report on Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao rally by Muslims at Patna's Gandhi Maidan - India: Haryana, hate crime ? outsourced from lynch mobs to men in khaki - Belittling Nehru?s Legacy will Harm India?s Democracy | Ram Puniyani - Nativists cling to the wishful purity of their vision of the past despite findings of genetic science - India: RSS was bitterly of critical of Ambedkar when he was alive and tried to reform of Hindu personal laws | Ramachandra Guha ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Bangladesh: Who has given Hefazat the authority to dictate what is and what is not Muslim culture? Editorial, Dhaka Tribune 9. India: Who do you think you are? | Pratap Bhanu Mehta 10. India: SC/ST Act is like an umbrella, it ensures we are safe, say Mirchpur Dalits | Niha Masih 11. India: March against sham science | G.S. Mudur 12. India Flexes Military Muscle with with Huge Air force War Game - Gaganshakti 2018 13. India: The contours of the new Red map | Rahul Tripathi 14. ?Firing happens almost daily?: cross-border clashes in Kashmir reach highest levels in 15 years as Indo-Pakistan tensions fester | Agence France-Presse 15. Coppola on Hakala, 'Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia' 16. South Asia's population in perspective 17. ?People?s Movements in Pakistan? ? an account of non-violent political struggle | Khurram Abbas 18. A Global Agenda for Labour | Pranab Bardhan 19. France: In Solidarity with the Students at Nanterre 20. Lula Goes to Prison, Deepening Brazil?s Political Crisis ? as Military Waits in the Wings | Leandro Demori ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: ANJUMAN MAZAREEN PUNJAB (AMP) - THE FALL AND RISE OF A SOCIAL MOVEMENT by Ahmed Yusuf ======================================== After almost a decade of slumber, voices of resistance are emerging from landless peasants in Punjab once again. This is the tale of how biradari divided their social movement, but now, a shared struggle is bringing them close again http://www.sacw.net/article13725.html ======================================== 2. DEEP MISOGYNY AND HATE DRIVES THE DAILY MATRIX OF SOCIAL POWER IN INDIA: A COMPILATION OF SELECTED COMMENTARY & URLS ON THE SEXUAL BRUTALITY AND RAPES IN KATHUA AND IN UNNAO ======================================== India is sliding toward a collapse of humanity and ethics in political and civic life http://www.sacw.net/article13726.html ======================================== 3. AUDIO: REFLECTIONS ON LABOUR AND DEMOCRACY, LEFT?S FAILURE TO THEORISE FASCISM AND THE RIGHT WING IDEOLOGIES THAT ARE REIGNING INDIA TODAY by Dilip Simeon ======================================== The historian Dilip Simeon reflecting on the need to defend democracy, the absence of a theory of fascism, the authoritarian culture of the left and ruling right wing ideologies. This lecture was delivered at the First Global Labour History Conference held in Delhi (3-4 March) in 2017 http://www.sacw.net/article13140.html ======================================== 4. ?UNSPEAKABLE HORROR OF THE KATHUA AND THE UNNAO INCIDENTS? - OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA BY FORMER STATE OFFICIALS ======================================== We are a group of retired civil servants who came together last year to express our concern at the decline in the secular, democratic, and liberal values enshrined in our constitution. We did so to join other voices of protest against the frightening climate of hate, fear and viciousness that the ruling establishment had insidiously induced. We spoke then as we do now: as citizens who have no affiliations with any political party nor adherence to any political ideology other than the values enshrined in our Constitution. http://www.sacw.net/article13724.html ======================================== 5. VIDEO: LIVE STREAM AND RECORDINGS FROM PEOPLE?S TRIBUNAL ON THE ATTACK ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA (11-13 APRIL 2018) ======================================== recordings of proceedings of the People?s tribunal on the attack on educational institutions in India being held in Delhi http://www.sacw.net/article13719.html ======================================== 6. SYSTEMIC CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN INDIA, THE UNITED STATES, AND BEYOND ======================================== A video recording from The Institute of Policy Studies in Washington http://www.sacw.net/article13720.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Recast(e)ing the model minority: Behind right wing Hindu politics in the U.S. | Sirisha Naidu and Raja Swamy - India: What is this RSS connected Hind Baloch Forum ? - India: RSS targetting electorate in coastal Karnataka to vote for ?a nationalist party? [BJP] - India: The RSS?s dangerous position on separate religion status for the Lingayats in Karnataka | Hartosh Singh Bal - India: The cross party reach of the Hindu Ekta Manch in Jammu - India: On Coastal Karnataka in the coming 15th assembly elections - comment by Rajaram Tolpadi (Deccan Herald) - India: Mecca Masjid Blast Case of 2007 - Aseemanand, four others acquitted for lack of evidence - India: Why has Narendra Modi government gone on an overdrive to proclaim its devotion to B.R. Ambedkar - India: Signs of Hope in the Fight against Saffron Violence in Uttarakhand | Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Trepan Singh Chauhan - India: Saffron-Green nexus . . . a fixed match between Hindu and Muslim communal forces, towards polarisation - India: Report on Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao rally by Muslims at Patna's Gandhi Maidan - India: Haryana, hate crime ? outsourced from lynch mobs to men in khaki - Belittling Nehru?s Legacy will Harm India?s Democracy | Ram Puniyani - India: 2016 Cartoon by R Prasad on the Appropriation of Ambedkar by the Hindu Right - India: BJP income skyrockets compared to other political parties giving it a big advantage - Nativists cling to the wishful purity of their vision of the past despite findings of genetic science - India: Brickbats for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over his appointment of Hindu priests in his govt - India: RSS was bitterly of critical of Ambedkar when he was alive and tried to reform of Hindu personal laws | Ramachandra Guha - India: Muslim Gujjar and Bakarwal pastoralists are being systematically driven out of their settlements in Hindu-dominated districts -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. BANGLADESH: WHO HAS GIVEN HEFAZAT THE AUTHORITY TO DICTATE WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT MUSLIM CULTURE? EDITORIAL, DHAKA TRIBUNE ======================================== Dhaka Tribune Editorial April 15, 2018 Respecting diversity, and not division Who has given Hefazat the authority to dictate what is and what is not Muslim culture? Lest we forget, Bangladesh is a secular nation, built on secular principles set forth by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. One shining example of this are the Pohela Boishakh celebrations, which highlight the multi-ethnic and diverse culture of our country. Nowhere is this secular spirit more evident than in the iconic Mongol Shobhajatra, which ? though relatively recent in its origin ? truly epitomizes the unity that exists within the Bangladeshi people, as the procession boasts people from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. But it seems that Hefazat-e-Islam has forgotten our nation?s history, or wishes to rewrite it. Bangladesh has always prided itself on its diversity and inclusion, and for Hefazat to tarnish this legacy by proclaiming that the Mongol Shobhajatra is ?haram? and ?not Muslim culture? is utterly unacceptable. Even more dangerous and divisive is their tendentious description of the event as ?adult men and women wearing indecent clothing? and ?dancing together? and their dubbing it a ?Hindu ritual forced upon Muslims by the state.? In the first place: Who has given Hefazat the authority to dictate what is and what is not Muslim culture? How dare they try to impose their narrow, parochial interpretation of Islam on the rest of us? Second, and more important, their statements are bigoted and objectionable hate speech. Statements such as theirs have no place in a nation such as ours, statements which serve not only to create religious disharmony among the peace-loving citizens of Bangladesh, but go so far as to threaten violence. When threats, incitement to violence, and hate directed at a religious community are a crime ? and these are all crimes under the penal code ? statements such as these cannot be permitted to stand. Those who sow the seeds of discord through this kind of intolerant hate-mongering must be brought to book. Bangladesh can have zero tolerance for such ugliness. Pohela Boishakh and even the Mongol Shobhajatra are emblematic of Bangladesh?s rich culture and heritage and to spew such vitriol in their direction cannot be permitted. Hefazat does not have to like either. But it cannot impose its views on the rest of us, and, most importantly, it cannot be allowed to threaten violence in order to get its way. ======================================== 9. INDIA: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? by Pratap Bhanu Mehta ======================================== (Indian Express, April 11, 2018) While identities matter, when they are carelessly ascribed, they become inimical to freedom. Identities are often maintained by policing boundaries, if you are one thing, you cannot be another. (Source: AP Photo) In the film, The Party, there is a line ascribed to the Indian character Bakshi played by Peter Sellers. In response to a taunt, ?Who do you think you are?? Bakshi responds: ?In India we don?t think who we are, we know who we are.? For those of us, who are never quite sure what it means to know who we are, such confidence is a great source of envy. But it is sometimes alarming, when we not only seem to know who we are, but also seem to know who everyone else is. We easily ascribe identities to others, nest those identities in a set of expectations, and confidently proclaim the obligations that follow from those identities. Collective identities matter to people. They may give a sense of belonging. They can sometimes produce solidarity. Sometimes they are premised on a sense of superiority and domination. Sometimes they are a defensive reaction against oppressive constructions that target people for being who they are. Collective identities are produced through complex social, psychological and historical mechanisms. Sometimes identities precede political action, sometimes they are constructed through it. But in our public discourse there is something deeply suffocating and inimical about the use of collective nouns and pronouns to capture identities. Almost all words that designate any collective identity ? ?Hindus?, ?Muslims?, ?Dalits?, ?Indian?, or even categories of gender ? are almost casually used to imprison people than recognise them. This is not the occasion for theoretical exercises in notions of identity. But the utter lack of self-awareness, and false confidence with which these terms are invoked should make us pause. While it is a truism that identities matter, it is also a truism that when they are carelessly ascribed, they become inimical to freedom. What does it mean to invoke the term ?Indian Muslim?? What does it mean to say, ?I am Hindu? or I am ?Jain or ?Tamil?? These words have contextual uses, and can be aspects of people?s self-definition. But they easily become tyrannical when the common sense pitfalls of any collective noun or pronoun are ignored. The pitfalls that make the easy ascription of collective identities fraught are obvious. But they bear repeating. In invoking a collective identity, are we too easily ascribing a unity of purpose, meaning, experience and capability to members of large group that they cannot possibly have? In ascribing that unity, or measuring that identity against a benchmark, we abstract away the different textures, struggles, individual engagement through which that identity becomes a hard won achievement, or the diverse forms in which it is imagined. Second, Nietzsche once said, that only ahistorical beings can be defined. To confidently name an identity is, in some ways, to freeze it; it is to impose a stable set of expectations that circumscribe our possibility of action. We become manifestations of that larger collective identity rather than agents who shape it. Third, identities almost always seem to trap us in binaries, what Bhikhu Parekh in a lecture once evocatively called ?the false antinomies between closed wholes?. Identities are often maintained by policing boundaries, if you are one thing, you cannot be another. Or worse, the truism that the solidarity behind collective identities is often sustained by identifying a threat or an enemy. One of the paradoxes of India is that at the level of vernacular practice, our identities can be a lot more permeable. It is when we put the pressure on naming them (Is ?X? practice Sikh of Hindu?) that identities go from being open fields that we freely inhabit to closed fortresses that we zealously guard. Fourth, public invocations of identity are insidiously colonising and easily displace reason and argument. Which collective identity you can be slotted under is then assumed to give you authority over some subjects not others, define your moral responsibilities, and even be a predictor of what you might say. If an argument takes the form, ?Speaking as ?X? I make the following claim,? it is the speaking as X that is supposed to give you authority not the validity of your claim. India, of course, has the most nauseating history of imposing compulsory identities on people, through caste. But other casual invocations of public identity also extract huge moral costs. Just as nationalism is a form of collective aggrandisement and narcissism, so do most collective identities run the same risk. Collective identities efface individuality. The emphasis in describing everyone first by the collective noun into which they can be slotted often completely forecloses any space of interiority, no space for inwardness, or psychological complexity. Aurobindo was right in thinking that at some point rigidified external social identities made India something akin to a charnel house of rotted interiorities, to use Lukacs? phrase. If you wanted to explore the depths of being and the complexities of existence, you had to escape society; society always had its scripts ready for you. Our constant inability to think of individuals outside of the collective noun under which we slot them has a similar effect. And by subsuming people under abstractions, collective identities do away with ordinary human sympathies. Collective identities are also becoming scripts others control. They take away possibilities of self-definition. When we use terms like Hindu, Muslim, Women, Dalit, casually in public discourse, what do they actually mean? What expectations are associated with them? Are the listeners associating the same meaning with that collective noun as the speaker? Do the listeners burden those who inhabit these identities with different stereotypes than those who invoke them? Indian public discourse is so suffocating in part because these collective nouns are the medium through which we constantly misrecognise each other. Casual stereotyping is just one manifestation of that. These categories are perhaps inescapable. But we can be more self-aware about their imprisoning logic. Contrary to the character Bakshi?s confidence, we don?t know who we are. We get that confident certainty that we know who we are, or who other are by slotting them into boxes. By naming them, putting them under a collective noun, we avoid the labour and hard work of having to know who we are and who others are. Naming has become a substitute for knowing. Perhaps we will be more liberated not if we have the illusory confidence that we know who we are, but if we replied like Bulleh Shah: ?Bulla ki jana main kaun?? For it is the tyranny of naming that destroys our freedom, and makes us presumptuous enough to define others as well. The writer is vice-chancellor, Ashoka University. Views are personal. ======================================== 10. INDIA: SC/ST ACT IS LIKE AN UMBRELLA, IT ENSURES WE ARE SAFE, SAY MIRCHPUR DALITS by Niha Masih ======================================== Hindustan Times, Apr 12, 2018 Despite a rare, legal victory, Dalits of Mirchpur are back on the streets ? to fight for the SC/ST Act that helped them win a case seven years ago. Hindustan Times, Mirchpur, Hisar Dalit families who fled Mirchpur village continue to live in makeshift camps in Hisar. Their homes were burnt down in 2010.(Burhaan Kinu/HT File Photo) Gulab Singh, 80, is frail and bent with age. He hobbles around with a wooden stick at the makeshift camp he lives in, outside Haryana?s Hisar city. But on April 2, defying his body and age, he marched with thousands of others for the Bharat Bandh called by Dalit groups. The nationwide protest was called in the wake of a Supreme Court order which put checks on arrests under the Scheduled Caste and Tribe Act (SC/ST Act), citing its misuse. ?We are alive due to the Act. If they take it away, do you think they [upper-castes] will spare us?? he asks. Singh is a beneficiary of the Act that won him victory in court, but is angry, because the battle for social justice is far from over. He and other Dalit families may never return to the village of Mirchpur, which has always been home. On April 21, 2010, 18 Dalit houses, including his, were attacked by the Jats in Mirchpur, following an altercation over a barking dog. While Singh survived, his neighbour, 70-year-old Tara Chand, and his disabled teenage daughter, Suman, lost their lives in the blaze. Unlike several other high-profile cases of caste violence ?in which trials have dragged on for years and resulted in acquittals ?the Mirchpur case went to trial in a few months, and a judgment the following year, convicted 15 Jats of the village. Singh?s witness testimony formed a crucial part of the case in court. But seven years after their hard-fought legal victory, the Mirchpur Dalits were forced to take to the streets once again ? this time to fight for the very Act that had been instrumental in delivering them justice. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 130 SC/ST atrocity cases were registered every day across the country in 2016. While the Act has made it easier for the victims to register cases, it has not guaranteed justice. Only a fourth of the total cases ended in convictions while pendency was at 88%. Ramesh Nathan, general secretary, National Dalit Movement for Justice, a group which monitors atrocity cases across the country, points to the reasons for poor conviction rates. ?Poor police investigations are a big factor. Chargesheets are delayed, which often means victims and witnesses get threatened, weakening the cases. This is being interpreted as false or fake cases.? The data too does not suggest widespread abuse. Of the total cases registered in 2016, 15% were found to be ?false? or ended due to ?mistake of fact/law?. The police filed chargesheets in 80% of the cases suggesting prima facie evidence. Satyawan Singh, 38, nephew of the deceased, Tara Chand, was instrumental in organising the survivors for the legal battle. He says, ?We had to fight so hard to get a conviction in court despite the Act so we need to stand for it now.? He describes the ordeal that the Dalits faced in the aftermath of the violence. Almost 250 Dalit families fled Mirchpur, spending a month and a half sitting on a dharna outside the secretariat. After administrative assurances of justice and security, they went back to the village. ?We had barely gone back that the pressure started building to withdraw the case. One night, two cars full of Jats went around our basti, making threatening announcements. We left after three days,? he says. From there, the families trekked 150 kilometres to Delhi, staying at a Valmiki Mandir near Panchkuian road. After two months, they made another attempt to go back home. But the pressure from the Jats forced them out once more. After months of being homeless, most of the Dalit families settled on a patch of land on the outskirts of Hisar, loaned to them by a social activist. They have been living here ever since. Only 50 families, who could not afford to lose their village livelihood, went back to Mirchpur. Approximately 250 Dalit families from Mirchpur fled in the aftermath of the violence in 2010. The court convicted 15 Jats of the village. (Burhaan Kinu/HT File Photo) Satyawan?s nephew, Sanjay Valmiki, a 28-year-old driver, says the Bharat Bandh protests got a massive response, especially among the Dalit youth. ?After the SC decision, we organised meetings in all nearby villages. Everywhere we went, the people were very angry. Diluting the Act is a direct attack on our safety.? The impact of the nationwide protests can already be felt both nationally and locally. On the backfoot, the Centre filed a review petition in court which is now being heard. In Haryana, the longstanding demand for rehabilitation by the Mirchpur Dalits was accepted by the state government last week. After eight years of living under a tarpaulin tent, the families will now be given land and financial help to build houses at Dhandhur village ? an hour away from their original homes. This is also being welcomed by the Dalit families that had continued living in Mirchpur. Last year, in a nightmarish re-run of the events of 2010, a Dalit teenager, Shiv Kumar, was beaten and abused by Jat boys for winning village athletic races. His father, Ajmer Singh, says, ?Due to the favourable judgment in the 2010 case, this time things didn?t go out of hand.? Pointing to a filthy kuchcha lane over-run with sewage, in front of his house, he adds, ?This is the border. We live like people do on the Indo-Pakistan border.? The same road further ahead is inhabited by the Jats. Each of the Jat houses in that stretch has had men arrested, accused or convicted for the 2010 attack. Rajinder Palli, 39, serving life sentence is currently out on parole. Maintaining his innocence, he says, ?The Dalits get their way but no one listens to us. They have power as they have more votes than Jats.? His neighbour, 45-year-old Suresh Kumar, spent 17 months in jail before being acquitted by the court. Disabled in one foot, he walks around with a crutch. ?Being in jail was very tough for me. Each second was hell. I was innocent and yet I spent so much time in jail. I?m happy that SC has recognised that this Act is misused,? he says. Data on arrests from NCRB, in fact, shows that more than 85% people arrested were eventually chargesheeted in 2016. It is this sentiment that makes life untenable for the remaining Dalits in the village. The victory in court has deepened the fault line. Says Ajmer Singh, ?We don?t want to take any more chances and will move out soon, now that the government is ready to relocate us.? While the elder members are resigned to leaving their homes, the younger Dalits realise that moving is a short-term solution. Amit Singh, 23, who is an unemployed, interrupts Ajmer. ?Caste violence will not end even if we go away. We have to fight to save the Act.? Another man next to him chips in, ?The Act is like an umbrella that ensures we are safe. If it is taken away, we will become slaves again.? ======================================== 11. INDIA: MARCH AGAINST SHAM SCIENCE G.S. Mudur ======================================== The Telegraph April 15, 2018 00:00 IST Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to LinkedInShare to WhatsAppShare to EmailShare to More33 Krishna Sengupta at the march in New Delhi New Delhi: The need for a walking stick didn't hold back Krishna Sengupta, 74, from joining scientists, fellow academics and students as they marched along Delhi's streets on Saturday in protest against what they view as the government's anti-science policies. Sengupta, former professor of physics at Miranda House, a Delhi college, was participating in the "March for Science", held in many places in India in tandem with similar events across the world. The All India People's Science Network and the Breakthrough Science Society, two NGOs coordinating the campaign in India, said over 3,000 people joined the march in Calcutta. "This walk is important, especially to prevent our society from sinking into dark days," said Sengupta. The scientific temper is important not just to improve the economy, she said, but to improve society as well. The march organisers have drafted a petition that calls on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop the propagation of unscientific and obscurantist ideas and ensure India's education system does not impart beliefs contrary to scientific evidence. "Unscientific ideas and superstitious beliefs are being propagated with accelerated pace," the petition reads. "Ridiculous claims are being made about an imaginary glorious past ignoring the true contributions based on historical evidence.' Junior human resource development minister Satya Pal Singh had earlier this year claimed that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was wrong, because no one had seen a monkey enter a forest to re-emerge as a human. Science minister Harsh Vardhan had last month claimed that physicist Stephen Hawking had said the Vedas might have a theory superior to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. "What is even more worrying is how our scientific agencies are being influenced into pursuing pseudo-science," said D. Raghunandan, who is associated with the All India People's Science Network. The Centre has approved funds for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to probe the healing properties of Ganga water. Last year, the department of science and technology established a "steering committee" to guide research to assess the virtues of the panchgavya, a concoction of cow dung, urine, milk, curd, ghee, water and other ingredients. The call for the march had come from scientists from many academic and government institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai; the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Calcutta. "We have reports of marches in around 40 cities across India, including Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneswar and Guwahati," said Chanchal Ghosh, a coordinator with the Breakthrough Science Society. The campaign has urged the government to increase its budgets for science and education. The global organisers of the march for science have described this year's event as a second show of unity by science supporters "to hold elected and appointed officials responsible for enacting equitable evidence-based policies that serve all communities and science for the common good". Scientists were expected to turn up for the marches in multiple cities in all continents. ======================================== 12. INDIA FLEXES MILITARY MUSCLE WITH WITH HUGE AIR FORCE WAR GAME - GAGANSHAKTI 2018 ======================================== Gaganshakti 2018: IAF displays might, air chief says ?we?re shaking the heavens? The Gaganshakti-2018 exercise seeks to test the IAF?s readiness and stamina for a two-front war with China and Pakistan. india Updated: Apr 17, 2018 10:35 IST Rahul Singh https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/gaganshakti-2018-indian-air-force-displays-might-in-biggest-combat-exercise/story-JRSoJemNz7iy4Y676j9b6I.html ======================================== 13. INDIA: THE CONTOURS OF THE NEW RED MAP by Rahul Tripathi ======================================== Indian Express New Delhi | Updated: April 17, 2018 NDA government launched ?National Policy and Action Plan? in 2015, covering security and development aspects. Three years later, it claims tangible benefits in its efforts against Maoists. Maoist territory Personnel of the India Reserve Battalion conduct a patrol in the Jangalmahal region of Purulia district, West Bengal. (Express Photo: Partha Paul) Naxalism was once called by the government as the biggest internal security threat faced by the country. However, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Maoist influence has been gradually shrinking. In figures released on Monday, the MHA, which recently redrew the red corridor, brought down the number of districts affected with Naxal violence from 106 to 90, spread across 11 states. The list also includes the 30 worst-affected district ? six down from the previous one. In 2015, the NDA government had adopted the ?National Policy and Action Plan?, which aimed at addressing Left Wing Extremism (LWE) in the country. In the last couple of years though, Maoists have managed to carry out big strikes killing scores of policemen. In Chhattisgarh, over two dozen policemen were killed in separate incidents in 2017; at least nine CRPF personnel were killed in a similar attack in Sukma last month. Which states are included in the LWE-affected areas? The report considers Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar as states that are severely affected by LWE. West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (earlier a part of the severely affected category) are considered partially affected. Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are classified as states that are slightly affected. According to the report, Maoists are making a foray into Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and planning to link the Western and Eastern Ghats through these states. They are not only planning to increase their activities in these areas, but also carve out a base for themselves in the tri-junction. The report also notes that the Maoists are attempting to make inroads into Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, and their success in doing so can have long-term strategic implications. Is the recently drawn red corridor different from the older one? In 2015, the total number of LWE-affected districts was 106. It rose to 126 in 2017 following bifurcation of states and districts, and the expansion of Maoists activities. All expenses incurred by the affected areas are covered under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme of the MHA, which provides funds for transportation, communication, hiring of vehicles, stipend for surrendered Maoists, and temporary infrastructure for security forces. Of the 106 districts, 36 accounted for 80 to 90% of the country-wide LWE violence, and were categorized as ?Worst Affected Districts?. In its recent review, the Home Ministry noted that 44 of the 126 districts reported negligence violence, and they were removed from the list. Eight new districts which witnessed Maoist movements were added to the SRE list. Currently, 30 instead of 36 of the worst affected districts account for 90% of the LWE violence. So, which are the new districts where Maoists are making inroads? Eight new districts have been included by the MHA. Kerala: Malappuram, Palakkad and Wayanad Andhra Pradesh: West Godavari Chhattisgarh: Kabirdham Madhya Pradesh: Mandla Odisha: Angul and Boudh Which are the districts that have now been excluded? As many as 44 districts have been removed from the list. Among them the majority belongs to the following states: * Telangana: 19 districts * Odisha: 6 districts * Bihar: 6 districts * West Bengal: 4 districts * Chhattisgarh: 3 districts * Jharkhand: 2 districts * Maharashtra: 1 district What were the criteria for removing the districts and including new ones? The primary criterion was ?incidents of violence?. The 44 districts, which have been excluded, did not report any significant incidents of violence due to LWE in the last three years. Similarly, three new districts in Kerala were added following reports of Naxal movement, and their overground activities. Incidents of violence have seen a 20% decline with a 34% reduction in related deaths in 2017 as compared to 2013. The geographical spread of LWE violence also shrunk from 76 districts in 2013 to 58 districts in 2017. The new districts will receive the SRE fund from the Centre, which will monitor development and security-related projects. Last year, the combined SRE expenditure in LWE-affected districts was Rs 445 crore. What is the multi-pronged strategy of the government? The multi-pronged strategy primarily includes development and security aspects of affected districts. Projects related to development include infrastructure, roads, cellphone connectivity, bridges and schools. As per MHA data, 2,329 mobile towers were installed in Maoist-affected areas in the first phase of the project aimed at improving cellphone connectivity, with the maximum number of towers being installed in Jharkhand (816), followed by Chhattisgarh (519). In the second phase, the government plans to install another 4,072 mobile towers. Similarly, 4,544 kilometers of road have already been built of the sanctioned 5,422 km. The second phase of constructing 5,411 km of road will start soon, and is estimated to cost Rs 10,780 crores. Earlier, 11 of the 36 worst affected areas had no Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV), and only six Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs). Now, all the 36 districts have JNVs, and eight districts have functional KVs. Three new KVs are also being built. Eight bridges, which were built to enhance connectivity to remote areas in LWE-affected states, were constructed at a cost of nearly Rs 1,000 crores. *** THE 30 MOST AFFECTED LWE DISTRICTS NOW Andhra Pradesh: Vishakhapatnam Bihar: Aurangabad, Gaya, Jamui, Lakhisarai Chhattisgarh: Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon, Sukma Jharkhand: Bokaro, Chatra, Garhwa, Giridih, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Khunti, Latehar, Lohardaga, Palamu, Ranchi, Simdega West, Singhbhum Maharashtra: Gadchiroli Odisha: Korapur, Malkangiri Telangana: Bhadradri, Kothagudem ======================================== 14. ?FIRING HAPPENS ALMOST DAILY?: CROSS-BORDER CLASHES IN KASHMIR REACH HIGHEST LEVELS IN 15 YEARS AS INDO-PAKISTAN TENSIONS FESTER | Agence France-Presse ======================================== South China Morning Post 12 April, 2018 Ceasefire violation figures given by both sides vary wildly, but both show the same trend ? a powerful surge over the past two years that has intensified this year Cross-border clashes between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan in Kashmir have reached the highest levels in 15 years, figures from both sides show, with hundreds killed or wounded and no solution in sight. The de facto border dividing the mountainous territory had been relatively quiet in the wake of a 2003 ceasefire between the South Asian neighbours, each of whom rule part of Kashmir but claim it in full. But recently the number of ceasefire violations ? loosely defined as shelling, gunfire or fighting ? at the heavily militarised Line of Control (LOC) has been steadily increasing. Independently confirmed data is virtually non-existent, and figures given by both sides can vary wildly. But both show the same trend ? a powerful, sustained surge over the past two years that has intensified since the beginning of 2018. [Smoke rises after alleged shelling by Indian troops in the Nakial Sector of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in August 2015. Photo: AFP] [Relatives grieve over the body of Sarjeel Sheikh, a civilian who was shot earlier this month during a protest near a gun battle in Khudwani village about 60km south of Indian controlled Kashmir. Photo: AP] According to India, the number of Pakistani violations rose from 152 in 2015 to 860 in 2017. Delhi recorded 351 incidents in January and February 2018 alone. Meanwhile Pakistan claims even higher numbers: 168 violations in 2015, 1,970 in 2017 and 415 over the first two months of this year. Happymon Jacob, author of a 2017 report on ceasefire violations for the United States Institute of Peace, said he has no reason to doubt the figures. ?The fight is still on?: 16 killed as violence grips Indian Kashmir An Indian analyst based in Delhi, Jacob has been monitoring violations through reports in Indian and Pakistani media, as well as conducting field visits and interviews with military officials on both sides. Islamabad?s figures are higher as ?India is firing more than Pakistan. There is far more firepower, soldiers, posts, on the Indian side,? he said. At least 500,000 Indian soldiers are believed to be mobilised in Kashmir, against anywhere between 50 and 100,000 Pakistani soldiers, according to analysts ? with both sides refusing to confirm the size of their presence. [An Indian Border Security Force soldier patrols the fence-line at the India-Pakistan border, southwest of Jammu. Photo: AFP] [An Indian farmer passes along the Indian-Pakistan Border fence about 20km from Gurdaspur. Photo: AFP] Never have I seen such horror raining from the skies Zahoor Ahmed The escalation appears to be driven by a myriad of complex, interlinked factors. Among them, Jacob noted in his report last year that the LOC is more peaceful when Pakistan and India are holding constructive dialogue. There were hopes of a new era when Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise Christmas Day visit to Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in 2015. But relations swiftly unravelled, derailing any attempts at dialogue and creating a fertile environment for ceasefire violations. Meanwhile, the tit-for-tat element is also strong, and fuels hostility. ?None of [the violations] go unpunished,? an Indian official told AFP on condition of anonymity. ?We always respond to dissuade the other party from doing it again,? said General Muhammad Akhtar Khan, commander of the Pakistani troops in Kashmir. [Indian villagers run as shelling bombards the India-Pakistan border in Jhora village in January this year. Photo: AFP] Adding to the tension is the separatist insurgency, and the Indian military?s counter-insurgency, that have destabilised Indian Kashmir since the late 1980s and left tens of thousands dead, including about 20 on April 1. New Delhi regularly accuses Pakistan of stirring up this movement, which Islamabad denies, using the counter-insurgency to fuel anger at India on its side. The political situation in both countries similarly weighs in the balance, with legislative elections due this year in Pakistan and in 2019 in India. Kashmir is something both can capitalise on, said Jacob. ?Hatred is used by both governments, it is short-term political calculation,? he told AFP, adding ?negotiating means being weak?. India says Pakistan ?will pay? after Kashmir army camp attack killed nine [A Pakistani Kashmiri shows a mortar shell that hit his house during cross-border shelling in the village of Peer Klanjer in Nakyal sector. Photo: AFP] The endless calculations translate to fear for Kashmiris on either side of the LOC. ?I have never seen such intensity in shelling and firing by Indian troops,? said Mohammad Siddique, a 70-year-old Pakistani. AFP visited his house in Madarpur, now nothing but a ruin after a shell landed in his hallway. The feeling is shared across the LOC. Residents of Uri district said in February they were bombarded with a ?shower of shells? from Pakistan. ?It was the worst [exchange of fire] I have seen in my life,? Mushtaq Ahmed, a 38-year-old official, told AFP by telephone. Political crisis brews as police file murder charges against army in India's Kashmir ?We are living in terror,? said Zahoor Ahmed, 26, in Silikote, Indian Kashmir. ?Never have I seen such horror raining from the skies ? Firing happens almost daily now.? Both sides claim more than 100 of their citizens have been killed and hundreds more wounded in ceasefire violations since 2015. A Pakistani labourer named Inzaman was among the recent victims, his father Muhammad Amin told AFP through tears at his son?s funeral in Tatrinote village. [An Indian paramilitary trooper stands guard on a street corner on April 12, when the Joint Resistance Leadership called a strike to protest against the killings of four youths in south Kashmir. Photo: AFP] While security advisers from both countries reportedly met in late December in Bangkok to reduce the pressure, official statements remain bellicose. In Islamabad, fear of escalation is real within the foreign diplomatic community. No country, however, dares to tackle the subject. The United Nations also remains silent, despite the presence since 1948 of an observer mission on both sides of the border. ?It is not the question of Kashmir which is at stake, it is the stability of the region,? observed one Western diplomat. The threat of nuclear war and the reluctance of the global community to quarrel with rising giant India and its billion-plus consumers are to blame for the silence, he explained. The calculation is that the less noise made on Kashmir, the fewer dead there will be. ======================================== 15. COPPOLA ON HAKALA, 'NEGOTIATING LANGUAGES: URDU, HINDI, AND THE DEFINITION OF MODERN SOUTH ASIA' ======================================== Walter N. Hakala. Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 320 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-17830-3. Reviewed by Carlo Coppola Published on H-Asia (April, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Urdu and Hindi Usually when people pick up a dictionary of any language to look up the meaning of a word, it is likely that they do so without considering what went into making that work available. The task might even cause a bit of irritation, as it probably causes a break in one?s train of thought or interrupts the flow of a text. Most people would probably not consider the time spent in gathering up all the words to be defined (years? lifetimes?), the number of people involved in such a task (one? hundreds?), or the consequences of the final product (rise in literacy? the quality and quantity of literary products?). In his Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia, Walter N. Hakala offers cogent, in-depth answers to these questions as well as others he raises in his discussion of how Urdu lexicological works, especially dictionaries, have been used in the past and continue to be used today for the literary and scientific advancement of the language, but, in the case of South Asia, for religious and political ends as well. The volume is divided into five chapters and a conclusion. Each chapter presents a close description and discussion of an important lexicographic work and the lexicographer(s) who prepared it, dating back to the late eighteenth century. The detailed, six-page ?Chronology? at the start of the book lists major dictionaries, phrase books, vocabulary lists, collections of proverbs and folktales, and other lexicological productions and is very helpful in tracking the various major works in the development of the Urdu language, starting in 1220 CE with Ni??b al-?iby?n (Capital-stock of children) by Abu Nasar Farahi in Afghanistan, down to 2010, with the publication of the twenty-second final volume of the Urd? Lu?h?t: T?ri?h? U??l Par (Urdu dictionary: On historical principles) in Karachi. In his ?Scope of the Study,? a part of the first chapter, entitled ?A Plot Discovered,? the author, drawing on the ?foundational work? of historian/literary critic Gustave Lanson (1857-1934) and sociologist/philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), encapsulates the purpose of this volume: to document ?the role that dictionaries and other lexicographic genres have played in educating and defining the bureaucratic and literary classes of the Moghul and colonials periods and [to show] how these groups have contributed to the creation and standardization of the languages of North India,? more specifically, Urdu and Hindi, and the role these standardized languages have played in established nation-states (p. 28). The first chapter introduces two distinctively different lexicographers whose major works are carefully analyzed. The first, Munshi Ziya al-Din Ahmad Barni (1890-1969), is the author of A?hb?r? Lu?h?t (ma?r?f b?h Kal?d-i A?hb?r-B?n? (A newspaper dictionary [also known as the key to newspaper viewing]), published in 1915, at the height of World War I. In it, the munshi translates English words?many of them political in nature?into Urdu, words commonly found in newspapers and other print media of the day. An example is the lengthy definition of the word d?m?krais? (democracy): ?This is a form of government in which all decisions (i?htiy?r?t: elections, powers) are universally in the hands of the aggregate population (majm??? jumh?r) or in the hands of their appointed officers? (pp. 1-2; Hakala?s translation from the Urdu). The definition continues for another eight lines in such a way that it could easily be read as a veiled call for India?s independence from Great Britain. Others of his definitions?for example, imp?ri?yalizam (imperialism), nau-ab?diy?? (colonists), and ?h?ud mu?ht?r (independent)?carry a similar semantic load. In short, these definitions could be construed in those wartime circumstances as, at the very least, disloyalty, and at most, perhaps treason. Whereas the munshi used a standard Urdu alphabetical order for his work, the second lexicographer did not use that method. The young Scottish poet John Leyden (1775-1811), who came to India where he served as a judge and possessed an almost preternatural capacity to learn languages. It is said that at the time of his untimely and tragic death at the age of thirty-five, he had a ?command of some forty-five languages? (p. 15), including over a dozen South Asian and Middle Eastern classical and vernacular ones. His A Vocabulary Persian and Hindoostanee (1808) is set up according to a method of using a thematic, or onomasiological, arrangement of words, where the user goes from concept to word. For example, the first entry in the volume includes the Persian and Hindi words for ?god?: ?hud? and ?sar; the next set of words is for the abstract noun ?divinity?: ?hud??? and i?varat?; and the third entry the word for ?creator?: Arabic ?h?liq and Sanskrit-derived sirjanh?r,? reversing the standard arrangement of most dictionaries which allow the user to go from word to concept, what Hakala calls a cosmological approach. Subsequent chapters center on a key word and author and treats what Hakala calls ?particular moments in the development of the Urdu language? during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries (p. 28). In the second chapter, ?1700: Between Microhistory and Macrostructures,? the reader is introduced to two distinctly different personalities: Abdul Wase Hanswi, a schoolteacher in the provincial town of Hansi, some eighty miles northwest of Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), the urd?-i mu?all?, the ?Exalted Court? (p. 85), where not only the speech of the court, of aristocrats, and of others fortunate enough to have been born and raised in this exceptional city enjoys high repute, but where courtly manners and social refinement (?d?b) do as well. Despite his distance from such a prestigious and rarified milieu, Wase prepared what is essentially the first dictionary with ?significant coverage of the Urdu language,? ?har??ib al-Lu?h?t (Marvel of words; p. 29). By contrast, Khan-i Arzu (1687/8-1756), author of the Naw?dir al-Alf?? (Wonders of words), while borrowing features of Wase?s earlier work, at the same time condescendingly derides the former?s work as provincial and lacking any kind of literary authority. Hakala demonstrates the power Arzu wielded in this and later periods in the development of Urdu as a medium through which poets used the language as the basis for employment at various courts, notably Murshidabad in Bengal. This court accommodated poets and other essential personnel who were moving eastward as the central political and cultural power of the Moghul court in Old Delhi was in decline. Here one also gets glimmerings of the influence of the East India Company on the development of Urdu prose, which would be used for both commercial and colonial needs. In chapter 3, ?1800: Through the Veil of Poetry,? Hakala shows how new sets of items were added to Urdu vocabulary, which assisted in the development of Urdu prose style: folk songs, proverbs, women?s speech, and the technical vocabulary of various professions and occupational groups. Here, too, the reader is introduced to perhaps the book?s most charismatic and complex poet-cum-lexicographer, Mirza Jan Tapish (c. 1768-1816), a Delhi native who composed his Shams al-Bay?n f? Mu?t?ala??t al-Hind?st?n (The sun of speech, on the idioms of Hindustan; c. 1794) at the court of the Shams al-Daulah, Nawab of Murshidabad. Tapish was also involved in political intrigue?an alleged conspiracy to seek assistance in thwarting British growing political power in India. He was imprisoned in 1799 until ?signs of repentance become evident? (p. 108). Released in 1806 or 1807, he eventually ended up rehabilitated and providing important assistance to the lexicographic work being done Fort William College, where East India Company British employees were taught Indian languages. His major contributions were data related not only to the speech of the upper classes, but also to that of intermediate and lower levels of society with whom these company agents would interact on a daily basis. It is also in this chapter that Hakala takes serious issue with the Hindi writer Amrit Rai (1921-96), whose controversial A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi (1984) often makes biased and, to the thinking of some scholars, baseless claims about Urdu. Referring to Rai as a polemicist (p. 93), Hakala dismisses Rai?s assertion that ?Urdu is no more than an elite ?class dialect?? (p. 184). The fourth chapter, ?1900: Lexicography and the Self,? deals with Sayyid Ahmad Dihlawi (1846-1918), author of various lexicographic works, the most ambitious and most important of which is his Hind?st?n? Urd? Lu?h?t, described by Hakala as a work which ?would eventually become for many scholars the single most useful dictionary of the Urdu language? (p. 115) and in many respects financially successful. The first two volumes appeared in 1888 printed in octavo. This latter part of the nineteenth century, Hakala notes, was also a period in which severe ?contentious Hindi-Urdu debates? (p. 115) were raging. These would, of course, continued on throughout the twentieth century to the present day. Sayyid Ahmad indicates in his preface that he served a seven-year apprenticeship with the distinguished British folklorist and pedagogue, Dr. Samuel William Fallon (1817-80). This may or may not have been the case. The author of Hindustani-English Dictionary (1879), Fallon is described by Hakala as ?one of the two great British lexicographers of the Urdu language in the latter half of the nineteenth century? (p. 155). The other was John Thompson Platts (1830-1904), author of A Dictionary of Urd?, Classical Hind?, and English (1884). That Sayyid Ahmad was an impassioned lover of the Urdu language and its literature is amply demonstrated by his expressions of such sentiments frequently in his writing and in his definitions. He was criticized for this by those who believe that it inappropriate to include ?extralinguistic or otherwise ?encyclopedic? information in dictionary entries? (p. 152). Sayyid Ahmad also includes terms judged ?abusive, indelicate or obscene? (p. 152). For this he was reprimanded by lexicographer Dr. Abdul Haq (1870-1961; aka ?Baba-i-Urdu,? Father of Urdu). This chapter also includes a discussion of the term ?op?-w?l? (one who wears a hat) from its earlier, eighteenth-century meaning with pederastic associations to the later shift and modification in meaning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapter 5, ?1900: Grasping at Straws,? addresses the dictionaries of S. W. Fallon and Ciranji Lal. Fallon, like Platts, served as inspector of schools in the Central Provinces. His major work is his New Hindustani-English Dictionary, with Illustrations from Hindustani Literature and Folk-lore (1879). It must be noted that Fallon calls the language of his dictionary ?Hindustani,? not Urdu. Hakala indicates that, as its title suggests, this work ?is notable today for having included for the first time a new range of lexicographical material such as folksongs, proverbs, conversational terms, and the speech of women? (pp. 155-56), a major departure from previous criteria for inclusion. In the introduction, Fallon complains about the resistance he felt from his Indian assistants, who seemed to feel that the everyday language, ??the language of vulgar, illiterate people?? (p. 157), was not worthy of inclusion in the dictionary. But, by including these elements from the non-elite public sphere, Fallon was ?fashioning the public sphere [of language] that he saw as necessary for the foundation of a truly common and national language? (p. 167). Fallon, Hakala states, depicts Hindustani as a potential ??national speech?? (p. 167). Little is known about Ciranji Lal. Delhi-born, he was well grounded in Sanskrit, as a result of which he was assigned by Fallon, for whom he served as an assistant, the task of researching the Sanskrit etymologies of Hindi terms in the dictionary. The setup of Lal?s Hind?st?n? Ma?hzan al-Mu??war?t (Treasury of Idioms, 1886) reflects Fallon?s work in various respects. It was intended to serve a class of people interested in operating within a largely distinct sphere of political participation?namely, "Indian aspirants to posts in the colonial administration? (p. 170). Such aspirants would use the language in their dictionary ?as a means to take advantage of the new sites of political discourse?courts, schools, newsprint, and volunteer associations?introduced and regulated by the colonial state. ?Hindustani? (and quite pointedly not Urdu) was both a product of and a vehicle for what ?ira?j? perceived as, in essence, modernity? (p. 172). While the exposition of Ciranji?s dictionary, which separates out the Hindi register of Hindustani, is detailed and nuanced, Halkala brings up various powerful historical points to show that, even with Hindi and other Sanskrit-derived words in it, Hindustani is, indeed, Urdu. This final chapter makes for arresting reading. This is a work of considerable complexity and vision by a notable young scholar who has provided linguists, lexicographers, litterateurs, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians of South Asia with a powerful historical study of a remarkable language that has had a rocky time of it due to mostly political and religious polemics. The bibliography is the most up-to-date and is most likely the most definitive one in English. This book should be required reading?in fact, careful study?for all of the language apparatchiks in both New Delhi and Islamabad whose work may one day, sadly, force Urdu and Hindi into becoming two entirely separate, mutually unintelligible languages. ======================================== 16. SOUTH ASIA'S POPULATION IN PERSPECTIVE ======================================== via: https://www.reddit.com Map compares the size of countries and cities in South Asia with international benchmarks. Remember that the region is home to about a quarter of all humans. https://tinyurl.com/y75r8tym ======================================== 17. ?PEOPLE?S MOVEMENTS IN PAKISTAN? ? AN ACCOUNT OF NON-VIOLENT POLITICAL STRUGGLE Khurram Abbas ======================================== Daily Times, April 7th 2018 The book illustrates that democracy and non-violence are deeply embedded in Pakistani society The book under review, ?People?s Movements in Pakistan? by Aslam Khwaja is a groundbreaking piece of work on the non-violent struggles of Pakistan. Despite the fact that non-violence and democratic culture is deeply rooted in the Pakistani social fabric, the least amount of work has been done by scholars and academics on non-violent political struggle. In this book, Mr. Khwaja has tried to compile all facets of non-violent struggles in Pakistan? ranging from civil disobedience against General Zia?s regime to movements for freedom of press, student movements to women?s movements for rights, struggle of trade unions against economic exploitation and Balochistan?s struggle for greater share from the centre. The author explains the nature of these movements in the context of Pakistan?s political and social culture. The book reveals the fact that majority of non-violent movements including civil disobedience, movement of art and literature, women?s struggle for their rights, and movements for freedom of press and expression had been waged against General Zia-ul-Haq. Moreover, it also informs that non-violent struggles in Pakistan are more successful, as almost all these struggles were successful in achieving their desired results. Mr. Khwaja?s analysis helps in understanding the nature of Pakistan?s social and political fabric, contrary to popular international belief. Pakistan is a democratic and tolerant society. Unsung heroes who devoted their lives for the rights of their community, ethnicity, and freedom have been discussed in details in the book. Being a participant in many non-violent socialist movements, particularly movements of trade unions and movements against General Zia?s regime, the writer has inked personal experiences and accounts of people who exceptionally devoted their lives for other?s rights and freedoms. The writer believes that the women of Pakistan have now achieved many rights, and he is optimistic that in the coming decades the situation will be further improved Mr. Khwaja digs deep in the history of Balochistan and identifies that most of the Baloch movements of non-violence against the government were based on misperceptions. While narrating the historic events of these struggles, he opines that military and civil bureaucracy played a vital role in creating the misperceptions between the Baloch people and Federal government. Moreover, unlike the popular belief of external role in these movements, Mr. Khwaja considers geography and policies of successive governments as central factors in exacerbating the Baloch crisis. While narrating the civil disobedience movement against General Zia ul Haq, Mr. Khwaja describes numerous motivations, aspects and the role of political forces in those movements. He has discussed in detail the role of different political parties, their internal differences, challenges to the civil disobedience movement and reaction of the military regime. The writer is of the opinion that though society was overall exhausted by Zia?s policies, internal differences of different political parties helped Zia linger on his rule in Pakistan (p. 222). Though, the struggle couldn?t obtain its desired results during Zia?s lifetime, yet it helped political forces to secure democracy in the country after Zia?s death. Mr Khwaja informs that there has been a long history of exploitation of traders and the labour force by industrialists before 1947. He says that there were no standard wages for labour, and industrialists used to slash wages of labour per their own wishes (p.280) while the British Raj did not take any action to give relief to the labour force as well. However, the political struggle of various segments of society against the British encouraged the traders and labour class to stand against this exploitation, which improved their living and working standards. After independence, trade unions tried to unify many times; however, political parties often used these trade unions for their political agendas. The writer mentions various kinds of tactical changes such as the release of union members by martial law authorities, increase of salaries, etc. in response to some movements (p. 386). However, he does not mention the contribution of trade unions towards structural changes in favour of trade unions. In his chapter on peasants, Mr Khawaja discusses various peasant movements all across the country. His invaluable personal information about leaders and activists for peasants is commendable. He discusses numerous peasant leaders and their struggle for the rights of peasants. However, he accounts that peasant movements have never spread at the national level as other movements do (426-429), rather these movements have been confined to one province or within one or two districts. He doesn?t mention the reason of this confinement though. The writer further adds that peasants are still suffering in the rural areas of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and through their compelling stories, one can predict that there are prospects of non-violent struggle in the future against the agricultural elite by this segment of society. Mr. Khwaja has given an exhaustive analysis on the impact of General Zia-ul-Haq?s policies on the social and political fabric as well as the response of different segments of society to his policies. He describes in detail the dilemmas that were faced by the Pakistani society during the 1980s of which the Islamisation process by General Zia-ul-Haq created a stringent environment for art, culture and literature in the country. Artists faced grim economic and social problems over the showcasing of their art. He also narrates how women faced a stringent environment for education and professional development. He narrates the struggle of a Pathan woman Shayam from Charsada, the struggle of Malala Yousafzai for education (p. 512), the role of All Pakistan Women Association (APWA) for equal rights at various levels of society (p.528), the role of women such as that of Begum Abida Malik, Inayat Begum, Zakia Kaniz and others to protect and defend the Family Law Ordinance (1961) threatened by General Zia during 1978 (p. 526). Mr. Khwaja has shown pleasure over the courage and struggle by women from underdeveloped areas. He believes that the women of Pakistan have now achieved many rights, and he is optimistic that in the coming decades the situation will be further improved. Overall, the book is true a reflection of the Pakistani society. It illustrates that democracy and non-violence are deeply embedded in Pakistani society. It has given a complete history of the 20th century non-violent movements in Pakistan, which will be highly helpful in understanding the nature and motivations of non-violent movements in the country during the 21st century. Since 2007, Pakistan has been witnessing a new wave of non-violent civil resistance from various segments of society including lawyers, politicians, religio-political parties, doctors, teachers, oil tanker and farmers? associations, etc. In this backdrop, reading this book will be able to enrich one?s experience and knowledge of many scholars and policymakers who are interested in nonviolent civil resistance. Largely, this book dispels two popular believes of Pakistani intelligentsia. Firstly, it dispels the impression of policymaking circles and scholars about the changing nature of Pakistani politics. This book has revealed that Pakistani politics and society has been confronting non-violent struggle from different segments of society since its inception. Hence, it is not a new phenomenon. Secondly, it also dispels the popular believe that non-violent movements create instability in society and could be harmful for democracy. The author argues time and again that these non-violent movements are indispensible for social mobilisation and consolidation of democratic norms among different segments of society. Policymakers, scholars and students of Pakistani politics must read this book to understand Pakistan?s social and political fabric, internal operationalisation of political/social movements, and behaviour of participants of non-violent struggle. It is probable that after reading this book, a reader?s mind and opinion about Pakistani politics and recent non-violent struggles in the country will change. The writer is a PhD Scholar and Researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) ======================================== 18. A GLOBAL AGENDA FOR LABOUR by Pranab Bardhan ======================================== European Politics and Policy (LSE) blog 6 April 2018 The share of workers belonging to unions has declined in many countries, and new patterns of employment, such as the rise of the so called ?gig economy?, are making unorganised labour the norm in a large number of industries. For Pranab Bardhan, this weakening of labour organisations has been a factor in enabling the growth of inequality and the rise of right-wing populism. He outlines some suggested steps for reversing this trend. Along with rising income and wealth inequalities, the share of labour (particularly of unskilled labour) is declining both in rich and poor countries. The institutional factor behind this is, of course, the systematic weakening of labour organisations. Outside of the Nordic countries, union membership among workers is now often in dismal low percentages. In rich countries unorganised labour is growing particularly in the ?gig economy? of free-lancers and ?independent contractors?. In poor countries the number of workers in the traditional informal sector often exceeds those in the formal sector. Without the disciplining influence of worker associations many blue-collar workers are falling for the seductively simple solutions offered by political demagogues. So, in a way, both the rising inequality and the resurgence of right-wing populism ? the defining twin menace facing the world today ? are enabled by the weakening of labour organisations. How to reverse this trend? Here are some suggested steps toward coping with the challenge. ? The main threat capital wields to domestic labour in a global economy is that of taking their business elsewhere. Without relaxing on the general commitment to relatively free trade, countries can try to move toward a system of more restricted international capital flows, as was the case under the postwar Bretton Woods system. Many otherwise free-market economists agree on the need for some capital controls, though disagreeing on their desirable extent. ? Corporate shareholders need to be persuaded that stability of employment and worker welfare negotiated with labour organisations may be good for long-run productivity and profits, in contrast to the short-run focus of managers on the next quarterly earnings. Unions may put pressure on the big pension funds for more long-term investment goals, and may actually help in ?saving capitalism from capitalists?. ? Workers often care less about the top 1% making more money (the topic that preoccupies the ?occupy? movement), and more about their own job insecurity and the precariousness that technology and competition have brought about. In poor countries the main concern of most informal workers is being trapped in low-paying dead-end jobs. For both these groups of workers a universal basic income supplement can provide some minimum security, allowing them to look for better jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities. If labour organisations lobby for such universal programmes (universal basic income, universal health care, free vocational training), they can also build a bridge across a labour movement that is now divided, between the formal and informal workers, between ?insiders? and ?outsiders?. Such measures of economic security may also make labour unions less hostile to the reform of labour laws like the stringent ones in France, Italy or India. ? Labour organisations should try to move away from decentralised wage bargaining and toward a more Nordic-style confederate model, which will not merely improve their collective bargaining power, but may encompass the larger macro-economic realities so that aggregative compromises between capital and labour in line with those realities are achievable. ? Some form of wage subsidies can encourage hiring of more labour in the formal sector. This may be funded by redirecting some of the current budgetary subsidies in most countries like capital subsidies or tax concessions for investment or fossil fuel subsidies, which induce more capital-intensive or energy-intensive methods of production. ? Labour organisations should demand a greater say in the internal governance of firms, so that they have some influence on the firm?s decisions to outsource or relocate. (A possible example is the German Works Council). ? Finally, if political parties are to win blue-collar workers back from the pied pipers of populism, they have to be aware that workers today are angry about their cultural distance from the footloose cosmopolitan professional liberal elite who seem to dominate the opinion-making circles of social democratic parties. Trade unions, instead of just being narrow wage-bargaining platforms or lobbies, may try to take an active role in the local cultural life, involving the neighbourhood community and religious organisations, as they used to in some European and Latin American countries. This is one way trade unions enabled workers to tame and transcend their nativist passions and prejudices against minorities and immigrants. Both on local delivery of social services and environmental protection, labour and religious organisations can find some common cause. On policies like affirmative action for under-privileged groups, a more open attitude to including poor workers from the majority ethnic groups may assuage the feeling (among some sections of whites in the US and UK or the Hindus in India) that the liberals only care for the minorities, but not for ?us?. Trade unions can try to accommodate such policies of economic justice and relieve some identity-based tension. It?s a steep uphill task to revive the strength of today?s beleaguered labour organisations. But considering the importance of resisting the twin menace of rising inequality and intolerance, few other tasks are as imperative. ======================================== 19. FRANCE: IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE STUDENTS AT NANTERRE ======================================== via Paris-Luttes. 11 April 2018 Translated by David Broder [Communiqu? de soutien d?anciens militants du 22 mars Publi? le 11 avril 2018 En solidarit? avec la r?cente r?pression ? l?universit? de Nanterre Mieux que Pierre Grappin en 1968, prop/osons les CRS en 2018 !] The Mouvement du 22 mars, founded on 22 March 1968, was a Nanterre-based movement decisive to catalysing the student revolt that sparked the France-wide general strike of May?June 1968. Fifty years later, in this text former M22M militants express their solidarity with the students today under attack on this same campus. On 26 January 1968, the dean of the Nanterre faculty, Pierre Grappin ? a man whose name now adorns a lecture theatre ? was the first in France to violate the traditional freedom of the universities. He called the police onto the campus in order to subdue a handful of anarchist demonstrators. But Grappin did not have much force at his disposal: a few old duffers from the police came along, only to get a good hiding. The current president of the same university, Jean-Fran?ois Balaud?, apparently felt duty-bound to celebrate the anniversary of May ?68 in quite different fashion! Commemorating what happened before was not enough: revenge had to be taken for his illustrious predecessor, and a grand spectacle arranged. On 9 April 2018 the CRS riot police intervened on campus twice. First, they came to stop the students occupying the E building in opposition to "Parcoursup," the new university selection and admissions system. Then they burst into a general assembly, laying their truncheons into the 150 students who were discussing this same topic. They made seven arrests. This time it was not bobbies in quaint hats but armed CRS robocops who hunted through the corridors of the old alma mater, in pursuit of more modern "troublemakers." We should not have to wait fifty years for Balaud? to get a lecture theatre with his own name. At the very moment that the forces of disorder are intervening at the [occupied, abandoned airport site at] Notre-Dame-des-Landes, forcibly attacking workers? demonstrations, beating up and expelling migrants, we would suggest that the words "Police everywhere, police nowhere" be written in gold letters above the lecture theatre in question, the new "Jean-Fran?ois Balaud? lecture theatre." Or if the naming committee prefers, they could always write "Everyone hates the police." Signed by former members of the Mouvement du 22 mars, including Alain Lenfant, Jean-Pierre Duteuil, Sonia Fayman, Pierre Ploix, Thierry Lancien, Jacques R?my, Olivier Dumont, Jean-Christophe Bailly, H?l?ne Arnold, Daniel Blanchard, Jacques Barda, Anne Querrien, Marino Stourdz?-Giraud, Dominique Gougenheim, Francis Zamponi, Georges Goldman, Isabelle Saint-Saens, Herta Alvarez, Florence Prudhomme, Harry Jancovici, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Jean-Luc Le Douarec, Sylviane Failla, etc. ======================================== 20. LULA GOES TO PRISON, DEEPENING BRAZIL?S POLITICAL CRISIS ? AS MILITARY WAITS IN THE WINGS Leandro Demori ======================================== The Intercept April 13 2018 Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva is in prison. On April 7, the former president of Brazil was incarcerated in a federal police building after 48 hours of a sort of self-banishment. He sought refuge with the metallurgical workers union of S?o Bernardo do Campo, where he began his political career in the 1970s. Lula emerged only after negotiating with the federal police and disobeying the deadline set by the court to turn himself in. But in a final moment of defiance, the ex-president delivered an emotional speech at an open-air mass in memory of his deceased wife, who would have celebrated her birthday that day, as the nation watched live on TV. The day was a fitting nod to Lula?s 40-year run in Brazilian politics and was an inflection point for Brazil. Decades of political turns of fortune brought us to where we are today, having moved from military rule to an emerging democracy and now backsliding. Brazil?s oligarchs have reclaimed power, despite the absence of democratic legitimacy, while the most popular politician in the country over the past decade and a half has been thrown behind bars for the foreseeable future. The nation is now asking itself: What comes next? Now that the former president is out of the picture, the extreme right is gaining strength ? and, with it, the force of the Brazilian military. The country?s politics are in disarray: Lula consistently led the polls for this year?s upcoming elections and had a real chance to be re-elected for a third term. Now that the former president is out of the picture, the extreme right is rapidly gaining strength ? and, with it, the force of the Brazilian military. The days Lula spent cloistered at the union were intense. He confined himself in the building with politicians, friends, and lawyers, and poked his head out the window a few times, waving to the crowd that was supporting him day and night as they contemplated how to proceed. After the deadline came and went, and then the mass, he decided to step outside. His first attempt to leave the union headquarters was blocked by Workers? Party activists who, from the outside, removed an iron gate where Lula?s car was going to pass by and blocked its exit ? a perfectly cinematic scene. When Lula finally made his way out, he left on foot, wading through the adoring crowd towards the police vehicles and was literally lifted on the shoulders of his supporters. An aerial photo of the moment would be, for Lula?s supporters, a final image of his martyrdom: their leader surrounded by his people, a sacred cow ready to be touched. The last image of Lula before entering prison was of his arrival at the federal police building in Curitiba. Even this stirred controversy: Much of the media used the grim, subdued image of Lula at the police building rather than the triumphant images from the union headquarters. And the trip between the two locations became a point of contention, too: Television stations had broadcast an image of a modern jet that was initially supposed to transport him, yet the former president had been flown from S?o Paulo in a single-motor propeller plane. The airplane switch was ominous, an apparent reflection of the intense pressure coming from large swaths of the judicial and criminal justice communities that does not look kindly on those convicted in Operation Car Wash, known in Portuguese as Opera??o Lava Jato ? an investigation that uncovered widespread corruption in Brazil. Much of Brazil?s left expects that Lula will get out of prison, at least provisionally. But accomplishing that will be challenging. While the crimes for which he was convicted do not merit such harsh penalties, multiple other legal proceedings are still unfolding. Lula is 72 years old, and is likely to spend the rest of his days bouncing between courts. Lula-chorando-Credito-Coletivo-Farpa-1523391281-1523543591 As his supporters carry him away after a speech, Lula becomes emotional as he bids farewell in front of the metalworkers union, in S?o Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, on April 7, 2018. Photo: Christian Braga/Coletivo Farpa What will become of Brazil without Lula as an active political player? The left?s odds are diminishing. The Workers? Party has not put forth a natural successor, instead expending all its energy to set Lula free. Caught up in their fervor, it appears that it never considered the scenario of having to put forward another candidate. No candidate from other left-leaning parties can hold a candle to his popularity. With a disempowered left, two main dangers loom ? both of which leave the country staring down the rifle barrels of the armed forces. The first is a dramatically increased role for the military in public discourse, which is already underway. Though largely silent since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, Brazil?s generals were cast back into politics by current President Michel Temer. The president called on the military to occupy Rio de Janeiro and oversee the city?s previously lacking public security infrastructure. The generals answered the call and have become increasingly assertive. Though largely silent since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, Brazil?s generals were cast back into politics. The night before Brazil?s Supreme Court voted against a habeas corpus request from Lula, the army commander, Gen. Eduardo Villas B?as, tweeted, ?I assure the nation that the Brazilian Army shares the desire of all citizens of good standing to repudiate impunity and respect the Constitution, social peace, and democracy, while remaining attentive to its institutional missions.? The message, within the context of Brazilian politics, was thickly coded. ?Citizens in good standing,? or ?cidad?os de bem? in Portuguese, is how a certain segment of Brazilians refer to themselves ? namely those who share a hatred of the left and rail against an imaginary ?communist threat? that actually don?t exist in Brazil of these days. They also tend to support expanded gun rights; oppose human rights, which some on the right describe as ?only useful for defending criminals?; and embrace ?the only good criminal is a dead criminal? as a sort of unofficial slogan. The anchor of Brazil?s most widely watched television news program, on the Rede Globo network, read Villas B?as?s tweet on air in his signature authoritative baritone. It was the last news item of the broadcast, and the journalists offered it without any commentary, criticism, or mention of the potential repercussions of the commander?s words. It was as though the voice of God had urged the 11 Supreme Court justices to ?do the right thing? by sending Lula to prison. The day before the ominous tweet, there was an equally alarming incident. In the early morning, just hours before a national protest planned by right-wing movements, one of Brazil?s most prominent newspapers, Folha de S?o Paulo, tweeted, ?Protests lead top military brass to assess declaring a state of siege.? The disconcerting news, however, was part of an ongoing retrospective project: The newspaper had tweeted a story from exactly 50 years ago to the day, during the military dictatorship. Perhaps it was a prank, but in an age when so many people read only headlines ? or tweets ? it seemed like the paper was talking about a real threat from the army on the day of Lula?s sentence. That same day, the front page of Folha featured a call for Brazilians to attend anti-Lula protests: ?No one is above the law,? it read. Some people tried to place the message in context, pointing out that it was an advertisement placed by a right-wing group, not an editorial ? as if the approval of such an ad were, like getting wet on a rainy day, simply inevitable. Afterward, a different national newspaper, O Estado de S?o Paulo, published yet another military message. Through its wire service, which distributes news to dozens of media outlets nationwide, O Estado published the opinion of a reserve general, who said that if Lula were to be granted impunity, ?the only recourse remaining would be an armed response.? The newspaper did not explain the logic of interviewing a general without a command, like dozens of others to be found in Brazil and who could well have differing opinions. Movimentacao-policial-1523391552-1523543641 Police form a barricade around the federal police headquarters in Curitiba, Brazil, where Lula is being held, on April 8, 2018. Photo: Rodrigo Felix Leal/Futura Press/Folhapres An ?armed response? is not the military?s only recourse. Beyond occupying ministries, secretariats, and other government positions in a sort of postmodern version of a military coup, the Brazilian military could come to power another way: through the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, a captain in the reserves, is the greatest beneficiary of Lula?s absence on the presidential ballot. He sits comfortably in second place in the polls, far ahead of any candidate vying for third. If elected, he will try to impose his militaristic agenda. A member of Brazil?s Congress for almost 30 years, Bolsonaro has only passed two pieces of legislation. He is inept, but a rousing speaker: He promises to ?finish off the bandits,? ?arrest all of those who are corrupt,? and restore an imaginary time of ?law and order? that supposedly existed during the military dictatorship. The Brazilian military could come to power another way: through the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, of course, hates LGBT people, black people, and other minorities. He is openly hostile to the concept of ?rights? unless preceded by the word ?gun.? On several occasions he has publicly defended torturers and assassins as if they were national heroes. During his vote in favor of Dilma Rousseff?s impeachment, he dedicated a moment to one of the men who tortured the former president while she was a political prisoner. In other words, he is like a disease that presents itself as the cure ? claiming to mend a society that he actually wants to rip apart. He was long regarded as a joke, but then Bolsonaro proved to be a convenient alternative for those who believed that corruption ? represented, in their minds, by Lula and the Workers? Party ? can be dealt with by waving a magic wand. For the likes of Bolsonaro and his ilk, that wand would be the military?s guns: The end of corruption is possible only with a cavalier dose of violence. Bolsonaro and Lula are not comparable, but they do resemble one another a great deal on one crucial point of realpolitik, which no other candidate has at this time. Bolsonaro offers what Lula represented for many years: a consistent vision of the future for those willing to believe in it. But Bolsonaro seeks to implement this vision with practical, albeit bizarre, actions; with concrete, albeit deceptive, promises; with visible enemies, though they are victims of injustice; and with a bit of the sort of dream that people sometimes permit themselves. Lula?s rule offered years of an economic and social bonanza, despite the endless criticisms of his administrations. With Bolsonaro, the dreams of many Brazilians will be hijacked; his delusions are clearly nightmares, a dystopian world with dictatorial tones that would push Brazil into the trash bin of history once again. His is a future for those who believe that a dictatorship will be a dictatorship only vis-?-vis ?the others? ? that it will somehow limit its powers, directing them only ?against the bandits.? With the left in tatters and the moderate right lacking any apparent alternatives, that dystopia is lurking just around the next corner. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Apr 22 15:37:37 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 01:07:37 +0530 Subject: SACW - 23 April 2018 | Afghanistan: Future for War? / Sri Lanka: hate speech / Pakistan: Academic Freedom / India: Rising violence & impunity / Hungary threatens the EU Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 23 April 2018 - No. 2984 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Letter from Concerned Faculty Regarding Academic Freedom and Increased Repression on University Campuses in Pakistan 2. Had Nehru not been its first prime minister, India would have been a dump for crackpot science | Pervez Hoodbhoy 3. Modi?s government fails to act on rape: A letter in the Guardian signed by over 50 women?s groups? representatives and academics in the UK 4. Girls Reduced to Being Repositories of Communal and Religious Identities in Kashmir | Nyla Ali Khan 5. India: On Targeting of media women - Statement by National Alliance of Journalists & Delhi Union of Journalists 6. ORF report on hate speech on Facebook in India 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Can it be that riots guilty are only foot soldiers? Haridner Baweja - Announcement: Caste and Race Conference at U Mass Amherst, Mass., USA. May 4-6, 2018 - India: socio-economic decline of Muslims, any move in their favour is made to look illegitimate - India: Hindutva connected accused in cases of violence keep getting acquitted under the Modi govt ... Now Maya Kodnani has been let off - India: Prominent lawyer Prashant Bhushan files complaint against activist of BJP youth wing (BJYM) claiming credit for fire in Rohingya slum in Delhi - Taslima Nasreen / Beyond Misogyny. Untangling Kathua And Unnao - Response by Apoorvanand - India is a ?republic of fear? - The UK must keep the pressure on Modi | Amrit Wilson - India: What's Behind the Acquittal of Swami Aseemanand in the Mecca Masjid Blast Case - An inexperienced lawyer with ABVP connection as the main prosecutor - India - Uttar Pradesh: Humans of the Hindu Yuva Vahini | Khabar Lahariya - India: Sangh Terror and Failures of Justice - fron Anhad - Mr. Modi came to power in 2014, and four years into his term, religious and cultural bigotry stands mainstreamed in Indian society - India: In defence of Nehru | Mohammed Ayoob ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Is there a future for Afghanistan to enjoy? | Martin Berger 9. Sri Lanka -- Facebook must meet its own standards | Sanjana Hattotuwa 10. The India I grew up in has gone. These rapes show a damaged, divided nation | Anuradha Roy 11. Shifting back, slowly : A tale of two discourses | Prabhat Patnaik 12. Rape rage: Will BJP lose J&K govt, women?s vote? | Bharat Bhushan 13. For real change: To improve civic decency in India, focus on raising education levels | Kanti Bajpai 14. A Legend In His Lifetime: Till the end, Justice Rajinder Sachar spoke up for the rights of fellow citizens | Tahir Mahmood 15. India: Stop the Kathua lies, it?s like raping the girl all over again | Rahul Pandita 16. Sharma on Talbot and Kamran, 'Colonial Lahore: A History of the City and Beyond' 17. US and Major ICs "sleep-walking" towards war, unsustainability | D. Ravi Kanth 18. The search for truth in the rubble of Douma ? and one doctor?s doubts over the chemical attack | Robert Fisk 19. Hungary threatens the European Union ? a photo essay from Budapest | Anthony Barnett 20. Criminal 'arms race' helping terrorists get weapons, report warns | Jason Burke ======================================== 1. LETTER FROM CONCERNED FACULTY REGARDING ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND INCREASED REPRESSION ON UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES IN PAKISTAN ======================================== As faculty members we strongly condemn the intimidation and repression taking place in universities at the moment, and we urge the relevant authorities to take action against those responsible and to ensure that our universities remain free from outside interference in the future. http://www.sacw.net/article13729.html ======================================== 2. HAD NEHRU NOT BEEN ITS FIRST PRIME MINISTER, INDIA WOULD HAVE BEEN A DUMP FOR CRACKPOT SCIENCE by Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== Nehru?s stamp upon Indian science can be seen across the length and breadth of India in the form of dozens of scientific institutes and universities that owe to him. India is probably the world?s only country whose constitution explicitly declares commitment to the ?scientific temper? ? a quintessential Nehruvian notion formulated during his years in prison. Briefly: only reason and science, not holy scriptures, provide us reliable knowledge of the physical world. http://www.sacw.net/article13732.html ======================================== 3. MODI?S GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACT ON RAPE: A LETTER IN THE GUARDIAN SIGNED BY OVER 50 WOMEN?S GROUPS? REPRESENTATIVES AND ACADEMICS IN THE UK ======================================== The media must question Modi about the involvement of his party members in these atrocities, write signatories including Meena Kandasamy, Sarah Green and Pragna Patel http://www.sacw.net/article13730.html ======================================== 4. GIRLS REDUCED TO BEING REPOSITORIES OF COMMUNAL AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN KASHMIR by Nyla Ali Khan ======================================== And in practice, gender violence is a consistent feature of the riots and political thuggery that spasmodically grip the subcontinent. The wretchedness of the crime committed against Asifa bears testimony to the intersecting notions of family, nation, and community. http://www.sacw.net/article13733.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: ON TARGETING OF MEDIA WOMEN - STATEMENT BY NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF JOURNALISTS & DELHI UNION OF JOURNALISTS ======================================== The Chairperson of the National Alliance of Journalists Gender Council Ms. Sujata Madhok , the President of the National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ)and the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) Mr. SK Pande and the Secretary General of the NAJ Mr. Koteswararao, have blasted the spate of attacks on women journalists this week . These range from a petrol bomb thrown at an editor?s home, death threats to a cartoonist for her critique of Hindutva, and lastly the patronising pat on the cheek of a woman journalist by the Governor of a state! http://www.sacw.net/article13728.html ======================================== 6. ORF REPORT ON HATE SPEECH ON FACEBOOK IN INDIA ======================================== To effectively counter violent extremism and initiate an alternative narrative, it is imperative to understand the extent to which hate speech occurs http://www.sacw.net/article13718.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: ?Saffron Inclination was Always There ? But Not So In The Face As It Is Today? - Naseeruddin Shah - Harsh Mander on Kathua rape case, solidarity with the minorities, and on becoming a society that is 'intoxicated' - India: Can it be that riots guilty are only foot soldiers? Haridner Baweja - Announcement: Caste and Race Conference at U Mass Amherst, Mass., USA. May 4-6, 2018 - India: socio-economic decline of Muslims, any move in their favour is made to look illegitimate - India: Hindutva connected accused in cases of violence keep getting acquitted under the Modi govt ... Now Maya Kodnani has been let off - India: Prominent lawyer Prashant Bhushan files complaint against activist of BJP youth wing (BJYM) claiming credit for fire in Rohingya slum in Delhi - India: CPI(M), AAP, Swaraj Abhiyaan, KPJP & other minor parties likely cut into vote of big parties in 2018 Assembly polls in Karnataka - Protest in UK - 'Modi go home' placards & protest outside Downing Street and British parliament - India: Courses to Train Pandits, Experts in Religious Tourism and Vaastu Shastra at JNU - Taslima Nasreen / Beyond Misogyny. Untangling Kathua And Unnao - Response by Apoorvanand - India is a ?republic of fear? - The UK must keep the pressure on Modi | Amrit Wilson - India: What's Behind the Acquittal of Swami Aseemanand in the Mecca Masjid Blast Case - An inexperienced lawyer with ABVP connection as the main prosecutor - India - Uttar Pradesh: Humans of the Hindu Yuva Vahini | Khabar Lahariya - India: Sangh Terror and Failures of Justice - fron Anhad - Mr. Modi came to power in 2014, and four years into his term, religious and cultural bigotry stands mainstreamed in Indian society - India: Is No One Guilty in the Mecca Masjid Blast? - India - New Delhi: Akhand Bharat Morcha?s motorbike rally - brandishing weapons outside mosques and shouting ?threatening slogans? - India: In defence of Nehru | Mohammed Ayoob - India: No religion can stop its portrayal, says Supreme Court - India: Criminal complaint filed against Madhu Kishwar for spreading false rumours and communal hate & violence inciting tweets -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. IS THERE A FUTURE FOR AFGHANISTAN TO ENJOY? by Martin Berger ======================================== New Eastern Outlook April 20, 2018 ONE can often hear the Syrian conflict being compared with the war in Afghanistan, while the latter is often mentioned together with Washington?s aggression against Vietnam. In the second half of the 20th century, Washington deeply mired itself in Vietnam only to face imminent defeat. The same fate, it seems, is awaiting Western elites in Afghanistan. As it turns out, there?s a very particular reason why Afghanistan is often described as the ?graveyard of empires.? According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, for the fourth year in a row Afghanistan has lost 10,000 civilians, with people being murdered and maimed amid the ongoing conflict. Among the main reasons for such a death toll the UNAMA lists continuous air strikes carried out by Washington against residential areas. This year, the number of civilian casualties will also surpass the 10,000 mark. This conclusion can be drawn from US president Donald Trump?s announcement made last year about the Pentagon taking a different approach to Afghanistan. The essence of this approach is simple: Washington?s policy will pursue the same goals with the same methods but this time around it will be much more ruthless. Trump?s administration hasn?t only failed to fulfill Trump?s pre-election promises about withdrawing US troops from the war-torn country, but chose to deploy another 14,000 servicemen instead. There?s no arguing that America has paid dearly for its military aggression against Afghanistan. American taxpayers have wasted over 74 billion dollars on the training of Afghan security forces alone over the last 17 years. To make matters worse, it?s enough to mention that the deployment of a single American serviceman in Afghanistan exceeds 1 million dollars a year. This results in war costs reaching more than 20 billion annually for Washington, says Michael O?Hanlon, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. This amounts to double the annual budget of the whole UN Peacekeeping Department. In total, according to independent analysts from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Washington has wasted well over one trillion dollars on its military adventure in Afghanistan? It should also be pointed out that the production of opium in Afghanistan is soaring, amid all the efforts Washington has allegedly taken to put an end to it. Poppy fields can be easily found in pretty much every corner of the country. In 2017, opium production, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, increased by 87 per cent ? to 9,000 tonnes ? from 4,800 metric tonnes in 2016. That is why many people continue questioning Washington?s true intentions behind its ongoing military presence in Afghanistan, along with the total lack of transparency and interest towards the concerns that other states have regarding Afghanistan?s future. Those factors have already dealt a massive blow to the influence that Washington had previously exerted in the region. One may recall that last February the Pentagon announced that upon defeating ISIS in Iraq it was planning to redeploy its troops to Afghanistan. At the same time, the head of Iran?s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Bagheri linked an abrupt increase in the number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan with the gradual transfer of radical militants to this state, initiated by Washington. Moreover, last month it became known that US secretary of defence James Mattis, paid a surprise visit to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. That?s when Washington announced that NATO would bring reinforcements to Afghanistan, while Trump announced his intentions to spend some 5 billion dollars more on Afghanistan this year alone. These facts show that Washington fails to come to grips with the fact that there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict, since there?s no defeating of the Taliban forces on their home ground. The continuous attempts by Washington over the last 17 years serve as testimony to this fact. Nevertheless, the US is not planning to reduce its presence there, nor change the nature of that presence. In recent years, military supply lines that NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan have relied consisted primarily of the so-called Durand Line from the ports of Pakistan to Afghanistan directly. However, the reliability of this route may be compromised due to recent growing tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Had Washington not plunged itself into a new US-Russian Cold War, the Pentagon would have had the chance to take advantage of the transit route it used in the early 2000s, across Russia and a number of Central Asian Republics to Afghanistan. However, as of now there?s little to no chance Moscow would agree to this, as the Kremlin does not want to put its relations with Islamabad at risk and Washington is keen to push the blame on Moscow for his failure in Afghanistan. The Iranian corridor that Washington used to rely on doesn?t look viable either, as relations between Tehran and Washington have recently hit a new low. In this situation, the only alternative for the Pentagon is the Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan corridor. The desire to create a so-called northern supply route has forced Washington to step up its diplomatic efforts in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. However, if the latter demonstrates its willingness to go along with Washington?s plans, the former is reluctant to put its relations with Russia at risk. Predictably, this resulted in Washington announcing new sanctions against Kazakhstan that are aimed at persuading Astana to change its mind, with US banks announcing the freezing of well over 22 billion dollars of the National Fund of Kazakhstan. In a bid to preserve the vision of Sir Halford John Mackinder, Washington is determined to keep Afghanistan a hostile security threat to both Russia and China no matter what. And the fact that both Moscow and Beijing are facilitating the peace processes in Afghanistan can seriously jeopardize Washington?s plan of protracting the bloodshed in the region indefinitely. That is precisely why Washington formed the Greater Central Asia Partnership for Cooperation and Development, which is designed to facilitate its contacts with regional players, while excluding Russia, China and Iran. Experts believe that such a union can provide the US with a continuous presence in Central Asia for many years to come and the subsequent development of the Central Asian region along with its plans. Afghanistan in this case can be used as a springboard with its own system of warehouses, airfields and military bases in place for years. Thus, establishing a network of military bases in Afghanistan, the United States may put Russia, China, and Iran?s borders at risk, while conducting military operations outside Afghanistan through the use of locally trained troops. It?s possible that soon Iran may become the first to test the readiness of those troops firsthand. Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst. ======================================== 9. SRI LANKA -- FACEBOOK MUST MEET ITS OWN STANDARDS After recent violence, company needs robust controls on hate speech by Sanjana Hattotuwa ======================================== Nikkei Asian Review April 20, 2018 The Facebook post during the height of recent anti-Muslim violence in Kandy, one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka, was stark and disturbing. "Kill them all, these Muslims," it said in Sinhalese. "Don't even spare an infant. They are dogs." The scale of the violence conducted by mobs of mainly young men shocked the country even though it had witnessed earlier bouts of Islamophobia against the Muslim minority in this majority-Buddhist land. While the violence was rooted in decades-old local tensions, blame for spreading it focused on the new phenomenon of social media, particularly on Facebook. In many ways, Facebook has become a convenient scapegoat for the government, which is struggling to keep the conflict between Buddhists and Muslims under control. Like its predecessors, the current administration has done little to address the underlying social problems. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe join a long list of leaders from whom much was expected, but little was delivered. Witnesses in Kandy said the violence was fanned by politicians associated with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa who want to exploit communal tensions to regain national leadership. Rajapaksa has denied any involvement by him or his associates. But, whoever was responsible, it seems clear the riot at Kandy is not an isolated incident and it could happen again. That is why social media's role in allegedly stoking violence must be examined. The "kill them all" message posted on Facebook was reported to the company by an individual, who then waited six days before receiving a response. Incredibly, Facebook saw nothing wrong with the content and said that it did not violate the company's Community Guidelines, which explicitly prohibit messages that incite hate and violence. Around the same time, a well-known female politician and activist Jeevani Kariyawasam, who called for the taking down of inflammatory content on Facebook, instead had her own Facebook post and account blocked. Facebook later apologized for these lapses, but there is clearly a pattern and problem here. Facebook has 6 million active users among Sri Lanka's 21 million population. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, all owned by Facebook, are also extremely popular. Mobile telecoms providers offer special packages with unlimited data for WhatsApp and Facebook, which gives vital access for these services to poorer Sri Lankans. It should not be forgotten that Facebook and other social media have, at times, acted as a force for good in Sri Lanka. In the lead-up to the 2015 presidential election, they provided a platform for those accusing the Rajapaksa government of authoritarianism. Independent media relied on Facebook as a source for reports of corruption, violence and nepotism. Civil society groups used Facebook to coordinate activities. But since 2015, Facebook has clearly become weaponized by those targeting civil activists, minorities and other vulnerable groups, including women. Such targeting has largely gone unnoticed by the outside world since most of it is conducted in Sinhalese. This is where Facebook is culpable. Delays of days in responding to complaints are unacceptable. Even worse was the decision that the "Kill them all" message passed muster. Since 2014, we at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank, have conducted data-driven research on how Facebook is being used by many groups, including sections of the Buddhist clergy, to whip up ethnic and religious hatred. Until the Kandy violence, Facebook never responded with concrete measures to stem the growth of content that deeply harms Sri Lanka's democratic fabric. As more people use Facebook and other social media, the tenor of the conversations has become more divisive. Those who attempt to promote reconciliation and justice often find themselves subject to attacks. When calls for violence appear on Facebook, the company should address the issue just as the government and civil society have to respond. Reacting to the violence in Kandy, the government temporarily blocked access to social media, including Facebook, to contain the situation. This hurriedly brought Facebook representatives to Colombo to keep the service in operation. They promised to examine measures to curb hateful content. But in a worrying sign, civil society groups were not invited to participate in these discussions. Facebook has said that the number of people working to monitor content had doubled globally to 14,000 in the past year and included Sinhala speakers. "In response to the situation in Sri Lanka, we have increased our local language capabilities [and] established communications with government and non-governmental organisations to support efforts to identify and remove such content," it said in a statement. With global scrutiny of Facebook increasing, the company is being forced to address how its service has been used to promote violence in such countries as Sri Lank and Myanmar. An open letter by 13 Sri Lankan civil society groups to Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg before his recent U.S. congressional testimony prompted an unprecedented formal acknowledgement from Facebook. But its official response glossed over points made by the civil groups, which demand that Facebook put extra effort into monitoring content posted in Sinhalese -- over and above what the company has already done. What can small countries do? Actually, a lot. The countries that been most affected by the abusive misuse of Facebook, such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka, are among the heaviest users of the service relative to population size. The proportion far exceeds the rate of use in the U.S. Individually, we are small markets. Collectively, we are strong. For Facebook, doing the right thing by us would be doing the right thing globally. Collaboratively finding solutions to these problems goes to the heart of Zuckerberg's stated intent before the U.S. Congress that Facebook should be used to connect people in the most positive ways possible. Activists in Sri Lanka are in touch with those from Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere to compare notes and ensure that what Facebook promises in one country is also pursued in others facing similar challenges. Sri Lanka is not alone in seeking to hold Facebook accountable. The world is watching. The recent ethnic violence in Sri Lanka is not the direct result of social media. But Facebook's technology has been used as a megaphone for fringe and institutionalized racism. The company alone cannot solve Sri Lanka's democratic deficit or governance problems. But while the chief responsibility for solving the country's troubles lies with government, Facebook has clear duties to carry out. For too long, we have heard only promises or apologies from Facebook. What we need now is meaningful action. Sanjana Hattotuwa is a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo. ======================================== 10. THE INDIA I GREW UP IN HAS GONE. THESE RAPES SHOW A DAMAGED, DIVIDED NATION Anuradha Roy ======================================== The Guardian 17 April 2018 Ugly Hindu nationalism and the ruling regime?s sense of impunity are common factors in these appalling crimes A chilling leitmotif of Nordic crime fiction is a child leaving home to play, never to return. Detectives search out trails pointing to sexual violence and murder, and by degrees it becomes clear that the crime is not isolated: it is the symptom of a damaged community. The abduction, gang-rape, and murder in India of eight-year-old Asifa Bano reveals such damage on a terrifying scale. It shows that the slow sectarian poison released into the country?s bloodstream by its Hindu nationalists has reached full toxicity. Where government statistics say four rapes are reported across the country every hour, sexual assault is no longer news. Indian minds have been rearranged by the constant violence of their surroundings. Crimes against women, children and minority communities are normalised enough for only the most sensational to be reported. The reasons Asifa?s ordeal has shaken a nation exhausted by brutality are four. The victim was a little girl. She was picked because she was Muslim. The murder was not the act of isolated deviants but allegedly of well-organised Hindu zealots. And the men who are accused of raping her included a retired government official and two serving police officers. When the police in Jammu (the Hindu-dominated part of Kashmir) tried to register a charge against the men they had arrested, a Hindu nationalist mob threatened the few honest policemen and lawyers who were trying to do their jobs. The was a mob with a difference: it included government ministers, lawyers and women waving the national flag in favour of the arrested men, as well as supporters of the two major Indian parties, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) ? the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Britain this week to attend the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. Nationalism can be benign as well as malignant: Tagore foresaw the malignant variant a century ago. ?Alien government in India is a chameleon,? he wrote. ?Today it comes in the guise of an Englishman ? the next day, without abating a jot of its virulence, it may take the shape of our own countrymen.? Given the right political conditions, virulent nationalism creeps into every bone, every thought process. When it leads to the calculated mutilation of a child, ethnic cleansing does not appear too far distant. If the world has understood fascism better through Anne Frank, its understanding of contemporary India will remain incomplete unless it recognises the political venom that killed Asifa. Advertisement Asifa belonged to a nomadic Muslim tribe that herds its cattle 300 miles twice a year in search of pasture. In January, when the snow lies deep in their alpine meadows, these shepherds walk down to Jammu. Here they graze their animals in the little land still available to them. Asifa went one evening to bring back grazing horses, and never returned. Recently filed police investigations conclude that a group of men imprisoned her for a week, drugged her, starved her, and took turns to rape her in a Hindu shrine. It was well organised. The hiding place was agreed, and sedatives kept at hand. The motive was to strike terror among the Muslim nomads and drive them from Rasana, a largely Hindu village. Tribal Muslims make up a negligible percentage of the local population, perhaps 8%. Even so, the Hindus there fear ?demographic change?, and have been fighting to drive them out. Absolute darkness begins imperceptibly, as gathering dusk. Reading of 1930s Vienna in Robert Seethaler?s The Tobacconist some months ago, I began to feel an uneasy sense of familiarity. At first, only a few minor problems befall Seethaler?s Jewish tobacconist. His antisemitic neighbour, a butcher, contrives through a series of petty offences to make life difficult. After each act of vandalism, the tobacconist replaces broken glass, swabs away entrails, opens his shop again. The vandalism is a feeble precursor of what is to come. Anschluss is a few months away and it requires little conjecture to know how the novel and its tobacconist end. Even as the details of Asifa?s death emerged, another crime came to light, this time from Uttar Pradesh, India?s most populous state, also ruled by the BJP. The father of a teenage girl wanted merely to lodge a report with the police that his daughter had been raped over several days by a legislator and his brother. The father was arrested and died soon after in custody. The thread that binds these crimes is the sense of invincibility that a majoritarian regime has granted its personnel and supporters. Manifestations of the newfound swagger include vandalising sprees after electoral victories, and the lynching of Muslims and Dalits (the lowest in the Hindu caste hierarchy). The general idea is to create a sense of terror and uncertainty, and in this the tacit support of the state pumps up the mobs ? and they rampage with greater confidence. In swathes of rural north India, violating women to signal caste, religious and masculine supremacy is only an extension of such activity. The primeval divisions within Indian society have never been sharper. The BJP?s ruthless drive to consolidate patriarchal Hinduism has pressurised women about what they can wear, families about what they can eat, and young people about who they may marry. Parties in the opposition, envying the electoral success of the BJP, tend to speak out against this culture of sectarian hatred after first sniffing which way the wind is blowing, then gauging how strongly it is blowing. In the India where I grew up, memories of Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru were strong; the necessity of secularism was drummed into us. We knew that our politicians were largely venal, but it was still a country in which morality and humanity mattered. Now, journalists and writers who speak up against the undeclared war on Dalits, Muslims, poor people and women are trolled by cyber-mobs. ? if they?re lucky. The most publicised murder last year was of a dissenting journalist shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru, in south India. Modi, renowned as a demagogue, is coming to be even better known for what he chooses to stay silent about. Sympathy for the suffering individual, many have noticed, is not among his most distinctive traits. When the student Jyoti Singh ?Nirbhaya? was raped and killed in Delhi in 2012, it took several days of massive public outrage to stir Sonia Gandhi and her ruling Congress party, from their mansions. In the aftermath of Asifa, the current prime minister, perhaps quicker off the blocks, took a mere three days after the details of the eight-year-old?s killing were released to understand how much he stands to lose by saying nothing when the whole world is watching. The times are such that even so little so late from Modi has been seen as an acknowledgement, however reluctant, that India?s constitution requires him to ensure justice and equality for all its many communities. Anuradha Roy is an Indian author. Her third novel, Sleeping on Jupiter, was longlisted for the Man Booker prize and won the DSC prize for south Asian literature ======================================== 11. SHIFTING BACK, SLOWLY : A TALE OF TWO DISCOURSES Prabhat Patnaik ======================================== The Telegraph April 18, 2018 The Hindutva bubble has clearly burst. Not that efforts will not be made to form another bubble before the 2019 elections, but the one that had formed in the run-up to the 2014 elections and had carried the Bharatiya Janata Party to power is over. In the last few days, there have been mass demonstrations by peasants, traders, doctors, teachers, students and even school children. What is striking about these demonstrations is not just that the fear that had gripped people in the recent years is over and that they are willing to take to the streets to express their anger, but also, above all, the fact that they are concerned with the practical issues of life, with the "this-sidedness" of things as Marx would have put it. Let me explain. All fascism, and that includes our own "communal-fascism", to borrow Amartya Sen's phrase, is based on creating a binary between "us" and the "other" (whose identity may change depending on the context). Each is seen not just in an empirical or factual sense but as a totalized metaphysical category; and "us" are depicted as being victimized by the "other" but immensely superior to it. The growth of fascism thus necessarily presupposes a shift of discourse, from the quotidian issues of material life that normally occupy people and find occasional articulation through peasant rallies, workers' strikes, and student protests, to one that constructs these metaphysical totalities, obliterating all distinctions within each and positing an essential and immutable conflict between them. This is because fascism has little to offer towards a resolution of the material problems of life facing the people. Its raison d'?tre lies in this vision of conflict between "us" and the "other"; and it appeals to "us" on the grounds that it would vanquish the "other". All fascisms therefore strive to bring about a discourse shift as a condition for their ascendancy. To be sure, there are specific material conditions that facilitate such a discourse shift away from the issues of material life. These have been much discussed and need not detain us here (see, for instance, my piece in The Telegraph, October 17, 2017). But the point is that this discourse shift is always away from the material issues of life. In India this discourse shift began with L.K. Advani's rath yatra demanding the construction of a Ram temple at the site where the Babri Masjid had stood. It also marked the beginning of the ascendancy of the BJP in the nation's political life. The demolition of the Babri Masjid would not have made an iota of difference to anyone's material condition of life; it would not have paid anyone's grocery bill. But it did bring about a change of discourse, buttressed cynically by the carnage that followed, which brought the BJP to power at the Centre for the first time in independent India. The wave generated by this discourse shift was not strong enough to give it exclusive power; nor was it strong enough to sustain it in power (which it lost in 2004). But it left a residue. India could not go back to the old discourse that had engaged the Congress and the Left, about poverty, hunger, unemployment, income distribution, monopoly power, economic self-reliance, and such like, all of which related to material issues, not metaphysical ones like Hindutva. It was clear, however, that communal-fascism required some additional prop. It could not just ignore the practical-material world; it had to have some agenda relating to it, to supplement its metaphysical Hindutva appeal. This was necessary not just for its revival but for its appeal to be strong enough to give it exclusive power. That is where Narendra Modi came in, with his slogan of "development". His links to the corporate-financial oligarchy of the country, which had been forged during his days as the chief minister of Gujarat, lent a degree of credibility to his promise of "development". And this promise, which cashed in on UPA-II's lacklustre economic performance, was magnified by a large chunk of the corporate-owned media. But lacking any vision (of the sort that Jawaharlal Nehru, or Indira Gandhi, for a while at least, thanks to her advisors, had), or any straightforward sympathy for the poor (like MGR had), or any minimal acquaintance with economics (that would have prevented disastrous measures like demonetization), Modi's utter incapacity to cope with the material-practical reality soon stood exposed. Metaphysical appeals, however, have a peculiar limitation. Already insufficient as a means of garnering exclusive power, they also need to be continuously stoked even for retaining their existing strength. The practical material reality, of peasant indebtedness, youth unemployment, and Dalit exclusion, has a habit of always intruding upon the metaphysical narrative of Hindutva. Classical fascism built upon its metaphysical appeal by carrying it forward to a climax of war and insane destruction; and a by-product of that process in the practical-material realm, at least for a while, was higher employment and the overcoming of the Great Depression. But communal-fascism today cannot obviously carry its metaphysics forward in that horrendous fashion. Nor can it capitalize on any act of provocation by its supposed "other", above all the Muslim community. In fact, this community has shown a remarkable stoicism and an exemplary forbearance, of which the Asansol imam's call for peace, despite losing his son to a communal riot, is a moving example. This has actually thwarted the escalation of the metaphysical discourse. It is this combination of an inability to escalate the Hindutva discourse on the one hand, and the inherent incapacity to cope even temporarily with the quotidian problems of the material-practical world, which has made the latter world intrude strongly upon the Hindutva discourse. It has shifted the discourse back to issues of indebtedness, exclusion, and unemployment from those of temple-building and mosque-destroying. We are thus witnessing a reverse discourse shift. Just as the BJP had come to power on the basis of a discourse shift, from material to metaphysical issues, it is now helplessly caught in the throes of a reverse discourse shift, from the metaphysics of Hindutva to material-practical issues. Its electoral setbacks in the country's heartland reflect this discourse shift. All this must not be taken to mean some glib forecast about 2019 elections. As noted earlier, a new bubble will be sought to be created before that date. Besides, a shift of discourse does not automatically translate itself into a change in political fortunes. There is also a danger of the Left basking in the congeniality of the discourse shift, deriving satisfaction, no doubt deservedly, from the impressive peasant mobilization it carried out in Maharashtra, and underestimating in the process the paramount need for a political struggle, with appropriate strategy and tactics, against the hegemony of communal-fascism. That eventuality, were it to occur, would amount, alas, to a withdrawal from communist politics to a kind of economism. But while these pitfalls exist, for me and no doubt many others, the fact that the Indian political discourse is again acquiring a resemblance to what it had been in the pre-Modi years, is a source of great satisfaction. It feels as if some sanity has been restored to the political discourse. The author is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi ======================================== 12. RAPE RAGE: WILL BJP LOSE J&K GOVT, WOMEN?S VOTE? Bharat Bhushan ======================================== The Asian Age April 18, 2018 The government?s prolonged silence on the two cases and the BJP?s complicity in protecting the accused is likely to have two important consequences. The Narendra Modi slogan about protecting the girl child (Beti Bachao) was turned on its head ? to mean that the girl child had to be saved from the BJP?s lumpen leaders. (Representational image) Justice for the child rape victim in Kathua in Jammu has become a national rallying cry against the ruling BJP. The stomach-churning incident of an eight-year-old Muslim girl being raped repeatedly in a temple in Jammu has shaken the nation?s conscience. Angry protesters have poured into the streets all over India. People have also watched with disbelief the brutality of the Uttar Pradesh police in torturing and killing the father of a rape victim in Unnao and trying to protect the accused, a powerful MLA from the BJP. Together, the Kathua and Unnao rape cases have brought public anger against the BJP to a boil. With even United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for justice for these rape victims, India?s reputation has been tarnished globally yet again. And domestically, the disillusionment with the Narendra Modi brand of governance has multiplied. The government?s prolonged silence on the two cases and the BJP?s complicity in protecting the accused is likely to have two important consequences. The support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi among women voters is likely to suffer a major erosion. And the chalk-and-cheese coalition in Jammu and Kashmir between the Peoples? Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP is likely to come apart. The BJP was already at a gender disadvantage in the 2014 general election ? more men than women voted for it. According to the National Election Studies data of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the BJP suffered an acute gender gap in states like Assam, Karnataka, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand while its support was marginally higher among women in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. As awareness about its attitude towards rape increases, the BJP could have women voters abandoning it. The Unnao rape case helped focus national attention also on the ordeal of the minor raped in Kathua, ignored by the national media for nearly three months. However, the filing of the chargesheet in the case, the communalisation of Jammu by BJP leaders? protest marches to protect the rape accused and the stand taken by chief minister Mehbooba Mufti somehow came together at around the same time, when the Unnao rape case was being splashed in the media. There was no way then that the public discourse could be limited only to one rape case, ignoring the other. The public twinning of the two cases made the Kathua minor?s ordeal a pan-Indian rallying cry for justice. After all, her rape showcased communalism at its worst ? kidnapping, confining, sedating and repeatedly raping a child in a temple and using her rape to evict her community from a predominantly Hindu area. This criminality was compounded with the BJP trying to protect the perpetrators. The arrogance of communal politics suddenly became vividly apparent. When stark gender violence is seen to have state support, then the victim?s religion is immaterial to those who feel potentially targeted. Women are far more sensitive when the danger is not only to themselves but to the pre-pubescent body of their daughters. The strong moral position taken by them was evident in the number of women who turned up in the street protests. Many women, including officers of the Indian Police Service, changed their profile pictures on social media to that of the minor raped in Kathua in a show of solidarity. Young women announced on television that they would never vote for the BJP again. The Narendra Modi slogan about protecting the girl child (Beti Bachao) was turned on its head ? to mean that the girl child had to be saved from the BJP?s lumpen leaders. The Kathua case could also make the BJP lose power in Jammu and Kashmir. It has already begun affecting the PDP-BJP relationship. After being on the backfoot, Ms Mufti retrieved some ground by forcing the resignation of the two BJP ministers who had tried to protect the rape accused. It is not coincidental that the resignations came after her brother and Cabinet colleague Tassaduq Mufti issued a threat to call off the alliance. He said the PDP and BJP had become ?partners in a crime (for which) an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay with their blood?. He threatened that if the BJP did not honour the agenda of alliance, the PDP would have no option but to ?take one last bow and apologise to the people for having unknowingly pushed them into something they did not deserve?. Although his comments were about the overall crisis in the state, it forced the BJP?s hand in the Kathua rape case. The party had to beat a retreat by forcing two of its ministers to resign. The BJP is smarting under public rebuke and fighting the impression that its partymen were directly involved in the minor?s rape and murder, which they were not. This, however, is just the beginning of the unravelling of the BJP?s image. One of the ministers involved has now claimed he went to Kathua on the direction of his state party president. This implicates the entire party and has the potential of causing further damage to the BJP. The PDP-BJP relationship has always been tense. Only a month ago, a PDP minister who, allegedly at the BJP?s prompting, claimed that Kashmir was witnessing a social crisis, not a political one, had to be sacked. In the second round, the BJP lost two ministers and is now waiting for an opportune moment to exact revenge. However, the BJP is unlikely to have much time as Ms Mufti is keen on convicting the rape accused within 90 days through a fast-track court. When the perpetrators are punished in the next three months, there could be another crisis in the state. At that point, the PDP might, to quote Tassaduq Mufti, take its last bow, apologise to the people of the state and go into political exile for survival. That would be the end of the BJP?s rule, even if in a doomed coalition, in Jammu and Kashmir. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================== 13. FOR REAL CHANGE: TO IMPROVE CIVIC DECENCY IN INDIA, FOCUS ON RAISING EDUCATION LEVELS Kanti Bajpai ======================================== The Times of India April 21, 2018 While our security analysts ponder the China ?reset? and India?s new ?leadership? role in the Commonwealth, let?s consider something far more real and strategic about our society. No, not our internal day-to-day politics, which are shambolic and sinister and all too real. The pretence that India can lay claim to civic decency and democracy has now effectively ended: we are a rape republic, literally and metaphorically. Unfortunately, there is little to be done about it. Let?s focus instead on an area of Indian life that may still be actionable and remediable: the abysmal education levels of our children. In 2012, the international group PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) ranked a sample of Indian students as second last out of a group of students from 74 countries. The Indian government picked two of India?s leading education states, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, for testing. In reading and mathematics, India scored almost at the bottom. Shockingly, PISA estimated that an 8th standard Indian child was educationally roughly at the level of a 3rd standard Korean. When the results were publicised, the usual excuses were trotted out: apparently, the test was unfair only to Indian students! Fortunately, for some years, Pratham, the India NGO, has also been testing Indian students. Their homegrown findings, unfortunately, bear out the depressing PISA picture. Pratham?s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in 2017 tells us that among rural youth aged 14 to 18, more than 25% cannot read in their own language. About half cannot do simple division problems in mathematics. In addition, most cannot tell time in terms of hours and minutes. Worse, the proportion of children in the 8th standard who can read a 2nd standard text is declining, from nearly 87% in 2007-8 to about 75% in 2014-15. The proportion who can do simple division sums has reduced from nearly 72% to 44% in the same period. What is going on here? India is richer than ever, going by the size of the economy; and our indefatigable governments launch new educational schemes by the day. No country can match India for the number of rules, regulations and school policies it has on the books. Yet it is an educational disaster. Why? Government spending on education, the number and location of schools, the facilities at schools including toilets (especially for girls), the quality and quantity of teachers, the incompetence of school leadership and management, the absurd number of days teachers spend doing government duty, the awful state of textbooks, all these are among the reasons that are paraded before us. It is time, however, to face up to another, almost structural problem, at least for the next many years: malnutrition and stunting. Estimates are that only 1 in 10 Indian children is properly nourished in the first two years of life ? the crucial years for brain development. The malnutrition rates in India are worse than in most of South Asia and Africa ? 44% of Indian children under the age of 5 are under-weight; the figure for Africa is about half that. Malnutrition causes stunting. In 2016, 26% of children in the world were stunted, compared to 38% in India. Roughly 47 million Indian children are stunted. Stunting is not just being short physically. More tellingly, it affects brain development and cognitive abilities. This results in poor school performance. Stunting is caused by malnutrition, which in turn is caused by poor dietary habits and lack of sanitation. One of the key reasons for bad sanitation is open defecation. And open defecation has its roots in culture, social practices, and government apathy. These are changing, but in the meantime, we have another generation of young Indians who will be mentally disadvantaged to the end of their days and who will be brutally challenged in an increasingly competitive global economy. ======================================== 14. A LEGEND IN HIS LIFETIME: TILL THE END, JUSTICE RAJINDER SACHAR SPOKE UP FOR THE RIGHTS OF FELLOW CITIZENS by Tahir Mahmood ======================================== The Indian Express, April 21, 2018 He was a legend in his own lifetime. Highly respected in life and deeply mourned in death, Rajinder Sachar was a household name. Son of a Congress veteran, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and inherited his grandfather?s legal acumen. On returning from Europe after completing my higher education in early 1970s, I had befriended in Delhi some great law brains much senior to me and drew inspiration from them till the end of their lives. Among them were Kerala High Court judge V R Krishna Iyer, then a member of the Law Commission, and Delhi High Court judge Rajinder Sachar. Both were destined to leave deep imprints on the development of human rights jurisprudence in the country. Their judgments, extrajudicial writings and seminar speeches were parts of my early lessons in human rights education. I was an eye witness to the stance Sachar took with exceptional grace on the indignities inflicted on him as a judge during the dark days of Emergency, and to the celebratory mood in legal circles when following the end of that ghastly spell in India?s history his rightful place in the capital?s high court was restored. During the devilish dance of anti-Sikh brutalities on Delhi roads in 1984, he part-heard a challenge to police atrocities and did the utmost that a human rights-conscious judge could have done. But he was deprived of the chance to finally decide the matter. The bitter memory of the unfortunate episode remained his lifelong haunt. As the Chair of National Minorities Commission I was a member ex officio of the National Human Rights Commission when its chairman Justice M N Venkatachaiah constituted a review committee for the Human Rights Protection Act 1993. Former Chief Justice A M Ahmadi had agreed to chair the committee, but Sachar was the leading light on it and the imprint of his thoughts was well writ in its report. How I wish the report had been accepted and implemented in toto by the powers that be, but 18 years later the report is totally forgotten and the NHRC remains a toothless tiger as at its inception. With its reportedly 10 notices to the UP government in the last few months on incidents of human rights violations, the state remains what it has been all these months. Sachar was denied a seat on the Supreme Court Bench. It was sheer injustice not as much to him as to the nation at large. He, however, turned this denial into a blessing in disguise by arguing before the apex court as a counsel on many human rights matters. In his 81\st\ year, he forcefully pleaded in the court for a forthright repeal of the draconian law called the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act put on the statute book in the preceding year. Its blatant misuse in certain parts of the country had stirred his conscience and he put his heart into the NCPUL?s brief seeking its abolition. The devil was soon killed but soon took rebirth in the form of another Act; and he remained a restless soul all his life. On returning to power in 2004, the Congress thought of initiating action on some tall promises it had habitually made in its election manifesto ? among these being measures for examining the minorities? long-pending demand for reservation in educational institutions and government jobs and for eliminating socio-economic backwardness of Muslims. The apolitical prime minister of the day wanted to get the vulnerable jobs handled by judges and academics. Two independent bodies were set up soon, one for minorities in general and the other for Muslims, which media nicknamed as Ranganath Misra Commission and Sachar Committee respectively. Ranganath Misra became brand name for the report written by me as the commission?s member, and Rajinder Sachar for that prepared by the committee?s member-secretary Abusaleh Sherrif. While Misra signed my report on the dotted lines, Sachar read every word of his learned colleague?s report and owned it up from the core of his heart. Misra remained tight-lipped about his report till his end in 2013, Sachar was vocal in its support till a few days ago. Both the noble souls are now resting in peace, and both the abortive reports in national archives. {The author is professor of law and former Chair, National Minorities Commission} ======================================== 15. INDIA: STOP THE KATHUA LIES, IT?S LIKE RAPING THE GIRL ALL OVER AGAIN Rahul Pandita ======================================== The Times of India April 22, 2018 In 1755, a major earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon, killing thousands of its inhabitants. It created a theological crisis of sorts in Europe, with ordinary people and philosophers alike questioning how a ?kind God? would allow such suffering. Since then, humans have brought so much destruction upon themselves that the only question one needs to ask of God is why men could turn so evil. As the philosopher Susan Neiman writes in ?Evil in Modern Thought?, ?The more responsibility for evil was left to the human, the less worthy the species seemed to take it on.? Nowhere has this been more evident recently than in the Kathua case. We are not supposed to take her name, but how does one stop thinking about the girl who lies buried in an alien patch of land, away even from her temporary home in Kathua, where she played football by herself? Her parents have left, following the old tradition of their forefathers, negotiating one hill after another, setting up camp wherever they can, along with their livestock. The girl who cannot be named, the girl who had big eyes, the girl who the autopsy report said was 110 centimetres long, cannot accompany them any longer. Immanuel Kant believed stupidity is caused by a wicked heart. To this the philosopher Hannah Arendt added that wickedness may be caused by absence of thought. In the case of the people who are in absolute denial about the circumstances that could have led to the girl?s death, perhaps both of these are true. Otherwise how can one explain their diabolical proclivity to spread lies or believe in lies about her murder? This is tantamount to mutilating the girl several times over. In the past week, I have become sick with random news items landing in my email and other inboxes from such people or from others who get severely confused after reading them. ?What do you have to say about this?? asked one, after he sent me a Facebook post on how the girl?s biological parents were dead and how her murder was a result of a property dispute. This is after her real parents had already been interviewed several times by journalists. Then another item was sent on how the ?in charge? of the crime branch team was involved in the custodial death of a man and the rape of his sister in 2007 in Jammu?s Doda region. This pertained to one of the members of the team ? not the in charge ? who was accused but later exonerated of all charges and reinstated in the force with full benefits. And then, I was flooded with screenshots of a report in a national Hindi daily that claimed that there had been no rape. I cringed at it. I had seen the autopsy report on January 17 itself, conducted on the day the girl was found dead, when the crime branch was not even involved in the case. The investigation officer at that time was the policeman who is now one of the accused in the case. But such facts do not matter to those who keep on brandishing their ignorance the way they waved the national flag earlier in favour of the accused. There is no doubt that Jammu has some genuine concerns about the Rohingya influx. Last year, the state home department said in the assembly that there were 5,743 Rohingya in Jammu who had ?entered the state on their own?. The number is believed to be much higher. India has provided sanctuary to refugees for centuries, but in this case one wonders how the Rohingya ended up so far in a state that has already seen polarisation and violence for decades. While the civil society in Jammu was well within its rights to raise this issue, it committed the mistake of conflating it with the girl?s brutal murder. And then, on April 9, a few lawyers in Kathua thought that shouting Jai Shri Ram would let them prevail over India?s Constitution. Now we know one thing. The court will decide whether the accusations made in the chargesheet are true or not. But, so far, whatever has been produced as ?evidence? in favour of the accused has turned out to be false. Till the court decides, it is time for everyone to quieten down. Let the judiciary do its job. In the meantime, listen to a song or something. I have personally taken solace in ?Ek Lau? from the movie, Aamir, sung beautifully by my friend Shilpa Rao. Also, if you can, take Yale historian Timothy Snyder?s advice and stay away from the internet as much as possible. Also, if you can, lock yourself in a room and read Hannah Arendt on the ?banality of evil.? (Pandita is the author of ?Our Moon Has Blood Clots: A memoir of a lost home in Kashmir? ) ======================================== 16. SHARMA ON TALBOT AND KAMRAN, 'COLONIAL LAHORE: A HISTORY OF THE CITY AND BEYOND' ======================================== Ian Talbot, Tahir Kamran. Colonial Lahore: A History of the City and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 256 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-064293-8. Reviewed by Shalini Sharma (Keele University) Published on H-Empire (April, 2018) Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University) Although landlocked and without high-rise housing, Lahore has the identity and vibe of any modern city. The residents of Lahore are a proud people, who have known the good life as well as the bad, and such memories live on, not least among the thousands turfed out and exiled from the city in the years because of partition. This is a Lahore neglected and ignored in most historical literature, a literature that focuses on communal strife, or idealizes Lahore through an orientalist optic as static, somehow preserving the mysteries of the unchanging East. Happily, this book falls into neither category. Rather, it is a synthesis of recent work that has opened up the city?s history to new questions and perspectives. The authors are seasoned Punjab historians, but in this work they seek to write a global history of Lahore, illuminating the connectedness of its citizens, their links with zones of trade, consumption, and cultural zones within and beyond the city. In this way, they describe the architecture of the city as influenced by waves of migration. They show how the development of military cantonments from the nineteenth century onward shaped the urban economy and topography, similarly the railways from the 1870s. Lahore as a crossroads of empire also emerges from this study: made and remade by the Mughals, Persians, Sikhs, and the British. Evidence of Lahore?s cosmopolitan identity is drawn from familiar sources: tourist accounts and the travelogues of overseas visitors, such as Beatrice and Sidney Webb. For the most part, however, Tahir Kamran and Ian Talbot take us to a Lahore that was invisible to Rudyard Kipling and other Western gazers. The authors point the reader to the spaces in the city where Punjabis came together as poets, wrestlers, filmmakers, and pilgrims. The first banks of Lahore, the city?s newspapers, motor industries, and shopping centers are vividly brought to life. Sometimes the coverage is too slight. For example, we are offered snippets from the English-language newspapers, rather than analysis of long runs. At other moments one is left asking for more: why for instance did Lahore come relatively late to the itinerary of Thomas Cook?s tours? On the whole, however, this is a satisfying read. Biographical vignettes enliven the chapters, for example, the legendary wrestler Ghulam Muhammad or ?Gama,? Altaf Hussain or ?Hali,? and the musharia culture of the city. We watch the rise and fall of the business magnate Lala Harkishen Lal, and follow the experiences of migrants from Delhi. The combined effect of mixing life stories with structural analysis is to emphasize how the unique character of the city comes from the particular alchemy created by its people. This is the book?s main achievement. In most respects, the book is a fresh departure from older treatments, continuing the innovative work of such scholars as Farina Mir (The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab [2010]) and William Glover (Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City [2008]) on the cultural history of the city. However, the authors do tend to follow Markus Daechsel (2012) in privileging the agency of the Lahore middle class, meaning the that book mainly explores the city of a certain type of Lahori: bourgeois, literate, and masculine.[1] Although women appear as consumers in one chapter, they are absent from the discussion here of Lahore?s cultural scene, its public spaces, its changing fashions. Women were as much a part of Lahore?s elite in the colonial period as were men, even if less documented. A peek at just a few celebrities, such as the artist Amrita Shergill and the Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz, would have presented a more rounded picture. Other examples would complicate the story. Women were central to the establishment of the first female college in Lahore in 1922, and they participated in local politics (especially at the time of Bhagat Singh?s trial) and in local election campaigns. A preoccupation with the middle class also excludes other Lahoris, and Lahore?s ?others,? namely, Dalits or Ad-Dharmis. The Ad-Dharmi movement started out from nearby Hoshiarpur, and had a huge impact on Lahore politics in the 1920s and 1930s, a factor that is neglected in the authors? account of local opposition to the Simon Commission in 1927. Moreover, looking at what the British termed the ?depressed classes? would add a number of layers to the story of Lahore presented here. How were these communities zoned in the spatial development of the city? Where did they fit? Did the modernizing city liberate ?untouchables? from their caste background, or was their ascribed lowly status reinforced in the urban context? What about the municipal history of Lahore: could the arguments of Vijay Prashad?s study of the Balmikis of Delhi (Untouchable Freedom: The Social History of a Dalit Community [2000]) be extended to Lahore? In these ways, the history of women and Dalits would have enhanced this book. Despite that omission, we are left with a rich and varied history of the city. It is a must read for any student of Punjabi history and of the history of the city in South Asia. And it shows the way ahead for future research for historians of Lahore, Faiz Ahmad Faiz?s ?city of lights.? Note [1]. Markus Daechsel, ?Being Middle Class in Late Colonial Punjab,? in Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture and Practice, ed. Anshu Malhotra and Farina Mir (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), 320-356. ======================================== 17. US AND MAJOR ICS "SLEEP-WALKING" TOWARDS WAR, UNSUSTAINABILITY by D. Ravi Kanth ======================================== South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) #8663 17 April 2018 Major developed countries led by the United States are "sleep walking towards war" by implementing unsustainable fiscal and monetary policies since the 2008 financial crisis, with the destructive consequences to be borne by the developing countries, two former senior officials of the Bank for International Settlements warned on Friday (13 April). Herv? Hannoun, a former deputy general manager, and Peter Dittus, former secretary-general of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), sounded this warning in presenting a comprehensive report titled, "Revolution Required - the Ticking Time Bombs of the G7 Model." Speaking at a meeting convened by the South Centre at Palais des Nations on 13 April, the two former senior BIS officials argued that "the current economic model built on unsustainable growth of debt, asset prices inflation, arms race, and unsustainable use of carbon will come to an end." They called for "revolution" to usher in a "sustainable model" that "uses little carbon," "stops the military build-up," "puts the common interest before the interests of the few," and "distributes the fruits of the economy more equitably." In such a revolution, the authors argued, "state" and public policy must play a crucially "larger role" than becoming, as over the last [several] decades, "a servant to economic and financial interests." Calling for transformational change, the two authors said, this is an imperative if the world were to avoid the worst crises on several fronts simultaneously. Following the 2008 financial crisis, which was an offshoot of the unsustainable fiscal and monetary policies followed by the United States Fed and other central banks in the major industrialized countries, the G7 countries, with the exception of Germany, have continued to implement "lax fiscal policies" on a sustained basis. Consequently, the gross liabilities (government debt to GDP) last year hovered around 221% in Japan, 157% in Italy, 124% in France, 121% in the United Kingdom, 105% in the United States, 97% in Canada, and 72% in Germany. Since 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended unilaterally the direct international convertibility of the American dollar to gold, the US, which continues to enjoy the "exorbitant privilege" (of printing its currency and paying other nations for goods and services bought from them), has become the epicenter for the unsustainable monetary policies without any concern for its ballooning twin deficits. The US, in turn, exported all its failures to curb the "twin deficits" (fiscal and current account deficits) to other G7 countries which religiously followed the US model except Germany. "The US administration multiplies new expenditure and tax cuts by trillion dollars, with no funding other than more debt" which includes US$1.5 trillion tax bonanza for the big corporates, US$1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, colossal increase in the Pentagon budget by more than US$700 billion, Hannoun and Dittus argued. Unfortunately, the other G7 countries chose to remain silent without any murmur about this dangerous "opening of the flood gates." Meanwhile, the party goes on despite "the reckless behaviour" of the US. The overall US fiscal deficit is projected around US$1 trillion in 2019, and this would not be possible without the permissive monetary policy conducted by the US Federal Reserve (the American central bank) since 2009, Hannoun and Dittus maintained. "The silence or complacency of the Big Three US-based rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch group), with the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, exposes the hypocrisy of the watchdogs," the two said. If anything, it vindicates the financial impunity with which the US could adopt such dangerous monetary and fiscal policies because of "the exorbitant privilege" arising from the dollar being the anchor of the international monetary system. Moreover, the "bipartisan complacency" shown by the Republicans, who are supposed to be financial conservative hawks, and Democrats, who believe in higher taxes and spending, is equally disturbing, Hannoun and Dittus argued. "First, a dramatization of the shutdown, followed by negotiations among politicians, and then an increase of suspension of debt ceiling," the former BIS officials pointed out. Little wonder that the "G7 central banks have become the facilitators of unfettered debt accumulation." And "the sorcerers' apprentices," according to Hannoun and Dittus, include incentives for unfettered debt accumulation such as "near zero or negative nominal interest rates." Such low interest rates are the price of leverage in an economy, they maintained. The main beneficiaries of negative nominal interest rates are "non-bank corporations" who buy back their own shares, thereby increasing "leverage and deteriorating deliberately their gearing ratios to please their shareholders." In effect, the total debt of the seven major developed countries is estimated at around US$100 trillion in the third quarter of last year. Of the total world debt, the US, Britain, Canada, Japan, and the Eurozone account for 64%. The extreme fundamentalist monetary policies followed by the seven developed countries since 2012 have undermined "the foundations of the market economy." Further, "the distortion of all asset prices," because of the intervention of the G7 central banks during the past six years, "have introduced a significant element of a command economy in G7 countries, which have moved towards a regime of centrally planned financial markets," Hannoun and Dittus maintained. Consequently, "the G7 model is no longer complying with a textbook market economy model," as the long term interest rates are manipulated and fail to reflect the fundamentals of an economy. The "everything bubble" engineered by G7 central banks is ready to burst, following the unprecedented asset prices bubble stemming from seven years of near zero or negative interest rates, Hannoun and Dittus warned. Thus, the G7 monetary policies "are a common factor to most of the speculative excesses observed in bonds, stocks, and real estate." The "US Federal Reserve has dealt with the bursting of every asset bubble of the last 20 years by creating another, larger bubble." Since 2012, the G7 Central Banks are no longer seen as able to "take away the punch bowl when the party gets going," Hannoun and Dittus argued. In short, the "asset price inflation engineered by central banks is a key driver of the rise in inequality," the former BIS officials maintained. "The "everything bubble" of asset prices is another ticking time bomb of the G7 model," Hannoun and Dittus said. The most scary asset price bubble is the bond bubble, with Japan, Germany, and France having nominal ten year bond yields between zero and one per cent. Around 43% of G7 government bonds in major reserve currencies are now held by central banks and other public entities. "By transforming quantitative easing into a permanent monetary policy tool, the G7 central banks are at risk of heading towards the slippery slope which ultimately leads to government debt monetization," Hannoun and Dittus maintained. Because of the sustained reckless policies, the G7 central banks are facing a dilemma whether "to choose between two stylized scenarios - policy normalization or government debt monetization", they argued. Arguably, the monetary and fiscal policies followed by the seven developed countries have resulted in the "capture" of monetary policy by financial markets and "regulatory capture" by large banks and financial industry. Effectively, there is pushback against financial sector reform in the US and elsewhere. "The lack of integrity of the global financial system" can be seen in two major regulatory failures, Hannoun and Dittus pointed out. The two regulatory failures are "zero risk weight for sovereigns in bank regulation of credit risk," and "no pillar 1 capital charge for the interest rate risk in the banking book," the two former BIS officials maintained. The flawed monetary and fiscal policies being implemented by the G7 countries are contributing to the twin dangers of "the global warming time bomb" and "war," Hannoun and Dittus said. During the discussion on the report presented by Hannoun and Dittus, the former governor of the Indian central bank (Reserve Bank of India, RBI), Yaga Venugopal Reddy, agreed with their finding and called for thorough "rebalancing" on several fronts. "Rebalancing has to be between national and global economy, state and market, finance and real," said Dr. Reddy, maintaining that "policymakers cannot base their policies on hope or assumptions, but they should be based on the assessments of the rebalancing that occurs from time to time." The former RBI governor cautioned against adopting a "single model for all countries or for the global economy as a whole" given the emerging complexities in the global economy. According to Dr. Reddy, Hannoun and Dittus are correct about the "G7 monetary policy capture by financial markets" as well as "regulatory capture by large banks and financial industry." The global financial crisis actually became the global economic crisis which was "transformed into a social crisis, and of late it is manifesting itself in political developments which we are unable to understand fully," Dr. Reddy argued. "The attack on multilateralism," according to Dr. Reddy, "is really an offshoot of the global financial crisis and its consequences." As a central bank governor, Dr. Reddy said, he knew the difficulties involved in the global financial reform. He gave as an example how he was dissuaded by the highest authorities in New Delhi and Washington from mentioning the "consideration of Tobin Tax" on cross-country financial transactions in a speech. Wall Street, according to several accounts, including that of the former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Simon Johnson, has become the "Wall Street-Treasury corridor," Dr. Reddy said. As regards the current face-off between the US and China, with China holding more than $1.3 trillion of US treasury bills, Dr. Reddy said "while the real economic activity is shifting rapidly to Asia, in particular China, the financial sector continues to be dominated by the West." Besides, public sector dominates in China by making public policy more effective, while private sector dominates in the US economy. "While China has significant strength on the current account, the US has significant strength in terms of the return on external assets" which has implications for external sector vulnerabilities, Dr. Reddy said. The former UNCTAD senior economist, Mr. Andrew Cornford, concurred with the findings of the report while Mr. Martin Khor, the South Centre's Executive Director, said the report is a timely reminder of the dangerous period the world is going through at this juncture. Former UNCTAD director and South Centre chief economist, Dr. Y?lmaz Aky?z, in some concluding remarks spoke about the need to factor in the findings of the report for serious reforms in the global financial system. ======================================== 18. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN THE RUBBLE OF DOUMA ? AND ONE DOCTOR?S DOUBTS OVER THE CHEMICAL ATTACK Robert Fisk Douma, Syria ======================================== The Independent (UK) 17 April 2018 This is the story of a town called Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed apartment blocks ? and of an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world?s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week. There?s even a friendly doctor in a green coat who, when I track him down in the very same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the ?gas? videotape which horrified the world ? despite all the doubters ? is perfectly genuine. War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm. As Dr Assim Rahaibani announces this extraordinary conclusion, it is worth observing that he is by his own admission not an eyewitness himself and, as he speaks good English, he refers twice to the jihadi gunmen of Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam] in Douma as ?terrorists? ? the regime?s word for their enemies, and a term used by many people across Syria. Am I hearing this right? Which version of events are we to believe? [ . . . ] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html ======================================== 19. ?ORB?N, GET LOST TO THE TULIPY CUNT.? HUNGARY THREATENS THE EUROPEAN UNION ? A PHOTO ESSAY FROM BUDAPEST Anthony Barnett ======================================== Open Democracy 17 April 2018 "I joined a massive demonstration against the Orb?n supremacy a week after the election, on Saturday afternoon 14 March. It completely filled Budapest?s wide avenues between the Opera and Parliament." lead lead ?Orb?n, get lost to the tulipy cunt.? A famous Hungarian curse put to a new use. All photographs the author's own.The election victory of Viktor Orb?n ? his third in a row ? in Hungary last week is a much greater danger to the European Union than Brexit. A clearly undemocratic Premier now threatens to overturn the rule of law and install himself as an effective dictator based on popular mobilisation, stirred by noxious racist and xenophobic strobes. The menace follows his overwhelming election victory last week on Sunday 8th March. The recipient of billions of euros in EU support, much of which is apparently misappropriated by regime corruption, and benefiting from German permission, Orb?n is arguably now coming to represent actually existing Europe. Hungary?s capital city voted against him and his party, Fidesz. The town is still covered in election posters. Idealistic images of the leaders of the fragmented opposition parties stare out from lampposts. From Jobbik, the rightist party that came second, to centrist and leftist movements ? like Momentum, founded last year, that gained just 3% of the vote and failed to enter parliament. A brief post-election report is filled with their now gloomy faces in defeat and resignation. The thought that together they had 51% of the total was little consolation. The electoral system introduced by Orb?n loaded the votes in his favour and gave him a two-thirds parliamentary majority, enough to do as he wishes with the constitution. The countryside of this modest, 10 million strong people, backed Orb?n to the hilt, after two terms in power and outrageous examples of corruption, support for Fidesz grew. ?Basically a significant part of Hungarian society wanted this type of governance to continue. This is not because these people are stupid, tunnel-visioned, or unprincipled?. The words are those of M?rton Guly?s, a brilliant, 32 year-old opposition leader, whose Country for All movement did not run in the election but attempted and failed to persuade opposition parties to cooperate and ally against Orb?n, to prevent his gaining the two-thirds parliamentary supremacy that now offers him unlimited power. Behind the alarm and disappointment there hangs an overwhelming reality. Orb?n?s campaign was one of unmitigated fear and loathing. He had no programme and offered no manifesto, against which his achievements could be held to account over the coming four years. Instead, he set out his strategy in a speech on 22 June last year, and proposed to defend Hungary from a campaign organised by George Soros and the European Union to dissolve Hungary and Christian Europe in a tide of Muslim migrants. I knew things were grim in Hungary but until going there did not understand how bad they are, or how it feels. It was like going to the USA after Trump has won a third term. If you can, imagine Trump being in office for eight years, building his southern wall and amending the constitution so he could run again. Then, winning. Not only that, third-term Trump has increased his popular support, has two-thirds majorities in the Senate and House made up of his hand-picked candidates, looks forward to filling a majority of seats in the Supreme Court. While, immediately after the election, the New York Times and Washington Post announce their immediate closure as no longer commercially viable. It is not the likelihood of such a scenario that is concerning, although this year white rural America support for Trump has grown from 50 to 65 per cent since January. It is what it would mean ? and what has happened in Hungary. It is no ordinary election that can be reversed at the end of a four-year term. It promises a transition from law-based elections to plebiscitary Bonapartism, arbitrary dictatorship and a chauvinist crushing of liberty and free-thinking. Goodbye reality One of the many election posters filling the Budapest bus-stops is a fake. It is a photo-shopped picture of Soros embracing four of the opposition party leaders. Proclaiming ?Let?s Stop Soros?s Candidates?. ?Let?s Stop Soros?s Candidates?. This image has no basis in what used to be called reality. The four parties attempted to take its deployment to court and failed, it was ruled to be free speech. Apparently across much of the countryside the picture was taken to be of an actual get-together. Along with it are other posters claiming that the opposition wanted to dismantle the wall built by Orb?n on Hungary?s southern frontier. Another, taken from the same image of young male refugees made infamous by Nigel Farage in the Brexit referendum, proclaimed STOP about something that is not happening. Proclaiming STOP to something not happening.To use Miklos Haraszti?s description, a propaganda state has been created in Hungary. It combines post-truth anti-Semitism, such as the anti-Soros mantra in which the ?J? word is not mentioned, with explicitly anti-Muslim bigotry. Using this vile propaganda Fidesz has mobilised support across a countryside weakened and threatened not by immigration but by the scale of emigration, as the best of the younger generation flee the country for opportunities abroad. With the opposition parties reeling from the devastating scale of their political annihilation, a civil-society network came together to call for a rally of protest via Facebook. For a spontaneous demonstration the turnout was astounding. To our left. To our right.These two photos are taken from the same spot as we gathered in the avenue leading to the Opera House before marching on parliament. The demonstrators were very mixed. The red striped flag of Jobbik supporters joined the Momentum generation. There were the young. The serious And the patriots Some demonstrators came in peace and carried daffodils that were handed out The posters were often witty and intelligent. ?Dictators of the world, unite?? A pertinent question. Two placards were especially visible by the screens in front of the parliament building as we listened to the speeches. This shows Chancellor Merkel saying ?We cannot give you as much as you steal?. Warning finger: ?Don?t Cheat Don?t Steal Don?t Lie Because the government cannot tolerate competition?. Others were more scholarly. ?Rights are not what they give but what they cannot take away.?The regime?s destruction of the opposition press was highlighted. Propaganda machine is no media. The press is squeezed. At the end of the speeches, in the huge space in front of the parliament, the organisers declared they would sing the Hungarian national anthem followed by the European Union?s. In clear, firm tones the great crowd sung their national anthem. Then the speakers blasted out Beethoven?s Ode to Joy. Its words were not familiar and as the glorious choir began, spontaneously people began to turn on their phone searchlights. This 35 seconds gives you an idea of the size and the presence of the people of Hungary that the EU ought to be supporting. The speeches at the end of a great rally are usually symbolic not substantive. But inspired by the force of the mobilisation one of the organisers declared that they will gather ?next week?. There were loud protests next to me. Rightly so. It can hardly be bigger. A numbers game will be played. Some organisers will disagree leading to negative publicity. European solidarity This problem is a familiar one of recent years for the spontaneous, open-minded opposition to the well-funded organisation of closure and narrowness. Without clearly achievable demands, a civil society movement cannot grow into an immediately effective force. Any attempt to simply defy the authorities will be ground down, by techniques now quite well established and shared by security forces around the world; who are only too happy to crush the diehards when support peels away. The only time such protest has been completely successful in its own terms was the indignados in Spain in 2011. They occupied the main squares of Spain, starting in Madrid and then in 81 towns and cities. They generated an intense learning experience and almost immediately debated when to disperse, doing so within three weeks. Unlike the Occupy movements in Wall Street and London, they didn?t try to hang on indefinitely. Instead, they pivoted to engage with the poorer areas of Spain to challenge the way the economy was being run. Out of this came not only a new and relatively successful political party but also municipal victories in Barcelona and Madrid. No such opportunity to defy the authority of Viktor Orb?n was on offer in Budapest or could be. After all, he had just won an election with a significant increase in support. He felt the force was with him last July, when Orb?n declared, ?Twenty-seven years ago here in Central Europe we believed that Europe was our future; today we feel that we are the future of Europe?. The task that confronts the urban demonstrators is to prove this wrong ? which they cannot do without Europe itself refusing Orbanism as its future. Anthony Barnett is currently a visiting fellow at the IWM Vienna ======================================== 20. CRIMINAL 'ARMS RACE' HELPING TERRORISTS GET WEAPONS, REPORT WARNS Reactivated and smuggled guns used as barriers to obtaining firearms in Europe break down Jason Burke ======================================== The Guardian 18 April 2018 Automatic weapons Part of a haul of ?100,000 worth of eastern European guns smuggled into the UK by a criminal gang in 2016. Photograph: NCA/PA An ?arms race? between criminal groups in Europe risks making it easier for terrorists to obtain high-powered, military grade firearms, a report has warned. The survey says long-standing barriers to obtaining firearms have broken down in recent years owing to the emergence of the internet, cross-border smuggling of military-grade assault rifles into the EU, the conversion of large numbers of blank-firing guns and the widespread reactivation of weapons previously rendered unusable to be sold to collectors. ?The increased availability of firearms has contributed to arms races between criminal groups across the EU,? the report, funded by the European commission, said. Timeline The Paris and Brussels attacks In recent years, extremist attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere have involved firearms. In the UK, plots involving firearms have been broken up by police and security services. Militants from the Islamic State used automatic weapons and bombs to kill more than 130 people in bars, outside a stadium and at a concert hall in Paris in November 2015 in the bloodiest such incident. Other uses of firearms in recent years have included lethal shootings at a museum in Brussels in 2014, the attack on the offices of a satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January 2015, a series of attacks on off-duty soldiers and Jewish targets in south-west France in 2012 and at a synagogue in Denmark in 2016. Attackers frequently have used ?reactivated? and converted weapons, or firearms stolen from legitimate owners. The attacks in Paris involved automatic weapons originally from former military stockpiles in the Balkans that had ended up in the hands of criminals in Belgium. The report noted that in Paris it was firearms ? ?primarily automatic AK-pattern assault rifles and handguns acquired from intra-European criminal sources? ? that had caused the vast majority of casualties. AK-47 assault rifles seized by Albanian police from local crime gangs in Tirana in 2015. Photograph: Arben Celi/Reuters ?In western Europe the traditional closed character of criminal gun markets has partially eroded in recent years and we have observed an increased availability of military-grade firearms. These weapons have then also ended up in hands of terrorists,? said Nils Duquet, the editor of the report and a senior researcher at the Flemish Peace Institute, an independent research institute that coordinated the study. Two trends particularly worry researchers: the ?trickling-down? of the possession and use of firearms to lower-level criminals in several EU member states, especially in western Europe, and the growing overlap between Islamic extremists and the criminal underworld. The phenomenon of ?gangster jihad? has become a major concern for experts and security services. Many high-profile attacks in Europe and the UK in recent years have involved extremists previously convicted for petty or serious crime. Several key members of the network that carried out the November 2015 Paris attack had been involved in drug and arms sales. Extremist recruitment efforts have specifically targeted former criminals, with one British group?s propaganda image of a fighter accompanied by the slogan: ?Sometimes the people with the worst pasts create the best futures?. The report concluded that terrorists generally rely on previously established criminal connections to obtain firearms on illicit markets. It identified prisons as places that offered new opportunities for extremists who did ?not yet have the necessary criminal connections to acquire firearms?. Laws and policies have been tightened in recent years to reinforce the fight against illicit arms trafficking. However, the report said a lack of sound research meant these initiatives had often been based on a ?case-bound, partial or even completely lacking, meaningful intelligence picture?. Amedy Coulibaly carried out a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015 with reactivated automatic rifles. Photograph: Reuters The situation in the UK is different, researchers found, but Duquet said there were growing fears of smuggling of powerful automatic weapons to the UK. ?A number of recent cases, for example, have demonstrated that criminals have been trying to bring military-grade firearms to the UK by exploiting legal loopholes in other EU member states with regard to easy-to-reactivate deactivated firearms,? he said. According to a separate report, also released on Tuesday, by analysts at the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, criminal and terrorist networks on the continent obtain firearms from two major sources: weapons smuggled from south-east Europe after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and the more recent trade in converted firearms, some of which originate in EU member states. Converted and reactivated weapons in Europe are seen as having posed an acute problem in recent years. Amedy Coulibaly, who carried out shootings in Paris in January 2015, used two reactivated automatic rifles and and six handguns. The firearms had been sold in Slovakia before being reactivated and eventually smuggled into Coulibaly?s hands. Weapons seized from Mohamed Merah, who carried out attacks in January 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban, included a reactivated Spanish-made pistol. The perpetrator of the July 2016 shooting in Munich reportedly used a reactivated Glock pistol purchased on the dark web. Such weapons are smuggled in small quantities, sometimes just components that are later reassembled. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Apr 24 17:01:54 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 02:31:54 +0530 Subject: SACW - 25 April 2018 | Bangladesh: Rana Plaza accident 5 years on / Pakistan: undermining democracy / India: Acquittals of far right extremists / A Call to Defend Rojava / France: targeting the railways / Nigeria - Boko Haram Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 25 April 2018 - No. 2985 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Bangladesh: 2013 Rana Plaza building fire, Dhaka - An Accident in History | Rich Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein 2. A Global Agenda for Labour | Pranab Bardhan 3. A Call to Defend Rojava: An Open Letter 4. South Africa: Zapiro?s Cartoon on the Estina dairy project and the corrupt Guptas 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Letter to India's Home Minister NIA?s failure in securing the prosecution of perpetrators of bomb blast in Makka Masjid, Hyderabad in 2007 - Bangladesh: Anti-Ahmadiyya rally of April 20, 2018 - Is just garlanding of portraits is honoring Ambedkar? Ram Puniyani - India - Orissa: Presentation of Fact Finding Report on the incident of vandalization of Church and Temple at Sundargarh District - The Thesaurus Of Unloving | Shiv Visvanathan - India: Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha on Communalisation of Politics in West Bengal ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Bangladesh: The slippery slope of intolerance - Editorial, Dhaka Tribune 7. Pakistan: JI chief?s allegations - Editorial, Dawn 8. India: Murk unlimited - Acquittals in Mecca Masjid blast case paint a sorry picture of the justice system 9. India: Power of Lists - Men, women & new consent rules | Shiv Visvanathan 10. India: In the absence of populism | Harsh Shah, Rahul Verma, Pradeep Chhibber 11. In India, Rising Joblessness is a Tinderbox Waiting to Catch Fire | Madhvi Gupta and Pushkar 13. The Age Of Seth: How vice pays tribute to virtue in contemporary India | Mihir S Sharma 14. Duckett on Sadan, 'War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar: The Kachin Ceasefire, 1994-2011' 15. South Africa: State Capture Commission in the foothills of Mount Zupta | Chris Bateman 16. France: To Change a Country, Change Its Trains | Tom Zoellner 17. Russia: 'People will revolt': Workers say Russia must save sanctions-hit Rusal | Reuters 18. Nigeria - Boko Haram - Where to begin? | Adewale Maja-Pearce ======================================== 1. BANGLADESH: 2013 RANA PLAZA BUILDING FIRE, DHAKA - AN ACCIDENT IN HISTORY | RICH APPELBAUM AND NELSON LICHTENSTEIN ======================================== The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex near Dhaka in April 2013?killing 1,132 souls and injuring nearly 2,000 more?is unquestionably the most horrific human tragedy in garment industry world history. Whether this enormous loss of life will be balanced by a new era of social reform remains an open question. But it seems just possible that Rana Plaza may well represent the same sort of moral and political shock to an exploitative and dysfunctional production system as did the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, which ushered in a generation of social reform and labor rights. http://sacw.net/article13734.html ======================================== 2. A GLOBAL AGENDA FOR LABOUR by Pranab Bardhan ======================================== The share of workers belonging to unions has declined in many countries, and new patterns of employment, such as the rise of the so called ?gig economy?, are making unorganised labour the norm in a large number of industries. For Pranab Bardhan, this weakening of labour organisations has been a factor in enabling the growth of inequality and the rise of right-wing populism. He outlines some suggested steps for reversing this trend. http://sacw.net/article13736.html ======================================== 3. A CALL TO DEFEND ROJAVA: AN OPEN LETTER ======================================== When Raqqa fell in 2017, after a long siege by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), it was generally thought that ISIS was defeated, save for some mopping up. But in January of this year, Turkey invaded Afrin?one of three cantons in Rojava, also called the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. This meant that scores of SDF fighters had to leave the battle against ISIS in order to defend their homes, families, and neighbors in Afrin. http://sacw.net/article13735.html ======================================== 4. SOUTH AFRICA: ZAPIRO?S CARTOON ON THE ESTINA DAIRY PROJECT AND THE CORRUPT GUPTAS ======================================== A state-owned farm near the central town of Vrede was leased to a little-known company, Estina Pty Ltd., in 2012 under a free 99-year contract and the regional government agreed to help develop it, ostensibly to set up a dairy project that would create 200 jobs. Prosecutors say most of the 220 million rand in public funds transferred to the company ended up in the hands of the Guptas. http://sacw.net/article13737.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Letter to India's Home Minister NIA?s failure in securing the prosecution of perpetrators of bomb blast in Makka Masjid, Hyderabad in 2007 - Bangladesh: Anti-Ahmadiyya rally of April 20, 2018 - Is just garlanding of portraits is honoring Ambedkar? Ram Puniyani - India - Orissa: Presentation of Fact Finding Report on the incident of vandalization of Church and Temple at Sundargarh District - The Thesaurus Of Unloving | Shiv Visvanathan - India: Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha on Communalisation of Politics in West Bengal -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. BANGLADESH: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF INTOLERANCE - EDITORIAL, DHAKA TRIBUNE ======================================== Dhaka Tribune April 22, 2018 Editorial The slippery slope of intolerance Groups such as Khatme Nobuat stand ever ready to fan the flames of intolerance Bangladesh is not and cannot be allowed to be a land of persecution. To that end, the recent anti-Ahmadiyya rally organized by Islamist group Khatme Nobuat is a dangerously regressive development, that should be cause for serious concern. This is not the first time, unfortunately, that Bangladesh has seen this sort of attitude leveled towards Ahmadiyyas, though, thankfully, not for several years. Systematic oppression of the Ahmadiyyas has existed for over half a century ? with over a dozen of their members getting killed and over a hundred attacks being carried out against their community over the years ? with its most prominent manifestation being during the last period of BNP-Jamaat rule. In fact, during the Four Party Alliance government?s tenure, there was implicit (and oftentimes explicit) support from the government towards anti-Ahmadiyya activities, such as the banning of the Ahmadiyya Publications in 2004, and the community had to live in fear, suffering several attacks. Fortunately, the AL government has made tolerance and religious freedom two of its hallmarks, and we have come a long way in the last decade. But as recent events make clear, the ugliness still remains, and groups such as Khatme Nobuat stand ever ready to fan the flames of intolerance. The continued persecution of a minority cannot be something we can accept as a nation anymore, especially as a nation that thrives on diversity and spirit of community, one that was built on the values and principles of secularism and equality. We trust that the current government will, therefore, continue to live up to its principles, and ensure that such hatred is not allowed to spread within Bangladesh. There are laws against incitement to violence, as there are laws against stirring up religious hatred and enmity. Let us see them used. ======================================== 7. PAKISTAN: JI CHIEF?S ALLEGATIONS Editorial, Dawn ======================================== Dawn April 24, 2018 Editorial THE latest revelations have come from somewhat unexpected quarters, but the details are in line with what has been alleged and suspected since the farcical election. The controversy over the election of Chairman of the Senate Sadiq Sanjrani is refusing to die down ? and rightly so. The latest individual to come forward and publicly cast aspersions on the fairness and integrity of the vote that saw Mr Sanjrani catapulted from political obscurity to one of the highest constitutional offices in the land is none other than Sirajul Haq, emir of the Jamaat-i-Islami and ally of the PTI in the KP government. The JI chief has claimed that ahead of the crucial vote in the Senate, he was lobbied by KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to vote for a candidate for Senate chairman who Mr Khattak claimed would be nominated by powerful forces outside the PTI. At the time Mr Khattak approached the JI chief, the former was unaware of even the identity of the candidate for Senate chairman that the PTI had committed to backing. The JI chief?s claim has been obliquely denied by Mr Khattak and angrily denounced by a PTI national spokesperson, but it should not be easily dismissed. In the run-up to the election of the Senate chairman and on the day of the vote itself, it was apparent that electoral politics alone could not explain the strange coalition that came together to defeat the PML-N candidate and elevate a political non-entity to constitutional high office. The seemingly manipulated events in the Senate came after a coup inside the PML-N in the Balochistan Assembly installed another previous political non-entity as chief minister of the province. Taken together, it has appeared that anti-democratic forces ventured deep into the political terrain to engineer electoral outcomes that have seriously undermined the democratic process. It is not a matter of the PML-N losing out. Democracy is also about the integrity of the process, and it is fairly clear that extra-parliamentary forces encouraged, directed and facilitated a particular outcome. What can be done? At this stage, at the very least a parliamentary or judicial inquiry is merited. Arriving at the truth will not be easy given that a number of parliamentary parties backed Mr Sanjrani and virtually all parties have alleged corruption in the election of senators. But it is necessary to draw a line and try and protect the democratic order. Even by historical standards, Mr Sanjrani?s election and the allegations swirling around the voting in the provincial assemblies are deeply troubling. The democratic transition is a decade old, but the events of March may have done more to undermine the democratic process than a number of other anti-democratic episodes over the last decade. The truth should be made known to the public. Sirajul Haq and others should lead the way. ======================================== 8. INDIA: MURK UNLIMITED - ACQUITTALS IN MECCA MASJID BLAST CASE PAINT A SORRY PICTURE OF THE JUSTICE SYSTEM ======================================== The Times of India April 18, 2018 Editorial The acquittal of five accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case brings us back to an intractable, but familiar, problem when prosecution fails: who killed the nine people and injured scores of others? National Investigation Agency has registered another miserable failure to its credit. Sixty-six material witnesses turned hostile, a reflection of the agency?s incompetence or political pressures on witnesses. If so many witnesses oppose the prosecution case, someone in NIA must pay for taking the system for a ride. Recall that three agencies ? Hyderabad police, CBI and NIA ? probed the case and each seem to have magnified, instead of rectifying, initial errors. Hyderabad police arrested 20 Muslim youths but CBI wasn?t impressed and found a common strand between the Malegaon, Samjhauta, Ajmer Dargah and Mecca Masjid blasts. While a Jaipur NIA court convicted RSS worker Devendra Gupta for the Ajmer blast, he has been acquitted in the Mecca Masjid blast. Both Jaipur and Hyderabad NIA courts rejected Swami Aseemanand?s judicial confession, the major peg on which the cases rested. In 2011, Aseemanand repudiated his statement to a magistrate claiming it was made under CBI pressure. It is time to videograph confession statements so that trial judges can look at the demeanour of the magistrate, accused persons, and investigating officers. Each failure of probe agencies diminishes public confidence in the police and justice system. However, BJP and Congress have started a political blame game that only exposes the influence governments wield over agencies. With the investigations completed during UPA-2 and prosecution progressing through NDA years the flaws during both periods are too blatant to ignore. Rather than check terror these political parties are doing a great disservice by scoring communal points in terror investigations. This is dangerous and disheartening for police and intelligence agencies instrumental in busting terror plots and communal riots. A consensus on isolating threats to state and public order should not be so difficult, given that most politicians swear by nationalism. However, votebank politics has polarised the country. The state must answer to survivors and relatives of victims over its failure to dispense justice. NIA?s latest failure comes after its farcical pursuit of love jihad in Kerala. Thrusting India?s premier anti-terror agency in pursuit of a divisive agenda aimed at driving a wedge between consenting adults lowered its stature. NIA and CBI must act to regain their lost credibility. ======================================== 9. POWER OF LISTS: MEN, WOMEN & NEW CONSENT RULES Shiv Visvanathan ======================================== The Asian Age April 14, 2018 Somehow one senses that the everyday nuance of feminist struggle has not penetrated the younger generation. The concern was not with proof but with the demand that the silence and suffering of a woman is confronted openly and that men accept responsibility for the mayhem created. (Representational Image) Some events began innocuously and acquire potency over time. They gain in both symbolic and political power as they grow into the imagination. Such an event was the Raya Sarkar episode, which I think needs detailed analysis both as text and context for a debate. What began as a letter indicting a whole list of academics, including outstanding social scientists, has become a minor monument to feminist politics. It was an indictment of social science intellectuals and masculine ideology. One?s first reaction was tempered. One realised that it was not just an indictment but a scream of pain, a revelation demanding a hearing, warning people that women?s suffering had been ignored for too long or sanitised through the tactics of power. More than a search for truth, it was an indictment of the irresponsibility of power. Despite its stunning impact, one must realise that there is a frog in the pond syndrome, because while it traumatised the academia, it created barely a ripple in corporate, industrial or bureaucratic life. As a male academic, I was shocked to see how my colleagues in some institutions were treated. They suddenly faced inquiry committees and ostracism, but many were puzzled by the charges, exclaiming to me: ?What is the charge, so that I can reply to it?. Another exclaimed that he could not face his wife and children in an everyday sense. I am sure some individuals were guilty, but to enforce a blanket judgment of guilt without any proof makes one wonder whether due process has lost its legitimacy. I am not claiming that all is well with the academic community, or with sexuality in academia. Yet, the list has a corrosive quality that worries one. The first critical reactions came from senior feminists who objected to the style of the indictment, and rallied around some of their friends and colleagues. They were immediately condemned as being part of a convivial back-scratching club. The split, at least overtly, was between younger and older feminists. The former was ruthless in its sanctification of the list. The concern was not with proof but with the demand that the silence and suffering of a woman is confronted openly and that men accept responsibility for the mayhem created. The list in a way rewrote history, creating a difference in political emphasis. As Latika Vashist, a feminist and legal scholar, told me: ?The list has created a severe divide in perceptions, in what feminism means and what it stands for.? She observed in a very personal way that ?pre-List? feminists attempted to evolve a philosophy of justice for the personal and sexual, without being singularly obsessed with victimhood. For ?List feminists?, she claimed ?victimhood has become a frozen and static identity, therefore politics is no longer about a just future, it is a response to their wounded psychic states?. Another observer commented about the emphasis on consent. They warned that a fetishisation of consent can distort the very nature of relationships. One can cite in this context Amitai Etizion?s quote from the Antioch Review?s Handbook of relationships in his book The New Golden Rule. It is a list of instructions of what one is expected to follow as one propositions another. The participants are ?warned not to proceed unless explicit and unambiguous consent to advance has been granted. Each step of the way one has to ask ? if you want to remove a dress, you have to ask, if you want to touch the body, you have to ask?, and so on. Courtships almost become an obstacle course through a mandated questionnaire. Etzioni asks whether consent and regulation have to be reduced to such mandated aridity. He talks of the one-sidedness of the social in this context. The regulative becomes so strong that trust, understanding, the moral responsibility for each other gets hypothecated to consent. There is a fetishisation of consent which makes sexuality arid and artificial. There is a deeper problem. The balancing between morality and freedom, the tensions it creates is missing. It is almost as if one is panopticonising the male-female encounter. Worse, to consent is added an abstract notion of justice. Women feel that so many of them have suffered for so long that it is time men suffer, and many seem quite candid that even if a few innocent men suffer, the effort would be worth it. There is a complete dismissal of proof and justice, and as one of them stated dismissively, ?when did law even contribute to justice?? It is power, and only the power of lists to name and shame can teach men how to behave. It is as if the younger generation is more concerned with the asymmetry of power than with the nature of the man-woman relationship. Somehow one senses that the everyday nuance of feminist struggle has not penetrated the younger generation. There is no sense of give and take or irony. Power becomes a score where only numbers make sense. There is another point which many made and with vehemence when I mentioned that the list has a dead man on it. They shrugged it off. When I told them of academics who were barely coping with the humiliation that the list had enforced on them, one was greeted with a shrug. One asked where were they ?when I was suffering?? When I argued that the current situation where a few professors are being made a lesson of creates a mob mentality, they seem amused. The destruction of reputations, the torment that a man may suffer, and the unavailability of specific charges... which one could respond clearly to seemed to be minor issues. Suddenly the world of the male and the female, rather than being reciprocal worlds of negotiation, adjustment, conversation, compromises and experimentation, now becomes two polar worlds, where each step of the way has to be specifically negotiated. A formal contract takes over from any sense of the sacred or sacramental. I hope that the episode of the lists does not remain surrounded by political correctness or vengefulness. There is a need to reflect on it and the feminist movement, in its attempt to rework the man-woman relationships, must finds the energy, the humour and the political will for it. The writer is a professor at Jindal Law School The writer is a member of Compost Heap, a group of academics and activists working on alternative imaginations. ======================================== 10. IN THE ABSENCE OF POPULISM Harsh Shah, Rahul Verma, Pradeep Chhibber ======================================== The Hindu April 24, 2018 Why PM Modi needs some disruptive policy measures for a high voter turnout in 2019 Right-wing populists are in power in many parts of the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are among the most prominent, but there are many other influential right-wing populist heads of states. These include Benjamin Netanyahu who has been Prime Minister of Israel since 2009; Viktor Orban who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010; Recep Tayyip Erdo?an who has held the central position in Turkey since 2003 (first as Prime Minister and now as President); Rodrigo Duterte who was elected President of the Philippines in 2016; and Yoweri Museveni who won his fifth term in Uganda as President in 2016. In India, Narendra Modi campaigned as a right-wing populist to win the 2014 Lok Sabha elections handsomely for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Unlike other right-wing populists (Mr. Orban just won another election easily), it appears that Mr. Modi?s populist appeal is waning ahead of his re-election bid. Many groups are up in arms against the Modi-led BJP government at the Centre: Students at various universities are protesting; Dalits are on the streets against a perceived dilution of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, weeks after the Supreme Court order; and there is widespread outrage following the government?s delayed response to the rapes of two minor girls, one allegedly by a BJP MLA in Uttar Pradesh. Even the business community is disappointed. Why is this the case? Three strategies Populist leaders like Mr. Modi come to power using three strategies: They present themselves as outsiders fighting against an elite, they use populism to attract new and younger voters to the polls, and they continuously rail either against the establishment or an imagined enemy who stands in the way of the nation achieving greatness. Mr. Modi portrayed himself as an outsider and, more importantly, a challenger to the long-entrenched political hierarchies in Lutyens? Delhi. He wore his humble background on his sleeve, depicting the choice between him and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as a contest between a ?chaiwallah? (tea-seller) and a ?shehzada? (prince). Flaunting his chaiwallahcredentials, Mr. Modi railed against the Congress establishment which he depicted as elitist and out of touch with the problems of the common man. He promised to change things for people. This populist appeal brought new voters to the polls, and the voter turnout in 2014 was eight percentage points higher than in 2009. Data from the National Election Surveys of 2009 and 2014, collected by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, show a clear link between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance?s performance in 2014 and the increase in turnout. If we compare the percentage point increase in turnout at the constituency-level with the winning party in that constituency, we find that the BJP and its allies had a higher likelihood of winning seats where the turnout increase was the greatest. For instance, in 2014, the NDA won 67 out of the 70 seats (96%) where the voter turnout went up by over 15 percentage points since 2009. In the 145 seats that saw turnout go up by 10-15 percentage points, the NDA won 125 seats, a success rate of 86%. In the 267 seats where turnout increase was less than 10 percentage points, the NDA won 123 seats (46%). And in seats where the polling percentage decreased compared to 2009, the NDA won only 21 of 61 such seats, a strike rate of just 34%. Furthermore, in the past, the turnout among young voters (18-25 years) was low relative to national turnout figures. For example, analysis suggests that the turnout among this group was 52% in 2004 and 54% in 2009, when the national turnout was 58%. However, in 2014, the turnout among young voters was 68% while the national turnout stood lower at 66%. Similarly, this increase in turnout (compared to 2009) was also higher among the middle classes than the poor. The young and the middle class were Mr. Modi?s social base. His populist strategy, coupled with the strong organisational prowess of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, channelised this aspirational segment to turn up in high numbers to vote for the BJP. Part of the establishment Four years later, while Mr.. Modi?s popularity remains reasonably stable, his populist appeal has diminished. He is no longer the scrappy politician with a humble background leading an insurgency against the Delhi elite, but rather an incumbent Prime Minister heading a full majority government. He is now part of the very elite that he railed against and his demeanour and clothes reflect this.. His speeches sound less of an energetic, hopeful and a populist insurgent, but more of a tired paternalist leader telling people what they should and shouldn?t do. Two young, avid BJP supporters said to us that Mr. Modi?s speeches are now those of an old man hectoring the young. Mr.. Modi?s populism has also suffered from his focus on governance. As he has become part of the establishment ? in fact, the establishment itself ? he can no longer point to state institutions as opponents to implementing his agenda. If Mr. Modi can no longer present himself as an outsider or point to the ?deep state? as thwarting his agenda to make India great again, his ability to bring voters to the polls will be affected. Many of those who were enthused by his populism four years ago may choose to stay at home in the 2019 elections. These voters had given the BJP the critical edge in 2014, bringing the party to power by achieving an unprecedented vote-seat ratio. Options before 2019 What are Mr. Modi?s options then? With a year to go before the next Lok Sabha elections, it will be difficult for the Modi government to improve perceptions of its governance record considerably. Mr. Modi also won?t succeed with the same populist strategy that brought him to power. He is not an outsider, nor is he anti-establishment. The only approach for him remains to reinvent brand Modi and present himself as a challenger to the system despite being a part of it. This strategy has been used successfully by some right-wing populists such as Mr. Erdo?an and Mr. Orban who have been campaigning as outsiders from the day they come to power. This option is not available to Mr. Modi because he embedded himself in the power structure the very day he was elected. If Mr. Modi can no longer successfully recapture his image as the angry outsider fighting the causes of the masses, what should he do? In our view, he would then need to undertake some disruptive policy measures in the coming months to energise voters to turn out to vote in high numbers. If he cannot bring a large number of voters to the polls, the road back to power in 2019 will be far bumpier than expected. Pradeep Chhibber currently visiting the University of Barcelona and Rahul Verma is with the University of California, Berkeley. Harsh Shah is an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley ======================================== 11. IN INDIA, RISING JOBLESSNESS IS A TINDERBOX WAITING TO CATCH FIRE by Madhvi Gupta and Pushkar ======================================== The Wire 24 April 2018 Tough times ahead for India?s young people have the potential to translate into hard times for the nation?s social harmony and peace. Earlier this year, newspapers reported that 992 PhD scholars, 23,000 M.Phil holders, 2.5 lakh post-graduates and eight lakh graduates were among the nearly 20 lakh applicants for exams conducted by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) to fill 9,500 posts of typists, village administrative officers (VAO) and stenographers. In late March, it was reported that over 2.8 crore people applied for about 90,000 jobs in the Indian Railways. Even more recently, two lakh applicants ? including 423 with bachelor?s degrees in engineering, 167 MBAs, 543 postgraduates in commerce, 28 with BEds, 34 masters in computer science, 159 M.Scs, 25 with bachelor?s degrees in mass media and communication, and 167 BBAs ? applied for 1,167 jobs of police constables in Mumbai. Clearly, much is not well on the job market front even though there are claims by the government that the problem is not one of missing jobs but missing data on jobs. The challenge of jobs is especially acute because of the current and growing size of India?s young population According to a recent World Bank report: Every month, the working age increases by 1.3 million people and India must create 8.1 million jobs a year to maintain its employment rate, which has been declining based on employment data analysed from 2005 to 2015, largely due to women leaving the job market. At one time, it was widely believed that India?s young population was a fantastic asset and would reap a handsome demographic dividend. Now, it is commonly acknowledged that India?s future is more uncertain and questions are being asked about the kind of economic contribution its young population can make. Half of India?s 1.3 billion people are below 25 and two-thirds are under 35. And they are desperately looking for jobs. In theory, India?s young population should reap a demographic dividend for the country. However, for that to become a reality, two things are necessary. First, India?s young should be capable of doing the jobs that are available in an era where advances in science and technology are bringing about dramatic changes in the kinds of jobs that are becoming available. India?s education sector ? both primary and secondary education ? does not inspire confidence in this regard. Employability reports of college graduates, including those with degrees in ?professional? disciplines, such as engineering, present a dismal picture too. There is much truth to Indian Staffing Federation?s Rituparna Chakraborty?s statement that ?no one seems to have the time to ask the bigger question, i.e. of the jobs that are still being created, how many of them are being filled?? Alternately, however, the young should be prepared to work in more traditional sectors such as manufacturing which in turns draws attention to the second issue: that a sufficient number of jobs must be available or created in manufacturing for young people to be employed. The numbers cited above show that this is not happening. Economist Bibek Debroy has pointed at a worrisome trend about India?s young not seeking jobs and opting for voluntary unemployment. Credit: PTI That these are hard times for India?s young population is well-captured in Dreamers, a new book by the journalist Snigdha Poonam. More worryingly, however, the book provides frightening insights into what the future may look like for India. According to Poonam, the country?s young population share many of the cultural values of their grandparents such as social conservatism but the life goals of American teenagers, or certainly those of urban and upwardly-mobile Indians ? money and fame ? which are likely to prove elusive for most. Another way of saying the same thing differently is that ?India doesn?t have a job crisis?[but] a wage crisis ? everyone who wants a job has a job, just doesn?t have the wage they aspire for.? Mix that with the distorted views of a growing section of India?s young about what it means to be an Indian and the glories of India?s pre-colonial and pre-Islamic past and things increasingly begin to look like a recipe for a coming social disaster. Another worrisome pointer in the same direction is that there are reports about India?s young not seeking jobs or opting for voluntary unemployment. According to NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy, who in mid-2017 had expressed concern about it, voluntary unemployment is largely about people ?unwilling to settle for jobs, particularly after having ?invested? in education? that do not give an acceptable salary. However, voluntary unemployment can also refer to those young people who at one time looked for jobs and could either not get them or discovered that the kind of work they were required to do in their job was not to their liking. In a more positive sense, voluntary unemployment can also be about young people choosing to become entrepreneurs in preference to working for others, or choosing to study further in order to secure better jobs. According to reports, the numbers of those opting for voluntary unemployment is highest in less developed states with larger numbers of young people, such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. Mahesh Vyas, the Managing Director of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), expressed the view that young people, ?who have no jobs and have even stopped looking for jobs could easily stray into unlawful activities? thereby turning India?s demographic dividend into a ?demographic demon.? But numbers alone should not be the only cause for worry. It is not inevitable that the voluntarily unemployed will opt for unlawful activities. What they do is shaped by the nature of political discourse in their state and the country. Even relatively smaller numbers of voluntarily unemployed in more developed states could take the path of unlawful activities when mobilised to that end by influential political leaders with the expectation that they would benefit from it. In sum, tough times ahead for India?s young people have the potential to translate into hard times for the nation?s social harmony and peace. Madhvi Gupta is an independent writer based in Goa. Pushkar is Director, The International Centre Goa (ICG), Dona Paula. The views expressed here are personal. ======================================== 12. What Happens To The People Arrested For Insulting Modi? We find out by Piyasree Dasgupta ======================================== Huffington Post India 24 April 2018 A friend WhatsApped Mudassir Rana a meme as he browsed through his phone over lunch one afternoon in October last year. Rana shared it on Facebook without comment. Next evening, there was a knock on his door. It was the police. Mudassir Rana, the owner of a school in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, was under arrest. His crime was his Facebook post: a cartoonish illustration of the faces of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rashritya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, and several ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party, depicted as the ten heads of Ravan. Rana is just one of dozens of Indians arrested for sharing memes, cartoons, and messages criticising Modi since his government swept to power in 2014. Over the past four years, news reports of arrests for insulting Modi have appeared with alarming regularity. The arrested include teachers, students, businessmen, auto-rickshaw drivers, and members of the police and paramilitary forces. Such arrests, which once caused a stir on social media platforms, now attract only passing mention. When Prime Minister Modi claimed he welcomed criticism in a statement in London last week, HuffPost reached to those arrested for lampooning him, to find scores of everyday ordinary citizens living in continual fear of imprisonment for the crime of forwarding a WhatsApp message. Friends-turned-foes A few hours after Rana posted the Modi meme on Facebook, he got a call from a man who identified himself as a member of the Bajrang Dal. "He said I should mend my ways or there will be consequences," Rana said. The next day, a local journalist called Rana to warn him that a First Information Report (FIR) had been lodged against him. A few hours later, an interlocutor informed Rana that the Bajrang Dal wanted him to come to their office. "They told the common friend that I had to go down on my knees, lie prostrate and beg for their forgiveness," Rana said. "I was ready to say sorry, but I was not okay with being humiliated like that." That was the night police arrived at his doorstep and took him to the police station. He was charged under Section 153-A of IPC for 'promoting disharmony'. There was mayhem in Rana's house; his wife and three children could not believe he was being arrested for a Facebook post. "The case is yet to reach the court. Till it is resolved and I am let off the hook, this will hang on my and my family's head." "Obviously, they started imagining the worst," Rana said. At the police station, Rana sat on a bench all night. Occasionally, a policeman would come and ask another to throw him in the lock-up. The next morning, Rana's lawyer posted bail and he was released. Since then, Rana says, many Hindu families, who empathise with Hindu far-right organisations in Sardhana, have distanced themselves from him. "Initially I used to go to their family functions and weddings. Now, they don't call me. They also refuse to turn up at functions where I am invited as well, making the hosts jittery," he added. "The principal of my school is a Brahmin, even he couldn't believe the reason I was being ostracised." Rana was planning to travel abroad for his son's higher studies, but the family has shelved the plans as getting visas and passports could get complicated. "The case is yet to reach the court. Till it is resolved and I am let off the hook, this will hang on my and my family's head," Rana said. "But I won't go down without a fight." Photothek via Getty Images The laws It is a cognizable offence to 'cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device' under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000. This section was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015, but policemen continue to use it in conjunction with other penal provisions to arrest people for social media posts. Lawyer Apar Gupta said that since no advisory was issued informing the general public of the court order, it is possible that several police stations aren't yet aware of the development. "The literature that they may have at the police stations may also be outdated, leading them to file cases under the defunct law," he said. Last year, All Indian Bakchod (AIB) was booked for defamation, under section 500 of IPC. They were also charged under a similar section of the act: Section 67, which penalises the accused for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form. Gupta pointed out that since there is no objective definition of 'obscene' mentioned in the section, it is often misused. In cases involving social media posts, it becomes a long, unfair process for people like Rana. Narendra Modi's fans are not the only Indian political supporters incapable of taking a joke. In 2012, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested on charges of 'sedition' for posting cartoons that depicted the Indian parliament as a toilet; two school girls from Palghar in Thane, Maharashtra were arrested for a Facebook post criticising the Shiv Sena; and a professor in Kolkata was arrested for forwarding an email with a cartoon that made fun of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. In 2015, 19-year-old student was arrested for mocking Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan. The WhatsApp nightmare The government employee was at work and watching television one evening last year, when he learnt he had been suspended from his post. "The news anchor said I was suspended for insulting the Prime Minister in a WhatsApp message. I couldn't believe what was happening," he said, requesting anonymity as he feared losing his job. "Within moments, I got frantic calls from my family. They wanted to know: What I had done? Would the police going to arrest me?" he said. " I had no answers to their questions. I was terrified, I really don't remember being that terrified my entire life." The worst part, the government employee said, was that he had not even sent the offending message. "Someone had sent it to me," he said. "And someone in my family may have forwarded it to a larger group by mistake." He was eventually reinstated at his post, ten days later, but with a warning. He barely uses Whatsapp anymore and has urged his friends not to send him any ? no jokes, no memes, no videos, nothing. "These people are in power now," he said. "And I have mouths to feed." No country for criticism? Pankaj Mishra was 22 when he dropped out of college and joined the Central Reserve Police Force in 2013. "My parents are poor farmers and I needed to earn money," Mishra, a resident of Bihar's Arra district said. In April last year, Mishra was posted in Durgapur, West Bengal, when guerrilla fighters of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) ambushed a CRPF battalion in Chhattisgarh, killing 26 troopers. One of them was Mishra's 29-year-old cousin Abhay. "My brother was dead, and Rajnath Singh claimed we will give a fitting reply," Mishra said, referring to India's Home Minister. "These politicians said what they always say after an attack like this ? respect the martyrs." Mishra was fed up with these platitudes, something snapped inside him. He shot a video on his mobile phone criticising the government, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Modi and uploaded the video on his Facebook profile. Three days later, a senior officer caught hold of Mishra and snatched his phone away. That was when Mishra realised his video had gone viral. With little money left, Mishra has given up the idea of hiring a powerful lawyer to take up his case of 'wrongful' dismissal. "They (senior officers) herded me to a office and beat me up," Mishra said. Terrified, Mishra ran away from the camp two days later. "I had not anticipated anything like this. I did not know what to do. I was scared they will hurt me more." Five days after he fled the camp, Mishra 'surrendered' at the Delhi High Court and was soon transferred to Jorhat in Assam. A couple of weeks went by, following which he was called to the Assam headquarters and told he had been suspended and an enquiry ordered. On October 14 last year, he was dismissed from duty and jailed. Mishra alleges that he was beaten up like "they didn't think I was a human" in the days following his suspension. He uploaded two more videos on Facebook criticising the government while the enquiry was on. "Constable Mishra was arrested on Sunday on the basis of objectionable social media posts against the prime minister and the home minister," Dilip Barua, superintendent of Jorhat police said. "He was picked up from the CRPF's camp." Mishra was locked up at the Jorhat Central Jail and got bail two-and-half months later. He now lives at home with his parents, virtually unemployable as he doesn't have a college degree and prospective employers are put off by his jail record. With little money left, Mishra has given up the idea of hiring a powerful lawyer to take up his case of 'wrongful' dismissal. "I can't pay good lawyers and very few I know aren't willing to take up a case against the government and BJP," he said. "It was only the thought of my parents that stopped me from committing suicide," he said. "Anyone else in my place would have." Chased away from home The glacial pace of India's legal system means years of court fees and lawyer bills for those arrested for insulting Prime Minister Modi. Devu Chodankar, a 38-year-old former shipping executive in Goa, estimates he spent at least Rs 6,00,000 in legal fees and travel costs after he was booked in 2014 for a Facebook post warning of a "holocaust-like" situation if Modi came to power. "I spent two years repaying the direct and indirect costs," Chodankar said. His health suffered, his debts piled up, and he lost his job. "With the social media shaming, it became impossible for me to find a job in India," he added. Chodankar had once been an BJP supporter, but came to change his mind. One turning point was the party's decision to build an airport at Mopa plateau, which ? environmentalists said -- would cause great ecological damage. "The water tank in my house was contaminated. Every other day, I would find the electricity connection to the house cut off" Chodankar was working in Vishakapatnam when his father received summons from the police for his Facebook post. When he flew back home and presented himself before the police, he was interrogated for six hours and his laptop and hard disks were seized. Fearing backlash from BJP supporters who he had sparred with, Chodankar went into hiding for almost a week around the time Narendra Modi was being sworn in. It was becoming impossible to live in Goa anymore. "The water tank in my house was contaminated. Every other day, I would find the electricity connection to the house cut off," Chodankar said. "I kept getting hate messages from unknown people." In 2016, Chodankar moved to Belgium to study. Back home in India, Prime Minister Modi is plotting his campaign for the next general election, and the police continue to investigate Chodankar's Facebook post from four years ago. Suggest a correction Piyasree Dasgupta Features Editor, HuffPost India ======================================== 13. THE AGE OF SETH: HOW VICE PAYS TRIBUTE TO VIRTUE IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA by Mihir S Sharma ======================================== The Caravan 1 December 2011 Get to the Top: The Ten Rules for Social Success SUHEL SETH RANDOM HOUSE INDIA, 194 PAGES, Rs 250 THERE WAS A PARTY LAST NIGHT in Lutyens? Delhi, or possibly in South Mumbai, crowded with those who glitter most blindingly in Shining India. Suhel Seth will have been among them. There will be a party tonight, a few kilometres or a thousand from the last one. Seth will be there too, his familiar voice carrying over the crumpled carpets or sodden grass. This is the time in our history that belongs to men like Suhel Seth; a time when, just as intemperance is intellect and fervidity is profundity, such ubiquity is unquestionably success. Success, or at least ubiquity, is precisely what Seth intends to teach his readers in Get to the Top. But it should be read even by those who have no desire to get to the top?for it unwittingly provides a glimpse of precisely how things work at the top, and what people do to arrive there. Some people are famous for being famous. Suhel Seth is famous for knowing the famous. They say that fame exacts a heavy price from its bearers, and it appears that part of that price is to be ?dear friends? with Suhel Seth. And as the number of his famous friends has grown so large that it would clearly take a book to record them all, Seth has achieved a kind of fame in his own right?mostly as a face on our TV screens, where he is reliably intemperate, fervid and, most of all, ubiquitous, familiar to television viewers from innumerable discussions whose topics are as varied as their dissection is disorganised. Get to the Top, however, suffers from something like an excess of organisation: each of the ?ten rules for social success? bears two or three sub-rules of its own, along with mnemonic mantras for each section, and appendices and exercises for the reader. And yet the book, Seth?s first since he became a household name in those households without enough sense to avoid news television, does not have an introduction. But unlike Seth?s friends, whose names are carelessly strewn through its pages, it very much needs one?because it?s hard to know exactly what to make of it. Get to the Top is to normal self-help books what Page 3 is to your Facebook feed. Few of us are actually called upon to befriend the famous, which is Seth?s real conception of social success. No doubt the famous and powerful are themselves in the happy position of befriending one another?at farmhouse soirees in Delhi, five-star hotels in Mumbai or first-class cabins somewhere in between?but I doubt they are this book?s intended audience. After all, they could just ask Suhel for advice at tonight?s party. What?s more, the lessons from such rarefied altitudes are not easily applied in our more terrestrial lives. You might suppose that Seth?s Rule 6, ?Don?t try to make important friends?, would be quite easy for most of us to follow, though doing so might not help us achieve the pinnacle of social success. But Seth?s meaning is more nuanced (to put it charitably): he intends to say that ?networking? should not be ?simply transactional?. He explains, ?My famous friends are first my friends,? and provides the reader with a concise list of tips for talking to VIPs (?never be a courtier?; ?always feel equal to them?). If there is something that strikes you as disingenuous in a chapter that urges you to pretend not to be seeking out celebrities in order to achieve success at seeking out celebrities, you are not alone. This off-key clash between tone and motive is the discordant leitmotif that runs through the book. For those of us less able or willing to carry off this cognitive dissonance with Seth?s panache, Rule 6 is thus less helpful than it may have first seemed. So this is not exactly a self-help book, given that the problems it purports to help solve are those its readers can only dream of facing. What is it meant to be, then? The answer depends on what degree of cynicism you wish to bring to the question. The most obvious?and most cynical?explanation is that this is a work of career positioning, a hardbound advertisement for its author. In our Suhelian era, where appearance is all and visibility substitutes for substance, every man is his own brand, and cultivating one?s brand equity is the highest of virtues. ?Remember,? Seth writes, ?whether it?s you, me, Gandhi or Obama, ultimately we are all brands.? Therefore, he continues, ?you make an impression when you?ve created a brand for yourself, and the best way to create this brand is with words.? Among Seth?s many self-declared virtues is that he puts his money where his famous mouth is: he is branding himself as the man who can make you over. His day job is running a firm called Counselage India, a boutique consultancy that advises CEOs how to brand and market themselves. And by night, he has worked to produce this portfolio to showcase his services, stuffed with flattering word-pictures of what a good friend he has been to so many powerful people. Too harsh? Very well, let us be more charitable. [ . . . ] FULL TEXT AT: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reviews-essays/age-seth ======================================== 14. DUCKETT ON SADAN, 'WAR AND PEACE IN THE BORDERLANDS OF MYANMAR: THE KACHIN CEASEFIRE, 1994-2011' ======================================== Mandy Sadan, ed. War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar: The Kachin Ceasefire, 1994-2011. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2016. xxii + 517 pp. $38.00 (paper), ISBN 978-87-7694-189-5. Reviewed by Richard Duckett (Reading College) Published on H-Asia (April, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) In late 2017, sharp international focus was brought upon the plight the Rohingya people of northwestern Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). What has not caught the attention of Western media to such an extent is the situation facing many of the other ethnicities within Myanmar. This volume's focus is upon the Kachin, a significant minority who inhabit Kachinland in the north of the country. Kachinland borders China to the east and India to the west, while Myitkyina is the principle city. Myitkyina is approximately 1,185 km north of Yangon (Rangoon). In 2011, the Kachin ceasefire with the Burmese military, the Tatmadaw, came to an end. One of the central questions that this book answers is why the Kachin were willing to return to conflict after a seventeen-year ceasefire, just as the Burmese government seemed to be moving towards a more democratic rule. It does this by presenting eighteen collaborative chapters authored by a diverse, international mix of doctoral candidates, established scholars, independent analysts, and, importantly, diasporic Kachin. The result is a coherent and informative analysis of why the Kachin ceasefire ?could shatter so completely? (p. 5). A central concept of the volume is that the term ?ceasefire? should be revised to ?armed peace? (p. 4) to better understand the pressures upon Kachin society and how times of less overt violence have had a transformative impact upon the Kachin. It is asserted that the Kachin have been subject to a cyclical history: a ?ceasefire? from 1944 to 1961 was followed by conflict that lasted until 1994, followed by a seventeen-year ?armed peace? that ended in 2011. The book convincingly argues that multiple influences during periods of armed peace have made the ceasefires unsustainable, not least because borderland societies such as the Kachin are more sophisticated than they have been given credit for. Although the two periods of armed peace brought political opportunity, both came to an end because the expectations of both political and economic progress were dashed by a lack of critical engagement from the Burmese government. Using this framework to understand the Kachin situation, the authors hope that conflict with other minorities in Myanmar can be better analyzed and understood, which in turn could help contribute to finding longer lasting stability in the country. After establishing the historical context in chapter 2, and the idea of no tangible peace dividends for the majority of Kachin people in chapter 3, chapters 4 and 5 further examine the ?armed peace? of 1994-2011, exploring the idea of ?ceasefire capitalism? as a means for the Burmese government to pursue its objectives by methods other than the gun. ?Ceasefire capitalism? is presented by Kevin Woods in chapter 5 as economic counterinsurgency, or the ?commercialisation of insurgency? (p. 124). Thus, it is argued, at the root of the return to armed conflict is the appropriation of Kachin lands and resources through the granting of concessions to domestic business and foreign capital, for example, the building of hydro-electric dams. Linked to the dam projects, chapter 6 continues the economic theme, situating Chinese economic interest in a broader international relations setting and demonstrating how both national Burmese and specifically Kachin concerns can be influenced by global politics. Chapter 7 zooms back in on Kachin society by contrasting how Kachin are treated by the state on the Chinese side of the border compared to within Myanmar. The historical, cultural, and linguistic connections between the Kachin communities on either side of the border are revealed, contributing to the book's aim of exploring ?issues beyond the mere signing of ceasefires? (p. 13). The next six chapters offer a variety of insight into Kachin life, from an exploration of how ethnically diverse Kachin society is to the experience of women over the decades of conflict and ceasefire. Of particular value are the chapters contributed by Kachin writers who are able to provide personal insight into aspects of the struggles endured in Kachinland, and the work of Kachin in the diaspora. The final four chapters complete the ?borderlands? offer boasted in the title of the volume by connecting Palaung, Karen, and Mizo ethnonationalist struggles to the Kachin experience. The chapter on conflict in northeast India compares and contrasts the colonial and postindependence histories of tribal areas of India and Myanmar, explaining how these areas were ?outside the mainstream of the new nation-state,? thus reinforcing claims for political autonomy (pp. 412-13). In both Myanmar and Burma, the intersection of ethnicity, resources, power, and foreign capital in contested lands, it is argued, produce a multilayered conflict which the Indian government has recognized and responded to where the Burmese government has not. The book finishes with a brief chapter which reinforces the contention that an ?absence of fighting is not peace? (p. 467) before offering some ideas about what needs to change if Myanmar's borderland conflicts are going to be effectively addressed. The aims of this volume, of creating a book that explores social, cultural, and economic issues ?beyond the mere signing of ceasefires? have been entirely met. Its strength lies in the range of contributors and the many perspectives and insights it offers into the Kachin experience and how the Tatmadaw have managed the ceasefire periods to their benefit. It successfully elucidates how Kachin society has transformed over the decades since independence from the British Empire, struggling for its cultural survival in war and peace. The chapters have been superbly interwoven and presented, making it a coherent read for someone interested in the cover-to-cover journey as well as those interested in a specific chapter. Overall, this is a hugely important contribution to our understanding of contemporary issues in Myanmar, particularly at a time when the country is under international scrutiny. ======================================== 15. SOUTH AFRICA: STATE CAPTURE COMMISSION IN THE FOOTHILLS OF MOUNT ZUPTA Chris Bateman ======================================== Biznews April 23, 2018 CAPE TOWN ? If Judge Zondo?s State Capture commission can deal with only the five listed areas below, it will have done the country a service to posterity. The value of this story lies in how concisely it sums up and bundles together the five major shenanigans which State Capture enabled. Just dealing with these Gupta-favouring transactions, amounting to billions in South African taxpayer rands will help restore our credibility in a world that can all too quickly dump a nation with huge potential on the rubbish heap of failed States. But the breath-taking width and depth of State Capture can only be fully appreciated when the criminal trials of Jacob Zuma and the Guptas get underway and the various probes into state-owned enterprises and capture of the revenue, investigative and prosecuting authorities begin. No financial recompense can restore the economic and reputational damage the Zuptoids caused. Only a deep cleansing can begin healing the wounds, ironically inflicted in the name of equity and transformation. The Robin Hood alibi likely to surface in the Zuma fraud trial must fail when it?s shown that taking from richer taxpayers plagued the poor, making already well-off tax-dodgers, fabulously rich. ? Chris Bateman By Mike Cohen (Bloomberg) ? A South African judicial commission faces a daunting task in investigating allegations that members of the Gupta family and their allies connived with former President Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane to loot billions of rand from state coffers. Its success or failure will go a long way in determining whether South Africa can put behind it years of mismanagement and plunder during Zuma?s scandal-ridden administration that undermined investor confidence and stymied economic growth. Zuma agreed to the inquiry after losing control of the ruling party and a lawsuit challenging a directive from the nation?s former graft ombudsman that spelled out its powers and appointment procedures. Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and his panel of six senior staff members must probe an array of deals between state entities and private businesses, some of them set up to obscure the intended beneficiaries. It will require wading through hundreds of thousands of documents and interviewing scores of witnesses, many of who may be reluctant to give evidence because they risk implicating themselves. Several key players, including the three Gupta brothers and Duduzane Zuma, have fled the country. While the panel was given six months to complete its investigation into what?s become known in South Africa as ?state capture,? Zondo has said that?s woefully inadequate and he?s requested an extension to its mandate. He hasn?t said when public hearings will begin. The commission?s findings could be used as the basis for criminal prosecutions by law enforcement agencies, which are also conducting several concurrent probes. These are among the key controversies the commission will have to focus on: Peddling of cabinet posts ?South Africa captured by the Zuptas.? More magic available at jerm.co.za. Former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and Vytjie Mentor, the ex-chairwoman of parliament?s public enterprises portfolio committee, alleged that the Guptas offered them ministerial posts in exchange for business concessions. Jonas said he was also offered a 600-million-rand ($50 million) bribe. The Guptas denied making the offers. Zuma, forced from office by the African National Congress on Feb. 14, said he never delegated the right to make cabinet appointments to anyone. Tegeta?s purchase of Glencore?s Optimum coal mine A sign stands at the entrance to the Optimum Colliery, in Middelburg, South Africa, on April 13, 2016. Glencore Plc agreed to sell its Optimum coal mine to Tegeta Exploration and Resources Ltd., a company controlled by the Guptas, for 2.15 billion rand in 2015, with Zuma?s mines minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, traveling to Switzerland to help seal the deal. State power utility Eskom Holdings Ltd. helped finance the transaction in contravention of government rules, according to the Treasury. The Guptas said the agreement was above board, and Zwane said he was trying to save jobs. The mines have subsequently been placed under business rescue. Eskom?s Payments to McKinsey, Trillian An electricity pylon stands beyond an Eskom sign at the entrance to the Grootvlei power station. Photographer: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg Eskom paid McKinsey & Co. and local partner Trillian Capital Partners Ltd., which was controlled by Gupta associate Salim Essa, almost 1.6 billion rand in consulting fees. The National Prosecuting Authority and Eskom?s new management have said the payments were illegal and should be repaid. While McKinsey agreed to refund the money, Trillian has said its contract was valid. Transnet?s locomotive deal Railway workers walk across train tracks past a locomotive operated by Transnet at the company?s rail depot in Ermelo. Photographer: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg Companies linked to Essa and the Guptas received 5.3 billion rand in kickbacks to help a unit of China South Rail secure contracts to supply state railway operator Transnet SOC Ltd. with new locomotives, according to leaked emails obtained by the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and Scorpio, the Daily Maverick news website?s investigative unit. Law firm Werksmans, which Transnet appointed to investigate the allegations, recommended that law-enforcement agencies look into the deal and that officials who approved it should face disciplinary action. Transnet said the Werksmans?s report was ?inconclusive? and its board decided to take no action ? a decision rejected by then Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown. Essa and the Guptas have denied wrongdoing. https://www.biznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Magashule_Estina_Zapiro.jpg The Estina dairy project Estina Dairy Project. More of Zapiro?s brilliant cartoon work available at www.zapiro.com. A state-owned farm near the central town of Vrede was leased to a little-known company, Estina Pty Ltd., in 2012 under a free 99-year contract and the regional government agreed to help develop it, ostensibly to set up a dairy project that would create 200 jobs. Prosecutors say most of the 220 million rand in public funds transferred to the company ended up in the hands of the Guptas, an allegation the family denies. Chris Bateman ======================================== 16. FRANCE: TO CHANGE A COUNTRY, CHANGE ITS TRAINS by Tom Zoellner ======================================== The New York Times April 22, 2018 Mr. Zoellner is the author of ?Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World ? from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief,? among other books. President Emmanuel Macron of France, on a quest to liberalize the economy, has now confronted a towering foe that has humbled would-be reformers before him: the railway unions. Mr. Macron wants to turn the state-owned company, SNCF, into a joint stock enterprise and rein in the benefits and pay raises given to railway workers, some of whom can retire on a pension at as young as 52. The unions have responded with a rolling strike that will last into June and could threaten the commutes of the railways? 4.5 million daily passengers. Mr. Macron is gambling that he can win the contest of public opinion. He is also seizing on one of history?s durable rules: changing a nation goes hand-in-hand with changing its rail system. Britain provides a useful nearby example. That nation?s extraordinary network of iron rails sprung to life in an atmosphere of corporate chaos in the 1830s ? a signature development of the Industrial Revolution ? and came under state control as British Railways in 1948 as a part of the nationalizing wave of the postwar years. As Margaret Thatcher reversed those trends and privatized large segments of the economy in the 1980s, she targeted the British Railways onion, peeling off its catering and hotel functions one property at a time, then selling off the Sealink ferries. Her successor John Major succeeded in spinning off the once-unified system into 25 ?train operating units? run by franchisees ? since then, a source of reliable complaint from passengers but a powerful symbol of British capitalism. Or look to the United States, which once had 20,000 passenger trains roaring down a quarter-million miles of active track every day: a dynamic country fueled on the coal and steam of locomotives. After World War II, a powerful coalition of Texas oil interests and Detroit auto manufacturers helped push through the Federal Highway Aid Act of 1956 that jump-started the interstate highway system. Railroad companies were encouraged to dump passenger service, and this ? among other factors ? helped bring massive structural transformation to the country: broadening the footprint of suburban sprawl, addicting Americans to petroleum, changing agricultural and retail patterns and, as a footnote, sending the once-mighty American passenger train into the perpetual nursing home of Amtrak. Other global examples, both historic and recent, show how state metamorphosis manifests in the railbed. Russia became a bicontinental power by extending its rails into Siberia. Benito Mussolini famously took credit for Italian rail upgrades. The British unified thousands of principalities in colonial India not through language but through railways, and when the government of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to ramp up the economy in the mid-2000s, it cut hiring quotas at Indian Railways and promoted round-the-clock freight loading. China sought to hit six percent growth targets through the last decade by building a stupendous $508 billion network of high-speed trains knitting together its major cities. Last year, Kenya opened the Madaraka Express between the port at Mombasa and the capital of Nairobi that can carry 22 million tons of cargo a year, strengthening its dependence on imports and deepening its reliance on Asia. The calls to reform France?s SNCF is partly coming from the outside ? the European Union requires members to open railways to competition by January 2019. Still, Mr. Macron is taking aim at an institution that ? for all its glories and faults ? comes close to representing the soul of France itself, a representation of the permanent state indifferent to the winds of politics ever since Emperor Napoleon III provided a state guarantee of interest to bondholders in 1852, and instructed Georges-Eugene Haussmann to give the marbled palaces of railway stations an honored place in his redesign of Parisian boulevards. Lines radiated outward from the Gare du Nord, Gare de l?Est and Gare d?Orsay, among others, creating a Paris-centric concept of the hexagonal nation that persists today: The historian Jules Michelet perceived it as a grand tool of unification. ?The chateau represents pleasure, the caprice of one man; the railway is for everyone?s use, bringing France together, bringing Lyon and Paris into communion with one another,? he is reported to have said after a ride to Versailles. Gustav Eiffel made himself a celebrity engineer with railway bridges before he ever attempted a tower, and France remade its countryside with suburbs anchored to railway stations. The heavy hand of Paris brought distinctively French touches: padded seats even in third class, an unwieldy timetable the size of a dictionary, the grandeur of the high-speed TGV, and a class of civil servants who call themselves cheminots with essentially a job for life and guaranteed sick leave, which created the old French joke that working for the railway must be dangerous because its employees are always getting ill. From 1910 onward, the unions have made rail strikes a predictable element of the national vocabulary and a fearsome weapon deployed against unfriendly French politicians. When he was prime minister, Alain Jupp? tried to reform the SNCF. He lasted only two years in office after a set of strikes in 1995 made commuters miserable and turned him into a pariah. Mr. Macron is not just trying to repeal regulations; he is fighting an employment culture with lengthy taproots and outsized influence across other sectors. France is an excellent case study in the truism that a national rail network is the spirit of the country in miniature, a little state within the state. For Mr. Macron to successfully take SNCF ? and with it, France ? in a different direction would be an act of true Napoleonic audacity. Tom Zoellner (@tomzoellner) is the author of ?Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World ? from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief,? among other books. ======================================== 17. RUSSIA: 'PEOPLE WILL REVOLT': WORKERS SAY RUSSIA MUST SAVE SANCTIONS-HIT RUSAL Reuters ======================================== CNBC April 23, 2018 Aluminium giant dominates Russian town Few alternatives if company cuts jobs Options still under debate a week after U.S. sanctions A worker loads a liquid electrolyte into the electrolysis bath at the Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter, operated by United Co. Rusal, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images A worker loads a liquid electrolyte into the electrolysis bath at the Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter, operated by United Co. Rusal, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Workers at one of Russia's biggest aluminium smelters say their Siberian town is doomed unless Moscow mitigates U.S. sanctions against aluminium giant Rusal, a predicament mirrored across the company's sprawling operations. Trapped by mortgages for apartments built on barren steppe under communism, residents of Sayanogorsk, one of a string of towns dominated by Rusal, have few options if a loss of customers for its aluminium leads the firm to cut jobs. "The entire life of this city depends on Rusal," said Evgeny Ivanov, until recently a foreman at the plant in Sayanogorsk, where pockmarked asphalt recalls the harsh winters endured by its 60,000 inhabitants, and icy blue mountains line the horizon. "If something were to happen to the factory, in my opinion the town would die out. There would be nothing left for people to do here," he said in one of the town's few cafes, explaining that the private firm he now works at also depends on the plant. The Kremlin has said it is considering various ways to help Rusal after Washington blacklisted the company and its billionaire major shareholder Oleg Deripaska for suspected meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and other alleged "malign activity". Deripaska has described the allegations as "ridiculous" and Russia has said they are a cover for an attack on its economy. The impact, felt in the halving of Rusal's share price since the announcement on April 6, is too big for Moscow to ignore. The government will have to step in "so that people don't start howling," said a welder who has worked at the plant in southern Siberia for more than six years. "There are lots of people here who are unhappy with the government, and with Putin too. If the plant starts cutting staff, people will revolt," he said, declining to be named for fear of losing his job. Rusal will need to find new ways to get its aluminum to the market Rusal will need to find new ways to get its aluminum to the market 4:49 AM ET Thu, 12 April 2018 | 02:08 The scale of any support would have to be immense. According to one source with an understanding of Rusal's trading volumes, it is possible the company has lost access to buyers of more than 2 million tonnes of its aluminium. That is more than half of the 3.7 million tonnes it produces each year. Not everyone in Russia's Finance Ministry is keen to "spend money on saving fat cats", a source in the ministry said. But Rusal employs 52,390 people across Russia, according to a report from 2016, and tens of thousands depend on those jobs. "Banging their hard hats" If the government does not come to Rusal's rescue, workers will start banging their hard hats, the ministry source said - a reference to the Russian miners' protests of the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands went on strike, including in Sayanogorsk. Such mass protests were a fixture of the decade, punctuating the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. But they have become almost unthinkable since Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999 and their return would be hard for the Kremlin to dismiss. The government, which has promised to protect jobs and production at Rusal, did not respond to questions. A spokeswoman for Rusal declined to comment. Managers have sent reassuring messages, but in a basement bar selling dried fish and two types of beer, workers anxiously exchanged news. "If people are fired, what will they do in this town? ... They're not going to sell sunflower seeds, are they?" a worker responsible for repairing smelting pots said. Sayanogorsk was founded along with the plant in 1976, one of 319 officially designated 'single company' towns in Russia, of which ten are dominated by Rusal, according to 2015 figures. Sanctions frozen Russia's ability to sell bonds Sanctions mean that Rusal bonds can't technically be traded: Exotix Capital 5:39 AM ET Wed, 11 April 2018 | 04:39 The town's pupils go on to one of two technical colleges, a smelting engineer at the plant explained. "Practically everyone" from his class went on to work for Rusal, he said, adding that he would rather have started a creative business. People would try to leave the town if the factory cut jobs, one contractor said, but many would not be able to. "Most people have a mortgage here, including us. We don't know if it's even possible to sell. And apartments sell badly here anyway. Let alone in a situation like that," he said. Rusal is not registered to pay taxes in Sayanogorsk, but its grants are vital to the city budget, two local politicians said. "When the town asks regional authorities for funding for a project, it's told: you have Rusal, go work it out with them," said Erik Chernyshev, a local Communist Party politician, former member of the region's upper house, who also worked as an engineer at the factory for 18 years. Rusal gave 271 million roubles ($4.42 million) in 2016 to three Russian regions where it has its operations, including Sayanogorsk, according to a company sustainability report. It spent a further 140 million roubles in 2016 for general financing of social programmes across Russia, the report said. "Rusal's regular grants have enabled sports facilities and other amenities to be built," Valentina Efremova, head of the factory's youth council, said. This strategist says all eyes on Rusal and LME notice This strategist says all eyes are on Rusal and the LME notice 5:11 AM ET Wed, 11 April 2018 | 03:50 The only hospital in town was built with Rusal funding, the company said in a 2012 press release, as well as two kindergardens, a sanatorium, sports centres and a church. The Day of the Metals Worker, for which Rusal throws an annual party packed with pop stars, means almost more to residents than Russia's main festival, New Year, said ex-foreman Ivanov, who also managed Rusal's youth union. "If Rusal... runs into any serious difficulties, this affects the whole town," he said. Train, helicopter Every day, a Rusal train takes some of the company's 3,500 employees to its vast, steaming plant, with onsite subsidiaries handling everything from repairs to railway maintenance. Offsite, too, the factory is woven into the fabric of the town. "The little shops, the businesses, they're all somehow tied to the plant. Some deliver produce, others do small-scale repairs," the Rusal smelting engineer said. Without it, the town "would wither away, of course". Residents track Deripaska's comings and goings by his helicopter. This week it spent a day at the plant, factory workers said, while the businessman held a closed-door meeting with managers. One resident said it then flew to Deripaska's private estate in the countryside nearby. The so-called 'oligarch', who potentially lost $4.56 billion in just the first four trading days after U.S. sanctions were introduced, has also built a ski resort and hotel nearby, according to reports in Russian media. Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images Sayanogorsk, Rusal's third biggest aluminium plant, is where Deripaska began buying up workers' shares during Russia's privatisation drive after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1994 he become the plant's general director at the age of 26. When he first turned up to business meetings in the early 1990s he was known as the "lad in the cotton-wool coat" for the shabby worker's jacket he wore, two residents said. The Kremlin mentioned possible 'temporary nationalisation' on Thursday, but on Friday Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that was not an option for Rusal. He said the firm had sought help with liquidity and demand for aluminium, which is already being stockpiled around the town. "It's not just Oleg Vladimirovich (Deripaska) who is in trouble. It is tens of thousands of jobs in the region," Viktor Zimin, head of the Khakasia region where Sayanogorsk is located, was cited by Interfax news agency as saying last week. "We have ... one partner, and today we need to help him." ======================================== 18. NIGERIA - BOKO HARAM - WHERE TO BEGIN? Adewale Maja-Pearce ======================================== London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 8 ? 26 April 2018 pages 20-24 | 5619 words Boko Haram: Nigeria?s Islamist Insurgency by Virginia Comolli Hurst, 239 pp, ?12.99, August 2017, ISBN 978 1 84904 661 9 Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement by Alexander Thurston Princeton, 352 pp, ?25.00, October 2017, ISBN 978 0 691 17224 8 You are invited to read this free book review from the London Review of Books. Subscribe now to access every article from every issue of the London Review of Books, including the entire LRB archive of over 16,500 essays and reviews. On the night of 14-15 April 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok in Borno State in the far north-east of Nigeria. The girls weren?t meant to be there. The school was closed, but they had returned from various parts of the state to sit a physics exam. It later turned out that the terrorists hadn?t intended to abduct them either. They had left their hideout in Sambisa Forest, a national park long since fallen into neglect, in search of food and fuel. When they met no resistance from the soldiers stationed nearby they broke into the school, then rounded up the girls, forced them into their trucks and drove away. Some managed to escape by jumping off the trucks and running into the bush, where they were taken in by small farming communities; the rest ended up at the Boko Haram camp in the forest, where they were distributed among the terrorists. Boko Haram, whose objective is the imposition of strict sharia law in the Muslim-majority northern states of Nigeria, launched its first armed operation in 2003 and is said to have anything between 6000 and 15,000 militants. This was not the first time its fighters had abducted girls, nor would it be the last, but the numbers, the brutality and the fact that the girls were Christians roused the international community. Oby Ezekwesili, a former education minister and World Bank vice-president for Africa, organised a sit-in at a national park in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, which was taken up by celebrities around the world. Michelle Obama was photographed holding up a placard. Some of the girls have since been released in exchange for imprisoned terrorists ? 21 in 2016 and 82 the following year ? but most remain in captivity. It is difficult to see a strategy in Boko Haram?s activities, or to know whether strategy is involved at all, especially since Abubakar Shekau, the movement?s leader, appears to be unbalanced. Shekau once boasted on social media that he enjoyed ?killing anyone that God commands me to kill the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams?. Virginia Comolli writes in her study of the organisation that the death in childbirth of one of Shekau?s wives ?triggered some existing but hitherto repressed psychiatric problem: he became so violent that it was necessary to put him in chains.? At the time of the kidnappings, he claimed that the girls were slaves and would be sold in the market because ?Islam permits slavery.? The evolution of Islam in Nigeria, along with resource rivalry between the northern and (predominantly Christian) southern states, has much to answer for in this story. If Shekau is beyond the pale, what are we to say about some of the tenured Muslim politicians in the north? Ahmed Sani Yerima was governor of Zamfara State, to the west of Borno, until 2007, and is now enjoying his third term in the Senate. It was Yerima who led the call for sharia on the return of democracy in 1999, after 16 years of military rule, and turned Zamfara into a sharia-law state, in defiance of the secular provisions in Nigeria?s constitution. He said at the time that he followed the Quran and not the constitution he had sworn to uphold. In 2010 he courted controversy by marrying the 13-year-old daughter of his Egyptian chauffeur with a bride price of 100,000 US dollars. When it was pointed out that the Senate had passed the Child Rights Act, prohibiting child marriage, he shrugged it off: ?History tells us that the Prophet Muhammad did marry a young girl as well. I have not contravened any law.? The Zamfara State legislature, under his governorship, refused to ratify the act. Sharia law in Nigeria was nothing new. It was in place in the north well before 1914, when Nigeria was forged as a single colony ? and an unsustainable polyglot fiction ? from two British protectorates. Sharia continued to regulate people?s lives throughout the relatively short colonial period, but only in matters of personal law ? marriage, divorce, succession and so on ? and only among Muslims who opted for it. This remained the case after independence in 1960, in a country with roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians, despite occasional agitation in favour of full implementation. But matters were complicated by the fact that British decolonisation entailed a handover of power not to Nigerians as a people ? they weren?t a ?people? ? but to the so-called Hausa-Fulani aristocracy, who represented the interests of the north and would shortly take charge of a ?federal republic? four times the size of the UK. This was achieved by massaging the figures to give the north more inhabitants, making Nigeria the only country in West Africa where the population actually increases as you get closer to the Sahel. As a consequence, proceeds from the oil-rich Niger Delta could flow away from their source in a formal arrangement designed to spread petroleum revenue across the country. This precarious status quo was challenged in 1967, when one of the regions in the south ? what was then called the Eastern Region ? attempted to secede as Biafra, resulting in a war that lasted two and a half years, in which two million people are thought to have died. The Eastern Region was rich in oil deposits. After Biafra it was business as usual, but over the years, as Nigeria?s wealth was hollowed out by kleptocratic rule and skewed by regional disparities, calls for greater local autonomy grew louder. In the Niger Delta, paradoxically, no one had benefited from oil money: extraction had destroyed the local ecology, and livelihoods with it, but there were no rewards for farming or fishing communities. Delta activists were in favour of full decentralisation, calling the government in Abuja a ?fraudulent contraption?. Their anger was compounded by the judicial murder of their spokesperson Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995: he?d asked for a fair share of oil revenue for the inhabitants of the delta. Southern demands for autonomy didn?t play well in the north. Coming to an equitable federal arrangement with the ?sons of pagan infidels whose fathers walked the earth naked? ? as one prominent mullah put it ? was not an option. Billions of naira in oil revenue were at stake. Northern leaders and influential clerics fell back on religion. After Olusegun Obasanjo, a southern Christian, was elected president in 1999, 11 northern governors took up Yerima?s communal initiative, and sharia became the basis of civil and criminal law in the north. In 2000 Yerima signed off on an amputation for the theft of a cow. In Abuja the attorney general (also minister of justice), a Christian and a southerner, called it ?a punishment more severe than would be imposed on other Nigerians for the same offence?, but this was just ?so much English?, as we say here. The thief?s right hand was removed by a surgeon specially flown in from Pakistan at the state house clinic in Zamfara while an excited crowd waited outside. The amputee was led back to his impoverished village by state government officials in what was described as a festive atmosphere. Not long afterwards, two women found guilty of adultery were sentenced to death by stoning. The sentences were not carried out, but the point had been made: demands for autonomy in the south would be met by assertions of overarching Muslim authority in the north. The scene was now set for the rise of an extreme sectarian movement. There would be no shortage of foot soldiers: Comolli points out that with a population approaching 200 million, Nigeria has ?the highest number of non-attending schoolchildren in the world?: 10.5 million in 2010, the last year for which figures are available. Most are concentrated in the north, where ?70 per cent of the population is illiterate.? All that was needed was an eloquent figure who could applaud the governors? embrace of sharia while pointing out that they fell far short of the code of conduct they favoured. At about the time sharia was coming into force, an obscure preacher by the name of Mohammed Yusuf, born in 1970 and based in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, was calling on ?the Muslim community to correct its creed and its behaviours and its morals ? to give children a correct Islamic education?, and ?to undertake jihad in the name of Allah?. Yusuf was the leader of an Islamist sect that no one had heard of, founded in 2002, and known as Boko Haram. ?Boko Haram?, everyone knows now, translates roughly as ?Western education is forbidden?. As the sect explained in a pamphlet published in 2009, education leads to ?Western Ways of Life?, including ?the rights and privileges of women, the idea of homosexuality, lesbianism ? rape of infants, multi-party democracy ? drinking beer and alcohol and many other things that are opposed to Islamic civilisation?. This kind of thinking was a challenge to the pro-sharia governors, including Yerima, who had an economics degree. But Yerima?s selective application of sharia was also under attack, even though he had shown his approval of forced marriage for underage girls, amputation and death by stoning, and advocated a ?correct Islamic education?, including learning the Quran by rote in Arabic. But not for his own children. Falling standards in local universities, as Alexander Thurston explains, were driving the elites in the north to educate their children elsewhere, sometimes in the heartland of the infidel: the sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria?s Muslims, was recently photographed at his daughter?s graduation ceremony in the UK. Yusuf, himself a university graduate (he studied theology in Medina), was a rhetorician rather than a warrior. His calls for jihad were vague and adapted for the occasion: Thurston describes him as ?a dynamic, even chameleon-like preacher? who ?presented his ideas in different ways to different audiences?. He cited the Quran in the local vernacular languages ordinary Muslims understood, rather than ?the specialised Kanembu language that many of Borno?s exegetes used?, as Thurston puts it. Thurston also quotes an eyewitness ? the report isn?t dated ? who was on hand to cheer Yusuf?s return to Maiduguri after one of the many occasions when he had been briefly detained: ?People came all the way from Kaduna, Bauchi and Kano to welcome him. There was a long motorcade from the airport as thousands of his members trooped out to lead him to his house. He came back like a hero.? Unlike Shekau, Yusuf confined his violent attacks to police stations and government property. Before fleeing to Saudi Arabia in 2003, when the first call was put out for his arrest, Yusuf appeared to have wealthy sponsors. Whenever he preached in his large compound in Railway Quarters, Maiduguri ?the whole area would be lined with exotic cars as very powerful individuals came to see [him]. They went in cars with tinted glass.? Among the visitors was the then Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff. Sheriff, the son of a wealthy businessman, had studied at the London School of Business and later joined his father?s construction company. He was widely rumoured to be the founder of Boko Haram, a charge he vehemently denies. True or not, in the run-up to his bid for the state governorship in 2003, he was obliged to woo Yusuf, whose following was on the rise. In 2007, he appointed Yusuf to a state government committee selecting Muslims to take part in the annual Hajj to Saudi Arabia. The arrangement didn?t last long. Yusuf came to believe that, like Yerima and the other state governors, Sheriff wasn?t taking sharia as seriously as he should. But by then, preoccupied with party political issues playing out in Abuja, Sheriff had no need of him. In fact, Yusuf?s extremism was becoming an embarrassment. Citing his lack of proper credentials, senior clerics who were alarmed at his popularity banned him from preaching at the Indimi Mosque in Maiduguri. Many ? Yusuf included ? believed that Sheriff had turned so drastically against Boko Haram that he was intent on killing its members. In late 2008, he unleashed Operation Flush in Borno State, a military sweep whose official raison d??tre was to curb banditry in the hinterlands. Yusuf assumed the worst and put his followers on alert for a pre-emptive uprising. Then, in June 2009, security forces opened fire on a procession of unarmed Boko Haram members on their way to a funeral in a town outside Maiduguri. According to the military, the mourners, who were travelling on motorbikes, weren?t wearing helmets, as required by law. Yusuf decided to launch his jihadist insurrection: ?We are ready to die together with our brothers,? he announced. The uprising was initially slated for August but two events brought it forward. On 23 July, the authorities discovered a ?training camp? in Biu in Borno State, and arrested nine sect members. The following day, Boko Haram members accidentally detonated a bomb in a safe house in Maiduguri. With the authorities hot on their heels, Yusuf gave the go-ahead. Thurston takes up the story: On 26 July, around seventy Boko Haram members ?armed with guns and hand grenades? attacked a police station in Bauchi. Police repulsed them, killing several dozen and arresting an estimated two hundred sect members; arrests went well beyond just the fighters and extended to the sect?s wider membership in the city. In Potiskum, Yobe state, a ?gun battle raged for hours? around a police station; police arrested 23 people. A small clash occurred between Boko Haram and police in Wudil, Kano State. On 27 July, several battles paralysed Maiduguri. Boko Haram staged a co-ordinated late-night assault on the state?s police headquarters, police training facilities, Maiduguri prison, and two other police stations. Further battles happened in Gamboru-Ngala in Borno, near the border with Cameroon ? a town that would become a flashpoint later. ?Heavily armed members of the sect stormed the town and went on the rampage, burning a police headquarters, a church and a customs post.? On 28 July the military shelled Yusuf?s home at Railway Quarters, where some sect members had ?barricaded themselves in and around the house after heavy fighting?. Yusuf was found the next day, ?hiding in a goat pen at his parents-in-law?s house?. He was interrogated by soldiers ? it?s recorded on YouTube ? and then handed over to the police, who executed him in public. An ecstatic crowd looked on. They later executed his father-in-law. Thurston and Comolli agree that the Nigerian state and its security apparatus have never put their faith in negotiation. Threats posed by full-on secession, banditry and sectarianism have generally been met with maximum force, but the results are invariably counterproductive. Once Abubakar Shekau took over from his martyred predecessor, churches, mosques, banks, markets and schools became fair game, in what Thurston describes as ?total war? in north-eastern Nigeria. The first, shocking incident was the suicide bombing of the Nigeria Police headquarters in Abuja in June 2011 (the first such suicide attack in Nigerian history) which was followed, six months later, by the Christmas Day suicide bombings of three churches, one of them across the border in Niger. The insurgency peaked between 2009 and 2015, with the loss of 12,000 lives (20,000 have been killed to date). In 2014, Boko Haram announced its ?capital? in Gwoza, Borno State ? it lasted just seven months ? and affiliated with IS, rebranding as ?Islamic State in West Africa? or ?Islamic State West Africa Province?. It expanded its use of suicide bombers. Most of them were young women and girls, including a ten-year-old. The year 2015, when a presidential election was held, proved to be a turning point. The incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, was widely seen as clueless: the previous year, it had taken him more than two weeks to admit that the Chibok kidnappings had happened. As the election campaign got underway, he stirred into action, agreeing that Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin could deploy their own troops inside Nigeria as the insurgency began to spread beyond the country?s borders. Jonathan also engaged a firm of mercenaries run by a former South African Defence Force officer, Eeben Barlow. Between them, they started to rack up some notable successes, exposing problems within the Nigerian army as they did so. ?We?ve been on the terrain for two months,? Idriss D?by, the president of Chad, complained, ?and we haven?t seen a single Nigerian soldier. There is a definite deficit of co-ordination and a lack of common action.? Barlow let slip that he thought the Nigerian army was incompetent: ?Foreign armies ? have spent considerable time in Nigeria where ?window-dressing training? has been the order of the day. But look through the window and the room is empty.? A ?senior Western diplomat? (are there any senior non-Western diplomats?) told the New York Times that the mercenaries were playing ?a major operational role? carrying out night attacks on Boko Haram and that ?the next morning the Nigerian army rolls in and claims success?. It later transpired that money intended for the military was being embezzled: Jonathan?s chief security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, is currently in detention, accused of stealing $2.1 billion. At the height of the conflict, according to Transparency International, ?corrupt senior officers withheld ammunition and fuel from frontline soldiers, leaving them with no alternative other than to flee when attacked.? When it did venture out, the army?s reputation was further tarnished by its behaviour towards villagers, in combined operations with the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF is a dubious initiative started by local youths in 2013 to identify Boko Haram suspects and get them to ?confess?. One 14-year-old boy who refused was whipped to death by a soldier in front of his parents). A report by Amnesty International alleged ?compelling evidence of widespread and systematic violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by the military, leading to more than seven thousand mainly young Nigerian men and boys dying in military detention and more than 1200 people killed in extrajudicial executions?. According to AI, ?no one was brought to justice.? Civilians might have felt that they were caught between two competing reigns of terror. In the event, Jonathan lost the election to Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general and former military dictator with a reputation for probity. Buhari immediately moved the centre of operations against Boko Haram north from Abuja to Maiduguri and allocated more resources. But by then the tide had already turned. There were schisms within Boko Haram dating back to 2012. Like Yusuf before him, Shekau belonged to an extremist Salafi sect, the Society for the Removal of Heretical Innovation and the Establishment of the Prophet?s Model, which held that Muslims who strayed from the path were fair game. Many of Shekau?s senior officers baulked at this development. Others were simply fed up with his lack of discipline and focus. According to Thurston, he had a reputation for killing civilians ?on the basis of whim and/or personal benefit?, for ?handing down punishments with weak scriptural justifications?, killing sect members and then lying about it, and marrying women ?whose husbands were still alive?. There are thought to be at least three factions currently operating under the banner of Boko Haram. Shekau has been reliably pronounced dead at the hands of the military on at least three occasions ? one for each of the rival factions. The first pronouncement was in 2009 but no evidence was produced. Shekau ? or a double, nobody is sure ? tends to pop up on YouTube after announcements of his death, although he was absent from a Boko Haram video posted last year. The military appears to believe that he is still alive: last year, the chief of army staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusufu Buratai, issued an ?ultimatum? to his troops to bring him in ?dead or alive?. With or without Shekau, Boko Haram has largely been contained, contrary to Thurston?s claim in his introduction that it is at present ?one of the deadliest jihadist groups in the world, and the crisis surrounding it one of the globe?s worst?. Buhari was not wrong to declare that Nigeria had ?technically won the war? against the sect in 2015, or to announce its ?final crushing? one year later. Even so, it wasn?t the whole truth. The military has confined its members to the countryside, mainly the inaccessible mountainous areas on the border with Cameroon, where they continue to rampage with diminishing results. The recent attack on a girls? secondary school in Dapchi, in Yobe State, where 110 pupils were kidnapped, draws inevitable comparisons with Chibok, but it doesn?t suggest a resurgence in Boko Haram?s activities. As Jama?atu Nasril Islam, the umbrella body of Nigeria?s Muslim community, has said, there is good reason to suspect that the security forces have been colluding with the remains of the movement in order to keep counterinsurgency funds from Abuja flowing their way. As I write, a row is blazing between the police and the army over who is responsible for ?security? in Dapchi. Both, you?d have thought ? or just possibly neither. When I travelled to Maiduguri last November, a journey I wouldn?t have contemplated two years earlier, I couldn?t get to Gwoza, Boko Haram?s former capital ? a five-hour drive south-east from Maiduguri: Boko Haram may have been in retreat, but there had been no ?final crushing? and the roads were still unsafe. I couldn?t do the three-hour drive south to Chibok either: some lecturers from a local university had recently been abducted. But I did make a 14-hour roundabout journey to the town, with many military checkpoints along the way. It turned out that the story wasn?t in Chibok any longer. But if I hadn?t made the trip I might never have understood that the kidnapping of the schoolgirls in 2014 is now a slow-burn revenue source, not just for the military, but for numerous NGOs: this once insignificant town is full of white four-by-fours, driven by aid workers. The kidnapping has also generated a steady stream of publications. Both these books tell us a good deal about Boko Haram. They are worthy enough in their way, but fatally even-handed: Comolli and Thurston write as if Nigeria were a functioning country that simply required a tweak here and there. I feel bound to set them straight, but where to begin? Perhaps with our famous abundance of crude oil, and the anomalous situation in which we find ourselves, importing refined petroleum. Nigeria has the richest fields in Africa ? generating around 2.4 million barrels a day ? well ahead of the runner-up, Angola (around 1.8 million) ? but our three largely obsolete refineries are unable to cope with the volume of crude. The annual renewable contracts from government that would make them viable are looted at source, and the elites that take the money have invested in refineries abroad. Even so, we have enough refined oil to run an efficient national grid. But the electricity supply remains stubbornly at around 4000 megawatts; South Africa generates about 34,000 megawatts for a population one-third the size of ours. Between 1999 and 2007, in the early years of our emergence from military dictatorship, contracts worth 16 billion US dollars were awarded by the finance ministry to the energy ministry (and a growing number of private providers) with much fanfare. These disbursements sank without trace. The government renamed the National Electric Power Authority (?Never Expect Power Always?) as the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (?Problem Has Changed Name?). Today we have more power outages than most people in this young country can recall. At the top, graft is a family duty. Take Nigeria Airways. Given Nigerians? dedication to travel ? confirmed by the number of foreign carriers that fly in and out daily ? a national airline operating in a regulated industry, as it did for roughly thirty years, should have been an exception to the rule that state airlines run at a loss. And so it was, but the revenues were retained by those appointed to run the airline. A commission of inquiry, set up on the return to democracy, reported in 2002 that most of Nigeria Airline?s accounts at the end of the 1990s were fraudulent. Between 1999 and 2002, when the company was liquidated, 31 million US dollars were ?misappropriated? as one clique in the ministry of finance awarded another in the transport ministry contracts worth millions of dollars to both parties. Nobody has been prosecuted, and even if they had, where were they supposed to serve their sentences? To our shame, the UK is building an extension to the Kiri Kiri prison in Lagos to repatriate Nigerians currently doing time in British jails. We allowed this initiative because our own prisons are even more deplorable and overcrowded than those in Britain, where inmates do not die of treatable diseases such as malaria. Would education have kept the Nigerian prison population down? With 40 per cent illiteracy among Nigerians over the age of 15, we?re no longer able to test this hypothesis. According to a 2015 Unicef report, ?investment in basic education is still low compared to other sub-Saharan countries?: most primary schools ?lack water, electricity and toilet facilities [with] only one toilet for 600 pupils in the primary school system?. My guess is that the ratio of textbooks to pupils is no better. Unicef points out in another report that mother and infant mortality figures are worse in Nigeria than in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. ?Nigeria,? Bill Gates remarked on a recent visit, ?is one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth.? It?s hardly surprising that Nigerians are restive. Large deployments of armed men in uniform are part of the harsh, piecemeal solution to our unruliness, but as Comolli remarks, the use of the military can be ?problematic?: soldiers, she writes, ?are not trained to deal directly with the civilian population?. This hardly goes far enough. Soldiers in most countries are unfamiliar with police work, but in a crisis the Nigerian police are quickly sidelined by the army. With our long memory of military dictatorship, we see the army as the bodyguards of the corrupt elite. Comolli?s book ? like Thurston?s ? is intended for an international readership, for Western ?policymakers ? still struggling to get to grips with this phenomenon?. Nigerians have it off by heart. Whatever becomes of Boko Haram, a greater threat to stability in the country as a whole, not just the north, has begun to emerge: a group known to Nigerians as ?Fulani herdsmen?. This large, ill-defined body ?undertook more attacks and were responsible for more deaths than Boko Haram in 2016?, according to the Global Terrorism Index. Unlike Boko Haram, this assortment of Muslim people categorised by ethnicity and livelihood ? and increasingly by religion ? are out in the open: families and clans drive their cattle south with the onset of the dry season, and are prepared to fight for pasture. Clashes in the past two years between Fulani and settled farmers or other pastoralists are fuelling fears that the army is reluctant to mediate this incursion, and that the sense of entitlement among the Fulani is growing. It?s easier, as the death toll rises, to typecast the Fulani as latter-day jihadists, even though some have fled south from Boko Haram. The armed forces, criticised by Amnesty International?s Nigeria office for failing to keep order, have not been entirely passive, but their reactions have been ill-judged. Last December, during Fulani attacks on five villages in Adamawa State, the air force levelled the villages and created the kind of confusion that encourages defiant Fulani exceptionalism. During my journey in Borno State, we were held up for an hour while a party of Fulani crossed the road to a muddy watering hole, the men in wide-brimmed straw hats, loose trousers and plastic sandals, the women in bright dresses, with tightly braided hair and bangles on their arms, the boys and girls tall, dark and thin, driving their entire worldly wealth before them. My fellow passengers were uncharacteristically silent. Fulani herdsmen are the nomadic descendants of Uthman Dan Fodio?s followers. A century before the British arrived, Dan Fodio, an itinerant Fulani preacher in what is now Senegal, launched a jihad against backsliders in an immense area to the south-east that was later incorporated into northern Nigeria. ?They practise polytheistic rituals,? Dan Fodio wrote, ?and turn people away from the path of God and raise the flag of a worldly kingdom above the banner of Islam.? In 1804 he established the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest Islamic state south of the Sahara, and pressed towards the coast in his eccentric quest to dip the Holy Book in the Atlantic Ocean. Like the British after him, he left the decadent administration of the Hausa royalty intact but appointed emirs to oversee their spiritual well-being. As his people settled, they adopted the Hausa language, the lingua franca of this vast, semi-arid region. These herdsmen and their families were once confined to the areas around the northern Sahel. Creeping desertification has driven them further south. Numbering about 18 million, they are now to be found in 21 of the 36 states, and as far south as the Niger Delta. From the mid-1990s until 2005 disputes involving Fulani pastoralists on the move accounted for about 120 deaths in the north and so-called Middle Belt of Nigeria, but the figures have risen steeply. In January alone, they accounted for about 170 deaths. The symbolic Fulani weapon (the bow and arrow) has been replaced on these migrations by the AK47. Many southerners, far from the confrontation, worry that Fulani assertiveness is not driven simply by the search for marginal pasture. They fear a renaissance of Dan Fodio?s legacy and another step towards Nigeria?s becoming an Islamic state. The country has had twelve heads of state since the mid-1960s, five Christians, one of whom ? Obasanjo ? ruled twice, once in uniform and once as a civilian, and seven Muslims, one of whom, Buhari, has also ruled twice. Currently around fifty or sixty million Nigerians, roughly a third of the population, live under sharia law: that figure was unthinkable at the turn of the century. Suspicions in the south, embedded in cultural anxiety, are not always parochial or communitarian. Just as the sharia-friendly attitude of the northern governors fired up Boko Haram, Buhari?s discourse, past and present, encourages the Fulani. Buhari has been clear in his support of the sharia governors in the north and, as it happens, he is a Fulani. ?I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria,? he said in 2001, as he called for ?the total implementation of the sharia in the country?. In a subsequent interview, he announced that he was willing to ?die for the cause of Islam?; in another that ?we are more than the Christians if you add our Muslim brothers in the west.? He was referring to the Yoruba ethnic group, forty million strong, that predominates in western Nigeria and is equally divided between Islam and Christianity (often within the same extended families). Religious tolerance in this part of Nigeria is a point of principle, reinforced by good sense: Yoruba Muslims have no interest in sharia. Recently Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, the head of an influential Fulani cultural association, came out in support of Buhari?s re-election in next year?s presidential race. ?All the Fulani in Nigeria today, our eyes are open. All of us are behind Buhari; we have seen that they? ? ?they? are not specified ? ?want to destroy the Fulani because of Buhari. We would not allow anybody ? to take Buhari?s mandate; we would be ready to follow him and fight [for] it.? Bodejo warned that if Fulani pastoralists ?decide to ? start any insurgency now or any resistance, you can imagine what will happen and they are ? people who know everywhere in the jungles and the bushes?. This is a chilling threat to many who have long feared domination by the Hausa-Fulani. The dilemma raised by our catastrophic civil war in the 1960s ? is regional autonomy possible without secession? ? has never been resolved. Biafra seems a remote event because history is no longer taught in our schools. As long as Nigeria is framed as a single, coherent entity ? all or nothing, Abuja or the bush ? the wish for autonomy can only express itself as a ?national? programme. For militant communitarian groups in the north this means that sharia is the objective, both for their own states and the country as a whole, which will have to fall into line if they are to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Today it might be Boko Haram; tomorrow the Fulani herdsmen and their families, driven by climate change and faith. We are stumbling from crisis to crisis, as more and more illiterate young men and women pour into the streets with nothing to do but follow the next messiah or dream of escaping to Europe. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Thu Apr 26 21:14:59 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:44:59 +0530 Subject: SACW - 27 April 2018 | Sri Lanka: Anti-muslim violence / Myanmar: hate speech / Pakistan: Madeeha Gauhar; Displaced Pashtuns / India: Misogyny; xenophobia / British Far Right / Chernobyl / Armenia protests Message-ID: <13562549-94A3-4BA3-8A23-28883154EB67@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 27 April 2018 - No. 2986 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Selected Tributes to Madeeha Gauhar 2. Kathua and Unnao Rapes: Letter from academics to India?s Prime Minister 3. The Body and Dress Code In the Political Discourse in India | Sumanta Banerjee 4. Is the Indo-Japan rail project a boondoggle? | Sentaku Magazine in The Japan Times 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - ?Countries of Particular Concern? in U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2018 Annual Report - India: BJP and the slow saffronisation of India | Snigdha Jain - Kerala youths were drawn into violent protests over the Kathua case by anonymous WhatsApp calls ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Sri Lanka: Recurring Violence Against Muslims: What Is It All About? | Mohamed R. M. Farook 7. In Myanmar, hate speech runs deeper than Facebook | Myo Win Nyunt 8. Pakistan: Displaced Pashtuns Return to Find Homes ?Teeming? with Landmines | Zofeen Ebrahim 9. India: A Muslim and a Hindu thought they could be a couple. Then came the ?love jihad? hit list | Annie Gowen 10. Toxic labels: India needs to learn to communicate with substance | Ruchir Joshi 11. India: Aadhaar in welfare is pain without gain | Reetika Khera 12. The Nowhere People: Rohingyas in India | Neeta Lal 13. ?Caste is all around us ? we have a moral imperative to address it so that it ends in our lifetime? 14. Book Review: Rule By Aesthetics - World-Class City Making in Delhi by Asher Ghertner 15. Book Review: ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967 edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley 16. 32 years after Chernobyl, next up, a Chernobyl on ice? | Jan Haverkamp and Rashid Alimov 17. Armenia is having a 'color revolution.' So why is Russia so calm? | Fred Weir 18. Why we all belong to a shared community | Tom Whyman ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: SELECTED TRIBUTES TO MADEEHA GAUHAR ======================================== Madeeha Gauhar?s passing is not just the end of what will probably be considered the golden age of Pakistani theatre, it is a great loss for progressive, pro-peace voices in this country. http://www.sacw.net/article13740.html ======================================== 2. KATHUA AND UNNAO RAPES: LETTER FROM ACADEMICS TO INDIA?S PRIME MINISTER ======================================== We are academics and independent scholars from India and abroad, writing to express solidarity with, and to endorse the sentiments expressed by, forty-nine retired civil servants in their open letter to you of April 16th 2018 http://www.sacw.net/article13739.html ======================================== 3. THE BODY AND DRESS CODE IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN INDIA by Sumanta Banerjee ======================================== The exchange of banters between the outgoing veteran Congress MP Renuka Chaudhury and India?s Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu in the Rajya Sabha, during the ceremony to bid farewell to her and other retiring MPs , has taken an ugly turn. In her farewell speech Renuka Chaudhury while addressing Naidu (who is also the Rajya Sabha Chairman), in a self-deprecating humorous vein poked fun at her own girth saying: ?Sir, many people worry about my weight, but in this job (of politics), you need to throw your weight around.? To this, Naidu replied: ??reduce your weight and make efforts to increase the weight of your party.? Now, if this banter between the two ? both of whom having known each other for many years despite their political differences ? took place in the private surroundings of a lunch or dinner party in the capital, where such slanging jests are quite common, it would have been laughed off, and ignored by the media. But once such a badinage is transported to the public arena of Parliament, or political rallies, it assumes a different dimension, particularly from the viewpoint of women, who quite understandably feel insulted by the misogynist comments and anti-women slurs made by ministers, MPs, political leaders (irrespective of their ideological beliefs) on the floors of the Lok Sabha, as well as in mass meetings. http://www.sacw.net/article13742.html ======================================== 4. IS THE INDO-JAPAN RAIL PROJECT A BOONDOGGLE? | Sentaku Magazine in The Japan Times ======================================== The construction of a new high-speed railway line in India is scheduled to officially get underway this year, connecting the commercial capital of Mumbai and the industrial city of Ahmedabad in the western part of the country. The project to build the line fashioned after Japan?s shinkansen system is a product of an agreement between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in their December 2015 summit. Yet anxiety is already rising due to soaring costs brought about by haphazard policies of the Indian government, leading both the Japanese government and Japanese firms to start getting bogged down. http://www.sacw.net/article13741.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - ?Countries of Particular Concern? in U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2018 Annual Report - India: BJP and the slow saffronisation of India | Snigdha Jain - Kerala youths were drawn into violent protests over the Kathua case by anonymous WhatsApp calls -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. SRI LANKA: RECURRING VIOLENCE AGAINST MUSLIMS: WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? by Mohamed R. M. Farook ======================================== Colombo Telegraph April 25, 2018 Peace is more important today than any of the earlier eras because of the positively advantageous characteristics in the post-modern world with its attendant advancement in technology, socio-political vibrancy and religious freedom. Yet violence erupts mainly either on political or religious issues. Violence is the antithesis of peace. If we desire peace, harmony and peaceful coexistence among communities then violence has no place and should be abhorred. Yes, the vast majority of people from all communities in Sri Lanka ? Buddhists, Muslims and Tamils ? are not inclined towards violence of any type or form. They love peaceful coexistence which is openly visible to everybody from their daily interactions among one another on an individual and collective scale in their personalized transactions in their neighbourhood, routine, social, purchasing / marketing / selling activities throughout Sri Lanka. What else we need to be inclusive and like / love and be kind to one another? Yet violence ?exists? and has emerged in recent times, particularly against Muslims, in different locations starting from Aluthgama (2014), Gintota (2017), Ampara, Digana, Teldeniya and few other areas in Kandy (2018). Can one find the causes / reasons for this sporadic ?attacks? on Muslims and their properties ? homes and businesses? The answer is ?YES? and also ?NO?. The world has changed from a religiously and culturally based internalized communities to high tech societies banging on the concept of Global Village and with that human thinking too has changed from human and humanely based thinking to technology- directed thinking which has given rise to self-seeking pursuits devoid of empathy and wellbeing of others within one?s own community and other communities. This is the scourge of the present day behavioural pattern particularly in the South Asian regions. The outcome (or output) of this phenomenon is that a large number of people from every community lacks the essential fundamental knowledge of their own religion and practise only rituals and thereby do not know the important aspects of treating / respecting the followers of other religions. Similarly the present generation does not know the cultural / traditional aspects that had transcended through years within the three communities that respected each other and was the cornerstone for peaceful living. Thus conflict leading to ad hoc chaos. We, for that matter any analyst / researcher, may not be able to identify all the reasons / causes of the violence or may miss out the vital ones as some of them may be known only to the perpetrators themselves. Yet we can point out some leading events that definitely could have contributed towards the unwanted calamity that got unfolded. A few years ago some Sinhala Buddhists (SB), for reasons known to them only, propagated the ?false notion? that Sri Lankan Muslims (M) will overtake the SB population by about 30 to 35 years in time due to SB families having lesser number of children than M families. With the official statistics of 70% SB and 09% M in a total Sri Lankan population of 21 Million, and assuming that the reproduction processes of SB and M are, say, two (2) and five (5) per family respectively, even by one hundred years from now, the Muslims will not be able to overtake the Sinhala Buddhists through population growth. Forget overtaking, the Muslims will not be able to reach even 12% of the population say within hundred years. It is the Sinhalese peasants who had a larger number of children per family than the Muslims. The one, two or three children per Sinhalese families are confined to their educated and elite class and never to their rural population. With the present day complex lifestyles, high cost of living, woes of bringing up children, the hassles of schooling and living as nuclear family, everybody, irrespective of race or ethnicity, is going for small ? two / three ? children families. The myth of Muslim population expansion gets exposed. After this canard they started the Halaal issue and from stage to stage from Colombo, through Kandy, Kurunegala and other places, Buddhist monks indoctrinated the Buddhist audience present with falsehood against Islam and Muslims. While some would have believed in what these monks said, a reasonable majority of the SB rejected such propaganda and in fact were questioning the behaviour of the monks as per the teachings of Buddhism. Next came the interference in and incitement at Muslim businesses that got culminated in Aluthgama violence (in2014) followed by Gintota (2017), Ampara, Digana, Teldeniya and other areas in Kandy recently ? a sad spectacle for the otherwise hospitable, helpful and kindhearted Sri Lankans in general and especially the Sinhala population in particular. What all these show is that a very small minority of Buddhist monks has influenced a group of Buddhists (youth) to their (monks?) ways of thinking of initiating and developing hatred against Muslims ? an unnecessary and uncalled for endeavour by this minority group of Buddhists. This goes on and is an unhealthy and dangerous social behaviour that affects not only the Muslims but also the perpetrators themselves, the Sinhala Buddhists at large, others and finally the Sri Lanka as a country in the long run. What have the Muslims done for you (the Buddhists) to go against them? They are in business because they could not get employed in the state sector or in established commercial enterprises as they did not have educational qualifications due to either their (or parental) neglect on school education or their inability to get admission to leading schools ? and finally became drop-outs through de-motivation and / or frustration. Whereas the majority in a country especially in the South East Asian region are somewhat complacent with their strengths in their numbers, enjoy official / state patronage and have a perceived self-confidence in their livelihood, the minorities get into the notion that they have to be hardworking to survive economically / financially. This is the story everywhere in the world be it Britain, Belgium, America, Philippine, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, or Sri Lanka ? minorities are hardworking and their business activities, small, medium or large have invariably helped the people and the economy of the respective countries ? a plus point for any minority in any part of the world. Why be jealous of the Muslims of Sri Lanka? Benchmark them for your progress in your personal life as well as in business. Thereby together the Sinhalese, the Muslims and the Tamils can rise up morally and economically for the benefit and progress of all concerned! This may appear as a Utopian suggestion ? yet let us give a try shunning violence and stretching the hands of friendship. The ground realities may not be conducive to our suggestions above. In that case let us look at the ground realities which are many and varied from utter dislike / hatred towards the Muslims for no faults of their own except the faulty perception by the misdirected tiny minority hate mongering Buddhist youth backed by misguided Buddhist monks. Their dislike for, the anger they nursed along, and the brutal harm they planned and unleashed on the Muslims variously got projected, for / against, in social media and through the mouths of trouble makers and rumour mongers. One suggestion for a solution for this is for the Muslims, affected and others, to call them (the ?empowered? Sinhala youth and the monks) through all available means immediately to initiate discussions to resolve the issues of both sides ? The Sinhalese and The Muslims. It may be difficult at the beginning, but let us start it as soon as possible for the sake of progress of all communities and the forward march of our country ? Sri Lanka. If there are other ways of addressing this issue of ?misunderstanding? and / or ?misconception? let us go into those too. All suggestions must be welcome and no stone left unturned to resolve this issue of violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka. Be that as it may, let?s look into the livelihood patterns of each of the three ethnic / racial groups. Each of the three main communities in Sri Lanka had and still continue to have distinct liking at specific sectoral / educational / vocational involvement for their livelihood. The Sinhalese aspire for the public sector employment, get into the positions and thereby are the decision makers, general administrators and political rulers in Sri Lanka. The Tamils (Jaffna) have taken the path of education seriously and do well in their careers within Sri Lanka or overseas provided opportunities come in their way. The Muslim community traditionally had been in trading / commercial activities and they continue and new businesses spring up too. Further, due to various encouraging factors such as better social status and also the glamour of being in business today (with the attendant risk involved notwithstanding), freedom of being independent earner, better earning potential than wage employment and importantly governmental support and incentives for self-employment, people from all three communities have ventured into businesses of various types which we see throughout Sri Lanka. Thus the past notion (may be a reality then) that Muslims are / were the dominant group in business does not prevail now. Yet Muslim businesses (retail) are conspicuous in their traditionally held Muslim towns such as Akurana, Beruwala, Mawanella, Thihariya, Kalmunai, (to name a few) and had expanded within these towns. Muslim businesses do not exist in the new towns such as Ampara, Nugegoda, Maharagama, Homagama, Kiribathgoda, Embilipitiya etc. Thus it is the Sinhalese who are more in businesses today than the Muslims (or even the Tamils) ? this is what it should be and what it is as the Sinhalese constitute the majority. This situation must be clearly understood to erase the myth that Muslims are the dominating group in business and thus create unwanted confusion in the minds of the Sinhalese. Whatever their religious / ethic group, all business persons (except a very few who committedly practise their religious commands in business ethics) today are of a mind-set to make quick financial gains, disproportionate profits and look out for opportunistic situations to exploit the customer whoever they may be. This is in all trades from greengrocers, grocers, farm producers and all other businesses. This opportunistic exploitation has nothing to do with market mechanism of supply and demand. This is based on the business persons? greedy outlook combined with the exploitation of the trust the innocent customers have in the business persons along with exploitation of lack of knowledge on the part of customers on quality, prices, availability of the same or substitute goods at other places, and finally the level of anxiety of the customers in their purchasing process ? all these combined give the businesses, irrespective of their (businesses?) ethnic / racial orientation, the strengths to exploit their customers whoever they may be. Therefore it is wrong and dangerous too to arouse the feelings of the Sinhala Buddhists to the warped and twisted notion that Muslims are the dominant group in business and they exploit their customers ? all businesses at various levels and degrees exploit their customers. Having said of the many issues that could have been the reasons for the violence against Muslims without any normative inputs, up to this point, from this write-up, it is important to focus on the unfounded and unprovable advocacy by the lead Sinhala Buddhist political figures and some other Buddhist personalities that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhala Buddhists. There is no truth in this statement. Of course the Sinhala Buddhists are the majority in Sri Lanka. This notion is advocated essentially for the purpose of gaining political advantage from the Sinhala Buddhists vote base and nothing else ? and also may be based on chauvinism in the minds of such Buddhists. This notion must be countered and abandoned to seek a way forward approach to the multi-ethno-racial pluralistic Sri Lanka that is what we are today and had come through ages in order that Sri Lanka would march forward as a nation in all aspects internally and globally through genuine and committed cooperation of all her communities with the motto that Sri Lanka belongs to all its citizens ? Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims. Another important matter is the role of the State in safeguarding every community, whether minority or majority, to any form of danger that may emerge through propaganda, incitement or violence. The state?s re-active approaches of paying compensation to the damaged properties and the slow apprehension of the middle-rung culprits who committed the violence / crime leaving the masterminds to live with impunity are no solutions to the said issues by a democratic government. The government should always be pro-active and have standby controlling mechanisms to prevent communal violence among its multi-racial and multi-ethnic society in whichever part that violence may emerge, round up the perpetrators and take legal actions against them. All governments of the day had been slack and people witnessed one-way communal violence on Tamils in 1956 and 1983 and on the Muslims in 2014, 2017 and 2018. In these series of violence every community was a looser and there is no one to be said as the winner. We all must learn lessons from these nasty events and thus abhor violence. Although the Constitution of Sri Lanka guarantees the freedom of religion to every religious group, the Constitution should be strengthened further through an additional clause guaranteeing every community from violence of any sort. Finally, to get a better understanding of the violence against the Muslims, we also must look into the Muslims? overall behaviour as an individual, as a collective or community, as business people, as political figures and clergy-based organizations ? all these could individually and in concert send various signals that could be interpreted in different ways by the Sinhalese which could be detrimental towards the Muslims. Muslims in their individual capacity have good relationships with the Sinhalese (also Tamils) in their personal interactions. Their dresses of head scarfs, Shalwars, Abaayas (full body cloaks) and even the face-cover (Niqaab) have been in existence for long time and has become accepted dress code by others and there seem to be no repulsion or repugnance by the individual Sinhalese. It is the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) which created a fuss about Muslim women?s dresses going to the level of calling the Muslim women wearing the long cloak as ?goni billas?. Every person, irrespective of their religion, has the freedom to wear whatever they wish provided the dresses do not reflect public nuisance through indecency. It is surprising to note that BBS does not say a word about the mini shorts (skirts) worn by young girls exposing greater part of their thighs and also wearing tops that expose unnecessarily the female breasts and the cleavage. What is the logic? Decent ways of dresses should be ?insulted? and indecency accepted in the name of fashion for the perverted desires of the onlookers! The behaviour of the Muslims as a community is different from their individual behaviour. This is because the community is unnecessarily controlled by leaders of the Mosques (trustees), other religious (Islamic) organizations and also by socio-political associations among many others. Each of these entities has their own agendas and work on them without looking into the consequences on implementing the agendas. They stress or emphasize on the rights of the Muslims without looking into the responsibilities of the Muslim community towards the other communities. This is where any problem would start. For example, there is no issue in making use of the public address system (loud speakers) by mosques in their call for prayers in predominantly Muslim areas but have to restrict its use in areas where other communities also live. Further the members (elected, nominated or otherwise hold official positions based on the criteria of their respective constitutions) of the governing body of these mosques and religious associations do not in many instances discharge their duties as per the true Islamic guidelines as the mosques and all the associations are divided on the basis of different sects (forming into sects is against the teachings of Islam) and propagate their own ?corrupted? versions and the congregation is divided and are in most cases unable to raise their individual voice even as a minority collective which version might be the correct one to do. Most of the socio-political Muslim organizations exist to serve the purpose of political parties and / or other entities, local or foreign, which may support them in various ways including financial help. Thus by looking at these Muslim organizations including the Mosques, it will not be a surprise if the Sinhalese and also the BBS see the Muslim community as an inward looking community without compassion and empathy towards others. As we have stated above, almost all businesses are exploitative towards the customers and Muslim businesses are no exception. Business persons have their religions and every religion does teach their adherents of doing business in the right manner (Business Ethics). Muslims have the Islamic guidelines in businesses and have to follow them if they are to be in the fold of Islam. Though a vast majority of Muslim businesses do adhere to their Islamic guidelines to the level as they perceive as possible and may by necessity resort to some harmless tactics or gimmickry in closing business transactions, Muslim businesses also have a quota of black sheep among them who have brought the bad image to the Muslim businesses thus making others stereotype all Muslim businesses in the black sheep category. Whereas Muslims, approximately up to the mid twentieth century, were upheld positively on single or very few positive interactive criteria (halo effect), today it is stereotyping from the few ?bad? Muslims to the entire community. This is one factor that makes Muslims face hate speech and violence. Many of the Muslim political personalities and politicians have shown themselves as greedy for ministerial portfolios and jump from one regime to another for the sake of financial gains and show no concern for the Muslim community. Thus the Muslim community is leaderless and helpless and are susceptible to all types of danger from within their own and also from hate mongers and perpetrators of violence. The main clergy based Muslim organizations are more concerned with the religious works they are performing and are conspicuously uninvolved in finding solutions for the violence against Muslims. But they are helping the affected Muslims by collecting donations and dispatching same to the affected areas ? this is the ?need of the hour? measure and in no way would alleviate the emotional distress of the victims. Let the proponents and perpetrators of hatred and violence, re-think and reflect on their mission against Muslims and see that whether that mission of theirs could help the Sinhala Buddhist and Buddhism to be better or worse off tomorrow! Think seriously, reflect positively, and resort to non-violent ways of addressing the issues concerned so that all communities in Sri Lanka would live in an atmosphere of Sri Lankan brotherhood ? and, God Willing (Insha Allah), this ought to be possible. M. R. M. Farook ? Chartered Engineer ======================================== 7. IN MYANMAR, HATE SPEECH RUNS DEEPER THAN FACEBOOK by Myo Win Nyunt ======================================== Asia Times, April 25, 2018 April has been a stressful month for many, but particularly for Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg. His frantic facial expressions and gloomy voices during his 10-hour-long, two-day congressional testimony proved that he is in a tough position. But the good news for him was that he became a little bit richer after spending a few arduous days in Washington, DC, as his shares at Facebook jumped during the hearings. In addition to plans to solve the current issues and allegations that his billion-dollar company is facing, he also stressed the important steps his company is taking to tackle hate speech, particularly in Myanmar. On the first day of the testimony, Senator Patrick Leahy raised the Rohingya issue and asked Zuckerberg whether or not Facebook was able to take down a hate-speech post within 24 hours. In response, Zuckerberg explained three areas in which his company is working specifically for Myanmar. First area ?One is we?re hiring dozens of more Burmese-language content reviewers because hate speech is very language-specific. It?s hard to do it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically.? Zuckerberg acknowledges that understanding the local language is vital to addressing the hate-speech issue in Myanmar. However, what he might not understand is that Burmese is only one of the many languages spoken in Myanmar. There are hundreds of different languages spoken by indigenous people and local ethnic groups. Thus, though it is sensible to work with Burmese speakers to tackle hate speech, it will not fully resolve the issue. This is not to say that working with Burmese speakers will be entirely in vain. Rather, this is a good first step and, in fact, Facebook?s Dublin office recently opened a recruitment program to hire a few staffers from Myanmar to initiate the aforementioned first area. But Facebook needs a more meaningful approach than this to get a clear picture of the scope of the hate-speech issue. Throughout the hearings, every time he was asked about hate speech, Zuckerberg struggled to define what hate speech is. His struggle was absolutely understandable, as different societies interpret hate speech differently. And it is clear that Facebook cannot censor every time somebody reports something from Myanmar, as it takes time to review the content and to decide whether it is, in fact, hate speech. Second area ?Second is we?re working with civil society in Myanmar to identify specific hate figures so we can take down their accounts, rather than specific pieces of content.? There is no doubt that Facebook has contributed to the spread of hate speech in Myanmar. However, the important question is, is Facebook the main cause of hate speech in Myanmar? Myanmar is blessed with strong civil-society organizations (CSOs) that are trying to stop hate speech to some degree. Prior to his testimony, Zuckerberg responded to an open letter that was sent to him by a group of civil-society organizations in Myanmar, saying that he acknowledged the important roles Myanmar CSOs are playing to address issues such as hate speech. It is a paramount achievement for Myanmar CSOs that they have finally received the close attention of the Facebook CEO. Zuckerberg should maintain this momentous relationship with Myanmar CSOs, whose resources could prove beneficial for Facebook in order to get a clear picture of the local context. Third area ?And third is we?re standing up a product team to do specific product changes in Myanmar and other countries that may have similar issues in the future to prevent this from happening.? Zuckerberg told senators that he was also developing artificial-intelligence tools that would be able to detect hate speech. He also said it would take five to 10 years or more to develop these anti-hate speech tools. In a way, Zuckerberg was implying that the issue of hate speech was so fathomless that it would take years of effort to resolve fully. He also seems to believe that it is possible to address hate speech with advanced AI tools without relying much on human effort. There is no doubt that Facebook has contributed to the spread of hate speech in Myanmar. However, the important question is, is Facebook the main cause of hate speech in Myanmar? Myanmar?s lost pluralistic society It now seems a myth that Myanmar was a leading example of a pluralistic society in its heyday. On the surface, it seems that Myanmar is far from becoming what the late American moral and political philosopher John Rawls called a ?well-ordered society.? But if one dives deep into the very heart of Myanmar society, one can witness many sanguine characteristics of a pluralistic society. Take downtown Yangon as an example. Within a small area, different religious sites such as the Shwedagon Pagoda, the Sule Pagoda, Immanuel Baptist Church, Saint Mary?s Cathedral, Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Bengali Sunni Jameh Mosque, the Moghul Shia Masjid and dozens of Hindu temples such as the Shri Satyanarayan are standing side by side. Less than 10 kilometers from the Sule area, there is the University of Yangon, which was (as Rangoon University) considered one of the best in Southeast Asia throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Students from across Asia traveled to this area to get a fine education that would enable them to land their dream jobs in emerging post-colonial markets in Asia. The bitter truth is that the decades-long military rule wiped out Myanmar?s pluralistic society together with many other things. The junta shut down almost all of the social-science subjects that had helped students learn to think critically. After several decades of being misguided by an impoverished and underdeveloped education system, people cannot think rationally anymore. Though the post-military governments have reintroduced social-science disciplines such as a political-science undergraduate degree program at Yangon University, Myanmar has lost a pluralistic society in which people of different faiths tolerated and respected one another. A shared value was lost and it has become a nation of intolerance. The role of Facebook in Myanmar can be seen as a contributing factor rather than as the main cause of spreading hate speech. And the three areas that Zuckerberg discussed during his testimony would definitely help Myanmar deter hate speech to some extent. This is not to say, however, that Facebook alone can solve anti-religious sentiments in Myanmar. To have a greater impact, it is vital that the main causes of the hate speech are fully realized by Myanmar stakeholders themselves. The government and the people of Myanmar should put significant effort into restoring the pluralistic society that they once celebrated. Meanwhile, there is no better time to remember what Nelson Mandela taught the world by saying, ?Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.? Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. Myo Win Nyunt is doing graduate work in international political economy at Charles University in Prague. He was previously based in Yangon, Myanmar, where he worked as an independent contractor for four years with a Washington-based international organization. He has traveled extensively throughout Asia and has been involved in various academic programs in China, the United States, Cambodia and Vietnam. ======================================== 8. PAKISTAN: DISPLACED PASHTUNS RETURN TO FIND HOMES ?TEEMING? WITH LANDMINES by Zofeen Ebrahim ======================================== Inter Press Service Manzoor Pashteen, a leader of the the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, addresses a rally in Lahore on April 22, 2018. Credit: Khalid Mahmood/IPS KARACHI, Apr 26 2018 (IPS) - ?If I?m assured that my home and my village has been de-mined, I?d be the first to return with my family,? says 54-year old Mohammad Mumtaz Khan. Khan lived in the mountainous village of Patwelai in South Waziristan, a rugged territory in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) near the Afghan border, one of the world?s most important geopolitical regions. In 2008, he shifted to Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with his wife and six children. They had to leave Patwelai hurriedly, ?with just the clothes on our backs?, after the Pakistan army decided to launch a major ground-air offensive to cleanse the entire area of the Taliban. Mumtaz Khan lost his foot to a landmine in his home. Credit: Khan family Mumtaz Khan lost his foot to a landmine in his home. Credit: Khan family Since then, the military carried out a series of intermittent operations across FATA till 2016, when they claimed they had destroyed the Pakistani Taliban?s infrastructure in the country. That same year, in 2016, the army gave the internally displaced persons (IDPs) ? over half a million ? a clean chit to return to their homes. Feeling lucky, Khan and a few dozen men decided to visit their village and assess the situation before returning with their families. It was while he was entering his home through a window that he accidentally stepped on a landmine. ?There was a boom and before I could fathom what had happened, I saw my bloodied left foot,? Khan said. ?I am lucky that I got away with a small injury. It may not be so the next time around,? he said, adding that the mountains and valleys are ?teeming? with improvised explosive devices (IED) and explosive remnants of war (ERW). ?Despite having cleared the area of militants, it is not possible for many to move about freely as the place remains infested with landmines,? agreed Raza Shah, who heads the Sustainable Peace and Development Organization (SPADO), an active member of the global Control Arms Coalition and International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). Since 2010, SPADO has been blocked from working in FATA. After the demand by the Pashtuns earlier this year during their long march to Islamabad, the authorities promised they would start de-mining the area. "Ghost Towns" The murder of 27-year old Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young Pashtun shopkeeper from South Waziristan living in Karachi, by the police in a "fake encounter" opened up the floodgates of resentment and anger of the Pashtuns at their treatment by the state that has been pent up for decades, spurring what is today known as the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. Gohar Mehsud, a journalist from South Waziristan, said it was a sad indictment of the Pakistani leadership that the Pashtuns had to travel in the thousands to Islamabad to lodge their complaints. "The conversation that took place in whispers among themselves is now out in the open. For far too long they had been too scared to accost or even speak out against the high handedness and atrocities committed by the army officials and the political agent posted in their areas by the federal government," he said. For the first time, said Mona Naseer, co-founder of the Khor Network of tribal women, the long march movement gave a new face to FATA and showed "there is more to this region than drones, militants and militancy; it's given voice to the miseries faced by the tribespeople," she said. Mumtaz Khan, the schoolteacher from the South Waziristan village of Patwelai, recalled when he first re-entered his village, cutting through tall wild grass and wild shrubs, "it was like I had come to a ghost town hounded by wild boar." Khan said the road to the village was broken down and they had to walk a good couple of hours to get to their village. "Not one house was intact -- either the walls had collapsed or the roof had given way. Our homes had been looted and ransacked. Cupboards and chests opened crockery heartlessly thrown with broken pieces, dust was strewn all over the place," he said, adding that it was painful to see the cruelty and disdain with which their homes had been ransacked. The tribesmen say that the military operation has left their land poisoned. "The land has become infertile. The apple tree either does not give fruit and when it does, it is attacked by pests, the walnuts on the walnut trees is much smaller and not as sweeter," Mehsud said. In addition, he said, many of the IDPs who have returned live in tents outside their homes as the houses are in a collapsed state and unsafe to live in. The state had promised compensation of Rs 400,000 for homes that had been completely annihilated and Rs 150,000 for those partially damaged, but that is clearly not enough. "It costs Rs 5 to 6 million to build very basic homes!" said Mehsud. Due to the remoteness of the area, he said, "The policy makers and the top government officials, who can make a difference, never visit the place to find out why the Pashtuns are angry. Even the media is not there to report the ground reality. The local administration and the army officials are their point of contact and whatever they tell them is what they know. The latter rule over the tribesmen as kings!" But the youth of the area decided they had had enough. Two months in, the movement remains unwavering, as peaceful and stronger as ever with more young people -- students and professionals -- joining in. They even run a Facebook group called "Justice for Pashtuns." Nobel Laureate Malala Yusafzai showed her "solidarity" with group and "appealed to the prime minister, the army and the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the "genuine demands" of the people of FATA and Pakhtunkhwa. Not everyone is convinced, especially since the accidents continue. ?It is not just a daunting task, but a painstaking, expensive, and risky one and the government is neither equipped with the technology nor does it have the huge human resources needed to comb the vast area,? said Gohar Mehsud, a journalist from the area who has covered the issues of the FATA extensively. ?The military should have cleared the area of mines before letting the tribes return,? said Mohsin Dawar, one of the people behind the newly formed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement which is day by day gaining strength. He pointed out that among their demands was to ask the military to send more teams of bomb disposal units to comb the area and clear the place. Recalling his tragedy, Khan narrated that he was carried down the mountain to the main road on his nephew?s back for a good two hours, all while bleeding profusely. Once they reached the road, he was tied onto a motorbike and taken to the nearest health centre where he was administered basic first aid. ?All I remember was the excruciating pain I felt throughout the journey that seemed never-ending,? he said. Meanwhile, another cousin had arranged a car to take him to the nearest hospital in D.I. Khan. All in all, the journey took a good nine hours before he reached the hospital. His injury, like those faced every day by countless others residing in the area, highlights a problem that this conflict has left behind. It also shows an utter disregard for civilian life. Dawar calls it nothing but ?criminal negligence? on the part of the Pakistani army. According to Mehsud, the bombs may have been laid during the conflict by both the army and the terrorists. He discovered a landmine in his house a couple of years back after his family returned to their village in South Waziristan. ?We have been after the army personnel to send someone to defuse the bomb but so far nothing has been done,? he said. For now they have placed stones around it and continually remind their family members not to step anywhere near it. According to a SPADO spokesperson, the area along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan is heavily mined. ?But that area is also heavily fenced with no civilian access; it is marked too.? The scattered cases of injuries and casualties have occurred only because the mines may have slipped from their position due to rain. On the other hand, in FATA, the landmines are used as an offensive not a defensive weapon by both the military and the militants and are therefore unmarked. ?They are even found inside school compounds, homes, and agriculture fields,? said Shah of SPADO. ?I don?t care who planted these bombs; the military carried out the operation in our territory and I hold them responsible for clearing it,? said Dawar. Shah agreed that mine clearance was the responsibility of the military corps of engineers. He fails to understand why, if the bomb disposal units were so good and sent on missions abroad to clear mines, why not make their own country safe first. He added that if the military initiated a full-throttle de-mining, it would be the easiest way to win the hearts and mind of the tribal people. ?They will gain confidence that the army is there to protect their children,? he said. ?The army has started to cover some ground in South Waziristan, but it needs to be more proactive and engaged and begin this in earnest in the rest of the agencies,? said Mona Naseer, co-founder of Khor Network of tribal women, who belongs to Orakzai agency where a kid was recently injured by stepping on a mine and fatally injured. These injuries come with a life-long economic cost. For the last two years, Khan has undertaken cumbersome travel from D.I. Khan to bigger cities like Peshawar and even down to Rawalpindi, in the Punjab province, from one doctor to another, each giving their own opinions. ?I have spent over one million rupees on my leg, but still walk with the help of crutches,? he points out helplessly. Along with losing his limb, his job, and his home, Khan has lost the purpose of his existence. His life, he said, has changed completely. ?I?m now a cripple, imprisoned at home and dependent on others for help. I cannot ride a motorbike, cannot go to the market, have to ask others to help me in the bathroom?everything that I should be doing myself.? Khan doubted he would ever manage to go back to his village given the rugged mountainous terrain that it is located in. The former school teacher is now limited to tutoring students at home. Pakistan is not the only country facing a landmine problem. While it is impossible to get an accurate number of the total global area contaminated by landmines due to lack of data, landmine watch groups estimate that there could be 110 million landmines in the ground and an equal number in stockpiles waiting to be planted or destroyed. The cost to remove them all is 50 to 100 billion dollars. According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines network, more than 4,200 people, of whom 42 per cent are children, fall victim to landmines and ERWs annually in many of the countries affected by war or in post-conflict situations around the world. A global Mine Ban Treaty known as the Ottawa Convention (which became international law in 1999) has been signed and ratified by 162 countries. It prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs). Sadly, Pakistan is among the countries (United States, China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Russia) that have have not signed the treaty and is among both the producers and users of landmines. In 2016, the Landmine Monitor report placed India as the third biggest stockpiler of APLs in 2015 after Russia and Pakistan. Last year, Sri Lanka acceded to the Antipersonnel Mine Ban Convention and set a deadline to be free of landmines by 2020. ?Sri Lanka?s accession should spur other nations that haven?t joined the landmine treaty to take another look at why they want to be associated with such an obsolete, abhorrent weapon,? said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines ? the group effort behind the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. But Shah said that unless India agreed to accede, Pakistan will not take the first step. ?Perhaps the way to go about it is to bring the issue on the agenda during peace negotiations and when talks around confidence building measures take place between the two countries,? he said. SPADO is also the official contact point of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC). It openly advocates for the universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Along with FATA, accidents due to landmines are happening in other places in Pakistan. In 2017, according to SPADO, among the 316 injuries and 153 deaths in total, Pakistan-administered Kashmir recorded seven; Balochistan province 171; FATA 230; and KPK 61. A majority of the injured and dead were men who were found either driving, fetching water, taking livestock for grazing, rescuing others who had stepped on a bomb, passing by etc. Children were usually playing outside when they chanced upon a shiny object, like a ?disc-shaped shoe polish box? hidden in the grass which they attempted to pick up. ?The figures that SPADO has collected includes only those that were reported in the media and are just the tip of the iceberg,? Shah emphasized. He said there was an urgent need for a national registry where such a record is kept and a more comprehensive rehabilitation programme is instituted. ?Taking care of the injured and maimed is expensive and long term,? he said, noting that when the victim is a child, for example, he or she will grow and require new prosthetic limbs. ?While the army takes care of its own, unfortunately, there are very few institutes where civilians can go and seek help,? he said. ======================================== 9. INDIA: A MUSLIM AND A HINDU THOUGHT THEY COULD BE A COUPLE. THEN CAME THE ?LOVE JIHAD? HIT LIST by Annie Gowen ======================================== Washington Post April 26, 2018 Ramiz and Lisa, who asked that their last names not be used because of a Facebook threat against Muslim and Hindu couples in India, are an interfaith couple in India?s eastern city of Kolkata. (Annie Gowen/The Washington Post) KOLKATA, India ? The 21-year-old Hindu college student was having a quiet breakfast with her mother when her phone pinged with a terrifying message. Her name was on a hit list. She and her Muslim boyfriend had been targeted publicly on Facebook along with about 100 interfaith couples ? each of them Muslim men and their Hindu girlfriends. She immediately called her boyfriend to warn him. The Facebook post included instructions: ?This is a list of girls who have become victims of love jihad. We urge all Hindu lions to find and hunt down all the men mentioned here.? At least two followers heeded the call. The phrase ?love jihad? is meant to inflame dark fears that Muslim men who woo Hindu women might be trying to convert them to Islam ? a prejudice that the Hindu right has tried to stoke for nearly a decade. But use of the term has spread on social media with the rise of the Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a time when religious hatred is growing on Facebook in India, its largest market. Facebook is facing rampant criticism that hate speech spread on the platform has fueled ethnic and religious violence in Asia, in places such as Burma and Sri Lanka. During his appearances before Congress April 10-11, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company was ?working? on a way to remove hate speech within 24 hours of its appearance and adding dozens of new Burmese-language content monitors. ?It?s clear now we didn?t do enough? to prevent the platform from being ?used for harm,? Zuckerberg said in his statement. But the company has said little about its prevention efforts in India, its largest market of more than 240 million users. The list of Hindu-Muslim couples was posted by Satish Mylavarapu, a mild-looking sales and marketing manager in Bangalore who propagates militant Hinduism to thousands of followers in Facebook groups and elsewhere. ?It?s a matter of Muslims taking over our blood and taking over our wombs ? the wombs that would give Hindu children,? he said. Highly motivated Hindu extremist ?volunteers? across India assembled the list by meticulously plotting the locations of mosques and girls schools and colleges around the country and combing young women?s profiles for photos or posts that would link them with Muslim men. ?You cannot defend such a sick love,? Mylavarapu said. ?This too is a kind of terrorism.? 'This has never happened' The young couple?s romance began in the online space that would be its unraveling. They met in 2016 through a student Facebook group for the Communist Party, which is active in some parts of India. He was immediately enchanted by her blue eyes ? contact lenses ? and her earrings ? silver circles with a likeness of Che Guevara that she made herself. Their relationship soon blossomed in real life, and they met in Kolkata?s tea stalls or along its lovers? riverbank promenade, Prinsep Ghat, holding hands and even kissing. ?We don?t believe in religion. We believe in humanity,? said Ramiz, a 26-year-old English honors student, sitting in a coffee shop with his girlfriend at his side. ?So there is no question of conversion.? Because of the threat, Ramiz asked to be identified by only his first name and his girlfriend by her family nickname, Lisa. Yet tension was unavoidable in a deeply traditional society riven by caste and religion. His parents, a clerk and a social worker, grudgingly accepted their relationship, although they made it clear they prefer a Muslim daughter-in-law; Lisa?s mother lent her support only if Ramiz gets a good job. Meanwhile, conservative Hindu groups supporting Modi?s powerful Bharatiya Janata Party began pushing into areas in India?s east and south traditionally dominated by other languages and regional parties, including the couple?s home state of West Bengal. In recent days, West Bengal has been roiled by riots between Hindus and Muslims that followed sword-waving devotees marching in honor of Lord Ram ? a Hindu deity who is not normally worshiped in the region. At least four people died. The couple, upset over the perceived threat that the Facebook hit list posed to India?s secular ideals, filed a complaint with the Kolkata police?s cyber division in February, saying they had been subjected to death threats. ?This has never happened in West Bengal,? Ramiz said. ?Bengal is very beautiful ? our society, our culture. This is the place of poets. We don?t believe in this kind of thing.? Facebook took down Mylavarapu?s threat page a few days after his Jan. 28 post caused an uproar on social media, but took longer to track and remove hundreds of duplicate versions posted by others. Civil society groups have charged that Facebook has not acted quickly enough in such instances to curb the hate speech that inflamed tensions throughout Asia, including Muslim-Buddhist riots in Sri Lanka and Burma?s exodus of more than 850,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh. Facebook was dubbed the ?beast? in that crisis by a United Nations monitor. In India, a March study by the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in New Delhi, showed that religion is increasingly used as a basis of hate speech on Facebook, a jump of 19 to 30 percent between 2016 and 2017. ?I don?t think Facebook has a clue how to monitor hate speech,? said Maya Mirchandani, a senior fellow who co-wrote the study. She said that more proactive text monitoring systems are not in place, including among its rapidly growing non-English speaking audiences. ?Maintaining a safe community for people to connect and share on Facebook is absolutely critical to us,? a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. ?We have policies that prohibit hate speech and credible threats of harm, and we will remove this content when we?re made aware of it.? Fringe group's mission About two weeks after they filed the police report, Ramiz said he was coming home in the evening when two men grabbed him, roughed him up and tore his shirt collar. ?Why did you report us?? they hissed, he said. And, ?why are you dating a Hindu girl?? Ironically, the couple have been dealing with relationship problems in the new year; Lisa, who works part time at an event management company, wanted Ramiz to get a job, saying he was spending too much time smoking and talking politics with his friends. ?She wants somebody perfect, perfect, and I am not,? he said. ?We?re still very good friends,? Lisa said. ?I?m not sure if we?re in a relationship at the moment.? This was the type of tension that Mylavarapu had hoped to provoke when he posted the list of names. He has been using Facebook to promote an extremist Hindu agenda since 2012, according to the Indian data and fact-checking website Boom Live. Before Mylavarapu was banned from Facebook ?indefinitely? in February, he was the administrator of at least two Facebook pages, including ?Extreme Hinduism ? The Only Way of Survival? (11,000 members), and a member of ?Rearming Hinduism? (156,000 members), the Boom analysis showed. He remains active on Twitter. He said in one post his favorite boots are made of ?pure sunni skin,? a reference to the Sunni branch of Islam. In another, he urged Hindus to keep swords in their homes for protection and practice killing goats and chickens to get used to the sight of blood. He warns of ?love jihad,? which until recently had been generally thought of as fearmongering and given little credence by police and courts. But the idea that Muslims may be actively working to convert Hindus figured prominently in the recent debate over the case of a woman in the southern state of Kerala who converted to Islam and married a Muslim over the objections of her family. On March 8, India?s Supreme Court upheld the woman?s right to choose her faith and partner. But India?s National Investigation Agency, which investigates and prosecutes terrorism, is continuing its investigation into the case, saying it has seen an ?organized effort? by Muslim activists linked to the Islamic State to convert Hindus, a spokesman said. Mylavarapu is associated with a fringe Hindu group called Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, whose members revere the assassin of Mohandas ?Mahatma? Gandhi, whom they blame for the bloody 1947 partition that created the nations of India and Pakistan. ?He?s a staunch Hindu and he?s functioning because of our support,? said the group?s state president, N. Subramanya Raju. ?If there is any threat from a jihadi, we will protect his life.? Mylavarapu said volunteers are continuing their online research into Hindu-Muslim couples ? and will hold on to the data they find until the next good opportunity. He said many of those on the original list have already split up. Mylavarapu said he relishes the demise of these relationships. ?We succeeded,? he said in a tweet. ?Their deceptive love could not withstand the pressure we created.? Kalpana Pradhan in Kolkata and Swati Gupta in Bangalore contributed to this report. Annie Gowen is The Washington Post?s India bureau chief and has reported for The Post throughout South Asia and the Middle East since 2013. Before going to India, she was a member of The Post's social issues team covering wealth and inequality. ======================================== 10. TOXIC LABELS: INDIA NEEDS TO LEARN TO COMMUNICATE WITH SUBSTANCE Ruchir Joshi ======================================== The Telegraph April 24, 2018 In the 1980s, when I was in my twenties, I made no secret of the fact that I found the state's CPI(M) government to be culturally reactionary and Stalinist to the core (Stalinism, in my book, being a strong, pejorative term and not, as some people still use it, a label of praise). Being even more unwise than I am now, I didn't particularly care who knew my political opinions; I said what I had to say and even put it into my reviews and journalism, primarily for this newspaper. Years later, an academic friend told me that a respected theatre and film critic close to the Left Front rulership dismissed my documentary film and newspaper work with the sentence 'Oh, him! He's completely pro-American. You know he's probably in the pay of the CIA.' When I heard this I laughed out loud. The delusion that the Central Intelligence Agency would find the Calcutta of the 1980s to be of any interest had balanced on top of it the lunatic notion that the suits in Langley, Virginia, were also concerned about the city's cultural affairs (the only sphere I knew anything about), and on top of this teetered the hallucinatory drug-filled cherry, that a minor, struggling freelancer would be able to draw on the Agency's coffers in return for State secrets to do with water-colour exhibitions at the Academy of Fine Arts or the latest Brecht production at Max Mueller Bhavan. Nor did it seem to matter that I made no secret of my utter loathing for Ronald Reagan (the then POTUS) and his lieutenant, George Bush (the next POTUS). All that counted was the label someone who didn't like my views on art and cinema could stick on me, even momentarily. Many years later, visiting Ahmedabad, I attended a family lunch. Sad to have to admit it but most of my family in that city are hardcore fans of Narendra Modi. So when I brought up the horrors of what had happened just a year earlier, in 2002, and asked my relatives about what they felt about the targeted massacre and rape of poor Gujarati Muslims under their ' bhagwan', Narendrabhai, they didn't like it one bit. A long argument ensued, with me on one side and four of them on the other. Finally, one of them let me have it with the worst abuse he could muster: 'Oh! But what can one even say to you! After all you're a communist!' Sorry, but why exactly was I a communist? Because I was from Calcutta, anti-Modi and, therefore, anti-business, QED. I shook my head in wonder - if only someone from Alimuddin Street could have heard this. If I thought things were bad at the time, they were going to get worse. From the time of the Gujarat bloodshed, many, many of us columnists and journalists (among us at least three Gujaratis I can think of), have minced no words about the horror and disgust generated in us by those killings and their planners, perpetrators and apologists. The standard response of the Modi defenders has been to accuse us of being puppets of the Congress. At the same time, during the Sonia-Manmohan period, whenever we asked why the United Progressive Alliance government wasn't imposing president's rule in Gujarat, removing Modi and carrying out proper, unfettered investigations into the alleged role played by Modi, Amit Shah, Togadia et al, we were accused by the Congress media henchpeople of being elitists who didn't understand how real politics and realpolitik work in this country. Well, now we all understand how that works. In any case, all of us kept writing, kept asking questions about Gujarat, kept reminding readers about the crimes committed by those in power, both in February-March '02 and afterwards, and we kept doing this regardless of who was in power - UPA-1, UPA-2, UPA-Sunset, Modi-Coming, NDA-here. In the meantime, during the 2011 West Bengal assembly elections, crazy labels began to be attached again. If one pointed out that the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s harmad bahini were murderous thugs, one was clearly, blatantly pro-Mamata; if one pointed out that a lot of the Trinamul Congress's foot soldiers seemed to take their inspiration from the Congress goondas of the Emergency, one was clearly a lackey of the Buddha regime. For me the funniest moment came during the run-up to the 2016 state elections here. The famously loud and verbally unstable English-speaking spokesman of the TMC was in a talk show with me and a senior journalist from The Telegraph on a national television channel. At the time, the TMC was worried about the alliance formed between the CPI(M) and the Congress, and panic was clearly causing all sorts of wires to become entangled. At one point the TMC spokes-chappie, (he whose name rhymes with 'loose cannon') started shouting at me and the journalist, 'You're both working for the BJP! You've sold out to the BJP!' The man making the accusation was clearly familiar with my writing and my politics; there was no way he could not have known my opinion of Messrs Modi-Shah and the RSS-BJP; yet truth didn't matter a jot to our friend - as he clearly saw it, his job was to become a whirling, mud-flinging machine, and to see if some of it stuck somewhere, even if for a brief moment. So aggressive whataboutery, simplistic or false labels, machine-gunned accusations, authorless, whatsapped insinuations, fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, fake-flag media operations, all of these now form the heavy ordinance of political and social warfare but they've been tried out in lighter, smaller, more limited forms for a long time. Before the advent of digital media you couldn't spread a false rumour or fake accusation too quickly but you could trigger the murmuring, letting it domino from ear to ear, hoping it would soon attain critical Chinese Whisper mass and inflict the intended damage to someone's reputation. Now you just have to say something on Twitter or WhatsApp. These channels can also be used for brazen denials and fake assertions: 'There was no rape! There was, in fact, no child! This is an anti-national conspiracy by (fill in the blanks with one of the following) terrorists/leftists/Rohingyas/police officers from the minority community!' In an argument that you're losing, if you can turn the opponent into something you deem wrong, bad or evil, better still if you can dehumanize them, then all the opponent's substantive points can be buried under some label: traitor/Maoist/ jholawalla/anti-business/LGBT/savarna/low-caste/missionary/ jihadi/beef-eater. If you can shout down the other person on TV or switch off their microphone, then they become a voiceless, visual punching-bag for you - 'Look he's here but he's refusing to answer my question! He's refusing to answer a question the nation is asking!' There is a question all sorts of different people ask me, people who just 'love' the current dispensation, people who are dismayed by what is happening in the country, cynics and pessimists who've hated every government that's ever been in power in India or Bengal: 'Do you imagine everything will suddenly become alright once this Modi government goes?' The answer is obviously a no. On certain dark days the answer has been 'no, I think things could even get worse'. But on most days, the answer would be, 'no, but perhaps we could start climbing out of the deep hole in which we currently find ourselves.' One crucial component of this climbing out will have to be the reversal of this toxicity in the way we speak to each other and about each other. This does not mean that we don't state hard, bitter truths and facts to each other, but the stress will have to be on the 'truth' part, on the 'fact' part, which, of course, leads to the 'nuance' part, which means having debates and arguments where both or all sides can actually have their say based on truths and facts. We have never been good at this as a nation or as a society and we are going to have to learn how to achieve this. No matter when this government goes and which group of parties replaces it, we are going to have to learn how to communicate with each other using substance rather than emotion, using truth rather than ingrained or expedient belief. It's a deep hole we are in, many parties have helped dig it, and the climb out of it will be long and arduous. ======================================== 11. INDIA: AADHAAR IN WELFARE IS PAIN WITHOUT GAIN Reetika Khera ======================================== Hindustan Times April 24, 2018 There are no benefits from Aadhaar that cannot be achieved through other technologies. Beneficiaries of welfare should be ?freed? from its clutches first as they have suffered its tyranny the worst and longest The technology is unreliable: high rates of biometric failure; bugs reported by hackers; data-security and -protection issues and worse have been in the news regularly since 2017(AFP) It has become impossible to have an intelligent discussion with the government on Aadhaar. The charge sheet against Aadhaar is endless. The rule of law appears to not apply: after the Supreme Court issued interim orders in 2015 restraining the use of Aadhaar to a handful of schemes, these orders were violated routinely ? and with impunity. Again, if your data is compromised, you have no right to initiate direct legal action; it must be through the UIDAI. The parliamentary process has been undermined: when worries mounted about the lack of a legal framework regulating the Aadhaar project, the government passed the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill to bypass the Rajya Sabha, where it lacks majority. The informed legal consensus on this is that the Aadhaar Act does not qualify as a Money Bill. The technology is unreliable: high rates of biometric failure; bugs reported by hackers; data-security and -protection issues and worse have been in the news regularly since 2017. When these reports come in, the government?s response has bordered on the ridiculous: e.g., citing the thickness of the brick walls of the data centre that apparently ?protect? digital information. The government?s response has also been inconsistent, even contradictory. When the Aadhaar Act was violated by public and private implementation agencies (e.g., by publicly displaying Aadhaar numbers), media whistleblowers and reporters responsible were rewarded with legal action. Meanwhile, the government also claimed there was nothing wrong with displaying Aadhaar numbers! The government (almost) deliberately misinterprets the charge or ducks the real issue. For instance, the UIDAI CEO argued that the Aadhaar numbers did not ?leak? from UIDAI servers but from the Indane website or the Jharkhand government website. For the person whose data has been compromised, it hardly matters whether the thief came in through the door or a window. Banal, even dangerous, analogies are drawn to justify Aadhaar: e.g., proliferation in the use of the Social Security Number (SSN) in the US. This line of argument conveniently ignores the data breaches (most recently, the massive Equifax SSN data breach in 2017) and its consequences for ordinary citizens or how hard it has been to hold companies like Equifax accountable. Instead of learning from others? mistakes, we are goaded on to repeat them. Denial is the other response of the government. For months, the government has denied that there is any problem with the use of Aadhaar in delivering welfare benefits (such as PDS rations and pensions). Even today, it is only because the Supreme Court judges have understood the scale of the exclusion problem that the government has begun to grudgingly accept it in court (only). An important message that has yet to sink in is that Aadhaar in welfare is pain without gain. At least two studies on the use of Aadhaar for PDS supplies in Jharkhand suggest this. Technology failures (lack of Internet connectivity or failed biometrics) result in inconvenience (repeated trips) and exclusion (denial of food rations). If things work smoothly, people are left exactly where they were before the introduction of this technology. Both studies find little evidence of ?duplicates? or ?ghosts?, a problem Aadhaar could potentially solve. The government submits that welfare cannot be administered efficiently without Aadhaar. It claims Aadhaar plays a constructive role in guaranteeing the Right to Life. It relies on discredited World Bank estimates to project savings through Aadhaar. The reality is that when names are struck off pension or ration lists because they could not or did not link Aadhaar, the reduction in expenditure from ?exclusion? is passed off as ?savings?. Those who recommend the use of alternative technologies (e.g., smart cards) are projected as stooges of companies. Meanwhile, former UIDAI functionaries are building businesses using the Aadhaar platform and have pleaded with the Supreme Court to save Aadhaar. The writing is on the wall: there is no point throwing good money after bad. There are no benefits from Aadhaar that cannot be achieved through other technologies. Beneficiaries of welfare should be freed from its clutches first as they have suffered its tyranny the worst and longest. If Aadhaar stays at all, it should be voluntary with a simple opt-out, which should be guaranteed when exercised. Reetika Khera is associate professor (economics) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi ======================================== 12. THE NOWHERE PEOPLE: ROHINGYAS IN INDIA by Neeta Lal ======================================== Inter Press Service NEW DELHI, Apr 25 2018 (IPS) - A devastating fire in a shanty at Kalindi Kunj, a New Delhi suburb, that gutted the homes of 226 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, including 100 women and 50 children, has trained a spotlight on India?s ad hoc policy on international migrants. Already persecuted in their country of origin, Rohingyas ? the largest stateless population in the world at three million ? have found shelter across vast swathes of Asia including in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there are more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh alone, who now face the onset of the monsoon season in flimsy shelters. "As a big regional player, the refugee crisis presents India with a unique opportunity to set an example and work out a long-term resolution to this humanitarian crisis." --Dr. Ranjan Biswas Demographers note that the Rohingyas? displacement, while on a particularly dramatic scale, is illustrative of a larger global trend. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the world is witnessing the highest level of displacement on record with 22.5 million refugees, over half of them under 18, languishing in different parts of the world in search of a normal life. Often referred to as the boat people ? because they journey in packed boats to escape their homeland ? around 40,000 Rohingyas have trickled into India over the past three years to cities like New Delhi, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Jammu where their population is the largest. Some had settled in the Kalindi Kunj camp that was set up in 2012 by a non-profit on a 150-odd square metre plot that it owns. The camp?s occupants worked as daily wage labourers or were employed with private companies. A few even ran kirana (grocery) kiosks near the camp. Most of these refugees had landed in Delhi after failed stints in Rohingya camps in Bangladesh or Jammu (a northern Indian city), where they were repeatedly targeted by radical Hindu groups. Nurudddin, 56, who lost all his belongings and papers in the Kalindi Kunj fire, told IPS that he has been living like a vagabond since he fled Myanmar with his wife and four children in 2016. ?We left Myanmar to go to Bangladesh but we faced a lot of hardships there too. I couldn?t get a job, there was no proper food or accommodation. We arrived in Delhi last year with a lot of hope but so far things haven?t been going too well here either,? said the frail man with a grey beard. Following the Kalindi Kunj fire, and public complaints about the government?s neglect of Rohingya camps, the Supreme Court intervened. On April 9, the apex court asked the Centre to file a comprehensive status report in four weeks on the civic amenities at two Rohingya camps in Delhi and Haryana, following allegations that basic facilities like drinking water and toilets were missing from these settlements. Senior Supreme Court lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Rohingyas told the court that the refugees were being subjected to discrimination with regard to basic amenities. However, this was refuted by Additional Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta who, appearing for the Centre said there was no discrimination against the Rohingyas. The court will again take up the matter on May 9. A Rohingya campsite in New Delhi. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS The Rohingya issue entered mainstream public discourse last August when the ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party government abruptly asked the country?s 29 states to identify illegal immigrants for deportation ? including, the guidance said, Rohingya Muslims who had fled Myanmar. ?As per available estimates there are around 40,000 Rohingyas living illegally in the country,? India?s junior home minister Kiren Rijiju then told Parliament: ?The government has issued detailed instructions for deportation of illegal foreign nationals including Rohingyas.? In its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Centre claimed that Rohingya refugees posed a ?serious national security threat? and that their deportation was in the ?larger interest? of the country. It also asked the court to ?decline its interference? in the matter. The Centre?s decision to deport the Rohingyas attracted domestic as well as global opprobrium. ?It is both unprecedented and impractical,? Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told Scroll.in. ?It is unprecedented because India has never been unwelcoming of refugees, let alone conducting such mass deportation,? she said. ?And I would call it impractical because where would they [the Indian government] send these people? They have no passports and the Myanmar government is not going to accept them as legitimate citizens.? Some critics also pointed out that the Rohingyas were being targeted by the ruling Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party government because they were Muslims, an allegation the Centre has refuted. Parallels have also been drawn with refugees from other countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have comfortably made India their home over the years. However, to keep a strict vigil against the Rohingyas? influx, the Indian government has specially stationed 6,000 soldiers on the India-Bangladesh border. Activists say that despite thousands of refugees and asylum seekers (204,600 in 2011 as per the Central government) already living in India, refugees? rights are a grey area. An overarching feeling is that refugees pose a security threat and create demographic imbalances. A domestic legal framework to extend basic rights to refugees is also missing. Since the government?s crackdown, Rohingya groups have been lobbying to thwart their deportation to their native land. In a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India titled Mohammed Salimullah vs Union of India (Writ Petition no. 793 of 2017), they have demanded that they be allowed to stay on in India. However, the government has contented that the plea of the petitioner is untenable, on grounds that India is not a signatory to the UN Convention of 1951. The convention relates to the status of refugees, and the Protocol of 1967, under the principle of non-refoulement. This principle states that refugees will not be deported to a country where they face threat of persecution. The matter is now in the Supreme Court of India which is saddled with the onerous task of balancing national security with the human rights of the refugees. However, as Shubha Goswami, a senior advocate with the High Court points out, while India may not have signed the refugee convention, it is still co-signatory to many other important international conventions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the principle of non-refoulement, and it is legally binding that India provide for the Rohingyas. There?s growing public opinion as well that the government should embrace and empower these hapless people. ?Rather than resent their presence, India should accept the Rohingyas as it has other migrants,? elaborates Dr. Ranjan Biswas, ex-professor sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. ?As a big regional player, the refugee crisis presents India with a unique opportunity to set an example and work out a long-term resolution to this humanitarian crisis which will usher in peace and stability in the region.? ======================================== 13. ?CASTE IS ALL AROUND US ? WE HAVE A MORAL IMPERATIVE TO ADDRESS IT SO THAT IT ENDS IN OUR LIFETIME? ======================================== The Times of India April 25 The Interviews Blog Friction over versions of Indian history in school texts has split the diaspora in the US. Following a dispute in California, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit transmedia artist, along with her associate Maari Zwick-Maitreyi released a study on caste in the US. She discusses the issue with Himanshi Dhawan: Caste as a factor has been part of books and academic work in the US. Did the need for a new study come from personal or shared experiences? The report came from both personal and shared experiences. In our personal lives we have fielded caste discrimination in the US. But what really was the straw that broke the camel?s back was that during the California textbook battles where Dalits and other caste-oppressed migrants were fighting to keep the teaching of Dalit, caste, and a proper history of Islam in the textbooks, dominant caste Hindu fundamentalist families testified that caste did not exist in the US and was minimal in India. The Hindu American Foundation even attempted to erase the word Dalit. We knew that was patently false. We saw then that we had to have data to back up our lived experiences or dominant caste Hindus would continue to build networks of impunity in the US. We then launched this study to create a platform for evidence based data that could prove quantitatively and qualitatively that caste existed. What were the main takeaways from the study? The most significant takeaway is that structural caste discrimination exists in the US and it affects all diasporic institutions that South Asians are part of. Data points are quite striking: three out of four Dalits experienced workplace discrimination on the basis of caste, one in four faced verbal or physical assault, and one experienced discrimination. These are serious findings that call for self-reflection and change. Your study finds that even children are not spared. 40% of Dalit students report facing discrimination in educational institutions in the diaspora. One of the criticisms of the study has been the representativeness of the sample. Does it adequately represent South Asian diaspora in the US? These critics are not familiar with the standard of sample sizes for statistical study. For the US it is common for a sample size of 1,000 to 1,500 respondents for surveys for the entire country. There are over 3.4 million South Asians in the US and our sample size is more than sufficient. Can you elaborate on some of the experiences shared by the respondents on being discriminated against? Many of our respondents complained that when they work in fields where there are a lot of South Asians present, then there will be discrimination in the workplace by dominant caste Hindus. This can include being passed over for promotions, exclusion from social networks, and even caste slurs. Dalits and other caste-oppressed migrants are at a loss in how to deal with this because many HR departments are not aware of caste. The study puts into question the narrative of the US as the land of opportunity. Do you feel that caste discrimination is not discussed enough even by the Dalit community? We have to reframe this question. Caste is not just a Dalit problem, it is everyone?s problem. We must not only document the consequences of caste but also interrogate the networks of privilege that silence the discourse around it. So we have to go beyond thinking of America as a meritocracy and speak to it as it is. Indian Americans are settler colonialists whose caste privileges allow them to migrate. Many then begin to define their identity as the good immigrant in opposition to other black and brown immigrant communities, as the casteist mindset fits nicely into a racist mindset. Caste is all around us and we have a moral imperative to address it head on so that it ends in our lifetime. In the current context, there have been a spate of incidents of Dalit assertion in India. What is your view? As long as there has been caste apartheid there has been Bahujan assertion to fight it. From Ambedkar, Sri Guru Ravidass, Savitribai Phule, Phoolan Devi, to Rohith Vemula we will keep on fighting for freedom from caste violence. I would say that there is more coverage of the caste violence because more Dalits are online and we are pushing media outlets to cover not just the violence but the impunity of the dominant castes. Caste could not continue if not for the violence and the culture of impunity that abets this violence. Under the current administration right wing forces are emboldened to attack all minorities be they Dalit, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. But it is also being met with an unprecedented movement of Dalit-Bahujan assertion all around the country. ======================================== 14. BOOK REVIEW: RULE BY AESTHETICS - WORLD-CLASS CITY MAKING IN DELHI BY ASHER GHERTNER ======================================== Society and Space 24 April 2018 REVIEWED BY RYAN CENTNER Asher Ghertner, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2015, 272 pp., $26.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780199385577 Geographical fieldwork with philosophers and elsewheres Asher Ghertner continues his work as a creative and profound scholar with his first monograph, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi. This book is a great read yet also manages to be impressively detailed in its data and textured in its ethnographic feel. Ghertner proves particularly agile in his movement among sites in Delhi as well as among concepts and modes of academic engagement, shifting from exposition and explication to conceptual development and back again. There is a masterful sense of a very locally specific framework and argument that simultaneously hold broad utility for a range of settings. I would like to focus on a few features of this book that I find especially worth thinking about in terms of Ghertner?s larger contributions, as well as some aspects that got me stuck thinking?both in terms of elsewheres, or other sites, where we might see these phenomena happening, and other conceptual engagements that we might consider in light of this. Among the many accomplishments of the book, it excels in dissecting the world-class city from new angles. Ghertner breathes new life into this concept, moving above and beyond the pivotal, now classic critique by Jennifer Robinson (2002) about global and world cities as a ?regulating fiction.? Ghertner advances our understanding here by showing how this idea of the world-class city?this image, this aesthetic?is cultivated through both statistical wizardry and discursive innovation, as part of cultural domination. But he also shows how this reaches various groups: not just those who benefit from it directly, or who are seen as some kind of favored audience ready to buy into its fantasy by buying up luxury flats, but also how this fantasy becomes something that those most persecuted by it absorb, admire, and obey. Ghertner shows how disadvantaged urban populations find ways to make sense of their own unbelonging in schemes of remaking the city to match some kind of world-class aspiration. In another example of his oblique, innovative interventions in influential debates in urban geography, Ghertner grapples with the gentrification literature by finding ways to shore up its utility for the institutional and political context of Indian cities (see also Ghertner, 2014). While some recent contributions advocate the ?planetary? sweep of gentrification analyses (e.g., Lees, Shin, and L?pez-Morales, 2016; Slater, 2017), Ghertner takes prudent steps both toward deeper empirical embeddedness and outward to wider considerations than is the norm for these swirling discussions among a small set of commentators who remind us that gentrification is everywhere. Indeed, the revalorization of devalorized space?an axiomatic understanding of gentrification from the late Neil Smith (1996)?can be witnessed across much of the globe. Ghertner has no interest in naysaying that observation. Rather, he argues that displacement and the remaking of urban terrain happens through different mechanisms, with differently pitched dynamics and differently inflected deplorable outcomes across planetary space, which has quite a lot to do with local political histories, longstanding socioeconomic structures, and both the design and enforcement of regulatory frameworks in any given state. Drawing on his longitudinal positioning in Delhi, he shows how processes of displacement obtain through a number of ?extra-economic? means (i.e., beyond the most standard ambit of gentrification explanations), including governance tactics and the impunity of brute force. Ghertner?s focus is specifically on the Indian context, but this kind of insight pertains to a number of other settings where property and residential rights draw on a different inheritance of norms?and repertoire of practices?than in the wealthy postindustrial countries where gentrification frameworks emerged. This is where Ghertner also takes a step outward, by considering how other broad frameworks?such as Henri Lefebvre?s (2003) understanding of urban revolution, and David Harvey?s (2003) accumulation by dispossession?could prove more amenable to a variety of settings, and indeed more adaptable to their specific features and how locally embedded scholars have understood them, than the standard gentrification story. Rather than abandoning gentrification as a phenomenon to analyze, Ghertner shows us how to do this more incisively so that we might yield better-informed strategies for denouncing and resisting it. If, instead, we start to see all kinds of urban change as gentrification, we are shorn of our ability to understand its nuances and make more effective interventions. Recently, even Saskia Sassen (2015)?sometimes criticized for the overstretch of her own concepts?claimed that ?calling a phenomenon gentrification is like an invitation not to think,? in her effort to convey the need for more tailored yet still critical theorizations and analyses of urban change. Ghertner, in richly textured ways, meets and exceeds this intellectual demand to offer us new ways to think about gentrification as well as the limits of what we can describe and analyze as gentrification in this book. He points usefully, for example, to ?the gentrification of the state,? elucidating how various processes of governance can be powerfully shifted along a class gradient. Among the many other thought-provoking facets of Rule by Aesthetics, two features pushed me to think about possible influences or extensions that could be rooted in this work. First, the book is quite philosophically omnivorous. Ghertner engages with philosophers in his geographical fieldwork with aplomb: whether Foucault, Ranci?re, Barthes, Kristeva, or others, there is much in philosophy (or among the philosophically minded) that Ghertner incorporates into his explanatory repertoire, for how to make sense of what is happening in Delhi with world-class urbanism and this rule by aesthetics. But I was left wondering at several points what this was doing for the book?s reception more broadly?both within geography and beyond. In human geography, there is somewhat of a disciplinary penchant for cherrypicking philosophical frameworks or following vogue theories?obviously not every geographer does this, but it happens often in the discipline, where an idea that is not necessarily relevant, and a thinker who may be extremely clever but has no (or no pertinent) empirical foundation, are invoked in almost scriptural fashion to make sense of a very empirical geographical phenomenon, as if somehow inherently legitimate or beyond question. This is not Ghertner?s game. To the contrary, his command of different philosophical frameworks is erudite and nimble, his use of them sensible and indeed grounded and reflexive, which are key shifts that are all too uncommon. This made me wonder how other geographers might then follow this example, how this could be a model for doing geographical fieldwork with philosophy but without resorting to flavor-of-the-month genuflection or hand-waving. Beyond geography, the book?s philosophical engagement may well be surprising, especially in disciplines such as sociology where scholars are very accustomed to the struggle of bringing together complicated theoretical frameworks with a rich local context. In particular I kept asking myself what would the analysis in Rule by Aesthetics have been like if Pierre Bourdieu had been utilized more directly and abundantly. Bourdieu is there, but he is not there extensively. Bourdieu as a sociologist was famous for his ?fieldwork in philosophy? (Bourdieu, 1990: 3-33), as he himself exemplified this practice of bringing philosophical concepts into the empirical fray to test and recalibrate them. I wondered then?especially around issues of judgment, taste, habitus, etc, that do show up in this book, and are key elements in Bourdieu?s repertoire?what would it have been like to engage with a philosophically minded scholar who is much more empirical, like Bourdieu? He certainly has his own critics, not least among geographers (see Cresswell, 2002), so I am not claiming Ghertner?s book would have been necessarily better for working more extensively with Bourdieu; instead, it is an open question about what could happen with some of the analysis here if there were greater engagement with others like Bourdieu who have also been committed to empirical fieldwork with philosophy. Second, this book may be about Delhi but it made me think constantly about a variety of elsewheres. I was of course led to reflect on some of my own fieldwork?not on the same specific topics but grappling with some similar broad issues. For example, with the idea of rule by aesthetics, one of Ghertner?s assertions is that we must analyze an aesthetic from multiple perspectives because it does not necessarily have a clear ideology embedded within it. An aesthetic can serve as a form of rule, but it is open to being filled by an array of charged contents. An aesthetic can also be contested, and recast, either by those who suffer from its rule, or by others who pose alternative agendas of power. This made me mull over my work in Turkey, in Istanbul, with regard to the imperial motifs and references in politics, architecture, and popular media in recent years that have been called ?neo-Ottomanism,? or even ?Ottomania? (see Danforth, 2016), to refer to the spreading fascination with the height of the Ottoman Empire?s power, and representations associated with it. This could be analyzed as having implications on a number of empirical scales, including for Turkey?s currently shifting regional role, but if we focus on the turbulent urban landscape, on Istanbul as Turkey?s economic center and the former Ottoman capital, then we can detect this Ottomania as embodying a sort of aesthetic to remake the city. We could analyze this aesthetic as being wielded to justify or legitimate certain kinds of ruling practices by the AKP (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi ?Turkey?s current ruling party, also in power at the metropolitan level in Istanbul), and a variety of development initiatives in the city that it has supported, with major displacements as a consequence. At first blush, pondering this case made me reject Ghertner?s assertion about the openness of an aesthetic: how could these sultan-infused moves be anything other than authoritarian and capricious? But on further reflection, I realized my inability to see other ways for Ottomania to be reworked from below, from the side, etc., could very well be due to the success of its rule by aesthetics so far. Still, other angles into this aesthetic could be exploited for challenging the nature of this rule on its own terms, as well as providing different approaches to its analysis. Another familiar issue that kept pushing my thinking toward elsewheres was the importance of the middle class, which is enormous in the book. Ghertner shows how the middle class has been ?conjured? as a key player in creating a world-class city in Delhi and a new kind of imagined future for India. This resonated with my research in Argentina and Brazil, especially, but also to some extent in Turkey and South Africa, where there has been a recent expansion of the middle class in statistical terms. Some observers recognize, however, that in fact we are not talking about a homogeneous class but very socially (and often economically) heterogeneous groups that get clustered into the same, broad statistical category of ?middle class.? Some may be much richer or poorer, some may be new to this designation while others may have been described in this way, and seen themselves in this light, for generations; there could be racial differences, quite significant political differences, and so forth (Centner, 2013). We could even imagine many of the political tensions in Brazil and Turkey, building since 2013, as connected to fissures among this increasingly broad, diverse middle class. While the achievement of a sizeable middle class has traditionally figured as a cornerstone of ?success? and political stability in development scholarship (Davis, 2010: 245-249), perhaps we now can discern middle-class diversification as fertile ground for the quarrelsome unmaking of democracy among factions of the middle class when development encounters economic turbulence, and the privileges of different middle-class groups begin to be threatened or called into question. With this conjecture in mind, it struck me that the middle class in the Delhi case is not likely to be so unitary either, and that some of the statistical work predicting a kind of ?middleclassification? of India, which Ghertner (2015: 29-44) critiques, may point to different kinds of middle classes numerically, despite a homogenizing gloss. In the ethnography, however, I do not get as much of a sense of this heterogeneity of middle classes, with diverse forms of middle-class anxiety. But in thinking about Rule by Aesthetics with and through these elsewheres, I had to wonder about Delhi: was its middle class merely ?conjured,? or were parts of it more self-consciously middle-class than others? Do some segments of the Delhi middle class consider themselves more deserving of privilege in the city than those they may see as their middle-class others (whether in terms of religion, party, regional background, occupation, language fluency, taste, etc)? Perhaps exploring some of the differences of vision across social divisions within the statistical middle class?so evident in the cities of middle-income elsewheres?is an avenue for pushing this kind of revealing fieldwork on conjuring and its effects even further. From its unusual but enticing interventions in grinding geographical debates, to its vivid evocations of changing landscapes and their complicated human dimensions, Ghertner?s book is an excellent contribution that does much more than make me think about philosophers and elsewheres. Indeed its many strengths and arresting aspects will not go unnoticed by readers. But these facets inspired insights I had not expected when I started reading; even long after putting the book down, they keep inspiring me to think about ways of engaging with geographical fieldwork anew. References Bourdieu P (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Centner R (2013) Distinguishing the Right Kind of City: Contentious Urban Middle Classes in Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey. In: Samara TR, He S, and Chen G (eds) Locating Right to the City in the Global South, UK: Routledge. Cresswell T (2002) Bourdieu?s geographies. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20(4): 379-382. Danforth N (2016) The Ottoman Empire from 1923 to Today: In Search of a Usable Past. Mediterranean Quarterly 27(2): 5-27. Davis D (2010) The Sociospatial Reconfiguration of Middle Classes and their Impact on Politics and Development in the Global South: Preliminary Ideas for Future Research. Political Power & Social Theory 21: 241-267. Ghertner A (2014) India?s Urban Revolution: Geographies of Displacement beyond Gentrification. Environment and Planning A 46(7): 1554-1571. Harvey D (2003) The New Imperialism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Lees L, Shin HB, and L?pez-Morales E (2016) Planetary Gentrification. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Lefebvre H (2003) The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Robinson J (2002) Global and World Cities: A View from off the Map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26(3): 531-554. Sassen S (2015) The Politics of Equity: Who Owns the City? Presentation at Urban Age 10: Global Debates. 25 November. Slater T (2017) Planetary Rent Gaps. Antipode 49(S1): 114-137. Smith N (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York, NY: Routledge. Email this to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterShare on Google+ Ryan Centner is Assistant Professor of Urban Geography at the London School of Economics, and currently Chair of the Urban Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). His work has mostly focused on the social and spatial transformation of cities, particularly redevelopment and neighborhood change, particularly in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, S?o Paulo, Istanbul, Cape Town, and Johannesburg?key urban showcases of large middle-income countries. He has also recently studied the shifting landscapes and everyday uses of space in central-city areas of Caracas and Havana as nexuses of political and economic change. ======================================== 15. BOOK REVIEW: ?TOMORROW BELONGS TO US?: THE BRITISH FAR RIGHT SINCE 1967 EDITED BY NIGEL COPSEY AND MATTHEW WORLEY ======================================== LSE REview of Books 25 April 2018 ?Tomorrow Belong to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967, edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley, offers an interdisciplinary collection that explores the development of the British far right since the formation of the National Front in 1967, covering topics including Holocaust denial, gender, activist mobilisation and ideology. Katherine Williams recommends this insightful and dynamic volume, which shows the importance of new approaches and methodologies when it comes to examining the rise of the far right in Britain. ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967. Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley (eds). Routledge. 2017. Part of Routledge?s Fascism and Far Right series, ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967, edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley, has its finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary debates surrounding the development of the far right in Britain, which have gained particular currency once more following the Brexit referendum of 2016. As the editors note in the introductory section, the rise of neo-nationalist or nativist populism has become increasingly difficult to ignore, particularly given radical right mobilisation across Europe and the election of political outlier Donald Trump to the US presidency. To make sense of present-day events, they posit that an understanding of the past is essential to contextualise the British far right today. Thus, 1967 is a particularly significant moment with which to begin the discussion: the National Front (NF) was formed in this year, marking the first time since Oswald Moseley?s British Union of Fascists (BUF) that far-right groups in Britain came together under one united ?front?. While the NF today presents no tangible threat in terms of electoral politics ? it has no elected representatives at any level of government ? it enjoyed considerable success in 1977 when it won a quarter of a million votes in the Greater London council elections. Following this precedent, 33 years later, the British National Party (BNP) stood 338 candidates and amassed half a million votes in the 2010 General Election. However, despite the relative successes of the NF and BNP at the ballot box, the volume is concerned with the establishment of a ?new way? of viewing the far right. The editors aim to move beyond the methodological approaches of ?hard politics?, eschewing the statistical analysis typifying the field more generally. Thus, the topics discussed in this volume are approached from diverse, interdisciplinary epistemological and methodological perspectives, including scholars in history, cultural studies and behavioural studies, to name but a few. The ultimate aim of the volume is to bridge gaps in the existing literature, and take analyses of the far right in directions that have yet to be explored or are currently underexplored. The volume is comprised of twelve principal chapters, including an extensive bibliographic survey of primary and secondary source materials pertaining to the British far right. The chapters themselves discuss a variety of topics ranging from homophobia in the BNP, the impact of Greece?s Golden Dawn on British far right parties as well as far right and punk youth culture during the 1970s, illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of the collection. Image Credit: National Front March, Yorkshire, UK, 1970s (White Flight CC BY SA 3.0) In the first chapter, Mark Hobbs asserts that, alongside 1967, 1945 is also of utmost significance when it comes to examining the link between Holocaust denial and the subsequent development of far-right ideology. While Holocaust denial presents something of a barrier to the political legitimacy groups like the NF were seeking, it contributed to the construction of what Hobbs terms a ?false history?. According to this view, the failure of far-right movements to attain legitimacy is blamed on Jewish conspiracies, of which the Holocaust itself is considered one such example, and further ?evidence? of Jewish ?interference? in global politics. The many crimes of the Nazi regime are, of course, conveniently ignored. Holocaust denial had no ?official? place within the NF, but influential members, such as John Tyndall, held different views; he was not afraid to ?retract? these beliefs publically in order to secure power and influence within the movement before becoming party leader in 1972. The publication of Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Verrall in 1974 saw the far right attempt a bid for legitimacy that went beyond the ballot box. Hobbs notes that this infamous tract was meant to imbibe far-right propaganda with scholarly credentials: the authorship was attributed to an academic institution, and the text was presented with footnotes, references and a bibliography. This was designed to lend further credence to the idea that Holocaust denial could be a ?viable? form of historical revisionism. This tradition was continued by the revisionist Journal of Historical Review, and cast into the public eye by libel cases brought against prominent figures in the movement like Ernst Z?ndel and David Irving. It is far too easy to fall into the trap of suggesting that Holocaust deniers and proponents of far-right ideology are ?mad? or stupid. As Hobbs asserts, ignoring these views is to overlook the serious danger posed by both the ideology itself and the violence it facilitates. Similarly, we cannot underestimate the danger posed by ?alt right? groups today, despite their academic veneer ? Richard Spencer?s National Policy Institute being a case in point ? and seemingly inconspicuous stylings (for readers interested in this particular subject, Chapter Seven, by Ana Raposo and Roger Smith, offers a wealth of discussion on far-right visual cultures as they pertain to British movements). Hobbs effectively demonstrates that Holocaust denial is an essential part of the inner workings of far-right ideologies that not only sustain epistemological ?grand narratives? of a Jewish conspiracy, but continue to ?unify? like-minded individuals, as events in Charlottesville last year have shown. This ?unification? is also facilitated through the proliferation of far-right ideology on social media sites, despite recent ?purges? by platforms such as Twitter. Consequently, far-right groups are able to reach out to potential members, as well as altogether different types of audiences, from the comfort of their own homes. In Chapter Nine, Hannah Bows discusses the relative lack of research undertaken on one particular potential audience: women. Despite the rise in academic interest in the far right, the author notes that studies have been dominated by ?salient? images of angry, white, working-class men, often absenting women from the discussion altogether. As Bows reiterates, we therefore know ?painfully little? about women in the British far right, historical studies notwithstanding. Subsequently, the chapter aims to provide a theoretical overview of the relatively small pool of research that exists. Bows discusses research, both qualitative and quantitative, that attempts to unpack why a ?gender gap? in discussions of women?s participation may exist. Four key strands of thought emerge: men dominate manual occupations and are more likely to be affected by a lack of employment opportunities; women may be more religious than men and find the far right antithetical to their personal beliefs; the diffusion of feminism has seen women turn their backs on the far right; and, finally, society?s rigid adherence to gendered binaries has seen both men and women socialised into ?knowing their place?. Whilst this may offer researchers insight into some of the reasons behind women?s alleged non-involvement, Bows argues such studies are limited not only by small sample sizes and altogether different methodological approaches, but also the difficulty in predicting levels of female participation due to the secretive and non-formal membership processes of far-right groups. Although the far right is dominated by men, we know that women are active in the movement both at home and beyond ? Britain First?s deputy leader Jayda Fransen and Germany?s Beate Zsch?pe are high-profile examples. Influential studies undertaken by sociologist Kathleen Blee have also attempted to shed some light on women?s involvement in neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-affiliated groups in a US context. Bows posits that as well as an innate ?paucity? of empirical research, there is an almost total lack of theoretical engagement: dominant theories inevitably centre men?s experiences and cannot simply be transferred to women. The author opines that while feminist scholars in particular may have trouble reconciling far-right agendas with feminism?s core tenets of agency and equality, the rise of far-right movements and their gender-specific appeal are hugely important to feminist theories and activism. Ultimately, what we need, and what Bows advocates, is empirical research that engages directly with women in far-right groups in order to effectively unpack dominant socio-cultural narratives surrounding their involvement. ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us? offers readers a dynamic insight into the development of the British far right since 1967, and reminds us that despite its various peaks and troughs, the movement continues to have the ability to incite hatred and undermine democracy, as recent events have also shown. Contributors to this excellent volume advocate a new way of looking at the far right in Britain, and demonstrate a range of means through which intersectional engagement can be achieved, all the while encouraging researchers to look beyond the statistical methods of the ?hard? sciences for ?answers? regarding the subject matter at hand. The book is a must-read for researchers and general readers alike. Katherine Williams is an ESRC-funded PhD candidate at Cardiff University. Her research interests include the role of women in far-right groups, feminist methodologies and political theory and gender in IR. You can follow her on Twitter: @phdkat. ======================================== 16. 32 YEARS AFTER CHERNOBYL, NEXT UP, A CHERNOBYL ON ICE? by Jan Haverkamp and Rashid Alimov ======================================== Greenpeace International 26 April 2018 32 years ago, the world?s largest civil nuclear accident contaminated large swaths of Europe. This generation may no longer remember that for a few months spinach and other green vegetables had to be destroyed in countries like the Netherlands and Germany, that cows all over Europe needed to be kept in stables and milk taken out of consumption ? and that for more than two decades, reindeer in Lapland, sheep in the English Lake District and wild boar in the German Schwarzwald had to be slaughtered because of high radioactive contamination. In the countries that took the biggest hit ? Belarus, Ukraine and Russia ? hundreds of square kilometres are still too polluted for people to return, and several million people in a wider circle continue to have to accept radioactive contamination as a daily risk. At the site of the catastrophe, the international community only last year sufficiently covered the exploded reactor to enable the start of clean-up work ? which requires technology we do not yet have. Since the 26th of April, 1986, we know from direct experience that there are severe risks attached to nuclear power. No to Floating Nuclear Power Station in St. Petersburg ? Nicolai Gontar / Greenpeace No to Floating Nuclear Power Station in St. Petersburg ? Nicolai Gontar / Greenpeace A floating nuclear plant? Seriously? In the coming weeks, Russian nuclear moloch Rosatom plans to move the world?s first designated floating nuclear power plant, the ?Akademik Lomonosov?, from St. Petersburg through the Baltic Sea and around Norway to Murmansk. In Murmansk, it will be loaded with nuclear fuel and tested at a few kilometres distance from nearly 300-thousand inhabitants. Originally, Rosatom planned to load fuel and test the ?Akademik Lomonosov? in the very centre of St. Petersburg, 2.3 kilometres from the famous St. Isaac Cathedral. What could possibly go wrong? This caused a plaintive whine from the Russian nuclear regulator, Rostechnadzor, but because of a hole in Russian nuclear law, inspectors still don?t have full access or a mandate to criticise the Lomonosov. Only a petition by twelve-thousand St.Petersburg citizens, questions in the city?s legislative assembly and major concerns from Baltic Sea countries about transporting two reactors filled with irradiated fuel, without its own propulsion, along their rocky coasts, caused Rosatom to use some common sense and shift loading plans to a less densely populated area. Once loaded with fuel and tested, the ?Akademik Lomonosov? will be towed next year 5000 kilometres along the ? because of climate change, now ice-free ? Northern Sea Route to the tiny port of Pevek in the far North-Eastern region of Chukotka. There, it will provide the 5000 strong population and its port and coal mines with 70 MW of electricity. ? Denis Lopatin / Greenpeace The ?Akademik Lomonosov? is to be the first of a fleet of floating nuclear power stations to be stationed in the Russian Arctic. Rosatom recently received the mandate to manage all shipping and development along the Northern Sea Route. These floating nuclear plants need to deliver the energy to dig for more climate-destroying fossil fuels. And from there, dystopian science-fiction knows no borders. In 1995, Rosatom engineers proposed floating nuclear power stations for electricity production and desalination in other parts of the world as well. Think remote islands in Indonesia and the Philippines. If this development is not stopped, the next nuclear catastrophe could well be a Chernobyl on ice or a Chernobyl on-the-rocks. Share this blog to show the world you know that this is a bad idea. Jan Haverkamp is the expert consultant on nuclear energy for Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe. Rashid Alimov is the coordinator of the Greenpeace Russia anti-nuclear project. ======================================== 17. ARMENIA IS HAVING A 'COLOR REVOLUTION.' SO WHY IS RUSSIA SO CALM? Fred Weir ======================================== The Christian Science Monitor Unlike post-Soviet revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere, the current protests in Armenia have not alarmed the Kremlin, even though they look set to bring greater democracy. That is likely due to the lack of geopolitical stakes involved. April 26, 2018 | Moscow?It looks like the typical ?color revolution.? Pro-democracy crowds take to the streets in the capital of some post-Soviet republic to peacefully protest the political manipulations of their Moscow-friendly ruling elite and demand sweeping reforms to the corrupt, oligarchic economic system they've grown to despise. That's what's happening right now in Armenia. For over two weeks, huge, mostly youthful crowds have been holding rolling demonstrations in the center of Yerevan and other Armenian cities, reacting to an attempt by two-term President Serzh Sargsyan to extend his grip on power. Most previous ?color revolutions? in the former Soviet Union have been similarly triggered by fraudulent elections or other duplicitous abuses of power. But unlike those previous cases, the massive popular upsurge in Armenia went almost unnoticed in Western capitals for 10 days, until Mr. Sargsyan suddenly bowed to the street and stepped aside last Monday. Moreover, Russia, which is home to more than 2 million Armenians and has been obsessed with the supposedly dire threat of ?color revolutions? for years, was more alert but surprisingly calm. Things are still up in the air on the streets of Yerevan, and the tense drama may well end up striking a major blow for democracy and the power of civil society. But there are few, if any, geopolitical stakes in Armenia. While the government might become more democratic, Armenia's reliance on Russia for trade and security will not change. And that is the main reason for the almost disinterested shrugs on all sides. Sochi, Soviets, and czars: How much do you know about Russia? ?We may await wide-scale changes in domestic policies. New people may come to the top, with a whole new attitude,? says Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the independent Caucasus Institute in Yerevan. ?But this revolution has an entirely internal genesis. Foreign policy isn't even a subject for discussion.? 'Russia will not intervene' The tiny, landlocked republic of Armenia is a traditional Russian ally, a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and military Collective Security Treaty Organization, and wedged between its long-standing enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan. So, it depends heavily on Russia for its national security. Though chronically poor by Western standards, over half of Armenians have post-secondary education. Large numbers go abroad for permanent or temporary employment. There are huge Armenian diasporas in Russia, North America, and Europe, and contacts are intense. The country of around 3 million people has enjoyed about 7 percent annual growth in recent years, but its GDP of around 11 billion is modest and heavily dependent on around $500 million in annual remittances from Armenians working abroad, mostly in Russia. The recent street revolt came in response to Sargsyan's attempt to ?pull a Putin? by changing the constitution to vest the lion's share of authority in the parliament, then getting his ruling Republican party to name him prime minister. Though his party did appoint him prime minister, he only lasted six days before resigning under popular pressure. The largely spontaneous eruption ended up with Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party holds just 8 percent of the seats in the parliament, as its leading symbol and most likely beneficiary. He is demanding that the parliament choose a ?people's candidate? who is not from the ruling Republican Party when it meets to decide on a new prime minister on May 1. Beyond that, he demands new elections and sweeping political reforms. He hasn't suggested any changes to Armenia's complex relations with Russia. ?I had a meeting with an official from Moscow and got reassurance that Russia would not intervene in Armenia's internal affairs,? Mr. Pashinyan told a rally in central Yerevan earlier this week. That's a marked break from the Russian reaction to similar events which unfolded over the past decade and a half in Georgia, twice in Ukraine, and even twice in distant Kyrgyzstan. But in this case, the Kremlin has indeed repeatedly insisted that there is no cause for alarm. The fiery Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, even took to her Facebook page to declare ?Armenia, Russia always stands with you!? But in fact, Russia has not shown much interest in blocking Armenia's dalliances with democracy, including those with the European Union. In 2017, without any apparent objection from Moscow, Armenia signed a revised Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU, and announced its intentions to keep developing its relations with both Russia and the EU, even though its main trading partner is Russia. Armenia needs Russia That boils down in large part, analysts say, to the immutability of Armenia's security needs ? even if it becomes more democratic. ?Armenia is in a complicated geopolitical situation, but the bottom line is that it doesn't have many alternatives,? says Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Institute for the Commonwealth of Independent States, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ?It is very connected with its diaspora around the world, who are very influential. It always has maintained good relations with both Russia and the West. But, given that it is locked in [a frozen] war with Azerbaijan over [the Armenian-populated territory of] Nagorno-Karabakh, and has NATO member Turkey on its other border, it needs Russia and is not likely to change its geopolitical position no matter who comes to power.? Follow Stories Like This Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. As a sharp example of a post-Soviet country whose population chafes at Russian-style ?managed democracy? and corrupt crony-oriented economic policies, Armenia's pro-democracy revolt seems another in a familiar series rocking the Putin-era ex-Soviet region. But as a Moscow vassal tearing itself free and rushing into the West's embrace, not so much. ?It bears all the hallmarks of a 'colored revolution,' but it's completely driven by domestic politics,? says Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs columnist for the Moscow business daily Kommersant. ?Armenia's agreement with the EU is mostly symbolic, since it remains highly dependent on Russian loans, arms, and trade. Indeed, there's very little the West could offer Armenia, even if there was a Ukrainian-style mood to change sides on the streets in Yerevan today. But there isn't. And I doubt the events in Armenia even register very much on US or European agendas at all as these very dramatic events unfold.? ======================================== WHY WE ALL BELONG TO A SHARED COMMUNITY Tom Whyman ======================================== New Internationalist 1 April 2018 It is not rationality that unites us, but the fragility of our physical bodies. Tom Whyman finds a germ of optimism in the philosophy of the Frankfurt School Cosmopolitanism ? the belief that all human beings belong to a shared community ? is most commonly associated with Enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant. The German philosopher believed that human beings shared an innate capacity for reason that would naturally lead us towards a ?universal civil society?. Kant believed that just as conflict between individuals leads to the formation of nation-states, governed by a constitution, clashes between nation-states will, in time, lead to the formation of a perfect supranational state. The resulting world-citizenship would make us more human than we currently are; it would be the realization of humanity?s purpose or telos. Kant?s 1784 essay ?Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View? does, to a certain extent, read like a gospel for an anaemic, globalizing liberalism But there were drawbacks to his vision. The 1784 essay ?Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View? does, to a certain extent, read like a gospel for an anaemic, globalizing liberalism, where the ultimate aim of the human species is to form nothing more exciting than the European Union (or the UN). Early anti-Enlightenment nationalist thinkers such as Johann Hamann and Johann von Herder took Kant to task on this, making a passionate case for the familiar and the local, over the impersonally global. Later, the Frankfurt School of critical theory would offer a deeper reimagining. Marxist-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin launched a powerful attack on the ?universal history? associated with Kant, in his final essay ?On the Concept of History?, written shortly before his suicide while trying to flee the Nazis. For Benjamin, Kant?s rational ?progress? is experienced by a substantial proportion of humanity as a ?catastrophe?, a ?storm?, piling up ?wreckage upon wreckage?. Consider the ?discovery? of Australia from the perspective of its indigenous inhabitants, say, or the advent of industrial capitalism from the perspective of the newly minted working classes. In words that can just as easily be directed against distressed liberals responding to Trump?s latest outrage, Benjamin wrote that it should come as no surprise that 20th century horrors were ?still? possible. Rather, the experience of the oppressed throughout history teaches us that the ?state of emergency in which we live? today is ?not the exception but the rule?. But Benjamin?s take-down of Enlightenment rationalism need not cause us to abandon wholesale any idea of universal humanity ? quite the opposite. For his closest Frankfurt School collaborator, Theodor Adorno, the rise of fascism ? and, in particular, the Holocaust ? ought to lead us to form a new sort of universalism, based on our shared capacity for suffering. Citizenship of the oppressed Could Theodor Adorno?s variant of universal history be something worth raising as our banner today? Adorno puts this point most starkly in Negative Dialectics, where he declares that Hitler has imposed a ?categorical imperative? upon human beings ?to arrange their thoughts and actions so that Auschwitz will not repeat itself, so that nothing similar will happen?. For Adorno, the horrors of the Holocaust were amplified by a profound sense that they were the result of a pathology rooted deep within Enlightenment rationality. By way of a tonic, Adorno sought to articulate a ?critical? rationality, checked at the most basic level by our ?practical abhorrence of the unbearable physical agony? to which individuals ? both ourselves and others ? can be exposed. What we feel when witnessing, for instance, an image of the mass graves at Auschwitz, or more recently, the tiny body of refugee Alan Kurdi, lying on the beach so horribly and irreversibly dead. Time, then, to forge a new sort of cosmopolitanism: the universal citizenship of the oppressed. Before we can possess any sort of local or national identity, we possess a physical body, a fragile thing that can be caused by events to suffer and die. We are thus, all of us, fellow-sufferers. When we consider the wider horrors of the world today ? from the wars in Syria and Yemen or the devastating effects of right-wing domestic policies in the US or Britain ? we would do well to remember this brute material fact, which irreducibly unites us, even if all else divides. Tom Whyman is a freelance writer and teaches philosophy at the University of Warwick. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Apr 30 07:22:26 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2018 16:52:26 +0530 Subject: SACW - 30 April 2018 | Sri Lanka: war-torn Mullaitivu / Nepal: define Secularism / SAARC in a Jam / Pakistan:sectarianism / India: Misogyny; popularity of Hitler / Germany & American Holocaust Memory / French Railroad Strikes Message-ID: <66CACBCB-980B-4F03-8AA0-9B80B1A61BDB@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 30 April 2018 - No. 2987 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka: Film Director Lester James Peries Passes Away - a tribute by D.B.S.Jeyaraj 2. It is crucial for secularists in Nepal to define Secularism | Yubaraj Ghimire 3. India: Every saffron terrorist may be free before Modi completes his term | Faraz Ahmad 4. India: After Demonetisation, now the Cash Crunch in ATMs - Modi Government Wrecking Public Sector Banks and the Economy - A joint statement 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Video: Supreme court lawyer Avani Bansal explains the legal issues surrounding the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute case [The Wire] - India: Mecca Masjid blast - is there a pattern to 'Hindu terror' acquittals or has justice prevailed? (Apr 16, 2018, The Print) - India: How Hate for Muslims and Rohingyas Sells - India:: Mecca Masjid Blast Case: Glaring Loopholes Emerge in the CBI Investigation - by Ravi Kaushal - India: Bajrang Dal activist forcibly converted a Dalit man back to Hindusim in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli - India: Karnataka Assembly elections 2018 and future of secularism in India - India: BJP lawmakers top the charts for hate speech - India: Injunction on book on Baba Ramdev?s life lifted in landmark victory for free speech - Statement from Juggernaut Books - India: Drop the term Dalit, stick to SC/ST, RSS tells its workers - India: "the Qurbani Dasta was not very different from suicide bombers . . ." Book on Dera Sachaa Sauda ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Sri Lanka: A land left behind - In war-torn Mullaitivu, people are looking for new leaders | Walter Wuthmann 7. SAARC slipping into irrelevance 8. Pakistan: The right to public spaces | I.A. Rehman 9. Fearing sectarianism, Pakistan?s qawwali struggles to survive after Amjad Sabri?s killing 10. India?s abuse of women is the biggest human rights violation on Earth | Deepa Narayan 11. India Sex Offenders? Registry Not the Answer | Jayshree Bajoria 12. South Asia: Writers in both India and Pakistan are facing down fierce threats | Pankaj Mishra 13. Why Hitler is not a dirty word in India | Manimugdha S Sharma 14. India: The formal sector has a gender bias problem 15. India: Fear without a name | Bhaswati Chakravorty 16. India: Dying Narmada will rob fishermen of their livelihoods | Gayatri Jayaraman 17. India: Rajasthan Govt to celebrate Valentine's Day as 'Matra-Pitra Pujan Diwas' [Mother - Father Worship Day] 18. India returned runaway Dubai princess to protect strategic interests | Praveen Swami 19. Stop Privatising India?s Heritage statement by Communist Party of India (Marxist) 20. China criminalizes the slander of its ?heroes and martyrs,? as it seeks to control history | Simon Denyer 21. America is obsessed with the virtue of work. What about the virtue of rest? | Elizabeth Bruenig 22. Barton on Eder's Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory since the 1970s. 23. The Tragedy of the Cheminots: The Deep Meaning of the French Railroad Strikes | Diana Johnstone ======================================== 1. Sri Lanka: Film Director Lester James Peries Passes Away - a tribute by D.B.S.Jeyaraj ======================================== It is with great sorrow that I write of the death of Sri Lanka?s greatest film director Lester James Peries! The doyen of Sinhala cinema who celebrated his 99th birthday on April 5th passed away at a private hospital in Colombo on Sunday April 29th 2018. http://sacw.net/article13747.html ======================================== 2. It is crucial for secularists in Nepal to define Secularism | Yubaraj Ghimire ======================================== It is crucial for the truly committed secularists in Nepal to have the courage and honesty to define the meaning of secularism in the constitution, incorporating its universal contents. http://sacw.net/article13748.html ======================================== 3. India: Every saffron terrorist may be free before Modi completes his term by Faraz Ahmad ======================================== Few people of the present day generation would know or recall the Hawala case of mid 1990s in which several prominent political leaders of BJP. Congress and even Janata Dal, led by L K Advani were charged with collecting bribe money from Hawala dealers Jain brothers of Madhya Pradesh. Except for then Janata Dal leaders Sharad Yadav and Devi Lal, after years of apparent meticulous probe by the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court, all were honourably discharged, for lack of evidence. Sharad and Devi Lal unfortunately said on camera that yes they had been given party funds and therefore they were initially denied the honourable acquittal till 1999 general elections they too aligned with the BJP and then onwards no one heard anything about the Hawala scam. The same is now happening with Saffron terror. http://sacw.net/article13745.html ======================================== 4. India: After Demonetisation, now the Cash Crunch in ATMs - Modi Government Wrecking Public Sector Banks and the Economy - A joint statement ======================================== In the past few weeks, ATMs across India have gone cashless, bringing back nightmares of the cash crunch during demonetisation. Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Telangana are some of the states that have experienced severe cash crunch during this period. The worst affected by the cash crunch is the informal sector. http://sacw.net/article13746.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India - Gurgaon: Hindutva activists who disrupted namaz out on bail, outfits to go ahead with protest - Video: Supreme court lawyer Avani Bansal explains the legal issues surrounding the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute case [The Wire] - India: Mecca Masjid blast - is there a pattern to 'Hindu terror' acquittals or has justice prevailed? (Apr 16, 2018, The Print) - India: How Hate for Muslims and Rohingyas Sells - India:: Mecca Masjid Blast Case: Glaring Loopholes Emerge in the CBI Investigation - by Ravi Kaushal - Why I Killed the Mahatma: Uncovering Godse?s Defence by Koenraad Elst-Review - India: Bajrang Dal activist forcibly converted a Dalit man back to Hindusim in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli - India: Karnataka Assembly elections 2018 and future of secularism in India - India: BJP lawmakers top the charts for hate speech - India: Injunction on book on Baba Ramdev?s life lifted in landmark victory for free speech - Statement from Juggernaut Books - India: Drop the term Dalit, stick to SC/ST, RSS tells its workers - India: "the Qurbani Dasta was not very different from suicide bombers . . ." Book on Dera Sachaa Sauda -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. SRI LANKA: A LAND LEFT BEHIND: IN WAR-TORN MULLAITIVU, PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR NEW LEADERS Walter Wuthmann ======================================== Daily News April 24, 2018 - 01:00 Something is stirring in Mullaitivu. For years, this corner of northern Sri Lanka was a stronghold for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE had its own police here, its own courts. Its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, had a house and a fortified bunker in Puthukkudiyiruppu, the area?s bustling little commercial centre. A whole generation of young people in the Mullaitivu district today lived for longer under the LTTE administration than the Sri Lankan governments. Mullaitivu was also the site of the LTTE?s last stand in its war against the armed forces in 2009. It was here that an estimated 100,000 civilians sought shelter from the fighting on a 3-square kilometre strip of sand in the middle of the crossfire. A UN report described the final months there as ?reminiscent of hell.? But nearly a decade since the end of the war, many scars have not healed. Drive around Mullaitivu and you hear rumblings of discontent, not just with the government but with the Tamil National Alliance, the party that people here have traditionally supported overwhelmingly. They?re angry that promises like the release of lands from the military and answers about disappeared people remain unfulfilled, and they blame the politicians who are supposed to represent them. This frustration showed in the February local elections when a new political force staged something of a small coup in Puthukkudiyiruppu. Formed just 45 days before the vote, and completely independent of any political party, a group calling itself Mattathukkana Ilajooir Amaipu, or the Youth Movement for Change, won 4 seats on the 22-seat Pradeshiya Sabha. ?The TNA has lost its way,? said T. Nithiyananthan, the chairperson of the Youth Movement for Change?s guiding committee. ?In the last election, the top-level leaders, they did not even come to Mullaitivu.? Mattathukkana Ilajooir Amaipu is now running its own candidate in the upcoming elections for the Northern Provincial Council. And they think they?ll win, hitting the same sorts of issues they ran on for the Puthukkudiyiruppu local council. It?s a small shift, in a small town in the country?s Northern Province, but it could be a sign of things to come. ?We are quietly doing something here,? Nithiyananthan said. Brewing discontent You can?t miss the legacy of the war in Mullaitivu. Shattered houses still stand between Palmyrah trees, and caravans of soldiers bump along the roads, shuttling between the many military camps around the district. According to a data analysis by the Adayalaam Centre for Policy Research, about 60,000 Sri Lankan Army troops are currently stationed in the Mullaitivu District. That?s about 25 percent of the active military personnel in the whole country. In front of the Pilakkudijiruppu Air Force Base outside of Mullaitivu town, a group of families has set up a makeshift tent. On a recent morning, Arumogam Velayuda Pillai, 51, said he had been protesting outside the military base for 411 days. ?We?re not asking for anything other than our own land,? he said. Pillai said he and his family fled their home on December 26, 2008, during the Army?s final offensive. When they returned in 2012 from an IDP camp, they found the road to their home closed off by a gate, and their access blocked by military officers. They were resettled on a small piece of land across the road. But Pillai said it doesn?t compare to their ancestral home. ?We had the lagoon on one side, and paddy fields on the other. We had coconuts and all other resources,? he said, gesturing to the land beyond the gate. ?But here, we don?t have anything ? now we have to buy (coconuts) from the shop, while the Sri Lankan military is picking ours.? Pillai is angry at the military for occupying land that he says is rightfully his. But he?s equally mad at the politicians who have promised to get it back for him, and haven?t delivered. ?Almost all the members of the TNA we?ve talked to have given their promise to get these lands back,? he said. ?They are saying we are talking with the government. But so far they didn?t achieve anything, and they didn?t give us anything.? He paused to let the point sink in. ?So these days we are untrustworthy about our own representatives also,? he said. On the other side of town, in another protest tent, a group of women sits waiting for answers about their lost loved ones. Mariyasuresh Isswary, 42, is the District Coordinator of the Association for the Enforced Disappeared Mullaitivu. She lost her husband in March 2009. She said the Red Cross told her that he was arrested by the Sri Lankan military, but she hasn?t received any information since. ?Ten years we don?t know if our husbands are alive or not,? she said. ?Only once we know can we move on and plan for our lives, to choose to re-marry or to move on in some way.? Like Pillai who is protesting for his land back, Isswary feels betrayed by her elected representatives. She said that the recently established Office of Missing Persons, which is the government?s solution to their problem and largely supported by the TNA, was inadequate. ?Our own Tamil representatives may say that we can trust the OMP and work with that,? she said. But she said the fact that the body doesn?t have powers of prosecution, and that some of its members come from the Colombo elite and the military, makes her feel that it?s ?a play? to the international community. ?We trusted (the TNA), and that?s why we voted for them, but nowadays they are not seriously addressing our aspirations in the Parliament, or in the international arena,? she said. Peter Illancheliyan, the Youth Head of TNA Mullaitivu. ?We are suffering a lot sitting here in this tent all the time,? she added. ?There?s always dust. Even when we cook, there is dust in the food. But TNA members are our representatives, and they are travelling in AC vehicles and have a luxurious life.? ?They are not genuinely and truly addressing our issues,? she said. This growing wave of discontent is not lost on local TNA politicians. ?Look, I don?t say that the TNA is doing wonders,? said Peter Illancheliyan, the Youth Head of TNA Mullaitivu. ?I accept that the TNA is not working properly in some areas.? But he largely defended the TNA?s political manoeuvring, especially on issues related to the land release. The army recently returned 133 acres of land in the Keppapulavu area, which Illancheliyan said the TNA was instrumental in securing. ?We protested in Keppapulavu, and as a result, we got a victory,? he said. But he acknowledged the complaints like those of the families of the missing, who said they felt their voices weren?t heard. ?We can?t tell everything to the people,? he said. ?We need to do some things technically. There may be some secrets. It doesn?t mean that our leaders are not working properly for our people.? He said the nuances of deal-making, especially in Colombo, made it hard to be fully transparent. ?It?s not a good idea to oppose the government all the time, but rather we need to handle these matters in a soft manner,? he said. He pointed out that the Joint Opposition criticizes the current government for being too close with the TNA, which energizes their base in the south. ?We can?t do everything in a straightforward way,? he said. Despite the independent group?s recent electoral victory, Illancheliyan said he doesn?t feel threatened by other Tamil political groups. ?They are policy-less parties,? he said. ?They can be a challenge in elections, but when it comes to a solution to the ethnic problem, there won?t be a big challenge.? Organising a new opposition They disagree. The leaders of the Youth Movement for Change say they think the TNA is vastly underestimating how angry their base is. ?We got around 4,500 votes without spending anything,? said Nithiyananthan, the group?s chairperson. Before they formed the Youth Movement for Change, the individual members of the group?s steering committee were part of a social media network that organised charity works around Mullaitivu. In the past, they?ve raised money to donate sewing machines to war widows, and bicycles for children. He said it was clear to them on the ground that the TNA was losing support. ?Nowadays, they?re career politicians. They only think about their own future,? he said. ?If anyone wants to come up from the ground, they try to undercut them.? So Nithiyananthan, a former TNA voter himself, said he decided it was time to take a new path. The thought was that if a new party wasn?t going to emerge for them, they might as well make one themselves, he said. They campaigned on basic issues, like education, development, and clean drinking water, and offered party membership to anyone who was interested regardless of age or caste. They also spoke bluntly about drug abuse, military occupation, and past atrocities. When they won four seats, ?for the community and the public, it was a surprise,? he said. ?But it wasn?t for us.? Nithiyananthan said they were now talking to Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran about forming a coalition to contest the provincial council elections. The TNA said recently that it would not nominate Wigneswaran, who they see as a renegade, for the post again. ?For so many years, we have relied on one particular party, or one particular symbol, for our vote,? said K A Aputharajah, 68, a former lawyer and the Youth Movement for Change?s candidate for the upcoming provincial elections. ?It?s not easy to come away from that particular identity,? he added. ?We hope that in the future, we will get even better results than this election.? To stay or to go? Yet even as the politicians strategize, the lives of the people in Mullaitivu go on. About three weeks ago some fishermen were arrested for protesting a Navy base that they say cut off their access to the Nanthi Kadal lagoon, their traditional fishing ground. ?We are not against the ordinary business of the government,? said R.B.S. Sanmugalingam, 51, one of the fishermen. ?But this lagoon is a great resource. If the military is going to disturb this fishing, then it will affect the whole economy.? ?If we can?t access it, we?ll just protest again and again,? said S N Senthuirselvan, 42. ?Fishing is all we know.? ======================================== 7. SAARC SLIPPING INTO IRRELEVANCE ======================================== The Express Tribune, April 10, 2018 Editorial THE IRRELEVANCE OF SAARC The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) has proved to be anything but that. Whilst the concept of a regional grouping of nations to their mutual benefit remains sound as it was in 1985 when Saarc was founded, it has never reached its full potential. It has a vast bureaucracy headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal, and links across the globe, including into the EU. No matter the good intent, prosperity and peace in the subcontinent since the Saarc foundation have been hobbled by a range of regional conflicts. Summit meetings of Saarc have from time to time provided opportunities for meetings of political leaders to meet on the margins but these have never catalysed anything beyond this. The 19th summit was scheduled to be held in Pakistan but was called off as India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan all declined to attend. The 2018 Saarc summit also now looks to be imperilled as the Indian prime minister has threatened to ?sabotage? it and possibly ?pull away? from the initiative, a comment he made while meeting his Nepali counterpart recently. The Indian foreign secretary chimed in saying ?it was not possible to proceed with Saarc under present circumstances.? Cross-border terrorism was cited as the reason but it is the underlying and deep-rooted conflict between India and Pakistan that lies at the heart of the increasing irrelevance of Saarc. The last summit was in Kathmandu in 2014, the following summit was cancelled and it now appears that the upcoming summit is dead in the water. There has to come a point, and this may be it, when the necessity for the continuation of Saarc has to be weighed against its cost and effectiveness. As matters stand India is never going to accept a Saarc meeting of which Pakistan will have, according to protocol, Pakistan as a chair. With Modi ensconced for the foreseeable future and Pakistan heading for a period of the politically neuter as it transitions from one government to another, perhaps it is time to draw a line under the Saarc project and stop throwing good money after bad. o o o The Daily Star April 19, 2018 DON'T LET SAARC WITHER AWAY Mahmood Hasan Recently, Nepalese Prime Minister KP Oli, during his visit to Delhi (April 6?8) proposed to reschedule the 19th Saarc summit. But Delhi firmly refused to go ahead with the summit because cross-border terrorism is a disruptive force in the region. Obviously, the finger was pointed at Pakistan. The 19th summit was scheduled to be in Pakistan in November 2016 but was postponed primarily due to India's refusal to attend. India's decision came following terrorist attacks in Uri in Indian-administered Kashmir in September 2016, which left 19 Indian soldiers killed, driving Indo-Pak relations into a hostile mode. Delhi accuses Pakistan of masterminding the terrorist attacks in Kashmir, which Pakistan denies saying that these attacks are homegrown. Since then Delhi's diplomatic strategy has been to isolate Pakistan regionally and internationally by designating it as a sponsor of terrorism in South Asia. In the process of this rivalry, Saarc has become the casualty. There has been no summit since 2016 and the process has literally come to a standstill. It does not reflect well on the members of this organisation that summits have been repeatedly postponed or cancelled because of strained bilateral relations between member states. Saarc is a summit-driven organisation. The annual summits actually lay the roadmap for its programmes and activities. When summits are cancelled the Secretariat becomes non-functional. Records show that out of 18 summits so far, only eight (1st, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 17th) were held more or less on time and in the designated venues. The remaining 10 were either delayed or held in changed venues. The 2nd summit was scheduled to be held in Thimpu in 1986 after the Dhaka summit in 1985. But because of Bhutan's lack of infrastructure India hosted the summit in Bangalore in 1986. The 3rd summit also could not be held in Thimpu for the same reasons and was held in Kathmandu in 1987. The 4th summit was scheduled to be held in Colombo in 1988, but tensions between India and Sri Lanka related to the Tamil issue and deployment of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka, led to a change of venue. Colombo wanted the IPKF withdrawn before any Saarc summit could be hosted by Sri Lanka. After a standoff of several months, the 4th summit was eventually shifted to Islamabad and held in December 1988. When the IPKF was withdrawn in March 1990, Colombo expressed its readiness to hold the 5th summit in 1990, but it was swapped with Male and held in November 1990 to become part of Maldives' national day celebrations. The 7th summit was scheduled to be held in Dhaka in December 1992. But just before the summit the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was demolished by Hindu kar sevaks on December 6, 1992. That led to serious communal riots in India. The then Indian PM Narasimha Rao refused to come to Dhaka for the summit citing lack of security in Dhaka. Delhi wrongly blamed Bangladesh for the unrest related to the demolition of Babri Mosque. However, Narasimha Rao came to Dhaka when Babri Mosque-related unrest cooled down in India and the summit was held in April 1993. A great deal of drama surrounded the 11th summit which was scheduled to be held in Kathmandu in November 1999. India was already contemplating refraining from attending the summit because of the Kargil War (May 1999) and relations between India and Pakistan plunged. Delhi's negative attitude exacerbated when, just before the moot, General Pervez Musharraf seized power in Pakistan in October 1999. After lots of diplomatic brouhaha between the two rivals, the summit eventually took place in January 2002 in Kathmandu. The 13th summit scheduled in Dhaka in January 2005 was delayed again because of India's refusal to participate. Two reasons were put forward by India: the massive tsunami that hit the region on December 26, 2004 and declaration of emergency in Nepal by King Gyanendra. India officially announced it would not attend because of the prevailing security concerns in the neighbourhood. Actually, Delhi was unhappy with Dhaka. The summit was finally held in November 2005. The 15th summit scheduled in Male in 2008 was not held there as Maldives went into general elections. The venue was shifted to Colombo and was held in August 2008. Male also could not host the 16th summit in 2009 because of the economic recession and the venue was shifted to Thimpu in April 2010. The 18th summit scheduled in Nepal in November 2012 was repeatedly delayed because of internal political turmoil and was eventually held in November 2014. The issue here is that it has become normal for Saarc members to delay, cancel or change venues of summits. Since the 19th summit could not be scheduled because of India's unwillingness to go to Pakistan, it would be worthwhile for the members to try to change the venue and hold the summit as soon as possible. If Pakistan and India have any responsibility and loyalty towards the organisation, both should agree to hold the conclave at a different venue. It is silly of Delhi to think that it is punishing Pakistan by not allowing it to host the 19th summit. Delhi is actually punishing all the member countries, because all Saarc programmes have stalled. India, being the largest member of Saarc, has the responsibility to protect Saarc. For Bangladesh the South Asian fraternity has not yet made any collective statement or shown any solidarity with Dhaka on the Rohingya problem. Dhaka should work for convening the 19th summit and get a strongly worded declaration on the Rohingya issue. A supportive Saarc declaration would have a positive impact at the forthcoming BIMSTEC summit and at other international organisations of which Bangladesh is a member. It would be folly if member countries let Saarc wither away as they have much to lose sitting idle. Mahmood Hasan is a former ambassador and secretary of the Bangladesh government. o o o SEE ALSO: India unlikely to participate in SAARC 2018 http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-india-unlikely-to-participate-in-saarc-2018-2608275 ======================================== 8. PAKISTAN: THE RIGHT TO PUBLIC SPACES I.A. Rehman ======================================== Dawn April 26, 2018 SOON after the battle of Mochi Gate ground concluded amicably, a sizeable Lahore audience was treated to a scintillating performance by Theatre Wallay, a group of Islamabad-based theatre enthusiasts who have been looking at contemporary reality. The theme was dwindling access to public spaces. In a 60-minute programme, only a few instances of encroachment on the people?s right of access to public spaces could be discussed, but that was sufficient to set the citizens thinking about the erosion of their freedoms. For instance, the first episode dealt with the freedom to enjoy a cricket match in which the players included foreign stars. The joys of watching such matches in the past were recalled, when the people didn?t throng to the stadia only to see some of the players in the act of bowling and another set of players in the act of batting ? the ball and the bat and the stumps were more clearly visible on the TV screen at home. Going to watch cricket was a social event. One liked to enjoy the freedom of movement and the freedom to partake of traditional snacks and the freedom to shout to one?s heart?s content. The denial of right to public spaces will inexorably lead to ghettoisation of the people. The situation now was that getting to the stadium was a hassle. Those who did not go to the stadium suffered greater hardships as roads were blocked, traffic was jammed at many points and open spaces were converted into parking lots. One sat glued to a seat like a prisoner, everybody looking at everybody else with suspicion, and the only shout permitted was ?Jeetay ga, jeetay ga, Pakistan jeetay ga?. People faced similar denial of freedom of movement when thoroughfares were occupied for dharnas, especially by those claiming divine sanction. The restrictions on the people?s freedoms are justified as necessary in their own interest, as an unavoidable price for security. However sound this explanation may be, the effect of restrictions on the use of public spaces on the psyche of the people cannot be ignored. The toll of living in a state of fear is quite heavy. The harmful effects on the minds and bodies of citizens and on interpersonal relations ought to be counted while working out the cost of security measures that impinge on basic freedoms. Theatre Wallay gave their performance the title Zard Patton ka Bun (a forest of yellow leaves) that Faiz Ahmed Faiz had said his country had become, and the second title was Dard ki Anjuman jo Mera Des Hai (the congregation of bruised souls that my land is.) But the beautiful poem called Intesaab (dedication), and written around the middle of the Ayub dictatorship, was no more about dead leaves than the famous American play and movie Petrified Forest was about trees. Faiz used yellow leaves as a simile for the wasted lives of his compatriots, and the denial of their rights and freedoms and joys of living. How does the theme of shrinking public spaces fit into a remembrance of wasted lives? A little reflection will be enough to establish the link between the people?s tribulations and shrinking public spaces. The denial of right to public spaces will inexorably lead to ghettoisation of the people. Let us first take note of the gross abuse of a public space that occurred a little before Theatre Wallay staged their performance. A group of Test cricketers had gone to watch the flag-lowering ceremony at Wagah. Over the years, that ritual has been developed by guards belonging to Pakistan and India to establish one?s superiority over the other in martial encounters. One should like to avoid a critique of the spectacle out of fear of ruffling the feathers in the crowns of the privileged but, here, we are concerned with the performance of a young cricketer who intruded into the public space to outdo the guards? display of contempt and hatred for the people on the other side. As a child he can perhaps be forgiven for lapsing into infantile nationalism. But his shameful act exposes the sports controllers to censure for failing to familiarise the players with the spirit and culture of sportsmanship. When sportspersons belonging to different nationalities clash in the arena of sport they are not one another?s enemies; they are partners in the promotion of sports and in the discovery of the heights that human endeavour can scale. What kind of behaviour on and off the field are our players being trained in by the brigades of sports officials, trainers and coaches? To return to the subject of public spaces, the university campuses, among the most important public spaces, have been hit by a wave of scandals ? attacks on the faculty?s right to academic freedom, students? right to freedom of opinion and cultural expression, sale of university lands for non-academic use, encroachments on playing fields and irregular appointments of vice chancellors. While one feels relieved that unfair appointments of vice chancellors are being challenged, it is impossible to be happy about the implications for the system of education and the dignity that must be attached to the headship of universities. Mosques, supposed to be the houses of God and not the property of any mortal being, figure in the debate on public spaces in more ways than one. Every Muslim knows that building a mosque on illegally occupied land is strictly prohibited in Islam. That issue was the root cause of the horrible conflict in Islamabad?s Lal Masjid. While the echoes of that incident are still heard in the corridors of power, no authority has had the courage to stop the expropriation of public spaces for illegally constructing prayer houses. The reservation of mosques for particular sects and the use of the pulpit to preach hatred against other sects are other forms that the abuse of public space takes on an extremely large scale In the final analysis, the people?s right to public spaces cannot be secured without raising the level of respect for their basic freedoms, recognising the beauty in diversity and abandoning perfidious attempts at forcing uniformity. Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2018 ======================================== 9. FEARING SECTARIANISM, PAKISTAN?S QAWWALI STRUGGLES TO SURVIVE AFTER AMJAD SABRI?S KILLING ======================================== Hindustan Times April 27, 2018 Pakistan qawwal Amjad Sabri?s murder was just the latest in a series of blows in recent years to strike at the heart of qawwali, which has thrived in South Asia since the 13th century Agence France-Presse, Karachi This picture taken on October 1, 2015 shows the Pakistani Sufi musician Amjad Sabri performing during the Lux Style Award who was shot dead in Karachi on June 22, 2016. (AFP File Photo) Nearly two years after Pakistan?s foremost qawwali singer Amjad Sabri was gunned down in Karachi, the devotional music of Islam?s Sufi mystical sect is struggling to survive, as fears of sectarianism and modern pressures slowly drown out its powerfully hypnotic strains. Thousands poured into the streets near Sabri?s family home after his death for his funeral, a rare public display of affection in Karachi. ?He was a rockstar of the masses,? explained journalist and musician Ali Raj, who studied under Sabri. His murder was just the latest in a series of blows in recent years to strike at the heart of qawwali, which has thrived in South Asia since the 13th century. ?I am still in shock,? Sabri?s brother Talha told AFP from his family home adorned with pictures of his superstar sibling, whose fame spanned the subcontinent and beyond. ?Why do they hate qawwali? Why do they hate music?? Embraced widely as a part of Pakistan?s national identity, qawwali has played a key unifying role, with city-dwellers and villagers flocking to Sufi shrines for concerts. Performances traditionally last hours, with a troupe of musicians interweaving soulful improvisational threads under lyrical, lilting vocal lines to a steady beat of thundering rhythms on dholak and tabla drums and hand clapping, sending fans drifting into trance-like transcendent states. The genre entered a golden age in the 1970s as singers known as qawwals battled for prestige, with the Sabri Brothers -- led by Amjad?s father, Ghulam Farid Sabri -- and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan finding audiences around the world. Following the death of Ghulam, Amjad took the helm and slowly carved out his place as Pakistan?s most prominent qawwal, becoming a fixture on national television and radio. But now musicians worry that his murder -- and the fear it sparked -- has hastened the decline of qawwali. Fear, faith and finances At Cafe Noor in Karachi where qawwals have gathered for decades, musicians said business has been falling for years, with fewer shrines willing to host performances. Sectarian militants have targeted Sufis, a mystical sect of Islam, for years -- with the Taliban and increasingly the Islamic State sending suicide bombers to attack shrines over what they see as heretical displays of faith. Just months after Sabri was killed, IS claimed back-to-back attacks on shrines in the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh that killed more than 100 people combined. Earlier this month, the military approved death sentences for two militants linked to Sabri?s killing. But questions linger over who ordered the murder -- the Pakistani Taliban, or another group -- forcing his brother to spend months guarded by elite paramilitary rangers. Such fears, meanwhile, are not the only factors triggering qawwali?s decline. Inflationary pressures have also kept the qawwals? working-class fanbase from hosting shows. Increasingly only the middle class or elite can afford to pay a qawwali group to perform at parties or weddings. ?In the good old times, even a poor man... would manage to organise qawwali,? explained singer Hashim Ali, saying he is now lucky to play four or five shows during religious periods compared to dozens in the past. The rise of more globalised interpretations of Islam has similarly chipped away at qawwali?s popularity, as Muslims in Pakistan increasingly depart from the subcontinent?s syncretic religious traditions and look to the Middle East for guidance. ?People access... (qawwali music) as a part of their faith,? said Ahmer Naqvi, chief operations officer for Pakistani music app Patari. ?A lot of the younger population is abandoning the ways that the older generations worshipped.? Increasing conservatism has also hit the genre. Even before Karachi?s Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar shrine -- famed for hosting performances -- was attacked by the Taliban in 2010, organisers had imposed restrictions on shows for years as part of a campaign against qawwali?s hashish-smoking fans. The pressure has compelled more qawwals to try their hand at fusion, or even branch into more financially viable genres such as pop. Only a minority have embraced social media to promote themselves, journalist Raj said. But they face an uphill battle. ?The youth... they don?t know what exactly qawwali is,? said fan Muhammad Saeed, 24, citing the popularity of contemporary music at home and from abroad, during a private show in Islamabad. ?Under pressure? After 16 years playing by his brother?s side, Talha Sabri said he has struggled to find his place on stage until Amjad?s own sons are old enough to perform. ?We are under pressure,? he said, with his long hair and neatly trimmed beard cutting a stark resemblance to his brother. But even as he fears the possibility of extremists striking again, he refuses to be cowed. ?Regardless of these threats, we have to keep on,? he said. For Sabri?s mother Asghari Begum however, the murder of her son marked a turning point for qawwali, ringing the death knell for its future. Her family previously made it through the tumultuous 1980s, when political parties and gangs battled for turf, turning Karachi?s streets into killing fields. But they were respected then, passing unscathed through the city?s numerous pickets. Amjad?s death proved things have changed. ?He has gone now,? she said. ?And the passion of qawwali has gone with him.? ======================================== 10. INDIA?S ABUSE OF WOMEN IS THE BIGGEST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION ON EARTH Deepa Narayan ======================================== The Guardian 27 April 2018 Tragic rape cases have shocked the country. But the everyday suffering of 650 million Indian women and girls goes unnoticed Women protest against violence against women and children in Bangalore, April 2018. Photograph: Jagadeesh Nv/EPA India is at war with its girls and women. The planned rape of eight-year-old Asifa in a temple by several men, including a policeman who later washed the clothes she was wearing to destroy evidence, was particularly horrific. Asifa?s rape has outraged and shaken the entire country. Yet sexual abuse in India remains widespread despite tightening of rape laws in 2013. According to the National Crimes Records Bureau, in 2016 the rape of minor girls increased by 82% compared with the previous year. Chillingly, across all rape cases, 95% of rapists were not strangers but family, friends and neighbours. The culturally sanctioned degradation of women is so complete that the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, launched a national programme called Beti Bachao (Save Our Girls). India can arguably be accused of the largest-scale human rights violation on Earth: the persistent degradation of the vast majority of its 650 million girls and women. And this includes the middle classes, as I found when interviewing 600 women and men in India?s cities. India?s women are traumatised in less obvious ways than by tanks in the streets, bombs and warlords. Our oppression starts innocuously: it occurs in private life, within families, with girls being locked up in their own homes. This everyday violence is the product of a culture that bestows all power on men, and that does not even want women to exist. This is evident in the unbalanced sex ratios at birth, even in wealthy families. But India also kills its women slowly. This violence is buried in the training of women in some deadly habits that invite human rights violations, but that are considered the essence of good womanhood. The first teaches girls to be afraid of their own bodies. When a girl is not supposed to exist, 1.3 billion people collectively pretend that girls don?t have bodies and especially no sexual parts. If girls do not have bodies, sexual molestation is not possible, and if it does happen, it has to be denied, and if it cannot be denied, the girl must be blamed. Denial of sexuality in homes is another habit that is deadly to girls. Almost every woman I interviewed had experienced some form of sexual molestation. Only two had told their mothers, only to be dismissed, ?Yes, this happens in families,? or ?No, this did not happen.? Indian government surveys show that 42% of girls in the country have been sexually abused. Speech is another basic human right. To have a voice, to speak up, is to be recognised, to belong. But girls are trained in silence. They are told to be quiet, to speak softly, dheere bolo, to have no opinions, no arguments, no conflicts. Silent women disappear. They are easy to ignore, overrule, and violate without repercussions. Impunity flourishes. Over 50% of Indian men and women still believe that sometimes women deserve a beating It serves a culture of violence to create pleasers, another habit that further erodes a woman?s sense of self. Pleasers compromise and sacrifice, all disguised through the ubiquitous phrase beta thora adjust kar lo ? ?darling, please adjust a little?. It means to be punished to force you to fit in, to do what others want you to do and never say no. Women whose sense of self has been worn down, by definition must depend on others, which only serves to breed fear and violence. Over 50% of Indian men and women still believe that sometimes women deserve a beating. One woman is killed every hour for not bringing enough dowry to a husband. But dependency is still presented as a virtuous habit and independence as a bad characteristic. Dependent women have no separate identity and are legitimate only as mothers, wives and daughters. Such women are trained to put duty over self ? the suicide numbers are highest for housewives. The right to assemble is a right taken away by dictators. In India it is the culture that subverts women?s desire to organise. The cultural design of oppression is so clever, that it instils a habit of distrust and trains women to demean, dismiss and discount other women. Almost no woman I interviewed belonged to a women?s group. They said, ?I don?t have time for gossip.? The real genius of this system lies in the fact that oppression has been recast as a virtue. So erasure of self ? the most treacherous human rights violation ? hides in plain sight, sanctified by loving families, perfumed by our definitions of goodness. And the private sphere, the family, remains impenetrable and untouchable. We have underestimated the power of culture in creating violence within our families. To reclaim our humanity we need a national conversation about what it means to be a good woman and a good man in India today. ? Deepa Narayan is a social scientist and author of Chup: Breaking the Silence About India?s Women ======================================== 11. INDIA SEX OFFENDERS? REGISTRY NOT THE ANSWER Need to Enforce Existing Laws to Protect Women and Children Jayshree Bajoria ======================================== Human Rights Watch Dispatches April 27, 2018 Reeling from protests across the country demanding justice for victims in the recent spate of sexual assaults, Indian authorities are under pressure to respond. One step the government has decided to adopt is a sex offenders? database, which will store the profile and personal details of convicted offenders and those accused of such offenses. Children accused of such crimes may also be included in the database. For several years, some senior government ministers have been calling for mandatory registration of sex offenders. It reflects public concern that children and women are at grave risk of sexual abuse by strangers who are repeat offenders. But this concern is not borne out by facts. According to 2016 government data, out of 38,947 cases of reported rapes in India, the accused was known to the victim in almost 95 percent of the cases. In nearly 4,000 cases, the accused was a close family member. Rape is already underreported in India largely because of social stigma, victim-blaming, poor response by the criminal justice system, and lack of any national victim and witness protection law. This makes rape victims highly vulnerable to pressure to forego reporting the assault from the accused as well as the police. Children are even more vulnerable due to pressure from family and society. The fact that the offenders ? often relatives or family friends ? will be recorded in a national database for all time may actually lead to a decrease in reporting of such crimes. Even if the database is not public, the absence of laws to protect privacy and on data protection in India will raise further concerns. Moreover, studies by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union show that sex offender registries in the United States have done more harm than good. Instead of crime prevention, they lead to harassment, ostracism, and violence against former offenders, especially children, and impede their rehabilitation. The Indian government should instead better enforce existing laws and protection measures. It can start by ensuring that police officers, judicial officials, and medical professionals are sensitized on the proper handling of sexual violence cases -- and holding them to account when they don?t. ======================================== 12. WHAT BRAVERY MEANS IN SOUTH ASIA Writers in both India and Pakistan are facing down fierce threats. by Pankaj Mishra ======================================== Bloomberg 26 April 2018 Last month, the Pakistani government bestowed its third-highest civilian award on the writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif. This, to put it mildly, was unexpected. It's as if Donald Trump had decided to garland Ta-Nehisi Coates with the National Humanities Medal. However, for many writers and journalists in neighboring India, ostensibly the world?s largest democracy, the news could only be bittersweet. Sweet, because few contemporary writers deserve to be celebrated as much as Hanif. The British-Pakistani novelist Nadeem Aslam once said that while "Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery, no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave." Hanif has long embodied this unreasonable valor in a society dominated by venal politicians, murky spies and religious fanatics. He has intrepidly exposed the atrocities and pretensions of Pakistan?s elites. Writing about human-rights abuses in the province of Baluchistan, he has risked murderous retribution from the country?s intelligence agencies. In honoring him, as well as the late human-rights activist Asma Jahangir, Pakistan?s civilian government honors itself. Presumably, its bauble will bring Hanif, if not others, some respite from the country?s more malevolent institutions and individuals. Yet it deepens a bitter realization among many Indian writers and journalists: Their own struggles, three years after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in New Delhi, have in some ways become as arduous as those that have long burdened their counterparts in Pakistan. Many of those committed to transforming the Indian republic into a Hindu nation are viscerally hostile to intellectual life in general. Still, the ferocity of their assault on the fourth estate in India has come as a surprise. Journalism has long been a lethal profession in India?s border provinces, such as Kashmir. Journalists in the heart of India have now also been targeted by vigilante groups, assorted ideological thugs and criminals. This week, India was ranked 138 out of 180 countries in the 2018 Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, a few slots above Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. Armies of trolls using Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook have manufactured a whole new reality: one in which Muslims, liberals, secularists, leftists and various other "anti-nationals" are seeking to thwart hard-working Prime Minister Narendra Modi from creating a glorious Hindu nation. Last week, they targeted with especially malign force the independent journalist Rana Ayyub, author of "Gujarat Files," an undercover investigation of Modi?s colleagues and officials complicit in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in the state of Gujarat. "Sometimes," as Siddhartha Deb wrote last month in the Columbia Journalism Review, "it appears as if the enemy is information itself, along with transparency, exposure, critical thinking -- anything and everything that might be seen as characteristic of a free, open society." The mainstream media tries to steer clear of some of India?s most shocking stories, such as the mysterious death of a judge investigating murder charges against Modi?s consigliere. Pressure from Hindu nationalists only partly explains this evident self-censorship. As Deb writes, "the owners down to editorial staff often seem to be a willing participant in the project of Hindu nationalism." This is as true of such large-circulation newspapers as the Times of India as of local rags. Journalists unwilling to fall into line have been forced out, including most recently Harish Khare, a veteran journalist and editor of the Tribune, who ran a story uncovering flaws in Aadhaar, the government's cherished biometric-identification project. A long investigative report in Outlook magazine by the journalist Neha Dixit, which described trafficking in very young girls by Hindu nationalists, resulted in the departure of the newsmagazine?s editor. All is hardly lost. Caravan, a monthly magazine run by fiercely contrarian journalists, has published some eye-opening accounts of violence, corruption and official skulduggery. Feisty webzines like Scroll and the Wire have preserved a space for critical commentary. Journalists in India?s regional-language media regularly uncover, at great risk to their lives, turpitude among politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. Kashmiri reporters, working with very limited resources, persisted for months with the story of an eight-year-old Muslim girl repeatedly raped and then killed by Hindu thugs, until it became international news this month. In recent years, as India appeared to rise, some of the country's most influential writers and journalists were beguiled by dreams of national glory and private aggrandizement. It is not absurd to hope that, at this time of adversity, Indian journalists would produce their best work yet. Certainly, a younger generation of writers and journalists has been forced to recognize their necessarily adversarial relationship to power. The future of Indian democracy depends on many more of them being as unreasonably brave as their counterparts in Pakistan. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. ======================================== 13. WHY HITLER IS NOT A DIRTY WORD IN INDIA Manimugdha S Sharma ======================================== The Times of India | Apr 29, 2018 The dictator?s face and quotes are often used on merchandise like mouse pads and coastersThe dictator?s face and quotes are often used on merchandise like mouse pads and coasters From coffee mugs and laptop cases to ice cream and artwork, everything sells in the Fuhrer?s name in India Last month, a Delhi-based publisher grabbed headlines when it released a children?s book titled Great Leaders, and put Adolf Hitler on the cover. Last week, BJP leader Chandra Kumar Bose, who is also the grandnephew of Subhas Chandra Bose, pitted Jawaharlal Nehru against the Nazi leader and declared Nehru a traitor and Hitler a ?nationalist who never betrayed his nation?. Clearly, the man much of the world views as a monster isn?t as reviled in India. In fact, Hitler is big here. His 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf, has been a bestseller since it was first published here in 1928. Indian management students scour it for leadership lessons, Slideshare has presentations and Quora features questions on it. But that?s not all. An ice cream brand in north India is called Hitler. A Mumbai caf? and an Ahmedabad apparel store were also named after him, though bad press led to a name change. Hitler?s name sells scores of products on e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Flipkart ? coffee mugs, Swastika and Hitler posters, laptop casings, motorcycle helmets like the Stahlhelm worn by Hitler?s troops, T-shirts, cardigans, coasters, spikebusters, extension cords, locks, iPhone covers, jewellery boxes, lamp stands? Colorpur, an online platform for designer artworks, has three types of Hitler merchandise. Its COO Abhinav Singh says: ?We are just a platform, we don?t design anything ourselves. And we don?t make any moralistic judgement unless of course it is absolutely controversial. We don?t tell anyone to create or not to create anything.? Hitler-coaster-ss The Schutzstaffel, better known as the infamous SS, served as Hitler?s bodyguards Aligarh?s Ishtiaq Ahmed, owner of Hitler Locks Enterprise, says it was the name?s popularity that worked for him. ?Back in 1989 when we started the company, there were so many lock makers here. To stand out, we had to find a name that would stand out. Hitler was the perfect choice. There has been no dictator like Hitler, so nobody can forget that name,? Ahmed says. But is he aware of Hitler?s misdeeds? ?Yes, but we have nothing to do with that,? he says. In many developed countries, like France and Austria, displaying Nazi memorabilia is a punishable offence. Not in India, where Hitler has always been a fascinating figure. Historians attribute this to ignorance about the Third Reich, and Indians? physical and emotional disconnect from the Holocaust. Over the decades, ?Hitler? became a soft pejorative used for strict teachers, bosses, even family patriarchs. Romantic soaps showed boyfriends flirtatiously calling their ladylove ?Hitler-like?. A TV serial on a rather strict woman was called Hitler Didi, while the all-time superhit Sholay had an overblown caricature of Hitler in the form of a strict jailor. These representations have made Hitler more acceptable, even cute, in India. hitler-car-4col Spotted on a car sticker. Historians say all this isn?t entirely harmless. Prof Anirudh Deshpande of Delhi University says Indians have been influenced by fascism since the 1930s, ?especially upper-caste Indians who believe they are Aryan cousins of the Germans?. In India, the anti-Semitism of Germany was replaced with the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian prejudices of the RSS. ?Compared with Britain or the US, India is a new nation state with multiple problems. Insecure people who internalise a feeling of having been historically wronged are vulnerable to fascism,? he says. Despande says most Indians admire Hitler without knowing much about him. ?The average Hitler T-shirt-wearing Indian hasn?t even heard of the Holocaust. The steady failure of the Indian state over the last 30 years has discredited democracy in the country and strengthened the popular appeal of what the Japanese historian Yoshiaki calls ?grassroots fascism?.? You might also like But the Hitler cult also exists because certain nationalists believe he was great as Bose had allied with him and even raised an Indian army in Germany called Freies Indien Legion. Historian Benjamin Zachariah says the fantasy of Hindus as Aryans appealed to a lot of upper-caste Indians in the 19th century. ?The Nazi model of all organisations under the control of one party and one leader is an appealing one, and the depiction of Hitler as a German patriot serves that purpose,? Zachariah adds. Historian Dilip Menon has a slightly different take: ?In India, we were so thoroughly colonised that our elite looked to European forms, whether democracy or fascism. But fascism is compatible with capitalism, unlike socialist authoritarianism.? Perhaps that?s why it appeals more. ======================================== 14. INDIA: THE FORMAL SECTOR HAS A GENDER BIAS PROBLEM ======================================== Livemint, April 27 2018 Editorial, Livemint The formal sector has a gender bias problem The assumption that this is a problem largely confined to the informal sector and traditional jobs is erroneous Although professional occupations exhibit less gender bias, they can?t be termed gender neutral either. Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint Indian women face immense obstacles when they try to join the labour force. It is generally assumed that the problem is restricted to the traditional rather than the modern segments of the economy. It follows that a shockingly low female labour force participation rate will rise as formal enterprises grow. A recent paper by the World Bank, Reflections Of Employers? Gender Preferences In Job Ads In India: An Analysis Of Online Job Portal Data, undermines this optimistic assumption. An analysis of more than 800,000 online job recruitment advertisements in the formal and informal sectors shows explicit gender targeting as well as a salary gap in the Indian job market. The data offers harsh insights into the problems faced by working women even in cities?the type that is more likely to be searching online for job opportunities. The study finds rampant gender targeting for elementary jobs, with men preferred for intensive outdoor work and women preferred for care-giving jobs. Although professional occupations exhibit less gender bias, they can?t be termed gender neutral either. Interestingly, the jobs that prefer women?business process outsourcing centres, teaching and service industries?pay male employees better. This inconsistent relationship between demand for female employees and salary offered indicates that men are valued more by employers. The existence of lopsided gender preference in the Indian labour market can be explained, in part, by statistical discrimination theory. Economists Edmund Phelps and Kenneth J. Arrow have argued that inequality may persist due to lack of information about the ability of workers in the demographic group that is being discriminated against. This leads to selection bias even if the employer is unprejudiced. The rest can be explained by deep-rooted cultural perceptions regarding gender-specific roles. The resultant occupational segregation based on gender and concentration of women in relatively low-paying jobs reduces their bargaining power to negotiate the terms of employment. Even in identical jobs, men and women have different bargaining power. This is a reality across industries and socio-economic strata. For a high-profile example, look at Hollywood, where various aspects of gender discrimination are now coming into the limelight. A-list actor Jennifer Lawrence has been outspoken on such issues. On realizing the high salary gap between her and her American Hustle male co-stars, Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale, she wrote, ?I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early.? While fixing cultural prejudices takes time, the problems of statistical discrimination and women?s lack of negotiating power in the formal workplace have an immediate and effective solution. The answer lies in strengthening agglomeration mechanisms for women?women creating jobs and opportunities for themselves and bringing other women on board. An agglomeration metrics, computed by World Bank economists in a 2012 article, ?What Explains Gender Disparities In India? What Can Be Done??, notes that ?female connections in labor markets and input-output markets contribute to a higher female entry share?. In other words, when more women network with each other in the formal labour market, it lowers the implicit entry barriers for other women. There are numerous other agglomeration benefits. Higher female participation in the labour market, which leads to gender-diverse teams, is a crucial factor for less biased policy and decision making in the workplace. It also helps improve the extent, coverage, conditions of, and remuneration for women?s work. And the likelihood of recognition of the unpaid work performed by women increases when more women are employed in formal activities. This recognition can help formalize previously unpaid work?think women running dabba services out of their homes. As argued by this paper earlier, encouraging entrepreneurship in women can be a good starting point for this virtuous cycle. In this context, it is worth considering that governments at the Centre and in the states have been making consistent efforts to facilitate the empowerment of women in the context of employment. For instance, the government of Telangana has recently launched WE-Hub incubators for women entrepreneurs?not only in tech but in all kinds of industries. The Central government, with the help of public-private partnerships, has announced POWERED, an entrepreneurship programme?globally the first of its kind?to nurture and support women entrepreneurs building ventures in energy value chains. To enable women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, a number of women-only schemes?such as the SIDBI Mahila Udyam Nidhi and Stree Shakti Package entrepreneur loan schemes?have also been designed. However, the lessons from failures in this effort, such as Bharatiya Mahila Bank?a bank run by women for women?should not be forgotten. With almost 73% of India?s female population currently outside the workforce, increased education and decline in fertility have clearly been insufficient to improve women?s labour force participation. However, the recent technological changes in communication, networking and internet of things have given rise to new jobs that are relatively free of gender bias. This offers a fighting chance to recalibrate our cultural notions regarding women and authority. ======================================== 15. INDIA: FEAR WITHOUT A NAME - HOW THE INCREDIBLE BECOMES EVERYDAY REALITY Bhaswati Chakravorty ======================================== The Telegraph, April 27, 2018 Incredible India is no longer a hyperbole; what would have been incredible some time back is happening every day. Take 'love jihad'. It represents one of the most amazing acts of myth-making in the modern world. Yet the term is now as much a part of life as, say, gau raksha or 'anti-nationalism'. What on earth are these insanities? No Indian in 2018 would bother to ask this since the incredible is part of the way we live now. Yet this sense of inversion does not require much subtlety in its production. Recent events in Uttar Pradesh, for example, lay the process bare. Three months after the gentleman called Yogi Adityanath became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, he is reported to have said in a television interview, "Agar apradh karenge toh thok diye jayenge (if they commit crimes, they will be finished)." This could well have been a stern warning to criminals, even if it sounded as though encounter killings were going to be the favoured strategy of attacking crime in UP. Subsequent events suggest that the second thesis had more substance. India need not be coy about encounter killings. Most states are familiar with them, some more than others. Two famous cases in Gujarat are still part of media discourse, while UP would include in its records the 1987 Hashimpura alleged massacre and the 1991 Pilibhit encounter case. Only a long and widespread history of 'encounters' could have led to the Supreme Court's unmistakable message in 2012: "It is not the duty of the police officers to kill the accused merely because he is a dreaded criminal... This Court has repeatedly admonished trigger happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings... are not recognised as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State sponsored terrorism." The Supreme Court's statement indicates that no matter how contentious a police encounter might be, a structure to define and judge it is always present, although the effectiveness of the processes leading up to trial may be less than ideal. Uttar Pradesh's present uniqueness lies not in police encounters, but in the re-presentation of these as government policy. When listing the government's achievements after six months in power, the chief minister is reported to have said that crime was being controlled because the police had been given a 'free hand'. Although the National Human Rights Commission had asked for a report on an encounter killing, and the state legislative council chairperson asked for a CBI inquiry into two of them, the chief minister reportedly said to the council in February this year that in 1,200 encounters, more than 40 criminals have been killed and that this trend will not stop. Other reports claim that 49 were dead, including four policemen, that over 370 people had been injured and 3,300 arrested. The chief minister's declaration is intriguing. All encounter deaths, according to the police, have been in self-defence. The law certainly gives protection if self-defence is needed, that is, if the person 'encountered' attacks the police. But it also makes clear that force is for self-defence only, justified and proportionate to the threat presented, and never retaliatory or used for revenge. The UP police have been shot at in each encounter, or most of them, sometimes by one or two men 'planning a big crime', or charged with burglary, robbery, sometimes murder, usually from bikes or cars. How did the chief minister know in February that the police will always be shot at so the trend will not stop? The Opposition and other sources claim that most of the dead are from the minority community, making a poor living when not in custody under various charges, Dalits and members of other backward classes. Inevitably, the families' accounts of the meetings with the police do not match the police's, neither are the accounts of wounds on the bodies consistent with mere shooting. Some claim their men did not know how to drive bikes. But the police usually recover guns from the sites, they report; so there is no reason to doubt the dead men's criminality even when they are just charged with stealing. In September 2017, the UP police communications department announced that the prize money for arresting criminals was being raised for different ranks of policemen. For superintendents of police, for example, it would go from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2,50,000 for each criminal. One report said that a reward of up to one lakh rupees would be given to a police team that conducts an encounter. The NHRC, supported by the court, directs that no gallantry award should be given unless the occasion of gallantry is properly established. Part of the process of inverting expectations is the careful calibration of what is publicized and what remains untold. Have the police recovered any of the stolen goods or money? Surely that would add to their glory in what is being called the "swachh badmash abhiyan"? With so many murder charges, can we ask who was murdered by which encounter victim? But that might be a crime. The Opposition had demanded due process. It was reported that the chief minister asked the Opposition why it was showing such sympathy for criminals. Here the inversion is complete. At one level, the method is without subtlety: turn the Constitution and law on their heads while occupying a constitutionally designated chair. Our form of parliamentary democracy does give the scope to show that might is, crudely enough, right. A Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister's might in his own territory is complemented by the might emanating from the Centre. But the clash of the constitutional position with constitutional tenets and the laws derived from them overturns an inner sense of order that people are used to. This goes far beyond and inward than dismay at the seeming transformation of the police into a terror army or the reduction of other institutional authorities into ineffectual grumblers. The UP chief minister's reported comment about the Opposition's sympathy for criminals makes a bigger point than being just a political attack against his predecessors for indulging criminals. Yogi Adityanath is moral: he is cleansing the state of prisoners. To oppose him is immoral. Yet the perceived reality clashes with any recognizable sense of morality and natural justice. The means of cleansing can be perceived as illicit, the accounts often not just false but impossible, and an identifiable population segment appears to be at the receiving end. What is being produced, therefore, is an enveloping fear. It is not just a physical fear, but a fear of the unnameable. The presence of due processes of law and institutions of recourse provides a hardly noticed stability; their disappearance is like the vanishing of the ground beneath. They are different expressions of the agreed principles of legitimacy without which society cannot function, and their loss causes terrifying confusion. The confusion is not the achievement of UP alone; the government there is an excellent example because it is so open about the methods of inversion. The uncertainty mesmerizes us into accepting a yogi not just as a politician but as a chief minister who is apparently preaching lawlessness in the name of morality, a baba touting commodities of a 'patriotic' provenance, just the advertising of which runs into uncountable millions, other sadhus entering government elsewhere as ministers of state. It is not just Ram Navami, once a peaceful ceremony, that has changed character. The proponents of the ancient religion who now suffuse the country with their colour have cleansed saffron, too, of its traditional associations with renunciation and sacrifice. How would a child now elucidate the symbolism of the Indian flag? ======================================== 16. INDIA: DYING NARMADA WILL ROB FISHERMEN OF THEIR LIVELIHOODS Gayatri Jayaraman ======================================== Hindustan Times April 26, 2018 Fishermen fear the Bhadbuth Weir?cum?Causeway will rob them of their livelihood. It will cut off a unique ecosystem and after that, Narmada?s hilsa is expected to die out in three years Members of the Samast Bharuch Machimar Samiti are a worried lot these days. The fishermen waved black flags at PM Narendra Modi on his visit last year.(Gayatri Jayaraman/HT) The approach towards dam-building on rivers is to save every drop of sweet water from ?running waste? into the sea. That dammed water is then redirected to those the government decides need it the most. These are typically urban centres, industrial zones, and farmers. But those who love the river say the one who needs the water first is the Narmada herself. It is an ideological chasm between those who live off the river, and those who would harness it. What happens when there is no water left for the river? It begins to die. That death begins with the death of the organisms that live in it, and spreads to the death of organisms that live off it. At the office of the Narmada Grievance Redressal Authority, Medha Patkar is pleading the case of Hazariabhai, a Bhilali adivasi from Barwani district. A community that survives on fishing, it has been allocated compensatory land 100km away from the river. The story repeats itself along the route of the river as fishermen seek access to former breeding grounds that are now submerged and restricted. As mangroves vanish, flow turns to dead water, and the river runs dry. While the GDP of India from agriculture always includes fisheries ? it contributes 1.1% of the GDP, 5.15 % of the agricultural GDP; India ranks second globally in fisheries, and the sector engages 14 million people with an output of 10.07 metric tonnes ? the protests of fishermen are almost always suppressed. In Bharuch, Kamlesh Madhivala, 38, Praveen Madhivala, 43, Heral Dheemar, 38 and Praveen Machi, 31 ? members of the Samast Bharuch Machimar Samiti and under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan ? led a 4,000-member march to the district collector?s office on April 17. They protested on behalf of 35,000 fishermen who would be affected. It was not their first protest against the construction of the Bhadbuth Weir-cumCauseway at Kalpasar. The fishermen waved black flags at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his visit last year. The tendering process is on and construction is expected to begin in six months, raising the barrage at Ambetha near Dahej, 5.15km downstream. The project received Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance in August 2017. The protestors say they were not consulted or informed, and were only able to file objections in November 2017, a month after the objection period lapsed. The NGT accepted the application nevertheless after all, livelihoods were at stake. The barrage will ?save? the flow of sweet water out of the Gulf of Khambat, form a final wall between river and sea, and divert water to the Kalpasar reservoir, envisaged as a sweet water lake, to also draw tourism. Except, the fishermen fear, nothing about it will be sweet. Already, they say, their hilsa fishing boats lie on sewage coming from the towns downstream, carried in with sea water as it encroaches on the absent river?s territory. Once dammed, nothing will move the filthy water out from the stilled river. It will accumulate sewage and industrial effluents, they predict. At the river bank, the Narmada barely exists. Without consistent flow from the Sardar Sarovar dam throughout the year, the ingress of the sea is unstoppable, says Mahesh Pandya, environmentalist and director of NGO Paryavaran Mitra. The banks on both sides of the river have already turned saline, salt surfaces on the baking river bed. Nothing will grow here soon enough ? another Kutch in the making. Protection walls line the west bank, as the river has begun to veer left. But they?ve been futile. When she flowed, the Narmada dug the soil out from behind the protection wall and went on her way. Most importantly for the fishermen, they fear their livelihood will be over. The Narmada?s hilsa is expected to die out in three years. The Narmada?s most famous catch, the hilsa is female. The Nar Hilsa, or male hilsa, spawns in other estuaries, but the female tends to return to the mouth of the Narmada. The fish uniquely spawns in the brackish waters caused by the back and forth of the sangam - the mixing of river and sea during June, July and August. During the other nine months, the fishermen survive on other fish. But what they make in those three months is much larger than what they make off the rest of the year put together and is what allows them to perform marriages, build homes, and replace nets and boats. The weir will cut off this unique ecosystem. Officials from the Kalpasar project last year explained how they planned to build a fish lock for the hilsa to climb. The fishermen say they wanted to laugh in their faces. The hilsa, unlike the Atlantic salmon, for whom the lock systems work, cannot climb or fly. Once the female hilsa dies out, it is only a matter of time for the male. Of the remaining river species, 80% have already disappeared. Varieties they used to fish don?t exist anymore: the Masheer, the unique Narmada prawn, disappeared in 2003. Local varieties called magyan, diggar, modda, gojira, and jeeptha too are also not to be found. Now, they get crocker fish and gotya instead. As of 2014, Praveen Dheemar used to carry off five tempos full of hilsa, he says. The fish would reach Kolkata the next day by train, where it would retail for Rs 800-1200 a kilogram. Now, he barely fills a tempo. The fishermen also helpfully pointed out a flaw in the design of the dam to its technical team. ?Every year, the sea deposits silt in the river. All it takes is one monsoon day, and the river in full spate tosses the silt back to the river. This has been the natural pattern of the river for centuries,? says Kamlesh Madhivala. With the dam and restriction of water flow in dry summers, this exchange no long persists. So silt builds up. The fishermen say the salinity of the river was 4.5 EC (electrical conductivity) six months ago ? that equals 16 feet of silt deposits. With repeated ingress of sea water, this increases. The weir?s height is designed at 86 feet. With Bharuch lying 36 feet upstream, and salinity expected to be 6.5 EC ?an additional 20 feet of silt ?the usefulness of the dam is reduced by half. VP Kapadia, chief engineer of the Kalpasar project, says the fishermen?s fears are natural, but believes the project will actually save them. He said the government does not have official salinity figures but will release some in the first week of May, after taking samples only after the full moon, so as to measure it at its worst and doing an EC test as well as a chloride test. ?There is no water now in the river but once the weir is built, it will retain what water is there. The impression that hilsa and other migratory fish will lose breeding grounds is false, as the weir is designed to include a fish path. This small channel will allow the intermingling of fresh water with the sea water to simulate breeding grounds. In fact, now when there is no water, the situation is worse,? he says. The size of the channel and the amount of water it will release is a dynamic consideration. As for the silt, Kapadia says there will be no change to the dam?s height, which will cause other engineering issues such as more submergence of villages, but will require them to undertake a desilting of the riverbed. The indigenous knowledge of those who know the river first-hand is slowly being backed by research. A January 2017 study by Utpal Bhaumik et al, researchers of the Central Inland Fisheries Institute (CIFRI) showed that temperature changes along the river when it was not dammed were once naturally variegated. In its upper ranges, it was milder (15.0-30.5 Celsius), the central highlands and lower plains held at 19 to 33 degrees. These fluctuated by 7-9 degrees depending on the season. Post damming, the river got divided into some stagnant parts and some that flowed. ?This creates two different environments,? Bhaumik says. It made the temperature change erratic. The process began to kill off plankton, microphylae, floating and aquatic fauna. In the middle and lower zones, the level of dissolved oxygen fluctuated. The ambient chloride values increased in the lower Narmada because of less freshwater discharge and incoming tidal salinity. Experts say the dying of fish species has been two decades in the making. In 1996, K Sankaran Unni of CIFRI had found 174 species of river plankton and 111 kinds of zoo plankton covering nearly 550km of the river between Amarkantak and Sethanighat. By 2009, SN Singh, also from CIFRI Barrackpore, was reporting only 72 macrobenthic organisms in the estuary. The diversity and density of organisms are indicative of environmental conditions. ?The Narmada river, with existing, ongoing, and proposed river valley projects, faces the pressure of severe shortages of river flow and a resultant acute shrinkage of habitat areas for the benthic organisms. The riverbed with mostly gravel, pebbles, and boulders has been gradually replaced by a coarse sand bed, which does not support the growth of macrobenthic fauna,? Bhaumik notes. In the building of the Indira Sagar dam, the nesting habitats of the shastradhara turtle, alongside that of crocodiles and monitor lizards, were submerged. The destruction of river turtle habitats greatly upset the ecological balance . In 1941, Hora and Nair (authors of Fishes of the Satpura Range, Central Pronices, Records in Indian Museum, Calcutta), recorded 40 species of fish from the Satpura range alone. In 1967, Karamchandani et al (CIFRI) recorded 77 species in just the upper and middle zones. In 1990, Doria found 76 species within the river in Madhya Pradesh. In 1991, Rao et al (Inland Fisheries Society) studied the whole river and found only 84 species. Arjun Shulka and Sunita Sharma (Model Science College, Jabalpur) in 2017 found 25 species in the post monsoon season. Annual fish production in the Narmada was estimated at 269.8 metric tonnes (Dubey, 1984) between 1958?1959 and 1965?1966, i.e. prior to the development of dams. Figures through the years and recent figures for fisheries from the Narmada alone are not available. The fish-loving Bengalis are having the worst of it. In the estuary, the carp, mainly the Mahseer, rohu, kuhi or gunia, declined as have gegra and reta. Large catfish have been replaced by medium and small species. After the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, giant freshwater prawns, unique to the river, declined. The brood stock of Hilsa moved to only breed within 100km of the Gulf of Cambay. ?Annual catch of 16,000 tons of the species (hilsa) during 1990-1991 reduced to 4,000 tons in 2007-2008 and indicated a 75% decline in production over a period of one-and-a-half decades? Bhoumik notes. The river bank of the Narmada has now receded 3km away from the oncebustling Bharuch bunder. Locals in the old fishing villages recall having to move to higher ground for the roaring monsoon floods, collecting driftwood that would last them as firewood stocks for the whole year. ?If they dam her up like this she will cease to flow. If she dies, our livelihood may go. No one will miss her more than us,? says Hiralbhai Dheemar. ======================================== 17. INDIA: RAJASTHAN GOVT TO CELEBRATE VALENTINE'S DAY AS 'MATRA-PITRA PUJAN DIWAS' [MOTHER - FATHER WORSHIP DAY] ======================================== Apr 29, 2018 | 19:40 IST | Times Now Digital To counter the growing influence of Valentine's Day, the Rajasthan education department will observe 'Matra-Pitra Pujan Divas' on February 14 every year from 2019. The department has included the event in its yearly calendar, Shivir Panchang. According to state education minister Vasudev Devnani, the move was meant to inculcate a sense of love among students for their parents. Jaipur: Now, the Valentine's Day will be celebrated as 'Matra-Pitra Pujan Diwas'. How does that sound? Well, that's the new order by the state education department in Rajasthan. In a move to counter the growing popularity of Valentine's Day and to ?instil a sense of love? among students for their parents, State Education Minister Vasudev Devnani made the announcement in the state Assembly. The department has included the event in its yearly calendar -- Shivir Panchang. According to the state education department order, February 14 will be observed as 'Matra-Pitra Pujan Diwas' every year from 2019. Devnani had made the government's intention clear to this effect in the Rajasthan Assembly earlier this year. ?Students should first learn to love their parents before anyone else. The idea is to inculcate a sense of love for parents. A similar kind of event is being held in Chhattisgarh,? Devnani had mentioned. The order, which has come into effect, was issued on April 23. Devnani was earlier in the news when a controversy regarding omission of Jawaharlal Nehru's references from school textbooks in the state surfaced. Last year, the Chhattisgarh government had asked schools to celebrate February 14 as 'Parents' Day' to ?acquaint students with Indian culture and traditions?. On this day every year, parents are invited to the schools of their children, who would offer prayers to them. http://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/rajasthan-to-celebrate-valentines-day-as-matrapitra-pujan-diwas/222522 ======================================== 18. INDIA RETURNED RUNAWAY DUBAI PRINCESS TO PROTECT STRATEGIC INTERESTS Praveen Swami ======================================== Business Standard India located the United States-flagged yacht, Nostromo, some 50 km off the coast of Goa New Delhi Last Updated at April 27, 2018 00:34 IST Prime Minister Narendra Modi authorised a secret Coast Guard operation to intercept a yacht carrying runaway Dubai royal Latifa Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum after key national security officials advised it was necessary to secure India?s counter-terrorism and strategic interests, highly placed government sources have told Business Standard. The unprecedented March 4 operation involved three Coast Guard ships, including the state-of-the-art offshore patrol vessels Samarth and Shoor, helicopters and a maritime surveillance aircraft. India located the United States-flagged yacht, Nostromo, some 50 km off the coast of Goa. New Delhi has so far declined to either confirm or deny the operation took place. ?No such incident has been brought to our notice?, a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said in response to a query from Business Standard. The Coast Guard did not respond to an email seeking comment. The operation, which the sources said was coordinated by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, led to the rendition of the 33-year-old princess, who has said she was seeking to escape torture inflicted by her father, United Arab Emirates Prime Minister and Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. In a pre-recorded video released online after her arrest, Princess Latifa said she and her elder sister, Shamsa, had been beaten, tortured, threatened, detained, and forcibly drugged for years because of their efforts to seek personal freedoms. Princess Latifa, eyewitnesses on board the yacht have said, was handed over to UAE military personnel by the Coast Guard even as she demanded asylum ? sparking an international row over India?s action. Former French intelligence officer Herv? Jaubert and Princess Latifa?s friend Tiina Jauhiaien were also handed over the UAE by the Coast Guard, but subsequently released after pressure from western diplomatic missions on the UAE. In an interview to The Helsinki Times, Jauhiaien said ?15 men came onboard fully masked, in black clothing, with machine guns and laser sights. It was the most terrifying experience of my life?. In the interview, Jauhiaien said Princess Latifa, whose passport was held by her family, planned to land in Goa and then fly to the United States to seek asylum. Lawyers representing Princess Latifa did not respond to email from Business Standard asking how she intended to enter India without legal travel documents. New Delhi, two officials familiar with the Coast Guard action said, acted after personal messages were received from Prime Minister al-Maktoum seeking assistance in seizing the United States-flagged yacht, which, he claimed, had been used to kidnap his daughter. ?There is no illegality,? one Indian diplomat said. ?Indian and international laws authorise the government to intercept foreign-flagged vessels to enforce customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws in the contiguous zone and even further. In this case, we acted because we were informed that the individuals on the yacht were sought by the UAE for a crime.? London-based law scholar Abhimanyu George Jain, however, told Business Standard that ?if the interception and subsequent detention are sought to be justified on the basis of Indian immigration law, in the absence of further facts, at the very least there would be an obligation of due process?. He added that if India was aware the princess had faced torture, ?both international and Indian law would prohibit returning her to Dubai?. A government source admitted India did not seek a formal legal request from the UAE for Princess Latifa?s return. But, he added, ?We have to respect other countries? laws, domestic political institutions and interests if we want similar treatment in return.? The operation, interestingly, took place even as Indian and UAE officials were engaged in final negotiations for extradition of 1993 Mumbai serial bombings accused Farooq Yasin Mansoor, also known as Farooq ?Takla?, who was returned to face trial on March 8. Alleged by the Central Bureau of Investigation to have arranged transport for bombers linked to ganglord Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Mansoor had been sought by Interpol for over 20 years. Nineteen of 64 fugitives extradited to India have been sent by the UAE, including alleged Indian Mujahideen financier Abdul Wahid Siddibapa, Lashkar-e-Taiba linked terrorist Abdul Sattar, and a slew of 1993 bombing perpetrators. In addition, a number of suspects wanted in ongoing investigations have been quietly forced to return home, without formal legal process ? notably alleged Islamic State financier Moinudheen Para Kadavath and Indian Mujahideen suspect Faizan Ahmed. New Delhi has also cultivated a deep strategic relationship with the UAE, which is India?s fifth-largest source of hydrocarbons. In addition to holding a 10 per cent stake in a UAE oilfield, India?s underground strategic petroleum reserves near Mangalore are also being filled by the country. ======================================== 19. STOP PRIVATISING INDIA?S HERITAGE STATEMENT BY COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST) ======================================== April 28, 2018 Press Statement The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its opposition to the agreement (MOU) arrived at between the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Dalmia Bharat Limited which virtually hands over the iconic Red Fort in Delhi to the Dalmia group for a period of five years in exchange for a payment of 25 crores. The Dalmia group in its own press release has said that they will ?have to own if for five years initially? and the contract gives them the freedom to make the Dalmia brand prominently visible. It has the right to use its brand name on all kinds of publicity material to be displayed during events organized at the site and also on all signage. In fact, it will be allowed to proclaim in a prominently displayed sign that the Red Fort has been ?adopted by Dalmia Bharat Limited?. It must be remembered that the Red Fort is not just one of many heritage sites in our country. It is the place where the National Flag was hoisted in commemoration of the place that the Fort occupies in the history of our freedom struggle. The first Proclamation of Indian Independence from British rule was read out from its ramparts by Bahadur Shah Zafar in l857. Subsequently his trial was held in the Fort. Some decades later, the historic INA trial which played such a significant role in the battle for Indian freedom was held in the Red Fort. It is this fact that the Red Fort is a symbol of Independent India that has ensured that on Independence Day, 15th August, the Prime Minister addresses the nation with the Fort as his backdrop. Handing over this iconic monument to a corporate entity is nothing short of blasphemous. The CPI(M) wishes to remind the Government that the Parliamentary Committee that went into the issue of handing over heritage sites to private corporate had decided against this unanimously. It urges upon the Government to rescind its decision. (Hari Singh Kang) For CPI(M) Central Committee Office ======================================== 20. CHINA CRIMINALIZES THE SLANDER OF ITS ?HEROES AND MARTYRS,? AS IT SEEKS TO CONTROL HISTORY by Simon Denyer ======================================== Washington Post April 27, 2018 BEIJING ? China?s Communist Party has always understood the importance of policing its history. On Friday, it tightened the screws another notch with a new law banning the slander of ?heroes and martyrs? ? figures drawn from wartime propaganda said to have given their lives in defense of the Communist Party or the nation. Chinese schoolchildren are taught about the heroic deeds of figures who fought against the Japanese during the World War II, or who gave their lives for the Communist Party in its civil war with the Nationalists. Memorials to some of the most famous dot the country. Now, it will now be illegal to suggest those tales might not be wholly factual. ?Only the official narrative is allowed to exist,? said historian and critic Zhang Lifan. ?But ?What is the historical truth?? ? is not a question we ask now.? The law is part of a much broader and long-standing attempt by the Communist Party to mold or rewrite history in its interests, that extends from obfuscating the causes and extent of the famine that killed tens of millions of people during the disastrous Great Leap Forward that began in 1958, or the chaos of the Cultural Revolution that followed, through to the determined attempt to erase from history the 1989 pro-democracy movement and subsequent deaths of many demonstrators. The ?Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act? was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People?s Congress, China?s largely rubber-stamp parliament, and goes into effect on May 1. It threatens unspecified ?administrative penalties? or even ?criminal sanctions? against those who damage memorials or ?insult or slander heroes and martyrs.? Yue Zhongming, a member of the standing committee, told a news conference the law was not intended to restrict academic freedom, but that this should not be used to harm the honor of the nation?s heroes. ?We often say there is no banned area of academic research, while there is a bottom line of law,? he told a news conference. Zhang, for his part, maintained the law was largely meant to emphasize and protect the legitimacy of the Communist Party, and to tie up the idea of ?loving the country? with ?loving the party.? The law was first submitted for deliberation last December, with its final draft expanded to include a provision to punish people who ?glorify acts of war or invasion.? State media said that provision referred to a handful of Chinese who have taken to dressing up in Japanese World War II army uniforms, and photographing themselves at famous wartime sites or memorials. The so-called ?spiritually Japanese? movement is thought to be a small group of people fascinated with that country?s war-era militarism: a group that Foreign Minister Wang Yi referred to as ?scum? at a recent news conference. But the law?s genesis lies in the protection of the Communist Party?s version of history, experts say. ?In recent years, a few people in China have slandered or derogated heroes and martyrs via the Internet, magazines and other media in the name of ?academic freedom,? ?restoring history? or ?probing into details,? which provoked anger from all walks of life,? state news agency Xinhua wrote. In 2016, for example, historian Hong Zhenkuai was ordered by a court to issue a public apology after questioning the veracity of the much celebrated tale of the ?five heroes of Langya Mountain? in which five Communist soldiers killed dozens of Japanese soldiers before leaping off the mountain shouting ?long live the Community Party,? rather than surrender. The pressure to sanitize history has intensified under President Xi Jinping, who has repeatedly warned about what he calls ?historical nihilism,? a term that essentially means any attempt to question the Communist Party?s glorious account of its own past. China also passed a law last year threatening 15 days in detention for any disrespect of its national anthem, the March of the Volunteers, a law that is now being extended to cover Hong Kong after fans there booed the anthem at international football matches. One historian, who declined to be named for fear of inviting problems with the authorities, said there was growing pressure on his profession within China, with public security officials warning historians not to write anything critical about any aspect of history since the 1949 Communist takeover, under the threat of losing jobs, pensions or access to social services, for them and their family members. Perry Link, Chancellorial Chair at the University of California at Riverside and Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton, said the law?s main aim is to protect the Communist Party?s version of history. ?We should also note that protecting history has nothing to do with empathy for people in a bygone time and everything to do with maintaining the party?s power and control today,? he wrote in an email. Link cited the writings of Liu Xiaobo, China?s Nobel Peace Prize-winning pro-democracy activist who died in captivity last year, noting the inspiration he drew from people such as Lin Zhao, Yu Luoke and Zhang Zhixin ? all of whom were executed during China?s Cultural Revolution ?for expressing truths the party did not want to hear,? Link wrote. ?The fact that the present law will have nothing to do with protecting the reputations of those (true) martyrs says all one needs to know about the purpose of the law,? Link wrote. Shirley Feng contributed to this report. Simon Denyer is The Post?s bureau chief in Beijing. He previously worked as The Post's bureau chief in New Delhi; a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan; and a Reuters correspondent in Nairobi, New York and London. ======================================== 21. AMERICA IS OBSESSED WITH THE VIRTUE OF WORK. WHAT ABOUT THE VIRTUE OF REST? by Elizabeth Bruenig ======================================== The Washington Post April 25, 2018 Americans love to contemplate ? and legislatively promote, to whatever degree possible ? the virtue of hard work. Here in the United States, we already work more hours per year than our English- ?speaking counterparts in Britain, Canada and Australia ? not to mention those enviable denizens of European social democracies, who enjoy the kind of leisure time only our highest-paid workers can afford. So perhaps it?s not surprising that several new pro-work policy ideas are enjoying attention on the left and the right. On the right, work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance represent the latest conservative effort to make sure Americans work for any benefits they receive. Meanwhile, on the left, the idea of a federal job guarantee has gained increasing attention, showing up in statements from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). In all of these proposals, much is made of the special dignity that comes through work. In President Trump?s executive order outlining his desire that work requirements be attached to assistance programs, he called upon the federal government to elevate ?principles that are central to the American spirit ? work, free enterprise, and safeguarding human and economic resources.? In his column defending Booker?s job guarantee proposal, Bloomberg News writer Noah Smith pointed out that ?jobs provide a kind of dignity that traditional welfare programs, or even innovative new ones like universal basic income, probably don?t.? It isn?t that the programs are tonally identical. The right?s approach to making sure everyone who receives government aid works has always seemed vaguely punitive, while the left?s interest in providing jobs ? and thus an income ? to people who have neither rings of Rooseveltian solidarity with the victims of an unfair economy. Regardless, these pro-work programs inevitably fixate on work as a provider of independence or self-esteem. With just a little nudge in the direction of the labor market, one concludes, people who feel disempowered and diminished by their economic situation would find themselves newly dignified, self-sufficient, proud. And maybe that is the case: Trump isn?t wrong, after all, in identifying work as a cardinal American virtue ? and infractions against virtue are the stuff of vice. But in terms of our wider cultural context, it doesn?t appear to me that a lack of respect for work is the No. 1 threat to American dignity. If we undervalue anything to the detriment of dignity, it is the virtue of rest. Many victories of the labor movement were premised on the precise notion that the majority of one?s life shouldn?t be made up of work: It was the socialist Robert Owen who championed the eight-hour workday, coining the slogan ?Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.? For Owen, it was important not only that workers had time to sleep after a hard day?s labor, but also that they had time to pursue their own interests ? to enjoy leisure activities, cultivate their own projects, spend time with their families and so forth. After all, a life with nothing but work and sleep is akin to slavery, and not particularly dignified. As Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael Tubbs recently told Politico: ?Work does have some value and some dignity, but I don?t think working 14 hours and not being able to pay your bills, or working two jobs and not being able ? there?s nothing inherently dignified about that.? Nor is there anything dignified in parents being unable to take time off to care for and bond with infants, or in the elderly being forced to avoid retirement for lack of funds, or from pitting the two needs against each other, as a recent policy plan has proposed. Nor is there much dignity in pouring all of one?s energy into the purposes of another ? which is what it generally means to work for a boss ? with little time or money spared to learn or contemplate or travel or enjoy oneself. And in the United States, neither parental leave nor retirement nor vacation is a sure thing: In 2016, for instance, more than half of workers left vacation days unused, either unable to afford time off or unwilling to risk disappointing their employers. There?s a balance to be struck where it comes to work and rest, but in the United States, values and laws are already slanted drastically in favor of work. I would advise those concerned about Americans? dignity, freedom and independence to not focus on compelling work for benefits or otherwise trying to marshal people into jobs when what they really need are health care, housing assistance, unemployment benefits and so forth. Instead, we should focus more of our political energies on making sure that American workers have the dignity of rest, the freedom to enjoy their lives outside of labor and independence from the whims of their employers. ======================================== 22. BARTON ON EDER'S HOLOCAUST ANGST: THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND AMERICAN HOLOCAUST MEMORY SINCE THE 1970S. ======================================== Jacob S. Eder. Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory since the 1970s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 320 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-023782-0. Reviewed by Deborah Barton (Universit? de Montr?al) Published on H-TGS (April, 2018) Commissioned by Benjamin Bryce (University of Northern British Columbia) In this fascinating monograph, Jacob S. Eder explores the Federal Republic of Germany?s response to America?s growing interest in Holocaust remembrance. In the late 1970s, an extensive network of West German politicians, diplomats, lobbyists, and academics began to fear that the growing memorial culture of the Holocaust in the United States would damage the Federal Republic?s relationship with its closest Cold War ally. For Eder, this ?Holocaust angst? saw the West German government make a concerted effort to shape and control the narrative of Germany?s Nazi past that was emerging in the United States. Eder uses several cultural and political cases to trace the evolution of US engagement with the Holocaust and Germany?s responses: the introduction of Holocaust courses in American high schools, the broadcast of the NBC miniseries Holocaust (1978-79), the founding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, DC, US President Ronald Reagan?s visit to Bitburg, Steven Spielberg?s film Schindler?s List (1993), and the publication of Daniel Goldhagen?s Hitler?s Willing Executioners (1996). As Eder shows, through various initiatives the Federal Republic sought to emphasize its own democratic success story and detach itself from the shadow of the Third Reich. In focusing on how German concerns about the representation of its history abroad had a significant impact on the country?s foreign affairs and national identity, Eder sheds new and important light on the Federal Republic?s search for a ?usable past.? The book is divided into five thematic chapters. The first chapter addresses the beginnings of ?Holocaust angst? in the 1970s. It traces West German reactions to the heightened American awareness of Jewish suffering, the growing prominence of survivors, the introduction of Holocaust courses in high schools, and the broadcast of the miniseries Holocaust in 1978-79. Although German officials carefully followed all of these phenomena, as Eder shows, it was not until Helmut Kohl entered office in 1982 that ?Holocaust angst? became a central concern of the government. Indeed, the book covers the late 1970s to the late 1990s, but it is Kohl?s tenure as chancellor and his politics of history that dominate this account. Eder demonstrates that Kohl never sought to disown Germany?s violent past, but he feared this history would negatively influence Germany?s ability to conduct its foreign policy and achieve an equal partnership with the United States. According to Eder, Kohl and his associates actively sought to shape the discourse of German history for political intent. Chapter 2, hence, looks at the delicate relationship between West Germany and several American Jewish organizations during Kohl?s time in office. A central focus of the chapter is the controversy surrounding Kohl and Reagan?s visit to a German military cemetery in Bitburg. While much has been written about this political blunder, Eder is the first historian to use the correspondence of German diplomats, and his transnational approach allows us to view Bitburg from a fresh perspective. Despite intense discussions, debates, and misunderstandings, Eder reveals how Bitburg actually improved the relationship between the Federal Republic and American Jewish organizations. The controversy provided the opportunity for increased dialogue about the Federal Republic?s engagement with its Nazi past. The third chapter highlights the decade-long discord between the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, in charge of building the USHMM, and West German officials over the creation of that museum in Washington. Eder demonstrates how the German government sought to influence the development of the museum, most significantly its permanent exhibition. Eder reinforces his argument that these (failed) attempts were again based on the fear that the museum would give Americans a negative impression of the Federal Republic by closely linking it with the Nazi state. After the museum?s opening, German politicians acknowledged that these fears had been largely unfounded. It is in the fourth chapter that Eder offers some of the most striking insights into Kohl?s behind-the-scenes politics of history. Here Eder demonstrates how a circle of German historians and political scientists, such as Michael St?rmer and Werner Weidenfeld, played a critical part in the realm of foreign relations. By examining the chancellor?s (and his advisors?) attempt to use the American academic community to disseminate a positive historical narrative for the Federal Republic, Eder reveals how ?Holocaust angst? provided the catalyst for the establishment of the GHI and three Centers of Excellence for German Studies at Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University. Eder shows that while West German politicians and academics acknowledged that the GHI needed to function as an independent institution for scholarship, tensions developed over the competing goals of academic freedom, historical truth, and German national identity. Indeed, West German officials hoped to make the institute, as Kohl?s minister for Research and Technology, Heinz Riesenhuber, put it, a ?visible presence for German understanding of history? (p. 137). Despite these tensions, the GHI?s founding director Hartmut Lehmann managed to safeguard the institution from excessive government influence. Finally, chapter 5 deals with the transformation of Holocaust memory after German unification. Hit by a wave of neo-Nazi violence and a flourishing of debates about the representation of the Nazi past, German officials began to realize that rather than attempting to shape American discourse about the Holocaust, engaging in public commemoration in the Federal Republic was the key to improving Germany?s reputation abroad. American influence was still important, however, as two American imports, Spielberg?s film Schindler?s List and Goldhagen?s controversial book Hitler?s Willing Executioners,advanced Germany?s confrontation with the Holocaust. Despite Kohl?s former politics of history, in the early 1990s he publically advocated an open engagement with the past that made the Holocaust the ?core? of Germany?s identity and brought about an ?utter transformation? of Holocaust memorial culture in Germany (p. 196). Basing his book on a remarkable breadth of previously untapped archival sources, Eder has produced an original and nuanced analysis of the transnational politics of Holocaust memory. The book reveals the vast circle of political, cultural, and academic elites who played a part in this process. This important monograph should be read by those interested in Germany?s efforts to confront its past and in memory studies in general. Not only does it illuminate how fear and perception can drive foreign policy, but it is also a timely reminder that democratic states?not simply dictatorial regimes?have devoted significant effort and resources to shaping and rewriting the narratives of the past for contemporary political purposes. German efforts to rewrite its history were ineffective and offer an example to countries that now seek to do the same. ======================================== 23. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CHEMINOTS: THE DEEP MEANING OF THE FRENCH RAILROAD STRIKES Diana Johnstone ======================================== The Unz Review April 21, 2018 The current series of railroad strikes in France are portrayed in the media as ?labor unrest?, a conflict between the government and trade union leaders, or as a temporary nuisance to travelers caused by the self-interest of a privileged category of workers. In Anglo-American media, there is the usual self-satisfied tongue-clicking over ?those cheese-eaters, always on strike?. In reality, the strike by train conductors and other employees of the SNCF (Soci?t? Nationale des Chemins de Fer) is a deeply significant chapter in a social tragedy that is destroying France as we have known it. What has made France a most comfortable country to live in for over half a century is not only the food and the scenery. Above all, it has been the public services ? the best in the world. The postal service, public education, health coverage, public utilities, railroad service ? all were excellent, exemplary. True, the French telephone system for a long time lagged far behind other developed countries before catching up, and there have always been complaints of over-the-counter rudeness in governmental offices, but that can happen anywhere. The important point is that thanks to its public services, France ran smoothly, providing favorable conditions for business and daily life. When people take good things for granted too long, they begin not to notice as they are gradually taken away. President Emmanuel Macron?s program for destroying the SNCF is a wakeup call. But there is reason to fear that much of the public has already been plunged into a slumber too deep to be awakened. It takes a long history to produce something as good as French public services. It goes back to the centralization of the French state in the seventeenth century, associated with the finance minister of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The SNCF was formed in 1938 by merging France?s various railroad companies as a state monopoly as part of the progressive social reforms of the Popular Front. At the end of World War II, public services received a decisive boost from the paradoxical alliance between the opposite wings of the French Resistance, the Communists and the Gaullists. General Charles de Gaulle, although anti-communist, was the sort of conservative (look back at Bismarck) who understands that a nation?s strength and unity depend on a modicum of social justice. Despite open opposition on many issues, the Gaullists and the communists joined in a unified National Council of the Resistance, which in March, 1944, adopted a program calling for a mixed economy combining free enterprise with strategic nationalizations, along with social security programs and trade union rights. This program of social justice laid the groundwork for an extraordinary increase in economic development, called Les Trente Glorieuses ? the glorious thirty years of peace and prosperity. The French mixed economy functioned better than either the bureaucratic communism or profit-centered capitalism in terms of freedom, equality and human well-being. It is harder to build things up than to tear them down. The Thatcher neoliberal putsch signaled the death sentence of the glorious thirty and the start of the forty inglorious: the persistent campaign, ideological and institutional, to destroy the social state, lower wages and benefits, and eventually transfer all decision-making power to the movements of finance capital. This is variously called neoliberalism or globalization. The counter-revolution struck France in the early years of the presidency of Socialist President Fran?ois Mitterrand, causing his government to change its policies and break its ?common program? alliance with the Communists. To hide its anti-social shift, the Socialist Party changed its line to ?anti-racism? and ?the construction of Europe? (meaning the European Union), presented as the new horizon of ?progress?. The concern of workers to maintain the standard of living they had achieved in recent decades was derided as ?reactionary?, in opposition to the new concept of borderless, global competition, the new ?progress?. In reality, ?European construction? has meant the systematic deconstruction of member states? sovereignty, bringing about the destruction of social welfare systems bolstered by sentiments of national solidarity for which there is no substitute in the vague abstraction called ?Europe?. Step by step, Europe is being deprived of its social protections and opened up to the whims of the likes of Goldman Sachs, industrial takeovers and shutdowns, and Qatar. The cheminots ? France?s railroad workers ? are not just fighting for themselves. They constitute the front lines of the final battle to save France from the ravages of neoliberal globalization. Emmanuel Macron ? prot?g? of the Rothschild bank, which helped him join the ranks of millionaires ? presents his ?reform? of the railways as a measure of ?equality?, by depriving railroad workers of their ?privileged status?. Privileges? Train conductors lead a hard life, long hours and few weekends to spend with their families. The lives of millions of passengers depend on their concentration and devotion. In consideration of all this, their ?privileged? status included job security and relatively early retirement (privileges that the rich can give themselves, and which are standard in military careers). The striking rail workers protest that they do not want to be ?privileged? but rather wish to see such ?privileges? extended to others. In any case, much more is at stake here than wages and hours. Public services in France were more than conveniences. For millions, they were an ethic, a way of life. In many countries, public services are totally undermined by corruption and neglect. This does not happen when people believe in what they are doing. Such belief is not automatic: it is historically acquired. The French cheminots have been like an extended family, held together by belief that they are carrying out an essential social duty. In fact, many are literally ?family?, as the job of train conductor often passed from father to son, as a matter of pride. This devotion to social duty is more than a personal attitude: it is a spiritual value that a nation should treasure and preserve. Instead, it is being sacrificed to the demands of finance capital. How is that? There is now an excess of capital sloshing around the world on the lookout for profitable places to invest. That is what ?neoliberalism? is all about. Ordinary businesses may go broke, or at least fail to turn a profit to stockholders. That is why the public sector must be privatized. The great thing about investing in public services, is that if they don?t make money, the government will step in and subsidize them ? at taxpayers? expense! That is the attraction of the arms industry. It can also apply to education, health care, transportation, communications. But the official pretext is that these services must be privatized because that will make them ?more efficient?. That is the big lie. It has already been exposed in the United Kingdom, where the privatization of the railroads has produced not only worse service but fatal accidents, especially since there is no immediate profit in rail maintenance. Pride in the job well done was a much-neglected aspect of the rise of socialism. Artisans who were obliged by the rise of capitalism to abandon their independent activities in order to become slaves of industry were often the vanguard of the socialist movement in the nineteenth century. Such pride is a far more stable element of social cohesion than increasingly childish anarchist calls to ?destroy the system? ? with no alternative in sight. Macron is only a pawn. It is not Macron who decided to destroy France?s rail system. It was decided and decreed by the European Union, and Macron is merely carrying out orders. The orders are to open the rail system up to free international competition. Soon, German, Italian, Spanish trains may be sharing with French trains the same rails ? rails whose upkeep is turned over to another company, also in it for the profit. The stress of the rail workers will be increased by their insecurity. To fill the profit margin, passengers will inevitably have to pay more. As for residents of small rural communities, they will simply lose their railroad service altogether, because it is not profitable. Run as a public service, the national railroad used its benefits from lines with heavy traffic to finance those in more sparsely inhabited rural areas, this providing equal benefits to people wherever they live. That is on the way out. The destruction of public services hastens the desertification of the countryside and the growth of mega-cities. Hospitals in rural areas are being shut down, post offices closed. France?s charming villages will die out with the last elderly inhabitants still clinging to them. That is the ?modernization? program underway. Overlooked in the multitude of foreign misunderstanding of France is the hallucinatory power of terms such as ?modern? and ?progress?. The champions of privatization attempt to mesmerize the public with these magical words, while meanwhile slyly cutting back service in order to prepare the public to accept the planned changes as possible improvements. Two things should be mentioned to complete this sad story. One is that in the wake of its privatization, France T?lecom underwent a wave of employee suicides ? 39 in two years ? certainly in part due to stress and demoralization, as methods were introduced to reduce the quality of service and increase profits. When pride in work is destroyed, the path is short to indifference, negligence and even corruption. Another point to recall is the propaganda campaign mounted about twenty years ago to smear the SNCF for its role in ?deporting Jewish children? to Nazi concentration camps. This was unjustifiable, considering that the Nazi occupiers confiscated the French railroads, which had no choice in the matter.Moreover, railroad employees (many of them communists) played an important role in the Resistance by sabotaging military trains ? until the United States Air Force pounded the hell out of most major French railroad stations (and the surrounding neighborhoods) to prepare for the Normandy invasion. This slander of the SNCF was naturally used by U.S. rivals to exclude French fast-speed trains from the U.S. market. As Macron raises taxes to build up his military industrial complex, the only public employees who will soon be left to enjoy social benefits and early retirement will be the military ? whose task will not be to serve France but to act as auxiliary in United States foreign wars. Until soldiers are replaced by robots. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun May 6 20:15:42 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 05:45:42 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_7_May_2018_=7C_Bangladesh=3A_State-Mosqu?= =?windows-1252?Q?e_Complex_/_Pakistan=3A_Manzoor_Pashteen=92s_Pa?= =?windows-1252?Q?shtun_/_India=3A_Ashok_Mitra_=281928-2018=29_/_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Brazil=27s_racialised_sperm_economy?= Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 7 May 2018 - No. 2988 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: ?When doves cry? | Afiya Zia 2. Pakistan: Land of Toxic Learning | Khaled Ahmed 3. India: Interim Observations of People?s Tribunal on Attack on Educational Institutions 4. Ashok Mitra (1928-2018) - selected tributes 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: The Issue Is Not Jinnah But An Armed, Unlawful, Attack By A Mob at Aligarh Muslim University | Apoorvanand - Book Review: Understanding Hindu-Muslim violence in Uttar Pradesh in the 2000s - India: Our Rights to eat, to wear, to love - A video from Karnataka - India: The Hindu Right Has More in Common With Jinnah Than AMU Students Do | Faizan Mustafa - India - Capture of Monuments: Tomb from Tughlaq dynasty turned into Shiv Bhola temple in New Delhi - Video: Separate Religion & Govt: Prakash Raj - India: Video recording of the poet Javed Akhtar on Naya Hukmnama ( The New Ordinance ) [in Urdu] ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Bangladesh State To Heavily Get Involved With Religion 7. Are you with the tyrants?' Pakistani Che risks all to take on the army | Memphis Barker 8. Sexual Harassment: Pakistan?s Tipping Point? | Nazish Brohi 9. The time machine trap: Asia?s most prosperous countries are not squeamish about borrowing from the West | Sadanand Dhume 10. How Modi is taking Karnataka election campaign to Nepal | Vishnu Sharma 11. A "Piece of Real Estate Known as India": Ashok Mitra's 1989 Column on How India's Rich Shed their Guilt and Fear 12. India: PF data 'stolen' from Aadhaar seeding link | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury 13. India: Pussy cat at home, Bengal tiger in a mob | Sandip Roy 14. Brazil's racialised sperm economy | Mariana Prandini Assis 15. Book Review: ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967 edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley 16. Book Review: Rule By Aesthetics by Asher Ghertner ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: ?WHEN DOVES CRY? by Afiya Zia ======================================== Postcolonial scholars and right-wing conservatives oppose enlightenment rights, human rights laws, or modernity for Pakistan and offer religious laws and culture as substitutes. http://www.sacw.net/article13762.html ======================================== 2. PAKISTAN: LAND OF TOXIC LEARNING | KHALED AHMED ======================================== A girl from Pakistan has offered the best diagnostic of the ailing state and her work, Pakistan under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State (Brookings), takes you into the guts of what has gone wrong. Madiha Afzal is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution Washington DC, an adjunct assistant professor of global policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS and has been a consultant for the World Bank. http://www.sacw.net/article13761.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: INTERIM OBSERVATIONS OF PEOPLE?S TRIBUNAL ON ATTACK ON EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ======================================== People?s Tribunal on Attack on Educational Institutions was held at the Constitution Club of India, New Delhi, on April 11-13, 2018. The tribunal was organised by the People?s Commission on Shrinking Democratic Space in India (PCSDS). http://www.sacw.net/article13754.html ======================================== 4. ASHOK MITRA (1928-2018) - SELECTED TRIBUTES ======================================== A select collection of tributes to Dr Ashok Mitra who passed away in Calcutta on 1st of may 2018 http://www.sacw.net/article13763.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: The Issue Is Not Jinnah But An Armed, Unlawful, Attack By A Mob at Aligarh Muslim University | Apoorvanand - India: Hardline Hindutva outfits heavily campaigning openly for the BJP before 2018 Karnataka assembly elections - Video: Spinning Hate for Political Gain - Wide Angle' Episode 31 (The Wire) - India: Smaller new parties fighting the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections may cut into secular vote - Book Review: Understanding Hindu-Muslim violence in Uttar Pradesh in the 2000s - India: Triple Talaq Judgment and After, Has the Stance of Secularists Changed At All ? - India: Our Rights to eat, to wear, to love - A video from Karnataka - India: The Hindu Right Has More in Common With Jinnah Than AMU Students Do | Faizan Mustafa - India - Capture of Monuments: Tomb from Tughlaq dynasty turned into Shiv Bhola temple in New Delhi - Video: Separate Religion & Govt: Prakash Raj - India: Trouble at AMU campus over Jinnah portrait - Hindu Yuva Vahini and ABVP trigger violence - select news reports - India: Video recording of the poet Javed Akhtar on Naya Hukmnama ( The New Ordinance ) -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. BANGLADESH STATE TO HEAVILY GET INVOLVED WITH RELIGION WILL BUILD 560 MODEL MOSQUES TO TO COUNTER THE RELIGIOUS MISCONCEPTIONS ======================================== Dhaka Tribune May 07, 2018 Model mosques to spread Islamic values Shohel Mamun The government took the initiative during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina?s June 2016 visit to Saudi Arabia, when King Salman promised to fund the vast majority of the Tk8,722 crore project The government will build 560 model mosques across the country to preach ?accurate and correct? Islam and to counter the religious misconceptions which cause militancy and extremism. The government took the initiative during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina?s June 2016 visit to Saudi Arabia, when King Salman promised to fund the vast majority of the Tk8,722 crore project. Since the Saudi government is yet to send the funds, however, Hasina?s government will now undertake the project with funding from local sources. Based on examples only seen in the kingdom, Qatar, and Malaysia, the model mosques will have special features including research facilities, seminar rooms, and libraries to provide religious education and ?spiritual revival?. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation stone of the project at her Gonobhaban residence on April 5, when Religious Affairs Minister Principal Matiur Rahman and Secretary Anisur Rahman also present. ?Islam is the religion of peace,? Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said. ?Our aim is to spread the true light of Islam. We are going to build model mosques where Muslims can exercise the real culture of Islam.? The prime minister said her government was committed to stopping violence in the name of Islam. ?Islam never supports militancy, and such actions in the name of Islam are affronts to the religion,? she said. The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Islamic Foundation prepared the model mosque project details and received the approval of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on April 25, 2017. ?We will implement the project using government and local funding,? Religious Affairs Ministry Secretary for the project, Anisur Rahman, said. Islamic Foundation Chief Shamim Mohammad Afjal told the Dhaka Tribune that funding from Saudi Arabia would be received ?eventually,? although he could not be specific on the amount. ?It is a government project, so the government will be the primary financer,? he said. ?That being said, anyone can donate into the model mosques project to uphold the religious spirit.? The government is initially building nine model mosques at a cost of Tk90 crore in Chittagong, Jhalkathi, Khulna, Bogura, Sylhet, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Noakhali, and Gopalganj. The total cost of all 560 mosques is Tk8,722 crore, of which the Saudi Arabian government committed to funding Tk8,170 crore. Despite the process having been delayed due to the slow progress of land requisition, project officials said a tender for the building works will be floated ?within a very short time.? The tender is to be floated separately for each mosque and the allocation will not be similar, according to the plan. Project officials said the Ministry of Religious Affairs has already formed 15 sub-committees to complete the project within the timeframe. ?The project has the priority of the prime minister?s office,? Religious Affairs Secretary Anisur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune. ?Initially, we will start construction work on nine mosques and gradually complete all 560.? According to the plan, men and women will be allowed in the mosques to pray separately. In addition, the local community will be able to use the cultural centres for religious learning. All the mosques are to follow the same model and will be built on 40 decimals of land. At city corporation and district levels, the model mosques will have escalators and air conditioning. ======================================== 7. ARE YOU WITH THE TYRANTS?' PAKISTANI CHE RISKS ALL TO TAKE ON THE ARMY Manzoor Pashteen?s Pashtun Protection Movement gathers support in country where criticism of army is rare Memphis Barker ======================================== The Guardian 2 May 2018 Manzoor Pashteen waves to supporters at a rally in Lahore, held in defiance of a government ban. Photograph: Rahat Dar/EPA Every morning Ahmed Shah puts on his circular, red-and-black cap, decorated with spades, and feels ready to take on the world. ?For me this cap is a symbol of resistance,? he says. ?That?s why I like it.? Shah (not his real name) is one of thousands of Pakistanis who have taken to wearing the distinctive tribal hat to show their support for Manzoor Pashteen. The charismatic 26-year-old, rarely seen without his ?Pashteen hat?, leads the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM), which has convulsed the country with unprecedentedly virulent criticism of the powerful armed forces. It accuses the military of being behind a litany of abuses in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), an inhospitable, mountainous region on the border with Afghanistan dominated by Pakistan?s 15-million-strong Pashtun minority and which has played host to a variety of terrorist groups. Although Pashteen is committed to non-violent protest, his youthfulness, firebrand speeches and distinctive headgear have drawn comparisons with Che Guevara. What marks the PTM out as a particular threat to Pakistan?s army, which has ruled the country for more than half its 70-year history, is that its allegations mirror those made by western officials, namely that the army plays a ?double game? with regard to terrorism, silently supporting groups that target India and Afghanistan. The government has responded with a crackdown, banning rallies and harassing PTM supporters. Nine PTM activists have gone missing in Karachi, Pakistan?s southern business capital. At a rally last weekend in Swat, pro-military protesters tried to block entry to some of a 25,000-strong crowd. Even the ?Pashteen hat? has been subjected to local, unofficial bans. Replicas can no longer be found in the Swat valley city of Mingora, where at least five shopkeepers selling the hat were recently detained and beaten by thugs associated with the military, locals say. At a rally in Lahore on 21 April, held in defiance of the government ban, Pashteen bowed his head like a boxer as minders escorted him through an exultant, selfie-taking crowd to a stage adorned with pictures of missing people. My family say: if you are killed, then at least you will have done something for the people Manzoor Pashteen Earlier that day, sewage had mysteriously flooded the ground. About 8,000 people ? many in the Pashteen cap ? chanted ?the uniforms are behind the terrorists?, a slogan that fosters particular apoplexy in the military?s headquarters in Rawalpindi. Pashteen tells his audience that he has come to Lahore, a city populated by relatively few Pashtuns, to ?expose what the army are doing against us?. To his right, a gigantic poster shows a devastated, rubble-strewn street in a town in North Waziristan partly flattened during a 2014 military campaign against Pakistan?s Taliban. That campaign is credited with helping reduce deaths from terrorism by more than two-thirds. Yet, according to the PTM, ordinary Pashtuns were caught in the crossfire, and have ever since been subject to humiliating curfews, checkpoints and collective punishment by troops stationed to maintain order. Manzoor Pashteen speaks to supporters in Lahore. Photograph: Rahat Dar/EPA So-called enforced disappearances generate particular grief. A government commission has dealt with almost 5,000 cases since 2011, but rights groups say this number vastly underestimates the scale of the problem. ?According to the constitution, anybody who commits a crime must be produced in a court of law within 24 hours,? says Pashteen. ?But so many people have been taken and are still missing.? His voice rising, almost to a scream, Pashteen yells at the crowd ?are you with the tyrants?? He calls on ordinary soldiers to defy the orders of high command, a statement some have interpreted as treasonous. One rally-goer from Pakistan?s Punjab majority bites his lip and glances anxiously over his shoulder. ?It?s quite remarkable hearing this,? he says, on condition of anonymity. ?What it portends for Pakistan I don?t know.? By tradition the military is largely referred to in code, as ?the establishment? or, in the case of agents of the feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), ?angels?. Among PTM-supporters, however, that is changing. ?Before the PTM we didn?t say anything, even in our bedrooms, about the ISI and military intelligence,? says Shehrullah Khan, whose brother was ?disappeared? from his luggage shop in 2016. With some safety in numbers, ?we can now say everything in our mind and hearts?. PTM leaders admit that some of the disappeared may have links to the Taliban, but argue that all should be produced in court to face charges. A white flag, representing the movement?s commitment to non-violent protest, flutters above the stage. Among the stereotypes Pashteen is helping to break down, says analyst Fasi Zaka, is that of ?Pashtuns being a martial ethnic group given to conflict?. Its leaders argue that Pashtuns are more victims of the Taliban than the willing hosts often portrayed in the media. One, Ali Wazir, has had 17 members of his family or killed. The military response betrays choking discomfort. General Bajwa, the chief of army staff, has referred indirectly to the PTM as being ?engineered? by Pakistan?s enemies. Reporting on the movement has been censored in the media. Yet, unable to stop its growth, corps commander Lt General Nazir Ahmad Butt held a meeting last week with the PTM to discuss its ?legitimate grievances?, referring to a five-point list of demands that includes de-mining, the punishment of a Karachi police chief accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, and a ?truth and reconciliation commission? on enforced disappearances. ?The PTM?s success,? says civil rights activist Jibran Nasir, is that after years of denial, some in the military ?admit there have been some transgressions?. From the back seat of a car whisking him away from a horde of supporters, Pashteen tells the Guardian that he is unconcerned by a possible threat to his life. ?At first my family said they would throw me out of the house,? he says, ?but now they say if you are killed, then at least you will have done something for the people.? ======================================== 8. SEXUAL HARASSMENT: PAKISTAN?S TIPPING POINT? Nazish Brohi ======================================== Dawn May 06, 2018 She went public about being sexually harassed, he categorically denied it; other women spoke up and said they had similar experiences. She complained to the management and disclosed it on Twitter; he sent her a defamation notice. People took sides. Commentators said she did this for fame and personal gain, that all women in the industry are cheap and easy, doubted her version, commented on her clothing and behaviour at private gatherings, and asked why she continued to stay in a toxic environment. The woman referred to here is television journalist Tanzeela Mazhar, who was joined by journalist and anchor Yashfeen Jamal in pursuing a case of sexual harassment against PTV?s then director of current affairs, Agha Masood Shorish. These women braved professional losses and social censure, courageously went through the formal complaints process, and won. In November last year, Shorish was fired on charges of sexual harassment. While most women do not report sexual harassment, for ones that do, the immediate response and aftermath follow a predictable template, as evident in the recent Meesha Shafi-Ali Zafar standoff. However, as awareness in the wake of recent laws and platforms for interactions increase, there are slow but evident changes in social reactions. A spate of allegations of sexual harassment have been highlighted recently, especially on social media. Are the numbers actually piling up? And if so, why? THE GOOD Going by social media, it seems there is an explosion of sexual harassment cases, of women finding the strength to break the silence. A wider lens, though, would show that social media has been slow to catch on. Women have been fighting both inner demons and external opponents to speak out for over a decade now. Hockey player Syeda Sadia Nawazish was expelled from the national team after she filed sexual harassment charges against head coach Saeed Khan. Earlier this year, she approached the Lahore High Court to demand that a woman be appointed to the Punjab government?s apex body dealing with sexual harassment. She asserts that the provincial ombudsperson?s office did not conduct a formal inquiry and pressurised her to withdraw her case. She is not just fighting her case itself but fighting to make the formal system more responsive to women. Rewind to eight years ago. On March 9, 2010, over a hundred professional women working in the police, in airlines, private corporations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), doctors, health workers, bankers, teachers, all cheered from the upper galleries of the National Assembly as President Asif Zardari signed into effect the law on Sexual Harassment at the Workplace. The law was steered through a 10-year gestation by Fouzia Saeed, the first woman to publicly complain and contest a case of sexual harassment in Pakistan. One of the first women to file a formal complaint under the law was PIA pilot Captain Rifat Haye. Rewind another eight years from then. It was in 1998, when I wrote (from what I know) the first report on sexual harassment at work in Pakistan for the legal aid organisation Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA). I spent half the interview time explaining to women what the concept meant. The change is palpable. In an earlier incarnation of the law, the policy had to be called the ?Code of Conduct for Gender Justice.? The law itself, insisted the then-PML-Q government, could be ?Law against Gender Aggravation?, because the phrase ?sexual harassment? could not be used. Now, as per the law, guidelines against sexual harassment have to be prominently displayed in public spaces in government offices. As an illustration, look at the office of the Sindh Ombudsperson on Sexual Harassment at the Workplace. It was instituted in 2012 and only one case was registered that year. The next year, the number rose to 25, to 38 new cases the year after that and in 2016, there were 134 cases filed. In six years, that?s an increase of a whopping 197 percent. The most number of complaints were filed in Hyderabad, followed by Karachi, Khairpur and Naushehro Feroze. The rise in the number of cases being brought on the public radar was made possible by the 2010 law. But it is no coincidence that women have started speaking out on abusive work environments at the same time that they have started claiming their right to public space, whether it is riding bikes or sitting at dhabas, and the same time that ?khaana khud garam karlo? [heat up your own food, the playful protest sign which drew the ire of some men] becomes an issue. It?s the economics. More women are now working outside the house than ever before, and with the preconditions for women?s work increasingly in place, the number is set to continually rise. See the data pointing to seismic socioeconomic changes: The mean age of marriage for women has risen from 16 years in 1961 to 22.8 in 2007. Since 1988, fertility has almost halved and teen fertility decreased from 20 percent to eight percent. Later marriage and fewer children are the prerequisite to women joining the workforce. As poverty has declined in Pakistan ? by 25 percentage points between 2002 and 2014 according to the World Bank ? women are less occupied with dealing with household survival needs such as collecting water, subsistence farming or domestic chores. Pakistan?s female literacy has also seen a slow rise, reaching 49 percent in 2015, but is considerably higher for women in the 15-25 age bracket, at 66 percent. Between 2004 and 2014, according to economist S. Akbar Zaidi, there has been a 432 percent increase in girls? enrolment at universities. Mobility has also increased ? women who can visit markets alone rose by 12 percent in the past five years ? now at 37 percent. All these statistics are reflected in the changes in the labour force profile. Female labour force participation increased from 16 percent in 2001 to 24 percent in 2012, rising eight percent in a decade, as female unemployment went down from 16.5 percent to nine percent. While women being a quarter of the workforce is still substantially below regional averages, the rate at which it is changing is significant, as is the fact that the increase is not only in agricultural work ? the traditional mainstay of women ? but also in the formal economy and in the services industries. How do these figures connect to sexual harassment? If almost a quarter of the workforce ? one in every four employees ? is now women, it would mean that working women are no longer an aberration. The earlier reflex reaction at sexual harassment was questioning why women were working outside the home at all, or telling women to quit their jobs and sit at home. That is no longer viable. The primary reason why women did not openly complain about harassment was that they wanted to or needed to continue working. Women?s presence at the workplace is now generally not challenged, even if their roles, responsibilities and authority continue to be. There is also strength in numbers and women are not as isolated as they previously were. The dynamics between being the only woman in a workplace and being one out of many is significantly different. Additionally, economic independence and the ability to contribute towards household expenses significantly changes women?s position inside domestic power hierarchies, which in turn impacts the kind of familial support networks available to contest harassment. It also means employers will have to deal with women differently now. While lobbying for the 2010 law to be passed, the Alliance Against Sexual Harassment (AASHA) made a voluntary code of conduct on sexual harassment for organisations to adopt. Interestingly, the private sector came on board before even women?s rights NGOs did, with over a thousand companies adopting and instituting it before the law was even passed. Only those in a position of privilege will ask questions such as why didn?t she report it when it happened,? argues Uzma Noorani. ?[Those who cast aspersions] have not experienced the pervading confusion, vulnerability and insecurity when such acts happen.? In the statement of reasons in amending the law on sexual harassment in public places, the note by then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani states: ?This amendment will not only make the public and work environment safer for women but ? more and more women will get the courage to enter the job market.? As women?s employment becomes economically desirable and the preconditions are in place, women will increasingly influence the terms of engagement as these sexual harassment cases show. THE BAD But women aren?t cresting any waves yet. Five years ago, a young woman committed suicide because her accusation of sexual harassment was not taken seriously. Haleema Rafique, a cricketer who played with the Multan Cricket Club ? along with three other players ? accused the chairman of the club of sexual harassment. He filed a suit of 20 million rupees against the girls after the Pakistan Cricket Board inquiry committee did not find evidence to support the accusation. Her family says she could not cope with the social censure and with her trauma being rubbished by the authorities. Even today, it is still difficult for women to report cases because of the power hierarchies involved. Rarely are there instances of junior staffers sexually harassing line managers or senior executives. By going public, women risk taunts, jeers, workplace ostracism, penalties and professional losses, social censure and family opprobrium. All this in addition to the emotional toll such acts take on women. The usual pattern in discrediting women?s testimonies is character assassination, of focusing on past behaviour, dress, relationships and so on. Norm setting is a universal function of the privileged and establishing what is acceptable is a function of power. By allowing women to define what is normal and acceptable and what is not, laws on sexual harassment subvert gendered power relations and hence trigger severe public reaction. The possibility that an accusation could be fabricated prompts a unique panic. In Pakistan?s context, where fake assault, theft, kidnapping and even murder cases are filed by the dozens everyday (the institutionalised practice of ?intiqami karwai? or acts of vengeance), the possibility of the misuse of no other law leads to calls against the law itself. Despite symbolic power, the laws have constrained outreach. The sexual harassment at workplace law only extends to formal workplaces and does not cover the informal economy where the bulk of women still work, such as in the agriculture sector. The law regarding harassment at public places, which is not well known by women or well understood even by the police, is tougher to prosecute, and does not have many prominent success stories yet. THE MESSY Sexual harassment is notoriously hard to prove. It can easily degenerate into ?he said/she said? statements when accusations are flung around and it is one person?s word against another. But there are ways around it. With workplace harassment, the law itself is expansive enough to allow a broad-range interpretation, and includes verbal harassment, and no material evidence is necessary to lodge a complaint. Women have found innovative ways of providing proof even years after the incident ? such as by writing down details when such an act occurs, dating it and sending it to one?s self through courier or registered mail and leaving it sealed till they decide to formally complain. The authorities concerned can then open the sealed, courier-dated document to ensure the evidence was not fabricated overnight. There have been many sexual harassment complaints in which there is no proof or circumstantial evidence, but trained investigators have been able to hold harassers guilty by establishing patterns. Despite harassers bringing in people to vouch for their character, investigators speak to others associated with either the victim or harasser one-on-one in confidentiality without involving police or the courts and unearth corroborating factors. ?In 90 percent of cases, harassers target more than one person and it?s not a stand-alone act. We know how to get to that,? says Maliha Sayed, executive director of Mehrgarh, an institution specialising in this and which has dealt with almost 4,000 cases of sexual harassment. But to know these mechanisms, women experiencing harassment have to reach out to others, to look up the law and to go through the systems that have been put in place. It is here that things become touchy. This issue exploded in India last year. A senior law student crowdsourced and published a list of over 60 renowned Indian male academics who, she said, were sexual harassers based on what others had told her privately. Some seasoned Indian feminists, who have been political vanguards and fought for women?s rights over decades, wrote a cautionary letter about unsubstantiated, anonymous accusations and underlined the need for due process so as not to delegitimise the struggle against sexual harassment. It divided the women?s movement into what some referred to as a ?feminist civil war.? Older feminists were accused by young feminists of protecting male academics belonging to their own class, of being upper-caste apologists, of upholding a system that had failed women. Younger feminists promoted unconventional and radical methods of naming and shaming sexual predators because, they argued, that the due process didn?t work for them. In the generational divide, the older feminists were dismayed that all their work and struggles were summarily dismissed and that the principle of fairness was being overridden. The same dynamic also played out in Canada where committed feminists such as writer Margaret Atwood expressed concerns over the #MeToo movement and the eclipsing of due process in a case of a Canadian academic. She faced the same anger and rejection and was dismissed as redundant by younger women. Atwood mused over the choices in an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail: ?Fix the system, bypass it, or burn it down?? she asks. The same dilemma has emerged in Pakistan. Those who have been part of the women?s movement for decades and have fought to institutionalise women?s rights emphasise the need to engage with the system, however flawed it may be, and work to fix it and not bypass it. For instance, they insist women facing sexual harassment at work must report it formally and follow up with case investigation and not accuse someone on social media and stop there. Fouzia Saeed was the driving force behind the sexual harassment law and set up AASHA. Anis Haroon was the chair of the National Commission on Status of Women when the law was passed and currently is on the National Commission for Human Rights and Women?s Action Forum (WAF). Uzma Noorani is with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and runs Panah, a shelter for women and is part of Sindh?s provincial Sexual Harassment Implementation Watch Committee. All three believe the existing law and its mechanisms must be used and just accusing someone without formally complaining trivialises the process. Pointing to the success stories where women managed to get justice, they iterate the need for due process. ?Breaking the silence is critical when there are no systems in place. But now we have legal protocols, and they get undermined with media trials,? says Fouzia Saeed, referring to the accusations MPA Ayesha Gulalai made against Imran Khan. Anis Haroon illustrates with the recent case from the University of Karachi, where the victim did not have screenshots or other forms of proof but a pattern of behaviour was established and the offending professor was prohibited from entering the university ever again. In National College of Arts (NCA), Rawalpindi, female faculty members fought a case against the director of the campus and, in accordance with the recommendation of the inquiry committee on sexual harassment, NCA announced that he had been ?compulsorily retired.? ?Speaking out is important but you should follow through,? suggests Sayed. ?Women have to decide what their goal is. There are now forums for resolving things. If those are not used, then it?s just accusations, statements and controversy. The process should not be unjust to anybody. At least try using the mechanisms first.? STANDING BY WOMEN All women?s rights activists at the same time point to the need of believing the victim. ?It?s a rubbish argument that women make such claims for publicity,? says Haroon. ?Here, it only offers notoriety, abuse and wrecked nerves. No woman will make such claims lightly. We believe them. If they approach us, we always help them.? Those who professionally investigate sexual harassment cases say it is unhelpful to look at allegations as true or false. Since an allegation is a statement of belief that some wrong has occurred, they suggest the assessment should judge whether the charge is substantiated or not, and not be framed as whether it is true or not. In most cases, globally and not just in Pakistan, women generally file complaints after some time has passed after the incident and they can gather the courage, secure themselves in a support network or are no longer in a position subservient to the abuser. ?Only those in a position of privilege will ask questions such as why didn?t she report it when it happened,? argues Noorani. ?[Those who cast aspersions] have not experienced the pervading confusion, vulnerability and insecurity when such acts happen. The law has no statute of limitations. Women can report no matter how much time has lapsed.? One significant influence on public disclosure is if women realise what is happening to them is a pattern; that they are not alone in experiencing this. It could be the knowledge that the abuser is a serial harasser. Or it could be impersonal ? the understanding that what they are going through is a phenomenon across society or even across countries and cultures. Having instant access to such information and to connect with others has become pivotal. SHAPE-SHIFTER MEDIA Accessible media has been a game changer for women. The instantaneous mass outreach of social media enables trends to become global, such as #MeToo and #TimesUp. Activists had earlier tried to catalyse such moments around rights-based movements ? for instance, the World Social Forums in the early 2000s ? but without social media platforms, they were unsustainable. The Aurat March is another example of the cascade effect, as women?s marches were held across the United States for the past two years. Social media platforms have created and democratised space for women. Often women experiencing sexual harassment experience anger, confusion and self-doubt. The act of speaking out breaks through the isolation women experience and as others share their experiences, it allows patterns to emerge through a cascade effect. Illustration by Soonhal Khan While condemnation of women who speak out is routine, social media has created channels for people to express solidarity. In the recent cases where women have accused men on Twitter, many women have expressed support and admiration and said the simple words that women often do not get to hear: ?I believe you.? Many women on social media were unflinching in their support for victims and pointed out the hypocrisy and misogyny of gender and cultural hierarchies. In a departure from the norm, many men have also expressed support to women who speak out, have condemned harassers and challenged other men who defend them. In one case, it had an instant effect. Patari stated that its CEO accused of harassment would be stepping down, expressed complete support for victims of harassment and announced a detailed investigation, and through a statement by investors, iterated its commitment to positive and progressive workplace values. It was a best-case scenario. Conversely, the organisation The Digital Factory (TDF) in a statement denied all charges against its chief ? also accused of harassment and lewd behaviour ? and said that the accusations are based on personal grudges to defame the organisation. This points to the shape-shifter the media can be. There has simultaneously been an outpouring of scorn and outright abuse against Shafi. When known activist and social analyst Marvi Sirmed observed that the broadcast media persons condemning Shafi were also known for harassment, she also faced a barrage of abuse, much of it also amounting to sexual harassment. Social media provides the anonymity and amplification that allows for diatribes and taunts against the victims. The Federal Investigation Agency and private organisations such as Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) and Bolo Bhi are working to address online harassment as a phenomenon. DRF has set up a cyber harassment helpline, through which 1,500 cases were registered in a single year. ?Nothing works,? fretted a senior activist friend. ?We thought better laws would fix things, then we thought increased education would, then that women becoming financially independent would, then women in leadership positions would.? She goes quiet for a moment. ?I understand structures and patriarchy and all that, but so much could be eased if these boys just had better manners.? The writer is a researcher and consultant in the social sector. She tweets @Nazish_Brohi KNOWING THE LAW The strength of the workplace law is that it has an inbuilt implementation system. It mandates all organisations to have inquiry committees to deal with complaints and provincial and a federal ombudsperson?s office that can either be approached directly by women, or be used to challenge decisions of the committees. The ombudsperson?s decision can be appealed before the governor, whose decision will be final. The courts are not involved. No material evidence is required to approach the ombudsperson and verbal testimonies are given weightage. If organisations have not made standing inquiry committees, that complaint can be taken to the ombudsperson?s office too. Women who are not employees but have been harassed in a work-related environment, for instance freelancers, can directly appeal to the ombudsperson?s office. The other law is that which addresses sexual harassment in public places and covers all spaces outside the workplace, including private gatherings. This is the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 509. In addition to physical sexual advances, it includes words, sounds, gestures and exhibiting of objects of sexual nature that women find offensive. It is punishable by three years in prison or fines or both. These cases, heard before first class magistrates, involve the courts, are bailable and require warrants for arrest. All provinces are meant to have sexual harassment implementation watch committees. Though Balochistan and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa have not instituted these as yet, the ones in Sindh and Punjab are in place and have dealt with numerous cases already. The committees comprise bureaucrats but also rights activists and civil society members. While the appointment of Krishna Kumari as a senator was celebrated by many for the election of a Hindu Dalit from Tharparkar, many people may not know of her expertise on sexual harassment code compliance and that she ran Sindh?s provincial centre of Alliance Against Sexual Harassment (AASHA) for years. Many other women politicians have also been active in anti-harassment efforts including Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Sherry Rehman, Shazia Marri and Attiya Inayatullah. There are many organisations that assist women attempting to deal with sexual harassment. These include Mehrgarh, Interactive Resource Center (IRC), Women in Struggle for Empowerment (Wise), Tehrik-i-Niswan and Women?s Action Forum (WAF), among others.? N.B. ======================================== 9. THE TIME MACHINE TRAP: ASIA?S MOST PROSPEROUS COUNTRIES ARE NOT SQUEAMISH ABOUT BORROWING FROM THE WEST | Sadanand Dhume ======================================== The Times of India May 5, 2018 We live in unusual times. Just a few years ago, the idea of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat giving a 55-minute lecture on the Indian economy at the Bombay Stock Exchange may have belonged in an enterprising comedian?s stand-up routine. These days it?s a legitimate event, earnestly covered by the pink papers. Bhagwat gave the speech in question last month. The headlines dwelled upon his opposition to both privatisation and foreign ownership of the loss-making Air India. As the RSS chief put it, in fluent Hindi, ?does it not run properly, or has it not been properly run?? In short: never mind that countless attempts to manage the chronically inefficient airline ?properly? have failed. Next time must be the charm. My purpose here is not to relitigate the case for privatising Air India, but to ask a more basic question: what are the economic consequences for India of the worldview outlined by Bhagwat at BSE? If you?re sanguine, you can see it as a set of harmless nostrums with few real world economic consequences. Alternatively, to take a darker view, the insularity that nativists espouse could permanently hobble India?s bid to catch up with the prosperous economies of East Asia. In fairness, much of what the RSS chief expounded upon was unexceptionable. For instance, he pointed out the well-known inadequacy of gross domestic product as an accounting measure. GDP counts a maid?s work as economic output, but ignores a housewife?s unpaid labour. He pointed out that each country must pick policies to suit its circumstances, and that it?s foolish to be a slave to theory. He emphasised that the benefits of economic development must reach the poorest members of society. The bulk of Bhagwat?s effort appeared to be an attempt to massage Hindu spiritual ideas into some kind of economic philosophy. (Much of this echoed the work of RSS ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, who rejected both communism and capitalism as unsuitable for India.) For instance, according to Bhagwat an Indian could never ask you to believe in an ideology such as socialism or capitalism. The Indian way is merely to share one?s own experience and allow others to learn from it if they find it helpful. In a similar vein, the RSS chief emphasised the need for Indians to remain ?themselves? by remaining connected to who they once were. He likened those who lack this quality to an elephant playing football or a monkey riding a bicycle. Why does any of this matter? For starters, because we live in an age where conventional expertise appears to carry a lot less weight than before. Take the idea for demonetisation, the Modi government?s harebrained decision in 2016 to nuke nearly 90% of India?s currency by value overnight. This brainwave was not incubated in a think tank or in the pages of a peer reviewed journal. Most credible accounts suggest that its proponents were a well-connected yoga guru, a spiritually inclined chartered accountant, and an obscure activist in Pune. Only after the fact did a handful of trained economists attempt (probably to their lasting chagrin) to justify the bizarre policy that even Venezuela deemed too risky. Similarly, former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, widely lauded in the West for his economic acumen, was virtually hounded out of India for, in the immortal words of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, being ?mentally not fully Indian.? When noted trade economist Arvind Panagariya returned to Columbia University last year, his successor as NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar made a dig about India no longer needing foreign experts. On the campaign trail, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself extolled the virtues of hard work over Harvard. Can India prosper while waging a cultural war against Western-educated experts? Unfortunately for the nativist brigade, the weight of evidence leans against them. Over the past century and a half, the Asian countries that have successfully played catch-up with the advanced industrial economies of the West have been those where nobody spends much time worrying about looking like an elephant playing football. Less than two decades after American warships pried open its ports in the 1850s, Japan paved the way for its breathtaking modernisation with the Meiji restoration, whose 150th anniversary we are commemorating this year. Acquiring Western education was central to this effort. To varying degrees, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and China have followed suit ? aggressively scouring the West for what works and shamelessly adapting it for their own use. According to the South Korean author Park Seong-Rae, East Asian countries even adopted remarkably similar-sounding phrases to describe this process of modernising by synthesising. For the Japanese, it was ?Japanese spirits and Western talents.? The South Koreans used ?the Eastern way and Western tools.? For the Chinese, it was ?Chinese body and Western uses.? In his meetings with Modi in Wuhan last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping invariably wore a Western suit. You can view Xi?s sartorial preference in two ways: as a symbol of subjugation by an alien culture, or as a matter-of-fact aspect of globalisation. But as China shimmies up the ladder of prosperity one thing is clear: nobody in Shanghai or Beijing seems to spend a lot of time fretting about how much they borrow and how much is authentically their own. ======================================== 10. HOW MODI IS TAKING KARNATAKA ELECTION CAMPAIGN TO NEPAL | Vishnu Sharma ======================================== Daily O 6 May 2018 Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking BJP's Karnataka election campaign to Nepal. This isn't a new thing for him. Since 2014, he has turned every idea, platform and even his visits abroad into election campaigns. His speech at the United Nations was an election campaign, his interactions with the NRIs abroad too is an election campaign and when he inaugurates a temple in Abu Dhabi he is eyeing on elections back home. So not surprisingly, on May 11 when he visits Nepal, he is taking his party's Karnataka election campaign along. It might be a slip but Nepali home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa has rightly described the visit as "religious and cultural and not political". On the eve of Karnataka election, Modi will fly to Janakpur, a place said to be the birthplace of legendary goddess Sita, to offer prayers right at the beginning of his trip. People in Karnataka will cast their ballot on May 12. He is also scheduled to address a public gathering during a civil facilitation in the presence of Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli. Reports suggest that Oli is personally looking after the preparations. Home minister Thapa has already visited Janakpur to take stock of the security measure. After Janakpur, Modi will visit other religious places, including the Muktinath Temple and the Pashupatinath Temple. The rumours in Kathmandu are rife that BJP general secretary Ram Madhav visited the capital secretly to make these arrangements. Just imagine the way the BJP is going to use the visit to influence Karnataka voters. On May 12, the day of election, newspapers across India will carry on their front pages the news with the headlines such as: Modi accorded grand welcome in Nepal, People chant Modi Modi in Nepal, Modi offers prayers in Janaki Mandir, Modi visits Muktinath, offers prayers etc etc. In 2014 too Modi had attempted to visit Janakpur but failed because the communists were in Opposition then. They threatened to disturb the programme and forced then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to alter Modi's itinerary. This time neither is Koirala the PM - he passed away in 2016, nor are the communists in Opposition. 'Hindu' spring in Nepal In today's communist-ruled Nepal, enlightenment is a commodity up for sale, negotiation and trade. Since the communists are in power, they don't need the idea of enlightenment, democracy and secularism to mobilise masses, as they did a few years ago. They now look more like the nineteenth century pharmacists, who offered opium for all sort illnesses. For Nepali communists, their opium is religion, coated as nationalism, and exported, as everything else, from India. After years of struggle, peaceful as well as violent, and sacrifices of countless people, Nepal finally became a secular democracy in 2008. Now, the communists are pulling it back to its "original" Hindu fold. While the Nepali Congress is embroiled in an internal struggle, the former rebels are working overtime to transform Nepal into a "Hindu republic". Not so long ago these comrades swore by Marx, Lenin and Mao as well as science, today they look eager to prove that they have much in common with the BJP and its parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In January, the comrades celebrated the National Unity day to commemorate the first Gurkha king of Nepal, Prithvi Narayan Shah. President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other ministers and leaders laid wreath on the statue of the "unifier" king, who for majority of the people was a cruel conqueror. Prior to this, the communists allowed the cow to be named as the country's national animal and also remained quiet when the Gurkha flag was retained as the national flag. There wasn't a single word of protest when daura sulwar and dhaka cap, the traditional dress, was proposed as the official dress of Nepal. And now, by according Modi a welcome of a religious conqueror, the KP Oli-led Nepali government is set to give a strong push to its agenda. Cow terror in communist Nepal For poor Nepalese of tribal region, the rule of current communist government is a reign of terror. There is news of people being arrested for cow slaughtering almost every day. The number of such cases is more than what is witnessed in India which is now ruled by the sect of people who believe in Hindi, Hindu and Hindustan. In secular Nepal, cow slaughtering is punishable crime of up to 12 years and the act is implemented very rigorously. During Monarchy too cow slaughtering was a crime nevertheless the rulers were cautious enough to not disturb the social fabric of the Nepalese society by enforcing the blanket ban on it. But, the current government is taking extra measure to destroy every traditional custom which is not in agreement with the values of the ruling elite. During the Maoist movement in Nepal, the European Union had ever advocated the negotiated solution for Nepal's conflict. Unlike other countries, the EU had a clear stand on secularism and democracy. While the Maoists favored EU's involvement in the conflict the anti Maoist forces, including the country's Army and the neighbor India, opposed its involvement in Nepal's 'internal matter'. Today in the name of 'national sovereignty' the government is targeting it. While it is ever comfortable with interference from the north and south, the EU slamming looks more like an indirect yet targeted attack on the principle of inclusion and secular democracy that the EU claims to represent. Hope for secularism It sounds ironic but for many in Nepal, hope for its secular future lies in delaying in the unification of the two communist parties, the UML led by KP Oli and Prachanda's Maoist Centre. There are leaders in the Maoist Centre who were involved in the violent struggle against monarchy and these leaders are strictly secular and democratic in their approach. Tacitly, they agree to the danger of "Oli nationalism". Today they are silent due to the uncertainty surrounding their future in the united party. But once the talk of unification is put aside, they can be powerful allies in the country's fight against "Hindu" revivalism. ======================================== 11. A "PIECE OF REAL ESTATE KNOWN AS INDIA": ASHOK MITRA'S 1989 COLUMN ON HOW INDIA'S RICH SHED THEIR GUILT AND FEAR ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly 18 March 1989 "Calcutta Diary" Should one apologise for returning to the same theme, over and over again? But when cliche is the reality, cliche it has to be. They are the top of the heap. In their scheme of things, only the top, in fact, exists, the heap does not. One happens to pick one of those slick publications which deal, exclusively, with the perambulations of this set. It is gushingly informative India, it confides to you, has finally arrived; at long last, what a relief, it is the year of the designer. The influence of the designer, one is told with authority, permeates every?yes, every? sphere of Indian life; our compatriots, each and every one of them, have ceased simply to buy clothes, they now insist on buying labels. The labels of course have their price-tag, but, in civilised society, who does not know, it is not the in thing to mention prices. Classy writing, classy name-dropping. Sons and daughters of the very, very rich design apparel for each other. They buy from each other. They create wealth, and exchange that wealth, within the fold. It is a self-contained arrangement, where the offspring of the affluent concern themselves with fashions and designs and such other foppery intended for themselves alone. They compliment each other for their creativity; one or two amongst them sit down to write learned-sounding discourses on what they have created. Foppery, they take it for granted, is substitutable with culture. Somebody from within their set they designate as the country's 'premier culture person'; taking the long view, they even name his or her successor. It is such a cosy world of unending in-dulgence, as if those advertisements in the New Yorker magazine have suddenly come to life, eleven thousand miles away, along Indian shores. These precious children have a new con-fidence in their voice. It is not merely that money-making for them is an extraordinarily easy proposition. It was always so for those who had the connections. What is however special is the assurance with which they now-a-days, almost absentmindedly, flaunt the fact of their holding money, interminable lots of it, which they are going to spend with a carefree abandon. Not a flicker of hesitation passes across their mind. They own the piece of real estate known as India. It is to them axiomatic that they are to enjoy the high life this ownership entitles them to. The pages of the slick journals they patronise; and which subsist on their patronage, are a revelation. It is a closed-circuit ambience. None is to be permitted to suspect that India happens to be one of the poorest nations on earth, beset by hunger, pestilence and squalor. The exclusive talk is around fashions and designs, you will only expose yourself as a silly old goat were you to try to chip in with that awkward bit of statistics about per capita consumption of cloth in the country today being even less than what it was at the time of independence. This is then the qualitative change which has come about in the past decade, more so in the past five years. The filthy rich of yesteryears have shed both their guilt com-plex and their fear complex. It is no longer shameful, they have come to acquire the knowledge, to parade their affluence. That the wealth of some of them has been amass-ed through roundabout means is no ground for apprehension either. A transformation has taken place in the perception of moral principles. Appellations such as Ill-gotten' have gone into disuse The possession of money alone matters, the modality of how one came by it is a foot notish detail which must not spoil the fun. There is a way of putting it; as the fascinated urban sociologists would say, Indians, meaning the Indian rich, have finally succeeded in getting rid of their hang-ups. To offer the comment that the specimens being described subsist in an unreal world, and then move on, is hardly adequate Rest assured, their new-found confidence is not unreal. For the first time since socialism dawned in the country, they do not feel the need to hide their money under the bushel. For, for the first time; their holding of wealth has a major supportive advantage: it is backed by their direct holding of political power. Not that they were exactly lacking in political support in the past. But that was in the nature of patronage, dispensed by the powers-that-be for their own reasons. Such intermediaries have disappeared; the rich can now claim political power on the strength of their own credentials, and use that power with the same nonchalance with which they use the other perquisites of life. This political strength the offspring of the rich have amassed is a concrete phenomenon. They do not have to operate any more through lobbyists for wangling an import or industrial licence or for getting a certain import or excise duty waived or reduced. They themselves have the clout to effect changes in public policy. Not that all of them participate with equal gusto in the direct political process. Sometimes the husband is involved, the wife is not Sometimes and-sister act, the sister is the political number, the brother is in designs. All told, they have not done at all badly. Some of them actually contested the elections and won thumpingly. True, a certain historical circumstance helped them to chalk up those victories. The fact nonetheless remains that they won. Also the fact that electoral triumph effected the most sweeping changes in the political arena. They have been quick learners. The legal and constitutional arrangements in the country they have in-herited are such that a division of responsibilities is called for. They have accepted the fact with grace that a handful amongst them have to perform the dirty parliamentary chores, such as going through the motions of chanting socialism and placing on record from time to time words of filial sympathy for the poverty-stricken millions. These are minor irritants. Altogether, it is still a heady feeling: no bloody counter-revolution, no messy coup d'etat, it has been an amazingly swift?and incident-free?transition: the rich have inherited, in one whole lot, the duchy of India. There is nothing ersatz about it; it is a genuine seizure of power. They can behead you if they want to. They can, at the shortest notice, despatch troops to rescue pals abroad who, either accidentally or by design, get themselves embroiled in trouble. They can strike an after-hours deal with the concerned multinational corporation and sign away the interests of the thousands who were felled by the gas leak at Bhopal. They can sign away the sovereign-ty of the country. Power grows, they have proved, out of straightforward inheritance, and, once that happens, they can quite believe that they might even control the power that grows out of the barrel of the gun. True, the foppery they are indulging in has a fragility of its own. It is dependent fop-pery, sustained by the country's huge foreign debt already comfortably exceeding fifty billion American dollars, and promising to rise further at an impressively exponential rate in the course of the next few years. But so what? Those offering funds from overseas have every reason to keep up the act; India, they have satisfied themselves, is an eminently trappable tract, and the decision-makers here have classy credentials. It will perhaps take us still some while to catch up with Brazil and Mexico, but both Argentina and Indonesia are within reachable distance. Give or take a couple of years, we are bound to enter the big league of external in-debtedness, and will constitute one of the eminent threesome. The offspring of the rich, worrying their heads off over motifs and designs, need not entertain fears of any nuisarfte of a distraction. Their foppery is heavily import-using, imports will however for the present be duly taken care of. Even the compensation from Union Carbide, in gleaming foreign exchange, will be put to good use. They therefore exude health. They do not feel any moral pressure, the squalidness afflicting the rest of the nation does not touch them. In any event, closed-circuit travel from air-conditioned boutiques to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned restaurants to air-conditioned penthouses can instil a great deal of other worldliness. Their friends from New York or San Franscisco are of course impressed at the swiftness with which the Union Carbide was offered the helping hand: After this, there ought to be not one doubting Thomas to allege that India is not safe for foreign in-vestments. While their satellite links with the west are thus unsnappable, even the winds blowing from the direction of the socialist countries are equally propitious. Those wont to sing the Internationale, on the other side of the assumed ideological divide, could not have stumbled on their perestroika at a more appropriate time. They and the children of our rich are, it seems, on an identical wave-length. Could it be the consequence of Cher-nobyl, could it be because these are charac-ters in search of a place where they could dump their spare sets of atomic power plants? Be that as it may, it is a kind of . global hook-up: whether it is Budapest or Moscow or Beijing or New York or Los Angeles or London, there is just one message: now is for now, live it up, live it up for yourselves, you are not your neighbour's keeper. Notwithstanding such earthshaking developments, there is that other objective correlate: the poor will not go away from these shores, they add up to millions and millions, and their number is growing; one of these days, they will learn to mobilise; one of these days, just for the fun of it, they will turn to organised mayhem; one of these days, for the heck of it, they will, suddenly, burst into the genteel tranquillity of air-conditioned salons and make a bonfire of motifs and designs. That will be some bother, which is why it is found necessary to set aside funds in the budget for distributing saris, gratis, to destitute women. And there is just an outside chance that the general elections due toward the end of the year could provide a jolt to the offspring of the affluent. A few amongst them perhaps have occasion to glance at the opinion polls the slick magazines they patronise have fallen into the habit of organising every now and then; stray motifs and designs are hid-den there too. Whether the rich have inheri-ted the earth for ever therefore remains an open-ended issue. Some designs may still turn out to be non-acceptable, whatever the, 'leading culture persons of the country* may say. ======================================== 12. INDIA: PF DATA 'STOLEN' FROM AADHAAR SEEDING LINK Jayanta Roy Chowdhury ======================================== The Telegraph, May 03, 2018 https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/pf-data-stolen-from-aadhaar-seeding-link-227760?ref=hm-ft-stry-3 ======================================== 13. INDIA: PUSSY CAT AT HOME, BENGAL TIGER IN A MOB: THERE?S LITTLE GENTEEL ABOUT THE BHADRALOK Sandip Roy ======================================== The Print 3 May, 2018 Dishing out mob justice, showing women their place has a powerful appeal whether in a pub in Mangalore or a train in Kolkata. The Metro rail was once Kolkata?s pride and joy. The city, after all, was the first in India to get one all the way back in 1984. Now, overnight, it?s become a symbol of the city?s shame. The Ananda Bazar Patrika recently carried an eyewitness account about a young couple thrashed by their middle-aged and elderly co-passengers for being ?too close? on the train. That has led to great soul-searching and hand-wringing all over the city. Et tu Metro? Then fall Kolkata. Suddenly, we are unable to recognise our city anymore. The Metro is appealing to us to not allow anyone to tarnish Kolkata?s ?cultural heritage?. ?It is difficult to believe that the city I have known for decade after decade has become so dangerous underneath the surface; so intolerant, so cruel! I am unable to believe it. It feels literally like a nightmare,? laments Ujjwal Chakravarty in the Ananda Bazar Patrika. Some are claiming this incident is just another sign that the moral policing of the khap panchayats and the Karni Senas and the Shri Ram Sene is now infecting even metropolitan Kolkata. From sword-wielding Ram Navami processions to PDA-phobic uncles on the Metro, it is but a hop, skip and hug away. But it?s not about Right-wing/Left-wing politics as much as it?s about bhadralok gone wild. That?s what really stings. When suburban lumpen were the villains, Kolkata could feel superior. In 2013, a college student was gang-raped and killed in Kamduni village just outside the city in an area surrounded by fisheries, ill-lit and ill-served by police stations. Local boys gathered there and drank in the open, passing lewd comments on any young woman that passed by. Kolkata marched in shocked protest. A 21-year-old college student was hacked to pieces in 2014, killed for protesting against gambling rackets and illicit liquor dens in his neighbourhood. A 39-year-old school teacher was murdered two years earlier for daring to take on criminal gangs who raped and tortured at will in his village. But these were on the outskirts of the city, in neighbourhoods Kolkatans might have heard about but rarely had reason to visit. The Metro did not stop there. That gentlefolk, the kind that take the Metro, could suddenly turn into a flash mob seems unbelievable. But is it really? Or does it just prove what we always secretly suspected, that the bhadralok liberalism Kolkata snobbishly prides itself on can be a thin veneer at best? There is really nothing to indicate the bhadralok is intrinsically liberal and tolerant. The quintessential bhadralok rarely gets involved because he does not want to get his hands dirty. That squeamishness is sometimes mistaken for tolerance. But it?s anything but, as is often evident when the bhadralok opens his mouth. When Suzette Jordan was raped after a visit to a nightclub in the heart of the city, a bhadralok minister wanted to know what a mother-of-two was doing at a nightclub. As a young woman commented, the men who beat up the couple are also the ones that look the other way when a woman is harassed on the same trains. Yes, Kolkata is still one of the safest cities for women in the country but National Crime Records Bureau statistics for 2016 say the state has the highest number of cases of domestic violence. The dadas in the neighbourhood, the aunties next door, the I-know-best uncles, even the student union leaders on campus, have always been moral police unto themselves. A young woman tells a story about how, as a student, she was harassed by dadas for wearing shorts and smoking in public in Kolkata. The difference is dadas dictated the norms in what they considered their own backyard while the Metro is public transport that supposedly belongs to everyone. The heavy-handed Bengali soap operas, while apparently peddling stories of women?s empowerment, trot out the same old tropes, where girls who go to ?discs? or have a drink are women who will inevitably have their ?modesty outraged?. Even that genteel word ?bhadralok? is a cutting-edge weapon used to enforce a ?Lakshman rekha? of propriety. We?ve all heard it. ?You can?t dress like that/you can?t party like that/you can?t argue like that/you can?t stay out late like that, this is a bhadralok home/apartment building/housing complex.? When a mob decides to enforce their idea of what is seemly, it shows that the middle-aged bhadralok in Kolkata is just as frustrated at the sight of carefree young love as their khap counterparts elsewhere. When it?s discreetly out of sight, on the dark tree-lined streets near Victoria Memorial where you will find couples in a tight clinch every few feet, they pretend not to notice it. But when faced with it in the bright fluorescent light of a Metro compartment, the Bengali blood boils over. The renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore might have famously told us ?jodi tor daak shuney keu na aashey tobey ekla chalo re (If no one heeds your call, then go it alone)?, but in a Metro compartment in Kolkata, everyone is eager to answer the call of the mob. Dishing out mob justice, showing women their place, has a powerful appeal, whether in a pub in Mangaluru or a train in Kolkata. They might be pussy cats at home, but in the safety of a mob everyone is a Bengal tiger. There are silver linings here. Unlike other parts of the country, the reaction has at least not been an angry bristling defence of the moral police. It was other passengers who came to the couple?s rescue. The Metro railway authorities quickly tweeted, ?Metro Rly IS AGAINST MORAL POLICING?, and said they were investigating the incident though their CCTV cameras had not captured anything. However, their zero-tolerance stance was slightly dented when their official Facebook handle apparently posted a message asking, ?What wrong has been done by the passengers?? calling the episode the ?inevitable fallout of year-long vulgarity shown by a section of the young generation?. That message was hurriedly deleted but not quickly enough. Now, young people are giving out free hugs as part of a ?#HokAalingon (Let the hugs happen) campaign?. People are singing songs and quoting Bob Dylan to the media, saying the times they are a changing. That?s all very cool and exactly the sort of reaction Kolkata prides itself on. But it does not change the uncomfortable truth. The league of extraordinary Bengali gentlemen isn?t so out of the ordinary, after all. When push comes to love, they can be just garden-variety bullies. Then, they will go back to their fish-and-rice bhadralok lives without missing a beat. Sandip Roy is a journalist, commentator and author. ======================================== 14. BRAZIL'S RACIALISED SPERM ECONOMY Why is there a surging demand for caucasian sperm in Brazil? by Mariana Prandini Assis ======================================== Al Jazeera 5 May 2018 Sperm samples, each individually numbered, rest in a tank of liquid nitrogen. [Fred Prouser/Reuters] The commodification of biomaterials, such as eggs and sperm, and their associated products, has drastically changed the ways in which we deal with reproduction and kinship. A domain of life once understood to be natural has now become a matter of choice. At first glance, the vast availability of biomaterial in the borderless marketplace seems to be liberating: single women increasingly make up the largest consumer group of sperm banks, a fact that signals to the disruption of traditional gender roles and family models. But are people's uses of assisted reproduction technology only telling us about subversion or could they also indicate the ways in which powerful structures of domination are entrenched in our societies? In the case of Brazil, the answer seems to be that the recent trend of sperm importation, reported by the National Health Surveillance Agency, reveals a lot more than simply a tremendous increase of demand for this commodity (which cannot be commercialised within the country). The report details the information on foreign human semen use from 2011 to 2016 and shows that 95 percent of the demand was for samples provided by Caucasian men. The colour of the donor's eyes was also an important factor for the importers: 52 percent preferred donors with blue eyes, followed by brown (24 percent) and green (13 percent). The profile of the donors who received the largest number of requests show a slight variation: They are either blond Caucasian with blue eyes or blue-eyed Caucasians with brown hair. For anyone who has ever heard about Brazilians being mixed people who live in a racial democracy, it might be difficult to understand why those who can afford to import semen have such a strong and almost unanimous preference for the blue-eyed Caucasian type. Growing up as a white person in Brazil, it is not hard for me to figure this out. The racist structure that governs our society unmistakably establishes that power, privileges and inherent capacities go along with the colour of your skin. Whiteness is the normative racial identity here, and being a white person places you in a position that, throughout your life, systematically gives you privileged access to material and symbolic resources. The value given to whiteness may be seen in different domains of life. First, in terms of beauty standards, white aesthetics is hegemonic. Straight hair, white skin, blue or green eyes and delicate features make up the prevailing idea of human beauty, which is entrenched in popular culture, and disseminated in mass media. Such aesthetical superiority is, in fact, one of the distinguishing features of whiteness in Brazil, as recent studies have shown. Also, the idea of moral and intellectual superiority - which is at the heart of "race" as a colonial construct to justify subjugation of indigenous and black people in the Americas - is deployed, up to this day, by white Brazilians to explain why they earn more money, live in the best neighbourhoods, occupy the highest positions in both the market and the state, among many other advantages they enjoy. It is clear thus that Brazilian racism is by and large supported by a pact of whiteness. While such a pact does not place barriers to the establishment of everyday relationships between whites and non-whites, hence our "racial democracy", it reinforces, in every instance, the idea of white superiority that legitimates the privileges that we white people enjoy. White people are not only favoured in such racialised structure, but they have actively produced and strengthened it, simply by promoting the (very wrong) idea of racial democracy or through more direct mechanisms of discrimination. One of such mechanisms were the state policies deployed at the turn of 19th century, when the abolition of slavery became an inevitable fact and hundreds of thousands of black people would become citizens. Aiming to turn Brazil into a white country, a decree from 1890 liberalised the entrance of workers, except for those native to Asia or Africa. During the coming decades, particularly between the 1920s and 1940s, the state engaged in a deliberate effort to attract European migrants as a means to whiten the population. Interestingly in contrast with the US experience, interracial coupling became, both in state policy and intellectual discourse, a eugenic instrument. In only about 30 years, 2.1 million European migrants were allowed in the country, a number equivalent to that of the black people forced into Brazil as slaves during nearly 375 hundred years. Today, we have the largest black population outside of Africa and the majority of my compatriots define themselves as black or mixed race. Nonetheless, the commitment to make this a white nation has not relinquished, as the recent and growing trend of Caucasian sperm importation might suggest. While institutional racism still plays a major role in sustaining preferences, hierarchies, privileges and material inequalities between human beings based on their skin colour, the role individual racism plays in the maintenance of this structure cannot be ignored. After all, signing out of the "white pact" means to oppose a long list of racial, economic and political privileges that comes with being white in Brazil. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance. Mariana Prandini Assis is a human rights lawyer and a PhD Candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. ======================================== 15. BOOK REVIEW: ?TOMORROW BELONGS TO US?: THE BRITISH FAR RIGHT SINCE 1967 EDITED BY NIGEL COPSEY AND MATTHEW WORLEY ======================================== LSE REview of Books 25 April 2018 ?Tomorrow Belong to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967, edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley, offers an interdisciplinary collection that explores the development of the British far right since the formation of the National Front in 1967, covering topics including Holocaust denial, gender, activist mobilisation and ideology. Katherine Williams recommends this insightful and dynamic volume, which shows the importance of new approaches and methodologies when it comes to examining the rise of the far right in Britain. ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967. Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley (eds). Routledge. 2017. Part of Routledge?s Fascism and Far Right series, ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us?: The British Far Right since 1967, edited by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley, has its finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary debates surrounding the development of the far right in Britain, which have gained particular currency once more following the Brexit referendum of 2016. As the editors note in the introductory section, the rise of neo-nationalist or nativist populism has become increasingly difficult to ignore, particularly given radical right mobilisation across Europe and the election of political outlier Donald Trump to the US presidency. To make sense of present-day events, they posit that an understanding of the past is essential to contextualise the British far right today. Thus, 1967 is a particularly significant moment with which to begin the discussion: the National Front (NF) was formed in this year, marking the first time since Oswald Moseley?s British Union of Fascists (BUF) that far-right groups in Britain came together under one united ?front?. While the NF today presents no tangible threat in terms of electoral politics ? it has no elected representatives at any level of government ? it enjoyed considerable success in 1977 when it won a quarter of a million votes in the Greater London council elections. Following this precedent, 33 years later, the British National Party (BNP) stood 338 candidates and amassed half a million votes in the 2010 General Election. However, despite the relative successes of the NF and BNP at the ballot box, the volume is concerned with the establishment of a ?new way? of viewing the far right. The editors aim to move beyond the methodological approaches of ?hard politics?, eschewing the statistical analysis typifying the field more generally. Thus, the topics discussed in this volume are approached from diverse, interdisciplinary epistemological and methodological perspectives, including scholars in history, cultural studies and behavioural studies, to name but a few. The ultimate aim of the volume is to bridge gaps in the existing literature, and take analyses of the far right in directions that have yet to be explored or are currently underexplored. The volume is comprised of twelve principal chapters, including an extensive bibliographic survey of primary and secondary source materials pertaining to the British far right. The chapters themselves discuss a variety of topics ranging from homophobia in the BNP, the impact of Greece?s Golden Dawn on British far right parties as well as far right and punk youth culture during the 1970s, illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of the collection. Image Credit: National Front March, Yorkshire, UK, 1970s (White Flight CC BY SA 3.0) In the first chapter, Mark Hobbs asserts that, alongside 1967, 1945 is also of utmost significance when it comes to examining the link between Holocaust denial and the subsequent development of far-right ideology. While Holocaust denial presents something of a barrier to the political legitimacy groups like the NF were seeking, it contributed to the construction of what Hobbs terms a ?false history?. According to this view, the failure of far-right movements to attain legitimacy is blamed on Jewish conspiracies, of which the Holocaust itself is considered one such example, and further ?evidence? of Jewish ?interference? in global politics. The many crimes of the Nazi regime are, of course, conveniently ignored. Holocaust denial had no ?official? place within the NF, but influential members, such as John Tyndall, held different views; he was not afraid to ?retract? these beliefs publically in order to secure power and influence within the movement before becoming party leader in 1972. The publication of Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Verrall in 1974 saw the far right attempt a bid for legitimacy that went beyond the ballot box. Hobbs notes that this infamous tract was meant to imbibe far-right propaganda with scholarly credentials: the authorship was attributed to an academic institution, and the text was presented with footnotes, references and a bibliography. This was designed to lend further credence to the idea that Holocaust denial could be a ?viable? form of historical revisionism. This tradition was continued by the revisionist Journal of Historical Review, and cast into the public eye by libel cases brought against prominent figures in the movement like Ernst Z?ndel and David Irving. It is far too easy to fall into the trap of suggesting that Holocaust deniers and proponents of far-right ideology are ?mad? or stupid. As Hobbs asserts, ignoring these views is to overlook the serious danger posed by both the ideology itself and the violence it facilitates. Similarly, we cannot underestimate the danger posed by ?alt right? groups today, despite their academic veneer ? Richard Spencer?s National Policy Institute being a case in point ? and seemingly inconspicuous stylings (for readers interested in this particular subject, Chapter Seven, by Ana Raposo and Roger Smith, offers a wealth of discussion on far-right visual cultures as they pertain to British movements). Hobbs effectively demonstrates that Holocaust denial is an essential part of the inner workings of far-right ideologies that not only sustain epistemological ?grand narratives? of a Jewish conspiracy, but continue to ?unify? like-minded individuals, as events in Charlottesville last year have shown. This ?unification? is also facilitated through the proliferation of far-right ideology on social media sites, despite recent ?purges? by platforms such as Twitter. Consequently, far-right groups are able to reach out to potential members, as well as altogether different types of audiences, from the comfort of their own homes. In Chapter Nine, Hannah Bows discusses the relative lack of research undertaken on one particular potential audience: women. Despite the rise in academic interest in the far right, the author notes that studies have been dominated by ?salient? images of angry, white, working-class men, often absenting women from the discussion altogether. As Bows reiterates, we therefore know ?painfully little? about women in the British far right, historical studies notwithstanding. Subsequently, the chapter aims to provide a theoretical overview of the relatively small pool of research that exists. Bows discusses research, both qualitative and quantitative, that attempts to unpack why a ?gender gap? in discussions of women?s participation may exist. Four key strands of thought emerge: men dominate manual occupations and are more likely to be affected by a lack of employment opportunities; women may be more religious than men and find the far right antithetical to their personal beliefs; the diffusion of feminism has seen women turn their backs on the far right; and, finally, society?s rigid adherence to gendered binaries has seen both men and women socialised into ?knowing their place?. Whilst this may offer researchers insight into some of the reasons behind women?s alleged non-involvement, Bows argues such studies are limited not only by small sample sizes and altogether different methodological approaches, but also the difficulty in predicting levels of female participation due to the secretive and non-formal membership processes of far-right groups. Although the far right is dominated by men, we know that women are active in the movement both at home and beyond ? Britain First?s deputy leader Jayda Fransen and Germany?s Beate Zsch?pe are high-profile examples. Influential studies undertaken by sociologist Kathleen Blee have also attempted to shed some light on women?s involvement in neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-affiliated groups in a US context. Bows posits that as well as an innate ?paucity? of empirical research, there is an almost total lack of theoretical engagement: dominant theories inevitably centre men?s experiences and cannot simply be transferred to women. The author opines that while feminist scholars in particular may have trouble reconciling far-right agendas with feminism?s core tenets of agency and equality, the rise of far-right movements and their gender-specific appeal are hugely important to feminist theories and activism. Ultimately, what we need, and what Bows advocates, is empirical research that engages directly with women in far-right groups in order to effectively unpack dominant socio-cultural narratives surrounding their involvement. ?Tomorrow Belongs to Us? offers readers a dynamic insight into the development of the British far right since 1967, and reminds us that despite its various peaks and troughs, the movement continues to have the ability to incite hatred and undermine democracy, as recent events have also shown. Contributors to this excellent volume advocate a new way of looking at the far right in Britain, and demonstrate a range of means through which intersectional engagement can be achieved, all the while encouraging researchers to look beyond the statistical methods of the ?hard? sciences for ?answers? regarding the subject matter at hand. The book is a must-read for researchers and general readers alike. Katherine Williams is an ESRC-funded PhD candidate at Cardiff University. Her research interests include the role of women in far-right groups, feminist methodologies and political theory and gender in IR. You can follow her on Twitter: @phdkat. ======================================== 16. BOOK REVIEW: RULE BY AESTHETICS BY ASHER GHERTNER ======================================== Society and Space 24 April 2018 REVIEWED BY RYAN CENTNER Asher Ghertner, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2015, 272 pp., $26.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780199385577 Geographical fieldwork with philosophers and elsewheres Asher Ghertner continues his work as a creative and profound scholar with his first monograph, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi. This book is a great read yet also manages to be impressively detailed in its data and textured in its ethnographic feel. Ghertner proves particularly agile in his movement among sites in Delhi as well as among concepts and modes of academic engagement, shifting from exposition and explication to conceptual development and back again. There is a masterful sense of a very locally specific framework and argument that simultaneously hold broad utility for a range of settings. I would like to focus on a few features of this book that I find especially worth thinking about in terms of Ghertner?s larger contributions, as well as some aspects that got me stuck thinking?both in terms of elsewheres, or other sites, where we might see these phenomena happening, and other conceptual engagements that we might consider in light of this. Among the many accomplishments of the book, it excels in dissecting the world-class city from new angles. Ghertner breathes new life into this concept, moving above and beyond the pivotal, now classic critique by Jennifer Robinson (2002) about global and world cities as a ?regulating fiction.? Ghertner advances our understanding here by showing how this idea of the world-class city?this image, this aesthetic?is cultivated through both statistical wizardry and discursive innovation, as part of cultural domination. But he also shows how this reaches various groups: not just those who benefit from it directly, or who are seen as some kind of favored audience ready to buy into its fantasy by buying up luxury flats, but also how this fantasy becomes something that those most persecuted by it absorb, admire, and obey. Ghertner shows how disadvantaged urban populations find ways to make sense of their own unbelonging in schemes of remaking the city to match some kind of world-class aspiration. In another example of his oblique, innovative interventions in influential debates in urban geography, Ghertner grapples with the gentrification literature by finding ways to shore up its utility for the institutional and political context of Indian cities (see also Ghertner, 2014). While some recent contributions advocate the ?planetary? sweep of gentrification analyses (e.g., Lees, Shin, and L?pez-Morales, 2016; Slater, 2017), Ghertner takes prudent steps both toward deeper empirical embeddedness and outward to wider considerations than is the norm for these swirling discussions among a small set of commentators who remind us that gentrification is everywhere. Indeed, the revalorization of devalorized space?an axiomatic understanding of gentrification from the late Neil Smith (1996)?can be witnessed across much of the globe. Ghertner has no interest in naysaying that observation. Rather, he argues that displacement and the remaking of urban terrain happens through different mechanisms, with differently pitched dynamics and differently inflected deplorable outcomes across planetary space, which has quite a lot to do with local political histories, longstanding socioeconomic structures, and both the design and enforcement of regulatory frameworks in any given state. Drawing on his longitudinal positioning in Delhi, he shows how processes of displacement obtain through a number of ?extra-economic? means (i.e., beyond the most standard ambit of gentrification explanations), including governance tactics and the impunity of brute force. Ghertner?s focus is specifically on the Indian context, but this kind of insight pertains to a number of other settings where property and residential rights draw on a different inheritance of norms?and repertoire of practices?than in the wealthy postindustrial countries where gentrification frameworks emerged. This is where Ghertner also takes a step outward, by considering how other broad frameworks?such as Henri Lefebvre?s (2003) understanding of urban revolution, and David Harvey?s (2003) accumulation by dispossession?could prove more amenable to a variety of settings, and indeed more adaptable to their specific features and how locally embedded scholars have understood them, than the standard gentrification story. Rather than abandoning gentrification as a phenomenon to analyze, Ghertner shows us how to do this more incisively so that we might yield better-informed strategies for denouncing and resisting it. If, instead, we start to see all kinds of urban change as gentrification, we are shorn of our ability to understand its nuances and make more effective interventions. Recently, even Saskia Sassen (2015)?sometimes criticized for the overstretch of her own concepts?claimed that ?calling a phenomenon gentrification is like an invitation not to think,? in her effort to convey the need for more tailored yet still critical theorizations and analyses of urban change. Ghertner, in richly textured ways, meets and exceeds this intellectual demand to offer us new ways to think about gentrification as well as the limits of what we can describe and analyze as gentrification in this book. He points usefully, for example, to ?the gentrification of the state,? elucidating how various processes of governance can be powerfully shifted along a class gradient. Among the many other thought-provoking facets of Rule by Aesthetics, two features pushed me to think about possible influences or extensions that could be rooted in this work. First, the book is quite philosophically omnivorous. Ghertner engages with philosophers in his geographical fieldwork with aplomb: whether Foucault, Ranci?re, Barthes, Kristeva, or others, there is much in philosophy (or among the philosophically minded) that Ghertner incorporates into his explanatory repertoire, for how to make sense of what is happening in Delhi with world-class urbanism and this rule by aesthetics. But I was left wondering at several points what this was doing for the book?s reception more broadly?both within geography and beyond. In human geography, there is somewhat of a disciplinary penchant for cherrypicking philosophical frameworks or following vogue theories?obviously not every geographer does this, but it happens often in the discipline, where an idea that is not necessarily relevant, and a thinker who may be extremely clever but has no (or no pertinent) empirical foundation, are invoked in almost scriptural fashion to make sense of a very empirical geographical phenomenon, as if somehow inherently legitimate or beyond question. This is not Ghertner?s game. To the contrary, his command of different philosophical frameworks is erudite and nimble, his use of them sensible and indeed grounded and reflexive, which are key shifts that are all too uncommon. This made me wonder how other geographers might then follow this example, how this could be a model for doing geographical fieldwork with philosophy but without resorting to flavor-of-the-month genuflection or hand-waving. Beyond geography, the book?s philosophical engagement may well be surprising, especially in disciplines such as sociology where scholars are very accustomed to the struggle of bringing together complicated theoretical frameworks with a rich local context. In particular I kept asking myself what would the analysis in Rule by Aesthetics have been like if Pierre Bourdieu had been utilized more directly and abundantly. Bourdieu is there, but he is not there extensively. Bourdieu as a sociologist was famous for his ?fieldwork in philosophy? (Bourdieu, 1990: 3-33), as he himself exemplified this practice of bringing philosophical concepts into the empirical fray to test and recalibrate them. I wondered then?especially around issues of judgment, taste, habitus, etc, that do show up in this book, and are key elements in Bourdieu?s repertoire?what would it have been like to engage with a philosophically minded scholar who is much more empirical, like Bourdieu? He certainly has his own critics, not least among geographers (see Cresswell, 2002), so I am not claiming Ghertner?s book would have been necessarily better for working more extensively with Bourdieu; instead, it is an open question about what could happen with some of the analysis here if there were greater engagement with others like Bourdieu who have also been committed to empirical fieldwork with philosophy. Second, this book may be about Delhi but it made me think constantly about a variety of elsewheres. I was of course led to reflect on some of my own fieldwork?not on the same specific topics but grappling with some similar broad issues. For example, with the idea of rule by aesthetics, one of Ghertner?s assertions is that we must analyze an aesthetic from multiple perspectives because it does not necessarily have a clear ideology embedded within it. An aesthetic can serve as a form of rule, but it is open to being filled by an array of charged contents. An aesthetic can also be contested, and recast, either by those who suffer from its rule, or by others who pose alternative agendas of power. This made me mull over my work in Turkey, in Istanbul, with regard to the imperial motifs and references in politics, architecture, and popular media in recent years that have been called ?neo-Ottomanism,? or even ?Ottomania? (see Danforth, 2016), to refer to the spreading fascination with the height of the Ottoman Empire?s power, and representations associated with it. This could be analyzed as having implications on a number of empirical scales, including for Turkey?s currently shifting regional role, but if we focus on the turbulent urban landscape, on Istanbul as Turkey?s economic center and the former Ottoman capital, then we can detect this Ottomania as embodying a sort of aesthetic to remake the city. We could analyze this aesthetic as being wielded to justify or legitimate certain kinds of ruling practices by the AKP (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi ?Turkey?s current ruling party, also in power at the metropolitan level in Istanbul), and a variety of development initiatives in the city that it has supported, with major displacements as a consequence. At first blush, pondering this case made me reject Ghertner?s assertion about the openness of an aesthetic: how could these sultan-infused moves be anything other than authoritarian and capricious? But on further reflection, I realized my inability to see other ways for Ottomania to be reworked from below, from the side, etc., could very well be due to the success of its rule by aesthetics so far. Still, other angles into this aesthetic could be exploited for challenging the nature of this rule on its own terms, as well as providing different approaches to its analysis. Another familiar issue that kept pushing my thinking toward elsewheres was the importance of the middle class, which is enormous in the book. Ghertner shows how the middle class has been ?conjured? as a key player in creating a world-class city in Delhi and a new kind of imagined future for India. This resonated with my research in Argentina and Brazil, especially, but also to some extent in Turkey and South Africa, where there has been a recent expansion of the middle class in statistical terms. Some observers recognize, however, that in fact we are not talking about a homogeneous class but very socially (and often economically) heterogeneous groups that get clustered into the same, broad statistical category of ?middle class.? Some may be much richer or poorer, some may be new to this designation while others may have been described in this way, and seen themselves in this light, for generations; there could be racial differences, quite significant political differences, and so forth (Centner, 2013). We could even imagine many of the political tensions in Brazil and Turkey, building since 2013, as connected to fissures among this increasingly broad, diverse middle class. While the achievement of a sizeable middle class has traditionally figured as a cornerstone of ?success? and political stability in development scholarship (Davis, 2010: 245-249), perhaps we now can discern middle-class diversification as fertile ground for the quarrelsome unmaking of democracy among factions of the middle class when development encounters economic turbulence, and the privileges of different middle-class groups begin to be threatened or called into question. With this conjecture in mind, it struck me that the middle class in the Delhi case is not likely to be so unitary either, and that some of the statistical work predicting a kind of ?middleclassification? of India, which Ghertner (2015: 29-44) critiques, may point to different kinds of middle classes numerically, despite a homogenizing gloss. In the ethnography, however, I do not get as much of a sense of this heterogeneity of middle classes, with diverse forms of middle-class anxiety. But in thinking about Rule by Aesthetics with and through these elsewheres, I had to wonder about Delhi: was its middle class merely ?conjured,? or were parts of it more self-consciously middle-class than others? Do some segments of the Delhi middle class consider themselves more deserving of privilege in the city than those they may see as their middle-class others (whether in terms of religion, party, regional background, occupation, language fluency, taste, etc)? Perhaps exploring some of the differences of vision across social divisions within the statistical middle class?so evident in the cities of middle-income elsewheres?is an avenue for pushing this kind of revealing fieldwork on conjuring and its effects even further. From its unusual but enticing interventions in grinding geographical debates, to its vivid evocations of changing landscapes and their complicated human dimensions, Ghertner?s book is an excellent contribution that does much more than make me think about philosophers and elsewheres. Indeed its many strengths and arresting aspects will not go unnoticed by readers. But these facets inspired insights I had not expected when I started reading; even long after putting the book down, they keep inspiring me to think about ways of engaging with geographical fieldwork anew. References Bourdieu P (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Centner R (2013) Distinguishing the Right Kind of City: Contentious Urban Middle Classes in Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey. In: Samara TR, He S, and Chen G (eds) Locating Right to the City in the Global South, UK: Routledge. Cresswell T (2002) Bourdieu?s geographies. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20(4): 379-382. Danforth N (2016) The Ottoman Empire from 1923 to Today: In Search of a Usable Past. Mediterranean Quarterly 27(2): 5-27. Davis D (2010) The Sociospatial Reconfiguration of Middle Classes and their Impact on Politics and Development in the Global South: Preliminary Ideas for Future Research. Political Power & Social Theory 21: 241-267. Ghertner A (2014) India?s Urban Revolution: Geographies of Displacement beyond Gentrification. Environment and Planning A 46(7): 1554-1571. Harvey D (2003) The New Imperialism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Lees L, Shin HB, and L?pez-Morales E (2016) Planetary Gentrification. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Lefebvre H (2003) The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Robinson J (2002) Global and World Cities: A View from off the Map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26(3): 531-554. Sassen S (2015) The Politics of Equity: Who Owns the City? Presentation at Urban Age 10: Global Debates. 25 November. Slater T (2017) Planetary Rent Gaps. Antipode 49(S1): 114-137. Smith N (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York, NY: Routledge. Email this to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterShare on Google+ Ryan Centner is Assistant Professor of Urban Geography at the London School of Economics, and currently Chair of the Urban Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). His work has mostly focused on the social and spatial transformation of cities, particularly redevelopment and neighborhood change, particularly in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, S?o Paulo, Istanbul, Cape Town, and Johannesburg?key urban showcases of large middle-income countries. He has also recently studied the shifting landscapes and everyday uses of space in central-city areas of Caracas and Havana as nexuses of political and economic change. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun May 27 14:18:38 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 27 May 2018 23:48:38 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_28_May_2018_=7C_Bangladesh=3A_Rohingya_D?= =?windows-1252?Q?eportations_/_Pakistan=3A_=91Salam_Centre=92_Br?= =?windows-1252?Q?ouhaha=3B_Notice_to_Dawn_/_India=3A_Threats_to_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Journalists=3A_Killings_of_Sterilite_Protestors?= =?windows-1252?Q?=3B_Girish_Karnad_/_China=3A_Before_the_Revolut?= =?windows-1252?Q?ion?= Message-ID: <904FE676-8C58-4490-91C0-F7F8F0B09992@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 28 May 2018 - No. 2989 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Concerned Citizens Call For Bangladesh To Respond in Support of ICC Prosecutor?s Submission on Rohingya Deportations 2. Bangladesh: Criticizing political leaders on social media lands you in jail - a report by Human Rights Watch 3. India: Secularism and the State: Categorising the Nehru Model | Anil Nauriya 4. India: Death threats to journalists from an army of right-wing trolls with links to the ruling BJP or from Hindutva related groups 5. India: Killing & violence on Anti-Sterilite Protestors - Statements by NAPM and other citizens initiatives + news report 6. Book Review: Dreams of a Muslim Cosmopolis | Keerthik Sasidharan 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Gyms on Panchayat Land in Haryana to be Used for RSS 'Shakhas' - Savarkar?s thwarted ?racial dream? on Nepal | Manu S. Pillai - I?m a target because I?m an outsider: Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock - India: Ram Puniyani - speaking on social polarisation based on religious communities [in Hindi] - Apoorvanand talks about Lumpenised grassroot's religious nationalism [in Hindi] - India: Law commission continuing consulatations on uniform civil code - India: Ghettoisation and segregation in Gujarat - India - Uttar Pradesh: Yogi Adityanath?s Hindu Yuva Vahini splits - excerpt from Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev by Priyanka Pathak-Narain - Launch of Citizens Report on 4 Years of the Modi Govt (2014-2018) - India: Swami Shashi - The political Hinduism of Shashi Tharoor - India: The Karnataka lesson - Congress, electoral discourse must go beyond identities | Suhas Palshikar - India: Reasoning and origins of Hindutva?s love for ?mythoscience? - India: ?. . Beat Up Girls Who Drink & Dance in Pubs?: says Vishwa Hindu Parishad Leader in Mangalore - India: What's Going On, Have They Now Renamed The Akbar Road in Delhi ? - India: Shia leaders are drawing closer to the Hindutva agenda in UP under Yogi Adityanath?s chief ministership - India: Let?s not be deluded on RSS ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. The ?Salam Centre? Brouhaha | Pervez Hoodbhoy 9. Pakistan: HRCP sounds alarm over notice served on Dawn 10. God has a foreign policy | Syed Badrul Ahsan 11. India - Pakistan: J-K border villages turn into ghost towns as 1,00,000 flee shelling 12. India: The Grand Disconnect | Rajesh Ramachandran 13. The quiet patriot: In praise of Girish Karnad | Ramachandra Guha 14. India: Amid increasing communalisation in Assam, anxieties are deepening over the Citizenship Amendment Bill | Pratap Bhanu Mehta 15. Proportional representation would have been better for India | Devangshu Datta 16. China: Before the Revolution | Louisa Chiang and Perry Link ======================================== 1. Concerned Citizens Call For Bangladesh To Respond in Support of ICC Prosecutor?s Submission on Rohingya Deportations ======================================== statement endorsed by 41 Bangladeshis concerned about the request from the Pre Trial Chamber 1 of the International Criminal Court requesting observations from the Government of the People?s Republic of Bangladesh. The statement was submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Bangladesh] on 27 May 2018 http://www.sacw.net/article13779.html ======================================== 2. Bangladesh: Criticizing political leaders on social media lands you in jail - a report by Human Rights Watch ======================================== On April 9, 2018, Bangladesh listed its new Digital Security Bill in parliament, which was then sent to a parliamentary standing committee for review. The proposed law is in part intended to replace section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act (ICT Act) 2006, which has been widely criticized for restricting freedom of expression and has resulted in scores of arrests since 2013. However, the current draft of the Bill replicates, and even enhances, existing strictures of the ICT Act. This report documents abuses under section 57 of the ICT Act to warn that any new law should protect rights, not be used to crack down on critics. http://www.sacw.net/article13769.html ======================================== 3. Secularism and the State: Categorising the Nehru Model by Anil Nauriya ======================================== In most circles where opinion-making on behalf of minorities takes place, one of the reasons for appreciation of Jawaharlal Nehru?s approach towards the minorities generally is his statement that majority communalism, that is, sectarianism, is more dangerous than minority communalism. He said that ?the communalism of a majority community must of necessity bear a closer resemblance to nationalism than the communalism of a minority group?. http://www.sacw.net/article13782.html ======================================== 4. India: Death threats to journalists from an army of right-wing trolls with links to the ruling BJP or from Hindutva related groups ======================================== NDTV?s Ravish Kumar gets death threats. His family threatened with violence. At a time when the debate around intolerance and the threat to free speech is peaking. A report on NDTV http://www.sacw.net/article13776.html ======================================== 5. India: Killing & violence on Anti-Sterilite Protestors - Statements by NAPM and other citizens initiatives + news report ======================================== After nearly hundreds days of protest demanding closure of Vedanta Sterlite Copper unit in Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, protesters turned violent, clashing with the police and setting vehicles on fire. At least 11 people have died in police firing. http://www.sacw.net/article13773.html ======================================== 6. Book Review: Dreams of a Muslim Cosmopolis | Keerthik Sasidharan ======================================== This was an essay written after reading Venkat Dhulipala?s fascinating book (?Creating a New Medina?, Cambridge University Press) on how Pakistan came to be. After sending this essay to a few editors in mainstream press, from none of who I heard back, I abandoned the idea of getting this published. http://www.sacw.net/article13775.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Gyms on Panchayat Land in Haryana to be Used for RSS 'Shakhas' - Savarkar?s thwarted ?racial dream? on Nepal | Manu S. Pillai - I?m a target because I?m an outsider: Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock - India: Ram Puniyani - speaking on social polarisation based on religious communities [in Hindi] - Apoorvanand talks about Lumpenised grassroot's religious nationalism [in Hindi] - India: Law commission continuing consulatations on uniform civil code - India: Ghettoisation and segregation in Gujarat - India - Uttar Pradesh: Yogi Adityanath?s Hindu Yuva Vahini splits - excerpt from Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev by Priyanka Pathak-Narain - Launch of Citizens Report on 4 Years of the Modi Govt (2014-2018) - India: Swami Shashi - The political Hinduism of Shashi Tharoor - India: The Karnataka lesson - Congress, electoral discourse must go beyond identities | Suhas Palshikar - India: Reasoning and origins of Hindutva?s love for ?mythoscience? - India: ?. . Beat Up Girls Who Drink & Dance in Pubs?: says Vishwa Hindu Parishad Leader in Mangalore - India: What's Going On, Have They Now Renamed The Akbar Road in Delhi ? - India: Shia leaders are drawing closer to the Hindutva agenda in UP under Yogi Adityanath?s chief ministership - India: Let?s not be deluded on RSS -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. THE ?SALAM CENTRE? BROUHAHA Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== Dawn, May 12, 2018 In another country naming or renaming a university?s physics centre or department would be considered utterly unremarkable. But here in Pakistan ? if the name is that of Abdus Salam (1926-1996, physics Nobel Prize 1979) ? instant controversy is guaranteed. That?s because, on the one hand, Salam commands the devotion of his embattled Ahmadi community. On the other hand, mere mention of his name inspires religious fury among sections of the population. Some welcomed it ? while others were livid ? but all were astonished in late December 2016 when national newspapers and TV channels reported that Quaid-i-Azam University?s physics department had just become the ?Abdus Salam Department of Physics? (it had not!). Soon thereafter, that the Nati?o?nal Centre for Physics (housed on the QAU campus) was now the ?Professor Abdus Salam Centre for Phy?sics? (again, false!). The putative changes were attri?buted to pre-Panama prime minister Nawaz Sharif. For 17 months everything went quiet. Then front pages filled up again. A parliamentary resolution tabled by Captain Safdar, son-in-law of Nawaz Sharif and a parliamentarian, demanded that the QAU physics department be renamed the ?Al-Khazani department? to honour Mansur al-Khazani, an 11th-century Seljuk-Persian star gazer. Science suffocates when scientists are judged by their religion, race or ethnicity. Safdar probably took this initiative because he thought that the QAU physics department had indeed been renamed after Salam. But was his resolution ? which came suddenly out of the blue ? intended to spite or taunt his father-in-law? To garner election support from Ahmadi-hating radicals of the TLP? Or was it to drum up religious sentiment at a time when Safdar is under a NAB investigation for corruption? In any case he certainly hit sympathetic religious chords. Safdar?s resolution was unanimously approved by parliament, the text of which states that Al Khazani deserves this belated recognition for having shaken the world of physics with his astonishing works (hairat angaiz karnamay). This time the reporting was factual (I have the Urdu text). But the exaggerated claim amuses for its plain silliness ? Khazani was not a physicist, just a court astronomer known only to a few historians. One wonders who proposed his name. Did our parliamentarians fall victim to some prankster or a trickster? Sloppy journalism, the intellectual laziness of parliamentarians, a general cultural antipathy to the scientific method, and overtly expressed religious prejudice generated fevered emotions. Over the last week, social media erected yet another Tower of Babel and produced tonnes of trash. Surely it?s time to get the facts straight. Here?s what actually happened. On Dec 29, 2016, the president of Pakistan, on the summary advice of the prime minister of Pakistan, signed his approval to a document titled, ?Proposal to Rename NCP at QAU as Professor Abdus Salam Centre for Physics?. The summary had been vetted on Dec 26, 2016, by the minister of state for education and professional training. It was then sent to QAU for necessary action. One does not know for sure what made Mian Nawaz Sharif recognise Salam?s importance as a scientist, belated though it was. During his first tenure as prime minister, while speaking at Government College Lahore in 1992, he read out a long list of distinguished alumni and faculty but had conspicuously omitted Salam?s name. The change probably came because in early 2016 (third tenure) Sharif visited Cern (European Nuclear Research Centre, the world?s largest laboratory) to cement the Pak-Cern collaboration. It is said he was much impressed to learn that major parts of Cern?s research ? including the search for the Higgs boson ? revolved around discoveries made by Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg. He was also taken for a drive on Rue de Salam, a road named after Salam. The official order for renaming NCP ? duly signed by the Pakistani state?s highest executives, president and prime minister ? was received at QAU (a state university) and conveyed onward to NCP (a state-owned centre affiliated to QAU). But at NCP it died a quiet death. More than anything else, Pakistanis should worry when state institutions wilfully ignore executive orders. About NCP: it is now largely funded and operated by the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) of the Pakistan Army. Although NCP has no connection with nuclear weapons research, the SPD is charged with maintaining and handling the country?s nuclear weapons. It also seeks to widen its influence within civil society, particularly in universities. Earlier, however, NCP had been an independent centre open and easily accessible to all. Like other centres on campus, it was affiliated with QAU. NCP had been conceived in the 1980s jointly by Salam and his student Riazuddin (1930-2013), a respected theoretical physicist who also became NCP?s founding director. Though underfunded, it started off in 1999 on modest temporary premises on the QAU campus. NCP?s original goal had been to eventually duplicate, albeit on a far smaller scale, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy. Founded by Abdus Salam, the ICTP (now renamed Abdus Salam-ICTP), hosts thousands of researchers from around the world to work in an open, cordial, and intellectually vibrant atmosphere on cutting-edge scientific problems. But in 2007, NCP underwent a character change and a change of director. No longer was it an open institution. Instead it has fearsome fortifications and an ambience befitting a military institution, not an academic one. Local professors and students have been frightened away as have been the few visiting scientists from other countries. Several have vowed never to return. NCP is now largely staffed by bored retirees, civil and military. With so much deadwood, it offers little of intellectual value. The bottom line: the brouhaha is over. QAU is highly unlikely to rename its physics department after a barely known 11th-century star-gazer, and it is highly unlikely that SPD (i.e. the Pakistan Army) will implement the orders of a deposed prime-minister with whom its relationship has been problematic. Physics ? or for that matter every kind of science ? needs an enabling cultural and social environment to flourish. Science suffocates when scientists are judged by their religion, race, ethnicity or any criterion other than scientific achievement. Though it was but a storm in a teacup, this Salam episode tells us how far Pakistan needs to travel before our soil can produce science of worth. ======================================== 9. PAKISTAN: HRCP SOUNDS ALARM OVER NOTICE SERVED ON DAWN ======================================== Dawn May 19, 2018 The Newspaper's Staff Reporter LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has expressed concern over a notice served by the Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) on Dawn for what it called violating the Ethical Code of Practice by publishing an interview of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. It urged the authorities not to interfere with the media?s right to report fairly. Speech limits: Where did censorship originate from? The commission posted on Friday a statement on Twitter which said it was concerned that the newspaper?s circulation had been subjected to seemingly arbitrary curbs. Advertisement In his interview, Mr Sharif had stated: ?Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can?t we complete the trial?? The former premier added: ?We have isolated ourselves. Despite giving sacrifices, our narrative is not being accepted. Afghanistan?s narrative is being accepted, but ours is not. We must look into it.? The commission noted: ?There is no evidence to suggest that Dawn has undermined Pakistan?s sovereignty or integrity under the PCP Ordinance 2002 by publishing an interview with the former prime minister speaking on the record.? The commission described such moves as harassment of the media. ?Such curbs are tantamount to press harassment and only chip away further at the shrinking space for Freedom of Expression,? it said. ======================================== 10. GOD HAS A FOREIGN POLICY Syed Badrul Ahsan ======================================== Dhaka Tribune May 24th, 2018 Nonsense grounded on bigotry is a story that has been hurled in our faces for years now Bigotry is often irritating, for the right reasons. Sometimes it can be pretty amusing. Recall the story of the Jamaat-e-Islami man, here in Bangladesh, whose image was ?seen? by his followers on the moon. The na?ve among us were told the story -- and they believed it -- of how this ?holy man? accused of crimes against his own people in 1971 was actually one beloved of God. Why else would his face shine on the face of the moon? Of course, people lost little time in pulling the story down. The moon stayed in its place in time and space. The ?holy man? remained the collaborator of the enemy he was, all those decades ago. The fanaticism underpinning this falsehood could not have been missed. And now rises another equally virulent bigot in the form of the American televangelist John Hagee. He informs us, in his insane wisdom, that God has a foreign policy. Prior to Hagee, we did not know that even the Almighty practises diplomacy in the way we do it here on Earth, did we? Hagee is one of those ignorant men whose claim to public attention comes through the hoarseness -- and coarseness -- of his fanatical beliefs. One wonders what Jesus would have thought of this diabolical Christian. Jesus died on the cross and yet this fanatic, in his zeal to defend a demented president?s decision to move his country?s embassy to Jerusalem, thinks nothing of the cruelty being perpetrated on Palestinians by a band of Zionists in occupied Arab land. But, of course, Hagee does not see things that way. He brings God into it, which is a deviously clever way of letting the likes of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu off the hook. It was not Trump who made the decision on Jerusalem. He only implemented a policy first enunciated by God. It was God?s foreign policy perspective that Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel, that the American embassy would operate from a city captured whole by Israeli soldiers in June 1967. And there you have it. If you have any problem with the Jerusalem question, do not point the finger of blame at mere mortals. But go to the Bible and read of the foreign policy God pursues on Earth. The only problem here is that God does not say anywhere in the Bible that America could have its embassy in the occupied city, that Israel is His passion. Hagee, the charlatan that he is, will not see the truth, for to fanatics like him it is the lie which is the truth. But why blame only Hagee? In recent days, a video of a Bengali Muslim fanatic spewing blasphemy -- he thinks he is defending the faith of the pure -- has gone viral on social media. Nearly frothing at the mouth, apart from quivering in the manner of an epileptic, he curses women in his perverted view of Islam. Women, says he without an ounce of shame, are a curse simply by birth. They are a scandal. Men who have their women scour markets for vegetables to buy for the home should be ashamed, for their women are being pushed and jostled by other men as they haggle and argue with traders. And before this ignorant man, sat those others and none of them had the boldness to call a halt to his nonsense. Ah, but nonsense grounded on bigotry is a story that has been hurled in our faces for years now. Remember the Taliban? And al-Qaeda? And IS? Those beheadings in Middle Eastern deserts of innocent non-Muslims by Muslims who looked and spoke more like butchers than protagonists of religion? Remember the Taliban dictum on the length of the beards men would need to have below the chin and the tent-like robes women would be required to confine themselves in? Religious fanaticism is tribalism working away in frenzy. Tribes suffer from the smug self-satisfaction of informing themselves that they are the true inheritors of the Earth, that indeed they are the chosen of God. The rest of humanity is a bunch of infidels and apostates for whom the fires of hell burn night and day. Muslim bigots humiliate the gods in the Hindu pantheon. In turn, Hindu bigots are willing to kill Muslims in their defense of the holy cow. And that is not all. The Hindutva chief minister of the Indian state of Tripura pooh-poohs modern technology by ?enlightening? people with his revelation that the internet was invented in the age of the Ramayana, long ages before the birth of Jesus Christ. And the Nazis were quite a different tribe. They saw all the ?evil? around them, and then made the ?discovery? that the roots of that evil were the Jewish community. They solved the problem by carting six million Jews off to the gas chambers. In his day, the late Menachem Begin would not speak of the Arab land his nation had commandeered in war. To him, this occupied land was the biblical Judea and Samaria. To the bigot that is Donald Trump, the world would be a fine place if only Muslims could be kept away from his country. In Pakistan, the land of the pure, fanatical Muslims keep the country clean of impurity by taking away from the Ahmadiyya community their faith. Sir Zafarullah Khan and Professor Abdus Salam, two truly illustrious Pakistanis, are brushed out of memory because they had the temerity of looking for God through the prism of the Ahmadiyya faith. God, you see, does not merely have a foreign policy. The bigots would have you know that He is a partisan father of the heavens and the Earth, and practises, without any qualms, the politics of expediency. Lord, what fools these mortals be! Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist. ======================================== 11. INDIA-PAKISTAN: J-K BORDER VILLAGES TURN INTO GHOST TOWNS AS 1,00,000 FLEE CONTINUED PAK SHELLING ======================================== Hindustan Times May 24, 2018 Fear dominates as Pakistani soldiers have targeted villages and BSF posts all along the 198km-long border. Twelve people have been killed in Pakistan shelling since May 15. Hindustan Times, Ramgarh Nanga village in Jammu wears a deserted look after shelling from the Pakistani side of the border. A week of relentless Pakistani shelling has driven 1,00,000 people from their homes in Jammu and Kashmir, reducing their villages to ghost towns. Nanga village in Jammu wears a deserted look after shelling from the Pakistani side of the border. A week of relentless Pakistani shelling has driven 1,00,000 people from their homes in Jammu and Kashmir, reducing their villages to ghost towns.(Nitin Kanotra/HT Photo) A week of relentless Pakistan shelling has driven 1,00,000 people from their homes in Jammu and Kashmir, reducing their villages to ghost towns and leaving their homes pockmarked, bearing the telltale signs of hostilities from across the border. Soonam Kundal is busy gathering her belongings at her home in Keso village, a few kilometers from the border. The 19-year-old is alone at home. On Tuesday evening, her father was curing a newly built boundary wall when a mortar shell landed in the compound of their house, injuring him, her mother and brother. ?My family has been shifted to government medical college hospital in Jammu,? says Kundal, who escaped unhurt as she was inside. She will be shifting to her aunt?s home. Like Kundal, most of the people forced out of their homes in border villages of Jammu, Kathua and Samba districts have chosen to live with relatives. A few have opted for relief camps. A village of 1,500, Keso is all but abandoned. Women and children have moved to relief camps, men join them at sunset. Kundal?s aunt Ruby is critical of the government for leaving people to fend for themselves. ?We have pleaded with politicians to provide us land at safer locations,? she says. Fear dominates as Pakistani soldiers have targeted villages and BSF posts all along the 198km-long border. In the last one week, four people have died and 25 injured in Ramgarh alone. A retried soldier, 61-year-old Des Raj blames the government for the situation. ?We have experienced firing from across for decades but the intensity has increased ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre,? he says. Raj was to join his family at a relief camp in the evening. The last border village of Nanga resembles a ghost town. Only a handful of the 3,500 people have stayed back, to look after houses and cattle. Ashok Kumar 53, whose neighbour?s house was damaged in firing, directed his anger at Pakistan. ?They are killing innocent people in the month of Ramzan. How can we talk of peace when they have unleashed bloodshed on us,? he says. ======================================== 12. INDIA: THE GRAND DISCONNECT Rajesh Ramachandran ======================================== The Tribune May 19, 2018 New economy?s liberalism trashed old values pushing the masses to the religious right GLARING DISCONNECT: The post-liberalisation idiom has turned the village and its attendent cultures into the other, the enemy. Rajesh Ramachandran Every time the BJP wins an election there is a collective gasp of disbelief and a sigh of resignation from the liberal elite. A large section of the commentariat often fails to understand or analyse election results that go so completely contrary to its prognosis. Well, it is simply because there exists a terrible disconnect between the masses, that is the voters, and the liberal elite and its commentariat. This chasm has grown bigger in the last three decades of economic reforms and liberalisation. Now, there is no organic link between the city and the village. The migration of the village to the city is into the slums not into its middle class colonies. The cities have become independent modern republics which cannot understand or converse with the pre-modern villages. They talk different languages and idioms and their belief systems are often mutually contradictory. MN Srinivas talked about the migration of the village elite reinforcing their dominant caste status in Rampura, the locus of his field work. But there are no Cities of Gold any longer, turning carpetbaggers into tycoons overnight. In fact, migration now doesn't ensure empowerment or affluence to unskilled or semi-skilled aspirants at all. Post-liberalisation even the patterns of migration have been skewed. The migrant labourers, domestic helps and rickshaw pullers remain outside the limits of the city's imagination. The city is only for those who speak English, study in English medium schools with a universal syllabi like that of the CBSE or the ICSE, gain degrees from respectable institutions and universities and use a global idiom of what is supposed to be fashionably liberal and progressive. This post-liberalisation or, if I may, po-lib intellectual idiom, interestingly, is something that has turned the village into the other, the enemy. The first casualties of the po-lib intellectual or political project were the Indian Left, Gandhi, Nehru and the rural-urban continuum. To be politically fashionable, the media, the publishing houses and the universities had to ridicule the Left, call venerable old leaders like EMS names and to trample on everything that was held sacred by the generation of freedom fighters. Nobody was ready to tell the po-lib intellectual that calling Gandhi a casteist and a Hindu was like accusing Martin Luther King of being a Klu Klux Klan activist. For this new-generation political activists in the universities, religious secessionism of the militant Islam variety was suddenly kosher, with a new far Left platform coming up to project an idea of India that is divisive, secessionist and elitist, all in the name of the unwashed masses. This was a cynical attempt to knowingly or unconsciously reframe the colonial perception of India as a conglomeration of conflicting identities, groups, and even nations (let us not forget the Adhikari thesis). But wasn't that exactly the colonial construct: ?There is no, and never was, an India, or even any country of India? no Indian nation, no people of India? that men of the Punjab, Bengal, the North-West Province and Madras should ever feel that they belong to one great Indian nation, is impossible,? wrote Sir John Strachey in late 19th century. It could as well have been a fiery liberal elite Indian intellectual from any of the country?s big universities in 21st century seeking a separate nation for a community. The colonial project failed because of the vision of the leaders of the national movement and their idealism. For instance, The Tribune wrote on March 19, 1881, ?We do not believe in the theory that India is an assemblage of countries and that her people are an assemblage of nations. The vast continent from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, and from the Brahmaputra to the Indus, forms one great country, and Bengalis, Punjabis and Mahrattas, the Rajputs of Mewar, the Nairs of Travancore and the Gurkhas of Nepal, the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Mohammedans, all constitute members of one great nation, bound together by affinities of language and similarities of manner and customs, and by a community of intellectual, social and political interest.? That was the national mainstream sentiment till liberalisation brought new capital into media, publishing and the universities. Along with Nehruvian socialism, his idea of India too was discarded. All the ills of the nation were attributed to him (yes, today?s trolls are but unlettered, unintelligent versions of edit page arguments of early 1990s). But the new economy and new liberalism were limited to the cities, where CBSE schools mushroomed. There was no capital infusion into rural educational institutions which remained backward, regressive and superstitious. That was the beginning of the making of two Indias. A rural student educated in a regional language medium school could become anything three or four decades ago, but no longer. The best example is KR Narayanan who went on to become Harold Laski's favourite student at London School of Economics. When the elite or the dominant castes withdrew their wards from government schools, these schools became mere dole-dispensing mechanisms for shameless teachers who never taught. The city was getting more liberal, logical, reasonable and globally connected, but the village was getting poorer, isolated and destined to serve the city forever. In fact, even the city is only a metaphor now. The labourers, domestics, autodrivers and delivery boys from villages numerically dominate the urban space and its elections. No wonder Delhi is now a poorvanchali or an East Indian city -? a geographical contradiction indeed. These poor villagers do not understand the underlying liberalism in the slogans of secession and the elite's intense hatred for things the masses claim as their customs. Unless the po-lib intellectual finds a new idiom, the masses will drift towards false narratives and find security in a past which didn't exist. The ideas of Rani Padmini's honour and internet during the Mahabharata times are but symptoms of a disease deep-rooted in a pre-modern mind that is fearful of the modern. Unfortunately, the cynical po-lib politician is worse than the intellectual. He has no agenda to transform the lives and politics of the villages. He merely pushes the masses into the waiting laps of the Ram Lila troupe, which just needs grease and grime to turn men into beasts. ======================================== 13. THE QUIET PATRIOT: IN PRAISE OF GIRISH KARNAD Ramachandra Guha ======================================== The Telegraph May 12, 2018 Like most other Indians of my generation, I first saw Girish Karnad on the screen in one of Shyam Benegal's films. I first saw him in the flesh in New Delhi's India International Centre, circa 1990, dining alone. Many eyes went to him - apart from being famous, he was also incredibly handsome, with a shining skin - but while everyone knew who he was, no one dared disturb him. In 1995, my wife Sujata and I moved to Bangalore, where Karnad and his wife, Saras - a person of great charm, intelligence, and wit - also lived. A mutual friend introduced us, and we began to meet, mostly at each other's homes. Karnad's classic early plays had explored ethical dilemmas through innovative adaptations of myth and history. He was now experiencing a rich vein of late creativity, in part because he was doing fewer films, in part because a spell as the Director of the Nehru Centre in London allowed him to reconnect with what was best in world theatre. Among the fine plays of this period that Sujata and I saw were Flowers and Broken Images, the latter about a rivalry between two writer-sisters, one who wrote in English and the other in Kannada. This play had a dig or two at literary nativism, this seen by some as aimed at U.R. Ananthamurthy, who had long championed the cause of bhasha writers, complaining that they weren't taken seriously enough or paid as much as those Indians who wrote in English. Karnad was ambivalent about Ananthamurthy, and for several reasons. There was his perhaps excessive valorizing of the vernacular, for one. There was his undeniable love for publicity, for another. That Ananthamurthy hung out so often with politicians and had political ambitions of his own irritated Karnad, whose own ambitions were always literary and aesthetic. (That Ananthamurthy had allowed the role of 'public intellectual' to so completely subsume and replace the role of 'creative writer' was something other Kannada writers also worried about.) Finally, there might have been an element of sibling rivalry here, based on the fact that Ananthamurthy was five years older than him, and had achieved literary fame (in Kannada) before him. My own sense is that, for his part, Ananthamurthy craved Karnad's affection and approval. I recall a conversation organized by The Caravan magazine between Ananthamurthy and myself, about literature and politics or some such subject. This was held in a hotel where all the seats, except ours, were at the same level, so that those who came late and sat in the back rows could not be seen by the speakers. When it came to questions from the audience, a hand from the back came up. I went to it first, because it was Karnad's. I had recognized him, whereas Ananthamurthy, older and more short-sighted than me, had not. When the (thankfully non-combative) question was posed, Ananthamurthy turned to me and said, a warm and satisfied smile on his face: "Girish bandidare!' (So, Girish has also come!)". Girish Karnad is far less likely than Ananthamurthy was to join a procession, shout slogans, publicly praise or chastise a politician, or sign a petition. But he cherishes as much as his more 'political' contemporary the idea of a plural, tolerant India he grew up in. Like URA, he detests religious chauvinism. In June 2017, after a wave of lynchings of innocent Muslims by Hindutva mobs in northern India, 'Not in my Name' protests were held in many parts of India. The Bangalore event was organized by students from the Indian Institute of Science, and held on the steps of the Town Hall on a weekday evening. This was one of the busiest parts of the city, at the busiest time of the day, with roads choked with buses, trucks, cars, scooters, and more. To get to the protests, one had to park half a mile away and walk. This I did, to join the ranks of young, middle-aged and old Indians standing up for decency and civility in our public (and private) life. For me to join the protest was normal, routine; I wrote about these matters in the press, and I lived close by anyway. Girish Karnad, however, stayed well to the south of the Town Hall - an hour-and-a-half's drive in the evening. He was in his late seventies, and suffering from a degenerative respiratory disorder, which obliged him to carry a cylinder at all times which sent oxygen to his lungs through tubes stuck into his nose. I did not expect Karnad to come. Nor did anyone else. As we stood silently holding up our placards, it began to rain. We carried on standing, in the open. A figure slipped in silently on my left. It was Girish. He had walked at least ten minutes in the rain from whichever side road his driver had parked his car in, carrying his cylinder and his tubes with him. He stood, and asked the person to his left if he could hold his placard. A student rushed in with an umbrella, which he opened and passed on to Karnad, who immediately shared it with the person to his right (me). Meanwhile, a group of Muslim men, in the row in front of us, murmured with delight and approval. One of them said to the other, in English: "Girish Karnad Sir has arrived!" That so many Hindus (and Christians) had come from all parts of the city mattered to them; that this particular Indian had come mattered most of all. Earlier this year, I visited Girish Karnad's hometown, Dharwad. His publisher, Manohara Grantha Mala, was holding its annual literary festival; all the talks would be in Kannada, except mine. The day before the festival opened, Girish took me to the office of his publisher, in the second floor of an old building in Subhas Road. It was here, fifty and more years ago, that Girish had come to deliver the script of his first play, Yayati. Manohara Grantha Mala had since published all his plays, and his autobiography too. The publisher's office was more-or-less as when Girish had first visited it: one large room, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen feet, with a few desks on which manuscripts were piled up, with shelves on the wall stocking books the press had published. There was an open space for sitting; on which a dozen chairs were laid out, where sat local poets, novelists and critics whom Karnad had kept in touch with all these years. Girish Karnad does not parade his politics, nor indeed his patriotism. Yet in his own understated way he has remained admirably devoted to his hometown and his home state, while never losing sight of his country or the world. He could, if he wished, write a splendid cultural history of India. For no one I know has his breadth of knowledge and understanding of all our arts - music, literature, dance - of the North as well as of the South of India; of folk forms and of popular and classical genres as well. (And he speaks and reads six Indian languages too). If he has resisted writing such a book, it must be because Karnad values original creative work more than synthesis. While he published his autobiography in Kannada, he has since steadily refused to translate it into English. This may be because he doesn't want chaps like me to read it; or (more likely) because he still has plots in his head. As he approaches his eightieth birthday (which falls on May 19), may I wish my great compatriot the soundness of mind and body to craft the plays he wants to write, and which we all wish to see. ======================================== 14. THE SEETHING STATE: AMID INCREASING COMMUNALISATION IN ASSAM, ANXIETIES ARE DEEPENING OVER THE CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL. by Pratap Bhanu Mehta ======================================== The Indian Express May 23, 2018 The controversy in Assam over amendments to the Citizenship Bill 2016 may not make national headlines. But it has the potential of becoming a perfect storm in the near future. The BJP?s own ally, the AGP, several governments in the Northeast and even sections of the BJP are opposed to the bill. The Citizenship Amendment Bill was introduced in 2016 to enable India to grant citizenship to individuals from six minority communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bill lowers the waiting period for these minorities to be granted citizenship. While the bill has all-India significance, its stakes are high in Assam where the politics of migration has an unusual intensity. The protests over the bill have constitutional and political significance beyond Assam. The Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 raises several issues. It makes illegal migrants eligible for citizenship based on their religion. It clearly violates Article 14 of the Constitution. Proponents of the bill argue that even though it does not explicitly state it, the bill grants citizenship based on a reasonable classification. On this view, these minorities are likely to be persecuted in the three states in question; it is unlikely that any other state would grant them citizenship; and therefore, a special dispensation for them is justifiable. The claim that India has special obligations only to persecuted minorities of particular religions is debatable. But even if we grant for a moment that the historical circumstances of these persecuted minorities are different, the form of the bill matters. Instead of simply saying that members belonging to particular religions will be eligible for differential treatment, the bill should have laid down some general secular criteria (persecution history, history of migration etc) which could, in principle, at least, be applied to all groups. But the direct exclusion of Muslims from being eligible for this pathway under any circumstances makes the constitutional form and citizenship communal. The BJP could easily have achieved the substantive objective by a more general framing. But the fact that it chose to discriminate on the basis of religion suggests the bill was more about sending a signal to its constituents than about resolving a genuine problem. Form matters. There was no need to communalise the form of the law. Second, the bill clearly violates the Assam Accord. Whatever one may think of it, the issue of the credibility of an accord signed by the Union of India is not entirely a trivial one. And it may have ramifications for future negotiations. Third, the bill has potentially interesting implications for asymmetric federalism. One of the proposals under consideration is to exempt Assam from the purview of the bill while making it applicable to the rest of India. There is not much opposition to this bill in other states. The political consequences of this bill are not nearly as severe as in Assam. But these arguments are not about the niceties of constitutional law. In fact, this debate exposes the limits of constitutional law in resolving intense problems of migration and identity. The protests over the bill have reminded us of the fragility of legal resolutions in Assam. The traditional faultlines in Assam have not gone away. There are multiple anxieties at stake. Assam has borne the brunt of migration in ways that unsettled so many identities and created distributive conflicts. The process of completing the National Register of Citizens is on, and either way its results are going to leave large numbers of people disaffected and vulnerable. As Sanjoy Hazarika has tirelessly pointed out, the real challenge for India will begin after the process of identifying immigrants is done. What do we do with people we will have declared stateless? Are mass deportations, camps or even large-scale disenfranchisement, really an option for a polity that claims to be a democracy? How do we address these concerns without a disproportionate burden falling on Assam? But under the current dispensation and logic of political argument, it is hard to see how India avoids this inhumane outcome. The second anxiety is the one that fuelled the Assam movement in the first place: The dilution of Assamese identity. This is the local Bengali-Assamese opposition overlaid over what the BJP has constructed as a Hindu-Muslim difference. Once again, the imperatives of the BJP?s national agenda have run up against regional identity claims. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, the hero of the anti-illegal migration movement, will not have his political skills tested. Vigorous opposition to the bill in Assam is stoked by fears and memories of Bengali domination. This faultline will have to be deftly managed. But two things will make it difficult: First, the nature of competitive politics, where the incentives to take radical positions and polarise is increasing. Second, Bengali-Assamese tensions have a greater possibility of spilling over into West Bengal where, too, the political climate is becoming more fragile. Third, there is the conflict in the micro geographies of Assam. The bill has evoked different reactions in the Brahmaputra and Barak Valley. In Barak Valley, Hindu Bengali migrants welcome the bill. This issue comes under the shadow of the still practically unresolved matter of the implications of migration for the other constitutional promise of protecting Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas. The truth is that the Assam quagmire will not be solved easily. Pulling a thread that tries to disentangle one part of the solution immediately puts strains on other parts of the problem. Nor can any political party claim either wisdom or full credibility in Assam. It is perhaps with this in mind that the Joint Parliamentary Committee has been proceeding cautiously on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, trying to take in all the stake-holders. None of these issues are new or unexpected. But what makes this moment fraught is the fact that anxiety levels are going up. There is increasing communalisation in the state. Most importantly, the nature of competitive politics is such that the incentives of political parties to try and outbid each other using the card of ethnic politics has increased. No solution in Assam is an easy solution. But a cross-party dialogue and consensus, on throwing cold water on simmering conflicts and lowering the stakes will help at the margins. It is high time issues in Assam take national priority once again. Or we will be sleep walking into yet another tragic conflict in Assam, whose consequences will be national. The writer is vice chancellor, Ashoka University. Views are personal ======================================== 15. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER FOR INDIA Devangshu Datta ======================================== Proportional representation offers better representation of the entire electorate's views During elections in Ex-PM Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, citizens would be ordered to queue up and sign a folded, filled-in ballot paper, which they would then put into the box. If any innocent dared to ask, "Who am I voting for?" the stock answer was, "It's a secret ballot". ? ? That's pretty much the only type of election, which doesn't produce surprising results. As Kenneth Arrow proved, it's mathematically impossible to create a fair election process that cannot throw up unfair outcomes, given at least three candidates. ? ? To take a simple case, assume seven voters have to choose between three candidates, A, B and C. In a first past the post (FPTP) system, two voters vote for each of the three. The seventh voter has a casting ?super-vote". The candidate who wins, is also not the first choice of the majority. In a proportional representation (PR) system, voters rank the three candidates. Say, two voters choose A, followed by B, with C last. Two voters choose C, followed by A, B last. Three voters choose B, followed by A, C last. B has three first places. But four voters prefer A over B. Who wins? ? ? FPTP can give a massive majority to a party that wins a small vote share. It favours concentration, where voters are clustered in specific seats. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has suffered due to lack of concentrated support. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BSP won 4.19 per cent of votes cast. But it did not win any seats. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won 1.6 per cent of the vote and took six seats. The Indian National Congress (INC) suffered in the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections from lack of concentration. The INC won 38 per cent vote share but only 78 seats (out of 224). The Bharatiya Janata Party won 36.2 per cent of votes and 104 seats. ? ? India has always had a FPTP system. Would a PR system be fairer? Probably, since PR offers better representation of the entire electorate's views and India has a very diverse, heterogeneous electorate. ? ? But there are several different types of PR. All have drawbacks. The simplest PR system involves party lists. Say, there are 100 seats. Every party produces a manifesto and a ?closed list? of 100 candidates. Voters vote only for the party. Once the tally is done, the seats are split in the ratio of the vote share. A party that wins 30 per cent of the vote gets 30 seats and the party picks its 30 MPs. The biggest drawbacks: Independents can't get a look-in and voters cannot choose candidates with a closed list. An open list where the voter can pick the candidate as well as the party is better. In an open list, a voter can select a specific candidate of XYZ party. List PR systems are used in over 80 countries. ? ? Another drawback with PR is that a party with a very small vote share can become a kingmaker in a hung house. One way to massage this out of the system is to have a threshold: Parties must get a stipulated minimum vote share to be allotted seats. Another popular PR system combines FPTP with PR, giving each voter a "double-vote". One vote goes to a specific individual candidate in a number of seats decided by FPTP. The other vote goes to a party which has an open/closed list. This allows independents into the picture (in the FPTP). ? ? Would any of this work better in India? Historically, given vote shares since 1950, India would always have had coalitions! Even in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi won an overwhelming mandate with 404 seats (out of 543) but the INC got just 49 per cent of the vote. Do you think coalitions offer more effective governance than single-party governments? Do you think coalitions reduce the danger of communal violence? Your views will colour your opinion of PR. ? ? The historical record in India suggests that both may be true. Certainly coalitions have delivered more in the way of better-distributed economic growth. Maybe India would have done better if it had adopted a PR system from the outset. http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/proportional-representation-would-have-been-better-for-india-118052501638_1.html ======================================== 16. CHINA: BEFORE THE REVOLUTION Louisa Chiang and Perry Link ======================================== The New York Review of Books June 7, 2018 Issue Little Reunions by Eileen Chang, translated from the Chinese by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz New York Review Books, 332 pp., $16.95 Forever Young a film directed by Li Fangfang In 2012, as he ascended to the top of the Chinese Communist Party and its government, Xi Jinping began giving speeches about a ?Chinese Dream?: China was to become wealthy, powerful, beautiful, and unified. Of these four goals, wealth and power were especially important because, in an official narrative that had been repeated for decades in schools and the media, China for too long had been bullied by Western powers. Ailing Zhang (Eileen Chang) Papers, USC Libraries Eileen Chang, Hong Kong, circa 1954 The sense of national humiliation that has seeped into popular consciousness in China has, for many, led to a deep ambivalence toward the West: Chinese admire its wealth, modernity, and freedoms, yet we are rivals, not friends. China?s great modern writer Lu Xun (1881?1936) several times observed that his fellow Chinese look either up at the West or down on it?never straight across. The usual results are caricatures that further impede the possibility of getting a clear look. In the last ten years, there have been signs in China that a growing number of people want to move beyond the look-up-or-look-down trap, and the popularity of Eileen Chang?s novel Little Reunions is one of them. Finished in 1976 but not published until 2009, fourteen years after her death, the book sold 700,000 copies in China in its first six months of publication. It is Chang?s most autobiographical work, so some of its allure has been as a trove of clues to the author?s life. More than that, though, the novel recalls a vanished China of the 1930s and 1940s that was both rooted in Chinese culture and open to the West; its scenes offer an antidote to the mood of indignant rivalry and, at least in the imagination, an alternative to the Xi Jinping version of what it means to be a modern Chinese. In Chang?s assured cosmopolitanism, Westerners are neither models nor victimizers but three-dimensional human beings who go through pains and triumphs just as Chinese people do. Writing in California during years when her home country was writhing in torrid ?class struggle,? Chang depicts everyday human experience in prose that is elegant, erudite, and trenchant. Born in 1920 into an elite but declining family of scholar-officials, Chang grew up with only intermittent parenting by a mother who was often traveling abroad and an aloof father who spent considerable time with opium and courtesans. Following her Western-style schooling in wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong, she began publishing brilliant short novels?Love in a Fallen City and The Golden Cangue, among others?that are reminiscent of Austen in their preoccupation with romantic and family relationships portrayed against a backdrop of upper-class dysfunction in a semicolonial world. Chang quickly found a large following. She remained in China for three years after the Communist victory in 1949, and in The Rice-Sprout Song and Naked Earth produced two of the most penetrating accounts of those years. Her works were banned in China until the 1980s. Then, in the 1990s, as readers thirsted for an alternative to the mediocre entertainment fiction of the post-Tiananmen era on the one hand and the jaw-breaking modernism of the avant-garde on the other, an ?Eileen Chang fever? took hold. Little Reunions follows Julie Sheng?the fictionalized Eileen Chang?through a thick web of relationships in war-torn upper-class China and eventually into a passionate romance and doomed marriage with a Japanese collaborator who is distracted by his several other sexual liaisons. The English translation appends a ?Character List? of 124 entries, and it is needed. Julie?s integrity and moral insight give the novel some unity, but it is a kaleidoscope. Chang approaches her characters, whether Western or Chinese, ready to empathize. Colonists have their problems, too. By showing their vexations (without condoning their faults) Chang asserts a moral power that rejects victimhood. She seems aware that scolding the conqueror is only another way of acknowledging his privileged position. Her empathy serves to vindicate the nation and culture from which she has emerged. For example, Chudi (Judy), who is Julie?s surrogate mother, has a secret affair in wartime Shanghai with a Nazi school principal, Herr Sch?tte. He pays for her braces, a marvel of Western technology that improves Judy?s looks more than anyone thought possible. In return, after Germany loses the war, Judy helps Sch?tte to buy his fare home by selling his greatcoat. Such barter between lovers trumps?at least temporarily?the caste system within which they live. Part of Herr Sch?tte wishes to be free from that system, but entrenched racism warps his world in ways that are too fundamental for him to notice. When his German wife gives birth to a son in Shanghai, the couple nickname the boy ?the Chinaman.? For Chang, the detail of the nickname is a tool for showing the tensions that exist in his mind: a mocking parental love, racial exultation, and creeping cheater?s guilt, among others. She shows Herr Sch?tte?s human yearnings and their perversions just as she does for her Chinese characters. Chang?s equitable worldview, made possible by her bicultural background, does much to explain why Little Reunions sold so well when it appeared in 2009. Many middle-class Chinese readers, wealthier and better-informed than their predecessors but feeling morally adrift, hoped for a vision of enlightened forgiveness and dignified equality with the West. Such a prospect was a bracing alternative to the draining tantrums about national humiliation and payback that suffused the Internet and continued to appear in state-approved books like Unhappy China, another best seller in 2009. The 2009 ?fever? over Little Reunions was part of a longer-term trend that has been called ?Republican fever???Republican? refers to the years 1912?1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT) ruled most of China, and sometimes refers also to Taiwan and Hong Kong after 1949. Before Little Reunions, there had been fevers over the classic stories of Eileen Chang; over Qiong Yao, a Taiwanese writer of romances; Jin Yong, the master of historical martial-arts fiction from Hong Kong; and Teresa Teng, a Taiwanese crooner of love songs. For young people, these artists seemed to be lifting a curtain on another way to be Chinese; for older people, they recalled a bygone time whose cultural resources, after the Maoist blight, might once again prove useful. An important issue in the fascination with the Republican era has been questions about what really happened among the Nationalists, the Communists, and the Japanese during the War of Resistance (1937?1945) and the ensuing Civil War (1945?1949). Was it true, as the Communists claimed in their textbooks and novels, that their guerrilla fighters expelled the Japanese? Or as historians and journalists were now discovering, did Nationalist troops do most of the fighting? In 1984 the government built a museum in Nanjing to commemorate the horrific 1937?1938 ?Nanjing massacre? in which Japanese troops slaughtered as many as 300,000 noncombatant Chinese. Now, though, writers were comparing that massacre with the Communists? 1948 siege, during the Civil War, of the northeastern city of Changchun, where a similar number of innocents died, in this case of starvation. On the Changchun disaster, Communist textbooks note only that ?Changchun was liberated without a shot.? In a 2007 essay Liu Xiaobo, China?s Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in prison last year, argued that the Communist government?s lies about the war made Japanese lies about the war more plausible.* Chinese readers? sense that they had been lied to about the war fueled a desire to reexamine the Republican years more broadly. Were they really as bad as official textbooks claimed? After 1949 Mao had started violent political campaigns, a famine that killed thirty million or more people, and a devastating Cultural Revolution. Was ?liberation? really better than what had gone before? The urban young not only began to imitate Republican-era fashion?such things as qipao gowns, high-heeled shoes, and wire-rimmed glasses with round lenses?but sometimes chose to write Chinese in traditional characters rather than the simplified characters that the Communists had introduced in 1955. Shopkeepers took to using traditional characters on their signs until the government banned the practice in 2015. Intellectuals looked to the Republican era for possible remedies for contemporary moral bankruptcy and cultural malaise. Some sought out Republican-era textbooks to give their children for extracurricular reading. New editions of the works of intellectual luminaries from the Republican period?including Liang Qichao (1873?1929), the polymath humanist-reformer; Cai Yuanpei (1868?1940), the president of Peking University and famous champion of academic freedom; and Chen Yinke (1890?1969), the preeminent China historian of his time?appeared sporadically through the 1980s and 1990s. The trend accelerated between 1999 and 2013 and eventually included dozens of distinguished writers. In 2011 a three-volume work by Yue Nan called Crossing to the South and Returning to the North compared the fates of Republican-era intellectuals who went to Taiwan or abroad in 1949 with those who stayed behind, and between 2013 and 2016, four volumes by Tian Xiaoqing called Currents in Republican Thought appeared. These publications made political comments in two ways: first, they spotlighted Republican-era liberal thinkers who had envisioned a different route for China. Reexamining their works in the present raised the question What if?? Second, and more subtly, Republican liberals were useful for those who wished to comment on the present. A writer in the Xi Jinping era might be barred from calling explicitly for certain intellectual freedoms but could show how far liberals in the Republican era were able to go. He or she might know full well that the freedoms back then existed mostly in spite of the government, not because of it, but the goal was to make a point about today. Collected works of scholars were attractive only to the very well educated, but Republican fever spread beyond the elite, to popular books and articles and middlebrow television shows. In 2015 a three-volume work called The Deeply Historic Republican Era by Jiang Cheng claimed on its front cover to be ?recommended by one million readers on the Web.? Yuan Tengfei, a high school history teacher in Beijing, used the Internet to charm people with his sharp insights, delivered with sprightly sarcasm, into every decade of twentieth-century Chinese history. In one of his barbs, he juxtaposes Chiang Kai-shek?s ?white terror? of 1927, in which several hundred Communists were massacred, with Mao?s slaughter of 710,000 counterrevolutionaries in 1950, then poses the question, ?How many do you have to kill in order to attain the level of Great Leader?? Before his social media accounts were shut down in September 2017, Yuan had 16 million online fans. On Weibo, China?s version of Twitter, the philosopher and diplomat Hu Shih (1891?1962) loomed as the image of the flawless scholar-official, unswerving in his defense of tolerance and academic freedom in the face of political interference. People noted that Chiang Ching-kuo (1910?1988), the son of Chiang Kai-shek, helped bring democracy to Taiwan in the late 1980s?the very era when mainland politics were moving in the other direction, culminating in a massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators on June 4, 1989. The Republican comparison fed a growing public perception that the Nationalists were not, after all, as bad as the Communists, who seemed to stop at nothing to maintain their grip on power. But comparisons to the Republican past could also go too far. A contrast with the ills of the Communist era could lead to nostalgia for only its better side. Thus Mao?s extreme violence could make Chiang Kai-shek?s seem less notable; the obscene wealth of the Communist elite today could adumbrate the severe social inequality of the Republican era. Disillusionment following the discovery of Communist lies could lead pro-democracy intellectuals to lurch uncritically in the opposite direction. Because Mao?s spectacular human rights abuses were perpetrated in the name of economic justice, for example, some were led to dismiss concerns over economic inequality as resurgent Marxist baloney in disguise. Magnum Photos Street view from inside an antique dealer?s shop, Beijing, 1965; photograph by Marc Riboud Most Chinese fans of Republican nostalgia, though?notably including Eileen Chang fans?have better-grounded views. They can see the difference between Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo and are admirers of Taiwanese democracy. The author of Little Reunions does not tell her readers what to think, but a left-leaning sympathy with the underclass can be inferred from her art. Masters and servants in her pages live in everyday proximity, and exploitative relationships, although not labeled as such, are obvious. Maids are taken as concubines. Nannies substitute as parents. Septuagenarian servants, having outlived their utility, are abandoned to the destitute countryside from which they originally were drawn. The servant-to-serf continuum shows no real difference from life in Cao Xueqin?s great novel Dream of the Red Chamber, of two hundred years earlier. No careful reader of Little Reunions in 2009 could have used it to look back on Republican life as idyllic or to see the class issue as a mere Marxist obsession. What Little Reunions does do, along with similar works in the Republican fever, is to invite a counterfactual question: Could China have taken a different path in the twentieth century? What if Japan had not invaded and the Republican effort at modernization had not been aborted? How wealthy and strong might the country have become, how happy its citizens, how attractive its soft power? Beneath these questions about modernization has lurked another about China?s cultural identity: How much Chineseness was lost when the Republic collapsed on the mainland? In the 1950s Mao began to model China after the Soviet Union. Later he split with the Soviets, but the country has suffered cultural confusion and moral malaise ever since. The Republican era, whatever its flaws, seemed the last in which an authentic China could be found. In 2013 China?s authorities began pushing back against Republican fever. A set of instructions called ?Document No. 9? was circulated internally to officials around the country. It warned against ?constitutional democracy,? ?civil society,? ?press freedom,? ?historical nihilism,? and other maladies that had been seeping into China. The phrase ?historical nihilism,? which seemed puzzling at first, was political code for denying the glorious record of the Chinese Communist Party. Censors set to work enforcing Document No. 9, and two years later Republican fever began to recede. This year, though, the release of an unusual movie has begun to revive it. One of China?s leading universities, Tsinghua, marked its hundredth anniversary in 2011, and it commissioned a fiction film, directed by Li Fangfang, to celebrate its history. Called in English Forever Young, it is technically awkward, even amateurish, but it tells the important story of how war and revolution ravaged Tsinghua?s humanistic beginnings, and it pleads for the restoration of those values today. Completed in 2012, the film was blocked by censors until January 2018, but when it was released it quickly became a box-office hit. Tsinghua was founded in Beijing as a preparatory school for Chinese students who were headed for the United States on the Boxer Indemnity Scholarships that were established with funds that China?s last dynasty, the Qing, was obliged to pay to the US as reparations for American losses in the Boxer uprising of 1899?1901. In 1924, the year before Tsinghua instituted its four-year college curriculum, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore visited the campus, where, according to Forever Young, he left students with deep impressions of humanistic values. ?Do not forget your vocation,? he urges in the film, and avoid ?the lure of profit.? After the Japanese invasion of northern China in 1937, Tsinghua merged with Peking University and Nankai University in Tianjin; the schools transferred their students and teachers to the southwestern city of Kunming to form Southwestern Associated National University, where, in the film, asceticism, patriotism, honesty, and intellectual integrity are paramount. The environment is rustic and simple. Nationalist soldiers are preparing to fight the Japanese, and the US military is helping to train them. The Americans are appropriately gruff, but for a PRC film to show either them or Nationalist soldiers as good guys is a first for PRC cinema. After the war, back in Beijing and under heavy Soviet influence in the 1950s, Tsinghua?s purpose became the training of engineers, and it did this until 1966, when Mao?s Cultural Revolution shut China?s universities down. Tsinghua reopened in 1978, after which the humanities made a modest comeback. But science and technology have still predominated. The apparent mission of Forever Young is to revive Tsinghua?s humanist roots. The film opens with scenes of modern furniture and equipment inside clean modern buildings inhabited by people who do not trust one another. Is the baby formula fake? Why did a pork shop where I?d been a loyal customer for four years trick me into buying fatty pork? Look at our ?great masters? of Chinese culture today: they are semiliterate soothsayers who, in picking names for infants, recommend words that connote ?fiend? or ?femme fatale.? Where are the real cultural masters we once had? Moving back in time, the film invites the question of what caused the ethical and intellectual wasteland we see today. Was it imperialism and war? Did we have no room for anything but patriotism? Through several episodes the film shows that there need be no conflict between humanism and patriotism. Shen Guangyao, a Tsinghua graduate who has enlisted in China?s air force and whose plane is fatally hit in a dogfight, chooses to crash into a Japanese ship rather than bail out with his parachute. He does this of his own volition and in spite of his training by an American military officer that a pilot?s life is always more precious than an airplane. The contrast to the fate of Japanese kamikaze pilots is plain?but so, for Chinese viewers, is the contrast to the endlessly repeated Communist stories about martyrs who forfeit their lives for the party. Another episode follows a young woman whose small mistakes lead to political charges that result in her social ostracism, torture, and, eventually, suicide. Is this a reference to the Cultural Revolution? Of course. But that cannot be made explicit in the film; it would be ?historical nihilism.? Rather these scenes are moved up about five years, to 1962. One can only imagine the negotiations between the filmmakers and the censors on this point. And on many other points as well. The humanist values that the film shows to be deep in Tsinghua?s origins are in part Christian. The university?s president from 1931 to 1948, Mei Yiqi, was a Boxer Indemnity scholar in 1909 who studied electrical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and became a Christian in 1912. In the film we see the unassuming and kind Mei at Southwest Associated University, where we also meet an American missionary who is close to the local Chinese Christians and sings ?Amazing Grace? with them. For the film, the lyrics are changed to remove any specifically Christian connotations. The new words in the opening lines are: Amazing grace flows into my heart As heaven and earth look on That grace unfolds for all to see From here to the edges of dawn Stripped of hope and tested by fire My faith still leads me on Through exhaustion, over dangers Until every cloud is gone It cannot have been easy to get the censors to accept the song, whatever the words. Most remarkable, moreover, is that its melody is played, without words, in the background of scenes in the two later historical settings of the film?the Mao era and contemporary times. The tune seems to be saying: ?the Tsinghua spirit endures.? Christianity is only one component in that spirit, though; its general message of truth, justice, and civility is secular and broad. In fact it comes close to what Document No. 9 denounces as ?universal values.? The film?s name in Chinese is highly significant: wuwen xidong, which literally means ?not asking if it?s West or East,? echoes an idea that has been at the heart of human rights advocacy in China ever since the astrophysicist Fang Lizhi declared, in the late 1980s, in an allusion to the universality of human rights, that ?I don?t do Eastern physics or Western physics; I do physics.? The filmmakers had cover for their provocative title because the phrase wuwen xidong appears in the third stanza of Tsinghua?s school anthem, composed in 1923. But that cover itself was ambiguous: Did it not also suggest that universal values were in the Tsinghua spirit right from the beginning? That question is potentially embarrassing to Chinese leaders like Xi Jinping or Hu Jintao, the president before him, because both are Tsinghua graduates. Which is wrong, they might have to ask themselves?their school spirit or Document No. 9? _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Jun 10 15:48:41 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2018 01:18:41 +0530 Subject: SACW - 11 June 2018 | Sri Lanka: Subversion of Democratic Spaces / Pakistan - India: Girl On The Cover / India: Intelligence Files on the RSS in 1947 / UK: forced marriages; importance of trade unions / UN Exemptions on Sexual Abuse / Russia: Erasure of Gulag Data / Message-ID: <52B1CB97-C6F9-47CB-80DC-930EF413AE05@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 11 JUne 2018 - No. 2990 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka: Subversion of Democratic Political Spaces / Reimagining ?the worker? and resistance 2. Pakistan - India: - Girl On The Cover: Why a photo of a Pakistani girl on a booklet in Bihar need not embarrass officials - India?s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Says Keep Pakistani scholars out of an Asian Studies conference in Delhi - India Pakistan Friendship and Peace March: Ahmedabad to Naderwai-IliyaBet, 19 - 30 June, 2018 3. Book Review: Kashmir and the Spymasters of Pakistan and India | Nyla Ali Khan 4. India: Once the RSS was under Police Watch Now Its a Touchable Outfit For Many - India: Scans of Delhi Police and Intelligence Files on Activities of the RSS in 1947 India: Did Pranab make a Faustian bargain? | Bharat Bhushan 5. Full Report of The Rohingya Refugee Crisis Conference of 11th May 2018, New Delhi 6. India: Arbitrary arrests of Dalit & Rights Activists While Hindutva Terrorists enjoy impunity - statements by PUCL, CPDR and NAPM 7. That was the year that was: Tariq Ali talks to David Edgar 8. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Revealed: Archive of Delhi Police Secret files on RSS activity and plans Oct-Dec 1947 - India: How RSS icon MS Golwalkar misrepresented Nehru?s words to justify the Hindutva ... - India - Shillong: Khasis versus Dalit Sikhs - a Communal Spat Fuelled by Whatsapp rumours - India: Post Kairana defeat, Sambit Patra on Live TV reveals BJP?s dangerous plan for 2019 Lok Sabha polls - India - Jammu & Kashmir: crucial role of friends & social media rather than IS or religious ideology spur youth to join militancy ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 9. To be an environmental world power | Kanak Mani Dixit 10. India: Faint notes of a secular spring | Latha Jishnu 11. India: School textbooks are being changed secretly - Is there a ?saffron? design in it? | Apoorvanand 12. Heed the echoes of June 4 | Gopalkrishna Gandhi 13. India: Pussy cat at home, Bengal tiger in a mob: There?s little genteel about the bhadralok | Sandip Roy 14. Truth, Lies, and Literature | Salman Rushdie 15. Thousands enslaved in forced marriages across UK, investigation finds 16. UN Exemptions Make Mockery of Sexual Abuse in World Body | Thalif Deen 17. Russian museum discovers secret order to destroy Gulag data 18. UK: Unions are too vital to democracy to be allowed to gentrify and die | Kenan Malik 19. H-Net Review: Gramith on Prusin, 'Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation' ======================================== 1. SRI LANKA: SUBVERSION OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL SPACES / REIMAGINING ?THE WORKER? AND RESISTANCE ======================================== THE SUBVERSION OF OUR DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL SPACES & WHAT IT MEANS FOR SRI LANKA?S FUTURE by Dayapala Thiranagama Since Independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has witnessed three unsuccessful armed struggles. Two of these (1971 and 1987-89) have been confined mainly to the Sinhalese South. The last one in the North and East of Sri Lanka waged an armed campaign for almost 30 years until the Tami Tigers were defeated in 2009. The manner of the Sri Lanka?s state victory created acute political wounds and left unresolved the fundamental problems that gave rise to Tamil militancy. The devastating effects of all three armed campaigns conducted by the state and non-state actors have scarred democratic governance in the country and its commitment to pluralism. http://sacw.net/article13792.html o o o SRI LANKA: REIMAGINING ?THE WORKER? AND RESISTANCE IN THE NEO-LIBERAL ERA | VIDURA PRABATH MUNASINGHE On the 5th of September 2017, President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe launched the government?s policy framework titled, ?V2025: A Country Enriched?, which revealed the economic goals that the National Unity Government plans to achieve over the coming years. Although it is not uncommon to witness the showcasing of various charters, agendas and policy documents at public events, more often than not they end up unimplemented. V2025 seems to be more or less a pronouncement of the Government?s economic vision, which is in line with the Government?s overall economic policy. http://www.sacw.net/article13787.html ======================================== 2. PAKISTAN - INDIA ======================================== GIRL ON THE COVER: WHY A PHOTO OF A PAKISTANI GIRL ON A BOOKLET IN BIHAR NEED NOT EMBARRASS OFFICIALS Why a photo of a Pakistani girl on a booklet in Bihar need not embarrass officials http://www.sacw.net/article13788.html INDIA?S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS SAYS KEEP PAKISTANI SCHOLARS OUT OF AN ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE IN DELHI India?s foreign ministry in a formal letter to the Ashoka University (Sonenpat, Haryana) asks the organisers of the Asian Studies conference in Delhi to keep out Pakistani Scholars see the letters. http://www.sacw.net/article13789.html INDIA PAKISTAN FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE MARCH: AHMEDABAD TO NADERWAI-ILIYABET, 19 - 30 JUNE, 2018 We believe if the governments cannot solve the disputes between the two countries then the people should take the initiative. If the common people of two countries are allowed to meet then over a period of time peace and harmony will prevail. We urge the two governments to facilitate the meeting of common people from two sides by granting them passports and visas easily. Since people of two sides of border share a common culture they can play an important role where the governments have failed. http://www.sacw.net/article13785.html ======================================== 3. BOOK REVIEW: KASHMIR AND THE SPYMASTERS OF PAKISTAN AND INDIA | Nyla Ali Khan ======================================== Book review of the Spy Chronicles by former Director General of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Asad Durrani, and former chief of the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) http://sacw.net/article13791.html ======================================== 4. India: Once the RSS was under Police Watch Now Its a Touchable Outfit For Many ======================================== INDIA: SCANS OF DELHI POLICE AND INTELLIGENCE FILES ON ACTIVITIES OF THE RSS IN 1947 Important archive of police intelligence files on activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1947 http://sacw.net/article13797.html INDIA: DID PRANAB MAKE A FAUSTIAN BARGAIN? by Bharat Bhushan There can be no dialogue with ideological certitude. The Jews could not have had a dialogue with Adolf Hitler. The Americans could not have had a dialogue with Osama bin Laden. And the Syrians or the Iraqis can?t sit across the table and convince the Islamic State of the futility of its millennial dreams. A fascist mind functions with incredible clarity essentially because it is closed. Only those with delusions of grandeur think that they can talk fascism out of fascists. http://sacw.net/article13793.html ======================================== 5. FULL REPORT OF THE ROHINGYA REFUGEE CRISIS CONFERENCE OF 11TH MAY 2018, NEW DELHI ======================================== The Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Causes and Consequences: Search for a Durable Solution? was a daylong Consultation held on May 11, at the India International Centre, New Delhi. The conference was organised by the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in collaboration with Development and Justice Initiative, India International Centre and Euro-Burma office. It brought together around 80 leading activist voices from civil society in Myanmar, the Rohingya community in Bangladesh and India, exile groups in the UK, official representative from Bangladesh, diplomats, lawyers, academics, social justice and women?s groups activists, the media, international agencies, faith based organisations and students. http://www.sacw.net/article13780.html ======================================== 6. India: Arbitrary arrests of Dalit & Rights Activists While Hindutva Terrorists enjoy impunity ======================================== INDIA: PUCL, MAHARASHTRA STATEMENT ON ARBITRARY ARRESTS OF ADVOCATE SURENDRA GADLING, MR. SUDHIR DHAWALE, MR. RONA WILSON, MS. SHOMA SEN, MR. MAHESH RAUT AND MR. RANA JACOB PUCL strongly condemns the vindictive and arbitrary arrest of Advocate Surendra Gadling, Mr. Sudhir Dhawale, Mr. Rona Wilson, Ms. Shoma Sen, Mr. Mahesh Raut and Mr. Rana Jacob on 6th June 2018. They have been reportedly booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), on the allegation of spreading controversial pamphlets and delivering hate speeches in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence that broke out in January 2018. http://sacw.net/article13790.html INDIA: MAHARASHTRA GOVERNMENT?S TERROR TRAIL TO PROTECT HINDUTVA TERRORISTS - STATEMENT BY CPDR CPDR strongly condemns this open show of State terror and complete bypassing of the Rule of Law by the BJP governments in the State and at the Centre and demands the immediate release of Advocate Surendra Gadling, Prof Shoma Sen, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut forthwith. http://sacw.net/article13796.html INDIA: NDA GOVERNMENT SYSTEMATICALLY TARGETING DALIT AND RIGHTS ACTIVIST, MUZZLING DISSENT - PRESS RELEASE BY NAPM (8 JUNE 2018) National Alliance of People?s Movements strongly condemns the unlawful persecution and arrests of pro-people activists Shoma Sen, Advocate Surender Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, and Mahesh Raut by the Maharashtra Police and demand for their immediate and unconditional release. http://sacw.net/article13794.html ======================================== 7. THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS: TARIQ ALI TALKS TO DAVID EDGAR ======================================== Both my mother and my father broke politically with the family, and became communists. My father was very active in the party, which delayed their wedding a bit. My grandfather refused to allow her to marry a communist whose public denunciations of his father-in-law-to-be were hardly a secret. His condition was that my father join the British Indian Army. They must have imagined that he would never agree, but Operation Barbarossa helped since the CPI instructed all its upper and middle- http://www.sacw.net/article13774.html ======================================== 8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Revealed: Archive of Delhi Police Secret files on RSS activity and plans Oct-Dec 1947 - Say No To Double Standards in Using Public Funds for Religious Places in India - India: BJP joined hands with Maoist-backed outfit in rural possls in West Bengal - India: Surprise surprise, there is now a Francois Gautier (Consul General of France in Bangalore) is he the same person as the famous hindutva driven Francois Gautier ? The French authorties in Delhi would do well to clarify - Open Letter To Pranab Mukherjee, The Former President Of India | Shamsul Islam - Will RSS consider Pranab Da?s Inclusive Indian Nationalism? Ram Puniyani - India: The Sangh parivar appeared jubilant after Pranab Mukherjee's visit to the RSS headquarters - India's Former President gives RSS legitimacy - India: Who Are Sambhaji Bhide & Milind Ekbote? Did Have Role in Bhima Koregaon Violence ? - India: Table on incidents of Communal Violence 2014-2016 as included in govt response to question in Parliament in 2017 - India: Ripples of the Modi marketing tide have already begun to roll - Who's paying? - India's ruling party ordered online abuse of opponents, claims book (2016 report in The Guardian) - The current scenario of BJP led govts shows the impunity the RSS and far-right presently has in India - India: Former President Pranab Mukherjee at RSS event - Speech will be forgotten, visuals will remain, says daughter - India: Ankit Saxena?s father sets an example for these fraught times - India: Is the Karnataka police hand-in-glove with RSS & Allied Groups? | Suresh Bhat (in: Sabrang India) - India: How RSS icon MS Golwalkar misrepresented Nehru?s words to justify the Hindutva ... - India - Shillong: Khasis versus Dalit Sikhs - a Communal Spat Fuelled by Whatsapp rumours - India: Post Kairana defeat, Sambit Patra on Live TV reveals BJP?s dangerous plan for 2019 Lok Sabha polls - India - Jammu and Kashmir: crucial role of friends and social media rather than IS or religious ideology spur youth to join militancy -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 9. TO BE AN ENVIRONMENTAL WORLD POWER | Kanak Mani Dixit ======================================== The Hindu June 5, 2018 Cross-border environmentalism is crucial for South Asia, but India is not inclined to take the lead Ecological ruin is on a gallop across South Asia, with life and livelihood of nearly a quarter of the world?s population affected. Yet, our polities are able to neither fathom nor address the degradation. The distress is paramount in the northern half of the subcontinent, roping in the swathe from the Brahmaputra basin to the Indus-Ganga plain. Within each country, with politics dancing to the tune of populist consumerism, nature is without a guardian. The erosion of civility in geopolitics keeps South Asian societies apart when people should be joining hands across borders to save our common ground. Because wildlife, disease vectors, aerosols and river flows do not respect national boundaries, the environmental trends must perforce be discussed at the regional inter-country level. As the largest nation-state of our region, and the biggest polluter whose population is the most vulnerable, India needs to be alert to the dangerous drift. China has been resolutely tackling air pollution and promoting clean energy. But while Beijing?s centralised governance mandates environmentalism-by-decree, the subcontinental realities demand civic participation for sustainability to work. Unfortunately, despite being a vast democracy where people power should be in the driving seat, the Indian state not only neglects its own realm, it does not take the lead on cross-border environmentalism. Thus, Bihar is helping destroy the Chure/Siwalik range of Nepal to feed the construction industry?s demand for boulders and conglomerate, even though this hurts Bihar itself through greater floods, desertification and aquifer depletion. Air pollution is strangling the denizens of Lahore, New Delhi, Kathmandu and Dhaka alike, but there is no collaboration. Wildlife corridors across States, provinces and countries are becoming constricted by the day, but we look the other way. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has chosen India to be the ?host country? to mark World Environment Day today. But when will New Delhi rise to connect the dots between representative democracy and ecological sanity? Rivers into sewers Truth be told, the environment ministry is invariably the least empowered in the major countries of South Asia, without clout vis-?-vis line ministries, and unable to coordinate the ecological response. Governments were content once to regard environmental protection as synonymous with wildlife protection. Today they stand unprepared when the challenges have greatly multiplied and deepened. There is distress across the ecological spectrum, but one need only study the rivers and the atmosphere to track the inaction of governments and our weakened activism. On water, the subcontinent is running out of the resource due to the demands of industrialisation and urbanisation, and continuation of the colonial-era irrigation model based on flooding the fields. The economic and demographic forces are arrayed against the rivers and their right-of-way. In the hills, the Ganga in Uttarakhand and the Teesta of Sikkim are representative of rivers that have been converted into dry boulder tracts by ?cascades? of run-of-river hydroelectric schemes. The same fate now threatens the rivers of Nepal and India?s Northeast, while the tributaries of the Indus were ?done in? decades ago through water diversion. Everywhere, natural drainage is destroyed by highways and railway tracks elevated above the flood line, and bunds encircling towns and cities. Reduced flows and urban/industrial effluents have converted our great rivers into sewers. We refuse to consider drip irrigation as a solution just as we fail to acknowledge that the rivers are made to carry hundreds of tonnes of plastics daily into the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. While underground aquifers are exploited to exhaustion, the popular ?river-training? prescription imprisons our rivers within embankments, according to the inherited Western engineering canon that does not factor in the natural silt carried by rivers of the Himalaya. The would-be high-dam builders have not adequately studied the phenomenon of Himalayan cloudbursts, nor do they find it necessary to address the question: how do you de-silt a deep reservoir when it fills up with sand and mud? Sadly, activists in Bihar and elsewhere who propose the ecologically sound ethos of ?living with the flood? have been relegated to the media backwater. They need to be heard, for the Ganga plains are densely populated for the very reason that the natural meanderings of rivers spread the largesse of loess across the land ? silt that is now locked away between dykes. Ground fog, brown cloud As the UNEP will be the first to insist, climate change is introducing massive disturbances to South Asia, most notably from the rise of sea levels. The entire Indian Ocean coastline will be affected, but the hardest hit will be the densely populated deltas where the Indus, the Irrawaddy and the Ganga-Brahmaputra meet the sea. The climate change discourse has not evolved enough to address the tens of millions of ?climate refugees? who will en masse move inland, paying scarce heed to national boundaries in the search for survival. To understand this imminent phenomenon, one may recall what the Farakka Barrage did to livelihoods in downstream Bangladesh, causing the flood of ?undocumented aliens? in India. The retreat of the Himalayan glaciers is jeopardising the perennial nature of our rivers and climate scientists are now zeroing in on the ?atmospheric brown cloud? to explain the excessive melting of snows in the central Himalaya. This high altitude haze covers the Indo-Gangetic plains for much of the dry season and penetrates deep into the high valleys. This cloud is made up of ?black carbon? containing soot and smog sent up by stubble burning, wood fires, smokestacks and fossil fuel exhaust, as well as dust kicked up by winter agriculture, vehicles and wind. It rises up over the plains and some of it settles on Himalayan snow and ice, which absorb heat and melt that much faster. It is no longer anecdotal that the icefalls of the Himalaya could before long transform into waterfalls. Like the ?brown cloud?, the policy-makers are yet to consider the seet lahar, the ground-hugging fog that engulfs the subcontinent?s northern plains for ever-extended periods in winter, a result of the spread of canal irrigation and simultaneous increase in the presence of particulate matter in the air. This inattention to the indescribable distress of millions of the poorest and shelter-less of the plains is hard to comprehend. A new kind of Chipko When environmental impact assessments have become a ritualistic farce in each country and governments react with great prejudice against environmental activists, it is little wonder that the Chipko Movement of Uttarakhand is erased from memory. Today, environmental activists all over tend to be lampooned in the media and social media as anti-national, anti-development saboteurs. Meanwhile, the task of preserving the forests and landscapes has mostly been relegated to the indigenous communities. You will have the Adivasi communities of the Deccan organising to save ancestral forests, and the indigenous Lepcha fighting against the odds to protect the upper reaches of the Teesta. The urban middle class is not visible in environmentalism, other than in ?beautification projects?. Perhaps we have been foolhardy in waiting for another Chipko to emerge, and the changed times may require new approaches. Tomorrow?s activists must work to quantify the economic losses of environmental destruction and get local institutions to act on their ownership of natural resources. The activists must harness information technology so as to engage with the public and to override political frontiers, and they must creatively use the power of the market itself to counter non-sustainable interventions. As we have seen, the highs of environmental movements are invariably followed by lows, and so to exit the cycle what is needed is an ?environmental system? inbuilt into the infrastructure of state and society. Work towards ecological sustainability must go beyond ritual, with the path seeming to lie in the empowerment of local government all over. Elected representatives in cities and districts must be challenged to emerge as the bulwark of environmentalism even as the provincial and national governments are asked to rise to their regulatory responsibilities. When ?organic environmentalism? rises from the grassroots and makes state authority accountable, South Asia and its peoples will be protected. At that point, no force will be able to stop activism across the frontiers and South Asia will begin to tackle pollution and dislocation as one. Kanak Mani Dixit, a writer and journalist based in Kathmandu, is the founding editor of the magazine, ?Himal Southasian? ======================================== 10. FAINT NOTES OF A SECULAR SPRING Latha Jishnu ======================================== Dawn June 4, 2018 IT would be far-fetched, perhaps unabashedly romantic, to think that the aura of the legendary musician Abdul Karim Khan had something to do with bringing Kairana, his birthplace in western Uttar Pradesh, to its senses. In last week?s parliamentary by-election, Kairana, which had become the BJP?s laboratory for its polarising Hindutva politics, gave a clear victory to Tabassum Hasan, the combined opposition front candidate who wrested the seat from the BJP with a comfortable margin. She will be the first Muslim member from UP in the current Lok Sabha. That, of course, sends another message to the BJP which had made it clear that Muslims did not matter in its political calculations as it pushed its toxic Hindutva agenda. There were a couple of other parliamentary victories, too, apart from a clutch of state assembly wins for the opposition parties. Even if it is too early for the opposition to break out in song, the Kairana victory is particularly sweet and it was impossible not to recall Karim Khan?s lilting notes of a khayal in Raga Basant as Hasan and her party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, celebrated the success of the united opposition in halting the ?chariot of hate? in UP. Kairana has traditionally had a sizable Muslim population (about 33 per cent now) and it is to this town in UP?s Shamli district that the country owes the effulgence of its most popular school of Hindustani classical music, the Kirana gharana. This school or tradition of khayal singing was shaped by a gifted son of Kairana, the singular Karim Khan who was as swashbuckling in his personal life as he was original in his music. The BJP was trounced in a key parliamentary stronghold ? a rejection of everyday communalism. If the Khan Sahib stunned the court of the Maharaja Sayajirao of Gaikwad with his brilliant singing at age 22, he caused more ripples when he eloped with Tarabai, a relative of the ruler, with whom he spawned three excellent musicians, Hirabai Barodekar, Suresh Mane and Saraswati Rane. He tutored even more illustrious disciples, foremost among them Sawai Gandharva, whose legacy lives on in the reverberating music of Gangubai Hangal and Bhimsen Joshi in India and of Roshanara Begum in Pakistan. Karim Khan?s brilliance was drawn from many sources, a major inspiration coming from the sargam of Carnatic music which he laced into his khayal singing. Thus he introduced devagandhari and kharaharapriya to a north Indian audience who?d probably never heard these ragas before. To music connoisseurs, Karim Khan was a remarkable innovator, the symbol of a secular, modern new style. To the lay person, too, he was extraordinary, a free spirit, unmindful of the social consequences of an interreligious alliance, impervious to convention and social hierarchy. He would certainly be anathema to the BJP and its saffron cohorts even if he did sing bhajans for Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi ? or possibly because he did so! The Kairana of their making has little resemblance to the birthplace of Karim Khan at a time when its mores were gracious and inclusive. Kairana today is the dark core of the new communalism that is being manufactured by the Hindu right in UP and it has been in the headlines for inventive ways in which the BJP has sought to polarise the Hindus and Muslims. In 2016, the BJP MP from Kairana, Hukum Singh, had unleashed a new campaign that played on the fears of the majority community by claiming there had been an exodus of several hundred Hindu families who were forced to flee because of killings and extortion demands. Kairana, he warned, had become the new Kashmir, and he released a list of those who had left Kairana. Predictably, it turned out to be fabricated. Singh was forced to retract his allegations after reporters and an official team of the UP government found the list contained names of dead persons apart from those of a handful who had left in search of jobs elsewhere. Singh?s death in February necessitated the by-election and there was poetic justice in the fact that it was his daughter Mriganka that Tabassum Hasan trounced last week. The opposition victory in Kairana would seem to herald a tentative new spring, a rejection by the people of the poison of ?institutionalised, everyday communalism? that the BJP has been spreading, and not merely to win elections. In their recently released book, Everyday Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh, two political scientists from New Delhi?s Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sudhai Pai and Sajjan Kumar, detail the perniciousness of the new strategy of communalisation, based on ?using small, mundane but provocative local incidents to gradually create animosity and social jealousies between Hindus and Muslims who have lived together for a long time?. Vast stretches of UP have been living this daily horror for the past many years, and more so after the BJP was swept to power under Narendra Modi. The book also highlights the inability of secular parties to counter the toxin of communalism effectively because of the way RSS-BJP have seeded communal politics into the way ordinary lives are lived. The secular ideal on which the Republic was founded does not make for ?common sense? and is, therefore, difficult to preach by other political parties confronting the wily strategies of the Hindutva brigade. For the latter, anything will suffice to construct communalism: a pile of wood that is stored for a celebration catching fire, a road accident, a game of cricket, an interfaith love affair or even a meal which is framed as a Hindu-Muslim problem to ?create a permanent anti-Muslim social prejudice and make it acceptable in the popular discourse?, warn the authors. Despite this concentrated onslaught, the Kairana result shows that there is hope yet in the Indian electorate. For one, they can see that the Modi government has been unable to halt the economic decline in the region. Although the BJP did try its best to deflect the issue by bringing Jinnah into the election rhetoric, the opposition insisted that ?ganna (sugarcane) mattered and not Jinnah?. And that?s why Modi?s feverish eleventh-hour roadshow ?unprecedented for a prime minister to campaign in by-elections ? failed to change the mood of the voters. It?s time for Kairana to think of music, to heal the rifts and celebrate the political spring. The writer is a journalist. ======================================== 11. INDIA: SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS ARE BEING CHANGED SECRETLY: IS THERE A ?SAFFRON? DESIGN IN IT? Apoorvanand ======================================== National Herald 03 June 2018 It?s high time we revived the public discourse on school textbooks which was started by the Yashpal committee report in 1993 and NCERT?s exercise to formulate a national curriculum School textbooks are undergoing changes surreptitiously. Nobody would have had an inkling if Ritika Chopra of Indian Express had not taken the trouble of painstakingly comparing the new textbooks with the ones published earlier. Somewhat predictably, no ?national? mainstream newspaper other than The Indian Express published a follow-up, leave alone publishing three reports on three consecutive days on the front page as the Express did. There is little hope, however, that the painstaking research would trigger any meaningful or major public debate on textbooks. But be as it may, this does provide an opportunity to have a renewed discussion on school textbooks. Public memory being proverbially short, few will recall the recent controversy in Rajasthan where a ?handbook? or a guide to follow a textbook prescribed by the Rajasthan School Board for English medium schools described Bal Gangadhar Tilak as the ?father of Indian terrorism?. The shoddily produced book by an Agra-based publisher had taken liberal help from Wikipedia and followed it up with a clumsy attempt to modify certain words. In the process, ?father of Indian unrest? turned into ?father of Indian terrorism?. This naturally upset not just the successors and descendants of Tilak but also those who claim to have inherited and appropriated his legacy. The comic slip could have generated a serious discussion on the quality of textbooks prescribed for schools in Rajasthan. But the opportunity was lost. If we talk to students or teachers, most of them complain that textbooks in India put a premium on information, half baked or otherwise, with which the textbooks are put together. Information without any insight, analysis or comparison is often not very helpful in forming an understanding. What?s more,in this country school textbooks are treated like a royal decree which is final and not subject to any questioning. Why indeed should students be forced to seek the help of a ?guidebook? to follow a textbook? Some might argue that in English medium schools run or approved by the government, there is no other way but to translate Hindi textbooks into English. But then the question would arise why in that case the Government itself did not take the responsibility of publishing textbooks in English rather than entrusting dubious private publishers the job of producing indifferent and flawed guidebooks or handbooks. Yet another question is whether schools should be allowed the independence and autonomy to follow textbooks of their choice? It is instructive to find the public discourse on school textbooks hovering around the trivial and the salacious. The mass media revel in discussing historical distortions creeping into textbooks or when controversial statements, facts or half-truths about well-known personalities find place in them. Curiously the entire nation appears absorbed in such mundane issues and not the more substantive issues around the role of textbooks in shaping the nation. Nor are questions asked why discussions on school texts remain largely confined to History. Indeed, are history textbooks meant only to eulogise our supposedly great, ancient culture? A textbook is very different from other books. But there are very few people who appreciate this difference. If we talk to students or teachers, most of them complain that textbooks in India put a premium on information, half baked or otherwise, with which the textbooks are put together. Information without any insight, analysis or comparison is often not very helpful in forming an understanding. What?s more, in this country school textbooks are treated like a royal decree which is final and not subject to any questioning. A third feature of textbooks in this country is their tendency to treat students as delicate, vulnerable or half-retarded or mentally undeveloped people who cannot be exposed to serious criticism or controversy. The Yashpal committee report released way back in 1992-93 had raised these issues. It had called for freeing the textbooks from the overload of information. There was no reason for us to fear, it said, that our children would lag behind others globally in terms of information. The report pointed out that what was of concern was our complete indifference to developing the ability of students to deconstruct the text and form their own opinion and interpretation. Influential sections in the Government and the bureaucracy buried the Yashpal committee report. The fact that influential sections of the society did not favour independent thinking by students was a pointer to the socially powerful to control ?thought?, ?knowledge? and perception of children. The concern was revived in 2005 when the renewed discourse on a national curriculum stressed that the object of school education was not to produce regimented and patriotic citizens but to help produce creative minds. The emphasis should be to introduce students to different schools of thought and different methodologies followed in different ages and in different countries to study the same subjects. The NCERT?s exercise in 2005 to formulate a national curriculum and textbooks was an important landmark. It is generally accepted that textbooks are tailormade to suit the interests, outlook and philosophy of the government Of the day. But despite the fact that UPA Government in the saddle at the time, several textbooks produced around the period published critical assessments of the Emergency and anti-Sikh riots, to cite an example. Evidently, the task was far from easy. But the idea was to involve the best minds and that is why one can find names of celebrated public intellectuals like Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Ramchandra Guha, Kukum Roy, Yogendra Yadav and Hari Vasudevan. Textbooks prepared with the assistance and guidance of these scholars are now being altered without any reference to them. The official explanation being given is that the changes are being made following comments and suggestions the textbooks elicited. The question is whose suggestions? from which quarters did the comments emanate? Who suggested that Gujarat?s anti-Muslim riot in 2002 be described just as violent rioting? Is there a design in describing the Narmada Bachao Andolan or agitation against the Tehri Dam as just an environmental protest? Really, the only way to ensure that the painstaking work done by The Indian Express does not go in vain is to resume the stalled debate on school textbooks. ======================================== 12. HEED THE ECHOES OF JUNE 4 by Gopalkrishna Gandhi ======================================== The Hindu June 04, 2018 The story of Monica Felton, Rajaji, Mandela ? and history?s call to today?s democratic forces to rally together This is about two June the 4ths, both of which bear a message for Indian politics today. The first is sited in Madras, 1959. The second, again, in Madras, 1964. An Englishwoman, Marxist by conviction, an authority on urban planning and a passionate advocate of the World Peace Council, Monica Felton, had settled in India?s ?southern capital?. Why, or for what combination of reasons this long-time London County Councillor representing St Pancras South West for the Labour Party should have chosen, of all places, Madras to settle in is not very clear. But a person from a very different, in fact, totally contrastive politics had made a powerful impression on her. She had little in common with Chakravarti Rajagopalachari?s political views. And yet there was a certain intellectual chemistry between them, love of English literature being certainly high on that shared list. She had even begun working on a biography of the octogenarian. And Swarajya, the English weekly that CR wrote for and was the soul of, was open to her to write in. A party is born On June 4, 1959, Felton went, at Rajagopalachari?s casual suggestion, to a public meeting in Madras?s Vivekananda College called by the All India Agriculturists? Federation (AIAF). It was to be addressed by AIAF?s leader N.G. Ranga and the Parsi ex-Marxist and urbanite intellectual from the Right, Minoo Masani. The meeting was supposed to voice general dissent from the ?statist? politics of the Nehru government. But the audience, including the Englishwoman, was surprised to see CR and Jayaprakash Narayan arrive at it. And even more surprised when CR said, ?This morning a new political party was formed. And the name of the new party is Swatantra Party.? The audience broke instantaneously into applause. The party belonged to the Right, professedly and proudly so. The veteran socialist JP who was at the meeting did not join it, giving his good wishes to the idea of a democratic alternative to the Congress. Nor did the distinguished scholar-administrator C.D. Deshmukh, to whom CR offered its leadership. But Swatantra with CR being its powerhouse and Swarajya, his platform of expression, were to become a democratic force at the time, receiving respect from a cross-section, even if not active participation. Swatantra rallied non-Congress sentiment across the country. Did CR?s new political avatar from the Right distance him from the ardent Leftist, Monica Felton? It did not. She found the octogenarian?s fervour quite fascinating. And Swarajya?s column space remained available to her, her politics, her world view. This had much to with the liberal political atmosphere of the times, notwithstanding CR?s accusations of ?totalitarian? and ?megalomaniac? tendencies in Jawaharlal Nehru. Speaking at a public meeting in Madras, Nehru responded to CR?s opposition typically: ?May I perhaps venture to say one word to him with great respect; and that is, a little charity in his thinking may sometimes not be out of place.? Felton asked CR, ?Can?t you two work together?? He demurred but without retreating an inch from his opposition to ?one party rule?, CR said of the equation between Nehru and himself: ?We are positive friends and love each other.? Swatantra was to collapse in 1974, after CR died, but it had made a point: democratic opposition to a democratic party in power is a democratic desideratum. Over in South Africa Five years on, the world watched with some wonderment one man create another democratic history. Served by very conventional, slow and ponderous technologies of news transmission, it observed this 46-years-young South African, said to be ?non-Marxist, but close to South Africa?s communists?, well on his way to becoming the anti-apartheid resistance?s utmost charismatic leader. Nelson Mandela was a prisoner and being tried for inciting strikes and trying to overthrow the government. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, it was said, had played a role in the apartheid regime?s pursuit of Mandela and five others for suspected collaboration between them and South African communists, particularly Joe Slovo. In what came to be known, celebrated in fact, as the Rivonia Trial of 1963-64, Mandela made major political statements in the course of his defence. At the opening of the trial, he made his celebrated ?I am prepared to die? speech with the lines: ?I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But? if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.? Among those ?listening? to Mandela?s scorching words, and watching the creative interaction between the African National Congress and South Africa?s communists, was Felton. Another June 4 On June 4, 1964, the Madras-based Swarajya carried an article by her about Mandela. It is a felicity that one of the early articles on him should have come in an organ of India?s political Right written by a figure from the Left. Titled ?A Man Ready To Die?, her article said: ?In this country, Mandela, whose ideas have been deeply influenced by India?s freedom struggle, is still not much more than a name.? She went on to say: ?Although influenced by Marxist thought he did not become a communist. But there has often, he has said, been close collaboration between the African National Congress and the Communist Party.? And then she quoted Mandela directly: ?Theoretical differences among those fighting against oppression are a luxury we cannot afford at this stage. What is more, communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals? Because of this there are many Africans today who tend to equate freedom with communism.? Felton?s article showed the importance of opposition unity in fighting oppression. South Africa?s liberation was still some three decades away, a period which would see Mandela jailed. It was night time for South Africa but somewhere its future ?rainbow? had been born. Felton?s astonishing foresight helps us look back from these two June the 4ths and look ahead from them. If that democrat of democrats, Nehru, could be faulted by seasoned democrats for fostering one-party rule, then, today, when a supremacist seeks to dominate Indian politics, the duty of democrats is clear. The pre-election example set by the Congress in backing Jignesh Mevani?s independent candidature in the Gujarat Assembly elections and that adopted by the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar by-elections won by them last week demands replication. And if that leader of leaders, Mandela, could find it necessary to team up with South Africa?s communists to fight the racist oppression of apartheid, then, in India today all democratic parties must see the criticality of reaching out to that time-tested challenger of sectarianism ? namely, the Left. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain if, in Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala in particular, they fight communal divisiveness in an alliance with India?s communist forces. To borrow a Mandela phrase, India should see, in 2019, a truly rainbow outcome. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and Governor ======================================== 13. INDIA: PUSSY CAT AT HOME, BENGAL TIGER IN A MOB: THERE?S LITTLE GENTEEL ABOUT THE BHADRALOK Sandip Roy ======================================== The Print 3 May, 2018 Dishing out mob justice, showing women their place has a powerful appeal whether in a pub in Mangalore or a train in Kolkata. The Metro rail was once Kolkata?s pride and joy. The city, after all, was the first in India to get one all the way back in 1984. Now, overnight, it?s become a symbol of the city?s shame. The Ananda Bazar Patrika recently carried an eyewitness account about a young couple thrashed by their middle-aged and elderly co-passengers for being ?too close? on the train. That has led to great soul-searching and hand-wringing all over the city. Et tu Metro? Then fall Kolkata. Suddenly, we are unable to recognise our city anymore. The Metro is appealing to us to not allow anyone to tarnish Kolkata?s ?cultural heritage?. ?It is difficult to believe that the city I have known for decade after decade has become so dangerous underneath the surface; so intolerant, so cruel! I am unable to believe it. It feels literally like a nightmare,? laments Ujjwal Chakravarty in the Ananda Bazar Patrika. Some are claiming this incident is just another sign that the moral policing of the khap panchayats and the Karni Senas and the Shri Ram Sene is now infecting even metropolitan Kolkata. From sword-wielding Ram Navami processions to PDA-phobic uncles on the Metro, it is but a hop, skip and hug away. But it?s not about Right-wing/Left-wing politics as much as it?s about bhadralok gone wild. That?s what really stings. When suburban lumpen were the villains, Kolkata could feel superior. In 2013, a college student was gang-raped and killed in Kamduni village just outside the city in an area surrounded by fisheries, ill-lit and ill-served by police stations. Local boys gathered there and drank in the open, passing lewd comments on any young woman that passed by. Kolkata marched in shocked protest. A 21-year-old college student was hacked to pieces in 2014, killed for protesting against gambling rackets and illicit liquor dens in his neighbourhood. A 39-year-old school teacher was murdered two years earlier for daring to take on criminal gangs who raped and tortured at will in his village. But these were on the outskirts of the city, in neighbourhoods Kolkatans might have heard about but rarely had reason to visit. The Metro did not stop there. That gentlefolk, the kind that take the Metro, could suddenly turn into a flash mob seems unbelievable. But is it really? Or does it just prove what we always secretly suspected, that the bhadralok liberalism Kolkata snobbishly prides itself on can be a thin veneer at best? There is really nothing to indicate the bhadralok is intrinsically liberal and tolerant. The quintessential bhadralok rarely gets involved because he does not want to get his hands dirty. That squeamishness is sometimes mistaken for tolerance. But it?s anything but, as is often evident when the bhadralok opens his mouth. When Suzette Jordan was raped after a visit to a nightclub in the heart of the city, a bhadralok minister wanted to know what a mother-of-two was doing at a nightclub. As a young woman commented, the men who beat up the couple are also the ones that look the other way when a woman is harassed on the same trains. Yes, Kolkata is still one of the safest cities for women in the country but National Crime Records Bureau statistics for 2016 say the state has the highest number of cases of domestic violence. The dadas in the neighbourhood, the aunties next door, the I-know-best uncles, even the student union leaders on campus, have always been moral police unto themselves. A young woman tells a story about how, as a student, she was harassed by dadas for wearing shorts and smoking in public in Kolkata. The difference is dadas dictated the norms in what they considered their own backyard while the Metro is public transport that supposedly belongs to everyone. The heavy-handed Bengali soap operas, while apparently peddling stories of women?s empowerment, trot out the same old tropes, where girls who go to ?discs? or have a drink are women who will inevitably have their ?modesty outraged?. Even that genteel word ?bhadralok? is a cutting-edge weapon used to enforce a ?Lakshman rekha? of propriety. We?ve all heard it. ?You can?t dress like that/you can?t party like that/you can?t argue like that/you can?t stay out late like that, this is a bhadralok home/apartment building/housing complex.? When a mob decides to enforce their idea of what is seemly, it shows that the middle-aged bhadralok in Kolkata is just as frustrated at the sight of carefree young love as their khap counterparts elsewhere. When it?s discreetly out of sight, on the dark tree-lined streets near Victoria Memorial where you will find couples in a tight clinch every few feet, they pretend not to notice it. But when faced with it in the bright fluorescent light of a Metro compartment, the Bengali blood boils over. The renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore might have famously told us ?jodi tor daak shuney keu na aashey tobey ekla chalo re (If no one heeds your call, then go it alone)?, but in a Metro compartment in Kolkata, everyone is eager to answer the call of the mob. Dishing out mob justice, showing women their place, has a powerful appeal, whether in a pub in Mangaluru or a train in Kolkata. They might be pussy cats at home, but in the safety of a mob everyone is a Bengal tiger. There are silver linings here. Unlike other parts of the country, the reaction has at least not been an angry bristling defence of the moral police. It was other passengers who came to the couple?s rescue. The Metro railway authorities quickly tweeted, ?Metro Rly IS AGAINST MORAL POLICING?, and said they were investigating the incident though their CCTV cameras had not captured anything. However, their zero-tolerance stance was slightly dented when their official Facebook handle apparently posted a message asking, ?What wrong has been done by the passengers?? calling the episode the ?inevitable fallout of year-long vulgarity shown by a section of the young generation?. That message was hurriedly deleted but not quickly enough. Now, young people are giving out free hugs as part of a ?#HokAalingon (Let the hugs happen) campaign?. People are singing songs and quoting Bob Dylan to the media, saying the times they are a changing. That?s all very cool and exactly the sort of reaction Kolkata prides itself on. But it does not change the uncomfortable truth. The league of extraordinary Bengali gentlemen isn?t so out of the ordinary, after all. When push comes to love, they can be just garden-variety bullies. Then, they will go back to their fish-and-rice bhadralok lives without missing a beat. Sandip Roy is a journalist, commentator and author. ======================================== 14. TRUTH, LIES, AND LITERATURE by Salman Rushdie ======================================== The New Yorker May 31, 2018 The breakdown in the old agreements about reality is now the most significant reality, and the world can perhaps best be explained in terms of conflicting and often incompatible narratives. Photograph by Juergen Loesel / VISUM / Redux ?What, art thou mad? Art thou mad?? Falstaff demands of Prince Hal, in Shakespeare?s ?Henry IV, Part 1.? ?Is not the truth the truth?? The joke, of course, is that he has been lying his head off, and the prince is in the process of exposing him as a liar. In a time like the present, when reality itself seems everywhere under attack, Falstaff?s duplicitous notion of the truth seems to be shared by many powerful leaders. In the three countries I?ve spent my life caring about?India, the U.K., and the United States?self-serving falsehoods are regularly presented as facts, while more reliable information is denigrated as ?fake news.? However, the defenders of the real, attempting to dam the torrent of disinformation flooding over us all, often make the mistake of yearning for a golden age when truth was uncontested and universally accepted, and of arguing that what we need is to return to that blissful consensus. The truth is that truth has always been a contested idea. As a student of history, at Cambridge, I learned at an early age that some things were ?basic facts??that is, unarguable events, such as that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, or that the American Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. But the creation of a historical fact was the result of a particular meaning being ascribed to an event. Julius Caesar?s crossing of the Rubicon is a historical fact. But many other people have crossed that river, and their actions are not of interest to history. Those crossings are not, in this sense, facts. Also the passage of time often changes the meaning of a fact. During the British Empire, the military revolt of 1857 was known as the Indian Mutiny, and, because a mutiny is a rebellion against the proper authorities, that name, and therefore the meaning of that fact, placed the ?mutinying? Indians in the wrong. Indian historians today refer to this event as the Indian Uprising, which makes it an entirely different sort of fact, which means a different thing. The past is constantly revised according to the attitudes of the present. There is, however, some truth in the idea that in the West in the nineteenth century there was a fairly widespread consensus about the character of reality. The great novelists of that time?Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, and so on?could assume that they and their readers, broadly speaking, agreed on the nature of the real, and the grand age of the realist novel was built on that foundation. But that consensus was built on a number of exclusions. It was middle-class and white. The points of view of, for example, colonized peoples, or racial minorities?points of view from which the world looked very different to the bourgeois reality portrayed in, say, ?The Age of Innocence,? or ?Middlemarch,? or ?Madame Bovary??were largely erased from the narrative. The importance of great public matters was also often marginalized. In the entire ?uvre of Jane Austen, the Napoleonic Wars are barely mentioned; in the immense ?uvre of Charles Dickens, the existence of the British Empire is only glancingly recognized. In the twentieth century, under the pressure of enormous social changes, the nineteenth-century consensus was revealed as fragile; its view of reality began to look, one might say, fake. At first, some of the greatest literary artists sought to chronicle the changing reality by using the methods of the realist novel?as Thomas Mann did in ?Buddenbrooks,? or Junichiro Tanizaki in ?The Makioka Sisters??but gradually the realist novel seemed more and more problematic, and writers from Franz Kafka to Ralph Ellison and Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez created stranger, more surreal texts, telling the truth by means of obvious untruth, creating a new kind of reality, as if by magic. I have argued, for much of my life as a writer, that the breakdown in the old agreements about reality is now the most significant reality, and that the world can perhaps best be explained in terms of conflicting and often incompatible narratives. In Kashmir and in the Middle East, and in the battle between progressive America and Trumpistan, we see examples of such incompatibilities. I have also maintained that the consequences of this new, argumentative, even polemical attitude to the real has profound implications for literature?that we can?t, or ought not to, pretend it isn?t there. I believe that the influence on public discourse of more, and more varied, voices has been a good thing, enriching our literatures and making more complex our understanding of the world. And yet I now face, as we all do, a genuine conundrum. How can we argue, on the one hand, that modern reality has become necessarily multidimensional, fractured and fragmented, and, on the other hand, that reality is a very particular thing, an unarguable series of things that are so, which needs to be defended against the attacks of, to be frank, the things that are not so, which are being promulgated by, let?s say, the Modi Administration in India, the Brexit crew in the U.K., and the President of the United States? How to combat the worst aspects of the Internet, that parallel universe in which important information and total garbage coexist, side by side, with, apparently, the same levels of authority, making it harder than ever for people to tell them apart? How to resist the erosion in the public acceptance of ?basic facts,? scientific facts, evidence-supported facts about, say, climate change or inoculations for children? How to combat the political demagoguery that seeks to do what authoritarians have always wanted?to undermine the public?s belief in evidence, and to say to their electorates, in effect, ?Believe nothing except me, for I am the truth?? What do we do about that? And what, specifically, might be the role of art, and the role of the literary arts in particular? I don?t pretend to have a full answer. I do think that we need to recognize that any society?s idea of truth is always the product of an argument, and we need to get better at winning that argument. Democracy is not polite. It?s often a shouting match in a public square. We need to be involved in the argument if we are to have any chance of winning it. And as far as writers are concerned, we need to rebuild our readers? belief in argument from factual evidence, and to do what fiction has always been good at doing?to construct, between the writer and the reader, an understanding about what is real. I don?t mean to reconstruct the narrow, exclusive consensus of the nineteenth century. I like the broader, more disputatious view of society to be found in modern literature. But when we read a book we like, or even love, we find ourselves in agreement with its portrait of human life. Yes, we say, this is how we are, this is what we do to one another, this is true. That, perhaps, is where literature can help most. We can make people agree, in this time of radical disagreement, on the truths of the great constant, which is human nature. Let?s start from there. In Germany, after the Second World War, the authors of what was called Tr?mmerliteratur, or ?rubble literature,? felt the need to rebuild their language, poisoned by Nazism, as well as their country, which lay in ruins. They understood that reality, truth, needed to be reconstructed from the ground up, with new language, just as the bombed cities needed to be rebuilt. I think we can learn from their example. We stand once again, though for different reasons, in the midst of the rubble of the truth. And it is for us?writers, thinkers, journalists, philosophers?to undertake the task of rebuilding our readers? belief in reality, their faith in the truth. And to do it with new language, from the ground up. Salman Rushdie is the author of thirteen novels, including, most recently, ?The Golden House.? ======================================== 15. THOUSANDS ENSLAVED IN FORCED MARRIAGES ACROSS UK, INVESTIGATION FINDS ======================================== The Guardian May 29 2018 Experts say crime is woefully under-reported, as Guardian research shows large scale of domestic and sexual servitude https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/28/thousands-enslaved-in-forced-marriages-across-uk-investigation-finds ======================================== 16. UN EXEMPTIONS MAKE MOCKERY OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN WORLD BODY | Thalif Deen ======================================== Inter Press Press The UN General Assembly, the ultimate authority to ban exemptions on sexual abuse in the UN system. Credit: UN photo/Manuel Elias UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2018 (IPS) - When allegations of sexual harassment were made against a senior UN official?holding the rank of Under-Secretary-General at the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC)? the United Nations admitted that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has no jurisdiction over a UN body created by the General Assembly and answerable only to member states. http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/sexual-abuse-un-chief-no-jurisdiction-act/ But this glaring exemption to the UN?s much-ballyhooed ?zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse? (SEA) also applies to several other UN bodies created by the General Assembly, including, most importantly, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) ? making a mockery of the ongoing fight against harassment in the world body. And these exemptions may also cover some of the UN ?Commissions, Boards, Committees, Councils and Panels? ? all of which are considered subsidiary bodies of the General Assembly. ?I find it absolutely appalling that three of the UN entities entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring effective functioning of the UN system are themselves flouting some basic UN norms, taking advantage of legal lacuna without any supervision of the Secretary-General,? Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General, UN High Representative and Chairman of the ACABQ (1997-1998), told IPS. He said it is ?extremely urgent? that this situation be addressed without any more delay by the 193-member UN General Assembly (UNGA). ?By feeling helpless about such abuse and misuse in view of its past resolutions, the Assembly is shunning its responsibility as the world?s highest intergovernmental decision-making body,? Chowdhury said. Asked for her comments on the ICSC exemption from the UN?s zero tolerance policy, DrPurna Sen, Director of Policy at UN Women, Executive Coordinator and newly-appointed Spokesperson on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination, told IPS that zero tolerance is not an optional extra that (some) employers can apply or not. ?It must have universal reach so that all staff can enjoy safety and respect?. First of all, she pointed out, sexual abuse, harassment, exploitation and assault are all aspects of sexual violence. There are laws against violence and all states have committed to ending violence by 2030 (Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals 5.2). ?The obligation for ending violence rests with states but all actors, the private sector, universities etc all have a role to play in making this happen. ICSC cannot be exempt from this work: independence cannot confer impunity,? Dr Sen said. Secondly, the notion there can be places where accountability cannot reach is not tenable. ?With great respect for women who have shouted and hollered until they have been heard, I wish to note the international clamour from women who have put abusers on notice,? she noted. The MeToo, BalanceTonPorc and other such women-led imperatives for change have at last got attention. Accountability has to be made real ? at the ICSC, as well as elsewhere, Dr Sen said. Finally, it seems that any exemption from the UN? policies is something that exists due to a General Assembly resolution. ?It is surely within the authority and competence of the GA then to review and change that situation.? The need for independence cannot trump the need for safety and respectful workplaces, where abuse of power and gender inequality are rendered obsolete, she declared. ?Surely our collective efforts are not incapable of finding arrangements for their co-existence such that staff and the public have confidence in the whole UN system.? Seeking an intervention by the Secretary-General and the GA President, Chowdhury told IPS: ?I believe very strongly that the President of the Assembly, with his trusted leadership, needs to take the initiative on a priority basis, in consultation with the Secretary-General, to table a UNGA resolution to overcome this lack of jurisdiction and control which results in such abuse without any higher supervisory control?. He said ?past decisions should not be an excuse to overlook such aberrations which the IPS article has very rightly highlighted. Independence of a UN entity should not give it immunity to disregard norms which are core values of the UN.? Asked to weigh in with his comments, Ian Richards, President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations of the UN System (CCISUA), told IPS: ?We expect all parts of the UN system to have policies and structures in place to prevent sexual harassment, in line with Secretary-General Guterres?s promise of zero tolerance.? ?This allows our member unions to help victims assert their individual rights to a harassment-free workplace and get justice when their rights are infringed,? he added. However, he pointed out, ?we are currently unable to assist staff who work for bodies such as the ICSC, ACABQ and JIU, to benefit from these rights. This despite their staff also having UN contracts and being appointed by the Secretary-General.? He said the ICSC will itself touch on this issue when it discusses workforce diversity at its 87th session this July in Bonn. ?We hope it will join us in calling for consistent HR policies and structures throughout, without of course compromising the independence these bodies require to do their job.? Brenden Varma, Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly (PGA) told IPS: ?It?s for Member States to take such an initiative ? not the PGA. From the PGA?s side, he continues to stand firmly against all forms of sexual abuse and harassment.? Meanwhile, providing an update on cases of sexual exploitation and abuse in the UN system, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters May 1 that for the first three months of this year, from 1 January to 31 March 2018, there were 54 allegations for all UN entities and implementing partners. But not all allegations have been fully verified, and many are in the preliminary assessment phase, he added. Out of the 54 allegations, he said, 14 are reported from peacekeeping operations and 18 from agencies, funds and programmes. Twenty-one allegations relate to implementing partners and one to a member of a non-UN international force. Of the 54 allegations, 17 are categorized as sexual abuse, 34 as sexual exploitation, and 3 are of an unknown nature. The allegations involve 66 victims ? including 13 girls (under the age of 18) and 16 victims whose age remains unknown. With regard to the status of the allegations, he said, 2 have been substantiated by an investigation; 2 were not substantiated; 21 are at various stages of investigation; 27 are under preliminary assessment; and 1 investigation?s result is under review. With over 95,000 civilians and 90,000 uniformed personnel working for the UN, sexual exploitation and abuse are not reflective of the conduct of the majority of the dedicated women and men who serve the Organization, Dujarric said. ?But every allegation involving our personnel undermines our values and principles and the sacrifice of those who serve with pride and professionalism in some of the most dangerous places in the world. For this reason, combating this scourge, and helping and empowering those who have been scarred by these egregious acts, continue to be key priorities for the Secretary-General in 2018.? At a meeting with the Secretary-General in London on May 3, the executive heads of UN agencies, who are members of the Chief Executives Board (CEB), reiterated ?their firm commitment to uphold a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment; to strengthen victim-centred prevention and response efforts; and to foster a safe and inclusive working environment.? In addition, they pledged to provide mechanisms such as 24-hour helplines for staff to report harassment and access support; establish a system-wide database to avoid rehire of individuals who have perpetrated sexual harassment. The CEB also pledged to institute fast track procedures to receive, process and address complaints; recruit specialized investigators, including women; enforce mandatory training; provide guidelines for managers; harmonize policies; and launch staff perception surveys to learn from experiences. The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen at ips.org ======================================== 17. RUSSIAN MUSEUM DISCOVERS SECRET ORDER TO DESTROY GULAG DATA Papers reveal that ministers ordered erasure of prisoner files in 2014, say archivists Associated Press in Moscow ======================================== The Guardian 8 June 2018 A former Gulag for political prisoners in Perm, Russia, which now serves as a memorial for those who died there. Photograph: Rex Features A museum studying Soviet prison camps has discovered a secret Russian order from 2014 instructing officials to destroy data on prisoners ? a move it said ?could have catastrophic consequences for studying the history of the camps?. Up to 17 million people were sent to the Gulag, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s. At least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony. The prison population in the labour camps peaked at 2 million people. Gulag grave hunter unearths uncomfortable truths in Russia Read more Case files of the Gulag prisoners were often destroyed but their personal data was kept on registration cards, which are still held by police and intelligence officials. The Gulag History Museum in Moscow has discovered a classified 2014 order that instructed Russian officials to destroy the registration cards of former prisoners who had reached the age of 80 ? which today would include almost all of them. The museum?s archive expert, Alexander Makeyev, told the Interfax agency that they discovered the cards had been destroyed in one region, the remote Magadan in eastern Russia, home to some of the Soviet Union?s biggest prison camps. Repressions perpetrated under the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin left a profound scar on the Russian nation, destroying lives and displacing millions. But in recent years under Vladimir Putin, officials have tried to play down Stalin?s terror, hailing the leader for building a new economy and helping the Soviet Union win the second world war. The Gulag History Museum has appealed to Russia?s Presidential Council for Human Rights to look into the classified order. The report has caused outrage in the Russian historical community and beyond. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic party, said on his social media account that historical ?archives should be opened to public, not destroyed? and that Russians should be able to know the truth about their past. ======================================== 18. UK: UNIONS ARE TOO VITAL TO DEMOCRACY TO BE ALLOWED TO GENTRIFY AND DIE Kenan Malik ======================================== The Guardian 3 June 2018 Kenan Malik As strikes fade away and memberships fall, too many workers are being left vulnerable [Photo] An Amazon distribution centre in Phoenix, Arizona. British unions warn of dangers to health. Photograph: Ralph Freso/Reuters Two reports last week exposed both the changing character of the labour market and the degree to which the power of the organised working class has eroded. The Office for National Statistics revealed that there were just 79 strikes (or, more specifically, stoppages) last year, the lowest figure since records began in 1891. Just 33,000 workers were involved in labour disputes, the lowest number since 1893. Victorian conditions have returned in more ways than one. It?s not just the number of strikes that has fallen. Trade union membership has too. The latest figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy show that just 23.2% of employees were unionised in 2017, a half that of the late 1970s. The fall has been greatest among the young. The proportion of union members under 50 has fallen over the past 20 years, while that above 50 has increased. Strikingly, too, unions have increasingly become clubs for professionals. One in five employees works in professional jobs, but they make up almost 40% of union members. These days, you are twice as likely to be unionised if you have a degree than if you have no qualifications. It?s a far cry from the old image of the trade unionist as an industrial worker. Unions have not just shrunk ? their very character has changed. Like politics, trade unionism has become more professional and technocratic. The evisceration of the meaning of trade unionism was perhaps best expressed in a series of bizarre events at the annual congress of the University and College Union. The UCU has been involved in recent months in a bitter dispute with universities over pension rights. Many members have been critical of the handling of the dispute by the union?s leadership and, in particular, by the general secretary, Sally Hunt. At the congress were two motions, one censuring Hunt for her actions during the strike, the other calling for her resignation. The UCU leadership walked out before the motions could be heard and shut down the congress on the grounds that the motions undermined their rights as union members (UCU full-timers are members not of the UCU but of Unite) and because of ?concerns about their health and safety?. Union leaders refused, in other words, to be held accountable by the members who had originally voted them into office on the grounds that such accountability is contrary to their interests as union members and detrimental to their health and safety. There is, of course, a long history of union leaders protecting their own positions and acting against the wishes of their members. But many of today?s unions seem disinclined to pay even lip service to the idea of unions as organisations of solidarity, belonging to their members and working on behalf of their interests. While some union leaders are inventing ?health and safety? reasons for refusing to be held accountable by their members, workers facing real health and safety concerns often have little support. Almost a third of British workers comprise what the economist Guy Standing has called the ?precariat? ? workers lacking job security and benefits, often shifting from one short-term position to another, often self-employed or working in the gig economy. An investigation published last week by the GMB discovered that ambulances had been called to Amazon?s UK warehouses at least 600 times in the last three years ? more than four times every week. On more than half of these occasions, patients had to be taken to hospital. According to the GMB?s national officer, Mick Rix: ?Pregnant women [are] telling us they are forced to stand for 10 hours a day, pick, stow, stretch and bend, pull heavy carts and walk miles ? even miscarriages and pregnancy issues at work.? Not only have unions been drained of much of their power, but the workers that most need help are the least likely to be organised. The very character of the new, fragmented labour market makes organisation more difficult. The state of traditional trade unionism only compounds the problem. Much has been written about the crisis of social democratic parties throughout Europe that have abandoned their old working-class constituencies and as a result have largely imploded. Much less thought has been given to similar trends within traditional trade unionism. Yet, the crisis of trade unionism is as great as that of social democratic politics. The two are inextricably linked. To address the crisis of working-class politics, we need to address questions of working-class organisation and solidarity, too. Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist ======================================== 19. H-NET REVIEW: GRAMITH ON PRUSIN, 'SERBIA UNDER THE SWASTIKA: A WORLD WAR II OCCUPATION' ======================================== Alexander Victor Prusin. Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 232 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-04106-8. Reviewed by Luke Gramith (University of West Virginia) Published on H-War (June, 2018) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air War College) Alexander Prusin provides readers with a concise study of the social, military, and political history of occupied Serbia during the Second World War. With this geographically focused but thematically broad approach, Serbia under the Swastika stands out from existing scholarly works, which have focused either on the wider Yugoslav occupation experience or on more narrow questions of guerrilla and antiguerrilla warfare.[1] It parallels recent regional studies of the occupation years in other parts of the dismembered Yugoslavia.[2] In Serbia under the Swastika, Prusin makes several well-supported arguments using a range of archival, newspaper, and memoir sources. Most should not surprise readers familiar with the existing literature on German-occupied Europe. First, Prusin convincingly shows that the German occupation regime was riven with internal contradictions and rivalries, which in turn hindered the realization of German goals. Second, the occupation unleashed a Serbian civil war that was political-ideological in nature, distinct from the ethnoreligious conflicts in other parts of occupied Yugoslavia such as the Independent State of Croatia. Third, all active participants in this civil war, from the communist guerrillas to the collaborationist figurehead Milan Nedi?, sought to use the context of war and occupation to transform Serbia into something new. Finally, even amid civil war and occupation, most Serbians neither actively resisted nor actively collaborated; rather, they spent the war years attempting to survive, accommodating those who made demands of them at gunpoint. Prusin makes these arguments in a concise text, organized into an introduction, nine short chapters, and a conclusion. Apart from the first chapter, which provides background information on interwar Yugoslavia, each chapter treats a single theme for the years 1941-44, and only a loose narrative thread runs between them. Following the conclusion, readers can view a section of endnotes (pared down to the bare minimum), a bibliography consisting mostly of English-, Serbo-Croatian-, and German-language works, and a short index limited to key organizations and persons. Chapters 2-5 define the book?s key actors. After detailing the rapid collapse of Yugoslavia in April 1941, chapter 2 sketches the earliest German approaches to occupied Serbia. A comprehensive racial reordering was not the goal, but rather material exploitation and the creation of a pacified hinterland for easy transportation and communication in the Balkans. The Wehrmacht created the office of the Military Commander-in-Serbia to accomplish these goals, but from the first days of its existence it faced challenges from other German agencies. Chapter 3 explores the Germans? efforts to construct a collaborationist regime capable of realizing their goals. Prusin shows how these efforts failed due to intra-German power struggles and a refusal to grant any real autonomy to the collaborationist Council of Commissars or its successor, the Government of National Salvation. The tight leash on Serbian collaborators stands in striking contrast to the free rein received by Ante Paveli??s Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia. It resulted in the Serbian collaborators lacking both the legitimacy and the muscle necessary to pacify the territory. Here Prusin displays an objectivity in his treatment of Serbia?s collaborators, particularly in his recognition of the lives saved by the Government of National Salvation?s rapid response to the refugee crisis unleashed in 1941 as hundreds of thousands of Serbs flooded Serbia from other areas of occupied Yugoslavia. In this and subsequent chapters, he keeps the scale of active collaboration in perspective, diverging from polemical and even anti-Serbian works on the topic, most notably Philip Cohen's Serbia's Secret War (1996). The sketch of institutions is followed in chapter 4 by a closer examination of the range of Serbian collaborators, from Dimitrije Ljoti??s fascist Zbor movement to the archconservative General Milan Nedi?, head of the Government of National Salvation. In one of the book?s most enlightening sections, Prusin explicates Nedi??s archconservative vision for a Serbian ?zadruga-state,? modeled after the medieval Serbian socioeconomic unit in which an authoritarian family chief?a doma?in?ruled over the property and persons of an extended kin group (p. 62). In the early years of occupation, when German victory seemed certain, Nedi? formulated a vision in which he would rule as doma?in over a purified Serbian nation, with Serbia existing as a German puppet state. Communists, liberals, and Jews had no place in this future society and thus, far from merely ?shielding? the population, Nedi? used the modest police power at his disposal to wage war against these enemies. As Prusin later writes, Nedi? was ?both an ideological soldier with his own agenda and a willing tool in the hands of the occupying power? (p. 159). Chapter 5 concludes the introduction of actors, detailing the emergence and initial cooperation of the well-known resistance movements?the fractured Chetniks loyal to the royal government-in-exile, and Tito?s communist-led Partisans, who were committed to overthrowing the old order and creating a communist Yugoslavia. Prusin shows that already by late 1941, when the Partisans created a short-lived liberation government called the U?ice Republic, many Chetniks had begun to see the Partisans as more threatening to the royal government-in-exile than the Germans, prompting their drift toward collaboration. For the most part, the remaining chapters detail certain ?experiential? themes. Chapter 6 explores the emergence of the Germans? ruthless reprisal policy. Though the Germans initially had no plans for the systematic brutalization of the Serbians, just weeks into the occupation a Wehrmacht officer ordered that one hundred Serbians be killed for each German killed by Serbian guerrillas and fifty killed for each German wounded. This policy led to hundreds of reprisal actions, chief among them the Kragujevac Massacre of October 1941, in which Wehrmacht units and Serbian collaborators murdered well over two thousand civilians. Particularly insightful is Prusin?s demonstration that the Holocaust in Serbia unfolded as part of these antiguerrilla reprisals, Nedi? volunteering Serbia?s Jews as the first hostages for execution. Serbia under the Swastika not only shines light on this lesser-known aspect of the Holocaust, but also joins a litany of works that debunk the claim that the Wehrmacht was an honorable fighting force free of complicity in Nazi crimes. Chapter 7 turns to the ?quiet? Serbia of 1942-44. In these years, with the U?ice Republic dismembered, the bulk of Partisan resistance activity shifted westward into Croatia and Bosnia. The Partisans in Serbia slowly regrouped and carried out sabotage actions as their comrades outside Serbia prepared for a push toward Belgrade. The Chetniks, shaken by German reprisals and seeing the Partisans growing in strength, largely ceased outright resistance and drifted toward collaboration. The primary Chetnik leader, Dra?a Mihailovi?, formed a last-ditch alliance with Serbia?s collaborationist forces in 1944 with the aim of forestalling a communist seizure of power, but Tito was in Belgrade by October. Throughout this and previous chapters, Prusin?s treatment of Mihailovi? is evenhanded, recognizing the latter?s increasingly impossible position without minimizing the fact that his actions often served the interests of the Germans. The eighth chapter addresses the relationship between Serbians and Jews both before and during the occupation. Prusin finds that it was not just Ljoti? and the fascist Zbor militants who participated in the murder of most of Serbia's fifteen thousand Jews, but also Nedi? and his conservative allies. Prusin details a systematic attempt by the German occupation forces and their chief collaborators to inculcate antisemitic ideas in the native population, but suggests, in contrast to Philip Cohen, that virulent antisemitism remained a fringe phenomenon. He provides anecdotal evidence of Serbian ?rescuers,? but lacks quantitative evidence that might definitively resolve the debate. The final chapter examines how the war was experienced by the majority of Serbians?those who simply sought to get by. Prusin details how the occupation crippled the Serbian economy and imposed tremendous hardship, including forced labor and widespread food shortages as the occupation forces diverted scarce resources to Germany. Most significantly, he describes how the Serbian population in the villages tried to navigate the civil war when pressed for aid and cooperation by multiple sides. Many simply refused to take sides, organizing into self-defense leagues to protect themselves from outsiders? demands on their service and resources. It is worth remembering, as Prusin does, that the unwilling participants were the majority in this civil war. A notable feature of Prusin?s work is its organization into thematic chapters rather than a more strictly chronological narrative. This organization is beneficial for those studying discrete aspects of the occupation, but for others it will be problematic. At times, individuals or events are introduced in one chapter, but their significance is not known until later. For example, in chapter 3, Prusin introduces Belgrade mayor Dragi Jovanovi? and mentions that he became a pawn in intra-German power struggles, but this comes well before readers learn that Jovanovi? carried substantial weight as head of the collaborationist regime?s political police (pp. 45, 58-60). Prusin provides brief biographical notes on key personalities before the book?s introduction, but this does not fully solve the problems of the chosen organization. There are often large chronological jumps back and forth between chapters and more could have been done to situate events in Serbia within the contexts of the unfolding Second World War. The book is therefore best suited for readers already familiar with the basic time line of the war and the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. More significantly, the book?s organization limits its explanatory potential. One of the defining features of this period was the dynamic interrelation between the forces of occupation, collaboration, and resistance, not to mention the way that changing conditions of everyday life shaped popular responses to these forces. By treating each of these themes in isolation without a strong chronological narrative thread, the book loses some (but not all) of this dynamism. That Prusin relegates his discussion of Serbians? ?everyday? experiences of occupation to the final chapter is particularly unfortunate, given that these experiences served as the context in which Serbians decided to collaborate, resist, or whatever else. Ultimately, Serbia under the Swastika does not radically revise our understanding of German-occupied Europe. Excepting Prusin?s analysis of Nedi??s worldview and of the unusually weak position in which the Germans kept Nedi??s Government of National Liberation, the key arguments of Serbia under the Swastika have been made before in different national contexts. The self-imposed chaos of the German occupation regime was not unique to Serbia, nor was the predominance of accommodation and survivalism over active resistance and collaboration. Finally, as the Italian case shows, it was not uncommon for fractures or realignments to occur within resistance coalitions as liberation drew nearer and factions attempted to position themselves to secure postwar power. What the book provides is a concise and well-supported examination of how these phenomena played out within a specifically Serbian context. It draws important contrasts with Croatia to break down the idea of a single ?Yugoslav? occupation, but it is primarily concerned with Serbia. Readers versed in the literature of German-occupied Europe will find much to compare, but Prusin leaves this task to them. For those with research or teaching interests in Balkan history, the Second World War, or twentieth-century Europe, Serbia under the Swastika is worth a careful read. Notes [1]. The two key studies focused on wider Yugoslavia are Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); and Stevan Pavlowitch, Hitler?s New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). For a study of the guerrilla war, see Ben Shepherd, Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). [2]. For example, Gregor Kranjc, To Walk with the Devil: Slovene Collaboration and Axis Occupation, 1941-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013). _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 13:42:21 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2018 23:12:21 +0530 Subject: SACW - 21 June 2018 | Bangladesh: Islamists Again / China-India: Border Tensions, Environmental Crisis / India - Pakistan: Proposals from Peace activists / India: Killing of Shujaat Bukhari; Appeal to University Teachers; Religious Sermons in school / Ukrainian Neo-Nazi C14 / Brazil: Lula's Manifesto To The People Message-ID: <5CC1B338-AF2A-44D7-9A96-35E1B00ADEB4@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 21 June 2018 - No. 2991 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Bangladesh: The murder of Shahjahan Bachchu and spectre of Islamist fanaticism | Syed Badrul Ahsan 2. India-Pakistan Borders: Request to start bus service across suigam-nagarparkar and replace military ceremony at attari-wagah with a peace ceremony 3. A critique of the Indian govt.?s response to the OHCHR report on Kashmir | Tapan Bose 4. China and India?s border dispute is a slow-moving environmental disaster | Ruth Gamble 5. India: Killing conversation - The death of Shujaat Bukhari | Mukul Kesavan 6. India: Release Piyush Manush & others arrested and drop all fabricated cases against them - Statement by Coalition for Environmental Justice in India ? CEJI 7. India: Lift Evaluation Boycott at Delhi University - Appeal to Teachers on 17th June 2018 | Mukul Mangalik 8. The "Letter" - The Letter (or Letters!?) that Discloses the Plot to Assassinate Indian Prime Minister Modi | Sukla Sen 9. India: Saints in Schools | Subhash Gatade 10. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Image making videos of PM Modi now include his excercise & fitness work is packaged for wider echo - India: Untruth Prevails - Tales From The 4G Rumour Mill | Dola Mitra - India: Devendra Fadnavis Led Govt in Maharashtra Gives minister's status to Siddhivinayak Temple Trust Chief - There are no detours in history - Krishna Kumar's comment on Pranab Mukherjee?s survey of history being at variance with Nehruvian values - India: Saffronising Ambedkar - Is Church trying to destabilize Modi sarkar? - India: Why Malayalam novelist KP Ramanunni undertook a penance for the Kathua gangrape in a Kerala temple - India?s rising paranoia and the myth of the persecuted Hindu | Samar Halarnkar - India: BJP MP to fund defence of lynching accused - India: I killed Gauri Lankesh to save my religion: says the assassin Parashuram Waghmore - India: Shabby Changes in Social Science School Textbooks goes against the spirit of the textbooks and established rules - Which Hedgewar? Pranab Mukherjee?s description of RSS founder does not stand up to scrutiny | Shamsul Islam - India: UP BJP to set up 'cyber sena' of 200,000 social media experts ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 11. French Pondichery | Lakshmi Subramaniam 12. India: Assam Lynching - Digital Bombs of Mob Violence | Dola Mitra 13. Ukrainian neo-Nazi C14, known for racist and homophobic attacks, gets public funding for 'patriotic education' by Halya Coynash 14. Manifesto To The People Of Brazil | Lula da Silva ======================================== 1. BANGLADESH: THE MURDER OF SHAHJAHAN BACHCHU AND SPECTRE OF ISLAMIST FANATICISM | Syed Badrul Ahsan ======================================== The murder of Shahjahan Bachchhu pierces the complacency that had set in with regard to the terrorism challenge, as Bangladesh braces for political turbulence ahead of polls. http://www.sacw.net/article13804.html ======================================== 2. INDIA-PAKISTAN: REQUEST TO START BUS SERVICE ACROSS THE BORDER BETWEEN SUIGAM-NAGARPARKAR AND REPLACE MILITARY CEREMONY AT ATTARI-WAGAH WITH A PEACE CEREMONY ======================================== The present work is an attempt to suggest new alternative ways to ease tensions between two countries through citizen engagement/integration/assimilation from both sides http://www.sacw.net/article13802.html ======================================== 3. A CRITIQUE OF THE INDIAN GOVT.?S RESPONSE TO THE OHCHR REPORT ON KASHMIR | Tapan Bose ======================================== The United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), on June 14 published ?Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018?. This is the first such report on Jammu and Kashmir by the UN. It covers both India and Pakistan controlled areas of the former princely state. Government of India has rejected the OHCHR report as ?fallacious.? The spokesperson of India?s Ministry of External Affairs claimed that the report was overtly ?prejudiced? and was seeking to ?build a false narrative.? Read Tapan Bose?s critique of Indian govt.?s response http://www.sacw.net/article13810.html ======================================== 4. CHINA AND INDIA?S BORDER DISPUTE IS A SLOW-MOVING ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER | Ruth Gamble ======================================== Chinese and Indian competition on their shared Himalayan border is more likely to create a slow-moving environmental catastrophe than a quick military or nuclear disaster. http://www.sacw.net/article13808.html ======================================== 5. India: Killing conversation - The death of Shujaat Bukhari by Mukul Kesavan ======================================== The deaths of Shujaat Bukhari and Gauri Lankesh have different local histories and a few all-India similarities. Lankesh and Bukhari were both journalists who had worked for what passes as the national English press before committing themselves to publications principally aimed at readerships in their states. http://www.sacw.net/article13801.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: RELEASE PIYUSH MANUSH AND OTHERS ARRESTED BY TAMIL NADU POLICE AND DROP ALL FABRICATED CASES AGAINST THEM - STATEMENT BY COALITION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN INDIA ? CEJI ======================================== We strongly condemn the late night arrest (on 18th June 2018) by the Tamil Nadu police of Piyush Manush Sethia of Salem Citizens? Forum, Mansoor Ali Khan, an actor and Valarmathi, a student activist, and possibly others, who have been engaged in opposing a range of socially and environmentally destructive projects. http://www.sacw.net/article13809.html ======================================== 7. INDIA: LIFT EVALUATION BOYCOTT AT DELHI UNIVERSITY - APPEAL TO TEACHERS ON 17TH JUNE 2018 by Mukul Mangalik ======================================== This appeal to teachers of Delhi university was written on the 17 June 2018 and on the 18th of June the general body meeting of Delhi university teachers association (DUTA) called off the evaluation boycott, but the text of this appeal still remains relevant. http://www.sacw.net/article13805.html ======================================== 8. THE "LETTER" - THE LETTER (OR LETTERS!?) THAT DISCLOSES THE PLOT TO ASSASSINATE INDIAN PRIME MINISTER MODI by Sukla Sen ======================================== whats all this about the assassination plot against Mr Modi. In order to make sense of the issue on the table, let us first try to arrange the events in (rough) chronological order. http://www.sacw.net/article13803.html ======================================== 9. INDIA: SAINTS IN SCHOOLS by Subhash Gatade ======================================== BJP introduces religious propaganda in government run schools in Rajasthan http://www.sacw.net/article13807.html ======================================== 10. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Image making videos of PM Modi now include his excercise & fitness work is packaged for wider echo - India: Untruth Prevails - Tales From The 4G Rumour Mill | Dola Mitra - India: Devendra Fadnavis Led Govt in Maharashtra Gives minister's status to Siddhivinayak Temple Trust Chief - There are no detours in history - Krishna Kumar's comment on Pranab Mukherjee?s survey of history being at variance with Nehruvian values - India: Saffronising Ambedkar - Is Church trying to destabilize Modi sarkar? - India: Why Malayalam novelist KP Ramanunni undertook a penance for the Kathua gangrape in a Kerala temple - India?s rising paranoia and the myth of the persecuted Hindu | Samar Halarnkar - India: BJP MP to fund defence of lynching accused - India: I killed Gauri Lankesh to save my religion: says the assassin Parashuram Waghmore - India: Shabby Changes in Social Science School Textbooks goes against the spirit of the textbooks and established rules - Which Hedgewar? Pranab Mukherjee?s description of RSS founder does not stand up to scrutiny | Shamsul Islam - India: UP BJP to set up 'cyber sena' of 200,000 social media experts - India: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) members vandalise gate installed at entrance to Taj Mahal - India - Gauri Lankesh assassination case: Key accused points to leader of Hindutva outfit - Bangladesh: Shahzahan Bachchu the owner of Bishaka Prokashoni publishing house is shot dead - India: What's Behind the Shillong communal clashes ? - Revealed: Archive of Delhi Police Secret files on RSS activity and plans Oct-Dec 1947 - Say No To Double Standards in Using Public Funds for Religious Places in India - India: BJP joined hands with Maoist-backed outfit in rural possls in West Bengal - India: Surprise surprise, there is now a Francois Gautier (Consul General of France in Bangalore) is he the same person as the famous hindutva driven Francois Gautier ? The French authorties in Delhi would do well to clarify - U.S. television studio ABC crime drama ?Quantico? episode featuring India's nationalists in terror plot comes under fire from hindu-right fans - Open Letter To Pranab Mukherjee, The Former President Of India | Shamsul Islam -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 11. FRENCH PONDICHERY | Lakshmi Subramaniam ======================================== Danna Agmon. A Colonial Affair: Commerce, Conversion, and Scandal in French India. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 236 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-0993-7. Reviewed by Lakshmi Subramaniam (Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes) Published on H-Asia (June, 2018) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) This is a detailed exposition of a scandal, the Nayiniyappa affair, that took place in Pondichery. The episode is used to explore the complex fault lines of European colonial empires in the eighteenth century (in this case the French enterprise) and to introduce more frontally the role of religion and missionary enterprise in the configuration of political projects. The book?s central proposition is that commerce and conversion in French India were both symbiotic and simultaneously conflicted, and that authority was distributed across a variety of agents, Indian and French, secular and religious. If traders wished to work with the status quo with minor modifications that helped their cause, missionaries were equally anxious to fundamentally transform the social scenario while retaining their material interests. Local intermediaries meanwhile showed a nimbleness in deploying their access to family, kinship networks, and linguistic expertise for advantage. The two sides?local and European?were locked in a complex dynamic and worked out a range of strategies that the author calls ?distributed sovereignty? that resembled neither collaboration with nor resistance to colonial rule. Just how original this is as a formulation and how the idea of distributed sovereignty helps us understand the experience of colonial encounters better is not fully fleshed out, and we will come back to this later. At the heart of the book is the scandal, which in its essentials was quite simple but one that carried all the elements of a tragedy that ended up with farcical elements. Nayiniyappa came to Pondichery as a young aspirant and became by his astute dealings and networks the chief broker to the French Company and rose to become an important and affluent personage in the French colony, capable of mustering local commercial contacts to drive the trade of the French Company and its servants. His ally initially was Guillaume Hebert, governor of Pondichery (1708-13), who resisted the demands of the Jesuits to press charges against the broker on grounds of sedition and treachery and of instigating weavers and traders to cease work. For the Jesuits, the broker?s reluctance, indeed resistance, to embrace the true faith was anathema, and they insisted that he had been instrumental in humiliating poorer Christians of the town. In 1716, with Hebert?s help, the Jesuits were able to arrest Nayiniyappa. This was not the end of the sordid episode as the arrest and public shaming of Nayiniyappa was followed by the efforts of other missionaries, rivals of the Jesuits and traders based in St. Malo, to fight for the ex-broker?s rehabilitation. Nayiniyappa did not benefit from this support as he died in prison. His son was able to reap the benefits as he returned as an ennobled and loyal Christian, after being baptized in the royal chapel in France. Even in these bare details, the affair hints at several larger themes relating to faction fights in the French colony, the portability of French law and its access among more privileged subjects, and the nature of early French colonial rule in South India. The author does justice to the reading of the affair and its chaotic archiving, and helps tease out the complex layers of colonial rule: the tensions between the metropole and its colonial outpost, the tensions among multiple agents involved in empire making, and the active role played by local commercial society in safeguarding their interests in relation to the early articulations of French sovereignty. While these questions may not be particularly original and in fact have been asked by scholars working on the British Empire in Asia, the method followed by the book is striking as it peels layer by layer the confused archive of events and episodes. It is therefore an excellent instantiation of micro-history as a method; it uses an event and its excavation to address issues of kinship, language practice, and judicial protocols resorted to by local Indian intermediaries and Europeans and their implications for the expression of sovereignty and its limits. The emphasis on language practice as a manifestation of changing asymmetries of power is especially important. The site of the scandal was Pondichery town, which under the French Company was projected as a safe enclave for commerce and religious tolerance. The self-representation was often belied by actual practice and in this respect, the French settlement was no different from English colonial centers. However, what seemed perceptibly different about the French urban experience was the relative authority and influence that religious groups assumed and the way in which this split the nature of French Empire in India. A not so close parallel may be found in the competing claims and roles of agency houses, free traders, and missionaries during the renewal of the company?s charter in India, but these do not seem to have had the same salience. In any case, the author argues that the scandal was a local affair, typical to the French colony and whose ramifications revealed the agency of indigenous actors, especially intermediaries. Here again there is a strong resemblance to developments in India during the eighteenth-century transition; both Kumkum Chatterjee for eastern India (Patna) and I for western India (Surat) have made a strong case for local mediation that inflected imperial enterprise. It is curious that neither work finds mention in this book. In fact, the author seems to endorse an earlier position that referred to the subordination of mercantile men by the English East India Company in Surat without engaging with the evidence of a robust Anglo-Bania order wherein Bania capital sponsored imperial expansion. Banias, as indeed other religious groups like Parsis and Konkani Muslims, were encouraged to settle down and were given explicit assurance of religious protection. What made the Pondichery case especially singular, however, was the interplay of religion and politics and the leverage religious groups were able to exercise in the course of their dealings with the administration and the local populace. Was this exceptional to French India and if so why? The opening chapter tracks the politics and dealings of the Jesuits in the town of Pondichery?of the demands they made for restricted use of Hindu temples and for facilitating greater conversions. In such a milieu, Nayiniyappa who resisted conversion evidently stood out as a sore thumb. His protestations that he had done nothing to demean the Catholic religion and that his gift of rosaries to poor Christians was entirely innocent and not intended to slight them or indeed to flaunt his own resistance to embracing the true faith were disregarded. For the Jesuits however, these were lame excuses; furthermore, the very act of gift giving to indigent people (like stray dogs) was a mockery of Christian charity. The broker?s ex-patron Hebert turned his back and in fact used the opportunity to side with the Jesuits and denounce Nayiniyappa?s actions by construing them as inimical to the larger project of conversion and commerce. Such a volte-face points to the immense power that Jesuits seem to have enjoyed in the town. The broker?s arrest had unexpected consequences as a warring religious faction along with the St. Malo traders intervened to reinstate the broker. As things transpired, the broker died, but his son, who took the case to Europe, returned to Pondichery, better armed with a new religion and a new title. He rehabilitated his late father?s reputation. Clearly French religious groups were extensively involved in the town?s public life; this was not a town that was simply split between white and black, but one in which competing religious and commercial interests produced major crevices in the imperial enterprise that would have subsequent consequences for the Indian population. Thus ironically, even before the doctrine of laicite and the demand for complete religious renunciation in the late nineteenth century as a precondition to French citizenship, the colonial project of the French Company subsumed religious affiliations and groups whose interests and influence could not be entirely bypassed. The explorations of the back story of the affair gives the reader a taste of the social world of an eighteenth-century French Indian colony where the family and extended familial networks functioned as the principal medium of political articulation. Kinship was a condition of political negotiation and survival. It is the author?s contention that family more than caste played a keen role in cross-cultural encounters; familial networks were extensively deployed to consolidate business interests and explore new opportunities. What is particularly important about the analysis is the way the author demonstrates the intersection between notions of Indian kinship and those entertained by the French via the stories of father and son in relation to Hebert the governor, at one time patron of Nayiniyappa, to Nayiniyappa himself and subsequently to Moutiyappa, the Jesuit head native catechist. In all three cases, the strength of affective relations expressed in familial terms was evident and in full display as each tried to bolster and salvage their reputation and ventures. It may be worthwhile to note that in the case of British India, anthropological studies like those of Mattison Mines, have identified the language of friendship and not of kinship as the preferred idiom of self-representation. Probably the most striking aspect of Pondichery?s commercial and social world was its linguistic landscape. The proceedings of Nayiniyappa?s affair after he was jailed vividly brought out the power of language; who used what language and how translations were to be affected and accessed became crucial determinants. For a considerable period, well into the eighteenth century, Portuguese had operated as the lingua franca; merchants and rulers alike used it for political and commercial communication. Religious men on the other hand invested in the learning of Tamil. It was thus a matter of some consternation when the denial of Portuguese as a language for communication during the interrogations and the insistence on French and on Tamil (understood by a few in the room and left to the translation devices of one) became devices to be pitted against the broker. The way translations were made to work in the case of Nayiniyappa make for fascinating reading as all sorts of translations and undercover operations were relied on to stack evidence against him. But the story did not end here. His son not only was able to reclaim his reputation, and assume for a while the post of chief broker, but also was able to retain his old ancestral habits even after embracing the Christian faith. It is this quality of negotiation, of social hybridity, that makes the Indo-European entanglement so hard to study. What are we to make of such a case, of a person who could draw on extensive support from friends and family, from Europeans and locals, who could negotiate two faith practices simultaneously? Does it speak of a brief moment that was typical of transition politics or was it specific to the Pondichery experience? Agmon recounts the quirky tale of the broker, his fall and rehabilitation, with admirable finesse. What stands out is the way she disaggregates the archive and assumes the lens of administrator, missionary, and native intermediary at the same time to reflect on an episode of French India that presents a complex story of self-interest, human experience, and political contingency, elements that were by no means exceptional to the French settlement. ======================================== 12. INDIA: ASSAM LYNCHING - DIGITAL BOMBS OF MOB VIOLENCE | Dola Mitra ======================================== Outlook Magazine 25 June 2018 Social media rumours fan a medieval barbarity within us. This time it?s Assam. People in Assam?s Karbi Anglong district?like in most parts of the state?have grown up hearing stories about the ?xopadhora?, the Assamese word to describe a child-lifter. ?Xopa? means both a gag and to gag someone and ?dhora? is to catch. In remote Assam, where superstition has a firm grip on the populace, the telling and re-telling of xopadhora horror tales has given birth to a ghas?tly creature in imagination?described variously as having long, braided hair and flashing eyes which hypnotise little children before he catches hold of them and devours them. On June 8, when Nilotpal Das, a 29-year-old sound engineer, and his friend Abhijeet Nath, 30, a businessman, set out to visit a popular tourist spot in Karbi Anglong?s Dokmoka?about 180 km from state capital Guwahati?they had no idea that the area was in grip of virtually generated paranoia: messages claiming that a group of child-lifters had entered the area from Bihar had gone viral on social media and WhatsApp. Even if they had known, would they have thought anything of it? It was just an online rumour after all. But as other ?examples from the last two months have shown us, hysteria has rendered the ?absurd as hard fact, bringing out the worst manifestation of fear?brutal violence. The ?child-abductor? lynchings have come almost like a wave: a 52-year-old transgender in Hyderabad, a 26-year-old youth in Bangalore, a 55-five-year-old woman in Tiruvannamalai district in Tamil Nadu, all lynched by mobs gone paranoid over social media and WhatsApp rumours in the month of May itself. In all these places, the victim fell into an ?outsider? category. Nath and Das, the latter with his Rastafarian dreadlocks, were fitted into the image of the ?xopadhora? by a mob of around 200 people when they stopped their car to ask for directions in a village. They had no chance. Even their pleadings, ?I?m Assamese...My father?s name is...my mother?s name is?? failed to deter the murderous rage of the mob, comprising mostly of Karbi and Bodo people. The next day, Assam woke up to one of the most shocking news in recent times. There are no convenient explanations. This cannot just be pinned as a one off incident of a superstitious, ?remote? people. This had happened in the heart of urban India too. Increasingly, it appears to be a barbarity aided directly by the technology of the times. ?Superstition was behind the attack,? Mukesh Agarwal, Additional DGP (law and order), Assam, tells Outlook. ?It was not conspiracy of one section of the tribal community against the mainstream Assamese as has been projected in dozens of reports,? he adds, referring to a sentiment that is seeing this as a tribal vs non-tribal issue. Another police officer, who does not want to be named, describes the potency of the rumour: ?Since a fortnight before the tragic incident, locals were taking turns and staying up at nights and keeping vigils out of fear?. Nath and Das, the latter with his Rastafarian dreadlocks, were fitted into the image of the ?xopadhora? by a mob of around 200 people. The police were criticised for not doing anything to stop the spread of rumours and allay fears. Pictures and video clips purportedly showing a police official shooting the assault on his mobile phone have also added to the public?s anger. At least twenty four people have been arrested so far in the case and a few other have also been rounded up for posting rumours and hate messages on social media after the lynching. Advertisement opens in new window ?We are also in the process of pinpointing other culprits who were present during the attack by the mob on that fateful day. There was a core group of attackers, then there were those who were egging them on and also bystanders who were witnessing the incident. Individuals are being booked as per the degree of their offense. But we want to ensure that not a single innocent person is arrested,? says Agarwal. Shocked people took to the streets of Assam to demand justice for Nilotpal and Abhijit. Protests have rocked the state since the incident. The local media has also been highlighting the issue, with print, digital and electronic media covering little else over the past week. Afrida Hussain, founder and editor-in-chief of the online portal ?Inside NE? (North East), which has extensively reported on the incident, tells Outlook: ?The public outrage is unprecedented. The area where the double murder took place is a tourist spot, visited by ?tho?usands of people from all over. The exact location of the lynching is just 12 km from the local police station. When two Assamese youth are beaten to death for visiting a part of their own state, the kind of fear and insecurity that it can generate has to be felt to be believed.? She too questions the police. ?When the rumours were circulating, what was the police doing? Why didn?t ?their cyber crime cell swing into ?action?? she says. The police of the state now have ?another set of problems to deal with. Post the murders, some reports of Bodos and Karbis facing retaliatory ?violence has come to the fore. ?Here too, social media is being used to fan fears. The administration and police have launched a two-pronged attack to check these rumours,? says Sabir Nisad, the state?s Information and Public Relations Officer. ?The first step is to prevent rumour-mongering and the next step is to stop the vicious cycle of counter attacks by cracking down on the spread of online hate.? The Coordination Committee of the Tribal Organisation of Assam (CCTOA)?an umbrella body of groups representing different tribes?rushed to hold a press conference to both condemn the incident and appeal to the people of Assam to not indulge in vengeful violence. Other Northeastern states, such as Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, saw largescale protests too, both against the lynching and the stray incidents of attacks on Bodos and Karbi. According to a source, Abhijit Nath, his parents? only child, was asked by them to return to Guwahati from ano?ther part of the country where he had been living for sometime. ?Now his parents cannot forgive themselves for calling him back,? says the source. The family of Nilotpal Das has said that the police could have done their bit to ?dispel rumours. Advertisement opens in new window A police officer, as procedure demands, puts together the minute details?the timing of the attacks, drunk people in the mob. ?The duo entered the area after dusk, around 6 pm, when, usually, tourists return from there,? he says. ?One of them was an avid collector of exotic fish, maybe they were hoping to reach at night for a good catch.? He also mentions alcohol, that evening is usually drinking time for locals and that some in the mob may have been drunk. It was a potent, fatal mixture. The childhood stories of the ?xopadhora?, rumours bombarding inboxes, the fading daylight filtering in through the dense forest against which two strange men in a car were silhouetted. By Dola Mitra in Calcutta ======================================== 12. UKRAINIAN NEO-NAZI C14, KNOWN FOR RACIST AND HOMOPHOBIC ATTACKS, GETS PUBLIC FUNDING FOR 'PATRIOTIC EDUCATION' by Halya Coynash ======================================== Human Rights in Ukraine http://khpg.org June 13, 2018 [Text with links http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1528928862] 'C14', a neo-Nazi group involved over recent months in anti-Roma, homophobic and other attacks in Ukraine, has become one of the recipients of Ministry of Youth and Sport grants, together with an organization linked to the far-right Svoboda party. The news was first reported by Hromadske Radio a day after the authors of a Freedom House report warned of a sharp increase in political violence from precisely such radical groups in Ukraine and of the danger they pose for Ukrainian democracy. Three organizations were successful in the competition for 'national-patriotic education projects'. 'Educational Assembly' [???????? ?????????], founded by the head of C14, Yevhen Karas; 'C14 Sich', founded by Volodymyr Karas, who shares the same patronymic, surname and address as the head of C14; and Holosiyiv Hideout [????????????? ????????], whose founders include several members of Svoboda. Three events by 'Educational Assembly', as well as a C14 Sich children's camp will all get 440 thousand UAH (a little over 14 thousand euros), while Holosiyiv Hideout will receive 760 thousand UAH (nearly 25 thousand euros) for four festivals. The successful projects included 'National-patriotic education as guarantor of Ukraine's information security', a nationwide distance learning centre for such national-patriotic education, and the use of historical simulations as a means of popularizing Ukraine's historical heritage. The commission which chose successful applicants for grants is headed by Deputy Minister of Youth and Sport, Mykola Danevych, although he was not present at the final meeting on 8 June. The chair on that occasion was the commission secretary, Mykola Lyakhovych who is the head of the Ministry of Youth and Sport's Department for National-Patriotic Education. The number of people present at the final meeting seemed rather small, however there are officially four representatives of the Ministry of Youth and Sport, as well as other civil servants on the commission, with 51% of the members from representatives of civic society. There is nothing to indicate how representatives of NGOs are chosen. Lyakhovych asserts that the competition was held in full accordance with legislation. He claims that the commission cannot analyse the ideology of the organizations which put forward their proposals, and that they merely assess whether the projects meet the priorities outlined for the competition as per the relevant Cabinet of Ministers resolution from 12 October 2011. Any NGO that has existed for over two years can apply, and while Lyakhovych says that as a citizen, he understands the concern about support for destructive movements, this is not something he, as a civil servant, can influence. In fact, some scepticism may be justified here, especially given that Lyakhovych himself has a background in the UNA-UNSO [Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian People's Self-Defence], an extremely far-right movement with views similar to those espoused by Svoboda and C14. According to this logic, movements whose members do not conceal their antagonism to members of ethnic, religious or sexual minorities could come up with an educational project which would then be allocated taxpayers' money. This could lead to camps, etc, being run by activists who both espouse and practise intolerance towards minorities and other groups of Ukrainian society. C14, Svoboda and several other far-right organizations (National Corps, National Druzhyna vigilante groups, for example) have tried to present themselves over recent years as defending Ukraine against 'separatists', as promoting 'law and order' and as fighting corruption. Ukraine has been facing the gravest of threats from Russia over the past four years, which can make it difficult to counter the 'patriotic rhetoric' that such movements use. This is especially frustrating given the multiple issues with such claims, and with the methods these far-right movements use against Ukrainian citizens either on racist grounds, or because their views, sexual orientation or style of life are not to their liking. On January 19, 2018, members of C14 and other far-right groups prevented the traditional remembrance gathering in Kyiv to honour Russian rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, murdered in Moscow in 2009 by members of a far-right nationalist group. The claim that this had anything to do with 'fighting separatism' was simply offensive. The police on that occasion detained only people who had come for the remembrance gathering, and did nothing to prevent the illegal obstruction of a peaceful gathering. It seems likely that louts from these far-right groups were responsible for the vicious attack on a young Briton, Liam Anthony Tong that same afternoon. Although the young man had a hood on (concealing his brightly-coloured hair), he had facial piercings which would make him a fairly typical target for such attacks.. Anti-Roma pogroms There have been four attacks on Roma camps in different parts of Ukraine since April this year. The first such attack on 20-21 April, 2018 was boasted about (in veiled terms) on Facebook by a prominent C14 activist. The Kyiv police initially claimed to have received no complaints from Roma families driven from a camp on Lysa Hora in Kyiv and to see no reason to take any action. They were forced to change their position and, at least formally, initiate a criminal investigation only after LB.ua posted a video clearly showing families running in terror from the thugs. It is likely that the 30 young masked thugs who burned down a permanent Roma settlement in Rudne, near Lviv on 9 May were also from far-right groups. While the Human Rights Ombudsman had no difficulty in identifying this (and the earlier Lysa Hora attack) as hate crimes, the police only initiated an investigation into 'hooliganism'. There have since been two more such pogroms - in the Ternopil oblast on 22 May and in Kyiv on June 7. The police initiate criminal proceedings, and then nothing more is heard. C14, National Corpus and the National Druzhyna vigilante units are often present inside the courtroom and outside high-profile court hearings. It has to be said that they do often reflect widespread concern, for example, over the initial suspended sentence passed on Yuri Krysin, a known criminal and titushki (hired thug) leader involved in the killing of Maidan journalist Vyacheslav Veremiy. Their behaviour is often openly lawless. On May 4, 2018, C14 activists seized Rafael Lusvarghi, a Brazilian who not only fought for the Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas, but also provided propaganda to recruit other militants. A Ukrainian court had sentenced him to 13 years' imprisonment, however this sentence had later been quashed, and the case sent back for retrial. Lusvarghi had been spotted by an RFERL journalist living at a Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox Monastery outside Kyiv. The C14 activists grabbed him and took him by force to the SBU [Security Service]. Whatever one may think of the authorities' actions with respect to Lusvarghi's prosecution, the C14 behaviour was highly questionable, and probably criminal. The same is true of the C14 blocking of the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra in Kyiv on 8 January 2018 and damage to a car which tried to get through. In claiming that the Ministry of Youth and Sport was powerless to prevent far-right racists and homophobes from winning grants for patriotic education programmes, Mykola Lyakhovych mentioned the need for a mechanism to be added to the above-mentioned Cabinet of Ministers resolution. In the absence of such, the only available methods for challenging such competitions is to appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office or the Justice Ministry, and implement proceedings and an investigation into the organization's illegal activities. The SBU were, in fact, forced by the court on 19 May to initiate criminal proceedings against C14 leader Yevhen Karas over the treatment of Lusvarghi. This was on the application of Lusvarghi's lawyer, and there is nothing to indicate whether a real investigation will follow. It is doubtless the lack of firm police action, identified in Likhachev's report that explains the recent upsurge in political violence and attacks on certain groups by C14 and other far-right groups. Criminal proceedings are important, but will not let the Ministry of Youth and Sport off the hook. You need only look to the large number of Ukrainians who feel understandably threatened by C14 and their ilk and recall C14's offer to provide head-bashing 'services' for money, to understand that there were and remain compelling grounds for withdrawing these shockingly misallocated grants. ======================================== 13. MANIFESTO TO THE PEOPLE OF BRAZIL Lula da Silva ======================================== ("We have the right to dream again, after the nightmare that was imposed on us by the 2016 coup. They lied to overthrow the legitimately elected President Dilma Rousseff. They lied saying that the country would improve if the Workers? Party was ousted from government; that there would be more jobs and more development... They lied to give away the nation?s wealth and to favor the economic and financial powers, in a scandalous betrayal of the people?s will manifested clearly and unequivocally in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014.") ?For two months now, I have been unjustly incarcerated without having committed any crime. For two months I have been unable to travel the country I love, bringing the message of hope of a better and more just Brazil, with opportunities for all, as I always did during 45 years of public life. I was deprived of my daily life with my sons and my daughter, my grandsons and granddaughters, my great-granddaughter, my friends and comrades. But I have no doubt that they have put me here to prevent me from being with my larger family: the Brazilian people. This is what distresses me the most, because I know that outside, every day, more and more families are back to living in the streets, abandoned by the State that should protect them. From where I am, I want to renew the message of faith in Brazil and in our people. Together, we have been able to overcome difficult times, serious economic, political and social crises. Together, under my government, we overcame hunger, unemployment, recession, the enormous pressures of international capital and its representatives in the country. Together, we reduced the age-old disease of social inequality that marked Brazil's formation: indigenous genocide, the enslavement of blacks and the exploitation of the workers of the city and the countryside. We fought injustice tirelessly. With our heads held high, we have come to be considered the most optimistic people in the world. We have deepened our democracy and we have gained international prominence with the creation of Unasur, Celac, BRICS and our relationship of solidarity with African countries. Our voice was heard in the G8 and in the most important world fora. I am sure we can rebuild this country and dream, once again, like a great nation. That's what keeps me fighting. I will not settle with the suffering of the poorest and the punishment that is falling on our working class, just as I will not settle with my situation. Those who accused me in Lava Jato know that they lied, because I never owned, never had possession, nor spent one night in the Guaruj? apartment. Those who condemned me, S?rgio Moro and the TRF-4 judges, know that they set up a judicial farce to arrest me because I was able to prove my innocence in the case and they were not able to present proof of the crime that they accuse me of. To this day I ask myself: where is the proof? I was not treated by the prosecutors of Lava Jato, Moro and TRF-4 as a citizen equal to everyone else. I have always been treated as an enemy. I do not cultivate hatred or hold any grudge, but I doubt my executioners can sleep with a clear conscience. Against all injustices, I have the constitutional right to appeal out of jail, but this right has been denied to me so far, for the sole reason that my name is Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva. That is why I consider myself a political prisoner in my country. When it became clear that they were going to take me in by force, without crime or evidence, I decided to stay in Brazil and face my executioners. I know my place in history and I know the place reserved for those who persecute me today. I am sure that Justice will make truth prevail. In the caravans I recently took part in, along Brazil, I saw hope in people's eyes. And I have also seen the anguish of those who are suffering with the return of hunger and unemployment, malnourishment, school dropout, rights robbed from workers, destruction of the constitutionally guaranteed policies of social inclusion, that are now denied in practice. It is to end the suffering of the people that I am again running for President. I take on this mission because I have a great responsibility with Brazil and because Brazilians have the right to vote freely for a project of more solidarity, a more just and a sovereign country, persevering in the project of Latin American integration. I am a candidate because I sincerely believe that the Electoral Court will be coherent with its judicial precedents, since 2002, not bowing to the blackmail of exception only to hurt my right and the right of voters to choose who represents them best. I ran many times during my career, but this race is different: it is my life?s commitment. Those who had the privilege of seeing Brazil advance on behalf of the poorest, after centuries of exclusion and abandonment, cannot sit out during the most difficult time for our people. I know that my candidacy represents hope, and we will take it to the final consequences, because we have the strength of the people at our side. We have the right to dream again, after the nightmare that was imposed on us by the 2016 coup. They lied to overthrow the legitimately elected President Dilma Rousseff. They lied saying that the country would improve if the Workers? Party was ousted from government; that there would be more jobs and more development. They lied to impose the program that was defeated at the polls in 2014. They lied to destroy the project of eradicating misery which we put in place under my government. They lied to give away the nation?s wealth and to favor the economic and financial powers, in a scandalous betrayal of the people?s will manifested clearly and unequivocally in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. The hour of truth is coming. I want to be president of Brazil once again because I have already proved that it is possible to build a better Brazil for our people. We proved that the country can grow for the benefit of all when the government places the workers and the poorest at the center of the concerns, and does not become a slave to the interests of the rich and powerful. And we proved that only the inclusion of millions of poor people can make the economy grow and recover. We govern for the people and not for the market. It is the opposite of what the government of our opponents, at the service of financiers and multinationals, who abolished the historic rights of workers, reduced real wages, cut off investments in health and education, and is destroying programs like Bolsa Familia, Minha Casa, Minha Vida, Pronaf, Luz Para Todos, Prouni and Fies, among many actions aimed at social justice. I dream of being president of Brazil to end the suffering of those who do not have money anymore to buy gas, who now have to use wood for cooking or, even worse, use alcohol and become victims of serious accidents and burns. This is one of the cruelest setbacks caused by the policy of destruction of Petrobras and of our national sovereignty, led by PSDB supporters who backed the 2016 coup. Petrobras was not created to generate gains for Wall Street speculators in New York, but to ensure oil self-sufficiency in Brazil at prices compatible with the popular economy. Petrobras must be Brazilian again. You can be certain that we are going to end this tale of selling its assets. It will no longer be hostage to oil multinationals. It will once again play a strategic role in the country's development, including in directing the pre-salt resources to education, our passport to the future. You can also be sure that we will prevent the privatization of Eletrobr?s, Banco do Brasil and Caixa, the emptying of the BNDES and of all the tools available to the country to promote development and social welfare. I dream of being the president of a country where the judge pays more attention to the Constitution and less to the headlines. Where rule of law is the rule, without measures of exception. I dream of a country where democracy prevails over anyone?s discretion, media monopoly, prejudice and discrimination. I dream of being the president of a country where everyone has rights and nobody has privileges. A Country where everyone can have three meals a day again; where children can attend school, where everyone has the right to work for dignified wages and with the protection of the law. A country in which every rural worker has again access to land to produce, with finance and technical assistance. A country where people will once again have confidence in the present and hope for the future. And where for this very reason is once again respected internationally, promotes Latin American integration and cooperation with Africa once again, and exercises a sovereign position in the international dialogues on trade and the environment, for peace and friendship amongst peoples. We know the way to carry out these dreams. Today it goes through the holding of free and democratic elections, with the participation of all political forces, with no rules of exception to prevent just one candidate. Only then will we have a government with legitimacy to face great challenges, that can dialogue with all sectors of the nation supported by the popular vote. It is this mission that I am taking on by accepting my nomination as presidential candidate of the Workers' Party. We have demonstrated already that it is possible to make a government of national appeasement, where which Brazil walks in the direction of the Brazilians, especially the poorest and the workers. My government was one where the poor were included in the Union?s budget, with more income distribution and less hunger; with more health and less child mortality; with more respect and affirmation of the rights of women, of blacks and of diversity, and with less violence; with more education at all levels and fewer children out of school; with more access to universities and technical education and fewer young people excluded from the future; with more popular housing and fewer occupancy conflicts in the cities; with more settlements and land distribution and fewer conflicts of occupation in the countryside; with more respect for the indigenous populations and quilombolas, with more salary gains and guarantees for the rights of workers, with more dialogue with unions, social movements and business organizations and less social conflicts. It was a time of peace and prosperity, as we have never had before in history. I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that Brazil can be happy again. And it can advance much more than we had already conquered together, when the government was of the people. In order to achieve this goal, we must unite the democratic forces of all Brazil, respecting the autonomy of the parties and the movements, but always having as reference a project of more solidarity and a fairer Country that will rescue the dignity and hope of our suffering people. I am sure we will be together at the end of that path. From where I am, with the solidarity and energies that come from all corners of Brazil and the world, I can assure you that I will continue working to transform our dreams into reality. And so I am preparing, with faith in God and a lot of confidence, for the day when I will once again unite with the beloved Brazilian people. Only, if my life is taken, will this reunion not come to be. And this reunion will not happen only if my life is lacking. See you soon, my people. Long live Brazil! Long live Democracy! Long live the Brazilian people! Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva Curitiba, June 8, 2018" _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Jun 27 17:52:30 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2018 03:22:30 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_28_June_2018_=7C_Afghanistan=3A_Taliban_?= =?windows-1252?Q?shadow_Govt_/_Bangladesh=3A_Islami_Andolon_/_Pa?= =?windows-1252?Q?kistan=3A_=91Systematic=2C_Creeping=2C_Coup=92_?= =?windows-1252?Q?/_India=3A_Lynchings=3B_Vigilantism_/_Vietnam?= =?windows-1252?Q?=3A_Mass_protests_/_Erdooan=92s_=91new=92_Turke?= =?windows-1252?Q?y?= Message-ID: <048B6B43-C0A4-4F0A-9DBD-53813FC53458@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 28 June 2018 - No. 2992 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Life under the Taliban shadow government | Ashley Jackson (ODI Report) 2. Islami Andolon Bangladesh: Who are they and what do they stand for? Fazlur Rahman Raju 3. Cyber intimidation: a bad idea | Pervez Hoodbhoy 4. India: Lynchings / Vigilantism / Troll armies 5. People?s Convention in Bombay Vows to Challenge Undemocratic & Destructive Global Finance: Resolves to Build Political and Economic Alternatives 6. The Mass Murder We Don?t Talk About / A Deathly Hush | Helen Epstein 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: IPS officer in Agra transferred for shutting down RSS shakha - If even India?s foreign minister isn?t safe from right-wing trolls, who is? Barkha Dutt (in The Washington Post) - India: Gandhi memorial at RajGhat shut on 24-25th June to ensure security of Vishwa Hindu Parishad meeting in the vicinity - India: A nightmare worse than the Emergency, says Nayantara Sehgal - India: Sushma Swaraj Is the Latest Victim of Right-Wing Trolling - India: Mob lynching cases since 2015 (The Quint) - India: Gauri Lankesh murder suspect?s ?hit list? spikes threat perception to Karnataka - India: Butcher Thrashed By UP Cops For Allegedly Selling Beef Dies At New Delhi hospital - India - Hapur Lynching: Police attempt a cover-up - Five UN special rapporteurs write to India's foreign minister to adhere to human rights norms in National Register of Citizens - India: Hapur Mob March - where are we heading? Cartoon by Satish Acharya - Book Review by Nandini Sundar of Foot Soldier of the Constitution: A Memoir by Teesta Setalvad ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Buddhist extremism: is monk Gnanasara?s jailing a sign of Sri Lankan enlightenment? Russell Blinch 9. The Taliban has successfully built a parallel state in many parts of Afghanistan, report says | Pamela Constable 10. Pakistan Media Says It?s Targeted in Army?s ?Systematic, Creeping, Coup? | Saeed Shah 11. Learning to Live in the Colonies and Camps - Repatriates and Refugees in Tamil Nadu | Frank Heidemann, Abhijit Dasgupta 12. India: Citizens, non-citizens, minorities | Sanjib Baruah 13. The groundwater contamination across India must be probed, and safe sources identified - Editorial, The Hindu 14. Overlooked No More: Amrita Sher-Gil, a Pioneer of Indian Art | Tariro Mzezewa 15. Punjabi farmers look to Ukraine for a profitable harvest | K G Sharma 16. Mass protests sweep Vietnam for the first time in decades | Vu Quoc Ngu 17. Purges and Paranoia - Ella George on Erdo?an?s ?new? Turkey ======================================== 1. LIFE UNDER THE TALIBAN SHADOW GOVERNMENT | Ashley Jackson (ODI Report) ======================================== Based on first-hand interviews with more than 160 Taliban fighters and officials, as well as civilians, this paper examines how the Taliban govern the lives of Afghans living under their rule. http://www.sacw.net/article13819.html ======================================== 2. ISLAMI ANDOLON BANGLADESH: WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY STAND FOR? Fazlur Rahman Raju (in Dhaka Tribune) ======================================== Bangladesh?s big Islamist organisation ?Islami Andolon Bangladesh? that has an estimated 20 million followers . . . http://www.sacw.net/article13813.html ======================================== 3. CYBER INTIMIDATION: A BAD IDEA by Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== To gag voices that dare criticise abuse of power cannot lead to a better and more viable Pakistan http://www.sacw.net/article13812.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: LYNCHINGS / VIGILANTISM / TROLL ARMIES ======================================== INDIA: A LYNCHING NATION CANNOT BE DEMOCRATIC - PUBLIC STATEMENT BY P.A.D.S. P.A.D.S. calls upon all Indians to stand up against any attempt at lynching and mass violence. Political parties and social organisations should make special efforts to prevent incidences of public violence. Mass campaigns, especially involving youth and students should be started against culture of violence. http://www.sacw.net/article13818.html INDIA: WAGES OF VIGILANTISM by Zoya Hasan Episodes of mass communal violence have given way to smaller-scale attacks against individuals http://www.sacw.net/article13817.html INDIA: SILENCED BY FEAR? EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL THREAT TO PRESS FREEDOM | Manu Sebastian What can the Constitutional Courts do when fundamental freedoms are curtailed by non-state actors like troll armies and fringe elements?... http://www.sacw.net/article13815.html ======================================== 5. PEOPLE?S CONVENTION IN BOMBAY VOWS TO CHALLENGE UNDEMOCRATIC & DESTRUCTIVE GLOBAL FINANCE: RESOLVES TO BUILD POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES ======================================== Mumbai, June 23 [2018] : ?The international financial institutions like AIIB (Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank) must function in a deeply democratic manner respectful of national sovereignty; or else be shut down for they constitute a threat to the nation?s economic and political security. These financial institutions are harbingers and promoters of the neo-liberal reforms responsible for hijacking of the democracy itself; regressive changes to environmental, labour, land, accountability laws; promoting privatisation and cartelisation; and burdening every citizen with huge debt; and destruction of minimal welfare measures.? http://www.sacw.net/article13814.html ======================================== 6. THE MASS MURDER WE DON?T TALK ABOUT / A DEATHLY HUSH | Helen Epstein ======================================== Two part review article on the 1994 Rwandan genocide http://www.sacw.net/article13806.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: IPS officer in Agra transferred for shutting down RSS shakha - If even India?s foreign minister isn?t safe from right-wing trolls, who is? Barkha Dutt (in The Washington Post) - India: Raj Ghat memorial to Mahatma Gandhi was shut to public on 24-25th June to ensure security of Vishwa Hindu Parishad which was oganising a meeting in the vicinity - India: A nightmare worse than the Emergency, says Nayantara Sehgal - India: Sushma Swaraj Is the Latest Victim of Right-Wing Trolling - India: Mob lynching cases since 2015 (The Quint) - India: Gauri Lankesh murder suspect?s ?hit list? spikes threat perception to Karnataka - India: Butcher Thrashed By UP Cops For Allegedly Selling Beef Dies At New Delhi hospital - India - Hapur Lynching: Police attempt a cover-up - five UN special rapporteurs write to India's foreign minister to adhere to human rights norms in National Register of Citizens - India: Hapur Mob March - where are we heading? Cartoon by Satish Acharya - Book Review by Nandini Sundar of Foot Soldier of the Constitution: A Memoir by Teesta Setalvad -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. BUDDHIST EXTREMISM: IS MONK GNANASARA?S JAILING A SIGN OF SRI LANKAN ENLIGHTENMENT? by Russell Blinch ======================================== The South China Morning Post 24 June 2018 The surprise sentencing of the Bodu Bala Sena leader, which comes in wake of anti-Muslim riots, brings hope of a new approach in a country that seldom brings its Buddhist extremists to justice Just before being hauled off to jail, the seemingly untouchable firebrand monk ? clad in a brilliant saffron robe ? wanted to get in the last word. ?I have done my duty towards the country,? Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara told reporters early this month as he boarded a prison transport vehicle shortly after his sentencing in a Colombo courtroom. ?Why should I regret?? While the controversial monk expressed no remorse, his many critics were cautiously hopeful that his internment showed Buddhist extremists were no longer untouchable in a country where hatred is easily sparked in the tinder dry jungle that is Sri Lanka?s combustible religious make-up. The monk Gnanasara, head of the so-called Buddhist Power Force, was sentenced to six-months in jail for threatening the wife of a missing journalist, a surprise decision in a country where Buddhist extremists are not often brought to justice. ?That government prosecutors supported a custodial sentence is also positive and noteworthy, as Sri Lankan governments have been reluctant to prosecute militant monks, even when there has been strong evidence of their involvement in crimes,? said Said Alan Keenan, a Sri Lankan specialist at the Project Crisis Group in London. [Buddhist monks at a Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Power Force convention in Colombo. Photo: AFP] Buddhist monks at a Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Power Force convention in Colombo. Photo: AFP In this case the monk was not convicted of a crime involving inciting religious violence, an accusation that has dogged him and his organisation, known locally as the Bodu Bala Sena, or BBS, for years. The monk was instead brought down by the acrimonious hangover from the civil war that ended in 2009. Some believe the conviction of the monk reaffirms the independence of the judiciary, which comes just months after Sinhalese mobs, urged on by Buddhist monks, attacked mosques and shops owned by Muslims in the central city of Kandy. An island-wide state of emergency was imposed, and restrictions were slapped on Facebook and other social media to cap the violence. Monk Gnanasara was accused of whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment when he attended the funeral of a Sinhalese truck driver who died after being attacked by a group of Muslim men in a road rage incident. Muslims make up only 10 per cent of the country?s population and historically the biggest ethnic fault line has been between the Sinhalese Buddhists, with 70 per cent majority, and Tamils, who are often Hindu, which constitute around 13 per cent of the population. [Muslims, made homeless after two days of anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka?s tourist region of Alutgama, demonstrate against radical Buddhist group Bodu Bala Sena. Photo: AFP] Muslims, made homeless after two days of anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka?s tourist region of Alutgama, demonstrate against radical Buddhist group Bodu Bala Sena. Photo: AFP The Sri Lankan army, after a brutal war lasting more than a quarter of a century, crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009 who were fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north. President Mahinda Rajapaksa?s government of the day was often accused of stoking a sense of triumphalism after the war, which encouraged the rise of militant Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. But in 2015, President Maithripala Sirisena took power on promises to reinforce the judiciary, fight corruption and investigate war crimes, sparking hopes of reconciliation among the ethnic factions. A prominent newspaper columnist, Tisaranee Gunasekara, said the case of Monk Gnanasara ?reveals the degree of progress made since January 2015 as well as its limitations?. [Sri Lankan police guard the headquarters of the Bodu Bala Sena after dispersing activists demonstrating against religious extremism and hate speeches. Photo: AFP] Sri Lankan police guard the headquarters of the Bodu Bala Sena after dispersing activists demonstrating against religious extremism and hate speeches. Photo: AFP She noted in a column in the Sri Lankan Guardian that the monk was not being held responsible for the March riots, nor for an incendiary speech in 2014 that critics blamed for inciting Sinhalese Buddhists to attack Muslims and their property in southwestern parts of the country, leaving at least four dead and 80 injured. What does China have to do with a Maldives coup? Ask Sri Lankan tourists ?Though elected to challenge extremism of every variety, the government?s preferred policy is a cross between appeasement and acting the ostrich,? the columnist Gunasekara wrote of the current government. Keenan at the Project Crisis Group said Gnanasara and other radical monks faced a variety of charges involving hate speech, intimidation and incitement to violence against Muslims. Related articles ?But the cases have made little progress and there is no sign the government is willing to prosecute,? said Keenan. ?As long as it hesitates to tackle the problem, the risks of more and possibly more serious violence will remain.? ? ======================================== 9. THE TALIBAN HAS SUCCESSFULLY BUILT A PARALLEL STATE IN MANY PARTS OF AFGHANISTAN, REPORT SAYS by Pamela Constable ======================================== The Washington Post June 21, 2018 Afghan Taliban militants celebrate a cease-fire Saturday on the second day of Eid in the outskirts of Jalalabad. (Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images) KABUL ? For those who imagine that Taliban control in some regions of Afghanistan consists mainly of men being beaten for failing to pray and girls being forced to stay home from school, a new report based on scores of interviews in those areas paints a very different portrait, but one that in some ways may be equally disturbing. ?Life Under the Taliban Shadow Government,? a detailed study published Thursday by the Overseas Development Institute, describes a ?sophisticated system of parallel governance,? with commissions for each area of service, such as health, justice and finance, operating in numerous districts fully or partly controlled by the insurgents. The study surveyed 20 such districts across seven provinces. The main conclusions of the report, written and primarily researched by Ashley Jackson, are that the Taliban sets the rules in ?vast swaths? of Afghan territory but is far more concerned with influencing people. It has largely shifted from outright coercion to ?creeping influence? over Afghans through services and state activities, it is often part of the local ?social fabric,? and it views itself as preparing to govern the country, not just to participate in political life, whenever the 16-year conflict ends, the report says. In many areas, the report finds, Taliban representatives interact almost routinely with local government officials, aid agencies and other groups, negotiating terms in a hybrid system to deliver health care, education and other services. Taliban bureaucrats collect taxes and electric bills, and their judges hear civil and criminal cases ? some traveling by motorbike between hearings. Although the first Taliban shadow governments were established more than a decade ago, the report documents how widely they have spread, despite years of Afghan and foreign military resistance. It also shows how they have evolved from using force and intimidation against local populations to building carefully run, accountable systems that address people?s needs, which some residents say they find more honest and effective than government control. The report says Afghan and foreign officials are ?worryingly unaware? of how assiduously the Taliban has worked to exert local control, make bargains and influence services. Today, its leaders view themselves not as insurgents but as a ?government in waiting,? the report says. At a time of growing national hopes for a negotiated peace, the consolidation of Taliban administrative control in numerous areas seems to challenge the official argument that the insurgents might accept a role as just another political force in exchange for giving up arms and settling the war. Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador has run for Mexico?s highest office twice before, but this year he has a commanding lead heading to the July 1 vote. (The Washington Post) Over time, the study found, Taliban policies in areas of control shifted from repressive violence to cooperation and public relations. By 2011, Taliban leaders had signed agreements with 28 aid organizations, including permission to conduct polio vaccination drives. As NATO forces withdrew, Taliban professionalism grew. ?We could be less warlike,? one Taliban member said. Unlike the amateur Taliban rulers of 1996 to 2001, the insurgents now have a seasoned, ?quasi-professional core of individuals? to run things, the report says. One of the most dramatic areas of evolution in Taliban attitudes has been toward education. In areas under its control, there is better teacher and pupil attendance, less theft and more order, although the Taliban vetoes texts on modern topics and may forbid English from being taught. On the whole, a majority of people interviewed ?felt that the Taliban had improved? how public education was run. The issue of girls? education has remained thorny. Officially, the Taliban policy is now not to attack schools or ban female education, but in practice, many of its strict requirements for segregated buildings and all-female teachers have been hard to meet. The researchers could not find a single secondary school for girls open in areas of heavy Taliban influence. Yet the report also describes a broader societal and official reluctance to educate girls as dovetailing with Taliban wishes and pressure. In health care, the report found a similar situation of professional interaction with government and private aid facilities, and it noted that among health workers in Taliban-controlled districts, most described government interference, corruption and theft from clinics as ?more problematic? than Taliban interference. The delivery of swift and fair justice has always been a selling point for the Taliban in a country where official justice is chronically slow and corrupt. In areas of Taliban control, the report described a complex, multilevel shadow justice system dealing with areas ranging from peace talks to common crime. Its most popular feature is resolving disputes, a common problem in rural areas. The report found that Taliban judges were well trained and drew on cultural norms and common sense, not just Islamic precepts. But it also cited complaints of arbitrary or extreme rulings and noted that Taliban religious rules remain similar to those in the past Taliban regime: mandatory beards, no music, no TV, no women in public without a male escort. One chilling aspect of living under the insurgents was what the residents described to the researchers as an ominous, ?creeping quality to Taliban authority? that allowed them to prepare themselves to obey strict rules by gradually changing their behavior or decide to leave the area. One of the most visible ways the Taliban creates the sense of being a government is by collecting taxes. The report says the group has developed a comprehensive system of tax and revenue collection, in areas including mining, electricity, agricultural production and customs. It also collects religious taxes for charity, as well as taxes on opium production, an especially lucrative source of income. But the report suggested that the insurgents? reported income from drugs may be exaggerated and that they encourage opium poppy growing because it helps the poor survive and makes them more compliant with Taliban control. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN MEDIA SAYS IT?S TARGETED IN ARMY?S ?SYSTEMATIC, CREEPING, COUP? by Saeed Shah ======================================== The Wall Street Journal June 26, 2018 Critics say the military?s move ahead of a July 25 election is part of a larger power grab that seeks to ensure a pliant government emerges from the polls Pakistani military leaders at a parade in March. The military has denied accusations of press interference ahead of next month?s election. Photo: aamir qureshi/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images ISLAMABAD, Pakistan?A major Pakistani newspaper recently discovered the new limits of press freedom here after it published an interview with ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in which he questioned the military?s counterterrorism efforts. Soldiers confiscated copies of the Dawn newspaper in army-controlled regions, officials harassed its distributors, and cable TV networks dropped the group?s TV news station, the company says. The government, then still run Mr. Sharif?s own party, ?condemned the fallacious assertions? made by him, after a meeting with top military brass. Pakistan?s powerful military is stifling the media ahead of a July 25 election, part of a larger power grab that seeks to ensure a pliant government emerges from the polls, say human-rights groups, politicians and media personnel. ?I?ve not seen this before under any democratic rule, not even under martial law,? said Hameed Haroon, Dawn?s CEO and president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, which represents newspaper owners. ?They seek to influence the election results, influence the national narrative and liquidate the press.? The military declined to comment. But it has denied accusations of press censorship or political interference, and says it supports democracy. Pakistan?s armed forces have staged several coups in the past. But since democracy was last restored in 2008, critics say the military has instead focused on gaining influence over civilian spheres from behind the scenes. The military has since gained leverage over government policy, the political opposition, moved against dissent in civil society, and allied with the courts, critics say. That effort gained momentum over the past couple of years as Mr. Sharif?s government clashed with the armed forces over his desire to make peace with India and his call for action against jihadist groups operating from Pakistan. Washington has long accused the Pakistan army of using militant groups as its proxies, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, a charge it denies. Pakistan?s military alleges that India uses Afghan territory to support Pakistani insurgents, an accusation that Delhi denies. The media has long been an irritant to the military. In periods of martial law, the military imposed official censorship, with Pakistan?s state broadcaster a prime target. In a now democratic Pakistan with an abundance of private media, more subtle forms of censorship and self-censorship pervade, reporters and lawmakers say. ?There has been a systematic, creeping coup. The powers have been taken over by the security establishment,? said Farhatullah Babar, a recently retired opposition senator. ?Without taking over a single television station, the media has been tamed.? In this election, the military seeks to boost the party of Mr. Sharif?s toughest challenger, Imran Khan, to ensure that Mr. Sharif?s party loses its majority in parliament and must forge a coalition, say Mr. Babar and analysts. Both the military and Mr. Khan?s party?which brought the lawsuit that led to Mr. Sharif?s court-ruled ouster and his current corruption trial?dismiss any links to one another. Mr. Sharif denies any corruption. The judiciary says it is independent. The control room of the Geo News television channel in Karachi last April. Geo News was taken off air by cable companies for several weeks this year until it negotiated directly with senior military officials to be allowed back. The control room of the Geo News television channel in Karachi last April. Geo News was taken off air by cable companies for several weeks this year until it negotiated directly with senior military officials to be allowed back. Photo: akhtar soomro/Reuters Polls show Mr. Sharif?s party is ahead in the election race, which journalists say explains a recent ratcheting up of repression against the media. One result, these people say: What little reporting there is on sensitive national security issues is told from the military?s viewpoint. Criticizing the military ?would be suicidal,? said one media executive who has clashed with the military. For example, TV stations have virtually avoided covering a new protest movement lambasting the military for human-rights abuses of the Pashtun ethnic minority. Dozens of the protest movement?s followers have been charged, including with sedition. Meanwhile, many newer private news channels are owned by industrial tycoons outside the media, from tobacco to cooking oil, trying to gain influence, the journalists say. Those owners won?t often take a stand on editorial freedom, and some openly support the military?s stance, these people say. In practice, the military contacts many TV channel owners about content it finds troubling, who in turn convey editorial direction to their journalists, say reporters at several channels, adding that the military also exercises influence over some hirings and firings at the stations. Broadcasters have also reduced live programming to allow time to edit out dissenting opinion, these reporters say. Cable distribution is also manipulated through its owners. The owners of four cable TV local distribution companies told The Wall Street Journal that they have been told directly by security officials to take particular channels off the air in recent months. Geo News, the leading news channel, was taken off air by cable companies for several weeks this year until it negotiated directly with senior military officials to be allowed back, say two people familiar with the talks. Several columnists at the group?s newspapers recently tweeted their reports when the papers wouldn?t publish them. Geo declined to comment. Security officials privately say they found Geo?s coverage too sympathetic toward Mr. Sharif. The Pakistan Broadcasters Association, which represents many channels, didn?t respond to a request to comment. But one of its members disputed the notion that editorial policy is compromised. ?By and large I don?t see any coercive pressure,? said Taher Khan, owner of the News One channel and an association board member. ?As a responsible media, we shouldn?t say anything that?s antistate,? he said. In Pakistan, the term antistate is often used to describe opinion critical of the military. At a press conference this month, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, the military?s spokesman, challenged any media owner or journalist who was told what to report by the military to disclose it on air. Maj. Gen. Ghafoor also displayed a chart showing which journalists have retweeted ?antistate and anti-army? posts on Twitter. He said ?anti-Pakistan? Twitter accounts based abroad had grown fivefold between January and May this year. ?We have to stay united, we have to defeat them,? he told journalists. The next day, Gul Bukhari, a journalist and military critic with dual British-Pakistani citizenship, was abducted by uniformed and plain clothes men in the Lahore military zone. She was released hours later after her channel publicized the news and an outcry ensued. But journalists said the message was clear: No one is safe. In an interview, Ms. Bukhari said she has since sought police protection. Police say they are investigating. The military denies involvement in her abduction. Last year, five bloggers critical of the military said they were kidnapped by security officials, held for more than three weeks and badly tortured, they said after they were freed and fled abroad. One of the bloggers, Ahmad Waqass Goraya, said his parents, still in Pakistan, were threatened by military officials this month. The military denies involvement. Independent-minded reporters say they will persevere. ?People who know the craft, they somehow push out information, using metaphors, sarcasm, signs, tone,? said Murtaza Solongi, the host of a political talk show on TV. ?I don?t see censorship and self-censorship working.? ?Waqar Gillani in Islamabad contributed to this article ======================================== 11. LEARNING TO LIVE IN THE COLONIES AND CAMPS - REPATRIATES AND REFUGEES IN TAMIL NADU by Frank Heidemann, Abhijit Dasgupta ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 53, Issue No. 8, 24 Feb, 2018 Special Articles Involuntary migration of Tamil repatriates and refugees from Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu began in the late 1960s and continued for several decades. The relief and rehabilitation offered to them by the Government of India was far from adequate, and life in the camps and colonies was hard and often unbearable. The unsuitable living conditions forced the migrants to learn how to deal with adversity and to assert agency in the midst of despair and hopelessness. Although life in the camps and colonies was difficult, migrants managed to carve out a space for themselves. https://www.epw.in/journal/2018/8/special-articles/learning-live-colonies-and-camps.html ======================================== 12. INDIA: CITIZENS, NON-CITIZENS, MINORITIES by Sanjib Baruah ======================================== The Indian Express June 28, 2018 The Indian approach to the minority question has not always been so insensitive to regional dynamics. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar) The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, is intended to be supportive of religious minorities facing persecution in neighbouring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But members of those communities living in the three countries do not seem to welcome the proposed amendment. Only those who have moved to India, and now live their lives as members of the majority community, do. The Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad (Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council) for example, has expressed fears that the proposed amendment would make the communities it represents more insecure, not less. It would embolden political forces that would like to evict them from their lands and force them to leave Bangladesh and cross into India. Organisations like the Oikya Parishad have had to fight back rumours that the bill is the result of their reaching out to friendly political forces in India and to the Modi government. To anyone familiar with the regional dynamics of the minority question in the Subcontinent, this will not come as a surprise. Developments in India have long affected the plight of minorities across the border. The suspicion of dual loyalty has been a persistent source of anxiety and fear for minority communities in the Subcontinent. There are many instances of communal conflict in India creating a backlash against minorities in Bangladesh. Given this history, it is not unreasonable for the religious minorities in Bangladesh to expect India to be attentive to their predicament and not make their situation worse. The rhetoric of benevolence and humanitarianism that has been used to justify the citizenship amendment bill must sound contrived to their ears. In the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) ? the Supreme Court has set June 30 as the deadline ? as well as the citizenship amendment bill, there is an illusion of unilateralism that marks Indian policy. In election campaigns in the Brahmaputra Valley in Assam, ruling party politicians including Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak incessantly about expelling ?Bangladeshis?. Then they opportunistically change their rhetoric in the Barak Valley where a fundamentally different set of memories of the Partition prevails because a large number of people displaced by the Partition live there. In diplomatic meetings with Bangladesh, the same politicians are reluctant to broach the subject of unauthorised migration. They pretend that India has no such problem with Bangladesh. The NRC exercise and the citizenship amendment bill, in their eyes, are meant only to serve domestic constituencies; they do not belong to the high table of diplomacy and strategic affairs. One can hardly blame Bangladeshi officials for treating the NRC exercise as a matter of Indian domestic politics with no implications for their country. Even as the process nears completion, the official position of Bangladesh remains that there are no unauthorised Bangladeshi migrants in Assam. Senior Bangladeshi officials claim that India has never raised the question of deporting illegal immigrants in discussions at any level with the Bangladeshi government. India has not challenged this position. This illusion of unilateralism is the main reason why people whose names will not appear in the final NRC in Assam are likely to face a gloomy future. They have long been subjects of suspicion of being false nationals. The NRC will now officially bestow on them the status of stateless citizens or of non-citizens with no rights. It is remarkable that the Supreme Court, which has mandated and monitored the updating of the NRC, has not been more proactive on this aspect of the question. The Indian approach to the minority question has not always been so insensitive to regional dynamics. The illusion of unilateralism is of relatively recent vintage. Indeed, the NRC exercise and the citizenship amendment bill ? and the illusion of unilateralism driving them ? would have been incomprehensible to political leaders of the Partition generation. It is worth recalling that the landmark Nehru-Liaquat Pact of April 1950 was a bilateral agreement between the two governments on the security and the well-being of minorities. Its main goal, in the words of diplomatic historian Pallavi Raghavan, was to reassure ?minority populations of their security within the country and to discourage them from migrating?. The two governments not only made a commitment to mutual accountability, the Pact even provided an institutional infrastructure ? including provincial and district minority boards ? to address the concerns of threatened minorities. To be sure, the relief that the Nehru-Liaquat Pact would afford proved to be temporary. Yet thanks to this Pact, large numbers of minority migrants who had crossed the Partition?s border because of communal violence felt encouraged to return to their homes on the other side. The bilateral premise of the process may be more relevant today than we recognise. In the world of diplomacy, the bilateral way of approaching the question of minorities has a long history. Even the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 ? conventionally thought of as the foundational event of the modern international state system ? included safeguards for religious minorities. Concluding minority treaties was the instrument of choice for the protection of minorities during the early part of the 20th century. This was when the unraveling of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires had led to the emergence of a number of new minority situations in the reconfigured political space. In the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the great powers assigned the task of enforcing the minority protection clauses of those treaties to the League of Nations. By the time the Nehru-Liaquat Pact was signed, the United Nations had replaced the League of Nations. But the memory of the League of Nation?s way of dealing with the minority question influenced the thinking of the leaders of the Partition generation. The events that led to the outbreak of the Second World War discredited the League?s system of minority rights protection. The UN Charter therefore makes no reference to minority rights. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rights of minority communities have featured in a number of bilateral agreements. The security of ethnic Russians that became a minority in many of the former Soviet republics is now a matter of concern for Russia?s foreign policy. Bilateral treaties between Russia and a number of these countries include provisions on minority protection. The European Union also emphasises the bilateral mode of addressing tensions arising out of the minority question. Abandoning the illusion of unilateralism may be the first step in creating a durable regime of minority protection in the subcontinent. If India continues to hide behind the unilateral illusion, future historians will blame political leaders of the post-Partition generations for being unwitting accomplices to redrawing the demographic map of South Asia. In an interview he gave just before the end of his term in office in 2016, Mizanur Rahman, the then chairman of the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh, painted a grim picture of the condition of minorities in that country. He was very critical of ?the way the religious minorities are being treated? and the response of the Bangladeshi state institutions. ?If it goes on,? he said, ?I think within 15 years there will be no Hindus in Bangladesh.? This would be an ironic vindication of the two-nation theory that India otherwise rejects. ======================================== 13. THE GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION ACROSS INDIA MUST BE PROBED, AND SAFE SOURCES IDENTIFIED - Editorial, The Hindu ======================================== The Hindu June 27, 2018 Editorial Tainted by uranium: On groundwater contamination The groundwater contamination across India must be probed, and safe sources identified Reports of widespread uranium contamination in groundwater across India demand an urgent response. A study, published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters, has found over 30 micrograms per litre (mcg/l) of the heavy metal in parts of northwestern, southern and southeastern India. Drinking such water can damage one?s kidneys, and the World Health Organization prescribes 30 mcg/l as an upper limit. Unfortunately, the residents of the regions surveyed were using the contaminated wells as their main source of drinking water. These findings highlight a major gap in India?s water-quality monitoring. As the Bureau of Indian Standards does not specify a norm for uranium level, water is not tested regularly for it. This is despite the fact that evidence of uranium contamination has accumulated from across India over the last decade. A 2015 Bangalore study, for example, found uranium levels of over 2000 mcg/l in the southern part of the city. Other studies found levels of over 500 mcg/l in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Environmental Science paper adds new data to this body of evidence by sampling wells in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The health effects of drinking uranium-tainted water merit special attention. A few small animal and human studies have found that the heavy metal damages the kidneys. The studies indicate that this is a chemical effect, rather than a radiological one, even though uranium is radioactive. But the chronic effects of uranium consumption are still unknown. Could there be, for example, a link between the high rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in India and uranium exposure? In a survey conducted between 2005 and 2010, an Indian registry found 8,385 CKD cases with no known cause. One cluster of mystery disease, located in Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh, has stumped epidemiologists for years. It is impossible to say if these clusters have anything to do with groundwater contamination, unless researchers look at it systematically. Another critical area of research is the mechanism by which uranium enters groundwater. The Environmental Science paper identified two types of terrains with heavy contamination. In Rajasthan and other northwestern regions, uranium occurs mostly in alluvial aquifers; while in southern regions such as Telangana, crystalline rocks such as granite seem to be the source. When groundwater is over-extracted from such soils, the researchers suggest, the uranium is exposed to air, triggering its release. These hypotheses must be explored, because they will help determine where to find safer water. This is what happened in West Bengal, where a decade of research revealed why the contaminant arsenic mainly occurred in shallow aquifers. Researchers found that a combination of geological and chemical triggers brought arsenic to the Ganga delta in the Holocene era, and then released it into the sediments from that period. Similar research across India?s uranium hotspots can uncover who is at risk, and how to protect them. ======================================== 14. OVERLOOKED NO MORE: AMRITA SHER-GIL, A PIONEER OF INDIAN ART By Tariro Mzezewa ======================================== The New York Times June 20, 2018 With her paintbrush, Sher-Gil explored the sadness felt by people, especially women, in 1930s India, giving voice and validity to their experiences. Image With her style and her emphasis on women, Amrita Sher-Gil became known as the ?Indian Frida Kahlo.?CreditHistoric Collection/Alamy Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we?re adding the stories of remarkable people. Amrita Sher-Gil, a pioneer of modern Indian art, used her paintbrush to depict the daily lives of Indian women in the 1930s, often revealing a sense of their loneliness and even hopelessness. She painted women going to the market, women at a wedding, women at home. Sometimes she showed women bonding with other women. At times the works seemed to convey a sense of silent resolve. It was a rendering rarely seen in depictions of Indian women at the time, when portrayals tended to cast them as happy and obedient. The melancholic painting ?Three Girls? for instance, shows women wearing passive expressions, their solemn brown faces a contrast to the vibrant reds, greens and ambers of their clothing. The mood is despondent, as though the women are waiting for something they doubt will ever come along. ?Three Girls? is one of many paintings by Sher-Gil that captured the raw emotions of women in India in the 1930s.CreditThe Picture Art Collection/Alamy With her style and her emphasis on women, Sher-Gil became known as the ?Indian Frida Kahlo.? She understood the loneliness of her subjects well, since their moods were a reflection of her own. Because of her upbringing, she lived between worlds, often searching for a sense of belonging. Sher-Gil was born in Budapest on Jan. 30, 1913, to the Hungarian-Jewish opera singer Marie Antoinette Gottesmann and Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and a scholar of Persian and Sanskrit. She began taking formal art lessons at age 8, when her family moved to Summer Hill, Shimla, in northern India. At 16, she moved to Paris and continued studying art, first at the Acad?mie de la Grande Chaumi?re and later at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts. She had early success. Her 1932 painting ?Young Girls? received a gold medal in 1933 at the Paris Salon, the renowned art show. It depicts her sister, Indira, wearing European clothing and a look of confidence while sitting with a partially undressed friend, Denise Proutaux, whose face is obscured by her hair ? one woman bold and daring and another reserved and hidden. The painting reflects the different aspects of Sher-Gil?s personality ? outgoing and sociable, as she was known among those who encountered her at Parisian parties, or tucked away and painting vigorously. In addition to paintings of relatives, lovers and friends, she created self-portraits that showed her ?grappling with her own identity,? one of her biographers, Yashodhara Dalmia, wrote in ?Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life? (2006). They often reflected an introverted and troubled woman caught between her Hungarian and Indian existences. ?Self Portrait as Tahitian? evokes the style of the French post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin, who often painted dark-skinned Tahitian women. Her own brown body is painted in Gauguin?s stylization of the female nude, with a plain ponytail and distant, somber expression on her face. Sher-Gil also felt conflicted about her sexuality. She was drawn to the idea of a lesbian affair, Dalmia wrote, ?partly as a result of her larger view of woman as a strong individual, liberated from the artifice of convention.? She formed a strong bond with the painter Marie Louise Chassany, and some art critics ? including her nephew, the artist Vivan Sundaram, who also wrote a biography of her ? believed her piece ?Two Women? reflected their longing for one another. At one point her mother asked about the nature of their relationship, according to the book ?Same-Sex Love in India? (2000), by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai. Sher-Gil denied intimacy with Chassany in a 1934 letter to her mother ? translated from Hungarian for Vanita and Kidwai?s book. Though she cited the ?disadvantages of relationships? with men, she said of Chassany: ?We never had anything to do with each other in sexual terms.? She added: ?I thought I would start a relationship with a woman when the opportunity arises.? She did, in fact, have relationships with men, seeing marriage as a way to gain independence from her parents. In 1938, she married a cousin, Victor Egan, revealing only afterward that she was pregnant. He arranged for an abortion. Despite being acclaimed for her work, Sher-Gil felt unfulfilled in Paris. She wrote that she was ?haunted by an intense longing to return to India, feeling in some strange inexplicable way that there lay my destiny as a painter.? She went back in 1935, and found the inspiration she needed as she traveled around the country and reconnected with its people. Her family had close ties to the British Raj, but she sympathized with the Indian National Congress, which had been fighting for the rights of average Indians who sought independence from Britain. She described her technical style during this period as becoming more ?fundamentally Indian.? ?I realized my artistic mission then: to interpret the life of Indians and particularly of the poor Indians pictorially, to paint those silent images of infinite submission and patience, to depict their angular brown bodies,? she wrote. In 1939, Sher-Gil and Egan ultimately settled in Saraya, a village in India?s Gorakhpur district. She was depressed while living there. After a time, she and Egan decided to relocate to Lahore, a growing cultural center in India that is now part of Pakistan. Days before her first significant solo art show in Lahore, she became ill. Sher-Gil died on Dec. 5, 1941. The cause was believed to be complications from a second, failed abortion performed by Egan, Dalmia wrote in her biography of Sher-Gil. She was 28 and was just gaining widespread popularity and taking on commissions. Sher-Gil?s legacy has grown in recent years. Unesco, the cultural organization of the United Nations, declared 2013, the 100th anniversary of her birth, the international year of Amrita Sher-Gil. ?I painted a few very good paintings,? she wrote in a letter to her mother in October 1931, when she was 18. ?Everybody says that I have improved immensely; even that person whose criticism in my view is most important to me ? myself.? ? 2018 The New York Times Company ======================================== 15. PUNJABI FARMERS LOOK TO UKRAINE FOR A PROFITABLE HARVEST by K G Sharma ======================================== Asia Times June 22, 2018 Wealthy farmers from the Indian state of Punjab look for new opportunities in Ukraine as the bread basket of India fails to fulfill their needs. India?s much-lamented brain drain is no longer restricted to the fields of science and technology. Rich farmers from the bread basket of India, Punjab, are targeting rich rewards in Europe?s own bread basket, Ukraine. Punjab farmers point to multiple reasons behind the bold move. Many blame their home state?s irregular power supply, a shortage of rainfall, rising costs, and the non-availability of agricultural land for expansion as the reasons behind stagnation, non-profitability and even losses in farming over the past two decades. Leading the exodus are the state?s cash-rich modern farmers, who are expanding operations in other agriculture-based nations, where relatively low levels of investment provide better returns than can be found in Punjab. The same farmers are also eyeing other countries? advanced marketing systems and food processing industries, which are key to the profitability of the agriculture sector, but which have never taken off in Punjab. Why Ukraine? Ukraine devotes 71.2% of its total land area to agricultural use, has lower operational costs than in Punjab, and its government is actively promoting agriculture as a business sector. On top of that, farming of Ukraine?s 32.5 million hectares of arable land contributes 34% to the nation?s Gross Domestic Product. The country is a leading producer and major exporter of wheat, sunflower oil, maize and barley, and its climate is favorable for the production of grain, cereals, oilseeds and other profitable agricultural products. Pavitar Singh Pangli, president of Borlaug Farmers Association for South Asia, acknowledges the attraction, describing Ukraine as a country with vast agricultural fields and fully mechanised farming. ?It is a competitive agriculture market, with facilities like electricity, irrigation, seeds and fertilizers, and systematic and affordable labor,? he said. For farmers and other investors in the agricultural sector, Ukraine is also an excellent gateway to world markets. It enjoys proximity to the large and growing markets of the Russian Federation, the European Union, and even the Middle East and North Africa through its well-equipped sea ports. Meet Jaswinder Singh Jaswinder Singh is the latest of the modern farmers from Punjab?s Jalandhar region to move base. Singh has already completed agricultural projects in Ukraine and has acquired about 12,000 acres (about 5,000 hectares) of land there. According to Singh, he and his associates wanted to expand their agricultural profile, but couldn?t do so given the present conditions in Punjab. ?It is not possible to expand agriculture-based projects in Punjab, a state of great poverty. On top of that, the cost of inputs including seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides has been increasing day by day without state control,? he complained, while also pointing out farmers? woes over the unreliable supply of electricity during key production seasons. ?Expansion (in Punjab) was simply not possible, even in the foreseeable future,? he added. Ukraine also offers a competitive edge thanks to its fertile black soil and favorable climate. Anil Sharma of Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, describes Ukraine as the bread basket of Europe: ?For this, the country should be thankful to its black chernozem soil, which is highly fertile and rich in organic matter. Covering more than half of Ukraine?s cultivable land, chernozem soil offers exceptional agronomic conditions for the production of a wide range of crops, especially cereals and oilseeds.? Over the past few years, Ukraine has actively wooed overseas farmers by inviting them to explore investment opportunities, identifying land for lease and promoting related businesses like poultry, dairy and pig farming. Where Punjab is losing When it comes to agricultural land, Ukraine offers farmers a sweet deal. Davinder Pal Singh Chawla is a prominent agricultural land promoter and director of Sunbeam Colonisers Pvt Ltd who has reportedly made the most profitable investment in Ukraine. He told Asia Times that the cost of agricultural land in Ukraine is quite low compared to Punjab. ?The average price per hectare of agricultural land in Ukraine is about US$3,000 to $6,000. Average lease rates of agricultural land are $32 to $75 per hectare per annum. Also, the agricultural fields are very far apart here in comparison to Punjab, so it is easy to manage big holdings in comparison to small chunks and more profitable too, due to low cost of inputs per hectare,? Chawla said. In Punjab, prices are steep for farm land near major cities and adjoining highways or other link roads. The average price per hectare in prime areas is about $600,000 to $700,000, with plots in more rural areas commanding prices of $75,000 to $150,000. Leasing rates for agricultural land are also soaring. ?So buying agricultural land in such locations has become extremely difficult,? Chawla said. It is easy for foreigners to buy land not intended for agricultural purposes in Ukraine, where the Land Code regulates purchase of property. However, to acquire land intended agricultural use, one needs to establish a legal entity on the territory of Ukraine and to purchase a parcel of land for this legal entity. Foreign farmers, with the help of local law firms, acquire land for cultivation in this way. Sushil S Malhotra, the general secretary of the Progressive Innovative Farmers? Association, had another complaint about Punjab, the state of the 1960s Green Revolution. ?The poor and vulnerable people are poorly cared for in the state,? he said, adding that ?electricity supply to the agriculture sector is only available four to five hours a day. Groundwater level is already down as irrigation is dependent on tubewells in the major portion of the state. Even canal water is available only to a limited agricultural area and is not fulfilling the requirements of most of the sector?. ======================================== 16. MASS PROTESTS SWEEP VIETNAM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES Vu Quoc Ngu ======================================== https://wagingnonviolence.org June 22, 2018 An Arab spring has started to emerge in Vietnam,? said Pham Chi Dung, a former member of the ruling Communist Party, following the largest and most widespread protests in years. Over the weekend of June 9-10, tens of thousands of Vietnamese took to the streets across the country to protest two bills on cyber security and the creation of new special economic zones, or EEZs. The protest began with the participation of around 50,000 workers from the Pouchen footwear factory in Tan Tao industrial zone in Ho Chi Minh City, the biggest economic hub in the Southeast Asian nation. Thousands of people gathered in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Nha Trang and other cities, chanting and carrying banners that read ?Say no to bill on EEZs,? ?No land lease to China even for one day,? and ?Cyber security law means silencing people.? The protests showed how widespread the dissatisfaction is with systemic corruption, serious large-scale environmental pollution, deep social inequality, and the government?s weak response to China?s violations of Vietnam?s sovereignty in the resource-rich sea. In an article for the unregistered Independent Journalist Association of Vietnam, Dung said the protests mark ?the first time since 1975 [when the communists took over South Vietnam] that an action directly challenged the ruling government had been taken.? The demonstrations took place the week after the National Assembly, the country?s highest legislative body, publicized its plan to discuss and approve the two bills on June 12-15, as part of its month-long session, which started on May 20. The call urging people to rally circulated on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Over 60 million Vietnamese people are online, and Facebook ? with more than 40 millions users in Vietnam ? is the most popular social network in the country. Vietnam?s security forces responded aggressively to the call for peaceful demonstrations. Authorities sent plainclothes agents and militia to private residences of local activists to prevent them from participating in the protests. Many activists said they had to leave their houses before the weekend and go into hiding to avoid being locked in by security forces. On June 10, large numbers of police, militia and thugs were deployed to suppress the demonstrations, detaining hundreds of protesters and beating others. While police successfully suppressed small protests in Hanoi by noon, the rallies in Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, went until the early hours of Monday. Police in Ho Chi Min City deployed Long Range Acoustic Devices purchased from the United States to equip patrol ships of the Vietnam Coast Guard, which generates intense sound that can cause extreme physical pain and permanently damage hearing. In Phan Thiet and Phan Ri, in the central province of Binh Thuan, police used tear gas and water cannons on local residents. After one protester was knocked unconscious by police, protesters attacked the police?s special units with stones and bricks, and occupied government buildings. Police surrendered and took off their equipment and went home. However, the government was able to take full control there by the morning of June 12. The police detained over 500 protesters, according to state media and leaked information from police. Protesters were interrogated for hours. During their time in detention they were beaten and their cell phones and other belongings were confiscated. Police released many detainees but still keep dozens of others, threatening to prosecute them on allegations of violating national security rules and ?causing public disorders.? According to legal experts, the bill on cyber security will give sweeping new powers to the Vietnamese authorities, allowing them to force technology companies to hand over vast amounts of data, including personal information, and to censor internet users? posts. According to activists, the law aims to silence government critics and could lead to internet users being criminally charged for exercising their basic right to freedom of expression. As a result, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on Hanoi to not approve the bill. The United States and Canada, however, have merely urged Vietnam to postpone the vote on the bill to ensure it aligns with international standards. Meanwhile, with the law on special economic zones, Vietnam?s communist government wants to establish three zones ? namely Van Don, Phu Quoc and Bac Van Phong ? in strategic locations where foreign investors may be allowed to rent land for 99 years. Activists suspect that the bill is the first step to allow Chinese investors to acquire land and bring untrained Chinese workers to these locations. Many senior economists, including veteran chief economist Pham Chi Lan, say that Vietnam ? which has already signed a number of free trade agreements with the European Union, the United States and other countries ? has no need to set up more special economic zones to attract foreign investment. In addition to national security issues ? with the potential investment from China ? these special economic zones will allow companies in these locations to pay lower or no tariffs for years, according to entrepreneur Le Hoai Anh. In an interview with Free Asia radio, veteran novelist and former communist soldier Nguyen Ngoc said ?I decided to join the protest [because] the EEZ law will severely impact national security, and the cyber security law will kill off people?s right to freedom of expression, freedom to speak out. This will lead to a nation that is lacking in creativity. Everything will be pushed back to the past, while we need to advance towards the future.? In response to the public pressure, Vietnam?s communist-controlled parliament and government said they would postpone the discussion and approval of the bill on special economic zones to the next session of the parliament scheduled in October. The cyber security was approved on June 12, and the law will become effective on January 1, 2019. Despite government repression, protests against the approval of the law and parliament?s plan to resume working on the bill on special economic zones in October are expected to continue. A central concern with the the bill on establishing new special economic zones, is how it will affect the country?s sovereignty in the East Sea. Vietnam and China have a long history of disputes. China has sent their armies to attack Vietnam 22 times over the last thousand years, according to historian Dao Tien Thi. In 1979, China sent around 60,000 soldiers to invade the six northernmost provinces of Vietnam, killing tens of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and destroying the entire infrastructure there. In 1988, China also invaded several islands and reefs, known as the Spratly Islands, controlled by Vietnam. In recent years, China has turned these reefs and islands into artificial structures and deployed modern missiles and other military equipment there in a bid to turn the East Sea into its own lake. The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, in order to maintain its power in the country, treats China as its closest political ally. The communist government in Hanoi has verbally protested China?s violations instead of taking stronger actions, such as bringing the case to international tribunal court, as the Philippines has done. Hanoi has systematically suppressed anti-China protests and persecuted anti-Sino activists. Many of them have been convicted and sentenced to lengthy sentences in trumped up politically motivated cases. However, suppression may only increase the number of people in disagreement with the government. As more and more ordinary people become interested in politics, Vietnam?s government needs to carry out drastic political reforms to allow free elections, and must respect human rights as it works to address social dissatisfaction. The government should use dialogue, while local civil society organizations could mediate between protesters and the government. If the leaders insist on running the country with a one-party regime and continue to rely on violence, the grievances of the people will not be resolved and the nation may fall into internal struggle. ?The administration needs to care for what its people care for,? said Nguyen Si Dung, a former deputy head of the National Assembly office. ======================================== 17. PURGES AND PARANOIA Ella George on Erdo?an?s ?new? Turkey ======================================== The London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 10 ? 24 May 2018 pages 22-32 | 12290 words The elections due to be held on 24 June, brought forward abruptly from the end of 2019 by President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, come after a period of repression and fear that represents the most serious rupture in the history of the Turkish republic. In the last two years more than 100,000 people have been detained, and tens of thousands are waiting for their lives to be upended by a knock on the door, or the publication of a new emergency decree. Tens of billions of assets have been seized and 150,000 people have been purged, losing not only their jobs but their passports (and those of their spouses); they are branded national security threats and become unemployable. Often, they lose their housing (tied to government employment) and their pensions. Turkey has experienced more than its share of state violence directed at civil society, but when military juntas imposed martial law at least there was always the hope that a return to civilian rule would bring a reprieve. Turkey today is a deeply traumatised society. The purges and detentions are a lottery: one signatory of a petition calling for peace with the Kurds is purged from higher education, another remains precariously employed; someone is detained for getting a mortgage from a now expropriated bank, someone else who held an account with the same bank is unaffected. Turks today confront the capriciousness of arbitrary power with no recourse to anything that resembles the rule of law. Even those whose relatives and friends haven?t been designated national security threats have been affected by the repression. The newspapers they read have been shut down, the columnists they followed have been detained, the local medical clinic has had its assets seized, the school round the corner has been closed, the dozens of voluntary associations that formed the fabric of their community have gone, and the politicians they voted for ? from municipal officials to provincial governors ? have been forcibly replaced or fear they are about to be. The purges of prosecution lawyers and judges have reached such proportions that among the new appointees are recent graduates who do not know the rules of their own courtrooms. All judges are aware that any decision deemed adverse to the government may end their careers. The scale of the social transformation being wrought by these measures exceeds even the founding convulsions of the republic. To appreciate what has happened in Turkey requires historical perspective, not least because the government is bent on reinventing the republic in its image, and rewriting its history. The story of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Turkish republic has been ably told in these pages by Perry Anderson.?? The founding of the republic in 1923 was a largely authoritarian affair, even if the declaration of popular sovereignty represented a break with the imperial past. Tightly controlled elections gave Mustafa Kemal the presidency of what by 1925 had become a one-party state. From that office, Kemal ? who was given the surname Atat?rk, or ?father of the Turks?, by the Turkish parliament in 1934 ? presided over a cultural revolution of astonishing proportions, transforming religious institutions, the language and alphabet, dress codes, the calendar and the legal system in less than a decade. There was little resistance, in part because this transformation was accomplished in the wake of imperial collapse and affected a population that had experienced decades of dislocation and traumatic violence, from the Balkan wars to the Armenian genocide and the First World War. The most serious opposition was from Turkey?s Kurdish population, who objected to the ethnic and linguistic homogenising imperative behind Kemal?s Kulturkampf. But resistance was brutally repressed. Indeed, any opposition to the one-party state ? whether from Kurds, communists or religious groups ? led to detention, assassination or exile. Given the scale and speed of the measures employed to transform religion, tradition and custom, less repression was required than might have been expected, but there was no broad-based backing for the revolution. Kemalism, as the secularising, Turkifying, state-centric ideology of the founding vanguard came to be known, was supported by the urban elites of the country?s western cities, but elsewhere ? in the Anatolian provinces and the south-east, the area closest to the Middle East ? the reforms achieved at best a superficial penetration. Nearly a century later, a new cultural revolution is underway, targeting what its leaders dismissively describe as the ?old Turkey?. What they mean by that is members of the socioeconomic elites identified with Kemalism. To some extent, like Atat?rk?s revolution, this counter-revolution borrows from and builds on what it seeks to replace. The republic?s spectacular break with the language and traditions of the Ottoman Empire ? with Arabic script replaced by Latin and loan words from Arabic and Persian replaced by Turkish equivalents ? masked what were in some ways far more profound structural continuities. The state bureaucracy, the military corps and the basic social order were left intact, preserving status and property for those ready to serve the new republic. Even the official commitment to secularism coexisted with the selective use of religion in the service of the state. Today?s cultural revolution borrows heavily from Kemalist strategy: it too is about consolidating one-party rule, dictating new traditions, purging and jailing opponents. Like Kemal, Erdo?an seeks to boost the power of the state while simultaneously transforming its institutions. But where Kemalism preserved much of the Ottoman social order, the ?new? Turkey, whose birth Erdo?an announced in a speech on 28 August 2014, represents a more fundamental break. One elite is being displaced by another: property is changing hands, new cadres are being groomed for the civil service, the universities are being emptied of one class of intellectuals to be replaced by more loyal alternatives, and regime-friendly capital is gaining access to state largesse, including the bounty resulting from asset seizures. The ?new? Turkey project is seen by its proponents as setting the clock back not to the moment of the republic?s founding but a century earlier, before the modernising and Westernising reforms of the 19th century. It is an outright rejection not only of Kemalist elites but of their reformist Ottoman forebears. Where the Kemalist revolution lacked a social base, this project has support from pious and conservative constituencies among the urban lower middle classes, provincial businesspeople and the rural poor: they have been beneficiaries of Erdo?an?s rule, thanks to improvements in their standard of living and the removal of restrictions on religious practices such as the wearing of headscarves. But if recent elections are any indication, this amounts at most to half of the country?s population. Turkey isn?t yet a one-party state, and the leaders of its political parties are well known to the public. They make headlines and give speeches, offer political programmes and cultivate relationships. Their parties have existed in some form or other for decades: the republicans of the CHP (Republican People?s Party), the ultra-nationalists of the MHP (the Nationalist Action Party) and the pro-Kurdish politicians of the HDP (Peoples? Democratic Party), which has a progressive platform. The wrangles within these parties are still the stuff of newspaper stories and public discussion: the creation of a new centre-right party, the ?Y? (or ?Good?) Party, which splintered from the MHP, has generated breathless headlines for months. Speculation about the parties? strategies in next month?s elections dominates the news as it might have done before Erdo?an came into power. It?s true that in ordinary times party leaders and MPs are not imprisoned by the dozen, as is currently happening to the HDP (at least one MP from the CHP is also in jail). But what is most jarring is that beneath the veneer of a multi-party system the truth is that not even the Justice and Development Party (the AKP), in government since 2002, has any power. The political life of the country has been reduced to the person of its leader, Erdo?an, and his entourage of relatives and cronies. Erdo?an?s son-in-law Berat Albayrak became an MP in 2015, by which time Erdo?an had complete control of the party lists. Albayrak is minister of energy but is widely understood to be part of the small group that governs the country along with Erdo?an?s son Bilal and his daughter S?meyye. The AKP provides the means for Erdo?an to manage parliament, mobilise voters and dispense favours in election campaigns, and develop cadres to fill the increasing number of vacancies in the state bureaucracy. But while he uses the party to achieve some of his goals, he isn?t bound by it or dependent on it. Rather the reverse: the party depends on Erdo?an. He has long since sidelined or ousted the earlier generation of AKP leaders ? some of them, like Abdullah G?l and B?lent Ar?n?, among the party?s founding members. In the place of government controlled by a party that spanned the centre right of the political spectrum, Erdo?an has developed a system of personal rule legitimated by increasingly choreographed elections. Some liberals in Turkey and elsewhere worry that it was a mistake to support the AKP when it appeared on the political scene at the beginning of the new millennium. Their initial hope ? that the party would be a vehicle for reforming the constitution, reducing the influence of the military and introducing a more pluralist conception of national belonging ? has given way to self-flagellation. But the democratising potential of the AKP was uncertain from the start, and many who count themselves on the left never embraced it. The AKP shared with parties across the Turkish political spectrum, from Kemalists to right-wing ethnonationalists, a superficial commitment to democracy, yet like most political parties in Turkey, with the notable exception of the HDP, it was never internally democratic ? a fact which later facilitated the sidelining of more pluralist voices within the party. Erdo?an joked in an interview while he was mayor of Istanbul as a member of the earlier pro-Islamist Welfare (Refah) Party in 1996 that ?democracy is like a tram; you get off when you have reached your destination.? The AKP emerged, however, at a time when civil society movements were increasingly calling for a reckoning with the country?s past ? including the Armenian genocide ? and a repudiation of the ongoing repression of the Kurds. There was also growing impatience with, and in some quarters even revulsion towards, the country?s history of military coups and suppression of political parties, particularly pro-Islamist parties. For all its conservative appeal, the AKP was able to make common cause with liberal critiques of the role of the army and the courts in constraining the country?s political horizons, even if it only did so because its own future depended on defanging the tutelary institutions of the state. In the end, reforms to place the military under civilian control and to restructure the senior judiciary were not sufficient to ensure that the country?s political trajectory would remain democratic. According to the essentialist narrative, the Turkish case demonstrates the incompatibility of democracy and Islam. This is an oversimplification. The AKP?s trajectory is better understood as providing a demonstration of the way the historical and structural features of a country?s political culture and institutions can bring about democratic reversal. The AKP was founded in 2001, under the overall leadership of Erdo?an, to replace parties that had been shut down on account of their allegedly anti-secular character, among them Refah, which was subjected to constitutional closure in 1998. As a means of enforcing strict adherence to Kemalism, the constitutional court had a special interest in disbanding parties that were deemed pro-Islamist, pro-Kurdish or communist. In the early 2000s there was a growing concern among Turkish liberals that these party closures were disenfranchising a sizeable constituency. When the AKP appeared, running on a moderate religious platform with an avowedly pro-democratic and pro-business outlook, it seemed to be a version of political Islam designed to fit the constraints set by the constitutional court. More important for those who were not religiously observant, the party platform aimed to liberalise and modernise the country?s economy in the wake of a major financial crisis in 2000-1, when the government?s yawning deficit had caused an investment panic and stock market crash that ultimately required an IMF loan. In the 2002 national election the AKP won 34 per cent of the vote, which translated into nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament thanks to an electoral law left over from the days of the military junta that excluded from parliament any party that achieved less than 10 per cent of the vote. In 2002 only two parties ? the AKP and the CHP (with 19 per cent of the vote) ? polled above the threshold and so the AKP was able to secure a majority of seats. Since the AKP?s victory followed a period of minority and coalition governments that had lasted since 1991, the possibility of stable single-party rule seemed attractive to much of the electorate. Inside and outside the country, the AKP was flatteringly compared to the Christian Democratic parties of Europe. With a platform that appealed to the religiously observant majority but also promised to preserve the republic?s secular character, the AKP offered to address religious grievances without embracing Islamism. Perhaps even more important, by apparently endorsing a civic rather than ethnic definition of citizenship, it looked like it might address the long-standing demands of the country?s Kurdish citizens. None of this came to pass. Trying to comprehend the distance between 2002 and 2018, which feels to most Turks as if it should be described in decades, is a maddening exercise. That the AKP was not more democratic than any other Turkish political party should have been obvious from its failure to use its majority to repeal the 10 per cent electoral threshold despite its clearly anti-democratic effect. Its promises to represent the religiously observant, address the grievances of the Kurdish minority and commit itself to EU accession might have been democratising but in fact served to help consolidate its own rule. The best way to make sense of the party?s trajectory is to identify the moments at which alternative paths were ignored in favour of another step towards authoritarianism. The honeymoon period for the AKP was its first term in office, between 2002 and 2007, as a single-party government facing no credible opposition. The financial crisis had destroyed the electoral prospects of the other centre-right parties ? the centre right usually attracted a clear majority of the vote, though it was split between several parties ? and this cleared the field for the AKP. One of the party?s central ambitions at this point was for Turkey to join the EU, an ambition it shared with the country?s Westernised elite. In its first term, the AKP?s success in advancing Turkey?s candidacy was widely popular. The reforms it undertook to satisfy the EU?s requirements included curtailing the role of the military in civilian governance and abolishing the state security courts that meted out summary justice in the south-east of Turkey, where much of the country?s Kurdish population lives. Restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language were eased, the death penalty was abolished and the state of emergency in the Kurdish provinces ended. The AKP stuck to the economic policies established by an IMF stabilisation package after the financial crisis and pushed forward a programme of privatisation. An economic recovery followed that eventually became a boom. Looking at the list of public assets sold to business interests allied to the AKP, one can identify the origins of what would become a bonanza of corruption. But back in 2007 the improvement in the country?s economic position, combined with investment in infrastructure ? as well as health and education ? had tangibly improved the lives of the poor and delivered clear benefits to the party?s core constituency. The AKP?s margin of victory in the 2007 election marked a turning point. Turkey uses a party list system, which means that party leaders can choose who goes to the top of the list and gains a seat in parliament. The AKP?s top-down structure allowed Erdo?an to place his loyalists high on the list. The party secured 47 per cent of the vote, increasing its vote share by a third; its newly purged ranks ensured that MPs would march in lockstep behind their leader. Its votes were more evenly distributed across the country than in 2002, though it won fewer seats because a third party ? the ultra-nationalist MHP ? made it past the electoral threshold of 10 per cent behind the CHP, which came second, as it has in every election since 2002. The size of the AKP?s electoral victory meant it had enough parliamentary votes to ensure the appointment of its candidate for president, Abdullah G?l, a moderate Islamist whose candidature had previously been blocked by the opposition and had drawn pointed criticism from the army (which saw itself as tasked with defending secularism). This challenge to its candidate prompted the AKP to propose a constitutional amendment that would allow the president to be elected by a popular vote rather than a parliamentary one. Opposition politicians campaigned against the change, fearing that it would shift the balance of power in favour of the executive. Despite these concerns, it was passed in an October 2007 referendum with nearly 69 per cent support. The success of the referendum strategy laid the groundwork for several disturbing developments. Following the 2007 election, the pace of liberalising reforms slowed as EU accession talks stalled. When the new EU constitution was put to referendums across Europe in 2005, its rejection by voters in France and the Netherlands was ascribed in part to opposition to Turkey?s joining the union. The fear-mongering about Turkish accession by political figures in powerful European countries led the Turkish public to turn away from Europe and embrace nationalism themselves. And as accession became increasingly unlikely the ability of the EU to serve as a lever in favour of liberalising reforms waned. Erdo?an instead used the AKP?s second term to loosen the grip of key state institutions that sought to block his party?s consolidation of power. The three most significant elements in this strategy were a second constitutional referendum, this one aimed at restructuring the judiciary; a sustained campaign against the media conglomerate Do?an Holding, which provided a blueprint that the party would later use to destroy press freedom; and the Ergenekon trials, which unleashed the full force of the prosecutorial system on a number of people accused of plotting to bring down the government. Ergenekon, named for the valley in a Turkic origin myth, was claimed to be a clandestine organisation whose members, retired secularist military officers, were planning a coup. There may have been some truth to the claims that some former military personnel were considering it. In 2007, the liberal magazine Nokta published what it billed as ?coup diaries? written by ?zden ?rnek, the former head of the Turkish navy, detailing plans ? drawn up with former commanders of the air force and the army ? for a potential coup in 2004. The initial allegations against Ergenekon therefore seemed plausible enough, and in 2007 an investigation into its supposed activities was launched. The first indictments against 86 defendants were detailed in a document nearly 2500 pages long in July 2008. This was the AKP?s first large-scale attempt to use prosecutorial powers to purge its opponents. Military officers, journalists, opposition politicians and public intellectuals were rounded up, charged with involvement in a plot, and spent long periods in pre-trial detention. Between 2008, when the first indictments were submitted, and 2011, more than five hundred defendants were detained. Another alleged coup plot (known as the Balyoz ? or Sledgehammer ? plan), resulted in more than three hundred suspects being sentenced to imprisonment in 2012. A massive new courtroom with a capacity of more than seven hundred was set up in Silivri prison to allow mass trials to take place. As the cases dragged on, some of Turkey?s best-known investigative journalists, including Ahmet ??k and Nedim ?ener, were arrested on the grounds that they had supported the conspiracies. The charges were occasioned by ?ener?s reporting of official complicity in the murder of a Turkish-Armenian journalist called Hrant Dink, and ??k?s reporting on the infiltration of the police by members of the G?len movement ? a religious group, led by the exiled cleric Fethullah G?len, with which the AKP was at that time closely allied. In short, Ergenekon and associated trials became a vehicle for silencing dissent and covering up evidence of misconduct by the AKP. Those who had been convicted were finally released in 2016, after the court of appeal overturned all the guilty verdicts for lack of evidence. But this reversal was possible only because it now suited Erdo?an to align himself with the defendants who had served years in prison as a result of his machinations. He now claimed that the trials had been brought by police officers, prosecutors and judges who belonged to the G?len movement, no longer in favour: it was the G?lenists who he now claimed were plotting a coup against him. Silivri prison and its massive courtroom would soon be filled with new defendants. Much of the Turkish press dutifully reported Erdo?an?s claim without mentioning his years of vocal support for these same prosecutors and judges. Turkish civil society was profoundly altered by the Ergenekon trials. As those who questioned the prosecutions became defendants themselves, it soon became clear that prosecutors had been empowered to hold mass trials of the government?s opponents. More significantly, the erstwhile guardians of the republic ? the military and appeal court judges ? not only failed to prevent the trials but were among their chief targets. Of course, political trials, manufactured evidence and reliance on hearsay were not new to the Turkish justice system: the country?s Kurdish citizens had long been subject to summary justice and violations of procedural rights. But this was the first time that members of the urban, secular, ethnically Turkish elite had been dealt with in this way. Several of the military leaders put on trial had been architects of the Turkish army?s counterinsurgency campaign in the Kurdish south-east in the 1990s, which destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages, displaced up to two million Kurdish citizens and resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. Long after it became clear that the evidence presented in the Ergenekon trials was fraudulent, the prosecutions remained popular in some circles because they served to curb the military. After the Ergenekon trials began, Erdo?an?s focus shifted from reducing the power of the military to bringing the appeal courts under his party?s control. In 2010 the AKP unveiled a new set of constitutional amendments that were sold to the public as being designed to limit the military?s ability to influence the government, once again calling a referendum on their plans. The Turkish military?s record ? direct and indirect intervention in 1960, 1971, 1980, 1997 and 2007, when it issued a memorandum challenging G?l?s presidential candidacy ? meant that many Turks were sympathetic. In fact, while some of the proposed amendments did place limits on the jurisdiction of military courts and curb the role of the military in government, the most important changes concerned the composition of the judiciary. The appellate courts in Turkey had long served, together with the army, as guardians of Kemalist ideology. During the AKP?s first term, the courts had acted as a check on the party?s legislative agenda and the Constitutional Court even entertained a bid to shut down the ruling party because it engaged in anti-secular activities. Combining structural changes to the judiciary with several liberalising changes enabled the party to present the package of amendments as a democratisation initiative. The judicial reforms could be portrayed as a response to the EU position that the control the highest echelons of the Turkish judiciary exerted on all judicial appointments and promotions was a problem. The amendments would allow more members of the judiciary to have their say, but there were widespread fears that the AKP?s real intent was to manipulate the new appointments system in such a way as to install and promote its own loyalists. Despite this, 58 per cent of the electorate voted in favour of the proposals. Within a month, opposition fears were realised as a slate of AKP nominees for election to the body in charge of judicial appointments and promotions took control. Over the next year, they appointed 160 new judges to the Court of Cassation and 51 to the Council of State. Four years later, the next elections to the judicial board saw overt manipulation as the AKP launched a high-profile bid to purge its erstwhile allies from the courts, publicly asserting its control over the judiciary. The final move towards authoritarianism in the AKP?s second term was a showdown between Erdo?an and a group of newspapers and TV stations partly owned by Ayd?n Do?an, a businessman and a prominent critic of the government. The financial crisis that had paved the way for the AKP?s first electoral victory had also thinned the ranks of media ownership in Turkey. The collapse of twenty Turkish banks, many of which had print and television holdings, resulted in the government Savings Deposit Insurance Fund putting many media outlets into receivership. Over time, they were repackaged and put up for sale and several were sold to AKP-affiliated holding groups. The newspaper Sabah, for example, which had a circulation of more than four hundred thousand at the time, was sold to Ahmet ?al?k?s firm, which was managed by Berat Albayrak, Erdo?an?s son-in-law. ?al?k received financing from a state-owned bank to support his bid. Do?an Holding ? which owned the TV station CNN Turk, along with two other TV channels, and two of the country?s largest circulation newspapers, H?rriyet and Milliyet, as well as six smaller ones ? had emerged as the most powerful anti-AKP media group. Several of Do?an?s newspapers and TV channels carried claims that the AKP was engaged in anti-secular activities, a charge that led Erdo?an to call publicly for a boycott of Do?an newspapers.During the 2007 elections, Do?an Holding supported the opposition. Afterwards, the AKP took its revenge: a $2.5 billion tax fine against Do?an Yay?n (the media subsidiary owned by Do?an Holding) was announced in 2009. The fine ? justified as the result of a reinterpretation of tax rules on share transactions ? was widely seen as politicised: the amount came to nearly 80 per cent of the value of the parent company?s holdings. Do?an Yay?n was forced to sell two of its newspapers ? Milliyet and Vatan ? and one TV station, in addition to paying a reduced fine. The group then attempted a difficult balancing act, with their flagship H?rriyet newspaper retaining its oppositional stance while taking a softer editorial line and avoiding stories that would anger the government. When Albayrak?s emails were hacked in 2016, they revealed that senior members of the Do?an group had had exchanges with the government about journalists and editors working at the paper. In March this year Do?an sold its remaining media assets, including H?rriyet, to a government-aligned business group, Demir?ren Holding. The next elections, in 2011, represented the high-water mark of the AKP. The party entered its third term with a vote share of 49.8 per cent, an increase of nearly 3 per cent. This was Erdo?an?s last opportunity to stand in a parliamentary election: AKP rules impose a three-term limit on members. The two other parties represented in the 2007 parliament were also returned, though the MHP lost ground to the AKP, and a slate of independents representing a coalition of Kurdish politicians and left-wing candidates from 17 parties and NGOs including the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) won 35 seats. Up to this point, the AKP?s strategy in dealing with the Kurdish electorate had been two-pronged. The party cultivated relations with Kurdish businessmen and conservative political figures, encouraging them to run on the AKP ticket, even appointing some Kurdish MPs to cabinet positions. It was also responsible for a relative liberalisation in the state?s approach to Kurdish cultural rights, offering modest support for a Kurdish television station and allowing the Kurdish language to be taught in schools. Ultimately, though, the strategy was just a sophisticated version of the traditional Turkish technique of rewarding Kurds who support the government and repressing those who do not. But rather than pushing assimilationist ethnic policies, as the Kemalists did, the party was seeking support from Kurds willing to embrace its religious platform. At the same time, any independent civil or political organising that threatened to reduce the AKP vote was harshly treated. The pattern of detentions between 2009 and 2010 in the Kurdish provinces tells its own story. After the BDP did well in local elections in 2009 some 1800 Kurdish citizens were arrested in counterterrorism operations, with trade unionists, human rights activists and elected officials charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation. The detentions aimed at suppressing the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella group for various political factions with ties to Abdullah ?calan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK). The long-standing designation of the PKK as a terrorist organisation served as the excuse. On a single day in December 2009, eighty people were arrested, including eight BDP mayors. Among them was Osman Baydemir, the popular mayor of Diyarbak?r, the unofficial Kurdish capital of Turkey, who was threatened with a 36-year prison sentence. The KCK prosecutions shared all of the procedural and evidential defects of the Ergenekon trials and by 2011 had resulted in nearly ten times as many arrests, with more than 7700 suspects held, nearly half of them in pre-trial detention. That the abuses of the Ergenekon trials attracted so much attention while the KCK prosecutions were rarely discussed reflects the continuing second-class citizenship of the country?s Kurdish population. The success of the BDP-led slate in the 2011 elections led to a new political coalition in Kurdish politics, attracting representatives from smaller left-wing parties, as well as the Alevi and Armenian communities, women?s organisations and LGBT activists. In 2012 this coalition founded the Peoples? Democratic Party (HDP), a successor to earlier left-wing, pro-Kurdish parties but with a considerably broader political platform. The HDP intended to represent historically marginalised communities across the country; gender equality, in particular, was built into its internal structures, with male and female leaders at every level. The HDP?s leftist credentials ensured that it was well placed to capitalise on the wave of protests that hit Turkey in the summer of 2013. The first protests were against the replacement of Gezi Park in Istanbul with a new shopping mall designed as a replica of an Ottoman artillery barracks. The loss of one of the few remaining green spaces in the city to make way for a neo-Ottoman commercial venture sited next to Taksim Square, with its Monument to the Republic, encapsulated what protesters viewed as the worst aspects of the AKP?s agenda. When the initial demonstration was met with disproportionate force by the police, images of the violence went viral, galvanising thousands more to rally in Taksim Square. The demonstrators, many of them students, proclaimed their opposition to the AKP?s authoritarian neoliberalism. The closure of Gezi Park was just one example among thousands of government-driven projects that brought global investors and private developers into partnership with AKP-run state entities, whether to undertake mega-infrastructure or mass housing projects, or to develop new business districts or satellite cities. All these projects ignored urban planning and environmental regulations, and the social fabric of the existing city. New laws facilitated the eviction of tenants in areas slated for redevelopment. The government transformed the public housing authority into the primary vehicle for its construction frenzy, enabling it to act as urban planner, regulator, owner and in many instances contractor ? subcontracting, in turn, to pro-government developers, all of this producing huge profits while displacing the urban poor. The sudden and conspicuous wealth acquired by senior AKP officials during the party?s first decade in office is widely seen as a direct result of such public-private partnerships and the kickbacks that came with them. (Erdo?an was an early developer, in every sense ? 18 corruption charges were filed against him during his time as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s.) The displacement of long-term renters to make way for high-end construction in historic urban districts fuelled widespread anger. The Gezi protests ignited a nationwide campaign with demonstrations held in 78 of the country?s 81 provinces. Privatisation and deregulation also affected a wide range of other industries. A year after the Gezi protests, more than three hundred miners were killed in an accident in a privatised coalmine run by the AKP-aligned Soma Holding company, best known for helping the party distribute free bags of coal in the run-up to elections. The mine failed to meet the most basic safety requirements. The Gezi demonstrators were also protesting against the government?s encroachment on secularism, which was gathering pace. Erdo?an repeatedly asserted that the government would ?raise a religious generation?, called on women to have more children, sought to tighten access to abortion, imposed new regulations on the sale of alcohol, even attempted to prohibit public displays of affection. Fears that the republic?s secular character was under attack were accompanied by concerns that restrictions on press freedom and freedom of assembly were limiting the potential for effective opposition. The protests themselves revealed the extent of self-censorship ? in addition to government censorship ? among Turkey?s mainstream media, most of which downplayed or failed to cover the initial protests for fear of government reprisals. Do?an Media?s CNN Turk aired a documentary about penguins rather than cover the battles between protesters and riot police in the centre of Istanbul. Earlier in 2013 the AKP municipal government in Istanbul had imposed a ban on public assembly to prevent May Day protests in Taksim Square. The Gezi protests were a rare example of public defiance and the fierce police response, with widespread use of tear gas and water cannon, was a revelation to the largely middle-class demonstrators. Anywhere between three and five million people took to the streets in more than five thousand demonstrations over a month-long period. Many of them had never taken part in a protest before, and they became newly aware of the extent of censorship and police brutality, as well as the possibility of acting in solidarity with the more traditional activists who led the protests: environmentalists, feminists, LGBT activists, human rights workers and leftists, particularly from the Alevi community. As a result, new political aspirations were created among many who had grown up after the 1980 military coup and had never expected to lead political lives. While Kurdish participation was limited, S?rr? S?reyya ?nder, an HDP parliamentarian, joined the protests. The first major opportunity to test the national impact of the Gezi protests was the August 2014 presidential election, the first to be decided by popular vote after the AKP?s constitutional amendment of 2007. Since party rules meant he couldn?t stand again for parliament, Erdo?an had set his sights on the presidency. Soon after the 2011 elections, he began campaigning for a third set of constitutional amendments, this time to shift the structure of government from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The Gezi protests suggested real resistance to the change ? the move was widely seen as a power grab. Until now the presidency had been a largely ceremonial office, but the popular mandate possessed by a directly elected president would inevitably mean that the executive would gain more power. There was little doubt that Erdo?an would win ? the only question was whether he would get an outright majority in the first round of voting. In the run-up to the election, Erdo?an was widely accused of financing his campaign with public funds and engaging in classic vote-buying schemes, such as distributing free coal and handing out food and clothes. In the end, he did win in the first round, receiving 51.8 per cent of the vote, against 38.4 per cent for Ekmeleddin Ihsano?lu, a moderate Islamist, the candidate of the main opposition parties. The more surprising result was that the HDP candidate, Selahattin Demirta?, a human rights lawyer, got nearly 10 per cent of the vote. The emergence of Demirta? as a significant figure may have played a role in ending the AKP?s support for the Kurdish ?solution process?. Between 2009 and 2011, the AKP had taken part in talks with Kurdish rebels in an attempt to end the thirty-year conflict with the PKK, which sought to establish an independent Kurdish state, a demand later reduced to autonomy. Erdo?an acknowledged for the first time in December 2012 that the government had been negotiating with the Abdullah ?calan, the PKK?s jailed leader. By March 2013 talks had progressed sufficiently that a letter from ?calan announcing a ceasefire and the PKK?s withdrawal from Turkey was published and widely disseminated. After the withdrawal of PKK forces into northern Iraq the following month, the government declared an end to the conflict and convened a commission to build popular support for the ?solution process?. This met with enormous public enthusiasm ? a poll conducted in May 2013 put support at 81 per cent in the south-east. Erdo?an, with his eye on the 2014 presidential elections, hoped to translate this enthusiasm into votes. But the peace process soon unravelled as a result of two major developments. First, the Syrian civil war gave Syrian Kurds the opportunity to form a de facto autonomous region, known as Rojava. Turkey had initially adopted a strong anti-Assad line, and allowed its border with Syria to be used as a conduit for supplies and funds to Syrian opposition forces, as well as a route for Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict. But the existence of a Kurdish-controlled territory, within a few miles of its south-eastern towns and cities, unnerved both the AKP and the Turkish army, which was wary of international support for PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish militias just across the porous border, and of their military prowess. As a result, during the siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani by Islamic State in the autumn of 2014, Erdo?an blocked international and local efforts to shore up Kurdish defences. Perhaps the more important development from Erdo?an?s perspective, however, was the rising popularity of the HDP both in the south-east and nationally. He won the presidency in 2014 easily enough, but the party was not polling at its usual levels in the lead-up to the June 2015 parliamentary elections. In the spring of 2015 Erdo?an complained that the AKP was bearing the burden of the peace process while the HDP was reaping its rewards. Having imagined himself as the architect of a new Turkey that would bring peace to the south-east and replace an ethnic conception of citizenship with a religious one, Erdo?an found it intolerable that a peaceful, pluralistic country might have to endure a system of shared governance. Demirta? campaigned against Erdo?an?s plans for a new presidential system of government and developed an electoral platform that would appeal not only to Kurdish constituencies but also Alevis, liberals, women, workers and young people. As the HDP gained ground, Erdo?an broke off talks with ?calan in April 2015 and began courting Turkish nationalists. ?calan was returned to solitary confinement and visitors were again forbidden to visit him. The election realised Erdo?an?s worst fears, with the AKP?s vote share falling by 9 per cent to just over 40 per cent. The HDP won 80 seats in parliament, with more than 13 per cent of the vote, becoming the first pro-Kurdish party to exceed the electoral threshold. The combination of the AKP?s weaker showing and a fourth party taking seats in parliament meant Erdo?an no longer had an absolute majority, leaving the AKP unable to form a single-party government for the first time in more than a decade. Worse still, the HDP had denied Erdo?an a clear majority for the proposed constitutional amendments necessary to create a presidential system. Erdo?an responded to this setback with the most ruthless gamble of his career. He began a new military campaign against the Kurdish rebels and pursued an alliance with the right-wing nationalist MHP. Over the summer of 2015, Islamic State fighters stepped up attacks on Kurdish targets in Turkey, including a particularly vicious bombing in the town of Suru? which killed 33 Kurdish youth activists who were preparing for a humanitarian mission to Kobani. Many Kurds blamed the government for failing to prevent this and other terrorist attacks. Days after the bombing, two Turkish counterterrorism police officers were found dead. The PKK claimed responsibility as revenge for Suru?. Erdo?an seized on these killings as an excuse to declare an end to the peace process. Turkey had joined the American-led anti-IS coalition that summer, allowing coalition airstrikes to be launched from its airbases. The pattern of Turkish airstrikes made clear, however, that the true target of Turkey?s efforts was the PKK: fire was focused on the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq, where the PKK leadership was based. These strikes led to massive protests in the cities of the south-east; soon, the Turkish military was targeting those cities. In April 2015, Diyarbak?r had welcomed delegations of diaspora Armenians marking the centenary of the genocide. By the end of the year, much of its old town, together with other Kurdish centres like Cizre and Nusaybin, had been reduced to rubble by the Turkish army. This ferocious military campaign was in some ways more intense than the low-grade civil war of the 1990s. By March 2017 the United Nations issued a report which used satellite imagery to show the scale of the destruction and detailed serious human rights violations. The military onslaught displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. It also represented a profiteering opportunity: in 2016, it emerged that the Turkish state had agreed to pay more than $36 million for the purchase of drones from a company owned by the family of another of Erdo?an?s sons-in-law, Sel?uk Bayraktar. The significance of Syria in Erdo?an?s about-face on the Kurds pointed to changes in Turkey?s foreign policy. During its first two terms, the AKP had shifted Turkey from an exclusive focus on Washington and Brussels to a broader regional engagement. Initially, this meant deepening trade ties with the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East, and in 2010 Turkey announced plans for a free trade zone with Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, while its then foreign minister, Ahmet Davuto?lu, outlined a vision for co-operation with the Arab world. After the 2011 uprisings, the AKP presented the country as a model to be emulated in the Middle East. Erdo?an called on Assad to liberalise, and within months he had allowed opposition groups to set up headquarters on Turkish territory. South-eastern cities like Gaziantep were soon awash in Gulf financiers and arms dealers meeting with various Syrian opposition factions, while Turkey absorbed millions of Syrian refugees fleeing the fighting. But after the rise of Islamic State in 2014, as the US began to carry out military operations in partnership with Syrian Kurdish militias, Turkey found itself facing the prospect of Nato arms and funds going to PKK-affiliated groups. As a result, its objectives shifted from the overthrow of Assad to countering the advance of Kurdish militias and limiting Syrian Kurdish control of a region on the Turkish border. Erdo?an?s military campaign against Kurdish targets inside Turkey was both an extension of his Syria policy and an effort to court the ethnonationalist vote. Following the June 2015 election, Erdo?an ? acting as de facto leader of the AKP despite the constitutional requirement for the president to renounce party affiliation ? blocked the formation of a coalition government; as president, he declared a hung parliament and called for a snap election to be held in November. The period before the new election saw a ratcheting up of violence in the Kurdish south-east and suppression of Kurdish political organising nationwide. The message of the pro-government press ? which, by this time, meant the vast majority of the media ? was that only an AKP government could save the country from terrorism and chaos. The AKP cast itself as the only party capable of ending the violence while framing the HDP as a party of terrorists. By November, the military campaign in the south-east had made it difficult for the region?s electorate to get to the polls, depressing the HDP vote; it also drew ultra-nationalists away from the MHP. Erdo?an?s gamble paid off handsomely: the AKP got 49.5 per cent of the vote and a comfortable majority. The MHP lost almost half of its votes to the AKP, but still made it past the electoral threshold, as did the HDP. There had been times in the AKP?s first terms in office when both ethnically Kurdish and ethnically Turkish citizens could imagine a conflict-free future. But Erdo?an?s AKP was at best an accidental vehicle for these hopes. The HDP is now the only political party that supports reconciliation, but as a result of a stepped-up campaign of Kurdish repression after the November 2015 election, most of its leadership is behind bars. Demirta?, the party?s co-leader, Figen Y?ksekda?, and ten other HDP members of parliament have been detained on terrorism-related charges. Prosecutors are seeking a 142-year prison sentence for Demirta?. Many Kurdish media outlets have been shut down and dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors removed, replaced by AKP-appointed ?trustees?. * The AKP?s fourth term, Erdo?an?s first as president, has been far and away the most repressive. Since 2015, the country has been dragged into a war and experienced an attempted coup; it has been ruled under a state of emergency for 21 months and counting. The AKP can be charged with crushing the country?s secularist opposition, eroding the separation of powers, waging war and embracing a hyper-chauvinist nationalism. Yet the damage caused by a schism within the AKP?s own coalition may be worse than all that. The AKP came into office intending to break the secularists? 75-year stranglehold on the state bureaucracy and courts. This was a goal shared by the movement led by Fethullah G?len from self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania (where he was driven in 1999 by the AKP?s predecessor in government, a coalition led by the Democratic Left Party, which had charged him with treason). The community to which G?len was attached followed the same Sunni Hanafi tradition as the majority of Turks, including Erdo?an. But whereas the AKP grew out of Islamist political parties affiliated with the Milli G?r?? (or ?national view?) tradition, the G?len movement emerged from a more apolitical current of thought, influenced by the Islamic scholar Said Nursi, that emphasised culture, education and morality along with a strong commitment to Turkish ethnonationalism. Despite this supposed apolitical position, during the political violence of the 1970s, when clashes between ultra-nationalist groups and leftists resulted in thousands of casualties, G?len set out to empower religiously observant young people in the Anatolian provinces to form a bulwark against the left. A system of scholarships was created to prepare a generation of religious students for national university examinations and civil service entry. In this way, young people were given a path out of their villages and provinces, an opportunity to become something other than factory or farm workers. At the same time, by preparing them for civil service exams, G?lenists were seeking to alter the composition of the state bureaucracy, gradually filling positions with religious cadres. Because the state enforced adherence to Kemalism among its bureaucrats, the G?lenists were careful not to spell this out. Instead, their efforts were presented as merely promoting social mobility. By the early 2000s, graduates of G?len preparatory programmes were increasingly well represented in the state bureaucracy. When the AKP came to power and began to challenge the secular dominance of key government positions, G?len was a natural ally. Indeed, the G?len graduates were the only group capable of providing alternative candidates to replace the Kemalists. Many commentators now believe that the AKP-G?len alliance replaced one ?deep state? with another. By the end of the AKP?s second term, the battle against the secularists had largely been won and G?lenists were filling key civil service positions. Either because the AKP no longer felt it needed to rely on G?len followers or because Erdo?an felt threatened by their dual allegiance ? or perhaps because G?len sympathisers were wary of Erdo?an?s growing authoritarianism and his overtures to the Kurds ? there was a series of public disagreements. When G?len-affiliated prosecutors questioned Erdo?an?s ally, the head of the national intelligence agency, Hakan Fidan, in an investigation that disclosed for the first time that secret talks had taken place between senior AKP officials and the PKK in 2012, it started to become clear that the presence of G?lenists in senior positions might pose a risk to the AKP. During the Gezi protests, prominent AKP members who were rumoured to have links with G?len ? including the party?s then president, Abdullah G?l ? were clearly uncomfortable with the crackdown. While Erdo?an dismissed the protesters as ?looters?, several AKP officials took a softer line. G?l himself commented that democracy cannot be reduced to elections alone, and senior ministers expressed respect for the right of non-violent protest. The G?len movement?s newspaper Zaman published criticisms of excessive police violence. In November 2013, Erdo?an announced new regulations that would result in the closure of the schools set up by the G?lenists to prepare their supporters for college and civil service entry. It was the opening salvo in an all-out war between Erdo?an and G?len. A month later, in the early morning of 17 December, the properties of more than fifty AKP members and businessmen with connections to the party were raided. Police emerged with shoeboxes stuffed with cash, reportedly confiscating as much as $17 million. The raids were the result of a year-long investigation, allegedly conducted outside the chain of command in the Ministry of Justice, into allegations of rigged state tenders and bribery. Among those detained were the construction tycoon Ali A?ao?lu, whose mega-projects made him the most prominent figure associated with AKP-backed urban redevelopment; the head of the state-owned Halkbank, S?leyman Aslan; and the Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab, who was accused of operating a money-laundering scheme in an attempt to bypass American sanctions against Iran. Prosecutors charged more than a dozen people with fraud, bribery, money laundering and gold smuggling. A separate investigation into rigged bidding for the Sabah newspaper implicated Erdo?an?s son Bilal, his son-in-law Berat Albayrak and Binali Y?ld?r?m, then minister of transport. A recording in which Erdo?an allegedly told Bilal to move tens of millions of dollars, quickly, was leaked to the press. Erdo?an insisted that the recording was fake and that the enormous volume of incriminating evidence made public by the prosecutors was all forged. In the face of mounting public outrage, four AKP ministers resigned. The prosecutor leading the investigation was Zekeriya ?z, chief prosecutor in the Ergenekon cases and, many believed, a G?lenist. The corruption allegations would of course be tried by members of a judicial branch restructured after the 2010 constitutional referendum called by the AKP. With local and presidential elections due in 2014, and with his own son and members of his immediate circle implicated, Erdo?an had to find a way to quash the investigation. On the defensive, Erdo?an claimed that the graft allegations amounted to an attempted ?judicial coup?. The G?lenists carrying out the investigation were, he said, part of a ?parallel state? which had infiltrated the police, prosecutors and judiciary. The AKP-supporting media went into overdrive. To prevent evidence from the investigation emerging, the government tightened restrictions on social media platforms and authorised the destruction of wiretap recordings. Erdo?an also borrowed from ?z?s strategy in the Ergenekon cases, describing all G?len followers as members of a treasonous organised conspiracy. ?z himself, lionised by the AKP during the Ergenekon trials, was now vilified. In January 2014, the AKP carried out the biggest purge of the judiciary in Turkish history. Within weeks, prosecutors affiliated with the case had been replaced with new appointees willing to wind down the investigation. By the end of the month, a hundred judges had been removed from their posts, and at least two thousand police and prosecutors had been fired or reassigned. Many of those who were sacked had also been involved in the Ergenekon cases, and the government now withdrew its backing of those trials. Erdo?an was prepared to free the Ergenekon defendants and even to strike an alliance with some of his secularist former rivals if that was the price of ridding himself of the G?lenist threat. One of the main defendants in the Ergenekon trials, Do?u Perin?ek, was released in March 2014 (having been given a life sentence to be served in solitary confinement) and promptly became one of Erdo?an?s closest advisers. The government introduced a bill to give the executive even greater control of judicial appointments, triggering objections from the EU. Two other new laws strengthened Erdo?an?s hand, one allowing the government greater control over the internet and the other increasing the powers of the intelligence services. The new internet regulations enabled the government to block YouTube and Twitter without a court order, limiting, on national security grounds, public access to evidence leaked online. The government intensified the purge of G?lenists in 2015, targeting the state bureaucracy as well as the private sector, seizing corporate and media assets and imposing court-appointed trustees to run expropriated businesses ? a lucrative new way of rewarding loyalists in the run-up to the parliamentary election called by Erdo?an in November 2015. By the end of that year, the government was presenting its anti-Kurdish military campaign, the purges of G?lenists and the fight against Islamic State as part of a unified effort to combat a ?cocktail of terrorism?. [ . . . ] FUUL TEXT AT: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n10/ella-george/purges-and-paranoia _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 16:09:58 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2018 00:09:58 +0400 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_19/20_July_2018_=7C_Afghanistan=3A_Black?= =?windows-1252?Q?water_plan_to_privatise_America=92s_war_/_Bangl?= =?windows-1252?Q?adesh=3A_war_on_drugs_going_beserk_/_Pakistan?= =?windows-1252?Q?=3A_July_2018_elections_-_Terrifying_Business_/?= =?windows-1252?Q?_India_resembles_Pakistan_/_Nicaragua?= Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 19/20 July 2018 - No. 2993 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: upcoming July 2018 Elections - Statements and Commentary a) Pakistan: Attempts to maneuver polls unacceptable - statement by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) b) Pakistan: July 2018 elections - the certainties | Pervez Hoodbhoy c) Pakistan: Where Democracy Is a Terrifying Business | Ali Akbar Natiq 2. India - Pakistan: - What option is there before India and Pakistan but for friendship and peace? | Sandeep Pandey - A Tale of Two Countries | Mohammed Ayoob 3. India: Communalism everyday - India: Incidents of Communal Violence - Some Data, Graphs and Statistics 2012-2017 - Shimla based Indian Institute of Advanced Study?s proposed collaboration with US-based Hindutva group has scholars worried 4. India: Inquest Report into Thoothukudi Police Violence - Press Release 5. India - Environmental issues - India: Save our cities from environmental hell - Concerned citizen?s letter to the ministers for Urban Development and Environment - Environmental movements in India ? Why they succeed or fail ? | Sagar Dhara 6. India: Concerned citizens write to Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad about due process being followed on data protection legislation 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Condemn the Attack on Swami Agnivesh by BJP's Youth Wing - Stand Up To Mobs: (edit, TOI) - How do we Promote Peace in India, Today? Ram Puniyani - Google Map on Mob Violence in India - India : A detailed report on 4 years of Modi govt released - FIFA World Cup: Croatia Team Represents the Rot in Its Society as Much as Football Excellence | Priyansh - India: Google engineer latest victim of mob lynchings fueled by WhatsApp rumors - Rumour Republic: Weaponising mobs for political gain haunts today's India | Bharat Bhushan - India: By lionising lynching convicts, Jayant Sinha is strengthening Sangh?s project to legitimise hate - India: Letter to J&K Governor Concerning the threat to the life of Sanjay Tickoo, President Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) - India: If Hate Has Been Normalised, Can WhatsApp-Triggered Lynchings Be Far Behind? Maitrayee Chaudhuri - India: Shekhar Gupta while criticising the film Sanju - omits role of Hindutva forces in Bombay violence - India: Meet Hindutva?s new warriors - All they need is sex, all they get is Twitter | Shivam Vij ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. UK: Ian Paisley apologises over holidays funded by Sri Lanka 9. Pakistan: Qandeel Baloch - The Price of Daring? | Zehra Nabi 10. Bangladesh: Two months of war against drugs - 200 dead, over 35000 arrests ? 11. Blackwater founder's plan to privatise America?s $76bn, 17-year war in Afghanistan | Kim Sengupta 12. Anger is consuming India | Nilanjana Bhowmick 13. Market intellectuals: The vacant middle | Mukul Kesavan 14. Nicaragua is on the path to becoming the next Venezuela | Ishaan Tharoor 15. Russia's 2018 World Cup run is over, but Putin ? and dictators everywhere ? are still big winners at mega-sports events | Jules Boykoff ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: UPCOMING JULY 2018 ELECTIONS - STATEMENTS AND COMMENTARY ======================================== A) PAKISTAN: ATTEMPTS TO MANEUVER POLLS UNACCEPTABLE - STATEMENT BY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN (HRCP) Islamabad, 16 July 2018. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is gravely concerned over what it sees as blatant, aggressive and unabashed attempts to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming elections. While it is critical that the polls are held as scheduled, there are now ample grounds to doubt their legitimacy ? with alarming implications for Pakistan?s transition to an effective democracy. http://www.sacw.net/article13836.html B) PAKISTAN: JULY 2018 ELECTIONS - THE CERTAINTIES | PERVEZ HOODBHOY It is rare for elections to leave democracy weaker, not stronger. But this is what will happen after July 25. Whether the PML-N, headed by Shahbaz Sharif wins or, instead, the PTI and Imran Khan, is a relatively small matter. The post-election certainties are far more significant ? and portentous. http://www.sacw.net/article13831.html C) PAKISTAN: WHERE DEMOCRACY IS A TERRIFYING BUSINESS | ALI AKBAR NATIQ The practice of democracy in the countryside is almost invisible to the television anchors and columnists and other influential urban compatriots who pay American prices for a cup of coffee in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. http://www.sacw.net/article13835.html ======================================== 2. INDIA - PAKISTAN: - What option is there before India and Pakistan but for friendship and peace? | Sandeep Pandey - A Tale of Two Countries | Mohammed Ayoob ======================================== WHAT OPTION IS THERE BEFORE INDIA AND PAKISTAN BUT FOR FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE? Sandeep Pandey The India Pakistan Friendship and Peace March from Ahmedabad to Nada Bet during 19 to 29 June, 2018 concluded successfully even though Ahmedabad Police detained the marchers for about 3 hours at the beginning as soon as it started from Gandhi Ashram and Border Security Force didn?t give permission to the march at the fag end from Nadeshwari Mata Mandir to the border, a distance of 25 km. Hence the total distance of this march on foot was curtailed to about 250 km. The March was taken out to demand from the Governments of India and Pakistan to reach an agreement to stop killing each other?s soldiers on border. http://www.sacw.net/article13824.html o o A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES | Mohammed Ayoob It is disturbing how much India has begun to emulate Pakistan http://www.sacw.net/article13830.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: COMMUNALISM EVERYDAY ======================================== INDIA: INCIDENTS OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE - SOME DATA, GRAPHS AND STATISTICS 2012-2017 Some statistical data resources on communal violence in India http://www.sacw.net/article13795.html SHIMLA BASED INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY?S PROPOSED COLLABORATION WITH US-BASED HINDUTVA GROUP HAS SCHOLARS WORRIED The Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla is changing and in ways some of its research fellows find troubling. In the past few months, this premier research institution in the humanities and social sciences has organised several lectures by Hindutva ideologues such as Rajiv Malhotra of the New Jersey-based Infinity Foundation and Ashok G Modak, a former Bharatiya Janata Party member of the Legislative Council in Maharashtra. Malhotra?s organisation promotes Hindutva views on Indian history and culture and counters Western academic research in those fields. The subject of Modak?s lecture was Swami Vivekanand and Veer Savarkar. http://www.sacw.net/article13833.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: INQUEST REPORT INTO THOOTHUKUDI POLICE VIOLENCE - PRESS RELEASE ======================================== 14 July, 2018. CHENNAI ? Citing evidence pointing to violation of Standard Operating Procedures, a total breakdown of civilian authority and possible malafide intent and murder, a 23-member team of retired judges, senior bureaucrats and police officers, and social activists have called for a full administrative and criminal investigations into the 22 May 2018 Thoothukudi police firings and violence that resulted in the deaths of 14 people. http://www.sacw.net/article13832.html ======================================== 5. INDIA - ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ======================================== INDIA: SAVE OUR CITIES FROM ENVIRONMENTAL HELL - CONCERNED CITIZEN?S LETTER TO THE MINISTERS FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT http://www.sacw.net/article13828.html ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS IN INDIA ? WHY THEY SUCCEED OR FAIL ? by Sagar Dhara Synopsis of talk on environmental issues, 8 July 2018, Hyderabad [India] http://www.sacw.net/article13825.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: CONCERNED CITIZENS WRITE TO MINISTER RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD ABOUT DUE PROCESS BEING FOLLOWED ON DATA PROTECTION LEGISLATION ======================================== Over 150 concerned citizens write to Cabinet Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad about the pre-legislative process being followed on data protection legislation http://www.sacw.net/article13834.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Condemn the Attack on Swami Agnivesh by BJP's Youth Wing - India: Eminent social activist Swami Agnivesh assaulted by BJP?s youth wing in Jharkhand | countercurrents.org - Stand Up To Mobs: SC realised gravity of lynching menace, proceeded full throttle. Government must follow (edit, TOI) - How do we Promote Peace in India, Today? Ram Puniyani - India: Swami Agnivesh assaulted by BJP workers in Jharkhand - Google Map on Mob Violence in India [Since Jan 2017 to-date, at least 74 such mob attacks were reported in which 36 have been killed] - India : A detailed report on 4 years of Modi govt released - India: Elderly Muslim man who survived Hapur lynching recounts the terror, seeks a fair investigation | report in scroll.in - FIFA World Cup: Croatia Team Represents the Rot in Its Society as Much as Football Excellence | Priyansh - India: Google engineer latest victim of mob lynchings fueled by WhatsApp rumors - Rumour Republic: Weaponising mobs for political gain haunts today's India | Bharat Bhushan - India: By lionising lynching convicts, Jayant Sinha is strengthening Sangh?s project to legitimise hate - Emergency in India Different from Fascism in Germany - India: Letter to J&K Governor Concerning the threat to the life of Sanjay Tickoo, President Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) - India: Why silence over vigilante violence is dangerous | Tabish Khair - India: The Hindu on governments' response to lynchings - India: If Hate Has Been Normalised, Can WhatsApp-Triggered Lynchings Be Far Behind? Maitrayee Chaudhuri - India: Shekhar Gupta while criticising the film Sanju - omits role of Hindutva forces in Bombay violence - India: Meet Hindutva?s new warriors - All they need is sex, all they get is Twitter | Shivam Vij - India: A Senior Minister in the Modi Govt Jayant Sinha Fetes Ramgarh Lynching Convicts as They Get - Hindi article-Differences between Emergency and Fasicsm - India: Apoorvanand on the complete banalisation of mob violence - video from a NDTV discussion on Lynchings [in Hindi] - Rumours Can Kill - cartoon by Hemant Morparia - India: Some Data, Graphs and Statistics on Incidents of Communal Violence 2012-2017 -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. UK: IAN PAISLEY APOLOGISES OVER HOLIDAYS FUNDED BY SRI LANKA ======================================== The Irish Times 19 July 2018 Ian Paisley apologises over holidays funded by Sri Lanka Emotional MP pleads with constituents to continue to have confidence in him Denis Staunton London DUP MP Ian Paisley made an emotional apology to the House of Commons for failing to disclose two paid family holidays to Sri Lanka. Video: Parliamentlive.tv DUP MP Ian Paisley has made an emotional statement to the House of Commons, apologising for his failure to declare two luxury holidays that were paid for by the Sri Lankan government. A parliamentary watchdog has called for the North Antrim MP to be suspended for 30 sitting days because he failed to declare the holidays, which were worth more than ?50,000. The trips also included meeting with Sri Lankan governmental figures. The threshold for registering such hospitality in 2013 was around ?660. He subsequently wrote a letter to the prime minister arguing on behalf of the Sri Lankan government. Mr Paisley has faced calls to resign his seat and there is a prospect of a by-election as a consequence of the sanction. At times struggling to maintain his composure, Mr Paisley apologised to the House, to his colleagues in the DUP and to his constituents. ?I take my duties as a Member of Parliament seriously. I believe that I conduct myself with colleagues with integrity and openness, which is why I have such remorse about the matter, as I believe it goes against the grain of who I am, especially how it is portrayed,? he said. ?It is to my constituents, who have sent me here since 2010, that I make the profoundest of all apologies. They have honoured me with unwavering support to be their voice and I hope that they will continue to have that confidence in me in the future.? Denied When the Daily Telegraph broke the story of Mr Paisley?s holidays in Sri Lanka, where he was accompanied by his family, he initially denied the reports and threatened to sue the newspaper. The holidays included business-class air travel, accommodation at first-class hotels, helicopter trips and visits to tourist attractions for Mr Paisley and his family. Mr Paisley said that mistakes made by those in public life were amplified and that they ought to be. ?That is the nature of the job that all of us do and all of us understand that. However, I believe in a politics and in politicians who can admit to human frailty, who can apologise, mean it, and move on, because that is what real life is all about,? he said. ?It is often said that it is how we respond to these challenges in our lives that defines who and what we are, and defines our character and demonstrates to us where the true source of our personal strength rests. The 8th-century prophet Isaiah said, ?You were angry with me, that anger has turned away, you comfort me.? I hope to learn that lesson.? The Commons Standards Committee on Wednesday outlined the sanction for Mr Paisley, son of late DUP founder the Rev Ian Paisley, saying he had committed ?serious misconduct? and his actions ?were of a nature to bring the House of Commons into disrepute?. Mr Paisley?s potential suspension would start in September if MPs approve it. Members who are suspended from the Commons for more than 10 days are open to a recall petition. A by-election would be triggered if 10 per cent of the electorate in Mr Paisley?s North Antrim constituency sign that petition.? PA ======================================== 9. PAKISTAN: QANDEEL BALOCH - THE PRICE OF DARING? by Zehra Nabi ======================================== Newsline, July issue 2018 July 16, 2018 The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch Author Sanam Maher The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch does not provide an exhaustively detailed account of the social media celebrity?s life. And that is, somewhat surprisingly, one of the greatest strengths of this book. In her author?s note, Sanam Maher reveals that it was only days into investigating Qandeel?s life that she became disillusioned with the process. She describes how some of the people she interviewed seemed to offer scripted answers while others were contemptuous of the attention the slain celebrity was bringing to Shah Sadar Din, the village that Qandeel grew up in. It is in the author?s note that Maher talks about how she had to abandon her original quest to unearth the real story of Qandeel?s life. She writes: ?It took me some time to realise that even if Qandeel had been available to me, sitting right in front of me, it would not have made a great difference to (my) understanding of her.? It?s an important confession to make in the author?s note as it signals to the reader that this is not going to be a typical biography, and certainly not one of those exploitative ones hoping to cash in on the death of a famous and controversial figure. Instead, what Maher offers is something far more imaginative and intelligent. The Sensational Life and Death provides Qandeel?s trajectory from a child in Shah Sadar Din mimicking the pouting expressions of heroines on television to a young woman in Karachi making similar pouting expressions for hundreds of thousands of viewers on Facebook. This trajectory provides the book with its skeletal structure. But for the flesh and the skin, Maher offers a series of mini-portraits of Pakistanis associated with Qandeel (some intimately, others only very tenuously). It?s a strategy that should not work, but it does. By moving away from Qandeel and describing the lives of these others, the reader is given a more holistic view of the worlds that Qandeel traversed in her short life. To switch metaphors, Maher creates a mosaic-life effect and approximates a portrait of Qandeel by offering us smaller portraits of others. And it is a very colourful cast of others: There?s Adil Nizami, the reporter who not only broke the news of Qandeel?s death but also recorded a video of her dead body with his cellphone. The clip was widely circulated on the internet and later, he questions why he ever filmed it in the first place. There is Mec, the media event coordinator, who works with models that are unlikely to ever become household names. Qandeel, however, was one of the few exceptions that he had the chance to work with. There is Khushi Khan, one of these struggling models, who at 29 is already feeling ?aged-out? of the industry and now aspires to survive in Islamabad by becoming a personal trainer. There is Sabiha, the young respectable housewife from Multan who auditions for Pakistan Idol only to get rejected. She cusses out the show in front of the cameras, but her cameo is quickly eclipsed by Qandeel?s audition. There is Arshad Khan, more easily identifiable as the blue-eyed Chaiwalla who, like Qandeel, knows a thing or two about virality and overnight fame. There is Nighat Dad, the lawyer and internet activist who helped set up Pakistan?s first cybercrime hotline. There is Mufti Qavi who Qandeel famously posed with in a selfie. In one of the many memorable scenes of the book, he keeps beckoning Maher to sit closer to him during their interview. Come closer, he says, patting the floor, closer. And there?s Qandeel?s family: the grieving parents and (lurking in the shadows of the narrative), the brother who killed her. People who were close to Qandeel reveal a woman who was as fearful as she was confident, who would lock herself up in her apartment in the fear of losing her life and also share herself?or at least a persona that she carefully crafted for herself ? with countless strangers online. And those who did not know her are included to reveal the ephemerality of fame and the visceral struggle that often accompanies it. In the scene where young models coo at Mec and show him their outfits for approval, the reader can easily imagine Qandeel out-cooing the others with aplomb. When Maher, in one of my favourite sections of the book, goes to interview Arshad Khan, we see the painful process of becoming media-ready when your upbringing mainly prepared you for a life of physical labour. In this chapter, Maher describes how Arshad struggles with recording a congratulatory message for a local TV show. Despite being tutored by his manager, the words don?t come out right and he struggles with what readers of this book would find to be commonplace English words. The point of this anecdote is not to belittle Arshad?s pronunciation, but to show how alienating the world of fast fame can be. Maher observes: ?They do one take, and then another. Sometimes, Arshad forgets the name of the man he is congratulating. Other times he forgets to sound happy. He stumbles on the words ?hundred? and ?episode.? He sounds morose.? But Arshad is not Qandeel. While fame captured him, she courted it herself. Maher describes how Qandeel would quiz a reporter about what was of interest to people lately: What is trending right now, she tries to find out. Cricket? Politics? Football? She wants to make videos on anything that people are discussing ? because in this way, they will also discuss her. This paragraph is followed by: ?I act from the heart and I think from the heart. I?m not desperate for fame. Fame is chasing me. I?m not chasing it.? Reading the book, there are instances where the reader may wonder how Maher assembled these anecdotes and quotes from Qandeel?s life. The book offers notes at the end, but there are no footnotes or parenthetical attributions of these sources in the main body of the narrative. But this is not a criticism: it is easy to imagine the anecdotes as having been gleaned from interviews and that the quotes could be from the many Facebook posts and interviews of Qandeel that are readily available online. If there are criticisms of this book, they are minor. In her author?s note, Maher mentions that some names have been changed for privacy reasons, but the omission of certain details seem coyly ? dare I add, irritatingly ? evasive. Qandeel?s audition clip for Pakistan Idol has nearly ten million views on YouTube, and yet Maher refuses to name any of the three judges in her lengthy exegesis of it. A BBC correspondent who interviewed Qandeel is only referred to as Amber, while other journalists mentioned in the book have their full names included. The Sind Club is somewhat unnecessarily mentioned in the book, only to be obliquely referred to as the old club that once did not welcome women or dogs. These flaws, thankfully, are trivial and infrequent. The Sensational Life and Death often reads more like a work of fiction than non-fiction. But in the best ways possible. By avoiding false promises of delivering the real story of what happened to Qandeel, Maher allows the reader to focus on the kinds of people and places that create women like her and then destroy them. Occasionally the scenes feel too composed, too contrived, but those moments are rare. Maher?s prose is finely tuned, but does not draw attention to itself. Her observations can be critical and sympathetic, and are often both at the same time. She is the rare writer who can put together Qandeel?s story, as well as the stories of so many others, with not just skill but also faithfulness. Zehra Nabi is a graduate student in The Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University. She previously worked at Newsline and The Express Tribune. ======================================== 10. BANGLADESH: TWO MONTHS OF WAR AGAINST DRUGS - 200 DEAD, OVER 35000 ARRESTS ? ======================================== Deux mois de "guerre contre la drogue" au Bangladesh: 200 morts, 25.000 arrestations, et beaucoup de questions [a report in French] http://u.afp.com/omt7 37,225 arrested since May 18: Amu http://www.newagebd.net/article/46322/37225-arrested-since-may-18-amu ======================================== 11. EXCLUSIVE: BLACKWATER FOUNDER'S PLAN TO PRIVATISE AMERICA?S $76BN, 17-YEAR WAR IN AFGHANISTAN by Kim Sengupta ======================================== The Independent [UK] 10 July 2018 In a rare interview, Erik Prince speaks in depth about his pitch to Trump and Pompeo to slash costs by shifting military operations to an international team of 'contractors' ?Donald Trump is expected to ask European countries at this week?s Nato summit, one of the most crucial and contentious in the history of the alliance, to step up and contribute more troops for the war in Afghanistan. Other member states, already facing an onslaught from the US president over their shortfalls in defence spending, and facing the threat of funding cuts, are likely to acquiesce. Britain, for example, is expected to double the size of its force to just over 1,200. But Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, probably the most well-known private security company in the world, is adamant that increasing troops in Afghanistan is the worst thing the United State?s allies can do. EU warns Donald Trump: 'Appreciate your allies, you don't have many' ?It will be reinforcing a strategy which is a failure ? something which has not worked, will not work and needlessly cost lives,? he wanted to stress. The billionaire, who currently heads a private equity firm, has his own plans for turning around the Afghan war ? one which he described to The Independent. ?What Mr Trump really should be saying to Nato is that there is no point in sending more troops: they should be sending money instead. ?During his election campaign, Mr Trump rightly condemned America?s wasteful wars abroad, so what is the point in keeping on adding to the numbers in Afghanistan? US secretary of state Mike Pompeo arrives at Camp Alvarado in Kabul on Monday (Reuters) ?The US administration is spending $76bn a year in Afghanistan ? that is much more, I think, than Her Majesty?s Government in the UK is spending on its entire defence budget. ?What I am proposing will cost a fraction of that. It will also save lives of armed forces personnel: American, British, Afghans and other allies.? What Mr Prince is proposing, in essence, is privatising the war, although he would prefer to call it ?rationalising and restructuring?. It was a strategy he put forward once before to the White House, where it received the backing of Steve Bannon, then Mr Trump?s chief strategist, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. But it was rejected by senior members of the administration, with the then national security advisor Lieutenant General HR McMaster the strongest critic, and secretary of state Rex Tillerson and defence secretary general James Mattis also not in favour. But there have been changes, with the extraordinary churn, in the Trump administration, and the current secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and national security advisor John Bolton will be much more receptive, Mr Prince believes, to his plan. General Mattis, he said, agreed with his analysis of the problems in Afghanistan but disagreed with his solution. The president himself, who has railed repeatedly about the cost of the United State?s military deployed abroad, had shown interest, although Mr Prince, whose sister Betsy DeVos is Mr Trump?s education secretary, is yet to meet him to discuss the matter. Mr Pompeo maintained in Afghanistan on Monday that Mr Trump?s current strategy was working. The Taliban, he said, can no longer rely on waiting for US forces to pull out. One of the criticisms of the end of the combat mission by international forces in 2013 was that the decision to withdraw was telegraphed long in advance, enabling the insurgents to bide their time in their camps in Pakistan, and then move back across the border to carry out relentless attacks in a security vacuum. The backers of the privatisation plan stress that to avoid that happening again, and to follow Mr Trump?s policy of result-based rather than time-based disengagement, leaders in the West will have to commit troops for an indefinite period. And, in those circumstances, using private security companies will be a much more politically palatable option, avoiding scenes of bodybags coming back home for years to come. Something like this will raise all kinds of practical and logistical problems as well as huge legal, moral and ethical ones Pentagon official Mr Prince?s and other such plans may well be assessed, say some US diplomatic sources ? and some aspects, if not the whole package, could be utilised in the future. Others, however, remain dismissive. ?This is something out of Soldier of Fortune [magazine]. Something like this will raise all kinds of practical and logistical problems, as well as huge legal, moral and ethical ones?, a Pentagon official commented. ?The military are not going to back this kind of freewheeling.? [afghanistan-australian-troops.jpg] Australian soldiers in Afghanistan?s southern province of Uruzgan (AFP/Getty) Mr Prince, a former US Navy Seal, calls his programme ?a strategic economy of force?. His suggestion centres on small teams of armed private contractors, not ?mercenaries?, largely composed of former members of Western forces, mentoring Afghan troops ? living, training and going into battle with them ? supported by aircraft flown by contractors with Afghan co-pilots. ?All this has been properly costed: we need 90 aircraft, attack helicopters, transport, medivac. We know about conditions there, 26 of my own helicopters had flown there. We have identified the aircraft, got the serial numbers of those we would need to buy. The DoD [Department of Defence] sent $100m fast-jets to take out $100 opium fields, we won?t be doing anything like that,? he said. ?The Afghan Air Force only began to get trained by the US as late as 2007, and there is a lot to do. In the meantime, they need to get all the support they can get. ?Under our plan, the aircraft will be flown by contractors but the targeting will be done by Afghans, so the final authority for taking action will rest with them.? It is, nonetheless, a highly controversial proposal, made more so, in many minds, because of the record Mr Prince?s former company attracted in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most notorious episode was in Baghdad, in 2007, in which 17 civilians were killed by Blackwater guards. I was reporting from Iraq at the time and got caught up in the prolonged shooting in Nisour Square: it was carnage, an unnerving experience. Defenders of Blackwater say that a few bad incidents have been used by critics to denigrate the company, ignoring valuable work carried out in highly dangerous places. Mr Prince will make money from the Afghan project if he is associated with it, but claims the main point is that someone takes it up. Mr Prince, who has sold his interests in the comany since then, holds that figures show the obvious economic advantage of his blueprint. At present there are 15,000 US troops and around 5,000 from other countries and also, little known, almost 30,000 private contractors in Afghanistan. That is as well as American combat aircraft, At the height of the ?surge? under Barack Obama, the International Security Assistance Force reached a total of 140,000. Mr Prince first put forward his strategy around a year ago to the White House. [us-drones.jpg] A US Air Force drone in flight over southern Afghanistan (Rex) Speaking of its strongest critic, the then national security advisor, Mr Prince said: ?McMaster was a three star [general] who wanted to be a four star, and simply would not accept anything like this which was not conventional. ?I heard President Trump read about my plans in the Oval Office and told McMaster that he preferred it to his plans, so perhaps I got off on the wrong foot with McMaster. ?But McMaster was at the time proposing sending 70,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, so obviously he would not have liked what I was suggesting.? Mr Prince, who now works for the Chinese-owned Frontier Services Group, spoke from Spain, where he was en route to the Democratic Republic of Congo, about a more positive response from Mike Pompeo and how Mr Bolton may react. ?I have spoken to him, he was interested in what I had to say,? he said of Mr Pompeo. ?I have yet to discuss this with John Bolton but, looking at his background, he would not want, I think, to stick with a conventional strategy which is not working. I will certainly be taking this matter further in the next few months?, he said Far fewer boots on the ground would also help to address the issue of malign interference in Afghanistan from Pakistan, where elements of the military and the secret police (ISI) have sponsored the Taliban and other insurgent groups, according to Mr Prince. ?Despite all the complaints about Pakistani support for the Taliban, and the fact they harboured Osama Bin Laden actually in their military academy, we are still being played by Pakistan. ?At the moment we have to depend on supply lines through Pakistan for 15,000 troops and 30,000 support. We would no longer need that that level of logistical support. ?Supplies can be brought in through Uzbekistan. Then the squeeze can be put on the Pakistani leadership for all the heinous support they have been giving to the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Daesh [Isis],? he said. Mr Prince spoke to Mr Pompeo when he was the head of the CIA, before being brought over to the State Department by Mr Trump. And the CIA, the Mr Prince wanted to point out, along with special operations forces, had played a key part in bringing down the Taliban regime in 2001, using the same kind of warfare he is proposing. ?After 9/11, a handful of CIA and SF defeated the Taliban. The Taliban are not 10 feet tall, they can be beaten with the right tools, the right men. ?And it won?t be just Americans. These mentors could be from Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa, anybody with a good rugby team,? was his view. There are other issues which may distract Mr Prince. Special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating whether Donald Trump was the Muscovite candidate for the White House, is looking at Mr Prince?s meeting with a Russian fund manager in the Seychelles. Mr Prince, who insisted the meeting was purely by chance, said he has ?no concern at all? about the probe, and has voluntarily given investigators access to his telephones and computers. He remains, he said, focused on Afghanistan and wanted to give his project a historical context. There are British elements to that. His suggestion is that there should be a viceroy figure, as it was under the British Raj, who would command policy and budget and report directly to President Trump. This will prevent near constant changes in command and lack of continuity in policies, said Mr Prince. [us-army.jpg] A US army crew chief, on board a CH-47F Chinook helicopter, observes the successful test of flares during a training flight in Afghanistan (Reuters) An example of the mentoring system would be the East India Company, which created its own empire in India. ?The East India Company, a small Western group using local resources; the East India Company operated for 200-plus years, they deployed with a model of one mentor to 20 local troops... I am not advocating colonisation, of course, let?s leave aside the politics,? said Mr Prince. But one cannot really leave aside the politics or history in Afghanistan, and views on the East India Company vary according to the vantage point. It certainly made a massive amount of money for its shareholders and the British Crown but is viewed in India as a vehicle for brutal exploitation. Its policies led to a nationwide conflict ? one the British call the Indian Mutiny, and the Indian?s label as the First War of Independence, resulting in the British government taking over from the East India Company. Robert Clive ? ?Clive of India? ? who had vastly extended the company?s territory, was put on trial before parliament back in London for alleged abuse and corruption. The quasi viceroy had a lonely and violent end to his life: committing suicide by stabbing himself in the throat with a penknife. ======================================== 12. ANGER IS CONSUMING INDIA by Nilanjana Bhowmick ======================================== The Washington Post July 5, 2018 Indians are angry. On Sunday, five agricultural laborers were lynched by a mob of nearly 3,000 people in the Dhule district in Maharashtra. The local people were alerted by a fake WhatsApp message about child kidnappers and accused the laborers of being ?child-lifters.? Their deaths were just the latest in a series of WhatsApp-related killings in the country. In recent weeks, there has been an outpouring of shock and protests over the lynching of two men in Karbi Anglong, in the northeastern state of Assam, over suspicions of them being child kidnappers. In that episode, an unsubstantiated rumor that originated in a video that went viral on social media. And in Jharkhand last May, seven people, including two brothers, were beaten to death by mobs in two attacks over child-kidnapping rumors in areas dominated by tribal populations. We see this rising anger in the increasing popularity of hardline Hindutva groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and their open-arms training in Indian cities.. The CIA recently classified the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, two Hindu-right extremist groups infamous for their Islamophobia, as ?militant religious organizations.? It can be seen in the venomous posters and car stickers of the Hindu god Hanuman that has become the face of militant Hinduism. It can be seen in sword-wielding right wingers parading in broad day light claiming ?India is Ours?. We also see this anger in the vitriol that Hindutva online trolls unleash daily against minorities and women. A report by Minority Rights Group International said that ?since the 2014 election victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi, there has been a climate of rising Hindu nationalism. This has in turn seen the promotion of an increasingly exclusionary environment, reflected in the advancement of policies and legislation . . . that discriminate against religious minorities.? Indeed, dozens of hate crimes against Muslims have taken place around the country. At least 10 Muslim men have been lynchedand many others injured by vigilante cow-protection groups, as the government snoozed. Earlier this year, the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl sparked wide outrage in India. The girl was attacked by a group of Hindu men for days. They held her hostage in a temple, drugged and unconscious, and raped her repeatedly to teach her Muslim nomadic tribe a lesson and to force them to move out of the area. It was the pinnacle of Hindu anger against Muslims. ?Religious minority groups, particularly Muslims, faced increasing demonization by hard-line Hindu groups, pro-government media and some state officials,? an Amnesty International report on India said. ?Mob violence intensified, including by vigilante cow protection groups,? the report added. According to the report, in 2016, more than 40,000 crimes against Scheduled Castes were reported, including attacks on the lower caste Dalits by upper caste Indians. In May of that year, two Dalit men were killed, several injured, and dozens of Dalit homes torched by upper caste men in Saharanpur, in northern India?s Uttar Pradesh, following a clash between the communities. In March, mobs carried out a series of racist attacks against black African students in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Statistics showed that more than 338,000 crimes against women were registered in 2016. However, the Karbi Anglong incident is testimony to a much larger and more dangerous trend. In the Karbi Anglong incident, there was no religious or communal angle. The two Assamese men, who had been passing through Karbi Anglong had stopped to ask for directions and were mistaken for the child kidnappers that the villagers had been warned of in the WhatsApp video. They were mistaken for child kidnappers mainly on the basis of suspicion, because they did not speak the local dialect and were dressed differently; basically, they were outsiders. What stands out in the Karbi Anglong video is unbridled, savage anger. It points to the unshakable fact that much of India has been overtaken by a sense of insecurity, fear and paranoia. This anger is now targeted against anything that doesn?t fit our narrow definitions. The anger could be over differences in religion, caste, community, or merely way of life. In India, where no two people look the same or share the same language, unfamiliarity had always been exciting, or curiosity-provoking. Now it provokes fear and insecurity. Maybe in India, we are all outsiders now. Nilanjana Bhowmick is a journalist and writer in India. ======================================== 13. MARKET INTELLECTUALS: THE VACANT MIDDLE Mukul Kesavan ======================================== The Telegraph Jul 01, 2018 Pundits will tell you that a lot of them endorsed Narendra Modi (and his baggage train of violent vigilantes and drilled Golwalkarites) in 2014 because they thought he would privatize Air India. Even when once pro-Modi commentators shyly channel buyer's remorse about the prime minister, they end by writing that if Modi were to sell off Air India, he would repay their political investment in him, renew their faith in the National Democratic Alliance and refresh Modi's credentials as a modernizer or 'reformer' or whatever the latest term of art is for Davos Man. Selling Air India is shorthand for economic rationality. Economic rationality is a mantra which, chanted loudly enough, builds a wall of noise which keeps the soundtrack of lynchings and suicides off-stage. These casualties can be waved away as acceptable collateral damage, the price India must pay for a muscular leader capable of selling the short-term pain of market rationality to the masses. Elected sadhvis, sadhus, mahants and pant-shirt bigots tell us exactly what they think of Muslims, Christians and Dalits and what they plan to do to them; WhatsApp mobs kill people in the name of protecting cows from slaughter or children from abduction; a vigilante with a history of violent affray is elevated by the ruling party to the chief ministership of India's most populated province and still these opinion-mongers see and hear nothing. Where others hear mobs shouting 'maar', ' kaat', these high priests of the invisible hand, these pragmatic centrists, these world-weary veterans of the wars against the License Raj, cup their ears and and hear the aspiring masses chanting 'Mar-ket, mar-ket, mar-ket!' Some of these sages can claim the virtue of consistency. One, for example, candidly admitted that he endorsed Modi in 2014 because he thought that communalism was an acceptable price to pay for economic growth. Four years down the line he said he would do it again because the lack of economic growth was due to global trends, not Modi's policies; the gau rakshasas and their lynched victims were statistically insignificant and, best of all, there had been no State-sponsored pogroms on Modi's watch. This smooth willingness to grant Modi absolution for not delivering on his original promise, economic growth, while blandly normalizing the savagery that bloomed around this regime's footprint, is one way in which the discourse of economic reform is used: to clear a space for barbarism. It also has the advantage of deodorizing the pundit's journey to the smelly reaches of the Hindu Right. But market rationality has other political uses beyond the whitewashing of majoritarianism. It is also a useful way of crab-walking to a centrist position. The media are crowded with commentators who didn't declare a partisan preference for Modi when he was elected but broadcast their broad-mindedness by declaring that they would judge him on his performance. This was, of course, a political position already; to deliberately set aside Modi's avowed role as the mascot of the Hindu Right while framing his report card in broadly economic terms, was a willed blindness. When this blindness became hard to sustain in the face of the violence and public bigotry that limn this government like a sulphuric halo, this sort of pundit tries to recast himself as a reasonable critic of the State. He either becomes the chiding well-wisher trying to restore the regime to its economic senses or casts himself as the champion of political common sense, a man of the moderate centre, opposed to the knee-jerk, impractical dogmatism of (take your pick) the left or liberal left or na?ve bleeding hearts. Pundits of this sort aren't necessarily acting in bad faith. Their talent for triangulation comes with the territory; their trade is based on access which makes public even-handedness even in the face of political wickedness a necessary habit. They are, if you like, 'Jaitley journos', networked pros who know everyone, and have done for so long that they now practise knowingness not journalism. It is an article of faith with them that all politicians are basically the same, that 'the more things change, the more they remain the same.' These pundits have their strengths. They have long memories, a near-verbatim recall of their own output, and a fluent familiarity with the great narratives of Indian journalism: Kashmir, 'liberalization', Indo-Pak and so on. Their Achilles heel is that the practiced cynicism of the embedded pro leaves them incapable of telling the difference between vileness and venality. Having, at the very least, extended the benefit of the doubt to the Modi government, they cannot forgive wet liberals and know-nothing lefties for being right about Modi Sarkar all along. The sensible way of dealing with this would be to say, as many have done before, that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This would both acknowledge that squishy liberals were right about Modi and his ilk and, backhandedly, put this down to dogma and prejudice, not prescience or insight. But even this casual acknowledgment of error is impossible because pundit personas organized around omniscience can't be wrong. This is where Air India and privatization and market rationality come in handy. Instead of having to accept that buying into the NDA's promise of material progress while ignoring its feral majoritarianism was a mistake, the pundit can blame, wait for it, 'left-liberals' for pushing voters into the arms of the Bharatiya Janata Party by championing redistributive statism against the dynamism of the market. In one rhetorical move, people to the left of these professional 'centrists' are demoted from steadfast witnesses against the Beast to self-indulgent children, riding their ideological hobby horses roughshod over the aspirations of the People. This neat piece of ju-jitsu has the additional advantage of placing the pundit in his natural home, the changeable middle. From this point of vantage, he can reproach the Modi government for disappointing him by straying from the straight and narrow of economic reforms while denouncing false liberals; first, for calling Modi into being and then by excluding true liberals (like him) from the gathering movement against the BJP. Only by gravitating towards the precisely triangulated centre where he sits, straddling a fence, bisected by balance, can liberals forge the broad coalition that might defeat Modi. There they will find our pundit, literally splitting the difference, saying all the while, "I told you so.' ======================================== 14. NICARAGUA IS ON THE PATH TO BECOMING THE NEXT VENEZUELA by Ishaan Tharoor ======================================== Washington Post July 19 2018 Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter. Forces loyal to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega deepened their crackdown on the country's opposition on Wednesday, appearing to take full control of a rebel stronghold in the city of Masaya. A day earlier, heavily armed police and paramilitary fighters stormed the neighborhood of Monimb?, killing at least three people and taking 40 others into custody, according to a human rights group. ?In recent days the widespread attacks against the civilian population have intensified and grown in terms of scale and coordination, with aggressors carrying lethal weapons deployed to cities like Masaya that have come to symbolize the resistance to President Ortega?s merciless regime,? Erika Guevara-Rosas, the Americas director for Amnesty International, said in a Wednesday statement. ?This is a massacre in Monimb?,? high school teacher ?lvaro G?mez said to the Wall Street Journal. ?They?ve killed a bunch of youths who are resisting with homemade mortars, bombs and their anger.? The violence there brings the death toll in Nicaragua to around 300 people ? mostly civilians ? since mid-April, when an unpopular pension-reform proposal sparked protests against the Ortega government. Those demonstrations escalated in the weeks that followed, with protesters setting up barricades in cities across the country. They have been met with bloody and ruthless repression. A mass demonstration on May 30 in the capital, Managua, saw a dozen protesters gunned down by security forces. Over the weekend, pro-government militias cleared out protesting university students in the capital, driving them from their campus and forcing about 200 students to take shelter in a Catholic church. My colleague Joshua Parlow was among them, pinned down by gunfire and trapped in the church's compound for about 16 hours, where two of the wounded died from their injuries. The paramilitaries had blocked ambulance access, and it required the intervention of senior church officials and the U.S. State Department to break the impasse and allow the eventual evacuation of the students. 'The pain is unbearable': Nicaraguan student shot in leg A medical student was shot during a standoff between pro-government militias and university students in Managua, Nicaragua on July 13. (Joshua Partlow/The Washington Post) July 19 happens to mark the 39th anniversary of the victory of the Sandinistas, the left-wing revolutionary movement that overthrew the brutal, U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Now Ortega, a 72-year-old former Marxist guerrilla, increasingly resembles the tyrant he and his comrades once toppled. Masaya was once a Sandinista hotbed; now it's seen as a bastion of opposition. ?After returning to power in 2007, [Ortega] sidestepped the constitution to get himself reelected in 2011. He then completed his palace coup by assuming full control of all four branches of government, state institutions, the military, and police,? explained journalist Tim Rogers, a veteran Nicaragua hand. ?He banned opposition parties, rewrote the constitution, and turned Nicaragua into his personal fiefdom, which he rules from inside the walls of his stolen compound, a concrete fortress he rarely leaves.? Having long shed any pretense of Marxism-Leninism, Ortega maintained power by cultivating support among the clergy and the country's business community. Until recently, he also could count on the largesse of Venezuela. ?But then Venezuela cut its aid, and the government?s fiscal problems were exacerbated by corruption,? noted the Economist. Now Nicaragua faces its own Venezuelan moment, with a regime violently clinging to power in the face of vehement popular unrest. ?The demands of the people are clear: justice for those who have been killed, a return to democracy and the resignation of the ruling family,? D?nae V?lchez, a Managua-based journalist, wrote for The Post's opinion section last month. ?Ortega is calling for a 'peaceful constitutional solution' to the crisis, but he just wants to remain in power. His human rights violations have made him an illegitimate leader well outside of the Constitution. He needs to step down.? Ortega, though, is showing no signs of quitting. He has tarred the opposition as ?right-wing delinquents,? though many now opposed to his rule include former Sandinistas. His wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, labeled Ortega's opponents as ?coup plotters, few in number, malignant, sinister, diabolical, satanic and terrorists.? The duo, critics warn, is following the same tactics as leaders in Caracas. ?Like Hugo Ch?vez, Ortega sought to remain in power indefinitely, but lately planned to hand the reins to his wife,? wrote Otto Reich, a former U.S. diplomat in Latin America. ?In pursuing that goal, he worked from the Ch?vez playbook: manipulating electoral laws and eliminating checks and balances by controlling the national police; co-opting the Supreme Court and legislature; curtailing freedom of expression and repressing independent media; and harassing and hounding opposition forces and other critics.? But while dissent may be suppressed at home, the Nicaraguan government is facing mounting criticism abroad. On Wednesday, the Organization of American States condemned the abuses carried out by Nicaraguan police and pro-government forces, calling on Ortega to adhere to a process of dialogue and eventual elections. ?Every additional victim of this violence and intimidation campaign further undermines Ortega?s legitimacy,? State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this week. ?Early free, fair and transparent elections are the best path back to democracy and respect for human rights in Nicaragua.? ?The appalling loss of life must stop ? now,? said a spokesman for the U.N.'s human rights office. ?The violence is all more horrific as armed elements loyal to the government are operating with the active or tacit support of the police and other state authorities.? U.N. Secretary General Ant?nio Guterres, speaking from neighboring Costa Rica on Monday, decried the ?use of force on the part of entities linked to the state.? So far, Ortega seems unlikely to heed such warnings. But his regime's brutalization of its own people risks repeating a bloody cycle many hoped Nicaragua had left in the past. ?Venezuela shows that a regime which is heedless of the human cost can survive sustained national protests and international pressure,? the Economist observed. ?Nicaraguans can only hope that their country will indeed prove to be different.? ?We weren?t ready for the massacres,? Valeska Valle, a 22-year-old student leader, said to Rogers last month. ?We never thought the government was going to kill us. We never thought being a university student would be a crime in Nicaragua.? Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York. ======================================== 15. RUSSIA'S 2018 WORLD CUP RUN IS OVER, BUT PUTIN ? AND DICTATORS EVERYWHERE ? ARE STILL BIG WINNERS AT MEGA-SPORTS EVENTS by Jules Boykoff ======================================== nbcnews.com July 10 2018 Events like the World Cup and the Olympics kickstart a festival of patronage and allow authoritarians to seem beloved on the world stage. Enough is enough. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend the opening ceremony before the World Cup match between Russia and Saudi Arabia on June 14, 2018.Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik/KRE via EPA file When Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped up to the podium at the opening match of the 2018 World Cup, he assured the world that Russia is ?an open, friendly and hospitable country.? Never mind that Russia has a notorious record of racism and homophobia and that Human Rights Watch has asserted that we?re in the midst of ?the worst human rights crisis in Russia since the Soviet era.? Not only was Putin brazenly prevaricating, he was also tapping into the trend among authoritarians to ?sportwash?? using mega-sports events to launder their reputations and distract from their horrific human-rights records. ?Authoritarian regimes love megasports projects,? Ilya Shumanov, deputy director at anti-corruption group Transparency International, told The New York Times recently. Indeed, events like the World Cup and Olympics not only kickstart a festival of patronage, where cronies dole out big-money contracts to their friends, but they also tee up an opportunity for authoritarians to appear important and even beloved on the world stage. (Just look at what North Korean officials did in PyeongChang.) Putin has basked in the warm international glow generated by the World Cup. On the eve of the event, he stated, without irony, that he ?wanted to underline FIFA?s commitment to the principle of sports without politics.? And yet at the opening match, Putin packed his luxury box with political leaders, including dictatorial glitterati like the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, senior North Korean official Kim Yong Nam and the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Putin was also joined by Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime dictator of Belarus who surely was taking mental notes. With all eyes on the World Cup, Lukashenko is quietly orchestrating another frenzy of ?sportwashing?: the European Olympics, which he will host in Minsk next summer. The games are slated to commence on June 21, 2019 and will run through the end of that month. The European Games, a sort of mini Olympics for Europe?s athletes, is building a hideous tradition. The inaugural installation of the games took place three years ago in Azerbaijan, another human rights nightmare. Yet it?s not too late to reverse course and pluck the games from Lukashenko?s clutches. Last year, human rights groups successfully pressured the International Olympic Committee to add human rights principles to its host city contracts. If these provisions mean anything, the IOC must intervene to cancel the 2019 European Games in Minsk. This would be a bold, unprecedented act and it would also send a clear message about the Olympics? publicly proclaimed concern for human rights. There is no question that Belarus is a human rights disaster. U.S. President George W. Bush once dubbed Lukashenko ?Europe?s last dictator.? Elected back in 1994, he has a notorious track record of repressing activists through violence, arbitrary detention and disappearance. Amnesty International noted that under Lukashenko, ?the Belarusian government has cracked down on opposition leaders and movements, and abused civil rights to freedom of assembly and association.? In March, activists rallying for ?Freedom Day? ? and against Lukashenko?s iron-fisted rule ? were arrested and jailed. The irony became even more apparent last year when heavily armed riot police attacked ?Freedom Day? protesters with batons and water cannons while the internet was shut down. More than 1,000 were arrested in those 2017 protests. This followed the questionable arrests of more than 30 authors, journalists and publishers, with many snatched by masked police at a literary festival. Belarus is also the only country in Europe still clinging to the death penalty. Last month a UN special rapporteur described the treatment of death row inmates as torture. In 2012, Britain rejected granting Lukashenko a visa to attend the Summer Olympics in London. One could argue that the European Olympic Committees had little choice but to team up with Belarus. Time was getting short and potential hosts were dwindling. In May 2015, the Netherlands were named host of the 2019 games, but then the Dutch government yanked its financial support leaving organizers in the lurch. A lack of options does not mean the International Olympic Committee or European Olympic Committees should smash their newly found moral compasses. That?s when Russian Olympic honchos stepped in, offering to host the games in Kazan and Sochi, the latter city notorious for hosting the 2014 Olympics, which cost more than all previous Winter Games combined. But after a special report from the World Anti-Doping Agency unearthed a systematic doping program in Russia, this option also became untenable. All this points to a larger problem, however: Fewer and fewer cities are keen to host the larger Olympic Games, let alone the European Games. Still, a lack of options does not mean the International Olympic Committee or European Olympic Committees should smash their newly found moral compasses. Making matters worse, Lukashenko and Belarussian organizers have less than a year to prepare for the European Games. And short deadlines bring out the worst of sport mega-event planning. Laws are flouted. Pet projects with Olympic tags affixed to them are prioritized. Former Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes acknowledged this convenient state of exception: ?The Olympics pretext is awesome; I need to use it as an excuse for everything.? Image: Vladimir Putin Putin takes part in the opening of an exhibition soccer match at the World Cup Football Park on the Red Square in Moscow on June 28, 2018.Yuri Kadobnov / AFP - Getty Images file The Russian World Cup is already almost over and as such the damage has been done. But that doesn?t mean other mistakes can?t be avoided. After all, by awarding the European Games to appalling human-rights violators, European Olympics luminaries are making a mockery of the Olympic Charter, which the European Olympic Committees claim to abide by. Unlike the global Olympics, which has been called off only a few times in its 100-year-plus history ? usually due to massive international conflicts ? this is only the second iteration of the European Games. As such, there is still time to prevent Lukashenko from posing for a series of grin-and-grip photo-ops with Europe?s cosmopolitan elite. It?s not as if the event has a long and storied history that absolutely must continue for the sake of tradition. If there ever was a time to make a statement, it is now. Of course, international observers are not holding their breadth. Ultimately, this pattern reveals a shameless penchant for selective ethics at the highest levels of the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, the world?s governing body for soccer. When sport medals trump moral mettle, we?re on a perilous path. FIFA has punted to Putin. Time for Olympic officials to show some spine: the 2019 European Games must not go on. Jules Boykoff teaches political science at Pacific University in Oregon. He is the author of three books on politics and sports, most recently "Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics." Follow him on Twitter at @JulesBoykoff. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Tue Jul 31 07:22:30 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:22:30 +0400 Subject: SACW - 31 July 2018 | Sri Lanka: hanging drug dealers / Pakistan: July 2018 elections / India: Writers under attack; Arunachal conversions, Assam citizenship; intolerance in food / Germany: left competing with right / Regression in Eastern and central Europe / South Africa: death threats via Indian firm Message-ID: <752C306D-BE5A-434A-92AC-1A0DEAEBE8B8@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 31 July 2018 - No. 2994 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. July 2018 Elections in Pakistan: Select Commentary 2. Writers and Rationalists under continued attack in India 3. Announcement: Course on Methods in Historical Research on Labour during September 10-14, 2018 [New Delhi] 4. From Velvet Revolution to Velvet Dictatorship: Reflections on Democratic Regression | Adam Michnik 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Alternative legal redress systems are welcome but remember that in UK sharia councils are the preserves of clerics who are intolerant of women?s equality - India: Alwar lynching shows the government has put the burden of ending mob killings on victims themselves - Announcement: Freedom From Hatred And Violence - Join The Protest on 9 August, 2018 (New Delhi) - India - Muzaffarnagar riots: This graphic narrative tells the story of the courage of seven rape survivors | scroll.in - Baba Ramdev - The Billionaire Yogi Behind Modi?s Rise | Robert F. Worth - India: The Special Marriage Act is dated needs reform to protect freedoms - India: manufactured Hindu fury, How cow vigilantes are shaped ? report by Rama Lakshmi - India: Inter-religious marriage in Karnataka with protection of court - India: Gauri Lankesh was Number 2 on the Hindutva far right hit list, Girish Karnad was No 1 ... ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Bangladesh: Militancy will never win - Editorial, Dhaka Tribune 7. Hardline Islamists push religion to centre of Pakistan election | Reuters 8. Transient triumphs | Rajmohan Gandhi 9. India: A lesson from Arunachal Pradesh | Sanjib Baruah 10. ?Muslim? meal on Air India to protect Hindus from ?halal? | Saeed Naqvi 11. Sri Lanka to begin hanging drug dealers to 'replicate success of Philippines' | Peter Beaumont 12. How intolerance has left India?s culinary culture poorer | Nandita Haksar 13. South Africa: Indian coal company's local allies issue death threat to Mpumalanga greens | John Yeld 14. Review: Why Buddhists Are Violent | Mark Juergensmeyer 15. Germany's left and right vie to turn politics upside down | Philip Oltermann 16. Today, I Am Ashamed to Be an Israeli | Daniel Barenboim 17. Spain & Pan European invention of tradition -- that would make General Franco a happy man 18. Central Europe is a lesson to liberals: don?t be anti-nationalist | Ivan Krastev 19. Don?t imagine you?re smarter | Neal Ascherson ======================================== 1. JULY 2018 ELECTIONS IN PAKISTAN: SELECT COMMENTARY ======================================== comments / statements by Jeffrey Gettleman, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Faraz Ahmad, Tariq Ali, Pervez Hoodbhoy, HRCP and an editorial in Le Monde http://www.sacw.net/article13846.html ======================================== 2. WRITERS AND RATIONALISTS UNDER CONTINUED ATTACK IN INDIA ======================================== INDIA: THREAT TO MAUZO ATTACK ON GOAN CULTURE | Vivek Menezes Anger and revulsion in Goa, as news emerged that beloved Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo, was compelled to accept police security cover after his name was found on a list of targets with the alleged killers of journalist, Gauri Lankesh. http://www.sacw.net/article13843.html STATEMENT FROM THE INDIAN WRITERS? FORUM REGARDING THREATS TO MALAYALAM WRITER S HAREESH The thugs policing our cultural fraternity have struck again. In response to the violent threats against his family, Malayalam writer S Hareesh has now withdrawn his novel Meesa (Moustache) being serialised by Mathrubhumi, stating that he will publish it when ?the climate is congenial?. http://www.sacw.net/article13840.html INDIA: THE SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION OF RATIONALISTS | Narendra Nayak While they might have succeeded in silencing some of the voices, there is no dearth of activists who have refused to be cowed down and will fight against these forces to make sure that the voices of reason are heard. http://www.sacw.net/article13839.html ======================================== 3. ANNOUNCEMENT: COURSE ON METHODS IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH ON LABOUR DURING SEPTEMBER 10-14, 2018 [NEW DELHI] ======================================== V.V. Giri National Labour Institute jointly with Association of Indian Labour Historians is organising a Course on Methods in Historical Research on Labour during September 10-14, 2018 at the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute. http://www.sacw.net/article13842.html ======================================== 4. FROM VELVET REVOLUTION TO VELVET DICTATORSHIP: REFLECTIONS ON DEMOCRATIC REGRESSION | Adam Michnik ======================================== Let me start by describing how communism died. The first thing to perish was the communist faith. And this faith had two dimensions. It was a faith in the project of a just world, a world of solidarity and freedom. And it was a conviction that people had finally deciphered the secret of world history ? a belief that communism was an inevitable stage of human progress. This faith died gradually as it encountered communist realities. The first rebellions against (...) http://www.sacw.net/article13783.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Alternative legal redress systems are welcome but remember that in UK sharia councils are the preserves of clerics who are intolerant of women?s equality - India: Alwar lynching shows the government has put the burden of ending mob killings on victims themselves - Announcement: Freedom From Hatred And Violence - Join The Protest on 9 August, 2018 (New Delhi) - India - Muzaffarnagar riots: This graphic narrative tells the story of the courage of seven rape survivors | scroll.in - Report on Four Years of Modi sarkar - Dismantling India - Baba Ramdev - The Billionaire Yogi Behind Modi?s Rise | Robert F. Worth - India: The Special Marriage Act is dated needs reform to protect freedoms - India: manufactured Hindu fury, How cow vigilantes are shaped ? report by Rama Lakshmi - India: Inter-religious marriage in Karnataka with protection of court - India: Gauri Lankesh was Number 2 on the Hindutva far right hit list, Girish Karnad was No 1 ... - India: Meet the men from BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal who beat up Swami Agnivesh - India: select news report on the Alwar Lynching - Mobs are killing Muslims in India. Why is no one stopping them? Rana Ayyub - India: Cartoon by Surendra on the killiers in the name of the cow - Another day, another lynching: cow vigilantism in India?s culture of impunity | Angshuman Choudhury - Sandwiched Nehru: Religious Minorities and Indian Secularism | M Christhu Doss - Need to uphold Pluralism in India -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. BANGLADESH: MILITANCY WILL NEVER WIN - EDITORIAL, DHAKA TRIBUNE ======================================== Editorial Dhaka Tribune July 28th, 2018 It is commendable that the government has not only put in the efforts to eliminate terror, but also to prevent it Thanks to a concerted and organized effort by the government and our law enforcement agencies, the threat of militancy is now under control. The Holey Artisan attack, in which over 20 innocent people tragically lost their lives in a most brutal manner, no doubt acted as a wake-up call, not just for the government, but for all Bangladeshis. It asked difficult questions of us all, questions for which perhaps we did not have answers at the time. But, from the ashes of that tragedy, through resilience and determination, Bangladesh has continued to fight against the forces of terror, and move forward and prosper as a nation. This would not have been possible without the pro-active approach taken by our government, which realized the potential threat facing the nation, and made it a priority to root it out. Through various raids carried out following the tragedy, our brave law enforcement officers were able to eliminate numerous active terrorist cells operating in the country, and now, as a result, Bangladesh faces no major terrorist threat. But that is not the only area in which we have remained active. It is commendable that the government has not only put in the efforts to eliminate terror, but also to prevent it. Through various initiatives which focus on deradicalization, rehabilitation, and counselling for militants, the youth especially are being engaged in activities which take them away from a life of violence. Various institutions and smaller organizations have also been working with each other, while simultaneously conducting nationwide social awareness campaigns, to ensure that militancy is not given the breathing space it needs to grow. In the war against militancy, there is no doubt that Bangladesh is winning. But, moving forward, it is imperative that we continue to fight as we have done so far, by engaging the youth and ensuring that our values of democracy and secularism are not hijacked by those who do not understand what Bangladesh truly stands for. ======================================== 7. HARDLINE ISLAMISTS PUSH RELIGION TO CENTRE OF PAKISTAN ELECTION Reuters ======================================== Dhaka Tribune July 22nd, 2018 Hardline Islamists push Liberal and secular-minded Pakistanis say the sheer number of religious party candidates, combined with their ultra-conservative rhetoric, has already shifted the agenda in their direction Pakistani cleric Hafiz Saeed is one of the United States? most-wanted terrorist suspects, accused over the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. At home, his charities are banned, as is a new Islamist political party launched by his followers. None of that has stopped Saeed from hitting the campaign trail for Pakistan?s July 25 general election, denouncing the outgoing government as ?traitors? and whipping up support for the more than 200 candidates he backs. ?The politics of the American servants is coming to an end!? Saeed thundered at a rally this month in the eastern city of Lahore, where supporters showered him with rose petals. The main race in Wednesday?s vote is between the party of now-jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which is seeking a second consecutive term despite its leader?s downfall on corruption charges, and the party of former cricket star Imran Khan, perceived as the favourite of the powerful military. But a bumper crop of ultra-Islamist groups are also contesting the poll, with the potential to reshape the political landscape of the nuclear-armed Muslim country of 208 million people with anti-Western rhetoric and calls for ever-stricter interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. The proliferation of religious parties appears to be a fulfillment of a proposal made by Pakistan?s military to ?mainstream? armed Islamists and other extremists into politics, though the parties and the army deny any links. Even if, as expected, they win few seats, liberal and secular-minded Pakistanis say the sheer number of religious party candidates, combined with their ultra-conservative rhetoric, has already shifted the agenda in their direction. With the new parties routinely accusing opponents of blasphemy or treason, mainstream parties have echoed their language in attacking Sharif?s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. ?The ostensible attempt to mainstream the religious right-wing is not making these parties take relatively moderate positions,? said Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch. ?But rather, it?s radicalizing the mainstream.? Violent rhetoric Religious parties ? some new, others established ? are fielding more than 1,500 candidates for national and provincial assemblies, compared with a few hundred in 2013. While Pakistan has always had Islamist parties, the new entries are notable for their alleged links to militants and their rhetorical attacks on mainstream politicians? piety or patriotism. Pakistan?s three main parties all stress devotion to Islam, but the new religious parties portray them ? especially the PML-N ? as leading Pakistan down a Western-inspired path away from the country?s Islamic values. One new party, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, campaigns under the rallying cry ?death to blasphemers? and is fielding 566 candidates. Its candidates rail against the PML-N as blasphemers for a small abortive change last year to election law, which was quickly reversed after nationwide protests in which at least seven people were killed. The change was to the swearing-in oath for candidates ? from a religious vow to a simple declaration ? stating the Prophet Mohammad was God?s last messenger, a central tenet of Islam. In May, a man police identified as a Labaik supporter shot and wounded then-Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal as he left a meeting. He told interrogators Iqbal had to die because he was a blasphemer. Tehreek-e-Labaik leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi condemned Iqbal?s shooting. But this month, he said the party could not be held responsible. ?We didn?t instigate anyone. These are the emotions of the nation,? Rizvi told Reuters, adding. ?In a way, it rightly happened.? Leaders of the mainstream opposition parties all condemned the attack on Iqbal. Still, Imran Khan has also invoked the blasphemy controversy in campaign speeches, defending such language in a recent interview with Reuters. ?You cannot be a Muslim if you don?t believe that the Prophet, our Prophet, is the last prophet,? Khan said. ?So to reiterate and support it is just standing with your faith.? Banned groups While Tehreek-e-Labaik is a legally registered party, other movements fielding candidates are officially banned in Pakistan but have bypassed the legal restrictions. Pakistan?s Election Commission this year rejected Saeed?s Islamic charity?s application to register a political party, the Milli Muslim League, but the group later registered candidates under the name of an existing party, Allahu Akbar Tehreek, which now campaigns with Saeed?s image on its posters. Saeed is accused of masterminding the 2008 attacks on India?s financial capital. The United States offers a $10 million reward for his conviction over the attacks, in which several Americans were killed. Saeed denies any involvement. Another party, the Sunni extremist Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), is also fielding dozens of candidates under a different name, even though it is banned as the political wing of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has killed hundreds of minority Shi?ite Muslims. The party denies links with LeJ. Last month, ASWJ leader Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi?s name was removed by a caretaker government from Pakistan?s terrorism watchlist, cementing his own candidacy. A spokesman for the Election Commission of Pakistan, Altaf Khan, asked about the banned groups? candidates, said no illegal group had been registered. ?If some political party is registered with us, and it has come through the (legal) process, what?s wrong in it?? Khan said. He added that the commission was investigating complaints of banned parties campaigning under different names. A military spokesman declined to comment on religious parties. The army denies interfering in politics. However, the military did propose ?mainstreaming? militant-linked groups into politics in a 2016 National Security meeting, military and government sources have told Reuters. The plan was pitched as a way to reduce violence and extremism under the model of the Northern Ireland peace process. Critics say the real goal is for new ultra-religious parties to cut into the conservative base of Sharif?s party and confer legitimacy to Islamist militants the army has long been accused of nurturing as proxies in its rivalry with India. ?They have to be taken care of,? political commentator Raza Rumi said of such groups. ?So this election is a test case as to how far the goal of mainstreaming these groups can be achieved.? Analysts say even with the increase in candidates, Islamists are unlikely to win more than a dozen or so seats in parliament. But that might not be the point. Pakistani author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, a longtime critic of the military, believes the army, tired of civilian governments challenging its grip on foreign policy and large chunks of the economy, is seeking to weaken mainstream parties. ?The military wants to alter, engineer the national discourse,? Siddiqa said. ?They want to build a new nationalism. They want a new identity, and that is Islamic identity.? ======================================== 8. TRANSIENT TRIUMPHS History reveals that popularity of authoritarian leaders and majoritarian agendas is a transitory phenomenon Written by Rajmohan Gandhi ======================================== The Indian Express July 25, 2018 The law of transience does not work at desired speed. Yet one may be allowed to hope, as far as India is concerned, that the elections due before the end of May 2019 will hasten its operation. Most historical triumphs, we know, are transient. Only recently globalisation appeared an inexorable climax of history. Now it looks to have collapsed. So, it seems, has globalisation?s apparent twin, celebrating diversity within nations. Two other prestigious values, democracy in the polity and equality in society, have also been hit hard. As if from nowhere, men like Donald Trump and Narendra Modi surfaced to deliver these unanticipated blows, while authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Turkey?s Recep Erdogan found new acceptability. History?s march was reversed. Walls were erected between nations, races and communities, and also between citizens and rulers. While a Modi, Xi, Trump or Putin spoke to audiences of millions, no journalist, let alone a citizen, was permitted to probe the ruler. Not long ago, democratic convention required prime ministers and presidents to let interviewers ask searching questions. However, Modi and Trump (and Putin and Xi) have ensured that no such opportunities arise. Even more troubling than the setbacks mentioned above has been the falsification of facts. Control over the flow of information by influential rulers and their allies in the old media, and concerted activity by followers in the social media, have enabled fake news to triumph. Thus, to recall a well-known example, a good percentage of white Americans continue to think that Obama was not born in the US. Similarly, if India?s schoolchildren are prevented from learning that Hindu extremists killed Mahatma Gandhi, or that Jawaharlal Nehru helped lay the foundations for democratic rights and for science education, or that, in earlier periods, Rajput nobles were part of every Mughal ruler?s establishment, will that not ease the path to a theocratic Hindu state? Fortunately, fake history too is subject to the law of transience. The Hitlers and Stalins of our world controlled what the public was allowed to hear, what children were taught in schools, and what audiences saw on stage or screen, yet we know the reputation today of Hitler and Stalin, including in the eyes of the ordinary German and Russian. Years had to be gone through before the truth regarding these tyrants was admitted, and a heavy price was paid. Not having to confront a fraction of what counterparts in Stalin?s Russia or Hitler?s Germany faced, Indian defenders of democracy, equality and inclusion are fortunate. The law of transience does not work at desired speed. Yet one may be allowed to hope, as far as India is concerned, that the elections due before the end of May 2019 will hasten its operation. I am inclined to agree with the insightful thought expressed elsewhere by Alok Rai that this time a coalition of opposition parties will be more than a strategy. A coalition across India will be an ideology in itself, a conscious recognition that despite differing points of view and backgrounds Indians have to come together. It is also possible that this time the electorate may come to see the choice before it as one between a broad coalition of the Indian people on the one hand and, on the other, a coterie of clever leaders with deep pockets, a fanatical following, and medieval ideas. Central among their backward-looking ideas is the notion that India?s future success lies in a reminder of India?s supposed feats in an ancient past, when the nation was guided solely by priests with the aid of a warrior caste, and society was shielded from the risky ideas of equality and liberty. Joined to this worship of an imagined past free of contamination is the steady implementation of a plan to harden an Indian hierarchy, where some command and others obey, with severe penalties for disobedience. Openly articulated one day, this plan is denied the next day with a wink to followers not to take the denial seriously, and there is also an attempt to mask the plan with a rhetoric of development. The groups that must be put down are sometimes named but don?t have to be. Everyone knows who they are. The nation?s well-known ?enemies? are to be the sole political and electoral issue. The promises that clinched the 2014 victory should be forgotten, as also that ?daring? 2016 move, notebandi, which left the people cashless and exhausted and the corrupt free. However, there will be room in the ruling party?s campaign for one additional point, which is that no one in the Opposition competes with Modi?s reach and image: There is no alternative. Will such strategies work when large sections of the Indian population feel the pinch of joblessness, debts and rising prices, and are troubled by the leaders? silence over brutal attacks on the innocent? It is natural at this juncture to recall the 1977 election that Indira Gandhi thought was in her bag. She was strong, she seemed popular, she had put ?the nation?s enemies? in their place, and there was no visible alternative. It would be technically incorrect to liken what India faces today to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977. Yet it is worth remembering that whereas that Emergency ended in 19 months, the present regime, widely seen as having undermined democratic institutions, has lasted for more than four years. In 1977, diverse parties and individuals came together for democratic rights and won the nation?s confidence. That something similar can happen in 2019 looks more than possible. If it happens, India might help shorten the world?s relapse into walls, curbs and unfairness. The writer is a research professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ======================================== 9. INDIA: A LESSON FROM ARUNACHAL PRADESH | Sanjib Baruah ======================================== The Indian Express, July 20, 2018 Debate over the state?s anti-conversion law points to the need to give more attention to religious change from the perspective of the ?converted?. Arunachal Pradesh is unlike the other states with anti-conversion laws. Christians constitute more than 30 per cent of the state?s population. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar) The statement by the BJP Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Pema Khandu, that he would move to repeal the state?s freedom of religion or anti-conversion law at the next assembly session has drawn significant national attention. The announcement was later modified following BJP general secretary Ram Madhav?s tweet that questioned the report?s accuracy. He said that Chief Minister Khandu had not promised anything more than ?a wide-ranging consultation? about the anti-conversion law?s efficacy. Subsequently, Arunachal?s information minister said that Khandu did not say that the law would be repealed. Apparently, the plan all along had been for the Cabinet to examine the anti-conversion law, consult stakeholders, and discuss the matter in the state assembly before deciding if it needs to be repealed. Nonetheless, it may be rewarding to pay attention to the context in which Khandu made the suggestion, and to his public reasoning in favour of repeal. The chief minister made the announcement at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the death of the pioneer Catholic missionary, Henry Gaikwad ? popularly known as Prembhai ? who travelled and preached in the remote mountain villages of Arunachal in the 1980s and 1990s. The austere lifestyle, service, and self-sacrifice of this man from distant Maharashtra endeared him to many Arunachalis. Khandu, a Buddhist, described Prembhai as a ?saint? who brought tremendous changes in the lives of the Nyishi people ? one of the state?s largest communities distributed across five districts as well as parts of Assam. Through 25 years of humanitarian service to the state, he said, Prembhai earned the respect of people far beyond his faith. A number of other important political figures of the state attended the event. Among them were former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, a Catholic, and Nabam Rebia, former speaker of the Arunachal assembly and Khandu?s cabinet colleague. Rebia describes himself as a ?non-baptised Christian?, following a familiar pattern of conduct that adapts to Indian conditions: Churchless Christianity, that is accepting Christianity but rejecting the Church as an institution. Another speaker, the president of the Congress, Sanjay Takam, has long been critical of the state?s anti-conversion law. Arunachal Pradesh is unlike the other states with anti-conversion laws. Christians constitute more than 30 per cent of the state?s population. By contrast, in four other states with such laws ? Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand ? Christians are less than one per cent. In Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, where similar laws exist, they are between 2 per cent and 4 per cent. In Tamil Nadu, where an anti-conversion ordinance was in place for a while, the percentage of Christians is higher: 6 per cent. The fact that the then chief minister J Jayalalithaa withdrew the ordinance following the defeat of the NDA-AIADMK alliance in the 2004 general election is telling. It is hardly surprising that a law that has a history of mobilising majorities at the cost of alienating tiny and politically marginal minorities would face a different set of challenges in Arunachal Pradesh. Khandu observed at the memorial meeting for Prembhai that the anti-conversion law is ?probably targeted towards Christians?. He expressed the fear that the ?chief minister, chief secretary or DGP (director general police)? can easily misuse this law and that it ?could trigger largescale violence in the state and could break Arunachal into pieces?. The concern for public order should be familiar to students of India?s anti-conversion laws. When the Supreme Court in 1977 upheld the constitutionality of the anti-conversion laws of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, it relied on the public order exception of Article 25 of the Constitution that permits restriction on ?the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion?. Khandu has the same concern. However, he wisely foresees that the challenge to public order might take a very different form in Arunachal Pradesh than in these other states. As would be evident by now, Christians in Arunachal Pradesh include prominent members of the political elite. As in the rest of Northeast India, they include all sections of society. The dominant Indian discourse on conversion, which is focused on the supposed gullibility of our poor and underprivileged countrymen, and the fear that they may fall prey to the machinations of foreign missionaries, is unsustainable in this region. It is hard to think of your colleagues and friends as passive converts who were tricked into conversion by material inducements. This has important lessons for the rest of India. The Naga leader Angami Zapu Phizo had famously said, ?We do not take Christianity as foreign religion any more than we consider the light of the sun as foreign.? Western missionaries may have pioneered proselytisation and conversion during British colonial rule. But for a long time, the agents of proselytisation have been locals and other Indians. Among Christian denominations that have a significant presence in Northeast India are some that emphasise missionary work as an essential part of the Christian faith. Thus many Rabhas of western Assam converted to Baptist Christianity because of the efforts by Mizo missionaries. Ironically, their conversion occurred only after the Indian government expelled a group of Australian missionaries working among them. It is not surprising that Mizo missionaries ? regional neighbours of the Rabhas ? were far more successful proselytisers than their Australian forerunners. Northeasterners today account for a significant number of Christian missionaries in India. Their commitment to missionary work has taken some of them to other parts of the world as well. In their book on Christianity, colonialism, and consciousness in South Africa, anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff have observed that, ?the very use of ?conversion? as a noun leads, unwittingly, to the reification of religious ?belief.?? It ?makes spiritual commitment into a choice among competing faiths, and ?belief systems? into doctrines torn free of all cultural embeddedness.? Other scholars studying religious change have noted that the word ?conversion? says more about the intentions of missionaries than about the experience and consciousness of the converted. In India, it is common to hear the expression ?they were converted?. But we don?t hear ?they converted? as often. One hears ?we converted? or ?I converted? even less. For a person who decides to turn to a new religion, the switch probably does not need an explanation, or at least not a this-worldly explanation. It is unlikely he or she would talk about it with someone outside his or her faith. The fact that changing nationality comes so naturally to many Indians while changing religion becomes so controversial probably intrigues many outsiders. James C Scott, author of a number of influential books based on Southeast Asian history, suggests that the appeal of Christianity in the hill societies of the region ? including Northeast India ? is that it constitutes ?a powerful, alternate and to some degree oppositional, modernity?. The phenomenon, he suggests, is best understood in the context of a long prior history of these societies adopting religious identities at variance with those of the people of the valley states whose cultures have long stigmatised them. It is about time we give more attention to religious change from the perspective of the ?converted? and give up the illusion that the possession of free will and autonomy are the exclusive prerogatives of mainstream elites. The writer is Professor of Political Studies, Bard College, New York o o o [see also: INDIA: UNTANGLING THE KNOT OF CITIZENSHIP - ASSAM AND THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS (NRC) | Sanjoy Hazarika http://www.sacw.net/article13844.html ] ======================================== 10. ?MUSLIM? MEAL ON AIR INDIA TO PROTECT HINDUS FROM ?HALAL? by Saeed Naqvi ======================================== New Age [ Bangladesh] July 22,2018 ON AN Air India flight from London, the hostess walked down the aisle taking orders for dinner. She leaned over and asked almost conspiratorially. ?May I serve you your Muslim meal now?? ?Muslim meal?? I asked with a start, casting a glance at my equally puzzled wife. The hostess was embarrassed. A new detail had been added to her hospitality protocol and she was not accustomed to it. The damage, it turned out, had been done in my office. Responding to a column on dietary preferences, the person responsible for air reservation had hunted high and low for a simple non-vegetarian meal. No such meal was listed. Then he spotted ?Muslim meal?. The explanatory paragraph clarified that ?all non vegetarian meals are suitable for Muslims and are prepared in accordance with halal method.? The journalist in me took over. ?Fair enough, you have identified us as Muslim, but surely there are others on the flight who are non vegetarians but not Muslim?? Of course, there are non-vegetarians on Air India but they would not accept the odium of Muslim ancestry simply to indulge their dietary preference. They want to eat meat but as thoroughbred Hindus. Two consequences follow. Obstacles in the way of non-vegetarianism depresses the demand for non vegetarian food. By the same token Hindu passengers feel they are being short-changed. This was reverse discrimination. They see themselves being pushed to the lower end of the culinary caste system. The demand for non-veg, therefore, gains in decibel levels: we want non veg, that?s for sure, but one which is neither ?Muslim? nor ?halal?. A three-way dietary division evolves: (1) Hindus not fussy about labels: ?Muslim? or ?halal? accept whatever is available. (2) Those for whom realisation has been abrupt that what they have been eating for generations was ?Muslim? ? halal. Ignorance is bliss but not now that enlightenment has come riding on an Air India menu. (3) Simple vegetarians whose tribe, by the way, is growing by leaps and bounds in India as elsewhere face no problem whatsoever. For the authors of the ?Muslim meal? idea, the first category is the most disruptive because it has skewed the process of data collection on how potentially vegetarian or otherwise, India is. This is the key research required for advancing the aspect of Hindutva concerned with promoting non-Muslim dietary practices. If this category can stand its ground despite the disincentive of being called Muslims and halal eaters, this non veg constituency might just stabilize, even grow. God forbid, it may come in the way of full spectrum Hindutva, vegetarianism et al. The second category is demanding a non vegetarian meal which is unsullied by Muslim-halal connotations. This is a new demand. This clientele does not quite know what it wants; it knows what it does not want in the non-veg arena. It has clearly asked the catering department of Air India a question which is not easy to answer: ?what non-veg fare can you serve which is not Muslim-halal?? Here the discussion acquires exactly the potential for which it was initiated ? to polarise and, as a trial run, divide the aircraft cabin between vegetarians and non vegetarians who, the perpetrators hope, would not like to be grouped as halal-eating Muslims. The cabin is, in this instance, a microcosm of the meat-mukt India of Hindutva?s dreams. A quick answer to halal is jhatka, the method of severing the animal?s head with one stroke, favoured by Sikhs. The jhatka-halal debate is custom made for an Arnab Goswami show. Have a devout Sikh, a muscular Mullah and a Bajrang Bali Bhakt, peer out of three windows. Extract all the gory details on jhatka and halal from the spokesmen of two distinct schools of slaughter. A possible walkout by the abstemious Bajrangi may well spur Hindu consolidation on an unprecedented scale. On a more practical note, the ?shosha? (mischief) started by Air India can be put to some constructive use. A new approach to cuisine may involve drastic change: a non veg cuisine developed over centuries as a near art form may have to be jettisoned from official banquets and national carriers. The problem will, of course, arise when lynch mobs on the lookout for a cause, enter restaurants advertising non veg fare. Individual non vegetarians may also incur the wrath of the lynch mobs. In fact a malicious rumour has been floated that the monkeys that have been let loose on Delhi?s citizenry are an animal-loving minister?s project directed against non-veg addicts. The monkeys, says the rumour, are being trained on the Ridge to block entry of meat into non-veg kitchens. The producer of super hit Bajrangi Bhaijan, has threatened to go on hunger strike if the avatars of Bajrang Bali are involved in operations which have anything, negative or positive, to do with meat The hypocrisy around the cuisine at official banquets at Hyderabad House or even the Rashtrapti Bhawan until the other day, has always bordered on the pathetic. There was an insistence on tasteless fare called Mughlai food at a time when streets named after the dynasty were under assault. The banquets begin with a bogus ?toast? of some flat cola. This then is a good time to take a hard look at the rampaging Vegan movement globally. Climate change, animal care, fear of artificially inflated livestock for the table is turning the world to organic, vegetarian food. Jeremy Corbyn, who may well be Britain?s prime minister one day, is a vegetarian. The core idea of the Nouvelle cuisine Air India should be searching for (and not just creating communal trouble) was available in the ?prasada? or ?offering? cooked each day in gigantic vessels at the Dargah in Ajmer. The daily fare followed one golden principle: it should be acceptable to widest possible range of pilgrims. The ?prasada? was free even of onion, garlic, mushrooms, potatoes or any vegetable which grows underground. This principle is followed in all major Hindu and Sikh places of worship. Somewhere here is the answer to Air India?s quest. To monitor strict vegetarianism in flight, a free ticket may be considered for a representative of the lynch mob on every Air India flight. Saeed Naqvi is a senior Indian journalist, television commentator, interviewer, and distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. ======================================== 11. SRI LANKA TO BEGIN HANGING DRUG DEALERS TO 'REPLICATE SUCCESS OF PHILIPPINES' | Peter Beaumont ======================================== The Guardian 11 July 2018 Government says executions will resume after moratorium of almost 50 years, citing Rodrigo Duterte?s war on drugs Maithripala Sirisena, the Sri Lankan president, has told his cabinet he is ?ready to sign the death warrants? of serial drug offenders. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AFP/Getty Images Sri Lanka will begin hanging drug dealers, ending a near-half-century moratorium on executions, as officials promised explicitly to ?replicate the success? of the Philippines? grisly war on drugs. Sri Lanka?s decision to cite the Philippines as its model is certain to draw criticism. Under president Rodrigo Duterte 4,200 drug suspects have been killed in the Philippines, although rights groups say the true number could be at least triple that figure. Announcing his decision to follow Duterte?s example, the Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena, had told his cabinet he ?was ready to sign the death warrants? of repeat drug offenders, according to his spokesman Rajitha Senaratne. ?From now on, we will hang drug offenders without commuting their death sentences,? he said. Sri Lanka has commuted death sentences for serious crimes to life in prison since 1976, when the last execution took place. Senaratne said there were 19 drug offenders whose death sentences had been commuted to life. Local media reports quote Senaratne as saying that they would now face execution. Authorities say a tougher approach is needed to combat what they report as an increase in drug-related crime. 'I want the world to know': Tamil men accuse Sri Lanka of rape and torture Read more Senaratne cited a case this week in which a convicted drug dealer, whose death sentence had been commuted to life, had arranged the import of 100kg of heroin from behind bars. ?We were told that the Philippines has been successful in deploying the army and dealing with this problem. We will try to replicate their success,? Senaratne said. Sri Lankan ministers have cited a growing drugs problem in the country for the decision. They say the country has become an increasingly important transhipment point for smuggling narcotics. In 2016 Sri Lanka?s Police Narcotics Bureau seized more than 900kg of cocaine from an Indian-bound ship in Colombo, reportedly one of the largest seizures of the drug in the region. Sri Lanka?s defence minister, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, suggested that the country?s armed forces be drafted in for a limited period to be used for drug enforcement. The decision to end the moratorium on executions in Sri Lanka comes despite efforts by local human rights groups in 2016 to persuade the current president to formally revoke the death penalty. ======================================== 12. HOW INTOLERANCE HAS LEFT INDIA?S CULINARY CULTURE POORER Nandita Haksar ======================================== scroll.in 21 July 2018 An excerpt from ?The Flavours of Nationalism?, in which human-rights lawyer and writer Nandita Haksar explores love and hate through the lens of food. I do not remember going out for a meal during my childhood except for an occasional visit to Moti Mahal. It was there that I heard of a dish called butter chicken. Butter chicken was in fact an invention of Kundan Lal Gujral, a Punjabi refugee from Lahore who came to India during the Partition. In his new home in Delhi, Gujral founded the famous restaurant, Moti Mahal, in Daryaganj. The lack of refrigeration apparently led Gujral to put unsold tandoori tikkas into a rich tomato gravy full of butter and cream and the butter chicken was born. Advertisement I remember Papa driving us to Moti Mahal. He dropped us at the restaurant, Amma and I got down from the car and he drove off to park it opposite the paanwala without realizing that Amma had fallen into a manhole as she stepped out of the car. She was rescued and we all had a laugh. The restaurant has attracted world leaders, including Zakir Hussain, Jawaharlal Nehru, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Freedom fighter and independent India?s first education minister, Maulana Azad reportedly even told the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that while in India he must make two visits ? to the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Moti Mahal in Delhi. And the Shah followed his advice, adding his name to some of the most renowned patrons of Moti Mahal. More recently, Moti Mahal was visited by none other than renowned master chef Gordon Ramsay. Amma was quite happy to go to Moti Mahal but would never have admitted that butter chicken could compare to anything like the food in Lucknow. In any case, she never ate butter chicken. I must have imbibed these prejudices from my mother. Long after I had graduated, I took some friends to dine at Karim?s at Jama Masjid. A family was sitting at the table next to us and I heard a child order butter chicken. Without thinking I told them that this was not the place for butter chicken. They should go to a restaurant serving Punjabi food. I half expected the family to tell me to mind my own business but a young man turned to me and apologized: ?The children do not know.? The waiter came to me and said they had to put butter chicken on their menu after repeated demands from their Punjabi customers who did not know the difference between Old Delhi?s Mughlai food and Punjabi food. Although Kashmiri Pandits are traditionally meateaters, there are many men and women who were vegetarians. Both my Masi ? my mother?s older sister ? and my Chacha ? Papa?s younger brother ? were strict vegetarians. But neither of them ever objected to anyone in the family eating meat, and in both their homes, meat was cooked and relished by other family members. But in recent times this tolerant attitude is all but gone. A very different kind of vegetarianism is creeping into the culture of the Kashmiris ? those who have had to leave their homes in the Valley in the aftermath of the insurgency in 1989, and even the downstairs Kashmiris, like my family. I was shocked when I invited an aunt to my home and she told me on the phone: ?Don?t order food from the Muslim place in JNU; we can have vegetarian food.? I knew my Mamu liked the food from Mughal Darbar, a popular restaurant inside Jawaharlal Nehru University. The kebab-roti reminded Mamu and me of the delicious kebabs with rumali roti and biryani Nana used to bring for us from the Gymkhana Club in Lucknow. Besides, Kashmiri Pandits always bought halal meat from Muslim butchers. My aunt?s intolerance is a reflection of the present times; an intolerance based on the false belief that upper-caste Hindus did not eat meat in the past. But every historian has stated that our ancestors were predominantly non-vegetarian. Not only did she not want to eat food cooked by Muslim hands, she also wanted to impose her distorted, bigoted ideas on us. As I grow older, I sometimes long to taste our traditional Kashmiri food. Sometimes the longing is almost painful. It is not only the food, but also the smells from the kitchen that I long for; something familiar that will remind me of those days when we gathered together as a family. But then the family has drifted apart ? I meet them once a year, if that. I think it was the food that bound us together and now the food has disappeared. Kashmiri men no longer know how to cook, and many of them have married women from non-Kashmiri communities who do not enjoy cooking or eating Kashmiri food. Now, when we meet sometimes my cousins offer a Subway sandwich or a simple meal low on calories and also on taste. Besides, everyone has become very conscious of their health; almost no one eats red meat. Gone are the bowls of meat and vegetables rich in calories and taste. There is not that sense of plenty, and the warmth of hospitality has been replaced with obsessive concerns about health. There are a few weddings but we have to stand in queue and serve ourselves at the buffet. Buffets do not allow you to sit down and suck out the marrow or chew the bones. Most times we eat with a fork and spoon rather than make luqmas with our hands. The slow disappearance of our culture and cuisine began long ago, even before we realized what we were losing. By the time my younger sister got married in May 2001, there was only one professional cook who cooked for weddings, Topaji. He, along with many Kashmiri Pandit families, had already left his ancestral home in Old Delhi and settled down in Gurgaon. And much of his knowledge of cooking he claimed was from Bua?s book, which was just a home cook?s collection of recipes. I noticed she does not give the recipe for khhatti kaleji. Some of my aunts and uncles had trained their servants to cook basic Kashmiri food. The most famous was Moti, Dada?s cook. But all these men (and they were all men) had disappeared from our lives one by one. In our home at least the loss had to do with the disappearance of our meatwala. Every single day, Muslim meatwala cycled all the way from Jama Masjid to Race Course Road where we lived, and later to Shanti Niketan. This meant he cycled 15 kilometres to our home and then 15 kilometres back to Jama Masjid. He came on his cycle with a blue wooden box tied to the pillion. It had a net around it, not just to keep away the flies, but also to keep the meat fresh. He announced his coming with a ring of his bicycle bell and Amma would call out to the cook: ?Dekho, meatwala aa gaya.? And then she would have to decide what kind of meat we wanted. Each meat dish had a different cut. On some days I would stand and watch him cut the meat. Painstakingly, he would remove the fat and the white membranes, and then if we wanted pasandas, he would take each piece and beat it with the back of the knife, or if it was mince, he would mince it in the mincer he carried. It was all done quietly and politely. He never let us down, no matter what the season. Then, one day he did not come. He had told us he was afraid because there were accusations that he and other meatwalas were selling beef. But he kept coming, till the day he did not turn up. He disappeared from our lives. In those days there were no mobile numbers or even phone numbers for the meatwala. Now I realize we did not even know his name; at least I do not remember ever calling him by name. And it was from then on that our cuisine was diminished ? we never had pasandas. Now I realize how much more we lost. Excerpted with permission from The Flavours of Nationalism: Recipes for Love, Hate and Friendship, Nandita Haksar, Speaking Tiger. ======================================== 13. SOUTH AFRICA: INDIAN COAL COMPANY'S LOCAL ALLIES ISSUE DEATH THREAT TO MPUMALANGA GREENS by John Yeld ======================================== Coal mine opponents targeted on social media By GroundUp? 24 July 2018 https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-07-24-coal-mine-opponents-targeted-on-social-media/ Coal mining is a very dirty business. And as a stream of abuse on social media against those challenging a new coal mining venture in one of South Africa?s most critical and formally protected water catchment areas confirms, the dirt isn?t always in the coal dust. Twitter accusations against a coalition of eight environmental and social justice groups and their lawyers seeking to block the planned Yzermyn Underground Coal Mine development at Mabola in Mpumalanga, include treason, economic sabotage, extortion, bribery, blackmail, duplicity, dishonesty and lies. They are further accused of being ?anti-national, anti-people, anti-development?, and a comparison to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels has been thrown in for good measure. As ludicrous as it sounds, it?s no laughing matter, and suggests that a Bell Pottinger-style social media harassment strategy may be under way against opponents of the mine project. Particularly worrying was a thinly veiled death threat made on Facebook last month, aimed at local farmer Oubaas Malan who also opposes the Yzermyn mine but is not involved in the comprehensive legal challenges currently under way by the coalition. The threat was posted by Thabiso Nene, who heads The Voice Community Representative Council, a registered NPO billed as ?a community-based organisation that stands for radical economic transformation? in the Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme local municipality where the would-be mine is located. What particularly incenses Nene, Tripathi and other supporters of Atha Africa is that an open coal mine, Loskop, has been operating on Malan?s family farm on the same area. However, Malan has countered by pointing out that this is an old mine started in the 1980s ? three decades before the Mabola Protected Area was proclaimed ? and that he doesn?t own the mining right to it. Although he concedes negotiating a fee from the mining company that most recently owned the mining right and attempted to work the mine, now effectively abandoned, he says it reneged on payments to him and has caused severe environmental damage. Last month, Malan boasted to the Saturday Star newspaper about his tenacity in tackling Atha Africa. ?I?m like a Jack Russell terrier fighting a boerbul. I won?t let go,? he was quoted as saying. Nene?s lengthy Facebook response included what can be interpreted as a death threat: ?As Oubaas say ?I?m like Jack Russell terrier fighting boerboel. I just won?t let go? he should watch our community lays Jack Russell terrier to permanent sleep. We r masters in resting dogs with rabies. Obaas can take dat to de bank.? A formal complaint about the death threat ? that now appears to have been removed from Facebook was made to the South African Human Rights Commission. The commission described the threat as ?naked criminality? but declined to investigate, suggesting instead that the police should handle the matter because of the violence implicit in it. Many of the offending tweets in the social media campaign against the coalition have been made by Praveer Tripathi, senior vice-president of the Atha Africa Ventures mining company that plans to develop Yzermyn. It acquired a mining right in 2015 but the granting of this right and various environmental approvals are now being challenged by the coalition. Tripathi also retweeted, without comment, a tweet by @Madlokovu15 that had in turn repeated the Facebook death threat word-for-word. Tripathi?s Twitter profile distances him from his employer, suggesting his comments should not be read as signifying his professional position as a senior executive of Atha Africa, a subsidiary of the India-based international mining company Atha Group. The company has also attempted to distance itself from his highly controversial remarks. ?Mr Tripathi?s posts on his personal account, are his own personal views and do not mirror the views and opinions of Atha Africa. Accordingly, Atha Africa is not responsible for these comments.? However, the company has not publicly condemned any of Tripathi?s comments, but asked that questions on the matter be directed to the executive himself. https://37ugp72ofspp25ltkb3ajwvg-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Mabola-Twitter-1.jpg Screen capture from Praveer Tripathi?s Twitter account. A formal complaint about Tripathi?s earlier social media comments has been lodged with Minerals Council South Africa (formerly the Chamber of Mines) by the Centre for Environmental Rights, a public interest group of attorneys that represents the coalition. Atha Africa Ventures is a Council member and as such is bound by the Council?s mandatory code of ethical business conduct and guiding principles. The Council has yet to respond to the Centre?s complaint. Tripathi, who has just 70 Twitter followers, last week failed to respond to emailed questions asking him to explain the accusations in his tweets and to comment on their possible consequences. Instead, he posted correspondence from this writer on his Twitter timeline, accompanied by derogatory comments. His posts prompted some of his followers to post their own abusive tweets. The proposed Yzermyn coal mine lies within the water-rich, protected grasslands of the Ekangala/Drakensberg strategic water source area ? one of 22 such areas that collectively comprise just 8% of South Africa?s land yet provide half of all surface run-off water in the form of wetlands, streams and rivers. Environmentalists argue that coal mining is highly destructive and poisonous to the environment, and is not compatible with biodiversity conservation of pristine areas like Mabola that provide invaluable ?ecosystem services? like water. If the project is allowed to continue, the proposed coal mine in Mabola will set a dangerous precedent that will expose all of South Africa?s protected environments to encroachment from mining and other destructive and non-sustainable land uses, they say. But Mabola is also within an area marked by extreme poverty and unemployment where many local residents are desperate for jobs. So it?s understandable that the possibility of some 500 work opportunities ? albeit unskilled ? at the proposed mine is highly attractive to some of them. https://37ugp72ofspp25ltkb3ajwvg-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/mabola-2_extra_large.jpg Residents of Mabola get water from a spring. Photo supplied The social media invective against coalition members and its lawyers has increased significantly over the past two months as several of the legal challenges to the coal project approach adjudication. The first, an appeal to the Water Tribunal to overturn the water licence granted to Yzermyn, is set down for hearing from Tuesday to Thursday this week. On 29 June, Nene?s The Voice organised a public meeting in Volksrust that was billed as an open forum debate ?to clear misconceptions about the proposed mining project near Wakkerstroom?. Nene posted on Facebook that an invitation had been extended to the management of Atha Africa and that it had confirmed its attendance. ?That very progressive Atha management,? he said approvingly. An invitation was also extended to members of the coalition and the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) but it was declined. The Centre told Mining Weekly it would not be appropriate for it to take part in a public debate because of the extensive pending litigation in the matter. Its refusal prompted a string of Twitter insults from Tripathi, including: ?Is the Cenre (sic) for Environmental Rights afraid that it?s lies would be nailed in the #communitywantstoknow initiative by the community? They said the mine will threaten Gauteng and have national and intntnl (sic) impacts. Why don?t they explain the ?how? to the community?? After the meeting, attended by some 1,400 people, Tripathi congratulated Nene for ?exposing? the ?foreign-funded? and ?treasonous? organisations ?who have no sympathies and respect for the community?. This allegation of treason was picked up and repeated several times. However, the only ?evidence? they produced to back the allegation was publicly available documents from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) detailing some funding for two of the organisations in the coalition. SIDA is an official Swedish government agency of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, responsible for the bulk of Sweden?s official development assistance to developing countries and civil society groups ? including South Africa?s democratic government. The tactic of social media harassment is becoming increasingly common in South Africa and elsewhere in the world, where vulnerable communities and civil society organisations have been working to protect and promote environmental and social justice in the face of strong-arm and bullying tactics by some governments and big business ? notably mining interests. Threats and intimidation create an emotionally charged atmosphere that makes it harder for communities to achieve resolution, and in some scenarios can result in physical violence, injury, destruction of property and even murder. A case in point is the tragic death in March 2016 of Sikhosiphi ?Bazooka? Radebe at Mbizana in Pondoland, who was leading opposition to the attempt by Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd to mine mineral sands at Xolobeni. Although the Hawks have not made any progress in their investigation into Radebe?s murder ? this was confirmed by spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi last week ? it?s widely believed that he was assassinated because of his opposition to the mining proposal. And as recently as this month, two activists opposing the relocation of a community in KwaDube in KwaZulu-Natal, supposedly to accommodate onshore mining operations between Mthunzini and Richards Bay, were also shot dead execution-style within days of each other. Murray Hunter of the Right2Know Campaign says threats and attacks from mining companies are part of a bigger trend of corporations trying to bully their critics into silence. ?We know from bitter experience that those who go up against big-money mining projects often face worse than threats in the end.? And Melissa Fourie of the Cape Town-based Centre for Environmental Rights ? one of the main targets of the Yzermyn invective ? says it?s a common pattern in South Africa. ?Within our network of environmental rights activists and defenders, we see threats and intimidation of activists every day, most of these not reported or recorded.? Neither Tripathi nor Nene responded to a question by this writer when asked whether they considered their respective tweets and/or Facebook posts to be inflammatory or possibly fuelling tensions with potentially dangerous consequences. However, Tripathi responded on social media to a letter that was sent to Atha Africa?s attorney by the Centre for Environmental Rights, drawing attention to Tripathi?s ?inaccurate and defamatory? statements about the Centre. The Centre?s letter noted: ?Particularly concerning is that some statements are threatening, and have the potential to incite violence.? On Twitter, Tripathi accused the CER of being defamatory and of ?costing South Africa tens of thousands of jobs and development opportunities? ? ?The responsibility sits on you,? he charged. On 5 July, Nene posted a statement on Facebook: ?If it?s war they want, it (sic) war they will get?, and added a response to several replies to this statement: ?They are busy blocking development that?s suppose to change the life?s. They should just return the damn land once, & they should refrain from threatening us with civil war or economic meltdown.? Jen Gleason of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide says attacks on people who stand up for vulnerable communities and the environment are on the rise around the world, and that her organisation works with public interest lawyers around the world who are putting themselves at risk daily. ?Powerful interests, inside and outside government, use violence, threats, prosecution, slander, regulatory burdens and more to cut off those defending human rights,? she says. This exposes grass roots advocates ?to great personal risk?. Hunter of Right2Know says it rejects the ?corporate bullyism? of Atha-Africa. ?We need to protect? critical voices, not just for the sake of environmental governance, but to ensure that corporations working in South Africa respect free speech and freedom of association.? DM In case you missed this series in The Guardian in the UK over the weekend ? here is a section that features Xolobeni activist Nonhle Mbuthuma: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/21/i-thank-god-i-am-alive-standing-firm-against-mineral-extraction-in-south-africa For those of you who haven?t seen this statement by R2K last week: https://www.r2k.org.za/2018/07/19/joint-statement-we-strongly-condemn-attacks-on-civil-society-organisations-and-activists/ ======================================== 14. REVIEW: WHY BUDDHISTS ARE VIOLENT Mark Juergensmeyer ======================================== The Wire 21 July 2018 Without being a hatchet job, Michael Jerryson's latest book makes it clear that, like all religious traditions, Buddhism wears many faces. Buddhist monks take part in a protest in Yangon in Myanmar in 2015. Credit: Soe Zela Tun/Reuters What is there about Buddhism that leads so naturally to violence? This is a question that I posed to a group of startled policy professionals in Washington DC at a seminar where the topic was Muslim violence. The question for the session was to explain what about Islam seemed to lead naturally to acts of bloodshed. But how about Buddhism, I asked. If they could explain to me what there was about Buddhism that could lead angry followers of the 969 Movement in Myanmar and the Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka to attack and kill innocent Muslims ? even setting fire to their homes and burning them alive ? then maybe I could explain the violence related to Islam, and for that matter Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Sikhism. Violence related to religion, it seems, is an equal opportunity employer. No religious tradition is free from its awful touch. In an arresting and well researched book, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence, Michael Jerryson has taken up my question about Buddhism. What he has found is that Buddhists texts, legends and tradition have justified and promoted particular acts of violence, usually legitimised as defending the faith. In that sense it is no different than any other religious tradition. This is a startling conclusion in large part because of our superficial assumptions about the Buddhist tradition. We have been persuaded that the dictum of nonviolence is absolute and universal throughout Buddhist societies. If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence Michael K. Jerryson Oxford University Press, 2018 Because we assume that Buddhism is by nature nonviolent, the famous saying that provides the title of Jerryson?s book is mean to be startling: ?If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.? This comment, attributed to the ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan, is meant to be ironic. Why would an apostle of nonviolence be killed, and why would a faithful follower want to kill him? The answer that is usually given is a metaphorical one. You must destroy the notion of a physical Buddha outside oneself in order to seek enlightenment, and instead look to the Buddha within. It is a comforting response and a way of domesticating the disturbing image of violence associated with the central figure of a major faith. Yet it is no different than the Christian insistence of displaying prominently on church altars or even as jewellery to be worn around the neck an execution device ? a cross, often with the dying Jesus still nailed to it, oozing life. Similarly, pious Hindus will see bloody images of Shiva?s destruction to be restorative, and Sikhs who portray images of battle and severed heads in martyrdom will understand this to be testimonies to faith. Religious traditions portray violence as a way of conquering it. Yet the violent images persist. They present a counterpoint to the insistence of the leaders of every religious tradition that their mission is ultimately only about peace. And sometimes they can be associated with real acts of violence.. Recently I was in the town of Mandalay in Myanmar where I was able to interview Ashin Wirathu, the fiery Buddhist monk who has incited riots against Muslims, and who was portrayed on the cover of Time magazine with the caption ?the Buddhist face of terror.? At first he was all smiles. ?Do I look like a terrorist,? he asked me, chuckling at what he knew would be the answer. ?Yes,? I wanted to say, ?you look like all of the other terrorists I?ve interviewed, totally banal.? But I didn?t say that, since I wanted to hear his take on the situation. ?Why,? I wanted to know, ?were his Buddhist followers so violence?? ?We Buddhists believe in nonviolence,? he said carefully, as if speaking to a small child. And then he launched into a lengthy discourse on the nonviolence of Buddhist teachings. Again I asked him my question, and again he repeated his insistence on the nonviolence of the Buddhist tradition. ?But sometimes Buddhism has to be defended,? I suggested. ?Yes,? he agreed. Finding an opening I plunged on. ?Defended from whom,? I asked? ?From its enemies ? those Muslims,? he shouted, his voice rising. This began a lengthy rant about the threat of Muslim culture and people to the religious and ethnic purity of Burmese Buddhism. Michael Jerryson. Courtesy: YSU Philosophy and Religious Studies ?Look at the map of the world,? he said, explaining that ?there is a great expanse of Christianity and Islam, but only a tiny speak of Burmese Buddhism.? And then he added darkly, ?and it is threatened with being forever dashed away.? He spoke of Burmese Buddhism as if it were a separate religion, though it is as much an ethnicity as it is a religious tradition. In Wirathu?s mind, he was protecting both a community of people as well as the purity of Buddhist teachings, and he and his fire-brand followers saw themselves engaged in a fight to the death. In Jerryson?s book about Buddhist violence he discusses Wirathu and the role that the figure of a monk plays in legitimising public roles and actions. He notes that Wirathu does not try to justify his prejudice against Muslims through scripture or tradition, other than the implication carried in the name of the movement, 969, that he is defending the nine qualities of the Buddha himself, the six principles of Dhamma, and the nine special attributes of the Sangha. But, as Jerryson points out, the very presence of a monk taking such a position gives it credibility. What Jerryson describes as ?monastic cultural authority? carries as much or more weight than scripture in most Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhist societies. As Jerryson puts it, ?cultural authority trumps orthodoxy? (Jerryson, p. 185). Not all forms of Buddhist violence involve attacks on Muslim shops and homes, setting fire to the buildings, and burning people alive. Nor is the tragic plight of the Rohingya, the displaced persons of northwestern Myanmar, the only instance of victims of a rampant Buddhist cultural violence. Jerryson also explores forms of Buddhist violence ? the violence employed by Buddhists against other Buddhists, for instance. He examines the way that Buddhist religious precepts have been used to marginalise and control women. And he also looks at the role of state-sanctioned violence where Buddhist precepts are used to justify punishment, violent control, and warfare. His approach is respectful to the tradition, and his book is not a hatchet job. Jerryson is not blaming Buddhism for the violence committed in its name, any more than one might blame Christianity for the murderous assault of Andres Breivik on a youth camp in Norway, or Hinduism for the riots against Muslims in Ahmedabad. He is simply pointing out what is increasingly becoming obvious to everyone, that Buddhism is no different from any other religion in the way that some of its adherents justify their violence in its name. Perhaps nowhere has Buddhism been more closely aligned with militant state policy than in Thailand. In an earlier book of Jerryson?s, the cover photo portrayed a young Buddhist monk, standing on the open area of a Buddhist monastery, defending it with what appears to be a loaded revolver that he is holding in his hand. When this picture was portrayed in a review of the book that appeared in the London Times Literary Supplement, the outcry was deafening. ?How could this be?? asked angry readers of the TLS, ?since as everyone knows Buddhism is the religion of nonviolence?? Though everyone may think that they know this, because of Jerryson?s work, including this most recent addition to his impressive ouvre on Buddhist-related violence, we also know that the truth is more complicated than our popular assumptions.. Like all religious traditions, Buddhism wears many faces. Mark Juergensmeyer is a professor of sociology and global studies, affiliate professor of religious studies, and the Kundan Kaur Kapany professor of global and Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ======================================== 15. GERMANY'S LEFT AND RIGHT VIE TO TURN POLITICS UPSIDE DOWN Opponents adopt each other?s policy angles as left launches movement to counter AfD Philip Oltermann ======================================== The Guardian 22 July 2018 Die Link?s chairwoman, Sahra Wagenknecht, will spearhead the as yet unnamed populist movement. Photograph: Clemens Bilan/EPA Leftwing politicians are singing the praises of border control while rightwingers call for expanding the welfare state. Old political certainties could be turned upside down in Germany this summer as the far ends of the country?s political spectrum both moot a ?national social? turn. A new leftwing movement soft-launching in Germany in August aims to part ways with what one of its founders calls the ?moralising? tendency of the left, in an attempt to win back working-class voters from the far-right Alternative f?r Deutschland (AfD). The as-yet-unnamed new populist movement, partly inspired by the British Labour party?s Momentum and Jean-Luc M?lenchon?s La France Insoumise, and spearheaded by the leftwing party Die Linke?s chairwoman, Sahra Wagenknecht, will include former and current members of the Social Democratic and Green parties, and prominent academics such as the sociologist Wolfgang Streeck. Advertisement According to one of the movement?s founders, its defining feature is likely to be its adherence to ?the materialist left, not the moral left?. ?When people live in social conditions that make them feel secure, they are usually prepared to act generously and tolerantly,? said Bernd Stegemann, an author and dramatist at the prestigious Berliner Ensemble theatre who is working with Wagenknecht on the movement?s programme. ?When they live in increasingly precarious and atomised conditions, however, they are also likely to react to challenges in a tougher and colder manner. Brecht summarised it wonderfully. Grub comes first, then ethics.? As well as rallying around traditional leftwing causes such as disarmament and a reversal of Germany?s Hartz IV labour market reforms, an unsigned position paper circulating around Berlin political circles in recent weeks suggests the movement will also advocate law and order policies and a tougher stance on immigration. ?Open borders in Europe means more competition for badly paid jobs,? says the paper, which is headed ?fairland?. Stegemann, who is not a member of any political party, said he was frustrated with middle-class leftwing intellectuals lecturing working-class Germans for their sceptical reaction to Angela Merkel?s decisions at the height of the refugee crisis. We are dealing with an absurd situation when the winners of neoliberalism tell the losers that they must be more humane ?We are dealing with an absurd situation when the winners of neoliberalism tell the losers that they must be more humane. And it galls me when politicians think it is enough to pass down moral judgments. No, politics must act.? The launch of the new movement, which will start as an online forum where supporters can upload and visualise policy proposals, comes as the AfD is trying to win over disappointed Die Linke supporters in the former states of East Germany. It is doing so by occupying positions on social welfare usually associated with the left. With three crucial state elections in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia coming up next year, east German branches of the AfD have started to part ways from the party?s economically liberal roots. A new pension plan unveiled this month by the Thuringian AfD MP J?rgen Pohl proposes stabilising pension levels at around 50% of earned income, outdoing proposals made by Die Linke, the Social Democrats or the Greens. Non-Germans are largely excluded from the AfD?s newly discovered welfare initiatives. A proposed ?state resident?s pension? of ?190 a month could only be claimed by German citizens who have worked in the country for more than 35 years. AfD politician says Germany should stop atoning for Nazi crimes Read more Bj?rn H?cke, the far-right politician who has emerged as the leading architect of AfD?s ?national social? identity in the east, has argued that ?the German social question of the 21st century? is not primarily the redistribution of national wealth from top to bottom, or old to young, but ?inside to outside?. For both Die Linke and the AfD, the new ?national social? formations ? as a recent article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung dubbed the new political initiative ? face opposition from within their own parties. There are fears among the former?s strategists and activists that the new movement?s launch proper in early September could backfire and destroy Die Linke?s already low chances of entering parliament at Bavarian state elections in October. Wagenknecht is a widely recognised politician whose rhetorical gifts have made hera regular presence on Germany?s political talkshows, but critics inside her own party say her popularity is an illusion. Unlike Labour?s Momentum, her new movement has so far mainly attracted older white men. In terms of policy, she runs counter to the successful socially liberal, pro-refugee Berlin branch of Die Linke, which is leading polls for state elections in 2021. Inside Alternative f?r Deutschland, calls for higher pensions and rallying cries against labour market deregulation clash with the official positions of the party?s upper ranks, where its leader, Alice Weidel, advocates Swiss-style pension funds as the model for Germany to follow, and its deputy leader, Beatrix von Storch, rails against high taxes on Twitter. New research, however, suggests that political realignments are not only taking place in party headquarters but across the country at large. Sociologist Klaus D?rre?s in-depth study of a new ?workers? movement on the right?, based on more than 70 interviews across Germany, reveals rapidly increasing support for the AfD?s ?exclusive solidarity? among functionaries and members at Germany?s unions. Manual workers who used to vote for the far right or far left in protestare increasingly solidifying their identification with the AfD, D?rre said. ?They used to be a fluctuating protest movement, but now they follow the party line.? One of the anonymous case studies quoted in the study, a previously ?exemplary? union activist who had fought for solidarity with Czech temporary workers, expressed views that crossed over from ?national social? to national socialism: ?In my view, the refugees have to go away ... I wouldn?t have a problem if they opened up Buchenwald again, put barbed wire around it, them inside, us outside.? ======================================== 16. TODAY, I AM ASHAMED TO BE AN ISRAELI Daniel Barenboim ======================================== Haaretz July 22, 2018 The founding fathers of the State of Israel considered the principle of equality and the pursuit of peace as the bedrock of the society they were building. What happened? [photo] Israeli right-wing activists shout slogans during a rally against a Palestinian prisoner on a hunger strike, in Ashkelon, southern Israel. Aug. 16, 2015 AP In 2004 I gave a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, in which I spoke about the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel. I called it "a source of inspiration to believe in ideals that transformed us from Jews to Israelis." I went on to say that, "this remarkable document expressed the commitment: "The State of Israel will devote itself to the development of this country for the benefit of all its people; it will be founded on the principles of freedom, justice and peace, guided by the visions of the prophets of Israel; it will grant full equal, social and political rights to all its citizens regardless of differences of religious faith, race or sex; it will ensure freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."" On a road sign in the West Bank pointing to Jerusalem, the Arabic has been crossed out. Those who want to delete Arabic as an official language in Israel should learn from the Revionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky.Motti Milrod The founding fathers of the State of Israel who signed the Declaration considered the principle of equality as the bedrock of the society they were building. They also committed themselves, and us, "to pursue peace and good relations with all neighboring states and people." 70 years later, the Israeli government has just passed a new law that replaces the principle of equality and universal values with nationalism and racism. Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email* It fills me with deep sorrow that I must today ask the very same questions which I asked 14 years ago when addressing the Knesset: Can we ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other? Can the Jewish people whose history is a record of continued suffering and relentless persecution, allow themselves to be indifferent to the rights and suffering of a neighboring people? A Palestinian woman holds Kuwaiti flag during a protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, Friday, June 1, 2018. A Palestinian woman holds Kuwaiti flag during a protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, Friday, June 1, 2018. Khalil Hamra/AP Can the State of Israel allow itself an unrealistic dream of an ideological end to the conflict instead of pursuing a pragmatic, humanitarian one based on social justice? 14 years later, I still believe that despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the future of Israel and its position in the family of enlightened nations will depend on our ability to realize the promise of the founding fathers as they canonized it in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, nothing has really changed since 2004. Instead, we now have a law that confirms the Arab population as second-class citizens. It therefore is a very clear form of apartheid. I don?t think the Jewish people survived for 20 centuries, mostly through persecution and enduring endless cruelties, on order to now become the oppressors, inflicting cruelty on others. This new law does exactly that. That is why I am ashamed of being an Israeli today. Daniel Barenboim is general music director of La Scala, the Berlin State Opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin. Together with the late Edward Said he co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians. ======================================== 17. SPAIN & PAN EUROPEAN INVENTION OF TRADITION -- THAT WOULD MAKE GENERAL FRANCO A HAPPY MAN ======================================== Walking the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela - Invention of Tradition with the backing of the Catholic Church and the EU. General Franco would be happy. https://mondediplo.com/2018/08/14compostela ======================================== 18. CENTRAL EUROPE IS A LESSON TO LIBERALS: DON?T BE ANTI-NATIONALIST Ivan Krastev ======================================== The Guardian 11 July 2018 The breakup of Yugoslavia fed the belief that flag-waving leads to bloodshed. But this eroded support for the centre ground and fuelled ethnic-based intolerance Women brave Sarajevo?s ?Sniper Alley? in 1992. The Bosnian capital was under siege for four years during the Yugoslav wars. Residents of Sarajevo brave ?Sniper Alley? in 1992. The Bosnian capital was under siege for four years during the Yugoslav wars. Photograph: Tom Stoddart/Getty Images ?I?ve only ever been afraid of signs and symbols, never of people and things,? wrote the Romanian novelist Mihail Sebastian at the start of For Two Thousand Years, the marvellous 1934 book that captures his country?s suffocating atmosphere of antisemitism and toxic nationalism between the two world wars. Today in Europe and the US there?s a lot of talk about the 1930s returning, as fears of rising nationalism take hold. But here?s the paradox: several studies show that nationalistic attitudes, particularly anti-migration sentiment, haven?t changed much in the past 20 years. People have always been uncomfortable with the idea of foreigners settling in their country. So the question isn?t so much about where nationalism has come from but where it?s been hiding all these years. What is there about ethno-nationalism now that rallies voters, but hasn?t done so before? Is it enough to point to the impact of the 2008-2010 financial crisis, combined with the shock caused by the refugee crisis? Might there be another, less obvious explanation? Earlier this year, in an exhibition in Sofia by the Bulgarian artist Luchezar Boyadjiev, I came across the perfect visualisation of what has long been the politically correct version of European history. Titled On Holiday, it showed the famous statue, on Berlin?s Unter den Linden boulevard, of the Prussian leader Frederick the Great on horseback ? only without the king on the horse?s back. By removing the rider, the artist had transformed the monument of a national hero into a monument of a horse. All the complexities attached to an important but morally controversial figure of the past were suddenly eliminated. There was a double irony to Boyadjiev?s work, directed both to those who expect to see their national leaders on the horseback, and those who hope to rewrite history by simply removing a king. What Boyadjiev was perhaps unaware of is that when historical heroes are taken off their horses, current political leaders will be tempted to jump on. This is exactly what?s happened in central Europe in recent years. Rightwing political hegemony in such countries as Poland and Hungary is the direct outcome of a void left by the divorce between liberalism and nationalism in the late 1990s. Remember how nationalists and liberals were allies in the overthrow of communism in 1989. Central European liberals were aware of the political appeal of post-communist nationalism, so they did a lot to shape it and soften it. Appealing to national sentiment was critically important as a way of mobilising society against the communist regimes. Poland?s Solidarity movement was not liberal, but a mixed ? social and nationalist ? coalition that endorsed the values of liberal democracy. Central Europeans feel threatened not by migrants but by the void left by emigration over the last decade This alliance between nationalists and liberals came to an end during the Yugoslav wars. The violent breakup of the country persuaded liberals that nationalism was the very heart of darkness, and that flirting with it could only be sinful. Those dramatic events silenced nationalists, or made them less audible ? at least for a while. The Serbian leader Slobodan Milo?evi?, a former communist, became the odious symbol of post-1989 nationalism. Unwilling to share a label with him, central and eastern Europe?s nationalist-minded politicians, most of whom were strongly anti-communist, became more muted. Their brand of nationalism simply could not speak its name. The Yugoslav wars made it impossible for liberals to define liberalism as anything but anti-nationalism. Over time, however, the equating of liberalism with anti-nationalism came at a cost. It eroded electoral support for liberal parties, making them totally dependent on the success of economic reforms and depriving them of powerful nationalist symbols. Meanwhile, an undeclared war between liberals and nationalists led to moderate nationalists being pushed to the illiberal camp. The example of Germany played a role. Central and eastern European liberals wanted societies to cope with their past much in the same way Germany had coped with its own. But was it realistic to expect that after 1989, we would all become Germans? Postwar German democracy was built on the assumption that nationalism leads ineluctably to nazism. As a result, any expression of ethno-nationalism came close to being criminalised ? even the national flag at football games was viewed with suspicion. Germany?s radical approach isn?t difficult to understand, given the exceptional nature of the Nazi legacy it had to deal with. But the attempt to transfer this to central Europe was bound to backfire. That?s because central and eastern states were children of the age of nationalism that followed the breakup of Europe?s empires. But unlike German nationalists in 1945, central European nationalists in 1989 felt they?d come out the winners, not the losers, of the last war ? in this case the cold war. In that sense, to ?become German? was impossible: most Poles felt it absurd to stop honouring nationalist-minded leaders who had risked their lives to defend Poland against Hitler or Stalin. Today we see the result. In the 19th century, and again in the 1970s and 80s, liberals and nationalists were able to shape a common platform ? one that was inclusive, rooted in a culture of individual rights, and centred around a sense of national pride. But today?s central European nationalism has been narrowed down to ethnicism, fuelled by demographic fears and anxieties over Europe?s changing role in the world. Central European nations feel threatened not so much by migrants (who are in fact reluctant to settle in their countries) but by the void left in communities by the economic emigration over the last decade of so many of their citizens, creating a feeling of collective loss in those left behind. Liberals may dream of defeating nationalism just as nationalism itself helped defeat communism. But that hope is fast turning into political tragedy ? because while communism was a radical political experiment based on abolishing private property, nationalism ? in one form or another ? is an organic part of any democratic political scene. Acknowledging this must surely be part of addressing its growing influence. ? Ivan Krastev is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria; and permanent fellow at the IWM Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria ======================================== 19. DON?T IMAGINE YOU?RE SMARTER Neal Ascherson ======================================== London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 14 ? 19 July 2018 pages 23-26 | 3670 words Neal Ascherson was the Observer?s Central European correspondent in the 1960s, reporting from Bonn. My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File by Katherine Verdery Duke, 344 pp, ?20.99, May, ISBN 978 0 8223 7081 9 Somewhere ? probably in Dumfries ? there must have been a secret file on ?Burns, Robt (cover code Mossgiel). Exciseman. Adverse trace: sympathy for French Revolution. Subject is sensitive and promiscuous. See verses passim.? Politics were one thing, but did he ever long to read what government spies thought of him as a person? ?O wad some Pow?r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as others see us!? Today, several ?Pow?rs? are giving it, in many countries and sometimes in bulk. But their disconcerting ?giftie? is not at all what Burns meant. In Germany, the Pow?r is called the Stasi Records Agency. In Poland, it?s the Instytut Pamie?i Narodowej ? the Institute of National Remembrance. In Bulgaria, it?s the Dossier Commission; in Romania, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS), and so on. In those files, as I found from my own Polish dossier, it?s not only a younger half-forgotten self that you meet. It is also an unrecognisable stranger ? yourself, as others have seen you. For nearly thirty years, hundreds of thousands of people have been reading their secret police files, the records of surveillance, denunciation and manipulation compiled by the spooks of communist Europe. Some archives, like the Stasi files in Germany, stay open. Some open and then hurriedly close again when the political weather changes. Some are clutched tight by governments which only use them to blacken or blackmail their opponents. But all these files contain secret portraits: women or men seen as others see them. These portraits may be the result of years of painstaking, insanely minute watching and eavesdropping by one or several security teams. Almost always, much of their detail comes from informers. Some informers won?t be identifiable. Some may be fictional, invented by idle security officers bumping up their expenses. But some will turn out to be the reader?s intimately trusted friends or lovers. Nobody, I think, remains quite the same after reading their file. The first and best-known account of the experience in English is Timothy Garton Ash?s The File (1997), and near the end of that wise and sensitive book, he tells himself: ?My new principle of As If is ? try to live in this free country as if the Stasi were always watching you ? can you live so you would not be embarrassed? by reading your file? After reading my Polish file a few years ago, I would add: ?From now on, can you live as if you were even for a moment unnoticed, out of sight, out of earshot, and truly alone?? Katherine Verdery was a young, high-spirited American when she arrived in Romania in 1973, a Stanford postgraduate intending to research an anthropology thesis on Romanian village life. She came as a bit of a leftie, 1968 vintage, inclined to mock the superstitious anti-communism current in the United States. She came with bounding American optimism about ?people?: if you were transparent and honest and friendly, said what you thought and trusted your new friends, then nothing could go badly wrong. In Ceau?escu?s Romania? Poor Kathy! She was to work in that country, on and off, for 15 years. Over that time she learned a Romanian so fluent that she was often taken for a local and acquired wonderfully intimate knowledge of the way rural communities in her part of Romania were structured. Through sometimes heartbreaking experience, and through very hard work, she slowly learned to love and understand this extraordinary nation. She also learned, not least through reading her own Securitate file afterwards, new and unexpected ways to understand herself. The Securitate found her suspicious in several successive ways. At first they thought she had been tasked with military spying. The reason was simple: in her first carefree months, she had flown past warning notices on her motorbike and entered a forbidden zone (it contained a secret arms factory). The Securitate opened a special file on her, a DUI (?dossier of informational pursual?). Then she settled into the village of Aurel Vlaicu, in southern Transylvania, where her many contacts and friendships made the Securitate wonder if she was assembling evidence to blacken the name of Romania in the outside world. At this time, in the 1970s, Romania was adopting a relatively relaxed attitude to Western contacts, hoping to win hard-currency loans and diplomatic support against Soviet pressure. But in the 1980s, as the country went effectively bankrupt and East-West relations temporarily worsened, the regime returned to its old paranoia. A lapsed law requiring all contacts with Western foreigners to be reported came back into force. The Securitate tightened its grip. Verdery was now spending much time in the city of Cluj, where she had formed a passionate friendship with the historian David Prodan. The Securitate meanwhile had decided that with a name like Verdery she must be an ethnic Hungarian (quite wrong: the family roots were French), and therefore had been planted to encourage subversion among the disaffected Magyar minority in Transylvania. Nonetheless, initially they rather admired her new friendship. Prodan?s telephone was permanently tapped and his flat bugged; the transcribing officer wrote that ?Everyone is completely relaxed; K evidently feels good, she likes the flattery, she?s attentive, polite and deferential ? They complete one another reciprocally, with humour and good taste.? Change your perspective - subscribe now By 1984 the spooks? benevolent mood had changed. Verdery was starting a new project about ?the formation of national ideology?, and they hated that. A new DUI was issued, with suggestions on how to obstruct her research and ?lose? her notes. Microphones were screwed into the walls of her Cluj hotel room, and a hidden video camera was trained on her bed. (Luckily it recorded nothing worse than views of her in her underclothes.) But then this ?Hungarian agent of the CIA? made a dreadful mistake, with long-lasting consequences. Her first book was a social history of Vlaicu within Transylvania, and she decided to lighten it with two jokes about ethnic stereotypes ? in which Romanians figured as ?clever thieves?. Disaster! In spite of knowing the country so well, she had completely underestimated national touchiness: almost everyone she knew took violent offence. Even Professor Prodan was ?absolutely livid?, and it took months of argument and weeping to restore friendship between them. It also genuinely upset the Securitate in Cluj. They had hoped that ?Vera? (one of her many codenames) was learning to love Romania, but they now proposed to ?interrupt her stay in this country? and opened more surveillance files. Her files revealed that her case went all the way up to General Julian Vlad, soon to be head of the Securitate. The matter of ?Vera? was judged ?very important?, and yet ? for reasons not clear ? she was allowed to remain. Intense pressure to inform on her activities was now applied to all her contacts. But although she knew she was being watched, Verdery made another mistake: she tried to organise a clandestine meeting with friends in Cluj, pretending it was a chance encounter. Here she was ignoring a basic rule. You may think you are more intelligent than the spooks ? and you are often right. But never, ever imagine that you are smarter. They knew what she was up to before she even started, and her file thickened. Near the end of her stay, not long before the Ceau?escu regime collapsed in late 1989, she spent time in Bucharest and got to know some prominent ?dissident? intellectuals. This earned her yet another hostile designation: CIA agent ?Vera? was now conspiring with active and open enemies of the state. Preparations to arrest and perhaps to put her on trial seem to have begun. By now she was suffering from depression and fits of paranoid distress. Her grants administrator (another snitch, needless to say) told his Secu handler that ?she finds herself in a state of collapse, is really panicked by the fact that we have picked up on some of her games, and she reacts violently.? And yet, in the end, nothing happened to her. She was allowed to leave the country, returning only after the December 1989 revolution had overthrown the communist state. Verdery was fortunate. And yet this story suggests that the Securitate came to find her almost too interesting to arrest or expel. Her file, when she was allowed to read it, was almost three thousand pages long. Compiling it, counting not only the watchers on foot or in cars but the transcribers of telephone calls and microphone recordings, the electronic technicians, the recruiters of local informers, the case assessors and their staff, gave work to literally hundreds of men (and a few women) over many years. Verdery reckons that there were probably almost half a million informers in Romania, while the Securitate itself numbered some fifteen thousand. For comparison, the Stasi ? in a smaller country ? had 93,000 full employees and 178,000 registered informers. By the end, the Securitate felt that they had got to know ?Vera? (aka ?Folklorista? or ?Vanessa?) very well, and they even approved of some of her opinions. Counter-intelligence services in Soviet Europe usually had both negative and positive aims. The default assumption was that a Western visitor was a spy of some kind, so the first task was to find out what sort of spy he or she was and deal with it. But if spying inquiries led nowhere much, the other task was to influence the visitor positively. That meant invisibly manipulating the foreigner?s contacts in order to sell a friendly, understanding attitude to the country?s policies, even to leave the visitor with affection and respect for the nation itself ? if not for its political system. Almost more than anything, the Securitate wanted Verdery to love Romania. Looking at my own file, I can see how often my ?offences? ? meeting ?hostile elements? or writing articles mocking communist repression and censorship ? were noted but tolerated because the Security Service judged that my affection for the Polish nation was real ? and probably exploitable. In both ?services?, old-fashioned patriotism could still sidle past ideology and sometimes past political security. Verdery considers that ?Ceau?escu?s regime was not ?totalitarian?, but struggled to impose itself on the populace, with only partial success.? With a professional interest in psychology and in the development of her own inner life, Verdery seizes the chance offered by her file to explore her identity. Who was the young woman perceived by the Securitate? Could the identity they constructed actually be more authentic than the person Verdery thought she remembered? She had known of course that she was under secret scrutiny. But she had no idea of the enormous scale of the operation, of the omnipresence of this invisible army of watchers and listeners crowding around her. Perhaps they really did know more about her than she knew herself. Perhaps that ?Vera? really was a spy. Wasn?t ethnographic research a form of spying? It?s deeply unnerving to realise that a team of men and women who have been studying you intimately for years know you by another name. Verdery?s avatar was called ?Vera?; mine was ?Grzegorz? or ?Cyklista? (the Cyclist). And Katherine Verdery did indeed become a different person. But, as she puts it, this was because ?an inner Romanian? emerged and liberated her. She took emotional risks, followed impulses, lived dangerously as she would never have done back home. ?Part of my new persona,? she writes, ?was an expanded sexuality ? expanded in the sense of both kinds of partners and frequency of sexual activity ? I was sexy, with a lot of vitality, and many Romanian men found me attractive; if the attraction was mutual, I was probably willing.? This was reckless. Verdery tried to prevent thoughts of microphones from inhibiting her private life, not realising quite how efficient her watchers were. They instantly identified almost all her lovers (some of whom they probably planted), and studied the recorded bedroom noises. Czech or Polish officers would probably have used this material to blackmail her in some way, but the Romanians, interestingly, didn?t. Instead, ?the Securitate could colonise my sexuality to gain new traction among populations where I lived.? When persuading some friend to inform on her, they would reel off a list of her lovers in order to impress him or her with their omniscience. ?My sexual habits were a way of giving them power over their own informer network, not to mention over the people I slept with.? How does a file-reader, leafing through their reports in such a different political epoch, judge those informers? In post-communist times, both Garton Ash and Verdery tracked down some of them and even interviewed Stasi and Secu officers who had run their cases. Garton Ash apparently had five informers; Verdery, over a much longer period, acquired more than seventy. Both show mercy and still conceal some names; there?s no lust for ?outing?. While Garton Ash?s book was concerned largely with finding the truth about what those individuals had done and penetrating their lies, Verdery is asking not so much ?what? as ?why?. How could they justify betraying someone who trusted them? What did they tell themselves about their activity? In my own file, the informer reports held little mystery. I knew them all, I had assumed they would be required to inform, and with one exception, found their informing harmless. Once spotted by the SB (Security Service), friends were invited to regular ?chats? with a Captain Kowalski, but all they told him was concocted lullaby: yes, Ascherson adored Poland, and no, he was too dumb to be a spy, and no, they had no idea who his other friends were, and he never asked about secrets. I knew they would have to do this, though we didn?t talk about it. My thought at the time was that they reckoned it was an ugly price worth paying, in order to keep in touch with somebody bringing news and views and fresh air from the West. No big deal. But today ?true Poles? who weren?t even born then pretend to see them as ?collaborators?. (Only one friend turned out to have asked the SB for money, in return for inventing me as an experienced British spy. The scribbled notes on his report show that his handler thought he was just a lying con man.) In the same way the recent fuss about Julia Kristeva boils down to nothing much, although it has suited some to inflate it into a fearful scandal. Bulgarian security files from the communist period log her as an ?agent? and a ?secret collaborator?. But the reality shown in her files is trivial. After settling in Paris in 1965, she was cornered by Bulgarian spooks who pointed out to her that she still had a vulnerable family in the home country. So she agreed to regular meetings over many years, in the course of which she seems to have told her handlers nothing more than gossip about Aragon, Bataille & Co. from the Left Bank caf?s ? stuff they could have read in Le Canard encha?n?. Surveillance dogged everything she did and everyone she met, but the combined intelligence value of its product and her reports was almost zero. The Bulgarian security men seem to have known they were being played. But never mind: they could impress their boss by showing him a real international celeb on their books, while expense-account meals with Kristeva at the Closerie des Lilas must have been agreeable. Verdery?s discoveries were far more painful. Men and women she had really trusted, in some cases loved, and with whom she had formed a warm intimacy through long hard times, had been informing on her continuously and voluminously, and at times telling damaging lies to impress the Secu. A few years after reading her file, she went back to Romania and told some of those friends that ?she knew?. But why did they do it, why? The meetings with one ?beloved friend? she calls ?Beniamin? were agonising. But Verdery decided to understand him as a victim, and to see ?his informing not as a betrayal but as a cause of suffering for him?. He was scared, and also had the instinct to do a job ? even the informer?s job ? properly. ?I am moved by his relative innocence and youth. He presents himself as fearful, and I believe it.? The beloved woman she calls ?Mariana? reacted differently, at first apologetic, then almost belligerent. ?I never felt I was an informer,? she said, and later: ?What a lot of harm you caused me!? True enough: if Kathy had not been close to her, the Secu man would not have put unbearable pressure on Mariana to inform and keep informing. After days of confessing and discussing, broken by sleepless nights, Mariana and Kathy eventually reached something like reconciliation. But Verdery reflects: ?Like viruses corrupting a healthy organism, Securitate practices subverted positive sentiment and turned it into guilt, rejection and avoidance, making me feel guilty for having loved my friends and for not protecting them enough.? She predicts that Romanians today will be irritated by her inclination to forgive her informers as victims of the system. They will protest that as a foreigner, she can afford to be lofty and magnanimous. As Romanians who must live with these people, they cannot. (Polish attitudes are much the same.) But Verdery is right to emphasise the suffering of the informers, and their lasting sense of shame and contamination. And to me her book suggests that I may have overlooked this pain in my Polish informers. I wanted to take at face value their jaunty composure, as they fed their interrogator harmless garbage. But I begin to realise more clearly now how humiliated they must have felt. Verdery?s meeting years later with some of her old Secu handlers confused her. She was shocked to discover not only that one or two of them were likeable, but that she actually wanted to like them. She describes her ?intense emotional response to my officers? ? a variant of Stockholm Syndrome. She set out to confront and accuse. But ?what has happened instead is that they have recruited me! ? not to inform but to see them more positively.? They were persuasive. Did we ever do you any real harm? They contrasted their methods with the police terror during the 1950s, when the Securitate killed, tortured, and drove thousands to be worked to death in labour camps. ?The view of Secu cruelty, well represented by my officers,? she writes, ?was that in those days the organisation was full of Hungarians, Jews and Russians; getting rid of those people brought to the surface sweet and intelligent, non-brutish Romanian Secus.? With surprising understatement she adds: ?This kind of nationalist explanation for all manner of issues has always bothered me in my Romanian friends.? Change your perspective - subscribe now Nothing is morally simple in this wonderfully candid, observant and diligently self-questioning account. Cold War ?empire of fear? descriptions don?t quite fit Verdery?s Romania. And the ?overthrow of communist terror by righteous democracy?? As she says, Romania today is to a large extent run by people who can be called the ?heirs of communism?, including secret police veterans. Verdery writes: ?As elsewhere in the former communist bloc, ex-securi?ti have been at the forefront of Romania?s communist-era elites in privatising and plundering its economy.? The Securitate didn?t exactly burn away in the fire of freedom: it lay low for a while, but then most of the officers below pension age were re-hired into the new SRI intelligence service. It?s worth adding that they have carried on the same kind of work at home and in foreign countries. The novelist Herta M?ller, who had escaped to the West, found that even after the fall of communism the SRI continued to spy on her in Germany, and to recruit informers. Are they still spying on Professor Verdery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore? Probably. The crowning mercy of human relations is that we don?t know what other people are really thinking about us. They ? those others ? decide what redacted selection we are offered. But to read one?s police file is ? suddenly ? to have the curtain pulled open. The self you think you know becomes a mask, concealing a devious somebody else whose relationships are mere espionage fakes. Verdery ends this unforgettable book by warning of ?new forms of statecraft promising greater security through ever heightened surveillance that are developing worldwide?. How was it that Britain, of all countries, allowed a secret counter-intelligence service to take control of appointments to the main national broadcaster ? the BBC? What is the difference between that, or the secret mass harvesting of political profiles by Cambridge Analytica, and the bugging of Verdery?s bedroom in Cluj? The big difference, plainly, is that in a liberal democracy we can launch investigative journalism against MI5 and stay free, whereas we might have perished in a labour camp for trying the same with the Securitate. But the new surveillance world means that everyone can now be shadowed by invisible robots, by doppelg?ngers fitted together by algorithms. Many will have several of them. Every Katherine will have her ?Vera? and ?Folklorista? padding silently along beside Professor Verdery. Every Neal will be accompanied by his unseen ?Grzegorz? or ?Cyklista?, both ? now that politics and the market use the tools of secret intelligence ? scented like night-flowers to attract buzzing vote-seekers or circling mortgage brokers. Those files told us that we had never walked alone. Now we begin to see that we never will. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Aug 19 18:59:03 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 00:59:03 +0200 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_20_Aug_2018_=7C_Nepal=92s_suffragette_mo?= =?windows-1252?Q?ment_/_Bangladesh=3A_Release_Shahidul_Alam_/_Pa?= =?windows-1252?Q?kistan=92s_Bomb_/_India=3A__Assam_citizenship_?= =?windows-1252?Q?=26_Hindutva_in_2019_elections_/_War_in_Afghani?= =?windows-1252?Q?stan_/_?= Message-ID: <98FDC51D-A3E1-4FBA-8FC4-2A84135B5275@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 20 August 2018 - No. 2995 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Bangladesh: Joint Statement Calls for the Release of Shahidul Alam 2. Nepal?s suffragette moment | Om Astha Rai 3. Managing Pakistan?s Bomb: Learning on the Job | Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zia Mian 4. Independence Days of Pakistan and India | Nyla Ali Khan 5. Re-reading Tagore to Become Human | Aseem Shrivastava 6. Death of a Marxist: A Tribute to Samir Amin | Vijay Prashad 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Ex-Sena corporator detained in Dabholkar killing case Ex-Sena corporator detained in Dabholkar killing case - India: Terror attacks foiled in Maharashtra - Arrests of activists of Hindutva far-right groups (URLs to reports) - India: Hindu Mahasabha sets up first Hindu court on the lines of Shariat court - Rising Hate and Violence: What should Minorities do? - India: End Soft Approach Towards Sanatan Sanstha, Says Writer Konkan writer Damodar Mauzo ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. India: The BJP will revive the Hindutva plank for the next election | Ramachandra Guha 9. India: Parivar tastes power - Made wiser by the 2004 defeat, the RSS and the BJP are working closely in the run-up to the 2019 polls | Makarand Gadgil 10. India - Assam: Non-citizens and history | Sanjib Baruah 11. Who Is Winning the War in Afghanistan? Depends on Which One | Rod Nordland 12. Russia: Nearly half of Russians ignorant invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 ? poll | Andrew Roth 13. Russia needs China more than China needs Russia: The forgotten communist quarrel | Serge Halimi ======================================== 1. BANGLADESH: JOINT STATEMENT CALLS FOR THE RELEASE OF SHAHIDUL ALAM ======================================== We, the undersigned civil society organisations, call for Shahidul Alam?s immediate and unconditional release, that all allegations against him be dropped, and that he receive proper medical care. http://www.sacw.net/article13852.html see also: Statement in Support of Shahidul Alam - National Geographic http://press.nationalgeographic.com/2018/08/16/statement-in-support-of-shahidul-alam/ ======================================== 2. NEPAL?S SUFFRAGETTE MOMENT | Om Astha Rai ======================================== Seven years after the Supreme Court issued a landmark verdict in the Sabina Damai vs Government of Nepal case, allowing children to obtain citizenship in the name of the mother alone, the 2015 Constitution and a draft bill in Parliament have set the clock back. Activists say the 2015 Constitution which was drafted, debated and promulgated mainly by men, denies equal citizenship rights to women, and the draft bill further entrenches Nepal?s patriarchal culture. http://www.sacw.net/article13855.html ======================================== 3. MANAGING PAKISTAN?S BOMB: LEARNING ON THE JOB by Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zia Mian ======================================== On Saturday, Imran Khan will be sworn in as the next prime minister of Pakistan. His has been a sudden and rapid rise to power; he first came into politics in the late 1990s with no experience and has never held any government office. In his first public address to the nation after winning the July election, with Pakistan?s economy near bankruptcy, Khan said, ?The biggest challenge we are facing is the economic crisis.? While this may well be the most pressing issue, the biggest and most important challenge Imran Khan will confront as prime minister is something he did not mention at all in his speech?how to manage the Bomb. The lives and well-being of Pakistan?s 200 million citizens and countless millions in India and elsewhere depend on how well he deals with the doomsday machine Pakistan?s Army and nuclear complex have worked so hard to build. http://www.sacw.net/article13854.html ======================================== 4. INDEPENDENCE DAYS OF PAKISTAN AND INDIA by Nyla Ali Khan ======================================== On the occasion of the Independence Days of Pakistan (August 14) and India (August 15), here is a highly relevant excerpt from my book http://www.sacw.net/article13851.html ======================================== 5. RE-READING TAGORE TO BECOME HUMAN by Aseem Shrivastava ======================================== IN 1922, Rabindranath Tagore published one of his most important works, the play Mukta-Dhara. The story, rich in symbolism, is a simple yet powerful one. Mukta-Dhara has proved to be prophetic in that it presages the future of development in India over an eventful hundred years. Rivers have suffered one insult after another in independent India http://www.sacw.net/article13853.html ======================================== 6. DEATH OF A MARXIST: A TRIBUTE TO SAMIR AMIN by Vijay Prashad ======================================== Egyptian economist Samir Amin observed the dangers of our world but also its possibilities http://www.sacw.net/article13850.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Ex-Sena corporator detained in Dabholkar killing case Ex-Sena corporator detained in Dabholkar killing case - India: Terror attacks foiled in Maharashtra - Arrests of activists of Hindutva far-right groups (URLs to reports) - India: Hindu Mahasabha sets up first Hindu court on the lines of Shariat court - Rising Hate and Violence: What should Minorities do? - India: End Soft Approach Towards Sanatan Sanstha, Says Writer Konkan writer Damodar Mauzo -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. HOPE VERSUS FEAR: THE BJP WILL REVIVE THE HINDUTVA PLANK FOR THE NEXT ELECTION by Ramachandra Guha ======================================== The Telegraph August 18, 2018 POLITICS AND PLAY - RAMACHANDRA GUHA In a book published in 2007, I wrote that "the world over, the rhetoric of modern democratic politics has been marked by two rather opposed rhetorical styles. The first appeals to hope, to popular aspirations for economic prosperity and social peace. The second appeals to fear, to sectional worries about being worsted or swamped by one's historic enemies." The Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru generally campaigned on a platform of hope. Nehru and his party promised voters economic growth, social peace and a higher standing for India in the world. He fought three general elections by these means. To be sure, he or his party did not achieve all these goals in office. However, to his credit, to win an election Nehru never opposed India to Pakistan, or Hindus to Muslims, or low castes to high castes, or the Hindi heartland to the rest of India. On the other hand, the Shiv Sena under Bal Thackeray always campaigned on a platform of fear. The party was founded in 1966; for the first 20 years of its existence, its main focus was on asserting that Mumbai was a city for Marathi-speakers alone. Shiv Sainiks first targeted South Indians who had come to the city to live and work; later, their focus was on keeping people from the North and East out of the metropolis. However, as the Shiv Sena sought to expand elsewhere in the state it acquired a new set of scapegoats. Now it painted Muslims as the main enemy of Mumbai, Maharashtra, and India. Whether you stoke fear or promote hope is generally a question of character and belief. It was impossible for Nehru to ever demonize Muslims, and inconceivable that Thackeray would ever see Muslims as full and equal citizens of the republic. Most politicians use hope or fear consistently through the course of their career. Narendra Modi is an exception. He has alternated between these two modes of campaigning. In his first few years as chief minister of Gujarat, Modi campaigned, and ruled, largely on a platform of fear. He spoke of the threats posed to his state and country by a certain "Mian Musharraf", of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins, of the Congress's alleged pandering to Muslims and of the Muslims' own alleged campaign of demographic conquest (" Hum paanch, hamare pachees", as he put it). Modi stoked the Indian fear of foreigners, the Gujarati fear of outsiders, and the Hindu fear of Muslims - all at once. He presented himself as a bulwark against the malevolent forces which threatened Gujarat in general and Gujarati Hindus in particular, insisting that he, and only he, could save the state from going under. Halfway into his second full term as chief minister, Modi began re-presenting himself as a Vikash Purush, a Man of Development, who would bring growth and prosperity to the people of his state. He held Vibrant Gujarat summits at which industrialists promised thousands of crores; and he began to boast about his state's achievements in energy, infrastructure and agriculture. The investments were mostly unrealized; and the achievements were somewhat exaggerated. Nonetheless, it was clear that from about 2010 onwards Modi began moving away from the rhetoric of fear toward the rhetoric of hope. The move was not complete; he still remained somewhat suspicious of Muslims (as when he refused to wear a skull cap offered to him in 2011). Nonetheless, it seemed that some sort of brand makeover was underway to make the man appeal to more than the core constituency of Hindutva. In his campaign for the 2014 general elections, Modi further underplayed communal issues in favour of economic ones. He promised 'Achchhe Din' for everyone and for young voters in particular, saying he would create crores of jobs for them. He also spoke of standing for 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas', implying that religious minorities would also benefit from the economic growth his regime claimed it would bring. After Modi won the elections and became prime minister, some commentators thought that he had finally shed his hard-line image. They hoped that he would now reconcile conflicting groups, rationalize archaic laws holding back our society and economy, and enhance India's standing in the world. They were further swayed by his grand slogans of 'Start Up India, Stand Up India', 'Make in India', 'Made in India'. Indians under Modi were indeed starting new enterprises; but of lynching innocent men, not of manufacturing objects for export. Those commentators who had cheered him to victory now urged him to 'rein in the fringe elements'. He was unwilling to do so; meanwhile, his party president was happy to let the polarization proceed apace. A rash of hateful statements against Muslims were made by MPs - chiefly from UP - who had been hand-picked to contest elections by Amit Shah. Then, in March 2017, one of those chosen MPs was made chief minister of his state. He had a track record as a baiter of minorities; and he was no promoter of development either. Despite five terms as an MP, his constituency was an economic, social, educational and medical disaster. In office, he continued to make incendiary statements aimed at the minorities. Yet, not only does he remain in office; he is sent by the Bharatiya Janata Party to other states to spread his message of hate and division. Suspicion of those who are not Hindus is intrinsic to the institutional and ideological structure of the sangh parivar. Modi himself imbibed this early; witness the adulatory essays he wrote in praise of M.S. Golwalkar. For his own instrumental purposes, however, Modi shifted from demonizing Muslims during his 2014 campaign. Now, however, since Achchhe Din have manifestly not arrived, the party seems set to revive the Hindutva plank for the next election. Consider in this regard the debate around the National Register of Citizens in Assam. When the first draft was released, the home minister, Rajnath Singh, said this was a preliminary list, and all those excluded would have a chance to apply again and appeal further if even then they didn't figure. This was both sober and sensible; for the Indian bureaucracy has a legendary reputation for incompetence. Soon, many cases of legitimate citizens being excluded came to light, including many respected Assamese professionals, the family of a former president of the republic, and even a BJP MLA. The BJP president, however, immediately declared that all those not named in the first draft were infiltrators and needed to be deported. His remarks were picked up and amplified by his acolytes in other states. Leaders of the BJP in Rajasthan, Bihar, Bengal, Mumbai and Delhi have all asked for the identification and deportation of 'foreigners' in their state or city. Lest they be dismissed as the 'fringe', let me note that in Jharkhand, a Harvard-educated and McKinsey-primed Union minister has called for such deportation too. 'Foreigners' in this context is, of course, a code word for 'Muslims'. With farmers in distress, Dalits angry, millions of young men still looking in vain for dignified employment, the BJP appears to have decided to fight the next general election on a platform of generating fear. Voters in different districts and states will be warned of the Assam example, and told that even the jobs they have are at risk because people of that other and foreign faith are against them. It is likely that in his own speeches the prime minister will not emphasize communal language, or at least not excessively. Rather, he will stoke fears of another kind; that if he is not given a second term, a khichdi coalition led by some self-seeking or corrupt regional satrap will blow away all the promises he has made to the nation, perhaps blow away the nation itself. So, while the cadre will tell voters to fear those who are not Hindu, the leader will tell voters to fear other leaders. Having, in 2014, falsely promised Achchhe Din, Modi will now tell voters that his rivals are capable only of bringing Burre Din. ======================================== 9. INDIA: PARIVAR TASTES POWER - MADE WISER BY THE 2004 DEFEAT, THE RSS AND THE BJP ARE WORKING CLOSELY IN THE RUN-UP TO THE 2019 POLLS By Makarand Gadgil ======================================== Mumbai Mirror August 12, 2018 Inside men in every ministry; frequent coordination meetings between them and ministers. The RSS is playing a bigger role than ever in bolstering the BJP. In April this year, V S Kokje beat Raghav Reddy in the race to head the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), one of the oldest and perhaps best-funded organisations under the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh?s (RSS) sprawling setup. Kokje?s victory was as clear an indication as possible of how closely the RSS has aligned itself with the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre. Reddy was backed by the VHP?s former working president Pravin Togadia, a trenchant critic of Modi and a constant thorn in the ruling BJP?s flesh. Reddy?s defeat was a clear signal from RSS bosses that nobody would be allowed to mess with Modi in the runup to the 2019 general elections. As far as Togadia is concerned, he had to leave the VHP. He has, since, announced the formation of a new outfit. According to a senior RSS functionary in Nagpur, with whom this correspondent spoke last month, this is perhaps the smoothest that Sangh-BJP relations have been in decades. And the reason for this is that neither side wants a repeat of 2004, when the BJP lost power after a full five-year term in Delhi. ?The constant friction between then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his deputy L K Advani on one side, and Sangh stalwarts like the then-RSS chief K S Sudarshan, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh?s (BMS) Dattopant Thengdi and Vishwa Hindu Parishad?s (VHP) Ashok Singhal on the other, cost the BJP the election back then,? he said. The BJP?s seats dropped from 182 in 1999 to 138 in 2004 and its voteshare shrank from 24 per cent to 22 per cent. ?Our post-poll research revealed that hordes of otherwise-faithful BJP voters stayed away from polling booths as they felt confused by different voices emanating from different Sangh Parivar organisations,? the RSS functionary said. And more than the loss of power, a senior BJP leader said, what alarmed the RSS was the aggression with which the Dr Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government went after the Sangh Parivar. ?The Vajpayee government may not have been able to implement the RSS agenda, but the UPA government was hostile to the RSS. It started bandying about terms like ?Hindu terror? and people like Col. Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh and Swami Aseemanand were arrested. At one point, it was apparent that the government was working towards banning the RSS,? he said. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (left) shares an excellent rapport with Narendra Modi, who considers Bhagwat?s late father to be his guru RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (left) shares an excellent rapport with Narendra Modi, who considers Bhagwat?s late father to be his guru So this time around, a lot of work has been done to make sure that the RSS and the government work in tandem. That Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat share an excellent rapport, has only helped this process. Their bond goes back to the days when Bhagwat?s father, Madhukar, was an RSS pracharak in Gujarat, and Modi considers him his guru. From Day One in office, Modi has made sure there are regular coordination meetings between various RSS affiliates and the concerned ministries. Organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Laghuudyog Bharati, and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) hold regular discussions with Modi?s Cabinet colleagues, and the government makes every effort to address their concerns. The results are visible. After Bhagwat expressed concern over Air India being taken over by foreign airlines, suitable changes were made to the bidding documents to favour Indian companies. When the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh raised a red flag, a moratorium was declared on the trials of genetically-modified (GM) crops. Similarly, after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad objected to a report prepared by the TSR Subramanian Committee on educational reforms, the government promptly appointed a new panel. So, unlike the Vajpayee government, which went ahead with its disinvestment programme and economic reforms despite objections from organisations within the Sangh Parivar, the Modi government has been open and amenable. This two-way communication is further facilitated by the presence of RSS men in all the key ministries. They are appointed either as officers on special duty or as personal secretaries/assistants to ministers. No file in the ministry moves without their consent. In Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh?s office, his Additional Personal Secretary Prabhat Tripathi, a veteran RSS hand, is the key man. In Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan?s office, his media advisor Harsh Rawat is at the centre of every decision taken. He and Pradhan have known each other since their days in the ABVP. In the Prime Minister?s Office, Modi?s personal assistants Om Prakash Singh and Dinesh Thakur are RSS men. They have been with Modi since his days as the Gujarat chief minister. Key policy decisions are vetted by two RSS appointees in the Human Resource Development Ministry led by Prakash Javadekar. S Gurumurthy, RSS?s ideologue on economic issues and a man who is known to push his Swadeshi version of economics, was appointed as RBI?s part time non-executive director on Thursday.. These are the perks the RSS enjoys because BJP is in power. It is believed Gurumurthy was consulted by Modi before demonetisation. The RSS had so far restricted its involvement in government affairs with issues related to security and social matters, but now its man will shape the central bank?s monetary policies, too, which, according to Gurumurthy, destroyed Indian business with high interest rates. The RSS has never asked its cadres to vote for any particular party. The RSS has never asked its cadres to vote for any particular party. RSS machinery behind BJP With 36 organisations under the Sangh Parivar umbrella, it is active in a wide variety of fields ? from labour activism to arts and culture. Feedback received from these organisations helps the RSS to advice the government. And its word counts; from the selection of candidates during elections, to policy formulation to key appointments. ?When we select candidates, we seek feedback from a cross-section of people, including the RSS. But the RSS?s advice is not binding and they, too, know where to draw the line,? said a BJP leader who did not wish to be identified. He quoted the example of Rekha Khedekar being nominated as the BJP candidate in the Assembly elections from Mehkar, in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra, in 1999, 2004 and 2009. Khedekar is the wife of Maratha Seva Sangh president Purshottam Khedekar, who regularly spits venom at the RSS. Khedekar was victorious on two occasions, but lost in 2009. The RSS plays an important role during elections ? helping in registering new voters, organising doorto-door campaigns and manning polling booths. ?But you will never see a single officebearer of the RSS sharing the stage at any of our programmes. They remain in the background and work silently,? said a senior BJP leader. Two or three months before elections, RSS volunteers under the banner of the Matdata Jagruti Manch (Forum for Awakening Voters) start doing the rounds of the areas assigned to them. They talk about the importance of voting and important local, state-level and national issues. ?But they do not tell voters who to vote for,? the BJP leader, quoted above, said. If RSS workers don?t vigorously campaign, then it is a message to voters that all is not well between the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. But that is a sort of dog whistle only dedicated voters can hear. Others may not be able to pick up on this signal. Another senior BJP leader from Maharashtra, who was a full-time ABVP activist in his youth, said there is no need for the RSS to issue a diktat during elections. ?A person who is an RSS volunteer and is a factory worker, will gravitate naturally towards the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.. So when it comes to voting, his first choice is obviously the BJP,? he said. BJP?s national secretary Sunil Deodhar, who spent eight years as a pracharak in the Northeast, said RSS volunteers are at work round-the-year. ?That helps the BJP at the time of elections,? he said. A senior Sangh functionary said that except on two occasions ? in 1952, when the Jan Sangh was formed, and in 1977, when elections took place in the backdrop of the Emergency ? the RSS has never asked its cadres to vote for any particular party. ?Whatever they do, they do it voluntarily. After all, they are swayamsevaks. However, BJP leaders seek our guidance and feedback, which we provide.? (L) K S Sudarshan shared an acrimonoius relationship with Vajpayee and Advani; (R) Pravin Togadia, once Modi?s best friend, was thrown out of the VHP earlier this year (L) K S Sudarshan shared an acrimonoius relationship with Vajpayee and Advani; (R) Pravin Togadia, once Modi?s best friend, was thrown out of the VHP earlier this year In June this year, RSS top bosses ? including general secretary Bhayyaji Joshi and joint general secretaries Dattatray Hosbale and Krishna Gopal ? met with the BJP?s organising general secretaries. BJP president Amit Shah was present at this meeting where the RSS presented its state-wise feedback, including an assessment of the election-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The BJP?s organising general secretaries are full-time RSS pracharaks sent on deputation to the BJP. Many more such coordination meetings are expected to take place in the run-up to the general elections of 2019. In fact, the BJP?s Sampark for Samarthan programme ? under which 4,000 top leaders are meeting prominent personalities and giving them information about the work done by the party ? was born out of the feedback given by the RSS. During the Surajkund RSS-BJP conclave in June, the Sangh leadership spoke about the growing discontent among Dalits, the agrarian crisis in several states and the growing threat of urban Maoism.. The recent decision by the Modi government to hike the minimum support price for 21 Kharif crops by 40 to 50 per cent, was based on this feedback, said a Union government minister. Another RSS functionary, who spoke with this correspondent at the Chembur residence of a BJP leader, said: ?During the same meeting, the RSS handed over a list of more than a hundred BJP MPs whose prospects in 2019 do not look too bright. The list included five MPs from Maharashtra. These MPs are unlikely to get BJP tickets for the 2019 elections.? Saba Naqvi, author of Shades of Saffron, an account of the BJP?s journey, believes both the RSS and the BJP have learnt the importance of preserving power. ?The RSS and the BJP are completely new species now. Being in power helps you appoint your people in key positions and push your agenda. Bhagwat and Modi understand the importance of that,? she said. ======================================== 10. INDIA - ASSAM: NON-CITIZENS AND HISTORY by Sanjib Baruah ======================================== Frontline Print edition : August 31, 2018 People line up at an NRC Seva Kendra in Tezpur on July 30 to check whether their names are on the draft list. At an NRC verification centre in Morigaon district on July 11. It is a shame that our contemporary public discourse on amending citizenship laws aims primarily at containing spatial mobility. THERE is a wide variety of reasons why a person?s name may not have appeared in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. In all, 3.76 million applications for citizenship have been rejected and a final decision has been put on hold in a quarter million cases. However, the final NRC is likely to have fewer exclusions than in the draft. The complexity of what is involved in updating the NRC deserves close attention. Prateek Hajela, the State Coordinator for updating the NRC, describes the process as ?technology-driven, transparent and objective?. But he is the first to admit that ?computers only work for submitting the documents to us, and sending it to the issuing authority?. Beyond this, they are of limited use because the identification documents used in the process, except PAN cards, are not stored in any computerised database. The updating of the NRC, therefore, basically relies on paper documents of various kinds and old-fashioned manual verification of such documents by the NRC staff. The NRC exercise exemplifies the fact that contrary to the talk of a paperless society, the growing use of electronic technologies has actually increased the need for paper documents and underlined their importance in people?s lives. Legacy data are at the heart of the process. To be included in the NRC one has to identify an ancestor whose name appears in either the NRC of 1951 or a pre-1971 electoral roll, and provide documentary evidence of linkage with that person. Even with the substantial assistance available at the NRC Seva Kendras, this can be a challenge for many people. Consider a person who lives in Assam but was not born in the State. In order to process his or her legacy data, NRC officials have had to make as many as 600,000 requests for ?legacy verification? to various State governments. The response from them has been poor and tardy. Some States responded to fewer than 1 per cent of the requests. More than 100,000 requests for legacy verification were made to the West Bengal government, but the NRC authorities received responses only in 6.5 per cent of the requests. The history of the reorganisation of Assam has also complicated the process. The relevant records of some current residents of Assam, for example, could be in an office in Shillong, which was the capital of undivided Assam but is now under the jurisdiction of the Meghalaya State administration. In other words, the verification of legacy data would depend on the cooperation of an office under the jurisdiction of another State government. The challenges can be especially daunting for poor people with limited literacy. The Assamese graphic novelist Parismita Singh, author of The Hotel at the End of the World (Penguin, 2009), has written touchingly of the experience of villagers near Biswanath Chariali, an area where she grew up. Many in that area spoke to her about a lot of kheli-meli, confusion. A different spelling of a name of a grand parent in a voters list of decades past was sometimes the source of anomaly. Women were particularly vulnerable since ?their names almost never appear on land records, or family trees, or school enrolment lists?. A father and a child do not always have the same surname: a woman with the birth-name Khatun may be Bibi after marriage. And for some people in the area ?documents have scattered in the vicissitudes of displacement through floods and political disturbances, ethnic clashes, communal riots, violence?. The updating process, however, has not been reliant on paper documents in every part of Assam. The administrative rules developed for this purpose allows for the use of the category ?original inhabitant?. In the case of persons in this category, local administrators were able to determine his or her eligibility for inclusion in the NRC ?through field verifications?. At least in the partial draft made public on New Year?s Day, the percentage of people included in it was much higher for areas with large numbers of people identified as belonging to the ?original inhabitant? category than for some other areas. The procedure was a source of some controversy. A Supreme Court bench had to address complaints that the label creates and privileges certain groups of people. Nevertheless, the efforts made by the two-person Supreme Court bench and those in charge of the process to make the final NRC complete and accurate are impressive; and they are likely to pay off. But it is crucial that we focus attention on those whose names will not appear in the final NRC. [ . . .] Full text at: https://www.frontline.in/the-nation/article24702054.ece ======================================== 11. WHO IS WINNING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN? DEPENDS ON WHICH ONE by Rod Nordland ======================================== The New York Times Aug. 18, 2018 Rod Nordland has been reporting on Afghanistan?s travails since well before the American-led invasion that booted the Taliban from power in 2001. For the past eight years, he has been a correspondent and then Kabul bureau chief for The New York Times, which has expanded its presence in the country even as many other news organizations have withdrawn. KABUL, Afghanistan ? Two wars are convulsing Afghanistan, the war of blood and guts, and the war of truth and lies. Both have been amassing casualties at a remarkable rate recently. The first is that messy war in which, just in the past week, more than 40 high school students were blown to pieces in their classroom, hundreds of bodies were left abandoned for a week in the streets of Ghazni city or dumped in a river, and two important Afghan Army units were destroyed, almost to the last soldier. The other is the war in which most of that, according to official accounts, did not happen ? or at least was not as bad as it sounded. Not until late on the third day of the Taliban?s assault on Ghazni did President Ashraf Ghani?s aides even inform him of the desperation level there, two government officials said privately; Mr. Ghani himself later confirmed that publicly. By then the Taliban had control of nearly every neighborhood. Fighting ceases in Afghanistan's Ghazni, but fear remainsCreditVideo by AFP news agency Government spokesmen, confronted with a crisis, basically responded by asserting that everything was fine. They repeatedly denied that Taliban fighters were in control of Ghazni. By day six, when the insurgents no longer were in control, official denials converged with the truth. The American military?s chief spokesman, Lt. Col. Martin L. O?Donnell, insisted there was no big problem ? just insurgents looking for ?inconsequential headlines.? Discerning fact from fiction is challenging in any war, of course. But in Afghanistan, where most of the population has known only war, narratives are often total contradictions of one another. How We Reported Image An Afghan soldier at a check point on the highway between Ghazni and Kabul, the capital.CreditMohammad Ismail/Reuters We had a reporter inside Ghazni, canvassing neighborhoods. Although the country?s cellphone networks failed in Ghazni, making it hard to check the official narrative, we also found people who could get a cell signal on the outskirts or upper floors of Ghazni buildings, or who fled and brought their stories to us. One of our reporters, Fahim Abed, got through on the phone to the director of Ghazni Hospital, Baz Mohammad Hemat, who spoke from a hospital floor awash in blood, bodies stacked in storerooms because the morgue was full. Dr. Hemat counted 113 dead on day two, and more arriving hourly. Most were in uniform, belying official claims of minimal casualties. In Ajristan District, our Afghan reporters heard that disaster had befallen an elite Army commando unit defending that remote area. As our reporter Jawad Sukhanyar called around to officials in the surrounding areas, he found that the Ministry of Defense was doing the same thing; they didn?t know what had happened either. It turned out that insurgent suicide bombers destroyed the commando company?s base, and as the defenders fled, Taliban fighters picked them off. Out of a base force of more than 100 commandos, police and militia fighters, only 22 survived, fleeing into the desert with no water or food. Jawad reached a surviving commando, Sgt. Eid Mohammad, 30, on the phone. He described how they had drunk one another?s urine while fleeing pro-Taliban Kuchi nomads. The sergeant also repeated a version of something widely heard in the 25 of Afghanistan?s 34 provinces actively at war now: ?No one from the government gave us anything. All we got was promises, no action.? That was true 300 miles north of Ghazni, at a place called Chinese Camp, where an Afghan Army company struggled through three days of heavy Taliban attacks, begging for resupply and reinforcements, and especially air support, which were promised, but never arrived. Our reporter Najim Rahim had been on the phone every day for a week with the defenders, including their captain, who had become Najim?s friend. On Sunday someone else answered the captain?s phone. ?I started crying when I heard he was killed,? Najim said. By Tuesday the defenders at Chinese Camp were almost out of ammunition, they told Najim. Half were dead or wounded and the rest surrendered except for a lieutenant who escaped. Najim managed to track him down, so we knew what had happened. Afghan officials at the Ministry of Defense said they could not provide an account of Chinese Camp casualties. ?We?re working on figuring out how many soldiers were there and when we do, we?ll share it,? said Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed, a ministry spokesman. Lots more happened this past week, more than we could cover except briefly. On Monday, Taliban fighters overran an Afghan border police unit defending the frontier with Tajikistan in northern Takhar Province, killing 12. An Afghan National Army unit was destroyed in northern Baghlan Province, where officials admitted that 39 soldiers were killed, two wounded and two escaped. Who is winning? Image Members of the 215th Corps of the Afghan National Army at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in 2016.CreditAdam Ferguson for The New York Times This is often the first question arriving diplomats ask. Every year there?s a new group of them ? most countries do not allow them to stay more than a year, sometimes two. They are usually well briefed in the official narrative that things are improving. But many spend their entire tours inside a fortified embassy. On paper, the Afghan government and its 40-plus international coalition allies, predominantly Americans, have all the advantages over the insurgents. The Afghan military and police have an authorized strength of 350,000, their payroll funded by international partners. The American military now number 14,000, a mix of trainers, advisers and Special Operations members. The Afghans also have their own small air force, and extensive support from American drones, jet bombers and helicopter gunships. The Taliban have been estimated by American military officials to number 20,000 to 40,000 active fighters, an estimate that has not changed much for years even though the Afghan government claims it has been killing nearly a thousand a month. The true size of the Afghan military is difficult to assess. The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, an American government watchdog agency, reported in July that the Afghan National Army was at 86 percent of its authorized strength, and that all security forces, police, army and specialized units totaled 310,000. The agency also said the attrition rate for the Afghan National Army was running at 2 percent a month. If confirmed, that would translate into roughly a quarter of the total per year. Full data on attrition, which includes desertions, failure to re-enlist and casualties, was now secret, the agency said, a decision taken by the American military, which the agency criticized. Also classified as secret since last year has been the true casualty toll for the Afghan military. When those figures were last released by Afghan government officials, in 2016, more than 6,000 soldiers and police officers were being killed annually. The outgoing American military commander at the end of 2014, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, called the Afghan government losses, then about 5,000 fatalities a year, ?unsustainable.? Many Afghan officials and military officers say privately that the losses have worsened since then. ?Casualties among Afghan forces are higher than they have ever been,? said the retired general Atiqullah Amarkhel, a military analyst in Kabul. If the death toll of the past week ? more than 400 Afghan soldiers and police officers ? were to continue for a year, the annual total would be triple the worst known year so far. The Afghan military and its American allies have officially shifted their strategy to one that emphasizes protecting population centers ? places like Ghazni city ? rather than holding onto territory ? places like Ghormach and Ajristan Districts, where those army units were overwhelmed last week. The military has been slow to make that shift, however. The Taliban vowed this year to retake cities and provinces, but so far they have taken no provinces and three cities, but only briefly. And most of Afghanistan?s population lives under government, not Taliban, control. Even by territorial standards, according to the American military?s reckoning, the Afghan security forces have been doing well lately. When the international coalition reduced its 140,000-soldier presence, handing security responsibility to Afghan forces, the insurgents quickly expanded their control throughout the country. But in the past year, the military said, that expansion has been halted. As of July 30, the government controlled 58.5 percent of the country, the insurgents 19.4 percent, with the remaining 22 percent contested, according to the American military. Other information raises serious questions about the accuracy of that data. In Ghazni Province, for example, only one of its 19 districts was listed by the American military as under insurgent control. But local officials said last week that only three Ghazni districts were clearly government-controlled. In northern Kunduz Province, and in southern Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul Provinces, most districts are listed as under government control or contested. But in none of them would it be safe for a government official to leave the provincial capital without a heavily armed escort. Message Control Last week supporters of the Afghan government criticized reporting by The New York Times on the conflict, with some calling it The Taliban Times and questioning the casualty counts. One of our reporters, Fatima Faizi, responded by uploading on Facebook excerpts from quotations from government officials ? the sources for those figures. Fatima is from Ghazni and at the time her cousin was among those missing in the fighting there. (He was later found, wounded but safe.). The government?s efforts at message management often collide with an inclination by many ordinary Afghans and local officials to speak their minds. They are often the best sources for information. When phone service was restored in Ghazni and we finally reached Mohammad Arif Noori, the spokesman for the governor, he did not try to obscure what had just happened. There were too few security forces in the city, he said, and they were using outdated equipment. ?The reason most parts of Ghazni city collapsed was a lack of coordination between police and N.D.S. forces,? he said, referring to the National Directorate for Security, a paramilitary intelligence service. Safe Is a Relative Term Image An empty alcove in Bamian, Afghanistan, where a Buddha once stood.CreditWakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse ? Getty Images Even parts of the country considered safe have been badly affected. Take Bamian Province, home of the standing Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban. Bamian attracted a range of foreign aid groups with ambitious projects: a ski slope, to promote tourism; a girl?s bicycle team. It is no longer possible to go there safely. The last airline that served Bamian, Kam Air, stopped flying this year after many foreign crew members were killed during an insurgent attack on Kabul?s Intercontinental Hotel. Both roads into Bamian are blocked by Taliban units, in Wardak Province and in Parwan Province?s Ghorband Valley. ?The government has no will to clear the Taliban from Ghorband valley,? said Ghulam Bahauddin Jilani, the Parwan provincial council chairman. In provinces like Oruzgan where the insurgents have much more support, the situation is even more difficult. Amir Mohammad Barakzai, head of the provincial council there, said officials have asked in vain for more resources to fight the insurgents, who are now are on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Tarinkot. ?The Taliban are winning this war,? Mr. Barakzai said. In Helmand Province, where the Taliban dominates, Bashir Ahmad Shakirn, head of the security committee, said corruption is the main reason the government does so poorly. ?I don?t believe the Taliban are stronger than us, what makes them stronger is the incompetence of our officials,? he said. ?Their priority is not winning the war but their personal benefits.? Two Helmand army corps commanders in a row were replaced and charged with corruption in 2016 and 2017. The Afghan security forces and the police receive about $6 billion annually, most of it from the United States. But corruption eats away at that money, as reflected in the constant complaints by local units that they are underfed and outgunned. ?If we compare the anti-government forces with Afghan security forces, the Taliban are better equipped, have more resources, and have access to modern weapons,? said a councilman, Abdul Wali, in Logar Province. ?If things continue like this, the Taliban will be the winners.? How This Ends Image Marines in Helmand Province in 2010. American commanders have long since stopped talking about winning in Afghanistan.CreditTyler Hicks/The New York Times Nesar Ahmad Mehari is the spokesman for the governor of western Farah Province, where the capital city, Farah, was overrun by the Taliban for a day in May. Things are better now, he said, as American troops fight with Afghan commandos. But other officials say that in some neighborhoods, insurgents walk around freely. ?I think no one will win this war,? Mr. Mehari said. ?We have seen only destruction and human losses from both sides since 17 years and this will continue for years to come with the same bloodshed.? American commanders have long since stopped talking about winning in Afghanistan. None see how 14,000 American troops can achieve what 110,000 could not. Taliban leaders have always insisted that as long as any American troops remained in Afghanistan, they would negotiate peace only with the Americans. But American officials had insisted on an ?Afghan-owned, Afghan-led process.? Aides to President Trump, who once called the Afghanistan war a total disaster, have moved to authorize such talks. A State Department official met in July with Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar, according to Taliban officials. In the past, Afghan officials have opposed that sort of American role, but apparently no longer. ?As President Ghani has indicated that he?s ready to pursue something without conditions, that speaks for itself,? said Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of the American military?s Central Command, when asked about American-initiated talks during a visit here on July 23. ?Everything can be on the table here as we move forward with this Afghan-led process.? In June, the Afghan government and the Taliban declared separate cease-fires, which overlapped for the Eid holiday that ended Ramadan. The cease-fire was so successful that no violent incidents broke out between Taliban and government sides. (There were some suicide attacks by their mutual enemy, the Islamic State.) Insurgents came into towns and cities and mingled with locals in a remarkable outpouring of pro-peace sentiment by people on both sides, who were taking selfies with one another. Even women came out to see the insurgents, who once had hounded them off the streets. It was a moment many hope to see repeated, and President Ghani has offered another cease-fire for the Eid al-Adha holiday that begins Tuesday. Some analysts think the Taliban?s remarkable push on so many fronts in the past week may actually be an effort by the insurgents to gain as much ground as possible before a cease-fire and any further steps toward peace. ?They can join the peace process in a stronger position, and show they are not doing it due to military pressure,? said Intizar Khadim, an Afghan political analyst. Others fear that Ghazni and the bloody past week may have made peace prospects dimmer than ever. The final death toll in Ghazni, a senior official told us, was 155 police and soldiers, 60 to 70 civilians, and 430 insurgents. As many as 200 security forces died elsewhere around the country last week. That left thousands of relatives and friends with reasons to harbor hatred. On the Taliban side, supporters may well be wary of people like Col. Farid Ahmad Mashal, the Ghazni police chief, who posted his own photo on Facebook with the corpses of Taliban fighters. ?Do not show any mercy to the enemy,? he wrote on Facebook. Rod Nordland reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Reporting was contributed from Afghanistan by Mujib Mashal, Fahim Abed, Fatima Faizi and Jawad Sukhanyar from Kabul; Najim Rahim from Mazar-i-Sharif; Taimoor Shah from Kandahar; Farooq Jan Mangal from Khost; Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad; Mohammad Saber from Herat; and an employee of The New York Times from Ghazni. A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 19, 2018, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Who?s Winning the War in Afghanistan? Depends Which One. ======================================== 12. RUSSIA: NEARLY HALF OF RUSSIANS IGNORANT INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA IN 1968 ? POLL by Andrew Roth ======================================== The Guardian 19 August 2018 Experts say survey on Warsaw Pact intervention anniversary reflects resurgence of ?Brezhnev-era propaganda? Andrew Roth in Moscow A worker cleans a sculpture of the hammer and sickle symbol at the VDNKh in Moscow. Nostalgia has grown for the Soviet Union in Russia. Photograph: Maxim Marmur/AP More than a third of Russians say the Soviet Union was correct to intervene in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and nearly half of the population says it knows nothing about the invasion at all, according to new polling data obtained by the Guardian before its release on the 50th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague spring. The polling data reflects the resurgence of ?Brezhnev-era propaganda, stereotypes of the Soviet period,? said Lev Gudkov of Russia?s Levada Center, which will release the results on Monday. More than a fifth of Russians blamed a ?subversive action by western countries? to split the communist bloc for a Czechoslovak programme of liberalisation that ended in a Soviet-led invasion of the communist country. The Warsaw Pact intervention was seen as a turning point for the Soviet legacy in Europe, but its anniversary on Monday will largely pass unnoticed in Russia, where politicians and television stations have tended to stay quiet on the topic. ?Generally speaking, the authorities don?t want to pay any attention to the anniversary,? said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Nostalgia has grown for the Soviet Union in Russia, where the communist legacy is largely associated with the victory over Nazi Germany in the second world war and its superpower status. Observers, however, say that less vaunted moments in the Soviet past are being forgotten or reinterpreted through the prism of conspiracy theory. Advertisement On the night of 20 August 1968, Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia in tanks to halt a campaign of liberal reforms billed as ?socialism with a human face?. The reformist Communist party leader Alexander Dub?ek was ousted. The intervention, accompanied by photographs of Soviet tanks in Prague, led to western condemnation and a split with some western Communist parties. The invasion also left more than 80 dead, many from gunshot wounds, according to internal Czechoslovak reports released 20 years later, in the twilight of communism. ?These events are being forced out of the public memory,? Gudkov said. The poll showed that an about 36% of Russians thought the Soviet Union certainly or was likely to have ?acted correctly?in sending troops into Czechoslovakia. Another 45% had difficult answering whether the Soviet Union acted correctly or not ? an increase from 34% in 2003. Just 10% of 18 to 35-year-olds said they knew about the Prague spring, Gudkov said. ?Young people don?t know and don?t want to know about what happened,? he said. The new polling results reflected popular reactions to Russian geopolitical realities, such as the country?s annexation of Crimea in 2014, he said. ?I think this is the manifestation of the mass amorality of a great power, which has become the basis of the Russian imperialist revival under Putin and the support of the annexation of Crimea.? About a quarter of Russians said they had heard about the eight protesters who held a demonstration in Red Square in 1968 to protest against the invasion, holding signs that read ?we are losing our best friends? and ?for our freedom and yours?. The protesters later spent years in prison camps or locked away in psychiatric wards. ?The state?s interest is to hide the real meaning of the historical events of this kind. In their interpretation Russian history is the history of statesmen and military men, not citizens,? Kolesnikov said. The events have also been tainted by conspiracy theory, he said. A television documentary in 2015 called Warsaw Pact: Declassified Pages was so aggressive in justifying the intervention that it provoked a d?marche from the Czech foreign ministry. Unverified reports about secret arms caches were repeated in the documentary. In the poll, 21% of respondents blamed a Western plot and 23% blamed a coup attempt by anti-Soviet leaders in Czechoslovakia for the events of 1968. An estimated 18% of Russians called it a ?rebellion against a regime installed by the Soviet Union? ? down from 31% in 2008. ======================================== 13. RUSSIA NEEDS CHINA MORE THAN CHINA NEEDS RUSSIA: THE FORGOTTEN COMMUNIST QUARREL by Serge Halimi ======================================== Le Monde Diplomatique August 2018 Even experts get things wrong. A book by journalist Fran?ois Fejt? begins: ?17 October 1961 is a date that will be remembered by the authors of history textbooks.? It has been remembered, but not for the reason he thought. Today the date is mostly associated with French police killing tens of Algerian protestors in Paris, whereas Fejt?, writing about the ?great communist schism? in 1964, thought it marked ?the end of Soviet hegemony over the international communist movement? (1). On that day, General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev addressed the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), with western journalists present, and attacked the then pro-Chinese Albanian communists. There are two striking aspects to this great Sino-Soviet ideological quarrel, which in 1969 descended into armed conflict. First, it has largely been forgotten. Almost no one talks about it, though it tore the communist movement apart and transformed international relations for a quarter of a century. Second, it was highly secret. The deterioration of relations between the world?s two main communist parties, and the states they ran, began in 1956. But the quarrel, and the details of all the disagreements that amplified it, only became public knowledge five years later. Until 17 October 1961, Fejt? writes, ?both parties tried to keep their dispute secret. Criticisms, reproaches and grievances were expressed cryptically, with only just enough transparency to ensure that those being targeted did not misunderstand the meaning of the warning? (2). The Chinese attacked Yugoslav leaders? ?revisionism? with especial vehemence after the USSR and pro-Soviet parties renewed ties with Tito. And the Soviets targeted the Albanians because they were aligned with China. Nevertheless, collective discipline (and the absence of Twitter) meant that even a February 1956 speech by the Soviet leader to an audience of petrified communist delegates, detailing the crimes attributed to his predecessor Joseph Stalin, remained secret for several weeks. The authenticity of the indictment was even questioned by some who heard, or read, a speech they were unlikely to forget. Khrushchev?s denunciation of Stalin opened the floodgates of Sino-Soviet grievances. Chairman Mao couldn?t accept that such an important decision, whose consequences were easy to imagine for the whole international communist movement, should be a matter for the Soviet communist party alone. Mao saw no need for criticism of the cult of personality, especially in China, and he feared that the denunciation of Stalin would weaken every communist leader who had supported Stalin, which nearly all the survivors had. Mao, however, had not aligned his strategy with the generally disastrous advice of his Soviet comrades. Stalin, though ill-disposed to having his authority challenged, admitted as much in 1948, revealing that the Chinese hadn?t complied when ?we told them brutally that in our opinion the Chinese uprising had no chance of success, so they should seek a modus vivendi with Chiang Kai-shek, join his government and disband their army. They did the opposite, and today everyone can see: they?re in the process of beating Chiang Kai-shek? (3). Besides the ?Stalin Question? (the title of a September 1963 article by the Communist Party of China setting out its differences with the Soviets), the main disagreement between the parties was about the issue of peaceful coexistence. In 1956, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev had, according to the Chinese, espoused ?erroneous views on such questions as imperialism and war and peace? (4). Which views? Russia, having conquered the dread of encirclement that characterised the Stalinist period, imagined that the (then genuine) appeal of the Soviet model might entice new states into its ambit, without a showdown with imperialism. Nuclear weapons, which ?make no class distinctions?, made the Soviets jointly responsible with the US for world peace. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 seemed to them to confirm this. Mao rejected this as ?revisionism?. He thought that, as ?socialist forces are overwhelmingly superior to the imperialist forces,? they should take advantage of it. But Khrushchev, because of his fear of US ?paper tigers? and his suspect entente with western leaders, risked paralysing revolutionary movements in the third world. Mao had in 1957 already put the fear of nuclear war into perspective: ?If the worst came to the worst and half of humanity died, the other half would remain, while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. In a number of years there would be 2.7 billion people again [and] more.? Did he really believe that, or merely want the imperialists to think he would not flinch if it came to a trial of strength? It doesn?t matter today. Especially as Russia and China, also reconciled on this point, have worked so hard to ensure that the idea of ?the whole world becoming socialist? has not advanced much in recent years. Serge Halimi is president and editorial director of Le Monde diplomatique. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Aug 26 06:59:01 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2018 16:29:01 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_26_Aug_2018_=7C_Sri_Lanka=92s_New_Right-?= =?windows-1252?Q?Wing_Politics_/_Bangladesh=3A_politics_=26_arch?= =?windows-1252?Q?itecture_/_India=3A_2018_Praful_Bidwai_Memorial?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Award_/_War_in_Afghanistan_/_Uri_Avnery_-_1923?= =?windows-1252?Q?-2018_/_Nicaragua=3A_How_Daniel_Ortega_Became_a?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Tyrant?= Message-ID: <81F8F36E-39FC-4C32-AA9F-E485A598895F@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 26 August 2018 - No. 2996 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka?s New Right-Wing Politics | Jayadeva Uyangoda 2. India: Kandhamal without closure | Apoorvanand 3. RIP Kuldip Nayar: My Friend, The Man For Peace | Syeda Hameed 4. India: Text of statement by academics and concerned citizens against the assault on Prof Sanjay Kumar, in Motihari (Champaran, Bihar) 5. Announcements: (i) Announcement: Presentation of 2018 Praful Bidwai Memorial Award (28 Aug 2018 - New Delhi) (ii) Announced: Smitu Kothari Fellowship for Young Writers | Centre for Financial Accountability 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Why linguistic diversity does not mean India is cosmopolitan - India: Subramanium Swamy launches 'Virat Hindustan Sangam' (VHS India) - India: Punjab Sacrilege bill - A Dangerous Game | V B Rawat - Davis on Veluthat Essays on Indian History - India: Questions Still Surround the Dabholkar Murder Investigation - India: On ground, BJP works to woo Dalits, OBCs - India: If not Godse, I would have killed Gandhi, says judge of self-styled Hindu court - The trouble with Nehru?s country | Jawed Naqvi ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. India: Ashes of hope: Why the BJP needs Atal as icon | Bharat Bhushan 8. India: Not Just Hadiya - Hurdles to Rights of Individuals | Alok Prasanna Kumar 9. India: Politics & lynching | A.G. Noorani 10. India - Politics and punishment: Movement on cases involving Sanatan Sanstha is welcome, must be taken forward | Julio Ribeiro 11. How politics and architecture blended in Dhaka | Adnan Morshed 12. Inside the U.S. Fight to Save Ghazni From the Taliban | W.J. Hennigan 13. Uri Avnery - 1923-2018. His opponents will ultimately have to follow in his footsteps 14. Gender studies programs to be banned in Hungary | Christopher Adam 15. Nicaragua: How Daniel Ortega Became a Tyrant: From Revolutionary to Strongman | Gioconda Belli ======================================== 1. SRI LANKA?S NEW RIGHT-WING POLITICS by Jayadeva Uyangoda ======================================== One way of interpreting the confluence of post-democratic political forces around a neo-right-wing agenda and a personality constructed in the mould of adharmika ruler is that Sri Lanka?s contemporary political order is set to experience a major qualitative shift. In that emerging political order, there might develop two parallel authority structures, one secular, and the other, religious. http://www.sacw.net/article13864.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: KANDHAMAL WITHOUT CLOSURE by Apoorvanand ======================================== These 10 years have seen hate and violence against Christians being routinised. Beating up of priests, breaking up of prayer meetings and carols, desecration of churches and arrests of priests, enactment of anti-conversion laws, as in Jharkhand or villages being made out of bounds for Christians as in Chhattisgarh, lack the spectacle of Kandhamal. Our indifference to all these only indicates the normalisation of what Kandhamal saw. http://www.sacw.net/article13863.html ======================================== 3. RIP KULDIP NAYAR: MY FRIEND, THE MAN FOR PEACE by Syeda Hameed ======================================== He was the gentle giant of India Pakistan Peace. Both countries should honour him by opening the borders for a massive memorial meeting which should be held in his karmbhoomi Amritsar. http://www.sacw.net/article13860.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: TEXT OF STATEMENT BY ACADEMICS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS AGAINST THE ASSAULT ON PROF SANJAY KUMAR, IN MOTIHARI (CHAMPARAN, BIHAR) ======================================== As sociologists, social scientists and concerned individuals across the world, we strongly condemn the brutal mob assault on 17 August 2018, on sociologist Sanjay Kumar at Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Motihari, Bihar. . . . We appeal to all university teachers, students and citizens at large to ensure the safety and civility of our campuses and ensure there is space for open discussion. http://www.sacw.net/article13859.html ======================================== 5. ANNOUNCEMENTS: ======================================== (i) ANNOUNCEMENT: PRESENTATION OF 2018 PRAFUL BIDWAI MEMORIAL AWARD (28 AUG 2018 - NEW DELHI) Presentation Ceremony of Praful Bidwai Memorial Award 2018 to Ulka Mahajan, Sarvhara Jan Andolan on August 28 (Tuesday), 2018 at 05.00 pm | New Delhi http://www.sacw.net/article13856.html (ii) ANNOUNCED: SMITU KOTHARI FELLOWSHIP FOR YOUNG WRITERS | CENTRE FOR FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY a New-Delhi based organisation working to strengthen and improve financial accountability within India, invites applications for the inaugural Smitu Kothari Fellowship. http://www.sacw.net/article13861.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Why linguistic diversity does not mean India is cosmopolitan - India: Subramanium Swamy launches 'Virat Hindustan Sangam' (VHS India) - India: Punjab Sacrilege bill - A Dangerous Game - India: Punjab?s sacrilege law defiles the sacred, messes with the secular - Davis on Veluthat Essays on Indian History - India: Questions Still Surround the Dabholkar Murder Investigation - India: On ground, BJP works to woo Dalits, OBCs - India: If not Godse, I would have killed Gandhi, says judge of self-styled Hindu court - India Kerala floods: Thrissur temple offers hall for Eid prayers | Mosque shelters Hindu families - India: Which party for dalits Today? - Hindi Article - Attacks on Swami Agnivesh - The trouble with Nehru?s country | Jawed Naqvi - India: Why can?t Yogi Adityanath be prosecuted for hate speech, Supreme Court asks UP govt -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. INDIA: ASHES OF HOPE: WHY THE BJP NEEDS ATAL AS ICON by Bharat Bhushan ======================================== The Asian Age August 25, 2018 In all 75 districts of UP, memorial events will be organised to scatter Vajpayee?s ashes in a river. A year ago, in September 2017, BJP president Amit Shah tore into the Congress for beginning every ?political journey? with the urns bearing the ashes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Metaphorically, he was reducing the party to the achievements of its past leaders. It is undeniable that the Congress had started the process of converting the death of its tallest leaders into a national grieving event. Their ashes were scattered not only in India?s rivers but also sprinkled over the Himalayas and the farms and fields of the country. Mr Shah, however, may have spoken too soon. Just a year later, it is his party which is trying to apotheosise its own tallest leader of recent times, Atal Behari Vajpayee, by transforming the Hindu rites of death into a political tableau. The foster family of Vajpayee immersed his ashes at Hardwar on August 20. In Hindu belief, the cremation rites dissolve the material bond between the physical body and the soul and the immersion of the ashes in flowing water is essential to free the soul. Of these waters, the Ganga is considered the holiest. The Shankhsmriti says: ?Yadavasthini gangayam tishthanti purushayshya cha; tavad varsh sahasrani Brhamaloke mahiyate (So long as the ashes of a deceased person remain in the Ganga, the soul of that person will continue to enjoy happiness in ?Brahmalok?, the highest of the joyful worlds, for thousands of years).? After this final ritual, Vajpayee?s ashes are also being dispersed by the party in 110 rivers and lakes across the country. This should be unexceptionable, given the precedents set by Congress governments. However, consider the mind-boggling fact that in Uttar Pradesh alone there will be more than 100 ash immersions. In UP, Vajpayee?s ashes will be immersed in the Ganga 20 times; in the Yamuna 16 times; in the Gomati and Ghagra 11 times; in the Tons, Rapti and Sai six times; in the Hindon five times; in the Gandak, Varuna, Ramganga, Kuoni and Kali Nadi three times; in the Garra, Suheli, Rohini, Dhasan, Karban and Ishan twice; besides being immersed in the Ken, Betwa, Karnali, Rihand, Badi Gandak, Chhoti Gandak, Sot, Sengar, Arind, Sharada, Bakulahi, Aril, Kunhar, Vaan Ganga, Sharada, Sone and Kanha rivers. In all 75 districts of UP, memorial events will be organised to scatter Vajpayee?s ashes in a river. In some districts the ceremony will be repeated up to four times in different rivers. In addition, three memorials will be built for Vajpayee in East, Central and Western UP. In Madhya Pradesh, the urns containing the ashes will be taken to every village panchayat, condolence meetings will be organised in every district headquarters town, development block and gram panchayat and then immersed in all prominent rivers of the state. Vajpayee Memorials will be constructed in Bhopal and Gwalior, a `5 lakh award instituted in journalism, poetry and administration; the school in Gwalior which Vajpayee attended will be upgraded; a Vajpayee Library set up in all seven smart cities of the state; and naming the state?s Global Skill Park, four Shramodaya Schools and the Vidisha Medical College after Vajpayee. Vajpayee?s ashes will be carried in three processions in Chhattisgarh; its capital Naya Raipur will be named Atal Nagar and Bilaspur University will be renamed after Vajpayee. In Rajasthan the ashes will be immersed in Mahi river in Banswara, Chambal river in Kota and Pushkar Lake in Ajmer. Why does this feel more than mere ritual facilitation of a departed soul to ?Brahmalok?? Because the activities around ash-immersion are so much more intense in the electorally important North Indian states than in the South, where the BJP is non-existent outside Karnataka. The party is understandably very anxious about UP, which contributes the most number of seats to the Lok Sabha and where its performance was spectacular in 2014. A comparable performance in the coming general election is threatened by the potential alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The ash immersion ceremonies provide the party an opportunity to reconnect with its cadre and voters in UP. The beleaguered party is perhaps especially hopeful of consolidating its support among the brahmins alienated by the Narendra Modi government?s belated pro-dalit moves such as amending the Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes Act and advocating reservations in promotions. The celebration of the brahmin Vajpayee may help the party in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as well. Re-naming of roads and institutions after another departed brahmin leader of the party, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay (Mughal Sarai railway station was recently renamed after him) and launching Ayushman Bharat, or ?Modicare?, on his birthday in September are part of the same strategy. More important, the party perhaps also hopes to cash in on Vajpayee?s brand equity. Even though Prime Minister Modi seems confident and is not given to self-doubt, the party seems to feel the need for other icons as well. Politically, the BJP doesn?t have too many recognisable public icons. Unlike other political parties, it can?t drink deep from the well of the Indian freedom struggle. Despite its muscular nationalism today, its ancestral outfits were simply absent from the freedom struggle. The BJP harks back to V.D. Savarkar, but his clemency petition from jail in the Andamans casts a shadow on his credentials. Appropriating Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel does not take it far because he lived and died a Congressman. At best Patel can be used to criticise some of Nehru?s decisions. In Vajpayee, a democratically-elected and well-liked Prime Minister, the BJP has finally found someone it can be unstintingly proud of. Upadhyay may have been an intellectual giant for the BJP but he does not connect with most Indians. That is not the case with Vajpayee. He can be the Hindutva ideology?s counter to ?Chacha Nehru? as an avuncular, poetry-spouting, ?cuddly? figure. Memorialising Vajpayee will help to round the rough edges of the image of the BJP and perhaps make it more acceptable to large sections of the populace. Carrying the urns of his ashes will certainly launch the BJP on a new political journey. Whether another phoenix will rise from his ashes remains to be seen. The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. ======================================= 8. INDIA: NOT JUST HADIYA - HURDLES TO RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS by Alok Prasanna Kumar ======================================== The Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 53, Issue No. 33, 18 Aug, 2018 ? Not Just Hadiya (alok.prasanna[at]vidhilegalpolicy.in) is Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and he is based in Bengaluru. Although the legal system formally defends the rights of individuals as to who they want to live with or marry, it does pose various impediments in the path of those who choose against the will of their parents or the dictates of society. The abuse of process by parents and even third parties goes unpunished by the legal system, only creating new hurdles in the free exercise of the individual?s rights. In the first week of August came news of yet another brutal killing in the name of ?honour.? Mamta, herself a Jat, was gunned down by killers allegedly hired by her family for having had the temerity to cross caste boundaries and elope with a Dalit man, Sunil. At the time of her killing, she had turned 18 a couple of months ago and was headed to the district magistrate to record her statement. Why she was headed to the district magistrate also has a lot to do with her choices. She was going there to state before the magistrate that she intended to live with Sunil and the charges of rape and kidnapping foisted upon him by her family were false (Vishwanath 2018). Mamta and Sunil?s case is not entirely unprecedented or one of a kind. According to statistics maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau, 251 such killings were noted in 2015 and 71 in 2016 (NCRB 2016). The top three states for such killings in absolute terms were Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and caste seems to be the main factor in such killings (Rahoof 2017). As awful as these numbers are, they do not present the full picture of how parents and community members try to stop young couples crossing caste and religious boundaries. Mamta and Sunil?s case itself shows how the legal system is used to try and break up such relationships. Ostensibly, the law allows all adults capable of making decisions to choose whom they want to marry, whether within the framework of their customary religious laws or under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. That does not mean, however, that the police and the judicial system necessarily prove to be neutral arbiters of the law. In Mamta and Sunil?s case as well, her father had approached the police and managed to convince them to file charges of fraud, rape, and conspiracy, even though his own complaint states that she stepped out of the house willingly (Vishwanath 2018). While such a killing may be one extreme reaction on the part of parents and family to prevent young people from making their own choices in the matter of love and relationships, there are other insidious ways in which the legal system enables the creation of hurdles. Even where the police or the judiciary are not actively questioning or denying the capacity of women to choose for themselves, on other occasions, through apathy or simple delay, they enable such harassment through the law. Hadiya?s Case and Others The Kerala High Court?s handling of the Hadiya case was nothing short of disgraceful. That it even entertained the petition by her father?knowing full well that she was an adult and capable of making her own decisions?was suspect. Her right to choose her religion, and whom she wanted to marry was under constant scrutiny and, eventually, her agency as a woman was completely denied by a high court driven less by law and the Constitution, and more by pure prejudice (Kumar 2017). Hadiya did not even have an opportunity to challenge the high court?s findings given that she was under house arrest and had no means to reach the outside world on her own. Eventually, Hadiya was free to choose where she went (Shafin Jahan v Ashokan K M 2018), but not before she suffered an effective imprisonment for no fault of hers (Kumar 2018). But, Hadiya?s is not a one-off case. The phenomenon of parents approaching the high courts directly through habeas corpus petitions demanding that custody of their major children be handed over to them, against the latter?s will, has happened even after her case. Although the Kerala High Court has refused to interfere in specific instances (New Indian Express 2018), in one particular instance, its involvement is worth noting. Arundhathi, a transgender person born Aby James, left home and chose to live as a woman. This prompted her mother to file a habeas corpus petition in the Kerala High Court demanding that she be given custody of Arundhathi. The only problem, of course, was that Arundhathi was 25 years old and free to live wherever she chose. However, the Kerala High Court ordered Arundhathi to undergo a humiliating psychological test before it could be satisfied that her wishes could be respected (Ameerudheen 2018). Not only is compelling someone to undergo such a test an affront to basic human dignity, it violates the Supreme Court?s judgment inNALSA v Union of India (2014), which recognises the rights of transgender persons to choose their own gender. Satisfied that Arundhathi had acted of her own will, the Kerala High Court dismissed her mother?s petition, but not before making condescending remarks and consistently misgendering Arundhathi. In both cases, two features stand out. First, the allegations made by the parents turn out to have little or no basis in fact. Both Hadiya and Arundhathi came forth and disputed any allegation that they were ?forced? or ?brainwashed? in any way by anyone. Yet, in Hadiya?s case, the Supreme Court thought it fit to send the National Investigation Agency on a wild goose chase to ?investigate? the claims. A second feature that stands out is that the parents who moved the courts suffered no consequences whatsoever. That another person was put through harassment for no reason, and the court?s time wasted does not seem to have moved the court to take any sort of action against the parents of either Hadiya or Arundhathi. This has repercussions beyond the two cases in question. Beyond just the precedential value of a judgment or an order, parties take calls on whether to litigate or approach the court based on what they reasonably expect the court to do in their case. When the court shows patience and forbearance towards frivolous and false claims, it is telling litigants that public time and resources can be put to use to harass, intimidate or simply annoy those they want to. To that extent, the legal system, through its unwillingness to impose any costs or consequences on parents who want to control the choices of their adult children, is sending the signal that it will be an accomplice to this, where the process is punishment itself. Looking Past the Data These high-profile cases where parents approach the high court directly are not the archetypal case of parents using litigation to control their adult children?s choices. Another tactic used is filing false complaints of rape and kidnapping when couples elope to escape sanction from their parents and families. A study of all cases decided by the Delhi trial courts in 2015 by the Hindu showed that as many as 40% of all cases were related to elopement, and the prosecution was launched as an afterthought by the parents of the girl (Shrinivasan 2014). A similar study of cases from the trial courts in Mumbai found that nearly a third of such cases were elopement cases (Shrinivasan 2015). It is not as if the police are not aware or entirely misled by the parents about the nature of the events. The study of sexual assault cases in Mumbai also quotes a police sub-inspector who freely admits that the first information reports in such elopement cases follow a certain script: If the parents approach us saying their daughter has run away with a boy from the neighbourhood, we have to register a complaint of kidnap of minor and later when she says she had relations with the boy, we add the rape charge. Then it is for the court to decide whether it was rape or not. (Shrinivasan 2015) The apathy of the police, in not caring, particularly if they are standing in the way of free choice or preventing a crime, is perhaps not unique to the Delhi and Mumbai police in this matter. The NCRB?s data for crime in India in 2016 notes 88,008 instances of ?kidnapping and abduction,? grouping a range of offences together under this category under the Indian Penal Code. Curiously, while being one of the largest categories of violent crimes investigated, it is also the category of crime with the lowest rate of chargesheeting. The police filed chargesheets in less than half the cases of kidnapping and abduction. In metropolitan cities, the number comes down to less than a quarter (NCRB 2016)! This suggests one of two things: either the police are particularly lax about investigating and chargesheeting kidnapping cases (disproportionately so when compared to other violent crimes), or that a large number of these complaints are parents unhappy with their daughter?s choice of life partner. Beti bachao, beti padhao is a popular slogan these days. India?s female literacy is rising, but Indian society seems unwilling to accept that an educated woman will also make her own choices that they may not agree with. While the formal codified law and the Constitution firmly stand behind the individual in her battle against society, the instrumentalities of state do not seem too sure on whose side they should be. References Ameerudheen, T A (2018): ??I Felt Humiliated?: Kerala Trans Woman Hopes Court Will Stop Ordering Medical Tests to Check Gender,? Scroll.in, 10 June, https://scroll.in/article/ 881949/i-felt-humilia?ted-kerala-trans-woman-hopes-court-will-stop-ordering-medical-tests-to-check-gender. Kumar, Alok Prasanna (2017): ?Court versus Choice,? Indian Express, 2 December, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/court-versus-choice-hadiya-kerala-conversion-case-4963861/. ? (2018): ?Supreme Court Has Still Not Acknowledged Its Own Role in Subjecting Hadiya to a ?Judicial Affront?,? Scroll.in, 13 April, https://scroll.in/article/875291/supreme-court-has-still-not-acknowledged-its-own-role-in-subjecting-hadiya-to-a-judicial-affront. NALSA v Union of India (2014): SCC, SC, 5, p 438. NCRB (2016): ?Crime in India: 2016 Statistics,? National Crime Records Bureau, http://ncrb.gov.in/StatPublications/CII/CII2016/pdfs/NEWPDFs/Crime%20in%20India%20-%202016%20Complete%20PDF%20291117.pdf. New Indian Express (2018): ?Kerala High Court Thumbs-up to Teens? Live-in Relationship,? 2 June, http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2018/jun/02/kerala-high-court-thumbs-up-to-teens-live-in-relationship-1822623.html. Rahoof, K K Abdul (2017): ?Caste Main Factor in Honour Killings,? Deccan Chronicle, 29 May, https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/290517/caste-main-factor-in-honour-killings.html. Shafin Jahan v Ashokan KM (2018): SCC Online, SC, 343. Shrinivasan, Rukmini (2014): ?The Many Shades of Rape Cases in Delhi,? Hindu, 29 July, https://www.thehindu.com/data/the-many-shades-of-rape-cases-in-delhi/article6261042.ece. ? (2015): ?Why the FIR Doesn?t Tell You the Whole Story,? Hindu, 22 December, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/rukmini-s-writes-about-the-mumbai-sessions-court-rulings-on-sexual-assault-during-2015-why-the-fir-doesnt-tell-you-the-whole-story/article8014815.ece. Vishwanath, Apurva (2018): ?Jat Woman Who Married Dalit Shot Dead Outside Rohtak Court, 4 of Family Held,? Print, 12 August, https://theprint.in/politics/rohtak-honour-killing-dalit-man-not-allowed-at-jat-wifes-funeral-over-fears-of-backlash/97240/. (All URLs were accessed on 14 August 2018.) ======================================== 9. INDIA: POLITICS & LYNCHING by A.G. Noorani ======================================== Kashmir Times August 20, 2018 AT long last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed, in measured words, his disapproval of lynchings, which have spread since he took office. He never deigned to condemn them or their perpetrators, who are his supporters. Consider, in contrast, Ivanka Trump's condemnation of "white supremacy, racism and neo-Nazism", unlike her father, who drew scorn after the bloodshed in Charlottesville last year for refusing to condemn the white supremacist rally, described by Ivanka Trump as an "ugly display of hatred, racism, bigotry and violence". Violence does not erupt by itself. It erupts only after the atmosphere has been fouled by hate speech. Severe condemnation from the top leadership is indispensable for checking the crime. It awakens society to its values, deters the culprits and emboldens the police. The very opposite happens when the top leader is perceived to be condoning or abetting the crime by a record of studious silence. It is no mere accident that incidents of cow vigilantism against Muslims registered a steep rise since 2014, reaching a peak in 2017. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir merely told the Rajya Sabha in July 2018 that "the National Crime Records Bureau does not mention specific data with respect to lynching incidents". Last March, the home ministry furnished data on mob lynchings recorded only by the states, of which 14 had provided none. The motives varied from cow vigilantism, rumours of child-lifting to religious or caste hatred. Significantly, there were no details of the location of attacks or identities of attackers and victims. This writer met an able scholar, Karthik Madhavapeddi of the data journalism initiative IndiaSpend, at a seminar in July, in which a collection of well-researched papers on Muslims in India by the Institute of Objective Studies was launched. Figures compiled by IndiaSpend tell their own tale. About 98 per cent of these attacks occurred post-May 2014, after the BJP and Modi assumed power. At least 33 persons were killed in these attacks - 29 (ie 88pc) of them Muslim. Over 56pc of all attacks occurred in states run by BJP governments. "The violence started with cow-related vigilantism but is now building up more violent behaviour - from small to big reasons - anything could be the trigger," Upneet Lalli, deputy director, Institute of Correctional Administration, told IndiaSpend. The truth that lies beneath these figures is far more disturbing. Hate speech leads to hate crime. The proposition is recognised by English, American and European courts. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe holds that hate crimes are violent manifestations of intolerance against entire communities. They have a deep impact on not only the immediate victim but also the community with which the victim identifies, affecting social cohesion and stability. But hatred for Muslims and Christians is the very raison d'?tre of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of which the BJP is a fully controlled subsidiary. The RSS and its affiliates assert that India is a Hindu country. Muslims are invaders. They say that the "even flow of the national life was disturbed" as Muslims arrived in "Bharat ... in the 8th century AD...". It has also been asserted that as the "invaders ... started destruction of the symbols of national life and employed all and every means to subvert the loyalty of the Hindus to their motherland and her age-old cultural ideals by their conversion ... the leaders of Hindu society began giving serious thought to the new and unprecedented situation". India is "the common motherland (matri bhoomi) and holy land (punya bhoomi) of the Indian people". The holy lands of Muslims and Christians lie elsewhere. They are not part of the nation. "The most urgent problem of Indian nationalism today, therefore, is to Indianise or Hinduise such people." This was written in 1969 by Balraj Madhok, one of the founders of the Jan Sangh, parent of the BJP. It was a rehash of Savarkar's thesis Hindutva of 1924, which the BJP began advocating openly from 1989 onwards and still swears by today. So does Modi. Hence his reference to a thousand years of slavery in his maiden speech to the Lok Sabha in May 2014. This skewed version of history is used to foment hate. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, two of the most incisive scholars on Indian politics Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd I. Rudolph wrote a scintillating paper called Modern Hate. It is wrong to depict recent violence as "an outgrowth of old animosities". History is abused to further the ends of modern hate politics. Their conclusion is sound and telling: "The hatred is modern, and may be closer than we think." This is what India is up against today. It is not battling to secure Indian nationalism. It is battling to save its soul. ?(Courtesy: Dawn) ======================================== 10. INDIA - POLITICS AND PUNISHMENT: MOVEMENT ON CASES INVOLVING SANATAN SANSTHA IS WELCOME, MUST BE TAKEN FORWARD by Julio Ribeiro ======================================== The Indian Express August 23, 2018 Dabholkar was a rationalist who did not believe in the supernatural and consequentially, miracles. (Express Photo/File) Those of us who felt that the present dispensation would not look kindly on the CBI or police officers investigating the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh have been proved wrong. Whether it is public pressure or the fact that the Sanatan Sanstha is an organisation that works independently of the other known Hindutva outfits, the fact remains that the investigations have successfully nailed many operatives of the Sanatan Sanstha (the Sanstha has denied any involvement), first in the Gauri Lankesh murder and now in Dabholkar?s case. It should not take the investigators much time to unravel the entire conspiracy to eliminate intellectuals who oppose the Sanstha?s view of the divine. Dabholkar was a rationalist who did not believe in the supernatural and consequentially, miracles. Pansare, a CPI leader, followed the same line of thinking and so did Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. Dabholkar was murdered five years ago on August 20, 2013 in Pune, Pansare was shot dead in similar circumstances on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur. Kalburgi was murdered on August 30, 2015 in Dharwad and Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017. The skein of evidence pointed to one group of assassins plotting all four murders and that is now very apparent. Probably, there were many more free thinkers on the hit list of the group! If the Bengaluru police had not identified the real culprits in Gauri Lankesh?s murder, it would have taken even more time for the subsequent arrest of Vaibhav Raut and his two companions by the Maharashtra ATS. Once real culprits are caught, the truth spills out in torrents. It is true that the CBI investigating the Dabholkar murder had previously suspected two other Sanatan Sanstha operatives, based on the description of the suspects by bystanders. They may have been tangentially involved but the real culprits are now known. It is quite obvious that the Sanatan Sanstha has more adherents than we imagined. They are spread across the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka in particular. Their tentacles may have spread to other states also. In fact, their main headquarters, I am told, has been set up in Goa. A trial run was attempted by causing small explosions in different churches in Goa and trying to divert the blame to jihadi terror. The attempt failed and the Sanstha and its activities were brought on the police radar. It is interesting to note that most of the people recently arrested were carrying on their individual occupation and businesses and appeared to be law abiding citizens of the localities in which they lived. They were accepted in society as such. Their Jekyll and Hyde game has now come to light and as I said earlier, it is creditable that authorities in power have not interfered as yet with the investigations. What we have to guard against is the weakening of cases at the investigation stage due to pressures brought on the agencies concerned and later, on the prosecutors appointed by the state. I was very disappointed that the fair name of that IPS hero, Hemant Karkare, killed in the 26/11 attack by Pakistani jihadists in Mumbai, was sought to be tarred by politicians who were partial to the culprits. Their machinations came to light when a middle-ranking NIA officer approached that redoubtable public prosecutor, Rohini Salian, to go easy on the case. The Maharashtra government, I am told, has moved to ban the Sanatan Sanstha. I do not think that the banning of such extremist organisations, whether Muslim or Hindu, serves any purpose. What is required is the political will to ensure that the guilty, whoever they are, are ferreted out, prosecuted in a court of law and punished. The process should be expedited so that anyone inclined to kill ideological opponents would know that the government of the day will not tolerate such violations of the law even if the victims were opposed to its own ideology. The rule of law has to be maintained if our country is to be respected in the comity of nations. The writer, a retired IPS officer, was Mumbai police commissioner, DGP Gujarat and DGP Punjab ======================================== 11. HOW POLITICS AND ARCHITECTURE BLENDED IN DHAKA by Adnan Morshed ======================================== The Daily Star August 20, 2018 The American architect Louis Isadore Kahn's Parliament building in Dhaka is considered one of the architectural icons of the twentieth century. Intriguingly, Kahn was not the first choice for the project. After two masters, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto, had turned down the invitation from the government of Pakistan, the megaproject went to the architect from Philadelphia. After multiple design iterations and many bureaucratic entanglements, the construction of the Parliament building began in October 1964, at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. Louis Kahn was born in Russian-controlled Estonia in 1901 of Jewish parents. His family immigrated to America in 1906. Kahn grew up in an itinerant household in the largely Jewish population of northeastern Philadelphia. He received his architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924. As fate would have it, he waited nearly three decades to earn fame as an architect. In the 1950s, his design for Yale University Art Gallery and Design Center and Alfred Newton Richards Medical Research Building and Biology Building (now David Goddard Laboratories, located at his alma mater) drew worldwide attention. Kahn was an admired professor of architecture, who created a tenacious following at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. At Yale, his paths crossed with the Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam, when the latter was studying there in 1960-61. Muzharul Islam was inspired by the charismatic teacher and played an instrumental role in bringing him to Bangladesh. Kahn first visited Dhaka in early March of 1963, after he had received the commission to plan the Parliament complex of East Pakistan. Five years earlier, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani army, Mohammad Ayub Khan, took control of the government through a military coup and imposed martial law in October 1958. In 1960, the military man was ?elected? to a five-year presidency. Pakistan's new constitution of 1962 called for a ?democratic? election to be held in 1965. The decade of the 1960s was a politically tumultuous period in East Pakistan. Bengalis felt exploited and ignored by West Pakistan's military regime and, consequently, dreamed of independence from the doomed political geography of a nation with two units separated by over 1,000 miles. Aware of the political and economic disparity between the two halves of Pakistan and concerned about his own re-election bid, Ayub Khan's administration came up with a political strategy to mitigate the grievance of the Bengalis. The idea of a ?second capital? for East Pakistan was born in this context. This showcase capital would, it was hoped, ?bind East Pakistan more firmly to the nation by conducting the nation's business for half of each year.? Meanwhile, Ayub Khan was more concerned about moving the Federal or ?first capital? from Karachi to Rawalpindi and then to Islamabad. The Greek architect-planner Doxiadis (designer of TSC) was put in charge of planning Islamabad in 1960. So to create an illusion of political and economic balance between the two regions, Pakistan's military ruler sanctioned a Parliament complex in East Pakistan. He hoped this would provide the Bengalis with a sense of empowerment and, in turn, they would vote for him in the forthcoming election, ensuring his continued existence as the leader of a unified Pakistan. The fact that Ayub Khan doesn't even mention the Parliament building in Dhaka in his self-congratulatory autobiography, Friends Not Masters (1967), suggests that this building may have been his political stunt prior to his ?re-election.? The political drama that ensued from then on explains how the Parliament building, first conceived as a ?bribe? for the Bengalis, gradually took on a whole new identity as a symbol of the people's struggle for self-rule. With rudimentary construction tools and bamboo scaffolding tied with crude jute ropes, approximately 2,000 lungi-saree-clad construction workers erected a monumental government building. Slowly but steadily, they unwittingly portrayed the broader resilience of a nation revolting against economic and social injustice. If the Shahid Minar symbolised the language movement during the 1950s, the Parliament building portrayed the rise of the independence-minded Bengalis during the 1960s. Kahn searched for inspirations from the Bengal delta, its rivers, green pastoral, expansive landscape, raised homesteads, and land-water geography. Soon after he had first arrived in Dhaka, he went on a boat ride on the Buriganga River and sketched scenes to understand life in this tropical land. He didn't have any problems in blending Bengali vernacular impressions with those of classical Greco-Roman and Egyptian architecture he had studied during the 1950s. As the war broke out in 1971, Kahn's field office in East Pakistan quickly closed and construction work discontinued. During the liberation war, an ironic story persisted that Pakistani pilots didn't bomb the building assuming that it was a ruin! That ?ruin? eventually became an emblem of the country, adorning national currency, stamps, rickshaw decorations, advertisements, official brochures, and so on. When it was more or less completed in 1983?more than a decade after East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) emerged as a new nation-state and 9 years after Kahn's unexpected death in New York City?the Parliament complex emblematised the political odyssey of a people to statehood. The focus of the 1,000-acre site?aligned on a north-south city axis?is the seven-storey diamond-shaped Parliament building, wrapped in concrete walls (135 feet high). There are two adjoining plazas. Facing the city, the South Plaza was designed as a public entrance to the Parliament building, while the northern, marble-clad Presidential Plaza as a ceremonial entrance. Eight free-standing building masses surround the Parliament building's ambulatory which then encloses the 16-sided, 500-seat assembly chamber, the central rotunda of the octagonal building. The parliamentary heart of the country's political system, the assembly chamber hosts the 300 Members of Parliament (MPs) of the unicameral legislative body. The interior of the Parliament building?particularly the 85-foot high ambulatory, somewhat labyrinthine?is a tour de force of architectural imagination, a powerful synthesis of layered space and filtered light, and the feeling of mystical spiritualism that results from their union. The exterior of the building features bold triangular, rectangular, circular, and semi-circular cutouts, which were framed within horizontal marble bands every 5 feet on the facade. According to some sources, it is a module established by the maximum manual pouring of concrete feasible each day. By putting horizontal marble strips, Kahn could mitigate any potential difference in the hue and texture of concrete pourings on different days. At the southern entrance of the Parliament, the prayer hall?shaped by four towering cylindrical forms?is skewed slightly off axis to conform to the correct orientation toward Mecca. The building rises majestically from a geometrically shaped water body. This moat has popularly been interpreted as a reference to the deltaic landscape and riverine geography of Bangladesh. Much has been written about the influences of Western classical antiquity and Mughal planning on Kahn's design, as well as how his concerns for the tropical climate conditioned its multi-layered forms. Historians generally agree that Kahn's Parliament complex is a sensible blending of modernist aesthetics with Greco-Roman gravitas and a spiritualised view of pastoral Bengal, where land, water, and the hut coexist with sublime simplicity. Today, not only does the building embody the hopes and aspirations of the nation, it also provides a much-needed urban oasis to a congested metropolis of more than 16 million people. Even though the South Plaza of the Parliament complex has been made off limits to the public, due to security concerns, the wide sidewalks of Manik Mia Avenue along the southern periphery offer a vibrant urban promenade where city-dwellers typically gather and socialise against the panoramic backdrop of Kahn's building. Adnan Morshed is an architect, architectural historian, urbanist, and columnist. He lives in both Dhaka and Washington, DC. ======================================== 12. INSIDE THE U.S. FIGHT TO SAVE GHAZNI FROM THE TALIBAN by W.J. Hennigan | Photographs by Emanuele Satolli for TIME ======================================== http://time.com/longform/ghazni-fight-taliban/ Time Magazine August 23, 2018 An ominous orange glow lit up the sky for miles around. It was after midnight on Aug. 11, and the city of Ghazni, less than 100 miles from Kabul, was on fire. Approaching the outskirts of town in a convoy of heavily armored 22-ton vehicles, the team of Green Berets from Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) Team 1333 took it as the first sign that it wasn?t going to be an easy night. The group was one of three U.S. Army Special Forces?led units converging on Ghazni to save it from the Taliban, which had laid siege to the city over the previous 24 hours in a surprise attack. And the closer the Green Berets got, the worse it looked. Approaching the city, ODA 1333 had to muscle their massive vehicles around bomb craters and abandoned big-rig trucks that the Islamist insurgents had set up as roadblocks. The dismal obstacle course wasn?t just proof that the insurgents had the upper hand over the 1,500 Afghan police and soldiers based in the city, even though those forces were flush with sophisticated American-supplied weaponry. The team soon discovered the wreckage-strewn approach to the city had become a shooting gallery for hidden Taliban. Rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire came screaming in from a tree line to the east?small bursts at first, then all at once. Streaks of heavy fire glowed green in the commandos? night-vision goggles as two- and three-man Taliban teams shot rockets at the Special Forces before vanishing into nearby scrubland. The U.S. forces returned fire with rapid bursts from the .50-caliber machine guns perched atop the vehicles. At one point, one of the men shouted, ?Where the f-ck are [the airstrikes]?? Almost on cue, a lumbering AC-130 gun ship circling above began showering 105-mm cannon fire on Taliban positions below. Apache attack helicopters, A-10 attack planes, F-16 fighter jets and MQ-9 Reaper drones also delivered airstrikes. The road into the city ?was just a sh-t show,? one U.S. soldier tells TIME. Back in Washington, the war in Afghanistan often seems like an afterthought. According to the Pentagon, combat missions officially ended in 2014, U.S. forces serve only as ?advisers,? and peace may be at hand. An unprecedented three-day June cease-fire was followed by secret U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar in July. ?We?re seeing the strategy is fundamentally working and advancing us toward reconciliation, even though it may not be playing out the way that we anticipated,? General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said on Aug. 22. But in August, America?s 17-year enemy in Afghanistan, the Taliban, launched a coordinated set of assaults around the country ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. With echoes of the Tet offensive carried out by the Viet Cong during the Vietnamese New Year in 1968, the Taliban attack targeted vulnerable outposts peppered across seven provinces and claimed the lives of scores of Afghan forces. The assault on Ghazni, which engulfed nearly all of the city?s 19 districts, was the most orchestrated operation of this nationwide onslaught. And the Taliban?s surprising effectiveness?capturing districts, nearly toppling a provincial capital and briefly ?cutting off the main north-south highway just 60 miles from the capital?raises troubling questions about the state of the war. The battle was a major test of the Trump Administration?s long-term military strategy, which hinges on defending population centers while ceding much of the remote countryside to the Taliban. It proved that U.S. forces still routinely rush to save Afghan forces struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban. That hard truth suggests the plan to train, advise and assist Afghans so they may one day defend themselves masks the costs the U.S. is still paying nearly two decades into the war, and a year after President Trump announced a new strategy to defeat the enemy. As Ghazni shows, the ?assist? part is often difficult to distinguish from a traditional American combat mission. Nine Americans were evacuated from the battlefield by helicopter because of injuries incurred by the Taliban?s multiday barrage of roadside bombs, mortar shells and rockets. At least two soldiers received Purple Hearts after suffering serious wounds. Seven out of 10 armored vehicles in ODA 1333?s convoy were lost to battle damage. The Special Forces team considered themselves lucky: a shoulder-fired rocket had a near miss with a medevac helicopter retrieving an injured soldier. The carnage in this city of 150,000 shows how devastating the war remains for Afghans. An average of seven Afghan adults and two children were killed every day in the first six months of this year, according to the latest United Nations data, with another 19 civilians injured each day. The figures show 2018 is on track to be the deadliest year of the war. A generation of American military officers who arrived here after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as fresh-faced lieutenants or majors have lived through the ferocious fighting. Some are now multiple-?tour colonels or generals, with children who have inherited the burden of waging America?s longest war. Most of the soldiers?American and Afghan??who battled to take back Ghazni were in grade school on Sept. 11 and unable to foresee the countless ways the attacks would shape their lives. This account of the multiday siege of Ghazni, described to TIME in on-the-ground interviews with dozens of U.S. and Afghan soldiers, commanders and citizens, offers a rare glimpse into the ongoing American military effort in Afghanistan. The extent of the destruction has not been previously reported. The Pentagon doesn?t make the information publicly available, and TIME witnessed it only after gaining approval for an embedded deployment in Afghanistan after months of trying, long before the August offensive began. The battle for Ghazni didn?t come out of nowhere. The Taliban sensed an opportunity in the widening chaos created by years of war. For several months, five U.S. Special Forces teams, working with some 150 Afghan commandos, had left the area to fight a different threat: a growing Islamic State affiliate known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K. An offshoot of the Syria-based terrorist group, it formed in Afghanistan in 2015 and has terrorized towns in eastern Nangarhar province through public executions, assaults on government buildings and suicide attacks. The effort to repel ISIS-K was one of the largest joint operations ever conducted between U.S. and Afghan special forces. By August 2018, ISIS-K had lost nearly 200 fighters and most its territory. The joint mission did not go unnoticed. Over the summer, the U.S. military received intelligence that the Taliban was aware the Americans and Afghan commandos based around Ghazni were gone, Special Forces sources tell TIME. The Taliban couldn?t believe their good fortune. Moving weapons and fighters into Ghazni isn?t a difficult task. There are many ways to smuggle materiel into the city, through ancient trading lines or unassuming vehicles that blend in with traffic. Some local officials believe security personnel guarding Ghazni?s perimeter granted the Taliban free entry. Despite the intelligence tip, the Taliban?s initial attacks on Aug. 10 caught Washington and Kabul flat-footed. An estimated 1,000 Taliban fighters stormed the city and surrounding districts. The insurgents attacked government buildings, assaulted the central prison, destroyed a telecommunications tower and set fire to a local television station. Afghan local police and military officials temporarily lost control of several areas of the city. U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters scrambled to respond, deploying three 12-man Green Beret teams from 1st Special Forces Group along with their Afghan partnered force from the 2nd Commando Kandak, and conventional U.S. infantry soldiers from 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. For the men of ODA 1333 and their detachment of around 100 U.S. soldiers and Afghan commandos, the orders sounded straightforward: help secure two Afghan helicopters downed by the Taliban near Ghazni. They knew they would have to take the long way around, because the Taliban had buried so many land mines along the direct road leading into Ghazni that it was impassable. What was usually a 60-mile trip westward from Paktia province would instead cover 160 miles of terrain. The troops loaded up their weapons and clambered aboard hulking RG-33 and M-ATV armored vehicles, which rumbled into the night toward Highway 1, an ancient 300-mile two-lane road that serves as the main artery linking the seat of government in Kabul to Kandahar. The Taliban knew the Americans were coming and where they were coming from?there was only one way in. So the militants lay in wait, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47s. The soldiers of ODA 1333 would never reach the downed helicopters. Instead, they spent the next five days fighting hundreds of Taliban fighters in an endless series of running battles that debilitated vehicles and maimed members of their unit. ?I?ve never seen that many [rocket-propelled grenades] in my career,? says the team?s sergeant, who, like others, spoke to TIME on the condition of anonymity. In the face of recurring attacks, ODA 1333 and their attached units weren?t able to breach the city until some 17 hours later. The soldiers moved to a small makeshift outpost on Ghazni?s outskirts, where U.S. Special Forces teams had been based before the 2014 troop drawdown. Even there, they could find no refuge. Within 25 minutes of arriving, a mortar round arched over the perimeter and crashed through the back wall of a plywood structure where two Afghan soldiers were bedding down. The percussive thump of mortar fire shook the ground under the men, followed by the crack of gunfire over their heads, ODA 1333?s intelligence chief recalls. As the Americans and Afghans scrambled for protective cover, Apache helicopters wheeled low outside the base, hunting for the fighters responsible, blanketing the perimeter with gunfire and briefly quieting the attacks. By that time, the sun was out and the fighting had died down enough to set up camp. When the Afghan troops were finally able to shed their combat gear, it was clear many of them had been toddlers when the war began in 2001. Some infantry soldiers still had baby faces, unlike the bearded, tattooed Special Forces team members. All were motivated to get back into the fight. The Taliban had not seized control of a provincial capital in Afghanistan since 2015. It wasn?t going to happen again on their watch. On Aug. 12, ODA 1333 prepared to mount a counter?attack. U.S. Special Forces Team ODA 1212, which arrived overnight, would also push inside the city. The teams would be further aided by 60 additional Afghan commandos and aerial footage from MQ-9 Reaper drones. The goal was to secure the government facilities, police headquarters, prison and district center under attack. The operational plan was coordinated with Afghan forces, which had incurred more than 100 casualties from two straight days of fighting. As they left the outpost and headed into the city, team members could see decomposing corpses in front of burned-out buildings. For those who lived in Ghazni, the scene was apocalyptic. Gunfire rattled through the air, rockets hissed and airstrikes crashed in the distance. Sami Ahmadi, a 24-year-old English student at Ghazni University, gathered his family and huddled inside his basement for shelter. ?We were terrified,? he recalls. ?Police were killed, their bodies lying in the road.? As forces pushed farther into the city, waves of citizens emerged, carrying what they could in their arms to flee the fighting. They were migrating north on foot to seek safety in nearby towns, or even onto Kabul. Behind them, small teams of Taliban were laced through Ghazni?s narrow, serpentine streets. The insurgents had stormed the prison on the southeastern edge of the city to free captured fighters, but that attempt was ultimately thwarted. Their effort to breach the provincial government building was quashed as well. But the Taliban put up a tough fight in the streets. At one point, as ODA 1333?s convoy inched forward, three Taliban emerged from an alleyway and fired a rocket that slammed into one vehicle?s machine-gunner turret, injuring the Air Force pararescue jumper manning the position. Bits of metal and debris flew into the vehicle. The air was thick and acrid. ?There was so much smoke and dust,? says Tamim Ahmed, the team?s Afghan interpreter. ?I couldn?t see straight for a couple minutes.? The vehicle?s other gunner turned his weapon on the Taliban fighters, who were dumbfounded they didn?t kill everyone inside the truck. With a burst of fire, the gunner took out all three insurgents. But the pararescue jumper was severely wounded. A young soldier in another vehicle was also hit with shrapnel that would ultimately claim an eye. Neither man has been publicly named, but both later received Purple Heart awards, according to U.S. military officers in Afghanistan. (Despite their perilous mission, the U.S. military officially labels these soldiers as ?advisers.?) When a rescue helicopter arrived to evacuate the wounded, a rocket came within 150 feet of hitting it. It was clear from the nonstop attacks that U.S. forces would have to stay inside Ghazni Provincial Center, a local government headquarters building, to ensure it wouldn?t be overtaken. ODA 1212 split off from 1333 and established a headquarters there with Afghan forces. The soldiers stayed away from open windows and tried to remain hidden on the roof from snipers positioned just outside the facility?s fortified gates, waiting for a clean shot. Over the following two days, the Taliban switched its focus to Ghazni?s less-defended surrounding areas. Afghan commando and Ktah Khas counter?terrorism teams went house to house, clearing neighborhoods of Taliban fighters. It was the audacity of the Taliban?s tactics in Ghazni that stuck out to U.S. soldiers. ODA 1333 and other teams had been attacked in Ghazni before, but typically in hit-and-runs?Taliban fighters would hang a mortar round or take a pot shot at their enemies, then melt in with the local population. During this siege of Ghazni, the insurgents walked the streets in broad daylight, firing on American armored vehicles, knowing U.S. warplanes were hunting them overhead. ?From a military standpoint, it?s not very smart,? the Special Forces team sergeant says. ?Because they attack and they usually die. But if they get off what they need to get off, I guess they feel like they win.? The Taliban seemed to have a limitless supply of rockets, sometimes firing 20 or 30 at a time. One after another, U.S. vehicles were knocked out of the fight. When that happened, another unit would arrive to hook up a tow rope and drag the vehicle out of the kill zone, all while exposing themselves to enemy fire. The Taliban had all that firepower inside the city, and Afghan and U.S. forces had to deal with it. But in addition to armor, advanced weaponry and superior training, the U.S. had another major advantage: air dominance. The military said it dropped 73 bombs and missiles in the Ghazni operation. By Aug. 15, a third Special Forces team and additional units had arrived in Ghazni. Thanks to the airstrikes, the Taliban began falling back. The U.S. military said 226 Taliban were killed during the operations. Typically, both sides declared victory. Even as the fighting drove them from the city, the Taliban bragged that it had sent a clear message to President Donald Trump that ?the conquest of this city signifies the failure of yet the latest American strategy,? according to a released statement. ?The experience of Ghazni has proven that no defensive belts of cities can withstand the offensive prowess of the Mujahideen.? In truth, the strategic value of the Ghazni attack seems to have been the tweets, headlines and video footage that rippled across social-?media feeds, showing armed Taliban brazenly roaming free inside the city center. The message was clear: the Taliban remains a fierce enemy who can strike whenever they choose, regardless of peace talks and hopes of reconciliation. From the U.S. and Afghan militaries? view, the battle was a success. Afghan soldiers, though heavily reliant on American Special Forces and airpower to turn the tide, stood, fought and routed the enemy within five days. The Afghan commandos garnered respect for their performance. ?They stepped up, no doubt,? says Noah Olson, a 20-year-old Army Specialist. ?They want to get this over with as much as we do.? U.S. military brass declared the onslaught a misfire from a fading enemy. ?Tactically, operationally and strategically, the Taliban achieved nothing with this failed attack except another eye-catching, but inconsequential headline,? said U.S. Army Lieut. Colonel Martin O?Donnell, spokesman for the U.S.-led international military coalition in Kabul. Like most narratives emanating from Afghanistan, the truth lies somewhere in between. Looking at the damage inside Ghazni, it was hard for anyone to declare a true victory. Carcasses of burnt-out buildings smoldered in the sun. Stores that bristled with goods for the upcoming holiday became husks of blackened, twisted metal. ?At a time like this, your neighbors are like brothers,? says Said Mohammed, 63, whose restaurant managed to emerge unscathed. ?We grieve for them.? The bloodshed was also apparent. At Ghazni Provincial Hospital, rooms were filled with patients of all ages who had suffered wounds in the onslaught. Dr. Abdul Basir Ramaki, the hospital?s medical director, said that the dead tallied 150, with 265 more injured, as of Aug. 16. ?Many were women and children,? he says. ?All Afghan people are tired of this violence.? (A U.N. report quoted ?unverifiable numbers? that put the civilian death toll at more than 150.) Guma Khan, an elderly man with a long white beard, lay on his back in a hospital bed, recovering from a bullet wound to his left leg. ?I was just walking down the street,? he says. ?How am I supposed to go on living here?? Brigadier General Dadan Lawang, the commander of the Afghan National Army?s 203rd Corps, told TIME that 112 Afghan military and police were killed, and 56 were wounded. He said his team was reviewing its security posture to guard against future attacks. ?We need to ensure this never happens again,? he says. But the aftermath of the battle shows why that vow is unlikely to hold. On Aug. 17, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani arrived at the joint military headquarters in Ghazni Provincial Center. He blamed Pakistan for the Taliban attack, saying that many of the fighters were streaming back across Pakistan?s borders. ?Islamabad has long been blamed for giving the Afghan Taliban safe harbor, and Ghazni lies near tribal regions in Pakistan?s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baloch?istan provinces. Ghani claimed Pakistan?s military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had assured him over the phone that cross-border insurgent activity would not be allowed after the July 25 elections in Pakistan. ?I need answers now,? Ghani said. ?From where did they come from and why are they receiving treatment in your hospitals?? (Pakistan denied any involvement.) The initial success of the Taliban assault was aided by the apparent lack of coordination between Afghan security forces. The local police were running low on supplies and ammunition and had difficulty communicating, according to Afghan officers. In addition, two American soldiers told TIME that they heard that the Afghan National Army had accidentally fired on their own units, as well as American convoys. When asked about the eyewitness accounts, the U.S. military command in Afghanistan said those reports remained unconfirmed. If true, the lack of readiness suggests Afghan forces may need ?assists? from the U.S. Special Forces for some time to come. When the fighting finally died down, the U.S. soldiers were looking forward to returning to their bases in the region, where they had running water, toilets and food that wasn?t prepared in a box. More than a week?s worth of combat made the prospect of returning to the amenities of a long-?established headquarters particularly appealing. Almost all the men had endured close calls and considered themselves fortunate to have made it out alive. ?Our luck?s running out,? one soldier said, half-jokingly. ?I still have five months here. My number?s going to be called eventually.? ======================================== 13. URI AVNERY - 1923-2018. HIS OPPONENTS WILL ULTIMATELY HAVE TO FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS ======================================== http://zope.gush-shalom.org/ We have this evening said the final goodbye. The hall in which Uri Avnery's coffin had been placed was very crowded. There were TV cameras and Knesset Members from various parties, and a high level Palestinian delegation and very many people who had either known Uri personally or read his articles and books and heard about him. There were very moving speeches and eulogies. And then it was over and the body was taken to be cremated - as he specifically asked and arranged for, already some time ago. His ashes will be scattered by his closest friends in the seashore of Tel Aviv, which he loved. We will never again see him on the way to the beach, nor hear his voice or read a new article by him. But we will continue his life work without him, as best we can, as he wanted and expected of us, and because it is our own cause. To all the very many who wrote us expressing support and condolences in this sad hour, many thanks and our apologies for not being able to give personal answers - the flood is simply far too overwhelming. Previous message: The coffin of veteran peace activist Uri Avnery will be placed tomorrow (Wednesday) between 5-6 pm in Beit Sokolov (Journalists' Association House) at 4 Kaplan St., Tel Aviv. That is a suitable and worthy location for a man who has made a major contribution to the development of the Israeli press. All who cherish his memory are heartily invited to come and pay their final respects. At Avnery's request, his body will be cremated. There will be no possibility of public presence during the cremation itself. Contact: Adam Keller +972-54-2340749 Anat Saragusti +972-54-2151991 Gush Shalom grieves and mourns the passing of its founder, Uri Avnery. Until the last moment he continued the way he had traveled all his life. On Saturday, two weeks ago, he collapsed in his home when he was about to leave for the Rabin Square and attend a demonstration against the "Nation State Law", a few hours after he wrote a sharp article against that law. Avnery devoted himself entirely to the struggle to achieve peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people in their independent state, as well as between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World. He did not get to the end of the road, did not live to see peace come about. We ? the members of Gush Shalom as well as very many other people who were directly and indirectly influenced by him - will continue his mission and honor his memory. On the day of the passing of Uri Avnery, the most right wing government in the history of Israel is engaged in negotiations with Hamas. Ironically, the same demagoguery accusations which were hurled at Uri Avnery throughout his life are now made against Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In the history of the State of Israel, Uri Avnery will be inscribed as a far-seeing visionary who pointed to a way which others failed to see. It is the fate and future of the State of Israel to reach peace with its neighbors and to integrate into the geographical and political region in which it is located. Avnery's greatest opponents will ultimately have to follow in his footsteps - because the State of Israel has no other real choice. Contact: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson +972-54-2340749 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-uri-avenry-veteran-peace-activist-dies-at-94-1.6364250 ======================================== 14. GENDER STUDIES PROGRAMS TO BE BANNED IN HUNGARY by Christopher Adam ======================================== Hungarian Free Press August 10, 2018 The Orb?n regime introduced legislation to shut down accredited gender studies programs offered by universities in Hungary. Academics now have 24 hours to respond to the government?s plan. The ban will primarily impact students at E?tv?s Lor?nd University in Budapest (ELTE)?the only institution in Hungary, other than Central European University, to offer gender studies at the graduate level, and the only one to provide this program in Hungarian. The number of students impacted by the ban is small?only 11 applicants were admitted this year at ELTE and two at CEU. The maximum number of students that ELTE can admit any given year is 18 and those enrolled this coming academic year will be the last to take this program in Hungary. The decision to give those impacted 24 hours, in the middle of the summer vacation, to respond to this plan is a prime example of the spectacular arrogance that this regime has displayed for the past eight years. Gender studies in Hungary hardly pose a risk to the social narratives espoused by Fidesz and the Christian Democrats, but this regime is best known for kicking people and sectors of the society when they are down. Although the government is not formally citing ideological reasons for its decision to cancel gender studies (the official reason is that this program is not ?economically rational?), circles within Fidesz, most notably its Christian Democrat (KDNP) wing, have been calling for this for some time. In 2017, L?rinc Nacsa, the leader of KDNP?s youth wing, labelled gender studies at ELTE as a wasteful luxury and also as destructive. ?We must raise awareness to the fact that these programs are doing nothing to lift up our nation. In fact, they are destroying the values-centered mode of thinking that is still present in the countries of Central Europe,? wrote Mr. Nacsa in his letter to the rector of ELTE. As well, HVG reminds its readers today that State Secretary Bence R?tv?ri (KDNP) in the Ministry of Human Capacities questioned whether gender studies even qualifies as a legitimate academic field, adding that this field of research is at odds with everything that the Fidesz government espouses. I could feign shock at this news or recite the obscene mantra of how Fidesz has now truly crossed a red line?a line that up until now nobody would have thought that they would pass. Yet this would be insincere. It?s too late to be horrified that this can happen in Hungary?it?s about eight years too late. Most sectors and demographics of Hungarian society, from journalists to shop owners to NGOs, have already felt the scourge of the party state in profound ways. Academics are next in line. Tags: Bence R?tv?ri, Central European University, Education, E?tv?s Lor?nd University, Gender Studies, L?rinc Nacsa Author: Christopher Adam Christopher Adam received a B.A. in history from Concordia University, an M.A. in East/Central European and Russian-Area Studies from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the history of the Hungarian diaspora during the postwar period. Christopher is the founding editor of the Hungarian Free Press, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of the Kanadai Magyar H?rlap Hungarian-language paper, which won Hungary's 2015 Free Press (Szabad Sajt?) Award. Christopher resides in Ottawa, Canada. 66 Comments Andr?s B. G?llner Maybe the Orb?n government will replace it with How to Keep Saudi Arabian Despots Happy Studies, and invite Paul Manafort, and other members of the Trump establishment to teach the subject ? How to Build Illiberalism might also be a popular course for upwardly mobile Fidesznyiks. That could be directed by M?ria Schmidt, favorite money manager of the Orb?n autocracy. I?m sure half a dozen trolls from these pages would gladly enroll, especially if given a good stipend from the EU?s Cohesion Funds, a fund, that is entirely under the control of Orb?n?s office in Hungary. There is no limit to the many ingenious ways that Hungary can rip off hardworking European taxpayers. ======================================== 15. NICARAGUA: HOW DANIEL ORTEGA BECAME A TYRANT: FROM REVOLUTIONARY TO STRONGMAN by Gioconda Belli ======================================== Foreign Affairs August 24, 2018 What never should have happened is happening again in Nicaragua. Since April 18, when the violent suppression of protests against a Social Security Reform triggered a massive civic insurrection, President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, have abandoned all pretense of tolerance and restraint and unleashed a deadly wave of repression. It is as if Anastasio Somoza?the country?s previous dictator, toppled in 1979?has returned to Managua. Over the past four months at least 317 people have been killed, more than 2000 wounded, and hundreds more put in jail. Police and paramilitaries arbitrarily detain citizens every day. They are tortured, accused of terrorism, organized crime, illegal possession of weapons, and a litany of other crimes. Hooded, heavily armed irregular forces roam the streets, shooting at will. After 6 PM, most cities in the country look deserted. The Nicaraguan government, much as it did under Somoza, has declared war on its people. ORTEGA'S RISE I was born and lived until my late twenties under the grip of the Somoza regime. Along with many men and women of my generation, Ortega and Murillo among them, I became a member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), joining the movement in 1970. Even as a small child I had been aware of family members beaten at rallies by Somoza?s National Guard, or shot at like my brother Eduardo, whose arm was grazed by a bullet in a 1967 demonstration. To be a Sandinista then was to choose armed struggle against rigged elections, an army that functioned like a pretorian guard, and political parties that were just puppets of the regime. Beginning as guerrillas operating in the mountains, the Sandinistas evolved and slowly developed urban support. By the late 1970s, daring FSLN attacks on army posts, grassroots organizing, and the growing disgust felt by ordinary people toward the regime were combining into a serious threat to the dictatorship. Then, on January 10, 1978, Pedro J. Chamorro was assassinated. Chamorro was the editor of the major opposition newspaper, La Prensa, and the voice of right in a country where all was wrong. His death sparked a full-blown popular insurrection. On July 17, 1979, Somoza resigned and fled to Miami; two days later, the FSLN entered Managua, marking the end of the dictatorship and the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution. The Somozas had been backed by the United States. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt had famously said of Anastasio Somoza Garc?a, the founder of the dynasty, ?He?s a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch,? and Washington was loath to see one of its allies in the region fall to a left-wing revolution. First as coordinator of the FSLN?s Revolutionary Junta and then, after 1984, as Nicaragua?s president, Ortega clashed with the U.S. administration of Ronald Reagan, who armed and supported the remnants of Somoza?s army, which had reorganized into antigovernment guerilla groups known as the contras. The young revolution lost its course as, from 1981 on, the FSLN had to dedicate its principal efforts to fighting the Contra War. Ortega, a former guerilla, originally ruled as primus inter pares of the FSLN?s nine-member National Directorate, the governing body of the party, which was supposed to rule in line with the revolutionary principles of collective leadership. A quiet man, he was considered one of the directorate?s less renowned or outstanding figures. But after becoming president, he acquired an unexpected visibility thanks to the war, becoming an international left-wing icon and the symbol of the David and Goliath struggle between the Sandinistas and the United States that occupied front pages around the world throughout the late 1980s. Washington spent millions of dollars in support of the contras, but the war only concluded with the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in January 1990. Violeta Chamorro, the wife of Pedro and a former member of the Revolutionary Junta, took office on April 25 of that year. Stunned by his unexpected electoral defeat, Ortega graciously accepted the results?although before leaving office, he and his allies cashed out by taking control of formerly public assets in an episode of mass looting that came to be known as the Sandinista pi?ata. And once out of power, it didn?t take long for Ortega to use sandinismo?s strong territorial organization and support to undermine Chamorro. He organized strikes and riots and promised that he would return to government and ?rule from below.? But his stubborness was unwelcome to many Nicaraguans, who were tired of war and scarcity. At the time, most of the Sandinista old guard, including myself, aspired to modernize the party, discarding revolutionary dogmas that seemed to have been discredited by the fall of the Soviet Union. We wanted democracy, a renewal, a constructive role in a country devastated by war and seemingly unending conflict. Many of us also wanted new leaders. Ortega?s response was vicious. He maligned dissenters, accusing them of betraying the revolution and using a barrage of insults to portray even heroes of the revolution as pawns of the U.S. Embassy. In 1995 Sergio Ram?rez, Ortega?s vice-president for five years, resigned along with the entire Sandinista bench at the National Assembly. Ortega?s purges were a rude awakening, causing many of his former allies to realize he would stop at nothing to retain his power. But it was only the beginning. A beginning that, shocking and painful as it was, could not foreshadow what has taken place in Nicaragua in these last four months. In what feels like a nightmarish episode of d?j? vu, he and his wife have turned the country back into a land of terror. The red-and-black flag of Sandinismo now represents unrelenting oppression for most Nicaraguans. In the last Cid-Gallup poll taken in the middle of the uprising, 70 percent of respondents affirmed that they wanted the couple to go. RETURN TO POWER Ortega ran for president and lost in 1990, 1996, and 2001. On November 6, 2006, he finally won. That night, standing on a platform at the center of the most conspicuous roundabout in Managua, surrounded by the flags of the FSLN, Ortega and Murillo both looked exultant. A man not known for showing affection to his wife, he hugged and kissed her, provoking the applause of the crowd. He owed her a lot. When, in 1998, Murillo?s daughter from a previous marriage came out and accused Ortega of sexually abusing her since she was 11, Murillo disavowed her daughter. In a speech shortly after the accusation, Ortega said she had asked him to beg the people to forgive her for giving birth to such a person. Murillo?s loyalty earned her an unusual measure of power within the party. During the election campaign, she gave him an image makeover, portraying him as a conciliatory man moved by deep sentiments of love for the poor and disenfranchised. She washed out sandinismo?s defiant, leftist impression by replacing the party?s traditional red and black colors with slick advertising in fuchsia and turquoise. She went as far as pirating the melody of a Beatles song, ?Give Peace a Chance,? writing her own lyrics that promised work, peace, and reconciliation. She was also instrumental in Ortega?s return to the Catholic Church and his alliance with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who in a previous election had warned Nicaraguans against electing Ortega, mentioning a parable where a good man picks up a despondent serpent from the road only to be bitten and killed. In 2005, Murillo and Ortega were married in a religious ceremony officiated by Obando y Bravo. In their public rhetoric, the couple also adopted the discourse of televangelists after professing their atheism for many years. And to top it all off, Ortega made a promise to ban therapeutic abortion, a right Nicaraguan women had had since the nineteenth century. The ban passed in 2006 with the votes of the FSLN. But Ortega?s biggest stroke of luck?and most serious betrayal of his revolutionary past?was the bargain he struck with Arnoldo Alem?n, who served as president from 1996 until 2001. In exchange for a constitutional reform, passed in 2000, enlarging the National Assembly, Supreme Court, Comptroller?s Office, and Electoral Council in order to make room for Alem?n?s men, the FSLN approved a modification in the electoral law that allowed a presidential candidate to be elected the first round with only 35 percent of the vote, provided that there was at least a five percent margin between the first- and second-place candidates. Ortega won the 2006 election with 38 percent of the vote, the lowest ever for a winning candidate. WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN Ortega became president in 2007 under good auspices. Thanks to the good administration of the previous president, Enrique Bola?os, and, beginning in 2007, $500 million a year from Hugo Ch?vez?s Venezuela, the Nicaraguan economy was in good shape. Yet the couple privatized Venezuela?s money, creating an FSLN economic empire that allowed the party to increase its influence over the political system. Ortega, Murillo, and their inner circle monopolized control of the finances. They purchased Nicaragua?s best and most powerful TV channels and media outlets and named their sons and daughters directors. With Venezuela?s riches at his disposal, Ortega used blackmail and bribery to co-opt Alem?n loyalists in key government posts, making a millionaire out of the corrupt head of the electoral council, Roberto Rivas, who became the target of U.S. sanctions in 2017. Ortega was also savvy enough to calm the fears of Nicaragua?s powerful big business community, engaging with them in what came to be known as a model of ?dialogue and consensus.? He offered them tax exemptions and other perks in exchange for their political cooperation. And the scheme worked, for a while. Although the income gap grew considerably, the economy surged, powered by large tourism projects, sweat shops, exports to Venezula, and a booming real estate sector. Politics for Ortega meant staying in power, and stay in power he did. Although the Nicaraguan Constitution barred presidents from serving consecutive terms, in 2011, the Supreme Court, stacked with FSLN loyalists, ruled that Ortega could be reelected, which he was in November of that year. Then, in 2014, the National Assembly changed the constitution to allow for indefinite reelection, as well as granting him sole authority to appoint military and police commanders. For the 2016 elections, Ortega barred international observers and used the Supreme Court to remove the main opposition candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, as leader of the Independent Liberal Party. Finally, he chose his wife to be his running mate. On election day, November 5, 2016, voting booths in Managua were deserted. Independent election monitors calculated a 70 percent abstention rate. It was a sign of things to come. By the beginning of Ortega?s third consecutive term, Nicaraguans felt trapped in a tyrannical system, at a loss for ways to defeat it. The only remaining opposition to Ortega was a campesino movement, which emerged after the Sandinistas had passed a law on June 13th, 2013allowing the government to confiscate private and indigenous communal property and then cede it to the Chinese company HKND as part of a plan to build an interoceanic canal?a project that is now dead in the water. Murillo, who had been the regime?s communications director before becoming vice-president, had shaped the discourse of the regime into something Orwellian, esoteric, and religious. Gigantic billboards showed the smiling couple and text, written in Murillo?s handwriting: ?It?s a victorious time for the grace of God. Nicaragua is love. Nicaragua is Christian, socialist and empathetic. Daniel and Rosario.? She had pursued other eccentric measures, too, such as erecting a forest of 125 gigantic and brightly colored metallic trees in Managua that made the city look like an amusement park. Both she and her husband boasted about progress and safety, about the country?s growing economy and booming tourist industry. But in April, their fiction of a prosperous and politically stable Nicaragua collapsed like a house of cards. On April 16, in a press conference the government announced cuts to the Social Security system, a desperate measure to rescue its depleted finances, affected by mismanagement and the drastic reduction of Venezuela?s aid. Small protests began in different cities but then on April 18, in Managua, a group of thugs dressed in T-shirts inscribed with ?love,? allegedly Sandinista Youth, dissolved a protest by force, beating demonstrators mercilessly. It was not the first time the government had repressed popular protests?in 2013, a similarly attired Sandinista group backed by police assailed a vigil held by young people who sided with seniors demanding social security rights. But that attack happened at night. On April 18, the assault took place in full daylight. Images quickly began to circulate on social media: a popular NGO director with blood all over her face, a journalist left unconscious by a beating, defenseless university students attacked with metal rods while the police stood by and did nothing. In April, Ortega's fiction of a prosperous and politically stable Nicaragua collapsed like a house of cards. It was the straw that broke the camel?s back. Students took refuge at their universities and continued the protests. In three days, 23 young people were killed by snipers and police. Their wounds and bodies were filmed by fellow students and shown on social media. The regime shut down independent TV stations and radios. Ortega was in Cuba, where he attended the April 19 inauguration of the new Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Murillo was in command. When her husband returned, he withdrew the reforms on April 22, stopped censorship, and sought a dialogue mediated by the Catholic Church. It was too late. People had taken to the streets, infuriated by the deaths. The chants against the regime echoed all across the country: ?Que se vayan! They must leave!? After eleven years of passively watching Ortega and Murillo close their grip on the country, people poured into the streets in every major city Like many, I was astonished by the rapidly unfolding events, by the renewed valor and defiance of the crowds marching and demanding their freedom. For several weeks, we lived the euphoria of regaining power. In the first session of the National Dialogue called for by the Catholic Episcopal Conference, the first and only session where Ortega and Murillo attended, a young student, Lesther Aleman, said to Ortega: ?We are here to negotiate the terms of your surrender? A young woman read aloud the names of all the dead killed by the government. A few weeks later, Ortega and Murillo came up with their version of events: they were the victims of a coup financed by big capital and the United States. In charge of propaganda, Murillo fashioned an Orwellian narrative. The protesters were terrorists, satanic vampires intent on sucking the blood out of the happiness their government was delivering to Nicaraguan society. By May, with the military sitting on the sidelines, armed paramilitary forces loyal to Ortega began dismantling barricades and killing unarmed civilians. Prisoners have been tortured, according to the International Comission of Human Rights, and prevented from hiring private lawyers, intead being assigned public defenders of the government?s choosing. Many have been forced to flee the country. Doctors were fired from public hospitals for disobeying the order to refuse care to wounded protesters. No one who has spoken out against the regime is safe. On July 9, for instance, the papal nuncio to Nicaragua, accompanied by a Nicaraguan cardinal and a bishop, was attacked by a pro-Sandinista mob, after Ortega had accused them of participating in a conspiracy against the government. Human rights organizations and the OAS?s International Commission for Human Rights have reported more than 300 deaths since the beginning of the protests, most of them young men. Despite the repression, large crowds continue to demonstrate in the streets all over Nicaragua. Ortega and Murillo, however, are proclaiming victory and the return of normalcy. It is an illusion. The economy has taken a nosedive and Ortega has been exposed as an abusive dictator at the UN and the OAS, which in July called on Nicaragua to hold early elections in 2019?a resolution that Ortega has ignored. Although Ortega continues to deny the objectivity of the International Human Rights Commission report, and may think that, like the naked emperor in Hans Christian Andersen?s fairy tale, he can continue to show himself in public and receive praise for his colorful cloak, he is in fact parading naked before his nation and the international community, stripped of all democratic legitimacy and holding on by naked force. Civic, non-violent resistance can at times look useless before a well-armed dictatorship intent on holding its ground. It is not. Ortega has lost all legitimacy as a ruler. His wife has become a pathetic figure, weaving unbelievable and perverse tales. Repression might allow them to hold on to power a while longer, but it is clear they are standing on quicksand. It will not be long until the leaders of the resistance?the new crop of young, talented, and determined Nicaraguans?will once again help their country regain freedom from a tyrant. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Aug 29 15:17:39 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 00:47:39 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_30_Aug_2018_=7C_Afghanistan=3A_Militants?= =?windows-1252?Q?=92_war_on_education_/_Bangladesh=3A_Shahidul_A?= =?windows-1252?Q?lam_/_Pakistan=3A_Human_Rights_/_India=3A_right?= =?windows-1252?Q?s_activists_face_crackdown_/_USSR_days=3A_Singl?= =?windows-1252?Q?e_Mothers_as_Train_Conductors?= Message-ID: <84E3D5EC-B28B-45A7-A627-3100C655B821@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 30 August 2018 - No. 2997 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Letter from Human Rights Watch to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan Re: Human Rights Agenda for the New Government 2. India: Rights activists and intellectuals under assault - police raids and arrests of Aug 2018 - links to reports and statements by concerned citizens & groups 3. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan mourns passing of Kuldip Nayar 4. India: We dont need a blasphemy law in Punjab - Editorials and commentary 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Digital hatred, real violence: Majoritarian radicalisation and social media in India | Maya Mirchandani - Invitation - Discussion of the book 'Babri Masjid, 25 years on... (New Delhi, 5 Sept 2018) - In India, the contradiction between proclaimed faith in secularism and collaboration with communal forces - How did Prabhajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), a forum allegedly backed by the RSS get access to Confidential NRC data? - Hate Ideology and rising Intolerance - Swami Agnivesh: Social Reformer Under attack - India: Hullaballoo Over Pondycherry Lit Fest Organised by the Hindutva Sympathisers - India: Rahul Gandhi is wrong about 1984. But why is no one asking Narendra Modi about 2002 anymore? | Ajaz Ashraf - Reject Punjab?s life term for sacrilege | Editorial in Economic Times - India: The Maze - intricate web of radical Hindu terrorist groups ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. Bangladesh: Give Shahidul division as per jail code Court orders 7. What Shahidul Alam?s arrest reveals about the political climate across South Asia | Aditya Adhikari 8. After 17 years of war, a peace movement grows in Afghanistan | Sharif Hassan 9. Another standoff at the Durand Line | Syeda Mamoona Rubab 10. Militants? war on education in Afghanistan | Ruchi Kumar 11. Time to talk: India must accept Imran Khan's offer | Manini Chatterjee 12. India: Cringing and fuddled at 71 | Latha Jishnu 13. ?We don?t have any fear?: India?s angry young men and its lynch mob crisis | Annie Gowen 14. A long march of the dispossessed to Delhi | P. Sainath 15. The Unseeables | Tariq Ali 16. Annan Victim of One of the Greatest Fake News Concoctions in History | Ian Williams 17. There?s strength of hate in numbers on social media | Justin Thomas 18. For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors | Laura Esther Wolfson ======================================== 1. LETTER FROM HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH TO PAKISTAN PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN RE: HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA FOR THE NEW GOVERNMENT ======================================== As your government takes charge, we write to you about the human rights situation in Pakistan and urge that you take some key steps to help address current and longstanding problems. http://www.sacw.net/article13871.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: RIGHTS ACTIVISTS AND INTELLECTUALS UNDER ASSAULT - POLICE RAIDS AND ARRESTS OF AUG 2018- LINKS TO REPORTS AND STATEMENTS BY CONCERNED CITIZENS & GROUPS ======================================== We, the undersigned, are shocked by the serial raids across the country on the homes of activists and public intellectuals who are critical of the government and the ruling party at the Centre http://www.sacw.net/article13876.html ======================================== 3. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN MOURNS PASSING OF KULDIP NAYAR ======================================== ?Few people on either side of the border can claim to have matched Mr Nayar?s unyielding commitment to peace and reconciliation between India and Pakistan. http://www.sacw.net/article13872.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: WE DONT NEED A BLASPHEMY LAW IN PUNJAB - EDITORIALS AND COMMENTARY ======================================== The Amarinder Singh cabinet has approved amendments to the CrPC and IPC, making the desecration of religious texts punishable with life in Punjab http://www.sacw.net/article13869.html + Oppose the Law in Punjab Providing Life imprisonment for Sacrilege of Holy Books - Press Release from All India Secular Forum BHOPAL: August 27, 2018: The All India Secular Forum has expressed serious concern over the Punjab Government?s decision to enact a law providing life imprisonment to anyone who causes injury, damage or sacrilege to the Guru Granth Saheb, The Bhagwat Geeta, The Quaran and The Bible. http://www.sacw.net/article13874.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Digital hatred, real violence: Majoritarian radicalisation and social media in India | Maya Mirchandani - Invitation - Discussion of the book 'Babri Masjid, 25 years on... (New Delhi, 5 Sept 2018) - In India, the contradiction between proclaimed faith in secularism and collaboration with communal forces has been a case in point for decades. - Petition to Prof. Sriprakash Kothari to withdraw from his role as Chair of the World Hindu Congress 2018 - How did Chief Convener of the Prabhajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), a forum against infiltration allegedly backed by the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), get access to Confidential NRC data? - India: Remove 'secular' from Constitution says Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu Far Right Group - India: Sanatan Sanstha Trick - Takes Distance from Accused in Gauri Lankesh, Dabholkar murders saying They Were not Members - Hate Ideology and rising Intolerance - Swami Agnivesh: Social Reformer Under attack - Growing Intolerance: Attacks on Swami Agnivesh - India: The Erased 'Muslim' Texts of the Nath Samprad?y - India: Hullaballoo Over Pondycherry Lit Fest Organised by the Hindutva Sympathisers - India: Rahul Gandhi is wrong about 1984. But why is no one asking Narendra Modi about 2002 anymore? | Ajaz Ashraf - Reject Punjab?s life term for sacrilege | Editorial in Economic Times - India: The Maze - intricate web of radical Hindu terrorist groups -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. BANGLADESH: GIVE SHAHIDUL DIVISION AS PER JAIL CODE Court orders ======================================== The Daily Star August 28, 2018 Star file photo Court Correspondent A Dhaka court yesterday directed the jail authorities to take measures to provide division to noted photographer Shahidul Alam as per the Jail Code. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Saifuzzaman Hero passed the order after Shahidul's lawyer Ehsanul Haque Shomaji submitted a petition seeking first class for his client in jail. The photographer is behind bars on charges of ?spreading propaganda and false information against the government?. In the petition, Ehsanul said his client is an internationally renowned personality and has won a number of awards for his contributions to the nation. Moreover, his parents were also given national awards for their outstanding activities. He should be provided first class division considering his social status, the lawyer argued. Shahidul, 63, was picked up by law enforcers on the night of August 5 from his Dhanmondi home. The following day, he was placed on seven-day remand after police had produced him before a court seeking a 10-day remand. He told the court that he was tortured in custody, but the police denied the allegation. He was sent to jail on August 13 on completion of his remand. In response to a writ petition filed by his wife Rahnuma Ahmed on August 7, the High Court directed the authorities concerned to immediately send him to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, arrange his medical examination and submit a report by 10:30am on August 9. The BSMMU authorities formed a four-member medical board to examine his health and mental condition. The board's report submitted to the HC mentioned that he was physically and mentally sound. During hearing at the HC on August 9, the defence argued that there was no psychologist in the medical board to examine his mental condition. The hearing of Shahidul's bail petition would be held on September 11 at the court of Metropolitan and Sessions Judge, Dhaka. PHOTO EXHIBITION To attract people's attention to the work of Shahidul Alam and to promote solidarity with him, a photographic exhibition was held in Peru yesterday. Alta Tecnolog?a Andina (ATA) and the Cultural Centre Ricardo Palma jointly organised the exhibition titled ?Shahidul Alam: A voice from the shadows.? The exhibition was curated by Jos?-Carlos Mari?tegui and Jorge Villacorta, says a press release. Thousands of voices have risen in the world in the last three weeks in protest against the arrest of Shahidul and ?mistreatment he has been suffering in prison?, it read. The exhibition was inaugurated on August 24 at Ra?l Porras Barrenechea Hall, Ricardo Palma Cultural Centre, Av. Larco 770, Miraflores, Lima, Per?. It will be available for viewing till September 9. The exhibition summarises his career as a photojournalist, in Bangladesh and around the world. In the last 30 years he has developed a broad work both in education and in the promotion of an ethical and committed attitude with regards to the problems that affect societies in invisible areas of the world. ======================================= 7. WHAT SHAHIDUL ALAM?S ARREST REVEALS ABOUT THE POLITICAL CLIMATE ACROSS SOUTH ASIA by Aditya Adhikari ======================================= Nepali Times August 29, 2018 On 5 August, Bangladeshi artist, writer and organiser Shahidul Alam was interviewed on Al Jazeera about student protests triggered by the deaths of schoolchildren run over by a public bus. Alam said that the anger of the protesting youth were not just with the transportation sector but the dire situation of the country as a whole. He outlined a litany of everything that was wrong in Bangladesh: ?The looting of banks, the gagging of the media, the extra-judicial killings, the disappearances, the need to give protection money at all levels, bribery at all levels, corruption in education.? That very day, security personnel in plainclothes arrived at Alam?s Dhaka home in the middle of the night and took him away without any explanation or warrant. When he was presented before court a few days later, he was limping and had to be held up as he walked. He had obviously been tortured in custody. Soon after, he was charged with Section 57 of Bangladesh?s Information and Communications Technology Act (ICT) for ?spreading propaganda and false information against the government?. Alam was denied bail. If convicted, he could face a seven-year sentence. The blatantly unjust and politically motivated arrest of Shahidul Alam has been widely condemned and there have been petitions for his release from all parts of the world. The attention this case has received partially has to do with Alam?s extraordinary achievements and his international fame. As a photojournalist, he has received widespread acclaim for revealing that the marginalised are active agents rather than victims and his visceral depictions of state brutality. But Alam is equally known as an institution builder and a mentor for younger photojournalists. He founded the Drik Picture Library photo agency, the ChobiMela, one of South Asia?s most prestigious photo festivals, and the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute which has trained hundreds of photographers, including from Nepal. But the case has far-reaching implications that go beyond Shahidul Alam as an individual, and even beyond Bangladesh. The arrest has to be seen in light of worrisome trends that have begun to afflict large sections of the world, including many countries in the South Asian region. Broadly speaking, this has to do with the attack by the state upon what is often called ?freedom of expression?.In recent months, governments in South Asia have tried to criminalise all criticism of the government, both by publicly prominent personalities and by private citizens expressing themselves on social media. In Bangladesh, several people have been arrested for posting or sharing comments critical of the government on Facebook. The government there is planning to replace the notorious ICT act with even more draconian legislation. In Myanmar, journalists reporting on the Rohingya crisis have been arrested and charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. In the past week, several high profile activists and intellectuals have been arrested in India in what is clearly a vendetta on the part of the government. And in Nepal too, the government has passed legislation that would prevent journalists from reporting on state activity. Governments have claimed that such measures are necessary to preserve national security. In order to maintain their power, rulers in the region have tried to instigate nationalist sentiments among the population. Organisations campaigning for greater justice have been vilified as tools of foreign countries. The intention behind these efforts is clear. Governments want to establish their own interpretation of history and current events as the only legitimate one. They want to be left free to bulldoze decisions without having to confront independent civil society groups. And in the process, they are trying to create populations that are fearful, inward looking and xenophobic. The campaign for the release of Shahidul Alam is not just about an individual who has been unjustly persecuted. More broadly, it is a campaign to resist the steady encroachment upon democratic space across the region. It is a campaign against a narrow-minded nationalism and the arbitrary use of power. A campaign that stands for tolerance, the rule of law and the rights of the most marginalised people. During her visit to Kathmandu for the BIMSTEC conference, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would do well to realise that her government has only lost international legitimacy by arresting Shahidul Alam. His immediate release will be an important first step towards restoring the Bangladesh government?s credibility. Other heads of government visiting Nepal should similarly recognise that attacks on journalists and members of civil society only serve to increase hostility and anger towards the ruling authorities. Dismantling legislation that impedes the right to free expression will be necessary if states are to regain the trust of their populations. [. . .] FULL TEXT AND PHOTOS AT: https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/the-death-of-democracy/ ======================================= 8. AFTER 17 YEARS OF WAR, A PEACE MOVEMENT GROWS IN AFGHANISTAN by Sharif Hassan ======================================= The Washington Post August 18, 2018 SHAKARDARA, Afghanistan ? With every step, the blisters burned. After three days of walking barefoot alongside a highway from Kabul with about 50 other peace activists, Abdul Malik Hamdard, a computer teacher, had only gotten as far as this farming village about 40 miles north of the capital. But he had a point to make, and he said he planned to keep going no matter how much his feet hurt. ?War kills Afghan people every day,? said Hamdard, 27, as the group stopped to rest in a mosque one day earlier this month. He said he lost three brothers to conflict in the past 25 years. ?We will walk from Kabul to Mazar for peace,? he said, referring to the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, about 200 miles north. At the moment, the group?s new effort seems both quixotic and timely. In the past several weeks, a burst of insurgent violence has flared across the country, most recently a major ground assault by the Taliban on the southeastern city of Ghazni that killed at least 120 people and a suicide bombing in Kabul by the Islamic State militia that claimed at least 34 lives. The renewed bloodshed has dampened the hopes for breakthrough in the conflict that followed the June cease-fire and a high-level meeting between U.S. diplomats and Taliban representatives in July. But the peace marchers said these setbacks make their mission more relevant than ever. The group originally formed in southern Helmand province after a bombing in March, staging peaceful protests there. Then in May and June, eight of its members walked more than 300 miles to Kabul to persuade the government to negotiate with Taliban insurgents. Along the way, they braved scorching heat and dust storms, but their numbers grew to more than 100. Sometimes, they said, they encountered Taliban fighters and begged them to end the war. Afghan amputees march to demand an end to the war in the Guzara district of Herat province on Aug. 7. (Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images) In Kabul, the group set up tents outside the embassies of Pakistan, the United States and other countries, meeting with diplomats and asking them to step up support for a peace deal. They also met with Afghan officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, calling on them to take ?practical steps? to end the war. But the group?s leaders said the meetings produced no results, so they decided to take up their peace march again, with almost half of the activists walking barefoot. ?I told them that Afghans have lost trust in you entirely. You only made promises in 17 years. We have not seen practical steps towards peace,? said Mohammad Iqbal Khaybar, 27, the leader of the movement, who previously ran a private medical clinic in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand. Of those who criticize the marchers for walking barefoot, Khaybar said, ?We harm ourselves to make you aware. Why are you silent?? Although most of the marchers are young, some of the older ones are especially motivated by memories of life before their country was torn apart by conflict. Mohammad Seraj, 55, recalled tranquil days in Helmand before the Soviet invasion and civil war of the 1980s. He and his family fled to Iran for nearly 30 years ? only to return to a country at war again. ?Afghanistan is a good place without war. War is ugly,? Seraj said. ?We want peace at any cost.? Since the formation of the Helmand peace movement, others have sprung up in different areas of the country, holding rallies and sit-ins and calling on all warring parties to hold peace talks. Ghani has praised their efforts, but Taliban officials dismissed them in June as conspiracies and foreign plots. Despite the recent upsurge in violence, the peace activists are still hoping a second cease-fire will take place next week during the three-day Muslim holiday known as Eid al-Adha. In a tweet last week, activist Bacha Khan Muladad wrote, ?Every day dozens of young Afghans are dying, this has to stop, we need to stop this 4 decades old cycle of violence or else [we] will not stop walking. #StopWar.? As the marchers walked alongside the highway one recent day, a car drove slowly ahead, broadcasting a Persian-language song for peace. An 11-year-old boy, whose mother had died in a rocket attack in Logar province, walked just behind it. At one point, a white dog began following the group and stayed with them for miles. Some of the marchers said they hoped it would bring them luck. ======================================= 9. ANOTHER STANDOFF AT THE DURAND LINE Syeda Mamoona Rubab ======================================= The Friday Times 24 Aug 2018 Syeda Mamoona Rubab wonders how effective the Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan has been, given recent hostilities since the Taliban attack in Ghazni Eidul Fitr and Eidul Azha are just little over two months apart, but it seems like ages in annals of tumultuous Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Eidul Fitr had taken place amidst a sense of renewal because Pakistan and Afghanistan had forged a new mechanism governing their relationship called Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS) and Taliban had then agreed to an unprecedented ceasefire. Two months later, the festival of Eidul Azha took place under returning clouds of bilateral distrust and violence in Afghanistan once again on a rise. The Taliban attack on the strategically-located city of Ghazni was important from various aspects. Tragically, the attack that started on August 10 left around 100 Afghan citizens and troops dead and it exposed the weakness of the government, the preparedness of troops, narrative of the progress in war and the ineffectiveness of the US strategy adopted by Trump?s administration after last year?s review. But, the two casualties that few are talking about are the efforts for normalisation of Pak-Afghan relations and the setback suffered by the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. It would have been too optimistic for one to assume that the APAPPS would have overnight brushed away decades of mutual mistrust, but no one was expecting the bonhomie surrounding the creation of the new ties to fade so quickly. Therefore, in the aftermath of Ghazni attack, we had a sense of d?j? vu in what we heard from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, his Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami, Chief of General Staff Mohammad Sharif Yaftali and other officials; and from the Pakistani side from Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa and Foreign Office Spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal. The allegation against Pakistan was that Ghazni attack had marks of Pakistani support. It is said that bodies of at least 70 Pakistani killed during Ghazni fighting were with Afghan authorities and dozens of others had been captured. Video statements of some of the arrested men have been shown by Afghan media. Similarly there are been pictures of injured fighters and dead bodies being transported back to Pakistan. President Ghani, while visiting Ghazni three days after the Taliban retreat from the city, was bitter about commitments extended by General Bajwa. According to a Voice of America Report, Ghani said, ?General Bajwa, you signed a document with us and told me repeatedly in our conversations over the phone that when the elections (in Pakistan) are over you will pay attention to it. I need answers now?.From where they came and why are they receiving treatment in your hospitals?? It was more or less the same message that was conveyed by Kabul through its ambassador Dr Omar Zakhilwal to Gen Bajwa at the start of Ghazni attack. Dr Zakhilwal had then tweeted that in his meeting with top Pakistani commander told him that ?full cooperation as per the APAPPS and other bilateral commitments which in turn help with our peace efforts and reduction of violence? was required. Now look what Pakistani side is saying. General Bajwa out rightly dismissed the Afghan allegations, saying there was no support to any terrorist activity inside Afghanistan from Pakistan side. He was, however, compelled to offer an explanation over dead bodies and injured flowing into Pakistan from Afghanistan. It happened so because some of nationalist Pashtun leaders had joined the Afghan chorus in asking questions about them. General Bajwa?s explanation was, ?There are scores of Pakistanis working in Afghanistan in connection with various businesses and labour who periodically fall victim to terrorism acts alongside their Afghan brothers inside Afghanistan. Terming such victims as terrorists is unfortunate. Moreover, different factions of the TTP, hiding in many sanctuaries inside Afghanistan under Afghan identities on becoming injured and dead are transported into Pakistan for medical help. Additionally, Afghan refugees and their relatives also resort to similar practices.? General Bajwa?s statement was seen as an implied acceptance that some Pakistanis had been killed in the fight for Ghazni. He, however, challenged the Afghan account that they were terrorists fighting alongside Taliban. Whether one agrees with the explanation or not is a separate thing, but there can be no difference of opinion over the prescription offered by General Bajwa. He proposed two things ? firstly speedy implementation of APAPPS and substantive progress on Afghan reconciliation efforts. Recap what Afghan envoy had said: ?full cooperation as per the APAPPS.? Therefore, it is an easy conclusion to draw that both Kabul and Islamabad have a consensus that APAPPS is the way forward, but they have been struggling to make it functional even though in their enthusiasm for the new mechanism they made the people feel long time back that it was working. FO Spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal had at the last press briefing said: ?The two countries under the auspices of APAPPS are engaged in developing a time bound repatriation plan for early and complete repatriation of Afghan refugees to Afghanistan. In this regard, an Afghan delegation from Afghan Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation will visit Islamabad shortly to have consultations?. Although it was said in the context of refugees, but still it meant to say the APAPPS was working. But, two days later, through a separate statement Dr Faisal regretted that the reports about Pakistani involvement in Ghazni were ?malicious propaganda? aimed at ?vitiating the existing cooperation between the two countries? and could not be given credence. That?s right. It is very much plausible. But look the reason given by him ? ?the absence of official communications through regular channels.? The question, therefore, remains then what the APAPPS is worth even if it cannot perform the basic function of exchange of information and intelligence? Either accept that the APAPPS has collapsed or explain why the two countries are failing to operationalize it ? a fact that has been admitted by everyone including President Ghani and Gen Bajwa. The writer is a freelance journalist based in Islamabad ======================================== 10. MILITANTS? WAR ON EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN | Ruchi Kumar ======================================== The Hindu August 19, 2018 ?Education is increasingly a casualty in Afghanistan,? a briefing note by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) recently observed. The note was in reaction to a larger, comprehensive report by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), titled ?Education Under Attack?, which studies the impact of conflict on education in 28 countries. According to the report, Afghanistan, along with Nigeria, suffered the most number of attacks against students and educators. Indeed, as conflict in the country surges, educational facilities find themselves threatened or caught in the crossfire. In the latest such attack, a suicide bombing inside a classroom in Kabul on Wednesday killed 48 people, many of them students preparing for the national university entrance exams. Claimed by the Islamic State (IS), the attack targeted the minority Shia Hazara community. In June, some schools for girls were forced to shut following threats from the IS. Separately, over a 100 schools in Logar province were briefly closed, allegedly by local Taliban groups. Last month, the Malikyar Hotak High School in Khogyani district of the eastern province of Nangarhar came under attack, resulting in the beheading of three staff members. ?Threats ? and actual violence and destruction ? to schools and staff in Nangarhar Province are paralysing the educational sector and quickly reversing development gains,? William Carter, head of the Afghanistan programme at the NRC, told this writer, adding that the situation has had ?a profoundly distressing effect on children?s sense of safety?. Aid organisations working with local educational groups have also confirmed that not only are school and educational facilities at risk of attacks but also that the overall environment has discouraged student attendance. The NRC observed that schools in the region were ?increasingly at risk on military, ideological, and political fault lines, with attacks increasing in eastern Afghanistan?. Not safe at school In its own research, the NRC found that a majority of the surveyed children did not feel safe at school. It discovered that at least 12% had experienced attacks on their schools and 15% had experienced shooting very near their school buildings. Another 36% were frightened about risks of kidnapping or attack en route to schools and many of them had missed lectures and exams because of threats from armed groups. ?This also undermines parents? attitudes to the value of education,? Mr. Carter elaborated. Meanwhile, as the much-delayed parliamentary elections approach, school facilities used as voting registration and election centres are increasingly at risk from insurgent attacks. An assault on a school that was being used as a National ID registration centre in Kabul resulted in 60 deaths in April. Currently, according to the UN, over 60% of the 7,000 voter registration and polling centres are schools, with activities taking place during classroom hours. The deteriorating situation has also affected the delivery of educational aid. ?This level of insecurity has made it very difficult for us to assure the safety of both our beneficiaries and our own staff,? Mr. Carter said, adding that they are evaluating different approaches to ensure that children are protected and that their learning can be continued in the wake of deepening insecurity. ?However, we are making adjustments intended to reduce the likelihood and limit the impact of such incidents on children and staff,? he said. Factors such as repeated attacks on schools, closure of institutions and use of schools as voter registration centres have made the facilities education-unfriendly and discouraged student attendance ======================================== 11. TIME TO TALK: INDIA MUST ACCEPT IMRAN KHAN'S OFFER by Manini Chatterjee ======================================== The Telegraph August 27, 2018 When a difficult neighbour offers unsolicited help during a moment of crisis, you can do one of two things. You can choose to be large hearted - for it is much tougher to receive than to give - and accept the offer, seizing the opportunity it provides for a possible rapprochement in a bitter and quarrelsome relationship. Or, eschewing idealism and hope, you can politely decline it with a 'thank you, but no thank you' response. India, last week, did neither. The government of India's rejection of the offer of aid from the United Arab Emirates for the flood-ravaged state of Kerala triggered a huge controversy which refuses to die down. But the gesture from Pakistan was treated in a far more cavalier manner. No one bothered to even acknowledge it. The offer had been made not by some lowly official in Islamabad but by the newly elected prime minister, Imran Khan. On August 23, Khan had tweeted: "On behalf of the people of Pakistan, we send our prayers and best wishes to those who have been devastated by the floods in Kerala, India. We stand ready to provide any humanitarian assistance that may be needed." Given how prickly India's officialdom is about receiving aid from abroad, there was little chance of taking any help from Pakistan. But when a new regime is elected to power next door, and its new leader makes a graceful gesture, the least New Delhi could have done was respond with a note of appreciation. Instead, there has been only silence so far. This churlishness on part of India is not confined to the issue of flood assistance for Kerala alone. For the last few weeks, ever since Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf emerged as the single largest party in the country's general elections, it is Islamabad which is making all the right noises about peace and friendship. New Delhi, in contrast, has been muffled and grudging in its response. Imran Khan, it is true, is a controversial figure. The legendary cricketer who was once the most famous playboy of the eastern world is said to have metamorphosed into a conservative hardliner, with close links with the Pakistani army and sections of Islamist fundamentalists. But it is also true, as Imran Khan has himself pointed out, that he has had closer ties with India than any other Pakistani leader. He made numerous visits to this country during his cricketing days and the bonds he established lasted well past his retirement from the game. More important, he is now the elected leader of Pakistan. And every time a new person comes to power in either country, there is renewed hope that a fresh attempt will be made at reconciliation - or at least at reducing the rancour and hostility that have been the bane of both nations. It is this sense of hope, perhaps, that impelled the then prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi in the summer of 2014. Although Pakistanis had reasons to be wary of Modi - a dyed-in-the-wool Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak who had mocked Pakistan during election campaigns in Gujarat - Islamabad had responded to his invitation with alacrity. Unlike Modi who made a great show of his oath-taking ceremony by calling leaders of the Saarc nations to attend it, Imran Khan did not invite foreign leaders to his swearing-in. But in his very first speech on July 26, when the votes were still being counted, he reached out to India. While admitting he was "saddened" at how the media in India "portrayed me as a Bollywood film villain", Imran Khan pointed out that "I am the Pakistani who has the most familiarity with India, I have been all over that country." He went on to tell the Pakistani people that "it will be very good for all of us if we have good relations with India. We need to have trade ties, and the more we will trade, both countries will benefit." Of course, he did refer to Kashmir as "a core issue" but said that "Pakistan and India's leadership should sit at a table and try to fix this problem. It's not going anywhere." Candidly admitting that India-Pakistan relations were at "square one right now", the then prime minister-elect gave the very large - even if largely silent - constituency for peace on both sides of the border some reasons to cheer. "If India's leadership is ready, we are ready to improve ties with India. If you step forward one step, we will take two steps forward. I say this with conviction, this will be the most important thing for the subcontinent, for both countries to have a friendship." Four days later, on July 30, the Indian prime minister called up Imran Khan to congratulate him on his party's success in the election. But what exactly was exchanged between the two remains opaque since the bland press release put out by the ministry of external affairs merely said, "Prime Minister expressed hope that democracy will take deeper roots in Pakistan. Prime Minister also reiterated his vision of peace and development in the entire neighbourhood." A similar opacity marks the written communication sent by Narendra Modi to Imran Khan when the latter was formally sworn in as prime minister on August 18. The news of the letter came out only two days later when the newly elected foreign minister of Pakistan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, referred to it and welcomed Modi's message about starting on the path of dialogue. It was only then that unidentified government "sources" denied that any offer of talks had been made and said that Modi had only spoken of the need to pursue "meaningful and constructive engagement." It remains a mystery why the letter from the Indian prime minister to his Pakistani counterpart cannot be shared with the people of India. One reason could be that with the Lok Sabha elections a few months away, the Modi government does not want to risk any peace overture that could cloud the aggressive, jingoistic and communally polarizing narrative that has been central to the Bharatiya Janata Party's outreach to voters in the last few years. The virulent attack by the BJP spokesmen on Navjot Singh Sidhu for attending Imran Khan's swearing-in and hugging the Pakistani army chief - unmindful of the fact that Modi had also hugged the then Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, when he landed up without notice at Sharif's home - is a clear indication that ratcheting up anti-Pakistan sentiments is going to be part of the BJP's electoral strategy. That would be a great pity. At a time when the new Pakistani leadership is repeatedly making gestures of friendship and stressing the need for dialogue, India's mealy-mouthed responses diminish our stature as the bigger country and reduces our claims of moral superiority. The BJP, which is being rather unsubtle in its over-the-top commemoration of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seems to have forgotten that it was Vajpayee's Pakistan policy that marked his place in history. The BJP might regard Pokhran II and economic liberalization as Vajpayee's great achievements. But Pokhran I had already taken place under Indira Gandhi and the Vajpayee-era development was a continuation of the process started by previous regimes. But when it came to Pakistan, Vajpayee took unprecedented initiatives. It was not just his famous bus ride to Lahore but also his determination to keep the dialogue process going - in spite of Kargil, in spite of the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament - and his sincere belief that peace was worth striving for even if it was not electorally expedient that gave him the reputation of a statesman, and not just a successful political leader. Jingoistic sentiments are easy to whip up; sabre-rattling pays quick electoral dividends. But the truth is, whether we like it or not, India can never achieve its dream of being a great power, a " vishwa guru" till we establish peace with Pakistan. That is why self-professed hyper-nationalists, too, must grab every opportunity to start a dialogue, and keep it going in spite of pinpricks and provocations. Not doing so is letting the people of India down... ======================================== 12. INDIA: CRINGING AND FUDDLED AT 71 by Latha Jishnu ======================================== Dawn August 27, 2018 NARENDRA Modi always makes a splash when he speaks to the nation from the ramparts of the 17th-century Mughal Red Fort on India?s independence day. His outfits are chosen with care and appear to make sartorially political statements that the media never fails to note whatever else they might miss. His speeches are long and signify the audacity of fiction over fact since many of the government?s ?achievements? are invariably exposed as flights of fancy by data journalists and fact-checking websites that have sprung up as a response to the BJP regime?s propensity to make tall claims at every turn. This year Modi wore a flowing saffron turban, which to some analysts signalled his readiness for the 2019 general elections just nine months away along with his frequent references to being impatient and restless to change India on numerous fronts. The prime minister has in the past spoken of creating a ?new India?, a project which he promises will be completed by 2022 when India marks the 75th anniversary of independence. The toxic politics and coarse discourse of the Modi regime has held up a mirror to Indians. What is the ?new India? for which Modi has been laying the groundwork over the past four years? Clearly, the project is not unduly focused on the economy since his sorties on this front have been haphazard and anarchic. And he is also aware that his team will be unable to outdo the Congress government?s sterling performance. Updated figures of GDP growth show that the Manmohan Singh government averaged eight per cent during its two terms, clocking a historic rate of 10.08pc in 2006-07, the highest since the economic liberalisation of 1991. The series data on GDP rates have been kept back for long since it undermines the basis on which it stormed to power in 2014. Such manoeuvres are symptomatic of the BJP?s politics. On matters of vital concern, such as huge arms deals, there is secrecy and a fudging of facts, while on issues that are integral to its ideology, however trivial, it whips up a national frenzy, stoking anger and righteousness in equal measure. Currently, patriotic India is boiling over with indignation because cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu hugged Pakistan?s army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa when they met at Imran Khan?s oath-taking ceremony, a small example of the collective cretinism of a nation with little confidence in itself or its civilisational values, overwhelmed as it is by a loutish Hindu majoritarianism and hyper-nationalism that?s the leitmotif of the times. The core of the new India project is to erase the idea of India fashioned by Jawaharlal Nehru ? of a nation that was intended to be plural, secular and inclusive. But for the BJP and its mothership, the RSS, this was a concept borrowed from the West and ill suited to the ethos of Hindu India. As part of its revisionist programme, history has been upended and facts distorted as brazenly as they can be to suit the new narrative. Battles that were once lost in history are now being recast as victories since the new narrative does not brook Hindu kings being vanquished by Muslim emperors. Even post-Independence history is open to distortion, usually during abrasive election campaigns, when the party?s electoral victory is at stake. In the Republic of Lies that India has become no fact is too sacred, not even the life and times of India?s military heroes, if a little change of fact and date can yield. The nation is left cringing as fabrications become as common as they are dangerous. The new India of Modi?s making cares little for science or the scientific temperament, a quality much prized by Nehru and vital to his nation-building enterprise. India is possibly the only one country to have a constitution that calls on every citizen ?to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform? as a fundamental duty. Today, children and adults alike are a fuddled lot as those holding high office blithely deride foundational scientific principles. Ministers routinely denigrate the theories of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, while the prime minister himself dismisses climate change, in a special telecast for children, as nothing more than the perception of people as they grow older. Flat-earthers may abound the world over but nowhere else have they presided over the destiny of 1.3 billion people and of a nation with an enviable scientific heritage. Instead of banking on technology for the future, religion and social engineering are what the Hindutva lobby is betting on as it strengthens its hold on the country. One of its pet projects is to end the deep caste divisions in Hindu society and bring all Hindus on one platform. It is also doing its best to Hinduise Muslims through the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS special-purpose vehicle that appears to have had some success in wooing politically ambitious Muslims. But Walter Anderson, the US academic who has been studying the RSS for over 40 years, believes that the coming challenge for the saffron party is likely to be the battle between Hindutva and Hinduism, a valid analysis given the unrest among the major backward castes and the Dalits across India. At 71, India is on a dangerous cusp, unsure of what its values should be as the coarse political discourse and violent majoritarianism favoured by the BJP undermines old ways of thinking. Is Modi to blame for the increasing polarisation and moral bankruptcy of Indian society or do most Hindus have a hidden streak of bigotry? Indians harbour cherished myths about themselves however delusional or in conflict with reality these are: of being a peaceable people, committed to non-violence, welcoming and tolerant of others and their religious beliefs, and above all, swearing by the ancient philosophy of ?vasudeva kutumbakum? (the world is one family). Ironically, at 71, India is deeply conflicted on who its own family is. As a long pending tortuous citizenship verification exercise in the border state of Assam comes to a close, four million people who have lived there for decades are finding themselves disenfranchised. These are mostly Muslims but also include a few hundred thousand Hindu, tribal and scheduled caste people. Instead of trying to assuage people?s fears, BJP leaders are stirring the pot further by demanding similar exercises in other states. A mirror has been held up to Indians and the reflection is unsettling if not terrifying. Can they face it? The writer is a journalist. ======================================== 13. ?WE DON?T HAVE ANY FEAR?: INDIA?S ANGRY YOUNG MEN AND ITS LYNCH MOB CRISIS by Annie Gowen ======================================== The Washington Post August 27, 2018 Hindu activist Ram Kumar leads a march in honor of India?s Independence Day near Agra. (Ram Kumar) GOVARDHAN, India ? The two young men at the leadership camp were soft-spoken yet assured, from well-off families, wearing aviator sunglasses and flip-flops. The right-wing activists say they have beaten men they suspected of violating core Hindu beliefs and threatened interfaith couples because they fear Muslims are stealing their women. They say they?re ready to kill for their faith if necessary. ?Even if a life is lost, we don?t care,? said Ram Kumar, 23. It?s been a summer of rage in India. Dozens have been killed by lynch mobs, and extremist Hindus continue to assault and kill others, many of them Muslims. In the latest viral video, religious pilgrims angered over a minor traffic incident used sticks to demolish a car as police looked on. Much blame has been cast on India?s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with critics charging that they have encouraged violence by Hindu extremists. But India?s problem of male rage has roots beyond the strident Hindu nationalism embraced by the current government. India has more than 600 million people under 25, and they have greater access to technology and education than ever before. Yet millions have little hope of finding decent jobs, and a ?bachelor bomb? of more than 37 million surplus men ? a legacy of generations of a preference for sons and aborting female fetuses ? threatens social stability for decades. Ram Kumar, left, and Gaurav Sharma at a leadership camp for Hindu activists in Govardhan in June. (Annie Gowen/The Washington Post) ?People are frustrated that they are not being able to get jobs,? a leader from Modi?s party, Vasundhara Raje, told the channel CNN-News18. ?There is angst, which is spreading across communities and people. .?.?. It?s a reaction to their circumstances.? More than 1 million job seekers enter the labor market each month, many with inadequate job skills, but the country generated only 1.8 million additional jobs last year, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a research company. Modi says the number of new jobs last year was closer to 7 million. Without solid prospects, many young men are gravitating to India?s growing right-wing nationalist organizations, where they find a sense of purpose. Over time, a stereotype of a right-wing troll has emerged ? keyboard jockeys with too much time on their hands, sitting in their childhood bedrooms furiously tweeting about every perceived slight to Hinduism and Modi. This summer, Kumar attended a leadership camp sponsored by the Hindu nationalist World Hindu Council, where he learned to protect cows, which Hindus regard as sacred, protect women?s modesty and prevent outsiders from converting Hindus to other faiths. The youths did military drills in the baking heat, slept in spartan concrete dorm rooms and ate lentils and rice. Hindu activists do military marching drills at the leadership camp in Govardhan. (Annie Gowen/The Washington Post) Kumar, a college graduate who runs a tent rental company, and Gaurav Sharma, 22, a law student, grew up in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, which they see not as an ethereal white monument but as a reminder of the Mughal invaders who subjugated India?s Hindus. Kumar said that as a boy, he was shy. But after joining the Hindu nationalist movement, he said, ?I have a strange sense of confidence now. The group has taught us what is right, what we need to do for society.? Before long, he said, he was out on the streets chasing down and threatening interfaith couples, conducting the moral policing he feels is necessary because Muslim men allegedly seduce girls ?as young as 14.? The Hindu activists call it ?love jihad.? Kumar said he also prowls the streets at night, searching for cattle traders who might be illegally smuggling cows for slaughter. Recently, he said, he and five others stopped a truck transporting cows and beat the Muslim driver, who pleaded for his life. The man was saved only by the arrival of the police, Kumar said. ?I was raging,? Kumar said. ?If I had a pistol, I would have killed him.? Sharma said he, too, has participated in assaults, punching one suspected cattle smuggler in the face. Elders have since shown him how to administer a beating without leaving marks on his victim. ?We have been taught to not hit the head and chest ? that can be fatal,? he said. ?We beat them in such a way so they get these serious, silent injuries ? on the backs, on the legs ? so they do not die. Otherwise, there will be a case against us.? Since the BJP came to power in their state, Uttar Pradesh, led by the Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, they do not fear being held accountable by the authorities. ?Earlier, there was a fear that the government would arrest us, but now with the Yogi government, we don?t have any fear,? Sharma said. ?Even if a smuggler is killed during a fight, we don?t have to worry about it.? He continued, ?All these BJP leaders, they?ve said: ?Do what you want to do about cow protection. Don?t worry. If there is any problem, we are there for you.? ? Modi has said that state governments should deal sternly with these ?cow vigilantes? and that the government is committed to upholding the law, but other BJP politicians have sent a different message, meeting with or congratulating the alleged killers. 1:19 WhatsApp to tackle India's 'sinister' messaging India?s government said Aug. 21 Whatsapp had pledged to develop tools to combat the kind of fake messaging that has sparked violence across the country. (Reuters) The young men harbor a deep sense of victimization and spend a lot of time on Hindu-pride-focused WhatsApp groups and alternate-history websites that recount the glories of India?s ancient civilization before the Mughal and British invaders imposed, as Modi puts it, 1,200 years of servitude. Critics say social media is deepening the division between Hindus and Muslims in India that existed before the bloody partition of India in 1947 that created a separate country for Muslims, and ultimately an Islamic republic in Pakistan. ?Our parents never told us anything bad about Muslims. But in madrassas, they learn that Hindus are bad,? Sharma said. ?We will tell the next generations how bad these people are.? Sharma and his peers face stiff competition for careers because they attended schools where classes are taught in Hindi and because they know only a few phrases of English, the lingua franca of aspirational India. Many of their classmates are struggling, selling vegetables or doing menial labor. Thirty classmates joined the military. Kumar plans on having a traditional family, if only to have babies and ?contribute to the population.? ?The Hindu population,? Sharma clarified. Others in their generation may not get the chance. Demographer Christophe Guilmoto estimates that, because of the gender imbalance, 40 million surplus men in India will remain single between 2020 and 2080. ?There is a saying, ?Behind every successful man is a woman?? But you don?t need women. You can leave them behind and achieve success in life,? Sharma said. For Sharma, the love of his life married someone else. He said he still regrets that he did not ask his parents for permission to marry her. But nobody in his family had ever had a ?love marriage? ? always arranged unions. Now he has made a ?final decision,? to the dismay of his parents, to remain single and devote himself to the Hindu nationalist cause ? just like his idol, Modi, who, after an early marriage, has long embraced the bachelor lifestyle as a campaigner for Mother India. Tania Dutta contributed to this report. ======================================== 14. A LONG MARCH OF THE DISPOSSESSED TO DELHI by P. Sainath ======================================== https://psainath.org/ India?s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian.. It?s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no longer just a measure of loss of land. Nor only a measure of loss of human life, jobs or productivity. It is a measure of our own loss of humanity. Of the shrinking boundaries of our humaneness. That we have sat by and watched the deepening misery of the dispossessed, including the death by suicide of well over 300,000 farmers these past 20 years. While some ? ?leading economists? ? have mocked the enormous suffering around us, even denying the existence of a crisis. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has not published data on farmers? suicides for two years now. For some years before that, fraudulent data logged in by major states severely distorted the agency?s estimates. For instance, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and many others claimed ?zero suicides? by farmers in their states. In 2014, 12 states and 6 Union Territories claimed ?zero suicides? among their farmers. The 2014 and 2015 NCRB reports saw huge, shameless fiddles in the methodology ? aimed at bringing down the numbers. And yet they keep rising. Meanwhile, protests by farmers and labourers are on the rise. Farmers have been shot dead ? as in Madhya Pradesh. Derided or cheated in agreements, as in Maharashtra. And devastated by demonetisation, as in just about everywhere. Anger and pain are mounting in the countryside. And not just among farmers but amongst labourers who find the MNREGA being dismantled by design. Amongst fisherfolk, forest communities, artisans, exploited anganwadi workers. Amongst those who send their children to government schools, only to find the state itself killing its own schools. Also, small government employees and transport and public sector workers whose jobs are on the anvil. Image removed by sender. Vishwanath Khule, a marginal farmer, lost his entire crop during the drought year. His son, Vishla Khule, consumed a bottle of weedicide that Vishwanath had bought PHOTO ? JAIDEEP HARDIKAR Vishwanath Khule of Vidarbha?s Akola district, whose son Vishal consumed weedicide. Farmer suicides are mounting, but governments are falsifying numbers And the crisis of the rural is no longer confined to the rural. Studies suggest an absolute decline in employment in the country between 2013-14 and 2015-16. The 2011 Census signalled perhaps the greatest distress-driven migrations we?ve seen in independent India. And millions of poor fleeing the collapse of their livelihoods have moved out to other villages, rural towns, urban agglomerations, big cities ? in search of jobs that are not there. Census 2011 logs nearly 15 million fewer farmers (?main cultivators?) than there were in 1991. And you now find many once-proud food-producers working as domestic servants. The poor are now up for exploitation by both urban and rural elites. The government tries its best not to listen. It?s the same with the news media. When the media do skim over the issues, they mostly reduce them to demands for a ?loan waiver.? In recent days, they?ve recognised the minimum support price (MSP) demand of farmers ? the Cost of Production (CoP2) + 50 per cent. But the media don?t challenge the government?s claims of already having implemented this demand. Nor do they mention that the National Commission on Farmers (NCF; popularly known as the Swaminathan Commission) flagged a bunch of other, equally serious issues. Some of the NCF?s reports have remained in Parliament 12 years without discussion. Also the media, while denouncing loan waiver appeals, won?t mention that corporates and businessmen account for the bulk of the non-performing assets drowning the banks. Perhaps the time has come for a very large, democratic protest, alongside a demand for Parliament to hold a three-week or 21-day special session dedicated entirely to the crisis and related issues. A joint session of both houses. Image removed by sender. Two women sitting at Azad maidanIn Mumbai, covering their heads with cardboard boxes in the blistering heat. PHOTO ? BINAIFER BHARUCHA We can?t resolve the agrarian crisis if we do not engage with the rights and problems of women farmers On what principles would that session be based? The Indian Constitution. Specifically, the most important of its Directive Principles of State Policy. That chapter speaks of a need to ?minimise the inequalities in income? and ?endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities, opportunities?.? The principles call for ?a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.? The right to work, to education, to social security. The raising of the level of nutrition and of public health. The right to a better standard of living. Equal pay for equal work for men and women. Just and humane conditions of work. These are amongst the main principles. The Supreme Court has more than once said the Directive Principles are as important as our Fundamental Rights. An agenda for the special session? Some suggestions that others concerned by the situation can amend or add to: 3 days: Discussion of the Swaminathan Commission report ? 12 years overdue. It submitted five reports between December 2004 and October 2006 that cover a multitude of vital issues and not just MSP. Those include, to name a few: productivity, profitability, sustainability; technology and technology fatigue; dryland farming, price shocks and stabilisation ? and much more. We also need to halt the privatisation of agricultural research and technology. And deal with impending ecological disaster. 3 days: People?s testimonies. Let victims of the crisis speak from the floor of Parliament?s central hall and tell the nation what the crisis is about, what it has done to them and countless millions of others. And it?s not just about farming. But how surging privatisation of health and education has devastated the rural poor, indeed all the poor. Health expenditure is either the fastest or second fastest growing component of rural family debt. 3 days: Credit crisis. The unrelenting rise of indebtedness. This has been a huge driving factor in the suicide deaths of countless thousands of farmers, apart from devastating millions of others. Often it has meant loss of much or all of their land. Policies on institutional credit paved the way for the return of the moneylender. 3 days: The country?s mega water crisis. It?s much greater than a drought. This government seems determined to push through privatisation of water in the name of ?rational pricing?. We need the right to drinking water established as a fundamental human right ? and the banning of privatisation of this life-giving resource in any sector. Ensuring social control and equal access, particularly to the landless. 3 days: The rights of women farmers. The agrarian crisis cannot be resolved without engaging with the rights ? including those of ownership ? and problems of those who do the most work in the fields and farms. While in the Rajya Sabha, Prof. Swaminathan introduced the Women Farmers? Entitlements Bill, 2011 (lapsed in 2013) that could still provide a starting point for this debate. 3 days: The rights of landless labourers, both women and men. With mounting distress migrations in many directions, this crisis is no longer just rural. Where it is, any public investment made in agriculture has to factor in their needs, their rights, their perspective. 3 days: Debate on agriculture. What kind of farming do we want 20 years from now? One driven by corporate profit? Or by communities and families for whom it is the basis of their existence? There are also other forms of ownership and control in agriculture we need to press for ? like the vigorous sangha krishi (group farming) efforts of Kerala?s Kudumbashree movement. And we have to revive the unfinished agenda of land reform. For all of the above debates to be truly meaningful ? and this is very important ? every one of them must focus, too, on the rights of Adivasi and Dalit farmers and labourers. While no political party would openly oppose such a session, who will ensure it actually happens? The dispossessed themselves. Image removed by sender. Midnight walk to Azad Maidan PHOTO ? SHRIRANG SWARGE The morcha of farmers from Nashik to Mumbai in March has to go national ? not just of farmers and labourers, but also others devastated by the crisis In March this year, 40,000 peasants and labourers marched for a week from Nashik to Mumbai making some of these very demands. An arrogant government in Mumbai dismissed the marchers as ?urban Maoists? with whom it would not talk. But caved in within hours of the multitude reaching Mumbai to encircle the state legislative assembly. That was the rural poor sorting out their government. The highly disciplined marchers struck a rare chord in Mumbai. Not just the urban working class, but also the middle classes, even some from the upper middle classes, stepped out in sympathy. We need to do this at the national level ? scaled up 25 times over. A Long March of the Dispossessed ? not just of farmers and labourers, but also others devastated by the crisis.. And importantly, those not affected by it ? but moved by the misery of fellow human beings. Those standing for justice and democracy. A march starting from everywhere in the country, converging on the capital. No Red Fort rallies, nor skulls at Jantar Mantar. That march should encircle Parliament ? compel it to hear, listen and act. Yes, they would Occupy Delhi. It might take many months to get off the ground, a gargantuan logistical challenge. One that has to be met by the largest and widest coalition possible of farm, labour and other organisations. It will face great hostility from the rulers ? and their media ? who would seek to undermine it at every stage. It can be done. Do not underestimate the poor ? it is they, not the chattering classes, who keep democracy alive. It would be one of the highest forms of democratic protest ? a million human beings or more showing up to ensure their representatives perform. As a Bhagat Singh, if alive, might have said of them: they could make the deaf hear, the blind see and the dumb speak. ======================================== 15. THE UNSEEABLES Tariq Ali ======================================== London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 16 ? 30 August 2018 pages 13-16 Ants among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India by Sujatha Gidla Daunt, 341 pp, ?14.99, May, ISBN 978 1 911547 20 4 This is a family biography that encompasses a history rarely told: despite its longevity, caste, and caste oppression, is not a popular theme in India. Sujatha Gidla writes of poisoned lives, of disillusionment, betrayed hopes, unrequited loves, attempted escapes through alcohol and sex. What distinguishes her book is its rich mix of sociology, anthropology, history, literature and politics. Gidla?s great-grandparents were born in the late 19th century in the Khammam district of what is now Andhra Pradesh. They belonged to a clan of pre-agricultural, forest-based tribal nomads. Hunting and gathering supplied basic necessities; they worshipped their own forest gods. When the occupying British cut down forests and replaced them with teak plantations, the clan was forced out. They found a large lake with no villages nearby and settled on its shores. The soil was rich. They took to agriculture and produced much more rice than they needed. They found a market for the surplus, which meant that they caught the attention of local landlords and their agents: they were forced to pay taxes and dragged into the caste-based Hindu world. As landless agricultural labourers they were the lowest of the low, classed as untouchables, ?outcastes?. They carried on as normal, until one day they provided shelter, as was their custom, to a fugitive from the Yanadi clan who was on the run from the police. (He was a burglar: the Yanadis rejected all private property rights and it was their ?sacred duty? to violate them.) When a few policemen arrived the villagers drove them away. But then Gidla?s clan encountered modernity in the shape of a hundred baton-carrying colonial policemen, who destroyed their goods and food, harassed the women and took every male into custody. ?The villagers did not know what to do,? Gidla writes. They did not know about jails, bail, courts or lawyers. By luck, some Canadian missionaries active in a nearby town learned what had happened. They sent a white lawyer to defend the villagers and win their release. In gratitude, the villagers started to give up their old goddesses and accept baptism. They began sending their children to attend the schools set up by missionaries. Untouchables had long been forbidden from learning to read or write. But when the missionaries arrived, they opened schools that, to the horror of the Hindus, welcomed even the untouchables ? caste Hindus often refused to send their children, unwilling to let them sit side by side with untouchable students. The stigma extended to animals. Gidla?s uncle K.G. Satyamurthy, later one of the founders of the Maoist People?s War Group, was startled at the age of ten to discover that ?untouchable buffaloes were not allowed to graze in the same meadows as the caste buffaloes.? Gidla?s maternal grandparents, Prasanna Rao and Maryamma, lived after their marriage in a village called Adavi Kolanu, where they taught in a mission school. But they moved to the city after Maryamma was insulted by some local upper-caste men who had seen her wearing a new sari the missionaries had bought her as a Christmas present. The two groups ? untouchables and caste Hindus ? had gathered in the village square when a brahmin intervened: ?Kill me first before you kill each other,? he challenged them. To kill a brahmin is the sin of sins. First the untouchables backed down, then the caste Hindus. The nonviolent brahmin then counselled the untouchables to never again try anything that might provoke the caste Hindus. This was the way his idol, Gandhi, always resolved caste disputes. When they arrived in Visakhapatnam (Vizag in British shorthand), their two sons, Satyamurthy (?the wise one?), henceforth known to all as Satyam, was five and his brother, William Carey, was two. Their sister, Mary Manjulabai, was born in Vizag. The parents got jobs as teachers in Christian schools and earned enough to rent a modest apartment. The landlord was a caste Hindu and so they lied, claiming they had converted to Christianity from middle-caste Hinduism. The landlord was suspicious, but their status as teachers clinched the deal. A few years later an orphaned niece of Prasanna Rao?s caught tuberculosis. He brought her home with him from the village and she was admitted to hospital and recovered. But Maryamma caught the infection and died on 5 October 1941. This is what it meant for the children: ?One afternoon, not long after, their father bathed them and dressed them up in their best clothes. He had them sit on the steps of the school where their mother used to teach. ?Just wait here, like good boys and good girl,? he told them. Hours passed, night fell. Their father did not come back.? Prasanna Rao could not imagine life without Maryamma or deal on his own with the debts he owed for her medical care. He fled. The flight was, in its way, a tribute to the role she had played in the household and a subconscious self-indictment. Years later he returned, but it was too late. They didn?t need him any more. The boys had been taken in by an aunt and the girl had gone to live with her grandmother. Of the boys, Satyam was cleverer, a dreamer whose discovery of modern Telugu verse inspired him to write. Carey was tough, a natural street fighter. The intersection of their lives with British withdrawal from India and the eruption immediately after Independence of a huge peasant uprising in the state of Telangana, which borders Andhra Pradesh, helped shape all their lives. In Telangana, which had its own feudal ruler, ?every untouchable family in every village had to give up their first male child as soon as he learned to talk and walk. They would bring him to the dora [landlord] to work in his household as a slave until death.? Other castes suffered too. This wasn?t, as Gidla writes, ?a traditional system?, but one instituted in the late 19th century to allow the large-scale cultivation of tobacco and cotton. The peasants, aided by the Communist Party, rose up and fought this servitude. By now the brahmins were in power in Delhi. No untouchable or low-caste Hindu harboured many illusions. Some even feared that after the British withdrawal things would get worse for them. They did. The Indian army invaded the city of Hyderabad in Telangana, deposing its rulers, but then turned its guns on the peasants, detaining, torturing and raping thousands and evicting them from the land. The more progressive elements in the Congress Party may have believed that with industrialisation and modernisation the problem of caste would solve itself. It never did. Capitalism itself may be caste, colour and gender-blind but the dominant classes utilise these divisions to preserve their own rule. As Gidla recounts, the 1928 general strike in Bombay was defeated thanks in part to caste divisions within the workers? movement. This isn?t the only example. Christianity could not provide social upward mobility, but it ensured that Satyam and his siblings received a proper education, despite taunts from caste Hindus. Because they were educated, Gidla?s relatives could get jobs in Christian schools and hospitals. But a brown-skinned Christian was still treated very differently from a white-skinned one, and brahmin converts to the imperial religion refused to marry untouchable Christians. Conversion didn?t erase the stigma of untouchability. As a teenager, Satyam was hostile to Nehru and Gandhi ? he saw them as products of British rule and tied to it in too many ways ? but sympathetic to the militant, secular nationalism of Subhas Chandra Bose. From here, Satyam moved the short distance to the Communist Party, inspired by the accounts that student CP members gave him of the Telangana peasants? struggle. Until a few years before his death in 2012, Satyam was engaged in the peasant resistance in Andhra Pradesh. After the Communist Party split in 1967 he became involved in the Naxalite, Maoist wing of the party, backing an armed revolt. After its failure, and the killing of many Naxalite leaders, he cofounded the People?s War Group, which Gidla describes as the ?most notorious, famous and successful Naxalite party, a thorn in the side of the Indian rulers?. He was eventually expelled from it after complaining about the party?s treatment of untouchables. ?Talk of caste feeling within the party had always been taboo,? Gidla writes, but young untouchables were beginning to see it as a political issue. They told Satyam that ?when they joined, they were not given a gun. Instead, they were handed a broom and told to sweep the floors.? For a long time, too long, he?d preferred to believe that caste prejudice was false consciousness and would disappear in time. It never had. Even in the People?s War Group, members of the barber caste shaved their comrades, washer-caste members washed the clothes and the untouchables ?were made to sweep and mop the floors and clean the lavatories?. This was life in a revolutionary group committed to an armed struggle to liberate the poor. Change your perspective - subscribe now Satyam can?t have been too surprised by this. He had suffered many insults from upper-caste members of the party, some of whom would leave money in the lavatory in order to see if he pocketed it. Feeling that the question of caste had now reached a new stage (there had been massacres of untouchables and angry responses), he confronted his comrades on the Central Committee. Their response was ?swift and ruthless. He was expelled on the spot for ?conspiring to divide the party?.? The news of his expulsion became public when Gidla?s mother wrote a letter to a newspaper explaining what lay behind it. That was when most people found out that the founder of the People?s War Group, whom they knew as a revolutionary and a poet, publishing under the pseudonym Siva Sagar, was also an untouchable. * Gidla, born in appalling conditions in an untouchable ghetto in the city of Kazipet in Telangana, now works as a conductor on the New York subway (she lost her job as a software programmer in a bank after the 2008 financial crash). Her experiences in the United States pushed her to write this book, an attempt to explain to her new friends and colleagues the difference between caste and race. Race is visible. Caste is a hierarchy established more than 2500 years ago. ?What comes by birth and can?t be cast off by dying ? that is caste,? Arundhati Roy describes it in an essay introducing B.R. Ambedkar?s 1930s classic, The Annihilation of Caste: What we call the caste system today is known in Hinduism?s founding texts as varnashrama dharma or chaturvarna, the system of four varnas. The approximately four thousand endogamous castes and sub-castes (jatis) in Hindu society, each with its own specified hereditary occupation, are divided into four varnas ? Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (soldiers), Vaishyas (traders) and Shudras (servants). Outside of these varnas are the avarna castes, the Ati-Shudras, subhumans, arranged in hierarchies of their own ? the Untouchables, the Unseeables, the Unapproachables ? whose presence, whose touch, whose very shadow is considered to be polluting by privileged-caste Hindus ? Each region of India has lovingly perfected its own unique version of caste-based cruelty, based on an unwritten code that is much worse than the Jim Crow laws. Unsurprisingly, Gidla?s tone in her portrait of everyday social and political life in India over the late 19th and 20th centuries is defiant, sometimes angry: Gandhi is portrayed as a hypocrite, Nehru as a conscienceless Kashmiri brahmin who was happy to send troops to crush the Telangana peasant uprising and remained unaffected by the resulting thousands of deaths. Unlike his many apologists, Gandhi never concealed his views on the caste system. He was opposed to treating untouchables badly, but defended the system itself: ?I am one of those who do not consider caste to be a harmful institution,? he wrote in the journal Young India in 1920. ?In its origin, caste was a wholesome custom and promoted national wellbeing. In my opinion, the idea that inter-dining or intermarrying is necessary for national growth is a superstition borrowed from the West.? Contrary to the radical slogans of the late 1940s, India?s wasn?t a ?fake independence?. Self-rule was achieved at a high price and it meant something, but it incorporated many colonial practices. The new masters benefited, but for the untouchables, tribals and others conditions remained the same or got worse. According to recent estimates by India?s National Crime Records Bureau, every 16 minutes a crime is committed by caste Hindus against an untouchable ? or Dalit, as they prefer to be called. The figures are horrific: every month 52 Dalits are killed and six kidnapped; every week almost thirty Dalit women are raped by caste Hindus. This will be a serious underestimate. Most victims of caste violence don?t report the crime for fear of reprisals, notably death by burning. In 2012 the Indian and Western media extensively covered the gang rape and murder of a single woman in Delhi, largely because students and feminist groups had protested on the streets and made it an issue; that same year 1574 Dalit women were raped and 651 Dalits murdered. Add to this the regular mob punishment of Dalit and low-caste women: they are forcibly stripped then paraded through villages to humiliate them further. Politically a democracy, constitutionally secular, India has, since 1947, been a caste Hindu dictatorship. During the run-up to independence, B.R. Ambedkar pinpointed the futility of ?rights?: ?If the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no law, no parliament, no judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the word ? What is the use of fundamental rights to the Negro in America, to the Jews in Germany and to the Untouchables in India?? He also advised the leader of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, not to place any trust in the brahmin-dominated Congress and to fight hard for a Muslim state. Ambedkar considered demanding a separate status for untouchables, slicing them away from Hinduism. This would have given them separate electoral representation as was the case with Muslims and other minorities. Gandhi talked him out of this by flattery, and by arguing that since Ambedkar would be drafting the new Indian constitution he could write in all the safeguards he wanted. This did happen, but had little impact. ?Implement the Constitution? remains a Dalit demand to this day. In the post-independence period, the political choice was essentially limited to Congress or the main opposition force, the Communist Party of India. Gidla recounts what life was like for those below the lowest rung of the caste ladder and for local communists during Congress rule. The Dalits were left to rot, while the communists were targeted by Congress goon squads. Nehru visited Andhra Pradesh before the first post-independence election at the end of 1951, intending to drag middle and low-caste Hindus back to the Congress fold. He was seriously worried, wrongly as it turned out, that the CPI might win the province. They had, after all, led the Telangana peasant revolt that had inspired and radicalised Satyam and many others and that Nehru had crushed. The evolution of caste in India remains a subject of heated debate. In its earliest forms it must have been in existence at least 2500 years ago, when Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) began a reform movement to purge the brahminical religion of its impurities. The hierarchical caste system was a principal target. After he failed his followers were driven out of India to Sri Lanka and further east. The untouchables, pushed out of the officially designated caste system, remained silent. There isn?t a single recorded account of a Dalit rebellion. The repression was systemic: worse and more effective than that imposed by slavery and making it unnecessary. Three medieval mystic poets spoke for them. In the 15th century, Ravidas, a tanner (hence low-caste), imagined Be-gham-pura, the city without sorrow, a place without caste segregation, ?where there is no affliction or suffering, neither anxiety, nor fear, taxes nor capital, no menace, no terror, no humiliation. One who shares with me that city is my friend.? Kabir, a weaver, writing in the same period, was more aggressive. His poems (badly translated into English by Rabindranath Tagore) are still sung in many parts of India. One of them, not a Tagore translation, reads: Cow dung?s impure the bathing-square is impure even its curves are impure Kabir says: Only they are pure Who?ve completely cleansed their minds. A century and a half later, the Punjabi Sufi poet Bulleh Shah lamented, ?Come Bulleha, let us go/to the land where all are blind/where none can recognise our caste/or a sage in me find,? and later speaks on behalf of an untouchable cleaner: I?m a sweeperess, I?m untouchable, They avoid me, I don?t care. My pay after a long day?s work? A stone pillow and what you leave behind. My life? Cold and sickness and scorn Empty stomach, Clothes always torn. The straws of my broom are all I own. I?m a sweeperess. These poems are still sung at rural concerts, especially those marking the anniversaries of the poets? deaths. It?s difficult to believe (and I don?t) that the oral culture of the Dalits did not produce laments and vicious anti-brahmin songs and satires or jokes. Some of these must survive. But in Satyam?s era poets and short-story writers didn?t write about caste: it was considered divisive. Muslim progressives ignored the theme, as did many leftist intellectuals of Hindu and Sikh origin. The publication of two books within months of each other during the 1930s was the first sign of some movement on this issue. The first was a novel by Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, a social-realist depiction of the Dalit condition. The second was Ambedkar?s Annihilation of Caste, the transcript of a speech he was not allowed to read at a conference of anti-caste Hindu reformers in Lahore in 1936: the text was too much for the organisers and the event was cancelled. In his collection Vindication of Caste, Gandhi wrote that while the ban had been a misjudgment, Ambedkar?s ?utopian? hostility to Hinduism was unacceptable. * I met Anand for the only time in 1965 at the World Peace Conference in Helsinki. He was born in Peshawar, but Lahore ? where I grew up ? had been his favourite city, though he had not returned there since Partition. After discussing family friends we had in common, he asked whether I?d read any of his novels. I had, all of them. My favourite was Untouchable. He smiled. ?That one will last as long as untouchability. Eternal.? He had read Ambedkar?s essays and journalism and met the man himself. The extract below is a fictionalised version of a real event. Ambedkar?s father worked for the British Indian Army, but even in army schools, untouchable children were not permitted to study in the same classroom as other Indian children. They sat outside in the heat of the dusty courtyard. Anand offers a memorable account: The outcastes were not allowed to mount the platform surrounding the well, because if they were ever to draw water from it, the Hindus of the three upper castes would consider the water polluted. Nor were they allowed access to the nearby brook as their use of it would contaminate the stream. They had no well of their own because it cost at least a thousand rupees ? Perforce they had to collect at the foot of the caste Hindus? well and depend on the bounty of some of their superiors to pour water into their pitchers ? So the outcastes had to wait for chance to bring some caste Hindu to the well, for luck to decide that he was kind, for Fate to ordain that he had time to get their pitchers filled with water. They crowded round the well, congested the space below its high brick platform, morning, noon and night, joining their hands with servile humility to every passer-by, cursing their fate and bemoaning their lot if they were refused the help they wanted. Anand asked me many questions about northern Pakistan. We shared a love of what was then a tiny hill station called Nathiagali that served as the summer capital of the North-West Frontier Province, usually administered from Peshawar. I told him of my first encounter with the Christian untouchables there. There was no sewage system, and excrement was collected from wooden thunder-boxes by these Christians three times a day. We went to Nathiagali for two months every summer and I got to know some of them reasonably well. In June 1962 all the other local council workers were given a pay rise, but not the shit-collectors. They were despondent. I asked their leader, Abdul, the reason. He said they had not received a pay rise the year before either, unlike everyone else. I suggested a strike. ?Listen,? I said to him. ?Most of the people whose toilets you clean are senior civil servants, government ministers and the like. Let them smell their own shit for two days. You?ll win.? The strike was a huge success. Within 48 hours they got a backdated pay rise. Anand laughed. ?If only it was so easy all the time.? The far-right BJP government led by Narendra Modi deliberately misinterprets and distorts India?s ancient history to justify its cultural offensive against Islam and other minorities, aiming to create a monolithic Hindu narrative and an official Hinduism. School textbooks, university education, what is and what should not be stocked in public libraries are policed. The Hindu epics, long read and appreciated as literature, are now being characterised as history. When asked to explain the elephant god, Modi responded: ?We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant?s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.? The new monolithism confronts a giant obstacle in the shape of the caste system. Last month, at a huge gathering of the party faithful in Meerut, Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the RSS ? effectively the BJP?s parent organisation, a movement influenced by European fascism that was founded in 1925 to preach the superiority of Hinduism ? stressed the importance of Hindu unity: Say with pride that you are a Hindu. As Hindus, we have to unite because the responsibility of this country is upon us ? The roadblock to being united is that we are fighting on the lines of caste. We have to say that all Hindus are brothers irrespective of their community. Those who believe in Bharat Mata, her culture, and are progeny of India?s forefathers are Hindus. There are Hindus in this country who do not know they are Hindus. Here, Bhagwat is referring to those whose forebears converted to Islam many centuries ago. The message that all Hindus are brothers hasn?t percolated very far. Rohith Chakravarti Vemula, a PhD student at Hyderabad University, was the author of a well-regarded book called Caste Is Not a Rumour. He was active in the university?s Ambedkar Students? Association, formed by untouchable students in 1993. In July 2015 the university authorities abruptly suspended him. It emerged that an investigation had taken place and he had been found guilty of ?raising issues under the banner of Ambedkar Students Association?. Punished for defending Dalit students against caste Hindus he felt completely isolated and committed suicide on 17 January 2016. The BJP/RSS veneration of the epics is another huge obstacle to unity: they easily outpace the Old Testament and the Quran as far as gender oppression is concerned. The ?self-immolation? of caste Hindu widows was ordained by brahmin patriarchy. A number of poems praise the ?sacrifice? of a woman ?voluntarily? climbing onto her husband?s funeral pyre. The British made it illegal in 1829, but widow remarriage has continued to be regarded as unacceptable by caste Hindus. Attempts by some BJP supporters to revive the burning of widows haven?t succeeded, yet dowry deaths, where parents, desperate for dosh, marry their son for a large dowry and at the first opportunity set the young wife on fire, with her mother-in-law playing an active role in the process, do still occur, even if they aren?t much written about these days. How the BJP will create a single Hinduism without abolishing the caste system is unclear, but the BJP should not be underestimated. In 1989 it formed an alliance with socialists and the CPI(M) which, its key organiser claimed, ?increased our legitimacy in the eyes of backward communities?. Simultaneously, the party claimed to represent Hindus ?hurt? by the 1981 Meenakshipuran conversion, when several hundred Dalits publicly converted to Islam. The aim of winning the support of Dalits and low-caste Hindus wasn?t supported by senior brahmins in the BJP leadership, who were publicly critical of the ?social engineering? envisaged by their opponents. The uppercaste Hindus won the day, but the BJP suffered badly in subsequent elections, failing to win Uttar Pradesh (the most important state in the country) in 2007, 2009 and 2012. Enter stage further right, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the current BJP party president. The upper-caste rebels were sidelined and Shah renewed the appeal to lower castes and Dalits by setting up social programmes and opening schools, health clinics and so on. The model here was the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its commitment to provide to the poor what they were denied by the state. A decade earlier, when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat, he had effectively justified the massacre of more than a thousand Muslims in 2002. Many thought this would finish him off as a politician, but his support of the rioters was used by Amit Shah to make him seem a plausible national leader. In 2017 the BJP won a huge majority in Uttar Pradesh and a spectacular victory in the Indian parliament. For the first time in thirty years, a single party had triumphed. No need for coalitions. The Congress Party, incapable of dumping a dynasty long past its sell-by date, is in a severe crisis. The CPI(M) has not been the same since it lost its stranglehold in West Bengal, though with at least half a million members nationally it remains in a strong position to challenge the BJP. But this will require it to dump the bankrupt strategy of forming indiscriminate electoral alliances in the hope of defeating the main enemy. Few believe this will happen. Satyam would be horrified by the number of Dalits voting for the BJP. He decided to work in the countryside not simply out of Maoist convictions. He used to explain that two-thirds of the population is rural and a quarter landless, a majority of them not Dalits. A firm believer in cross-caste alliances of the poor, he argued for the creation of new movements and parties to embody this reality. His niece?s book shows how much such change is needed. ======================================== 16. ANNAN VICTIM OF ONE OF THE GREATEST FAKE NEWS CONCOCTIONS IN HISTORY By Ian Williams ======================================== Inter Press Service Ian Williams is a former President of the UN Correspondents? Association (UNCA) and author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War Secretary-General Kofi Annan (centre) addresses a Security Council Meeting on Iraq. 07 June 2004. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 2018 (IPS) - Looking at the deserved outpouring of eulogies over Kofi Annan I could not help remembering the advice of the old Latin saying, ?Say nothing about the dead unless it?s good.? But one can?t help wishing that there had been more support of Kofi Annan when he was alive, not least when the Murdoch media Faux News fabricators persecuted him with the spurious Oil For Food scandal. It was one of the greatest Fake News concoctions in history, almost up there with Iraqi WMDs, perhaps unsurprisingly since many of the sources for both were the same based on alleged UN corruption in the program that delivered food to Iraqi civilians in the face of US insistence on maintaining sanctions against the Iraqi regime. They knew what they were doing: it was not just an individual they were slandering. Kofi Annan epitomized several facets of the role of a UN Secretary General, but none better than being an inspiring public face for the organization whose manifested dignity and integrity helped mitigate the sad reality of a body often hamstrung by the self-seeking sordid squabbles of its member states. The attack was both an attempt to punish him for his temerity in saying that the Iraq war was illegal, and to challenge the prestige of the UN and the whole concept of international order. The onslaught was all the heavier because they sought to demolish the reputation of someone who was the archetypal nice guy, who would have made a good electoral candidate. He remembered families and people, greeted everyone of all ranks affably and kept his cool. The attack was both an attempt to punish him for his temerity in saying that the Iraq war was illegal, and to challenge the prestige of the UN and the whole concept of international order. The only time I saw him lose his temper was when he reprimanded the juvenile behavior one of the Murdoch press corps who was baiting him about trivia associated with the Oil For Food scandal. Some of the correspondents were shocked that when this animal was attacked he fought back. Others welcomed the well-merited comeuppance. His original election had come about against the background of the Balkan Wars and it must be remembered that it was the result of an American veto against the reappointment of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who suffered from a bipartisan alliance of Madeleine Albright and Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who were both incensed by the Secretary General?s refusal to bow to Washington. Of course, that made Kofi Annan the American candidate, subject to some suspicion from other nations, and indeed his ideas of world governance and policy were not too far from the stated principles of the Clinton administration. However, as he was well aware, because an administration declared lofty ideals did not necessarily mean they would implement them in practice, and even more often they would he was alive. Boutros-Ghali was also posthumously the subject of eulogies from many who stayed silent when he was under attack, since he confronted the same quandary as Annan: how to cope with a US that wanted to treat the UN as, not just an instrument of foreign policy, but as a foil in domestic politics. The White House wanted to make reassuring liberal noises about stopping atrocities to one wing of American politics, while promising the isolationist wing that it would trim spending on the UN and would not risk American lives to implement policies that the US supported. At the time of Rwanda, that entailed a Presidential Directive from Clinton that was in essence more isolationist than anything most of the Republicans could dream up: that the US would veto any peacekeeping operation that did not directly benefit US foreign policy objective, which did not at the time seem to include the prevention of genocide, as untold thousands of Bosniaks and Rwandans discovered It was at first unsure whether Kofi Annan?s years of service in the UN were an asset or a disadvantage, but it became clear how useful they were, since he knew just how the organization worked and was all too aware of the competing pressures on UN staff, not least the political pressures. And among those pressures was the major one: how to accommodate the US, which was essential for the effective functioning of the organization, while preventing the organization from becoming a mere instrument of US policies often opposed by most of the members. He was no mob orator. He was not cut out for the bully pulpit or the soapbox. When he was first elected, his advisors pushed him into being coached for public speaking but gave up and people realized that his quiet authority was in some ways more effective than soaring rhetoric and inspired but content-free demagoguery. People had to strain to listen to him ? and they did, because what he had to say was worth listening to. His statements were carefully weighed before delivery and designedly non-provocative. They aspired to higher things, but they were definitive and authoritative, and usually soundly based both in ethics and his own pragmatic sense of what was possible. He was an accomplished tightrope walker, even he was wobbling by the end, since while most of the member states recognized the competing imperatives. American administrations, of all complexions have a notorious lack of empathy for other agendas beyond the re-election of the President. People sometimes say that he was not outspoken enough, not loud enough, but that was actually a strength. When he spoke, it was not just a trite soundbite, he said what had to be said even it was sometimes unpopular. When he came back from negotiating with Saddam Hussein and said it was a testament to the efficacy of diplomacy, not enough people listened to his corollary ? when backed with the threat of force. His other breakthrough was teamwork. He had risen through the UN ranks without acquiring the pompous self-importance of many promoted above their capabilities and assembled an articulate and confident team who could push out the envelope on events and say what needed to be said, without implicating him directly. One of his landmark changes to UN culture was to open up a degree of transparency: Before only designated spokespeople were allowed to talk to the media but he mandated staff to respond to journalists? enquiries as long as they did not purport to represent the organization?s views. That posture of dignity allowed him to steer the landmark Responsibility to Protect resolution through the sixtieth anniversary summit and it is still a landmark even if many of those who did not have the political courage to oppose him and it at the Summit have done so much to frustrate it since. It allowed him to rally support for an ambitions world development agenda backed by a wide spectrum of disparate constituencies. All idols have feet of clay, but for some the mud goes much higher than others. No one is perfect, high office demands compromises for practical achievements to win allies and majorities. But in office, on development goals, poverty, human rights, gender equality, Rwanda, Cyprus and many other issues, he advanced the UN agenda even as he rewrote it. After leaving the UN he continued to do so, with the Elders and his own foundation. He was no mere bureaucrat, he was not after the big desk and the title, he wanted to contribute to the world and thought the SG?s office was the best place to do so. His legacy will survives for sometime, but one must wonder how he would have coped with the present President who unlike Clinton is unable to betray his principles, since he does not seem to have any. But it is perhaps not too late for the present Secretary General to study and emulate Kofi?s tradition of quietly but prominently presenting himself on behalf of the organization, and the team work that made it possible. Ian Williams is also a senior analyst who has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the Australian, The Independent, New York Observer, The Financial Times and The Guardian. ======================================== 17. THERE?S STRENGTH OF HATE IN NUMBERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA | Justin Thomas ======================================== The National August 26, 2018 Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide highly effective mechanisms for fanning the flames of antagonism, spreading toxic ideas and fuelling hate crimes, writes Justin Thomas Police reported a 500 per cent spike in hate crime in the city in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017. Oli Scraff / AFP Hate is the ugliest four-letter word in the English language. This complex blend of noxious perception and destructive emotions can drive us to do the cruellest things imaginable. Hate and its close cousin indifference are key factors in assault, homicide and genocide. Tragically hate ? or at least, hate crimes ? appear to be on the rise. A hate crime is an offence motivated by hostility towards a person based on any aspect of their identity, whether it is their gender, disability, race, ethnicity, religion or lifestyle. Many of us occasionally engage in unhealthily categorising our social worlds into them and us; hate crimes are always perpetrated against ?them?, the despicable other. After the Brexit vote in the UK, for example, there was a massive increase in racially aggravated public disorder offences in the UK. The National Police Chiefs Council reported that hate crimes rose nearly 500 per cent in the first week after a Brexit campaign which focused heavily on immigration. But even before Brexit, hate crimes in the UK had already been rising steadily since 2012. A recent research study, reported in The National last week, explored the relationship between social media and the incidence of hate crimes against refugees in Germany. researchers studied more than 3,000 hate crimes and the factors present in each circumstance. The team from the University of Warwick in the UK found that towns and cities with a higher-than-average Facebook use corresponded with more attacks on refugees. Social media, they discovered, could facilitate the transformation of online hate speech into real life incidents. Our capacity to hate is primordial but in an information age, the vintage bottle of hatred has found a disturbingly effective new cork: social media. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide highly effective mechanisms for fanning the flames of hatred and spreading toxic ideas. One element of social media that might contribute to the rise in hate crimes is the tendency for social media to polarise opinions. Decades of research in social psychology have shown that talking to like-minded people ? those who share our views about a hot topic ? tends to lead to us all adopting a more extreme stance than the one we began with, whether that is mild irritation becoming dislike and dislike morphing into hate, a phenomenon known as group polarisation. When we talk to like-minded people, we tend to say ?yes and? rather than ?yes but?. We throw petrol on each other's bonfires until the whole forest is ablaze. Social media allows us to isolate ourselves from the ugly dissenting other and surround ourselves with people who sound just like us. The echo chamber can be good, bad or ugly and if it?s hateful, it?s likely to become even more so with time and further discussion. Another aspect of social media that might be contributing to the rise of hate is known to social psychologists as toxic disinhibition. This concept describes the elements required to bring the worst out in people. For example, perceiving that we are anonymous or, at least, hard to identify, seems to help unleash our crueller side. In a classic psychology experiment, participants given the cloak of anonymity tended to administer harsher punishments to strangers than to their nametag wearing counterparts. Another aspect of toxic disinhibition is known as deindividuation, a loss of self-awareness by perceiving ourselves as being part of a larger group. Deindividuation allows us to do things we might never do when acting alone. For example, when one motorist honks at a hesitant driver, the following honks from other drivers further back in the queue tend to be far louder, longer and more aggressive. The hard evidence of deindividuation in hate crimes comes from the study of lynching in the US. The findings from such research show that the larger the lynch mob, the more gruesome the atrocity and the higher the likelihood that the lynching will also include mutilation. When people are publicly humiliated on social media, the dynamics are very similar. The hurtfulness of the comments directed at the victim tends to intensify with the volume of the online mob. Social media is not new any more. Its dangers are evident and many nations are already considering legislation to help curtail things like online hate speech. New laws in Germany have led to the social media site Facebook deleting hundreds of incendiary posts since the law was launched earlier this year. However, beyond deleting offensive posts, there needs to be further consideration given to punishing those guilty of online hate speech. In addition to greater regulation, we also need to raise societal levels of psychological literacy so we can better understand how groups, virtual or otherwise, shape our thinking, feelings and actions. Dr Justin Thomas is professor of psychology at Zayed University ======================================== 18. FOR SINGLE MOTHERS WORKING AS TRAIN CONDUCTORS | Laura Esther Wolfson ======================================== Longreads - 29 August 2018 My Soviet husband said we?d need 24-hour day care for any children we might have. Many years and the fall of an empire later, I finally realized why he said it. Laura Esther Wolfson | An essay from the collection For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors | University of Iowa Press | June 2018 | 10 minutes (2,516 words) When I was a very young woman, I spent many months working and traveling in the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War would soon take many people by surprise. I was far from my mother and from everyone else who mattered. In the Soviet hinterlands, I met a woman I?ll call Nadezhda. She treated me like a daughter. She had none of her own. She clearly wished she did. Reader, I married her son. ????? There was more to it than that, of course. I met the son first, and, in the usual way, he brought me home to meet his parents. And the son was actually delightful. When he spoke, he grew irresistible. Small children (there were many in his extended family) were especially susceptible to his charms. They would wrap themselves around his legs when he stood up from a chair to keep him from leaving. Those months spent in another language, an experience both freeing and confining, the tectonic historical shifts I witnessed at close range ? these things changed me. That the changes might fade with time was unthinkable. I needed a way to bring it all back home. I was too big to wrap myself around his legs the way the children did. ????? I hopped over to the States to take care of some personal business, then circled back to Nadezhda, her son, and the rest of the family in those hinterlands I mentioned, which were in Soviet Georgia. Nadezhda had just become a grandmother by her other son, who was the younger by four years. The household now consisted of Nadezhda and her husband, the baby and its parents, the older son (my intended) and me. Julia, the baby?s mother, complained to me about what I could see for myself: the family did not welcome her. The pregnancy had been an accident, their second. I say their second, but both mistakes were of course seen as entirely hers. When we have our child, your mother will not come over here to raise it. We?ll raise our own child. This time, the second time, Julia had headed over to see the family straight from the obstetrician?s office. Nadezhda told me this part; it happened before I came to stay. Her coat still on, Julia made her announcement: the doctor had said that a second abortion would forever disable her for childbearing. If she didn?t have this child, she would never have one. A wedding was cobbled together, with a dress, a white one, a popular model that was designed to conceal and to be let out as the big day approached. That Julia had no father and a minimum of education only bolstered the family?s view of her as a climber. It did not aid her case when, a few years on, late one night after a glass too many, or perhaps more, her mother let slip that the story about the irrevocable damage a second abortion would cause was something the two of them had cooked up together, without input from any specialist. By then, of course, there was no going back. Is there ever? ????? None of this had any direct bearing on me. I flew in, as I always did back then, with enough birth control and other stuff ? dental floss, contact lens solution ? for my sojourn, a suitcase full of extra everything, just in case. We planned to settle in the States, Nadezhda?s older son and I, so late one afternoon, I repacked the suitcase (its contents now much diminished) for the trip to the West. Julia, in her uniform of bathrobe and slippers, leaned against the doorframe, watching. The baby was lodged on her hip; everyone else was out. Her eyes locked onto a flattish, flesh-colored plastic box among the things strewn across the bed. ?Can you leave that with me?? she blurted, pointing to it. ?You can get another one when you get back to America, can?t you?? Diaphragms were a rarity in the Soviet Union. And when they were available, they were not fitted by a doctor in the privacy of a medical office. Indeed, in a bare Soviet pharmacy I had once seen a diaphragm for sale ? huge, like a baby bonnet ? in a locked vitrine, unpackaged, exposed. Julia seemed oddly familiar with the little box and oddly aware of what was concealed within it. ?It might not be your size,? I said. Her gaze did not waver from the object on the bed. I was reduced to stating the obvious: ?It?s used.? Even as I spoke, I knew that none of this mattered; in the USSR in 1991, cast-off birth control was the best most women could hope for. To refuse her request would be mean-spirited. ?I?ll boil it in the big soup pot,? Julia said, with a nod toward the kitchen. ?To sterilize it.? She placed the child on the bed and it rapidly dozed off. I dove into the suitcase after the remaining, unopened tubes of spermicide and, what the hell, while I was down there, I also found the white plastic refill plunger that screwed onto the tip of the tube; it was for inserting extra spermicide when you felt like going at it a second time, or a third ? she could toss that into the soup pot too. I explained how all the items functioned together and how to grip the diaphragm so that it slid toward and then into, rather than becoming airborne, which might lead to a stain on our mother-in-law?s fancy wallpaper. Julia never had another child. Perhaps she actually used the diaphragm, and perhaps it actually worked. On the other hand, she could have had a dozen abortions, and I would never have known. (Nadezhda?s best friend, a schoolteacher like her, married to a man who didn?t like condoms ? isn?t that redundant? ? had had thirty. That was enough unborn children, she noted sadly, to fill every seat in her classroom.) I say that I would never have known because although Julia and I married into the same family, we would eventually lose touch. Sometimes I get updates from Nadezhda, who hears about Julia from the grandchild, now grown. That?s how I know she stopped at one. ????? During my stay, I watched Nadezhda steadily amassing maternal rights as Julia?s dwindled proportionately. Nadezhda was very skilled at childcare and loving. She warmed bottles. She changed the diapers and washed them out by hand. She rocked the baby and sang lullabies. The child couldn?t have asked for a better mother than her grandmother. Julia withdrew. She stopped caring for her own child. No way could she compete. She was the wet nurse, nothing more, and that petered out soon enough. A few years later, Julia and her husband moved into their own apartment. Nadezhda reported on the phone that the little girl categorically refused to go with her parents. She?s staying here with us, she added, sounding pleased. After we got off the phone, I said, ?When we have our child, your mother will not come over here to raise it. We?ll raise our own child.? My words were met with silence. ????? Good Lord, if I?d been that child, I?d have chosen Nadezhda, too. And Nadezhda still needed to sate her daughter-hunger, so it was an ideal match. Kind of. When the child got older, Nadezhda took her to school and picked her up each day and made friends with the other mothers. The child visited her parents a few weekends a month until they split. ????? The person who was supposed to be in charge had not been seen for some time. A group of aged functionaries announced that he would be replaced, owing to concerns about his health. Swan Lake was aired, over and over. The people understood what this meant. A few months later, fifteen big-bellied men sat around a table, signing papers. At one minute to midnight on the last night of the year, the hammer-and-sickle flag came down. Pundits declared the breakup bloodless and deemed that a miracle. There was, they said, no historical precedent. Women flooded across the border: Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Georgian, and so on, heading to jobs in Cyprus, Germany, Israel, Dubai. They would send money home. Opportunities included babysitting, waitressing, and modeling, according to the agencies that placed them. Agencies that were run, for the most part, by burly men with Albanian passports. We housesat, the husband and I; we sublet; we rented. We were students; we were employed; we were unemployed; we were underemployed; we were self-employed. With the passage of years, we stayed in larger and larger places. We had good jobs and a large apartment. Exactly what did we still need to do? Buy a crib? Diapers? Just what was missing? Dignitaries met. Friendship was declared. Memoranda of understanding were signed. Commitments were made. Nuclear missiles would be dismantled, their components stored somewhere safe. My knowledge of Russian was in demand. I traveled a lot, mostly within the United States, accompanying visiting dignitaries; sometimes to Russia, Ukraine, or Kazakhstan. Interpreters and translators of Russian had full employment, for a time. A few people grew extremely rich. Most slid into poverty. A middle class emerged. Those who could now afford nice things were very pleased. Some people vacationed on islands in the Indian Ocean. There was war in Ossetia. There was war in Abkhazia. There were wars in Chechnya. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was put on hold. The war in Transdniester was put on hold. The war in Tajikistan came to an end. There were probably other wars that didn?t make the news. ????? Children? I kept on asking. We were past thirty. Six years we?d been married. We had good jobs and a large apartment. Exactly what did we still need to do? Buy a crib? Diapers? Just what was missing? The last time I asked, he said, ?We would need to put it in twenty-four-hour day care.? This was puzzling on several counts. Why have a child if we weren?t going to raise it ourselves? Why place it in an institution? And what on earth was twenty-four-hour day care? I asked the last question first. ?Twenty-four-hour day care?? I repeated, trying to keep my voice steady. ?Would that be seven days a week?? ?We could take it out on weekends, if we felt like it,? he answered. ?They probably don?t accept newborns,? I said hopefully. ?We?d have to look into it,? he said. ?When the time comes.? ????? Many years later, deep into another marriage, I?m visiting my friend Katya in Philadelphia, where I lived at one time. Had she ever heard of twenty-four-hour day care, I ask, back when she was growing up in the USSR? ?Yes, I think so,? she says, furrowing her brow in an effort to recall. ?I believe it was for single mothers working as train conductors. So they would have a place to leave their children when they had to make long trips for work. You know, if there were no relatives nearby to help.? For single mothers working as train conductors. Leave it to the Soviets to make sure that particular corner of the social safety net did not get frayed. But I wasn?t a train conductor; nor was I single; nor did we live in the Soviet Union. ????? Nadezhda keeps on writing. When her son and I separated, she lived in Russia still. She and I talked on the phone twice a year: on her birthday, which falls in January, and on mine, in August. Then, about a decade after the divorce, she broke the pattern, contacting me in the month of March to tell me, in the first email I?d ever received from her, that her son was bringing her and my ex-father-in-law over to the US to live. I had trouble imagining them here permanently ? in fact, I could not fathom it. They had seemed so rooted where they were. But I toggled over from the Latin alphabet to Cyrillic and wrote, ?I?m happy that the two of you will be close by.? ?The decision to leave cannot have been easy,? I continued, struggling over and over to hit the right key. ?I?ll help you adjust to life here in any way I can.? I included all of my phone numbers: home, office, cell. I said other things too, but this is what I remember now. We read what you wrote us and we wept, she replied. ????? For months, I heard nothing more. I concluded that they weren?t coming. On the night of my birthday, just before sleep rolled in, I noted that Nadezhda had missed the day: for the first time in many years, she hadn?t called. In the morning, a birthday email was waiting, sent off at 11:59 p.m. ?We?ve been in Philadelphia for three months,? she wrote. They were living with her son, his new wife, and their baby. The time stamp told me that she?d struggled with her conscience all day before finally resolving to write. That they?d been here for three months before I received word of their presence told me that something had prevented her from writing sooner. Whatever it was, she vanquished it, because soon we were corresponding regularly. But there were no phone calls. Before she came here, when we spoke those two times a year, Nadezhda used to pass the receiver to any family members who happened to be around ? her husband, nieces, various cousins, all of whom I?d known well, back in the day ? so they could say hello. Now I understood that her son was simply unaware that she?d been speaking with me all those years, for, having stayed on in America after we parted, he was never in the room with her during those calls or even, for that matter, on the same continent. His ignorance of our contact required no great deception on her part; it was just a matter of not mentioning it to him, ever. Everyone else ? the cousins, nieces, et cetera ? must have known not to mention it to him, ever, either. ????? In a recent email sent from her new home in Philadelphia, Nadezhda wrote offhandedly, ?I?m very busy with my new grandson. I?m responsible for him seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.? These words, buried amid other news, nearly slid past me unremarked. But I did wonder why a grandmother would be responsible twenty-four hours out of the day. Even in a culture where grandmothers are actively recruited for childcare, that?s a lot of hours. The words echoed, they echoed something from some fifteen years back. I recalled the old, sad questions: Why have a child if you?re not going to raise it yourself? And what is needed in order to have a child? The realization boomeranged back with a tremendous delay: he had not been referring to an institution for single mothers working as train conductors. Of course, by the time I grasped this, the matter no longer pressed. It was a missing jigsaw piece, nothing more ? one that fit very neatly into a puzzle long since stored on a high shelf. * * * Laura Esther Wolfson?s debut essay collection, For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors, was awarded the 2017 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Her writing has been honored with the 2017 Notting Hill Essay Prize, published in leading literary venues on both sides of the Atlantic, and cited in The Best American Essays. She holds an MFA from the New School and lives in New York City. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Sep 3 16:20:09 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 01:50:09 +0530 Subject: SACW - 4 Sept 2018 | Myanmar: Massacre / Bangladesh: Shahidul Alam / Pakistan: / India: crackdown; Blasphemy Law; Academic Freedom / Afghan War / Krishna Reddy / Vietnam seeks US reparations / Germans march for migrant rescue Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 4 Sept 2018 - No. 2998 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Massacre in Myanmar - A Reuters Special Report 2. India: Text of Open Letter from Former Civil Servants to Punjab CM on Expansion of Blasphemy Laws 3. India: Shrinking Academic Freedoms - books Dropped From Delhi University?s history reading list 4. ?We don?t have any fear?: India?s angry young men and its lynch mob crisis | Annie Gowen 5. India: Reminiscing ABVA?s Struggle for Gay Rights in the Twentieth Century ? A Brief History of That Time | Shobha Aggarwal 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Bhima Koregaon: The man who lodged FIR against Mevani and Khalid is distancing himself from ABVP - India: For Sanatan Sanstha, all?s fair in the war for a Hindu Rashtra - India: Hindutva extremists planned the assassination of Gauri Lankesh a year before - India: How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? - 4500-year-old DNA from Rakhigarhi reveals evidence that will unsettle Hindutva nationalists - India: Wink not blasphemous or insult to religion, says Supreme Court - If Pakistan shuns the term ?Ancient India? in its history books, is it entirely to blame? Haroon Khalid - Can India's Patriotism Be Built on Accepting Differences? - Hindu right wing group Sanatan Sanstha planned blast at Pune Sunburn festival - an annual electronic dance music festival - India: Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village - Hiren Gohain: ?popular political consensus? as the only guarantee for peace and normalcy in Assam ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka gets six years' jail in contempt case 8. British artists join fight for release of Bangladeshi photojournalist / Shahidul files petition for HC bail 9. Indus water breakthrough - Editorial, Dawn 10. When Pakistani and Indian soldiers dance | Kamran Yousaf 11. Myanmar: Guilty verdict against Reuters journalists sends stark warning on press freedom 12. Bangladesh: Cabinet approves draft law to soften trade union regulations 13. The Afghan War Is No Place to Turn a Profit | Brad Taylor 14. India: An ecosystem of fear? Santosh Desai 15. India: No room to say ?no?: The arrest of human rights activists is the arrest of democracy | Pritam Singh 16. India: The changing faces of the ?Sangh parivar? | Prayaag Akbar 17. India: BJP MPs want a men?s commission, say women are ruining marriages | Pragya Kaushika 18. Fears about difference: Social media and the anxieties of democracies | Dipesh Chakrabarty 19. Krishna Reddy obituary | Oliver Basciano 20. The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult | Pankaj Mishra 21. Germany?s politicians are now enabling the far right | Doris Akrap 22. Vietnam seeks US reparations for the chemical Agent Orange | Christina Lin 23. Travelling to Find Out | Hanif Kureishi 24. Thousands rally in Germany to call for migrant rescue ======================================== 1. MASSACRE IN MYANMAR - A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT ======================================== On Sept. 2, Buddhist villagers and Myanmar troops killed 10 Rohingya men in Myanmar?s restive Rakhine state. Reuters uncovered the massacre and has pieced together how it unfolded. During the reporting of this article, two Reuters journalists were arrested by Myanmar police. http://www.sacw.net/article13891.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: TEXT OF OPEN LETTER FROM FORMER CIVIL SERVANTS TO PUNJAB CM ON EXPANSION OF BLASPHEMY LAWS ======================================== "The need of the hour is for all responsible stakeholders to act to reduce the space provided to religious fundamentalists of all kind ? not open up space further to them." http://www.sacw.net/article13894.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: SHRINKING ACADEMIC FREEDOMS - BOOKS DROPPED FROM DELHI UNIVERSITY?S HISTORY READING LIST ======================================== INDIA: SHRINKING ACADEMIC FREEDOMS - TWO BOOKS ON DELHI UNIVERSITY?S HISTORY READING LIST RECOMMENDED FOR REMOVAL Nandini Sundar?s Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-2006 and Archana Prasad?s Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-modern Tribal Identity recommended for removal by university?s standing committee on academic matters http://www.sacw.net/article13885.html INDIA: BOOK TITLES DROPPED FROM READING LIST, DELHI UNIVERSITY SURRENDERS TO SAFFRON PRESSURE | PRESS STATEMENT BY DEMOCRATIC TEACHERS FRONT If the news item appearing in Times of India on 30.08.2018 that the Standing Committee on Academic Affairs has suggested to the History department that Nandini Sundar?s Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-2006 and Archana Prasad?s Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-modern Tribal Identity should be removed from the reading list as the books are ?unfit for students in DU? is true, it is a sad and shameful day for the Delhi University?s academic reputation. http://www.sacw.net/article13887.html ======================================== 4. ?WE DON?T HAVE ANY FEAR?: INDIA?S ANGRY YOUNG MEN AND ITS LYNCH MOB CRISIS | Annie Gowen ======================================== It?s been a summer of rage in India. Dozens have been killed by lynch mobs, and extremist Hindus continue to assault and kill others, many of them Muslims. . . . India?s problem of male rage has roots beyond the strident Hindu nationalism embraced by the current government. http://www.sacw.net/article13875.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: REMINISCING ABVA?S STRUGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ? A BRIEF HISTORY OF THAT TIME by Shobha Aggarwal ======================================== In the late eighties AIDS scare had gripped the country. ABVA (AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan/ AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement) came into existence in 1988-1989 though it was formally christened later as more members joined the group. http://www.sacw.net/article13888.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Bhima Koregaon: The man who lodged FIR against Mevani and Khalid is distancing himself from ABVP - India: For Sanatan Sanstha, all?s fair in the war for a Hindu Rashtra - India: Hindutva extremists planned the assassination of Gauri Lankesh a year before - India: How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? - 4500-year-old DNA from Rakhigarhi reveals evidence that will unsettle Hindutva nationalists - India: Wink not blasphemous or insult to religion, says Supreme Court - If Pakistan shuns the term ?Ancient India? in its history books, is it entirely to blame? Haroon Khalid - Can India's Patriotism Be Built on Accepting Differences? - Hindu right wing group Sanatan Sanstha planned blast at Pune Sunburn festival - an annual electronic dance music festival - India: Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village - Hiren Gohain: ?popular political consensus? as the only guarantee for peace and normalcy in Assam -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BUDDHIST MONK IN SRI LANKA GETS SIX YEARS' JAIL IN CONTEMPT CASE ======================================== channelnewsasia.com 08 Aug 2018 COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday handed a six-year jail term to a Buddhist monk accused of inciting violence against Muslims, holding him guilty of contempt just months after he was convicted of intimidating the wife of a missing journalist. The monk, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, leads the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force", which government ministers and Muslims have accused of stirring up violence against Muslims and Christians, allegations he has denied. Advertisement The court sentenced him to six years' rigorous imprisonment over a 2016 incident when Gnanasara interrupted a court hearing on the abduction of the journalist, Prageeth Eknaligoda, in which military intelligence officials were accused. He shouted at the judge and lawyers because the military officials had not been given bail, and threatened Eknaligoda?s wife. "The convict intentionally committed the offence to undermine the judiciary," Preethi Padman Surasena, the president of the court of appeal, said in delivering Wednesday's judgment, adding, "Found guilty of all charges beyond reasonable doubt." The monk was convicted on four counts of contempt of court, receiving terms of four years each on the first and the second counts, six years on the third and five for the fourth, all to run concurrently. Advertisement A BBS official told Reuters the group would appeal against Wednesday's ruling. "We feel there is an attempt by interested parties to have judicial process targeting Gnanasara, therefore, though we do not agree with the judgment, we accept the sentence, and we will appeal," said Dilantha Vithanage, the group's chief executive. Gnanasara, who is being treated in hospital for an ailment, was not in court for the ruling. He has been on bail since filing an appeal against a conviction in a separate case on June 14. In that case, he received two concurrent jail terms of six months, a fine of 1,500 rupees (US$9.39), and a compensation payment of 50,000 rupees (US$313) for having threatened the journalist's wife, Sandhya Eknaligoda. Since 2014, the monk has faced accusations in cases regarding anti-Muslim violence, hate speech, and defaming the Koran, the Muslim holy book. That year Gnanasara signed a pact with Myanmar's Ashin Wirathu, who once described himself as "the Burmese bin Laden", in what the duo called a bid to counter regional conversion efforts by Islamists. (US$1=159.7000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Source: Reuters Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/buddhist-monk-in-sri-lanka-gets-six-years--jail-in-contempt-case-10599910 ======================================== 8. BRITISH ARTISTS JOIN FIGHT FOR RELEASE OF BANGLADESHI PHOTOJOURNALIST Niece of Shahidul Alam adds major names to letter demanding justice for crusading photographer Vanessa Thorpe ======================================== The Observer 2 September 2018 Shahidul Alam was arrested in Dhaka on 5 August and remains in jail. Photograph: Alamy Leading British artists and curators have stepped up pressure on the Bangladeshi government to release the crusading photographer Shahidul Alam from jail in Dhaka. Creative voices, including the film-maker and artist Steve McQueen, the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, and the artists Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, have joined an international call for justice and transparency about Alam?s alleged crimes, ahead of a bail hearing scheduled for 3 September. A British exhibition of his work is also being planned in support of the cause. On 5 August the 63-year-old, who launched his career in Britain, was abducted by more than 30 members of the Dhaka metropolitan police and arrested for damaging ?the image of the nation?. The arrest follows the photographer?s vocal support for student protesters in the city, many of whom were also arrested after taking part in a demonstration in response to the killing of two students by a speeding bus. An open letter written by his niece, the architect Sofia Karim, who lives in Britain, has garnered signatures from 47 leading names in the art world in just a week. ?Alam?s crime, we are told, is to have contravened the Information and Communication Technology Act. Described as ?draconian? by Human Rights Watch, the act has become an infamous means of clamping down on freedom of expression in Bangladesh,? the letter reads. ?Given that Bangladesh presents itself as a democracy, the state should respect the right of Dr Alam, and all other citizens, to freedom of expression. Instead, he has suffered inhumane treatment at the hands of the police and judicial system.? Leading curators, such as the Tate?s Frances Morris, Nicholas Cullinan, the director of London?s National Portrait Gallery, Sarah Munro, director of Gateshead?s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and Sophie Wright of Magnum Photos, have also put their names behind the cause. ?Freedom of speech, artistic expression and talking truth to power are vital barometers of civilisation. Whatever is done to one person against these central pillars of a fair and tolerant society is done to all of us,? said Cullinan. ?I always felt that artists would sign the letter, but it?s been very heartening that leaders of our largest cultural institutions have also publicly supported my uncle so warmly, simply from our personal appeals,? said Karim. The morning after the arrest, Alam was produced in court, shouting that he had been assaulted and threatened with further violence. He was initially remanded for seven days, but then sent to prison before the week was up; neither Alam nor his lawyer was informed or called before the judge. Alam?s photography focuses on exposing abuses of power, including images of the genocide of the 1971 Bangladeshi war of liberation. He has also chronicled the use of state death squads and the plight of the Rohingya refugees. He founded the picture agencies Drik and Majority World, and the photography school Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. ?When they told my uncle in jail that exhibitions around the world were being held for him, he smiled and said, ?A big thank you?,? said Karim. ?He is in great physical and mental pain at the moment.? o o o The Daily Star August 30, 2018 SHAHIDUL FILES PETITION FOR HC BAIL Bangladeshi Photographer Shahidul Alam seeks high court bail Shahidul Alam. Photo Courtesy: Rahnuma Ahmed Staff Correspondent Internationally-acclaimed photographer Shahidul Alam on Tuesday filed a bail petition with the High Court in a case against him under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act. Shahidul submitted the petition through his lawyers Sara Hossain and Jyotirmoy Barua. The petition stated that he may be granted bail as he is physically ill, adding that he will, however, face the trial proceedings and, if granted bail, will not leave the country. The HC may hold a hearing on the bail petition next week, his lawyers told The Daily Star yesterday. Citing from the bail petition, Sarah said separate petitions were filed twice, with the lower courts concerned, seeking bail for Shahidul, but the courts hadn't allowed them to move the petitions. The petition was included in yesterday's hearing list of the HC bench of Justice Md Ruhul Quddus and Khandaker Diliruzzaman. Justice Ruhul told the lawyers that they (court judges) would examine the decisions of the HC and Appellate Division in such cases, and asked them to move Shahidul's bail petition next week. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the government in the courtroom. The photographer was sent behind bars on charges of ?spreading propaganda and false information against the government?. Shahidul, 63, was picked up by law enforcers on the night of August 5 from his home in the capital's Dhanmondi area. The following day, he was placed on a seven-day remand after police had produced him before a court seeking a 10-day remand. He told the court that he was tortured in custody, but police denied the allegation. Upon completion of his remand, he was sent to jail on August 13. Meanwhile, Dr Pabitra Sarkar, former vice chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, and poet Subodh Sarkar, chairman Pashchimbanga Kabita Academy, criticised the Bangladesh government over the arrest of Shahidul Alam. While speaking to The Daily Star on Tuesday, they said they hoped for Shahidul's quick release. ARREST APPROPRIATE: JOY Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT affairs adviser and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy today called ?appropriate? photographer Shahidul Alam's arrest and claimed that Shahidul had spread rumours instigating violence during last month's student protests for road safety, reports BSS. In a signed article in the US-based RealClearPolitics (RCP) media outlet, Joy wrote that Shahidul was one of those responsible for turning a peaceful protest into a violent one. He added Alam was arrested for ?inciting violence, which, because of his celebrity [status] and despite the facts, led to an international outcry on his behalf. ?Police arrested Mr. Alam not because he held a contrary view but because his latest pronouncements caused real harm. Mr. Alam's words helped transformed a peaceful protest into lawless violence,? Joy wrote. He added that hijacking a protest by young students and endangering their lives, along with those of many other Bangladeshis, was not politics but rather a form of terrorism. ======================================== 9. INDUS WATER BREAKTHROUGH - EDITORIAL, DAWN ======================================== Dawn September 1, 2018 Editorial After many years, a small but significant breakthrough seems to have been made in the talks between the Pakistani and Indian water commissioners. The talks had been largely stalled since 2014 so the latest agreement by the Indian side to permit an inspection of two of the facilities being built on the Chenab river is a step forward. Even in the latest round of the Permanent Indus Commission talks, the first day seemed to lead to a cul-de-sac. It was only at the end of the second day that news of the breakthrough emerged. It would have been better for both sides had they jointly briefed the media, or if that were not possible, issued a joint press release. Ending the talks without any public word is counterproductive as it creates an impression that runs contrary to the positive news emerging of an agreement for inspections. Now that it seems a deal has been struck for inspection, the next step is for Pakistan to make the most of the opportunity. At issue are two hydropower projects that India is building on its side of the Chenab river whose waters belong to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty. The same treaty, however, gives India the right to build hydroelectric projects on the river provided that it does not divert water for agricultural purposes. One other project on the same river, the so-called Baglihar dam, had already been the subject of a bitter feud between the two countries around a decade ago when the matter was sent to a neutral expert for settlement. The results of that exercise were mixed, with both sides claiming victory once the neutral expert?s verdict came in. The two projects this time round are the Pakal Dul dam and the Lower Kalnai hydroelectric project. The former is a large project totalling some 1,000MW, while the latter is smaller at about 48MW. But both of them involve the diversion of waters from tributaries that feed the Chenab, much like their cousin built on the Neelum river, the Kishenganga Dam. This is a different design configuration that involves the diversion of water from one tributary to another to take advantage of the water head, but the same water is returned to the river at a different spot further downstream. As such, its technical evaluation becomes more difficult, and the Indian side should honour its agreement in full by allowing the Pakistani delegation to visit the entire area where the project is spread out. Both sides should make an effort to ensure that resorting to arbitration is avoided. Almost every Indian project on the Chenab and Neelum is landing up at the altar of the World Bank, portending an unhealthy trend with regard to both countries that appear unable to resolve their mutual differences. ======================================== 10. WHEN PAKISTANI AND INDIAN SOLDIERS DANCE by Kamran Yousaf ======================================== The Express Tribune September 3, 2018 The writer is Senior Journalist and host of ?Capital Connection? on Tribune24/7. He tweets @Kamran_Yousaf It should have been a big breaking story. But there was a near-complete blackout on this side of the border. The coverage was not prominent either on the other side of the frontier too. Perhaps, the story does not fit into the narratives the two neighbours pursue for their respective domestic audiences. Nevertheless, in this day and age where social media is more powerful, the story of Pakistani and Indian soldiers dancing together was bound to attract attention and even trigger debate. The venue was Russia where Pakistani and Indian troops were participating in the joint military drills under the banner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). On the second last day of the anti-terror exercises codenamed ?Peaceful Mission 2018? Indian army invited troops from the participating countries, including Pakistan, to celebrate the ?India Day?. The event soon turned into a meeting ground for soldiers from both countries who were seen testing their dancing skills on Bollywood tunes. Some on social media began to question what would have happened had politicians from the two countries danced together. Their loyalty to the country would have certainly been questioned as had happened recently with former Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu after he hugged Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sidhu faced tough time from his countrymen, who described his act as treacherous. Despite hostility at the government level, the fact remains that people of both countries by and large go along nicely with each other. And this is true even in the case of men in uniform. For years, Pakistan and Indian troops have been part of the UN peacekeeping missions and they go about their business without any hassle. However, unfortunately that private bonhomie is rarely reflected in our bilateral ties. The reasons are obvious. The two neighbours have a long history of bitter relationship because of the unresolved disputes, including longstanding Kashmir. But the question is for how long the two neighbours would avoid each other and how long the people of the two countries would be held hostage to the false egos of their respective governments. Today, relations between the two countries have reached a level where media would feel reluctant to run stories that may give some positive vibes. But someone somewhere has to break that logjam. Pakistan has a new government. Prime Minister Imran Khan has already offered an olive branch to India for restarting the dialogue process. The good news is that for the first time in many years, Pakistan has a Prime Minister who enjoys the backing of all state institutions. The unprecedented welcome given to him during his visit to the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi was seen as refreshing change. The top brass standing in queue and saluting the elected Prime Minister was not an ordinary event. He was also seen presiding over the meeting at the GHQ, something his predecessors could only wish for. The icing on the cake is that the Army Chief stated in categorical terms that the armed forces like other state institutions are bound to follow the elected government. Some may say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. However, let?s not doubt the intention of the Army Chief and take his statement at its face value. The newly-elected Prime Minister has a historic opportunity to take some of the difficult decisions. India must take him seriously when he offered a hand of friendship. Unlike, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Khan is seen as someone who cannot betray and compromise on the national interest. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also enjoys the same status in his country. This may present a glimmer of hope for the two countries for a new beginning. But for now, we must applaud the dance performance of our men in uniform. ======================================== 11. MYANMAR: GUILTY VERDICT AGAINST REUTERS JOURNALISTS SENDS STARK WARNING ON PRESS FREEDOM ======================================== Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/09/myanmar-guilty-verdict-against-reuters-journalists-sends-stark-warning-on-press-freedom/ ======================================== 12. BANGLADESH: CABINET APPROVES DRAFT LAW TO SOFTEN TRADE UNION REGULATIONS ======================================== Dhaka Tribune Tribune Desk September 3rd, 2018 Labour Act 2018 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chairs a regular cabinet meeting where the draft Bangladesh Labour Act 2018 was approved yesterday FOCUS BANGLA In the case of natural death, the family of the worker concerned will get Tk2 lakh as compensation, up from Tk1 lakh in the previous law Factory workers will be able to form a trade union with the support of only one in five of their colleagues and can go on strike with a simple majority in favour under new legislation approved by the Cabinet yesterday. Cabinet Secretary Md Shafiul Alam said that under the draft Bangladesh Labour Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018, the percentage of workers' participation required for forming trade unions in factories will be reduced to 20% from the existing 30%, reports UNB. Other features of the act approved in principle at the weekly Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday include new maternity and compensation facilities for workers. "The amended law will be a labour-friendly one," the Cabinet Secretary said. "Under the proposed law, no child will be allowed to work in factories. If anybody employs child workers, then he or she will have to pay a fine of Tk5,000.? In the draft bill, punishments for violating laws have been halved, with both owners and workers now facing a one-year jail term and a fine of Tk10,000 for misconduct, which was two years in the previous law. According to section 47 of the draft, any female worker who gives birth to a baby will be allowed an eight-week period of leave within three days of informing the authorities. If the factory authorities do not allow her to go on leave, they will be fined Tk 25,000. Any worker who reports for duty during a festival will be given one day of leave and wages for two days after the festival. In the case of natural death, the family of the worker concerned will get Tk2 lakh as compensation, up from Tk1 lakh in the previous law. In the case of injury, they will get Tk2.50 lakh, double the current rate of Tk1.25 lakh. As per the draft law, the government will have to give registration to a trade union within 55 days from receiving the application - down from 60 days in the previous law. ?The support of 51% workers is needed against the present two-thirds of total workers to call a strike,? Shafiul Alam said. "Illegal enforcement of strike will also be considered as misconduct." If anyone is found to be a member of a number of trade unions at the same time, he or she will be sentenced to one month's imprisonment which was six months in the previous law. The draft bill has been prepared and updated following the observation of the International Labour Organization (ILO). ?According to the ILO convention, the draft law has a scope to form a tripartite advisory council consisting of the government, owners and workers,? Shafiul Alam said. Under the draft law, the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment has been upgraded to the level of Directorate. Shafiul Alam said the post of the chief inspector of the department is now inspector general, while deputy director general is additional inspector general, and the post of labour director has been upgraded to the rank of director general. Once the proposed bill is passed in Parliament, the Labour Court will have to deliver judgment in a case within 90 days from the date of filing it. If it is not possible to announce the verdict in the stipulated time, the court must deliver its judgment in the next 90 days. ======================================== 13. THE AFGHAN WAR IS NO PLACE TO TURN A PROFIT by Brad Taylor ======================================== Bloomberg 30 August 2018 Erik Prince thinks 6,000 mercenaries can do what 110,000 troops could not. That?s a deadly mistake. Brad Taylor is the author of the Pike Logan series of military thrillers including the forthcoming "Daughter of War." He served for more than 20 years as a U.S. Army officer in various special operations positions. The idea of ?privatizing? the war in Afghanistan is back. Erik Prince, the founder of the now-defunct security firm Blackwater Worldwide, is making the rounds in a self-described ?aggressive media air campaign? to make the case that 6,000 private military contractors can do what 110,000 uniformed soldiers couldn?t. Anonymous White House sources have said President Donald Trump has shown interest. This would be a terrible mistake. I?m a capitalist at heart, but capitalism has no business in a war zone. Privatizing our fighting forces would ultimately cause any national strategic objectives to be subsumed by profit motive. How do I know this? Because after serving more than 20 years in the Army, most of that time in Special Forces, I retired and became a private military contractor. I was one of the first soldiers in Afghanistan after 9/11, fought in Iraq, and I?ve seen it from both sides. Trust me, the U.S. doesn?t want a company looking to turn a profit running national policy. One of Prince?s favorite talking points is that small teams of Special Forces and CIA operatives overthrew the Taliban in lightning speed in 2001, then the conventional forces took over, and 17 years later we?re at a stalemate. Thus, the argument goes, it?s time to go back to an unconventional campaign. This makes a great sound bite, but is a completely flawed comparison. At the outset of the war, we were fighting an established government with a standing army; now, we are defending an established government while training a standing army. When we entered, we, along with the Northern Alliance, were the insurgents; now, we?re fighting a Taliban insurgency. The strategies required for the two tasks are diametrically opposite. Much of the debate over bringing in contractors has focused on legality, chains of command and integration of private forces with uniformed ones ? and rightly so. But the idea falls short well before we even get to those nitty-gritty details. Taking a close look Blackwater's role in Iraq shows why: profit over policy. While the company was initially formed with vetted Navy SEALs, over time the need to ramp up operations led to the firm hiring just about anyone who?d held a gun in a war zone. The result: the Nisour Square massacre, in which Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians. This debacle not only set back the nationwide counterinsurgency mission America?s uniformed soldiers were attempting to accomplish, it also led to Prince changing the name of his firm to Academi to get out from under the cloud. I have worked with half a dozen private military companies, and I?m not saying that they are all evil. Far from it. Some have our nation?s interests at heart, and I continue to work with them. But eventually, the bigger they get, the more the profit motive takes hold. Taking over an entire country?s military strategy for the U.S. government? About the worst I can think of. For instance, Triple Canopy ? a company christened for the nickname of the three tabs worn by elite Army troops: Special Forces, Ranger and Airborne ? initially only hired the best of the best and paid very well for the talent. But as the war in Iraq ground on and the company expanded rapidly, things got lax. Last year, based on a former employee?s lawsuit claiming fraud, it paid the Defense Department a $2.6 million settlement for hiring Ugandan soldiers who had never qualified on a rifle to guard al-Asad airbase. Prince says his plan is to embed only ?professional ex-Special Operations soldiers? with the Afghanistan army, and that they would operate in-country for years, solidifying their knowledge of the terrain and friendly and enemy forces. Doing so would halt the constant rotation and the inevitable re-learning that happens with the U.S. military?s current tours. This is an admirable goal, and makes sense on the surface. But where will these ex-Special Forces troops be found? Who is qualified to carry out the mission? Me, and people like me. People who have been at war for over a decade. People with families they haven?t seen, birthdays missed, anniversaries lost, and holidays spent eating cold spaghetti out of a bag in the field while dodging bullets. Does Prince really believe there are 6,000 Lawrence of Arabia types willing to spend a decade embedded in an Afghan army unit with no rotation ? after most have spent nearly two decades embedded in Afghan and Iraqi army units already? Unlikely. But he has contacts all over the world to provide manpower, perhaps the equivalent of those hapless Ugandans. Hiring private contractors in a war zone makes sense when there is a specific and limited goal, such as building wells, electrical grids and schools. But it makes no sense on such an overarching scale: A profit motive runs contradictory to the national strategic goals of the mission in Afghanistan. Why would the company that wins this billion-dollar contract ever want the war to end? In so doing, it would put itself out of business. At the worst, the profit motive could lead the company to subconsciously thwart any effort at reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government. Fortunately, the Pentagon brass understands this: On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis restated his opposition to the idea. Afghanistan is an intractable problem, no doubt, and we have slogged our way through 17 years of war with little to show for it. But turning it over to a private army won?t accomplish any of our strategic aims, unless the goal is simply to leave and let Erik Prince get rich. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. To contact the author of this story: Brad Taylor at Brad at bradtaylorbooks.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw at bloomberg.net ======================================== 14. INDIA: AN ECOSYSTEM OF FEAR? Santosh Desai ======================================== The Times of India September 3, 2018 The arrest of several rights activists across the country on charges of having Maoist links has created deep disquiet among many commentators. Accompanied as it is, by a new label- ?Urban Naxals?, it is being seen as a sign that this government is determined to act against all signs of dissent and build a narrative of the country being under threat from organised internal forces. And yet, there are those that argue that nothing dramatically new is happening. The law under which the action has been taken was strengthened by the UPA government, and some like Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have been imprisoned even under previous regimes. Also, the fact that so many commentators have been able to criticise the government in the harshest possible terms is being pointed to as a sign that the freedom of expression is alive and well. While it is true that previous governments also have a poor track record when it comes to dealing with dissent, there is no question that there is a difference today. That there is a clear attempt to create an atmosphere of fear, is possible to discern when one examines all the actions taken by the government. The production of fear at scale is being achieved not only through harsh punitive measures, but through a complex and elaborate network of actions, real and symbolic. The case of media is illustrative. Media, for instance, has been subject to pressure and arm-twisting before. The raid on NDTV apart, most other actions deemed coercive, including the removal of key voices critical of the government, have been taken by the owners of media platforms and not by the state directly. One can infer that the state was indirectly responsible for the same, but the question is, why should media owners, hardly unused to facing political pressure give in this time around? There is no special leverage that this government has that previous regimes didn?t. But the clear feeling among media circles is that this time around, the sense of threat is more palpable. This government is deemed capable of much more than what it has actually done; the fear is evoked by latent violence in the body language of the government rather than in its actions alone. ?Violence in the air? is a more effective way of fostering self-censorship than any direct method. But there is another variable at work. In the case of media, the problem does not stem only from fear, but also from greed. The taming of media is largely a voluntary phenomenon, guided by a desire to cater to one?s commercial self-interest by deferring to the needs of the market. When one outlet of the same media house can take an ideological line completely at odds with another, it is clear that fear alone is not at work. Market segmentation is. The state uses both levers, fear and greed to get most of media in line. And then there is social media where keyboard warriors create a new vocabulary of fear with predictable regularity. Individuals are targeted, new labels are created, lists are generated and campaigns are launched to build a narrative of fear. The reward for these non-official soldiers is a dizzying rise from obscurity and in some cases, the promise of official recognition and rewards. Even bureaucrats and serving officers have an incentive to speak and act on behalf of the government. The differential treatment meted out to those that amplify the government?s line and those that don?t is stark. The orchestration of fear is carried out with finesse. Fear reproduces itself thanks to the elegant design of the ecosystem of intimidation that is in place today. The more commentators connect the dots and discern larger intent from everyday actions, the more actively they participate in the production of fear. Showing signs of fear itself becomes proof- unless you are an anti-national, why should you be afraid? The calibrated use of reward and punishment, the taking of action against victims rather than perpetrators, the penetration of virtually every institution that matters, the creation of voluntary and vocal cheerleaders for the actions of the state, the regular encouragement given from the highest level of the government to those that carry out intimidation, the periodic acts of brutal violence that indicate that the threats are not only symbolic in nature, the breeding of several kinds of private armies that publicly display their muscle, the succession of violently intemperate statements made by minor party leaders, and actions like the arrest of activists on charges that that align with the larger narrative that is being built- these are all part of this ecosystem of fear. The electoral advantages of such a strategy are unclear. The fear of ?Urban Naxals? is unlikely to galvanise a significant number of voters, for it is difficult to correlate this with any observed experiences in our everyday lives. The argument that the nation is under threat from such forces, is one that might have great resonance with a small group of diehard supporters, but is unlikely to connect with a wider audience. The conspiracy outlined is far-fetched even by the standards of contemporary political discourse. From the perspective of voters, the ?enemies? identified have neither currency nor deep emotional resonance. As a political gambit, it is weak given that it leaves out most key opposition parties from this line of attack. The production of fear might have been carried out very effectively, but it looks unlikely to deliver great electoral effect. Those that believe that things will change if the BJP is defeated might be deluding themselves. It does not matter who is in power; what matters is who sets the agenda. The power of a negative agenda is that even when one counters it, only more negativity is produced. The fear that has got manufactured does not come with an expiry date. That might well be the abiding legacy left by this government. ======================================== 15. INDIA: NO ROOM TO SAY ?NO?: THE ARREST OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS IS THE ARREST OF DEMOCRACY Pritam Singh ======================================== The Tribune August 30, 2018 What?s to fear? The crackdown shows the vulnerability and meanness of the State. The coordinated action in many cities of India on August 28 to arrest rights activists marks a qualitative scaling up of attack on human rights and democracy. States all over the world dislike critics and dissidents because such dissenters bring to light many misdeeds of those who control and misuse power. The dissemination of knowledge about State?s misdeeds empowers those who are adversely affected by the actions of the State. Such empowerment is especially of critical importance in strengthening democracy in developing societies, where there is a significant cultural and educational gap between the rulers and the ruled. Rights defenders and democracy activists thus become intermediaries between the State and the powerless masses by siding with the masses. The sporadic attacks on human rights, civil liberties and democracy have been a constant feature of the Indian republic but a systemic onslaught took place during the Emergency rule of Indira Gandhi. The latest crackdown will go down as the second most extensive attack on rights, although in intensity, the 1984 and the 2002 riots mark the darkest spots in the history of post-colonial India. The guilty have not been brought to book, and this impunity adds to the lurking dangers behind the August 28 arrests. Among the arrested, the names of five individuals that have featured prominently are: Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer-cum-trade unionist; Gautam Navlakha, a journalist and civil liberties activist; Varavara Rao, a radical poet and intellectual; Vernon Gonsalves, a rights lawyer, and Arun Ferreira, a rights activist and lawyer. I know Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha; have reviewed books by Varavara Rao, and have some knowledge, though limited, of the work of Gonsalves and Ferreira. I know Sudha since her childhood. She is the daughter of the late Prof Krishna Bharadwaj, who was my research supervisor at JNU and the founder of JNU?s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning. Professor Bharadwaj was an internationally known historian of economic thought who worked at Cambridge University with Piero Sraffa, one of the most distinguished theoretical economists of the 20th century. Sudha was a school student when she would sometimes participate in the discussions between Prof Bharadwaj and me and make observations reflecting a sharp sensitivity to socio-economic issues. I had thought that she would also become an economist because she could easily get a scholarship for doctoral work at one of the leading universities in the Western world, but she decided to devote her talents to defend the workers? rights by participating in trade union work and trained herself as a lawyer specialising in labour laws. She chose to work in Chhattisgarh, one of the most underdeveloped regions of India. A good society should be proud of such young people who choose to abandon the life of privilege and devote themselves to defending those who are the most vulnerable. The big corporate interests want to have unquestioned access to exploit the human and rich natural resources of regions such as Chhattisgarh. The legal expertise and moral commitment of people like Sudha is a hurdle to the exploitative designs of corporate capital. To what extent the corporate capital can go to pursue its goals can be judged by the fact that Shankar Guha Niyogi, who founded the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), a labour union, was killed in 1991. Sudha has been working with the CMM and defending Adivasis, Dalits and Christians in areas under attack from Hindutva activists. Her arrest is to terrorise activists like her who defend the defenceless and extend the space for assertion of democracy. Gautam Navlakha has done sterling work on defending civil liberties. For years he has reported in Economic and Political Weekly, internationally the most respected social science journal from India, the results of his enquiries on rights violations in Kashmir and areas where the Adivasis have been resisting the encroachment of corporate capital. Prof David Harvey, Marxist geographer, has theorised this form of exploitation as ?accumulation by dispossession? where the original owners of the natural resources are dispossessed to enable corporate control of these resources. The role of violence facilitated by State power in this strategy leads to extensive rights violations. Attempt to silence the critics of such dispossession strategies is behind the arrest of Navlakha. Varavara Rao, a popular Telugu poet, has been an inspiring figure in the struggle for the defence of the most exploited sections of society. He has also edited an excellent book on the struggles of nationalities in different regions of India. That a regime can fear even a poet, who is 77, to the extent that it decides to arrest him shows both the vulnerability and the meanness of the regime. Both Gonsalves and Ferreira have been providing legal assistance to social and political activists. When a regime starts arresting even the lawyers defending political opponents of the State, it is a sign that it is entering a qualitatively new and higher level of repression of legal and democratic rights. The attack on rights activists may further shrink the democratic space in India, but it is equally probable that it may provoke a backlash against the increasing authoritarian tendencies of this regime. Irrespective of the domestic response, internationally this crackdown on lawyers, journalists and poets will certainly further tarnish the image of this regime. Pritam Singh Professor of Economics, Oxford Brookes University ======================================== 16. INDIA: THE CHANGING FACES OF THE ?SANGH PARIVAR? | Prayaag Akbar ======================================== Livemint August 31 2018 How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? A new analysis of its journey over the last three decades throws light on its working methods RSS volunteers at a camp in Shimla last year. Walter Andersen and Shridhar Damle?s extensive analysis of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), perhaps the most fascinating political organization in contemporary India, begins at an appropriate juncture. The RSS: A View To The Inside looks at the vast network of affiliate organizations?collectively known as the Sangh Parivar?that has enabled the Hindu nationalist body to spread its influence and outreach to, now, almost every corner of the nation. It is through these organizations that the RSS derives its unique, multivariate strength. The duo seeks to demonstrate how these various affiliates, each differing in scope, size and mission, have a bearing on the national policy decisions made by the Sangh Parivar?s best-known member?the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Further, they want to show how seriously the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes the inputs of the RSS, especially compared to the government of his forebear, A.B. Vajpayee. [The RSS?A View To The Inside: By Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, Penguin Random House, 400 pages, ?699.] Click here for enlarge When Modi assumed power, the prevailing wisdom held that he and BJP chief Amit Shah would rule alone, as they apparently had in Gujarat, because Modi?s overwhelming electoral triumph meant he would not need the elders of the RSS. There was even talk of the BJP?s emancipation from its parent. An early signal to both the organization and the nation came during Modi?s televised 2014 victory address, given on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi, where he tearfully evoked the role of the RSS in his ascent. Once again, much of India?s English-language media had failed to properly understand Modi?and the RSS. Andersen and Damle show that the RSS has grown with stunning speed in the last three decades, standing now as ?one of the world?s largest non-governmental associations??an amusing characterization, given the BJP government?s 2017 ?crackdown? on NGOs. In 1989, the RSS carried out 5,000 service projects; in 1998, it had reached 50,000; in 2012, the number stood at 140,000; and in 2015, 165,000. What explains this remarkable growth? The authors identify the role of Madhukar Deoras, who ran the RSS from 1973-94, as crucial to this. One of their key insights pertains to how this expansion reflects in the internal tensions and debates the RSS is now able to accommodate, such as the shift towards economic liberalism. Far from being the intransigent top-led organization that it is often believed to be, Andersen and Damle liken the Sangh Parivar?s current shape to that ascribed to the Congress decades ago by the political scientist Rajni Kothari?that of a party of consensus, with a clear left, centre and right, accommodating distinct groups as they seek to influence the policy process. This portrayal is convincing to an extent, but it does create the impression of a wider range of debate than the RSS genuinely allows. Yet the authors? discussion on the RSS and economic self-sufficiency, which gets its own chapter, is compelling. The drive towards economic liberalization, frequently championed by Modi at international fora such as the World Economic Forum at Davos, is sharply opposed by important RSS affiliates like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (which premises its calls for redistributive policies on its reading of Advaita Vedanta), and the Sangh?s farmer union?the largest union in India?the Bharatiya Mazdoor Kisan Sangh. At first the Modi government seemed determined to ignore them. Andersen and Damle find that Mohan Bhagwat?s crucial Vijay Dashami speech, in October, to the RSS faithful ?catalysed a populist turn in the Modi government?s economic policies?. Hence the discernible thrust of the 2018 Union Budget, which prompted virulent criticism from economist and former NITI Aayog chairman Arvind Panagariya, where duties on a range of consumer imports were increased. The authors suggest that Modi, after the sobering results of the 2017 Gujarat state election, listened to the feedback-networks the Sangh organizations provided. [RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (centre) addressing a rally.] The RSS is host to other intellectual conflicts, such as on the issues of conversion of non-Hindus (homecoming, or ghar wapsi, in RSS terminology), though the authors undercut their central argument here, showing that there is not any argument about whether there is actually a need to ?re-convert? religious minorities to Hinduism?which is certainly the crux of the matter, but about which there seems to be little internal debate. Instead, this argument focuses on the political practicability of the movement, and the problems such far-right ideologies cause to the BJP?s goal of retaining power at the centre. This is similar to the different stances it has adopted on cow protection, depending on the political and cultural context of the region in which it is operating. There is no genuine ideological debate on the right of religious and caste minorities to eat what they like; the RSS? ideological flexibility is predicated on the need for political success, via the BJP. Yet the authors show, convincingly, that this explains partly at least its increased strength in areas where it did not operate three decades ago. To wit, research on the spread of the RSS in the North-East makes for fascinating reading. It shows how the BJP?s recent electoral success in Assam is linked to the RSS? vast organizational imprint, including service projects, shakhas (branches) and schools. Twenty-one RSS affiliates operate in the state now. In Meghalaya, one of the three Christian-majority states in the North-East, the RSS has been operating since 1972, but has never sought to challenge the absence of restrictions on cow slaughter and the consumption of beef. Instead, it has quietly, shrewdly, grown its base: ?The RSS?had in 2016 over 6000 swayamsevaks in Meghalaya, ran fifty schools located in all eleven districts of the state and managed medical camps in about 1000 villages.? One review of the book centres on Damle?s close association with American affiliates of the RSS and argues it is biased because the authors are insufficiently distanced from the subject matter. It also raises the pertinent question of why this association was not declared in the text. The authors? portrayal of the RSS as a meeting ground of ideas does seem overblown?while there might be affiliates with a left-leaning focus in economic or some social aspects, they are still adherents of a larger, nativist, right-wing ideology that cannot accommodate, for instance, Muslim or Dalit self-assertion, but instead hopes to subsume such politics in a blatantly paternalist manner. Certainly, the organization does not encompass the wide range of ideas that would accommodate a genuine national left, right and centre. But the great learning from this new study is how fundamentally the organization has transformed itself between the authors? last work, published in 1987, and today. Perhaps most crucial is the RSS? current understanding that the electoral success of the BJP strengthens its ability to attract recruits and promote its ideology. The BJP?s primacy all over the country is now a vital goal of the RSS. It also examines how the vast Sangh Parivar manages to stay together. It has been surprisingly responsive, in the last three decades, to change in India (think of its decision to drop the iconic short pants after social media mockery). Within the umbrella of Hindu high- and middle-caste political action, it has come to occupy the role that the Congress once did, and replaced the Congress? national grass-roots structure, gutted over the years as it became a family outfit, with a saffron-inflected one of its own. ======================================== 17. INDIA: BJP MPS WANT A MEN?S COMMISSION, SAY WOMEN ARE RUINING MARRIAGES Pragya Kaushika ======================================== The Print 3 September, 2018 The two MPs call for an amendment to anti-dowry law, say men are scared of marriage and that?s why they prefer live-in relationships. New Delhi: Two BJP MPs from Uttar Pradesh, Harinarayan Rajbhar and Anshul Verma, are demanding a statutory commission for men, on the lines of the National Commission for Women (NCW), claiming that wives are increasingly foisting false cases against husbands under Section 498A, commonly called the ?anti-dowry? law. The two MPs claim that such is the widespread ?abuse? of Section 498A, that young men are ?scared? of marriage. ?It is why young men increasingly prefer live-in relationships these days. The law needs an amendment as law enforcement agencies are reluctant to verify the veracity of complaints and end up harassing husbands,? said Verma, who is also a member of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice. Also read: India?s lopsided adultery law: Adverse impact of patriarchy on men or women? While the two MPs will be in New Delhi on 23 September, to raise the pitch for a ?Purush Aayog? (men?s commission), the BJP has distanced itself from their ?individual demand? and refused to comment on the issue. ?498A stalling Mallya, Modi extradition? Verma, the MP from Hardoi, also said that Section 498A is one of the laws stalling the extradition of absconding Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. He blamed overcrowding of Indian prisons because of 498A, and claimed that a large number of ?targeted husbands? are being lodged as undertrials in poorly-maintained prisons across the country. ?The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that approximately 1.5 lakh husbands and their relatives were lodged as undertrials in prisons between 1998 and 2015. There have been 27 lakh arrests under Section 498A during this period. Of these, 6.5 lakh are women,? Verma said. ?The capacity of the prisons is much lesser than that. People like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi are contesting their extraditions by citing these unliveable conditions brought on by overcrowding in prisons?. The BJP had called for an amendment to Section 498A, claiming that the laws in the country are ?blindly? stacked in favour of women. Section 498A deals with domestic abuse and cruelty against women in their marital homes. In 2017, the Supreme Court had issued guidelines preventing the immediate arrests of those accused, with activists terming it as a ?dilution? of the law. The apex court has, however, agreed to reconsider the decision. ?Damage to institution of family? Verma claimed there are gangs operating in Uttar Pradesh where women zero in on potential husbands, extort money and lodge fake cases against them. This, he says has made men afraid of getting married and hence the family as an institution is losing its sheen for many of them. ?The institution of marriage rests on trust and with wives threatening to file cases against husbands, it is certain that it will collapse in times to come. The foundation of society will crumble,? he said. To strengthen his argument, Verma cited the movie Martyrs of Marriage, which he claims is based on a true incident. ?It is a Deepika Bhardwaj movie where a man is happily married but falls ill and his son is tested for DNA. He finds that the son is not his,? he said. ?The wife and her family slap a case under Section 498A. The case goes in favour of the woman and the man commits suicide on video,? said Verma, who is working on a draft proposing amendments to the ?anti-dowry? law. Also read: Maneka Gandhi joins pushback against 498-A, calls anti-dowry law ?strange? The BJP MP further said that cases that go to court are never resolved amicably and called for mediation and counselling to be strengthened. ?The chances of reconciliation increase when it is done through counselling and not in courtrooms,? Verma said. ======================================== 18. FEARS ABOUT DIFFERENCE: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ANXIETIES OF DEMOCRACIES Dipesh Chakrabarty ======================================== The Telegraph Aug 30, 2018 In The Great Indian Phone Book (2013), Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron wondered if the cell phone equalled democracy. Five or so years later, however, cell-phone technology is no longer an unquestioned blessing. Phones now come with the capacity to install free apps. From the land of Donald Trump to that of Narendra Modi, all kinds of anxious questions are being asked about the relationship between these apps, in particular Facebook and WhatsApp, and the purveying of false or fake news. These applications are undeniably useful. You can keep in touch with your dispersed family, colleagues and friends for free, thanks to these apps. Anyone with access to and some understanding of how a smart phone works can now originate or relay information. The sheer amount and variety of information we process everyday make it impossible for us to check the veracity of all that comes our way. But the concerns voiced - even at the level of the Supreme Court in India - are not really about information as such; they are about how these little computers we carry on our persons could harm our polities and society by encouraging trends that undermine democracies. Commentators and public intellectuals write on the ostensibly 'post-truth' age that digital technology has helped create. As a lead character in the Australian television series, Secret City, remarks, the distinction between truth and plausibility is what matters now. If we can make something seem plausible, it can indeed trump (pun intended) truth! These complaints sound similar across nations. But there remain some fascinating differences distinguishing Western democracies from the likes of the Indian one. Fears about authoritarianism in the West grow out of two major concerns: citizens' desire to protect their privacy, and the fear that governments and political parties could unfairly influence electoral outcomes by getting access to their personal information. The Cambridge Analytica scandal involving Facebook data that made news a few months ago is a good example of this second fear. Personal information about tens of millions of Facebook users, many of them in the United States of America, were reportedly fished out by Cambridge Analytica and used for targeted political campaigns. Now, one could always ask whether personal data collected by various apps that we download for free can ever be fully protected from the ravages of capitalism. As a friend remarked once, "if you are getting a product free under capitalism, then you yourself must be the product that somebody wants." But, however illusory this desire to keep politics away from sales intelligence, the Western anxieties arise out of a value promoted vigorously in the 19th century and re-emphasized when totalitarian regimes arose in the 20th century: that the citizens' right to privacy was something sacrosanct. The complaints about social and big data in India speak of fears that are different. It is, of course, true that a big-data operation like the Aadhaar project has led to concerns about how safely guarded such data might be in the hands of a government not otherwise known for efficiency. But this concern hinges on a basic question of trust: can one trust the government with the safe-keeping of one's personal information? It is the end-use of the data that is in question, not the principle of its collection. This is, indeed, why the recent attempt by the chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, R.S. Sharma, to reassure the public of the 'safety' of Aadhaar data by making his personal Aadhaar number public boomeranged. It allowed many to dig up his mobile number, date of birth, (old) residential address, chat threads and so on. Sharma's insistence that people would still not be able to harm him with such data points to the real issue in this debate. The fear expressed here is about possible material losses, and not reflective of any deep commitment to some 'outworn' liberal idea of the inviolability of the personal. Trust and mistrust are key words here. True, Indians are a deeply social - and not privacy-oriented - people. More than sharing practical information, my South Asian friends and I use WhatsApp, for instance, to forward video clips, photos, cartoons, write-ups and so on. If I had to watch all the video clips that are sent to me, I would spend a good 45 minutes to an hour, maybe even more, everyday doing just that. Our sociality knows no time - anytime is good for a joke, song, or story. But issues of trust and mistrust have always qualified the sense of the social in South Asia. Even among my highly-educated friends in WhatsApp groups, issues of social trust and mistrust turn up sometimes. I have been sent material asserting, for example - and on flimsy grounds - that West Bengal is on the verge of a Muslim takeover, thanks to certain policies of the state government. My friends were entirely civil in discussing the issue but some expressed the fear that this might be true and referred to their personal experiences. But it left me wondering if the language of 'experience' - as distinct from the language of statistics bearing on the actual state of Muslims in West Bengal - was not itself a pointer to the issue of trust and mistrust. We often do not trust statistics. Perhaps state or nation-wide statistics stand for some inclusively imagined space of the social that probably does not exist beyond academic discussions. The question of the Muslim in Hindu-majority West Bengal is perhaps always at its root a question of trust. Can 'we' trust the Muslim? The fear of those who seem different makes up a deep part of our sense of the social. I remember growing up as a child in Calcutta with the fear of the child-kidnapper (the chheledhora, literally a boy-catcher). The first fridge my parents bought in the 1960s came with locking device in its door, for there was the fear of domestic servants stealing. The West has tried - with very partial success - to tame this dangerous aspect of the social by developing the idea of cosmopolitanism, an outlook that embraces diversity. We are an intensely diverse people but our cosmopolitanism is weak. Applications such as WhatsApp can be used to stoke and intensify the fear of the stranger in our midst. This stranger could be the non-political figure of the child-kidnapper; it could also be the politicized figure of the beef-eating Muslim. At such moments - aided no doubt by interested political parties and the liberal use of money - the social can take the form of a lynch mob, regardless of the target of its violence. The stranger then is just like vermin, there to be exterminated. When we speak of the dangers that social media poses to Indian democracy, we do not speak of protecting our right to privacy. Our real fear is that, left uncontrolled or directly encouraged, the lynch mobs can double up as fascist thugs. It is a fear that arises out of the fact that some of our politicians want to make cynical use of a deep and enduring feature of Indian society - the fear of those who seem different. ======================================== 19. KRISHNA REDDY OBITUARY Pupil of Krishnamurti who became a world-leading printmaker and art teacher Oliver Basciano ======================================== The Guardian 30 August 2018 Whirlpool by Krishna Reddy, 1963: the print is a frantic composition of discrete blues. Photograph: Experimenter In the late 1950s, on moving to Paris, the Indian artist and printmaker Krishna Reddy, who has died aged 93, found himself in the heart of bohemian society. ?There was one tiny little street,? Reddy recalled, ?in which all the great artists gathered.? He regularly met Alberto Giacometti, and would look in on Constantin Br?ncu?i every Sunday. In the cafes of Montparnasse, Reddy would discuss how the spiritualism he had learned from his first teacher, the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, had blended with European modernism. Underpinning his ideas was a technical knowhow that produced several innovations in the medium Reddy made his own. Reddy joined Atelier 17, the studio of a fellow printmaker, Stanley William Hayter, at 17 Rue Campagne-Premi?re, and together they developed ?viscosity printing?, in which multiple colours can be applied to the same metal printing plate, each paint mixed to a different thickness with linseed oil so that it does not contaminate the others. Whirlpool, a work from 1963 held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is typical in its frantic composition of discrete blues. His accomplishment as a printmaker, which could be seen in a 2016 show at the Met, led naturally into an equally successful career as a teacher, in particular through his establishment in 1976 of Color Print Atelier, a studio at New York University (NYU), and invitations to hold workshops from over 250 institutions globally. Born to Nandanoor and Lakshmamma Reddy, agricultural workers, in a village on the outskirts of Chittoor in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Krishna could hardly read or write until the age of 11 and yet expressed a prodigious talent for art. Copying the mythological paintings of south Indian gods and goddesses, and inspired by Nandanoor, who made sculptures for the local temple, from the age of six the boy would paint murals. He attended Rishi Valley school, established in nearby Madanapalle by Krishnamurti. Radically egalitarian in respect of caste, gender and religion, the school was raided in 1941, the colonial authorities seizing Marxist books and literature promoting independence. Krishna became vocal in his support of the Quit India Movement and was beaten on several occasions while protesting. In 1943, aged 16, he was sent by his parents to Santiniketan in West Bengal, where he studied at the art college founded by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore at the Visva-Bharati University. Their hopes that the move north would keep him out of trouble were frustrated: having volunteered to clear the streets of bodies during the Bengal famine of 1943, Reddy?s leftwing politics sharpened. In 1949, after three further years of study in Chennai (then Madras), and with the help of his old teacher Krishnamurti, Reddy attended the Slade in London. There he took classes with Henry Moore and Lucian Freud, before he received a scholarship in 1951 to be apprenticed to the Russian artist Ossip Zadkine in Paris. Soon afterwards he joined Atelier 17, and became its co-director in 1965. He produced posters in support of the Algerian revolution ? which led to his being interrogated by the French police on several occasions ? and witnessed the student uprisings of May 1968, a seismic event he documented in Demonstrators, a rare figurative series of prints and bronzes. Nature also fascinated him. Butterflies, trees, waves, spiders? webs and blossom were frequent subjects, depicted in dream-like compositions that take their cue from abstraction and surrealism. Krishna Reddy in 2011 in his studio, lined with tools. Photograph: Ram Rahman Throughout his time in France Reddy made repeated trips across the Atlantic, initially with his first wife, Shirley Witebsky, an artist with whom he exhibited at the first International Sculpture Symposium in Montreal in 1964, and then, after Shirley?s death in 1966, with the artist Judy Blum, whom he married the following year, to teach classes at the American University, Washington DC, and the University of Wisconsin. In 1976 the couple moved to New York. There, after establishing the Color Print Atelier, Reddy became director of graphics and printmaking in the art department at NYU, a post he held until 2002. Krishna and Judy lived on Wooster Street, in the space where George Maciunas and Yoko Ono had previously established the Fluxus collective. His studio, lined with hundreds of tools and piled high with printing plates, became a haven for young artists from all round the world, especially those new to the US. In 1981 the Bronx Museum held a retrospective of his work, which toured various museums in India. The Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City staged another survey in 1988, the year in which Reddy published his first book, the practical guide Intaglio Simultaneous Color Printmaking: Significance of Materials and Processes. The publication emerged from the classes Reddy was by then teaching at museums and schools across the US, Europe and Asia. Regular commercial shows took place throughout the 90s, and in 2000 the British Museum acquired a cache of prints by Reddy. Tate Britain and the Kiran Nadar Museum in New Delhi also own his work. Reddy is survived by Judy and their daughter, Aparna. Krishna Reddy, artist, born 15 July 1925; died 22 August 2018 ======================================== 20. THE RELIGION OF WHITENESS BECOMES A SUICIDE CULT A wounded and swaggering identity geopolitics puts the world in grave danger. by Pankaj Mishra ======================================== The New York Times August 30, 2018 Mr. Mishra is a contributing opinion writer focused on ideas and politics. ?White men,? an obscure Australian academic named Charles Henry Pearson predicted in his 1893 book ?National Life and Character: A Forecast,? would be ?elbowed and hustled, and perhaps even thrust aside? by people they had long regarded as their inferiors ? ?black and yellow races.? China, in particular, would be a major threat. Pearson, prone to terrors of racial extinction while living in a settler colony in an Asian neighborhood, thought it was imperative to defend ?the last part of the world, in which the higher races can live and increase freely, for the higher civilization.? His prescriptions for racial self-defense thunderously echoed around the white Anglosphere, the community of men with shared historical ties to Britain. Theodore Roosevelt, who held a complacent 19th-century faith, buttressed by racist pseudoscience, that nonwhite peoples were hopelessly inferior, reported to Pearson the ?great effect? of his book among ?all our men here in Washington.? In the years that followed, politicians and pundits in Britain and its settler colonies of Australia, Canada and the United States would jointly forge an identity geopolitics of the ?higher races.? Today it has reached its final and most desperate phase, with existential fears about endangered white power feverishly circulating once again between the core and periphery of the greatest modern empire. ?The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,? President Trump said last year in a speech hailed by the British journalist Douglas Murray, the Canadian columnist Mark Steyn and the American editor Rich Lowry. More recently, Mr. Trump tweeted (falsely) about ?large-scale killing? of white farmers in South Africa ? a preoccupation, deepened by Rupert Murdoch?s media, of white supremacists around the world. Image Donald Trump?s presidential campaign appealed to those voters with existential fears about endangered white power, Pankaj Mishra writes.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times To understand the rapid mainstreaming of white supremacism in English-speaking liberal democracies today, we must examine the experience of unprecedented global migration and racial mixing in the Anglosphere in the late 19th century: countries such as the United States and Australia where, as Roosevelt wrote admiringly in 1897, ?democracy, with the clear instinct of race selfishness, saw the race foe, and kept out the dangerous alien.? It is in the motherlands of democracy rather than in fascist Europe that racial hierarchies first defined the modern world. It is also where a last-ditch and potentially calamitous battle to preserve them is being fought today. This ?race selfishness? was sharpened in the late 19th century, as the elites of the ?higher races? struggled to contain mass disaffection generated by the traumatic change of globalization: loss of jobs and livelihoods amid rapid economic growth and intensified movements of capital, goods and labor. For fearful ruling classes, political order depended on their ability to forge an alliance between, as Hannah Arendt wrote, ?capital and mob,? between rich and powerful whites and those rendered superfluous by industrial capitalism. Exclusion or degradation of nonwhite peoples seemed one way of securing dignity for those marginalized by economic and technological shifts. The political climate was prepared by intellectuals with clear-cut racial theories, such as Brooks Adams, a Boston Brahmin friend of Roosevelt, and Charles B. Davenport, the leading American exponent of eugenics. In Australia, Pearson?s social Darwinism was amplified by media barons like Keith Murdoch (father of Rupert and a stalwart of the eugenics movement) and institutionalized in a ?White Australia? policy that restricted ?colored? migration for most of the 20th century. Anti-minority passions in the United States peaked with the 1924 immigration law (much admired by Hitler and, more recently, by Jeff Sessions), which impeded Jewish immigrants and barred Asians entirely. By the early 20th century, violence against indigenous peoples, immigrants and African-Americans reached a new ferocity, and nativist and racist demagogues entrenched a politics of dispossession, segregation and disenfranchisement. Image Illustration of international diplomats at the Palace of Versailles for the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.CreditThe New York Times Seeking to maintain white power globally, Roosevelt helped transform the United States into a major imperialist power. Woodrow Wilson, too, worked to preserve, as he put it, ?white civilization and its domination of the planet? even as he patented the emollient rhetoric of liberal internationalism that many in the American political and media establishment still parrot. At the post-World War I Paris Peace Conference, which Wilson supervised, the leaders of Britain, the United States, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada not only humiliated the many Asians and Africans demanding self-determination; they also jointly defeated an attempt by Japan, their wartime ally, to have a racial equality clause included in the Covenant of the League of Nations. The exposure of Nazi crimes, followed by decolonization and civil rights movements, generally discredited quasi-scientific racism and stigmatized overt expressions of white supremacism. In our own time, global capitalism has promised to build a colorblind world through economic integration. But as revolts erupt against globalization in its latest, more disruptive phase, politicians and pundits in the Anglosphere are again scrambling to rebuild political communities around what W. E.B. Du Bois in 1910 identified as ?the new religion of whiteness.? The intellectual white web originally woven in late-19th-century Australia vibrates once more with what the historians Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds termed ?racial knowledge and technologies that animated white men?s countries and their strategies of exclusion, deportation and segregation.? Mr. Trump, for instance, has chosen Australia?s brutal but popular immigration policies as a model: ?That is a good idea. We should do that too,? he said in January 2017 to Malcolm Turnbull, Australia?s prime minister at the time, as he explained his tactic of locking up refugees on remote islands. ?You are worse than I am,? Mr. Trump told Mr. Turnbull. If right-wing Australian politicians were among the first to mainstream a belligerent white nationalism, the periodicals and television channels of Rupert Murdoch have worked overtime to preserve the alliance between capital and mob in the Anglosphere. Indulged by Mr. Murdoch?s newspapers, writers like Bernard Lewis, Niall Ferguson, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan and Andrew Roberts repeatedly urged American neoconservatives after the Sept. 11 attacks to take up the aging white man?s burden and quell mutinous natives. A broad range of figures in the Anglosphere?s establishment, including some of Mr. Trump?s most ostentatious critics today, contributed manure to the soil in which Trumpism flourishes. Cheered on by the Murdoch press, Tony Blair tried to deepen Britain and America?s ?special relationship? in Iraq. Leaders of Australia and Canada also eagerly helped with the torture, rendition and extermination of black and brown brutes. Not surprisingly, these chieftains of white settler colonies are fierce cultural warriors; they are all affiliated with private donors who build platforms where political correctness, Islam and feminism are excoriated, the facts of injustice and inequality denied, chests thumped about a superior but sadly imperiled Western civilization, and fraternal sympathy extended to Israel, the world?s last active settler-colonialist project. Emotional incontinence rather than style or wit marks such gilded networks of white power. For the Anglosphere originally forged and united by the slave trade and colonialism is in terminal crisis today. Whiteness denoted, as Du Bois wrote, ?the ownership of the earth forever and ever.? But many descendants of the landlords of the earth find themselves besieged both at home and abroad, their authority as overlords, policemen and interpreters of the globe increasingly challenged. Image Pennsylvanian white supremacists? fear was reflected in this 1866 poster attacking the Radical Republican politician John White Geary for his support of black civil rights.CreditMPI/Getty Images Mr. Trump appears to some of these powerful but insecure men as an able-bodied defender of the ?higher races.? The Muslim-baiting British Conservative politician Boris Johnson says that he is ?increasingly admiring of Donald Trump.? Mr. Murray, the British journalist, thinks Mr. Trump is ?reminding the West of what is great about ourselves.? The Canadian YouTube personality Jordan Peterson claims that his loathing of ?identity politics? would have driven him to vote for Mr. Trump. Other panicky white bros not only virulently denounce identity politics and political correctness ? code for historically scorned peoples? daring to propose norms about how they are treated; they also proclaim ever more rowdily that the (white) West was, and is, best. ?It is time to make the case for colonialism again,? Bruce Gilley, a Canadian academic, recently asserted and promptly shot to martyrdom in the far-right constellation as a victim of politically correct criticism. Such busy recyclers of Western supremacism, many of whom uphold a disgraced racial pseudoscience, remind us that history often repeats itself as intellectual farce. The low comedy of charlatanry, however, should not distract us from the lethal dangers of a wounded and swaggering identity geopolitics. The war on terror reactivated the 19th century?s imperial archive of racial knowledge, according to which the swarthy enemy was subhuman, inviting extreme and lawless violence. The rapid contraction of suffrage rights witnessed in early-20th-century America is now mimicked by Republican attempts to disenfranchise nonwhite voters. The Australian lawmaker who recently urged a ?final solution? for Muslim immigrants was only slightly out of tune with public debate about immigration in Australia. Hate crimes continue to rise across the United States, Britain and Canada. More ominously, demographic, economic and political decline, and the loss of intellectual hegemony, have plunged many long-term winners of history into a vengeful despair. A century ago, the mere suspicion of being thrust aside by black and yellow peoples sparked apocalyptic visions of ?race suicide.? Today, the ?preponderance of China? that Pearson predicted is becoming a reality, and the religion of whiteness increasingly resembles a suicide cult. Mr. Trump?s trade wars, sanctions, border walls, deportations, denaturalizations and other 11th-hour battles seem to push us all closer to the ?terrible probability? James Baldwin once outlined: that the rulers of the ?higher races,? ?struggling to hold on to what they have stolen from their captives, and unable to look into their mirror, will precipitate a chaos throughout the world which, if it does not bring life on this planet to an end, will bring about a racial war such as the world has never seen.? Pankaj Mishra, a contributing opinion writer, is the author, most recently, of ?Age of Anger: A History of the Present.? ======================================== 21. GERMANY?S POLITICIANS ARE NOW ENABLING THE FAR RIGHT Doris Akrap ======================================== The Guardian 31 August 2018 The reaction to the racist attacks in Chemnitz suggests the mainstream is appeasing extreme views. We could be heading for dark times The far-right group ?Pro Chemnitz? stage a protest at the entrance to the stadium of Chemnitz FC, where Minister President of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer will meet with members of the public on August 30, 2018 amid tensions sparked by a deadly stabbing in Chemnitz, eastern Germany. - After the fatal stabbing of a German man allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi, thousands of far-right protesters marched in the city of Chemnitz some chasing down people they believed were immigrants. (Photo by Odd ANDERSEN / AFP)ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images Hundreds of Germans plan to march side by side with neo-Nazis tomorrow for the third time in a week, after the fatal stabbing of a 35-year-old man last Sunday in the eastern German town of Chemnitz. Since then, innocent foreigners have been hunted down and attacked. Racist slogans have been chanted amid illegal Hitler salutes. These shocking scenes have been all too reminiscent of events in Rostock in 1992, when neo-Nazis set fire to an apartment block containing Vietnamese refugees. I thought we had moved on from that time in Germany. Now I fear we are actually going backwards. The most alarming aspect of the tension in Chemnitz is the sympathetic hearing the protagonists have been given. Locals tell reporters that they have nothing against foreigners, but feel unprotected by the state. So somebody has to offer that protection to those who say they ?daren?t go out at night? ? and it?s the far right that is offering it. Of course, we heard the same thing a hundred times in the 1990s. But what do these frightened people actually fear? Crime rates are falling, not rising. For the first time since the ?90s, I sense ?the liberal progress that Germany has made could be reversed The sizeable presence of the far-right Alternative f?r Deutschland in the Bundestag has changed and darkened Germany?s national conversation about migrants. Even mainstream media and politicians are giving credence to the narratives of the right, fuelling fears that refugees are violent sexual abusers and dangerous criminals. With its inflammatory statements and interventions in parliament, on talkshows and on public platforms, the AfD is setting the agenda. This summer of German racism began when the interior minister, Horst Seehofer, put the ruling coalition at risk by demanding that Angela Merkel set up holding pens for migrants on Germany?s borders. Then there was the grotesque scapegoating of the German-Turkish football star Mesut ?zil, who was blamed for Germany?s poor showing at the World Cup. As the summer ends, we have neo-Nazis hunting down people in daylight and the police nowhere to be seen. Advertisement Seehofer has been virtually silent. Saxony?s prime minister, Michael Kretschmer, has said emptily: ?We fight rightwing extremism. We always did.? Only Merkel has truly spoken out, condemning the ?hate in the streets?, and stating unequivocally that it has no place in the country. In Saxony, the ruling Christian Democratic Union ? just like Seehofer?s Christian Social Union in Bavaria ? is reacting to falling poll ratings by veering to the right. It claims many citizens have ?fears and sorrows that have to be taken seriously?. We know this line too. We?ve heard it over and over again. It?s the line that allowed a far-right party to gain seats in the German parliament, emboldening the racists. But racism is not a ?fear? or a ?sorrow?: it?s a mindset. To take it seriously means understanding that it has steadily become part of mainstream discourse. These people want power, and they want power as rightwingers and racists, even though they call themselves democrats. Racism was and is part of Germany?s daily life. There are German people who think that other people in our society have to be removed. There are also people who stand on the other side of the street as Nazis and racists try to take it over. Once we thought the German far right was an anachronism, a remnant of a dying culture. Since the racist disturbances of the early 1990s, German society has undoubtedly become far more liberal. But the neo-Nazi organisation National Socialist Underground, which killed at least 10 people in seven years, was also founded in the 90s. It found shelter in Chemnitz at the time. For the first time since the 90s, I sense the progress made could be reversed. Why? Because the reaction to Chemnitz suggests that the political mainstream is prepared to accommodate the narratives of the far right. Migrants, and their children and grandchildren who ? like me, the daughter of a Yugoslavian Gastarbeiter ? were born and raised in Germany, have genuine ?sorrows and fears?. We fear that the permanent rise of an extreme rightwing movement in Germany is being enabled by this appeasement of racism. We lived through this once. And we think responsible politicians should take our sorrows seriously. On Wednesday night, in Wismar, another town in the east of Germany, a 20-year-old migrant was beaten with an iron chain by three assailants. If that?s not a warning our politicians should heed, then we are surely heading for dark times. Doris Akrap is a journalist at the Berlin-based newspaper Taz ======================================== 22. VIETNAM SEEKS US REPARATIONS FOR THE CHEMICAL AGENT ORANGE by Christina Lin ======================================== Asia Times August 31, 2018 Hanoi is demanding compensation from US manufacturers of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, as a last resort to help families still suffering traumatic birth defects almost 50 years after the end of the Vietnam war. On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry demanded that Monsanto and other US companies pay damages to victims of Agent Orange, a defoliant that contained highly toxic dioxin. From 1961 to 1971, the US dropped more than 75 million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in what was then called Operation Ranch Hand, in a scorched-earth policy to strip the terrain of foliage and food supplies in an effort to defeat the Viet Cong. During the 10 years of this operation, more than 2 million hectares of forest and 200,000 hectares of crops were heavily damaged or destroyed. The US Air Force sprayed about 95% of the chemical using the call sign ?Hades,? and the remaining 5% was sprayed by the US Army?s 266th Chemical Platoon. Dioxins are highly persistent in the environment, seeping into the soil, water supply, and food chain, contaminating fish, molluscs and fowl. As such, although the war has ended, new generations of the Vietnamese population continue to suffer from prolonged effects of the poison through the food supply as well as deformed children from genetic mutations passed on by their parents. The Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) says more than 4.8 million people were exposed to the herbicide and 3 million of them suffered deadly diseases. Washington finally began to help Vietnam with cleanup efforts in 2012, starting with Danang International Airport, which used to be a US airbase that stored Agent Orange. However, the Vietnamese are not the only ones demanding compensation ? American veterans of the Vietnam War suffering from the poison have also sought compensation from the US government. Almost 30 years ago, then-US senator Tom Daschle sponsored the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to study the linkage between diseases and exposure to dioxin and other chemical compounds in herbicides. In 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid US$24 billion in disability compensation to 1.3 million Vietnam War veterans. However, Vietnam itself has not received compensation for similar damages. Despite the fact that its government purposely filed its claim against a company (Monsanto) rather than proceeding with a state-to-state filing, in order to preserve the stable bilateral ties between Hanoi and Washington in recent years, the legacy of Agent Orange remains a thorny issue. It is likewise a thorny issue between Washington and Vientiane, as Laos was also a target of chemical spraying in Operation Ranch Hand. While the US has established programs to address the Agent Orange issue in Vietnam, there have not been similar programs to aid the people of Laos, though when then-US president Barack Obama visited Vientiane in September 2016, Washington did offer aid for the cleanup of unexploded cluster bombs ? another legacy of America?s ?secret war? in Laos. As covered in a previous Asia Times article, Laos holds the record for being the ?most heavily bombed country per capita? ? between 1964 to 1973 the US dropped more than 270 million tiny cluster ?bombies? on the country. Additionally, between 1965 and 1970, the US dropped at least 2 million liters of Agent Orange on southern Laos to defoliate the Ho Chi Minh Trail ? the north-to-south supply route enabling North Vietnam to conduct its war in the South ? and to deny food supplies to local Lao supporters along the Annamite mountain range. Although the Vietnam War did not end until 1975, the US stopped using Agent Orange in 1971. Because of growing international opprobrium over the use of ?poisonous spray? during the war, the new Richard Nixon administration announced a partial ban on the precursor 2,4,5-T on April 15, 1970, and the Pentagon shortly followed suit by banning all Agent Orange missions in Vietnam. Today, Operation Ranch Hand and the Vietnam War long gone, but Laos remains a poor country while Vietnam has fared better economically. In Laos, the number of unexploded mines and other ordnance strewn throughout exceeds 80 million, which continue to kill, maim, and tragically keep the country in an impoverished state decades after the war. Farmers are not able to use fertile land for agriculture nor develop the land for infrastructure, industry, or residential needs, while Vietnam faces similar problems in some parts of its country, with an estimated 350,000 tons of live bombs and mines remaining. It would take 300 years to clear them from the Vietnamese landscape at the current rate. Thus for many people in these countries, the war is not yet over. And whether Hanoi will finally win compensation from Monsanto or prompt further US assistance to both Laos and Vietnam remains to be seen. Finally, given that other chemical agents such as CS gas and napalm were very effective in fighting tunnel warfare during the war, and the increasing use of tunnels by jihadists in the Middle East, this may also prompt renewed debate on the balance between ethics and efficacy of chemical warfare in modern anti-terror operations. Christina Lin Dr Christina Lin is a California-based foreign and security policy analyst. She has extensive US government experience working on China security issues, including policy planning at the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Department of State, and her current focus is on China-Middle East/Mediterranean relations. ======================================== 23. TRAVELLING TO FIND OUT Hanif Kureishi ======================================== London Review of Books 30 August 2018 One night, I went on a boat trip down the Bosporus with about a dozen models, fashionistas, several transvestites, someone who appeared to be wearing a beekeeper?s outfit as a form of daily wear, the editor of Dazed and Confused Jefferson Hack, and Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue. We were in the European capital of culture, but it was like a fabulous night at the London club Kinky Gerlinky transferred to Istanbul and financed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. At one end of the boat, in his wheelchair, was Gore Vidal. At the other end was V.S. Naipaul. It must have been June 2010 because I remember catching Frank Lampard?s ?ghost goal? against Germany on a TV in the hotel lobby just before we dashed out. As the high-tech drum and bass beat on, and the Ottoman palaces drifted by, we godless, depraved materialists and hooligans became more drunk, stoned and unruly. Vidia, with his entourage, kept to his end of this ship of fools, and Vidal to his. We had been instructed to keep the two aged warriors apart, and I don?t believe they exchanged a single word during the four days we were in Turkey. Vidal was accompanied by two ?nephews?, strong young men in singlets and shorts who took him everywhere. He was unhappy, usually violently drunk, occasionally witty, but mostly looking for fights and saying vile things. Vidia, in love and cheerful at last, accompanied by the magnificent Nadira, remained curious, ever observant and tight-lipped. Earlier, despite his supposed animus against female writers, he had been keen to talk about Agatha Christie and how fortunate she had been never to run out of material. In contrast, from a ?small place?, he himself had had to go on the road at the end of the 1970s, to explore the ?Islamic awakening?, as he put it. He had been ?travelling to find out?. I had packed Naipaul?s Among the Believers, as a kind of guide, when I first went to Pakistan in the early 1980s to stay with one of my uncles in Karachi. I wanted to see my large family and get a glimpse of the hopeful country to which my uncle Omar ? a journalist and cricket commentator ? had gone. Like my father and most of his nine brothers, Omar had been born in India; he had been educated in the US with his schoolfriend Zulfikar Bhutto, finally turning up in Pakistan ? ?that geographical oddity? ? in the early 1950s. In his memoir, Home to Pakistan, he wrote: ?There was in the early Pakistan something of the Pilgrim Fathers who had arrived in America on the Mayflower.? At night, alone at the back of the house, I had insomnia, and felt something of a stranger myself. In an attempt to place myself, I began to work on what became My Beautiful Laundrette, writing it out on any odd piece of paper I could find. In Britain we were worried about Margaret Thatcher and her deconstruction of the welfare state of which I had been a beneficiary. I wanted to do some kind of satire on her ideas, but in Karachi they barely thought about Thatcher at all, except, to my dismay, as someone who stood for ?freedom?. My uncles and their circle were more concerned with the increasing Islamisation of their country. In Home To Pakistan Omar wrote: ?There is an appearance of a government and there is the reality of where real power lies. I had serious doubts that we would become an open society and that democracy would take root.? Zulfikar Bhutto had been hanged in 1979 and his daughter Benazir was under house arrest just up the street, at 70 Clifton Road, a property with a huge wall around it, and policemen on every corner. One thing was for sure: my family, like Jinnah, had envisaged Pakistan as a democratic home for Muslims, a refuge for those who felt embattled in India, not as an Islamic state or dictatorship of the pious. Zulfikar Bhutto (left) with Omar Kureishi Naipaul, who in the late 1970s travelled around Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan, had grasped early on that this distinction no longer held up. In Among the Believers ? surprisingly without preconceived ideas, and with a shrewd novelist?s eye for landscape and individuals ? he interviews taxi drivers, students, minor bureaucrats and even a mullah. He writes down what they say and mostly keeps himself out of the frame. As a teenager I had been a fan of what had become known as personal journalism, of firecracker writers like Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and James Baldwin, imaginative writers who included themselves in the story, and who often, as with Thompson, became the story itself. Naipaul, in one of the first reports from the ideological revolution, was doing something like this. But he was more modest, a writer of loss and restlessness. From Chaguanas, Trinidad (?small, remote, unimportant?), he now travels widely, has an extensive look around and actually listens to people ? mostly men, of course. He never interviews anyone as intelligent as he is, but he is genuinely curious, a rigorous questioner and not easily impressed. He even greets one subject, in his hotel room, while wearing ?Marks and Spencer winceyette pyjamas?, of which he is so proud he mentions them twice. Around the same time, Michel Foucault ? more leather than winceyette ? visited Ruhollah Khomeini outside Paris, and went to Tehran twice. Foucault, who was fascinated by the extreme gay lifestyle he found in San Francisco, had also written for the Corriere della Sera defending the imams in the name of ?spiritual revolution?. This inspiring revolt or holy war of the oppressed, he believed, would be an innovative resistance, an alternative to Marxism, creating a new society out of identities shattered by domination. It was new. But as Naipaul discovered, there was very little spirituality about this power grab by the ayatollahs. Soon they were hanging homosexuals from cranes; women had to wear the chador. Even in Pakistan women covered up before they went out, and no one in my family had been veiled before. One of my female cousins revered Khomeini ? ?the voice of God? ? as an example of purity and selfless devotion. He was everything a good man should be. But she also took me aside and begged me to help her children escape to the West. Pakistan was impossible for the young; everyone who could was sending their money out of the country, and, when possible, sending their children out after it, preferably to the hated but also loved United States or, failing that, to Canada. ?We want to leave this country but all doors are shut for us,? my cousin wrote to me. ?Do not know how to get out of here.? ?Fundamentalism offered nothing,? Naipaul wrote. He didn?t find much to idealise. The people Naipaul is drawn to want more, but they don?t know what it is. They are aware of their relative deprivation, but gullible ? just like the protagonist of Naipaul?s masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas. Biswas becomes a journalist; he is working on a story called ?Escape?. But he is too intelligent for his surroundings. He becomes hysterical, endlessly dwelling on his wounds and victimhood. He is subject to a power ? colonialism ? that always humiliates him, and he has internalised its contempt. There is only one way out: the belief that at least your children will have better lives than you. Biswas?s clever son, Anand, is Vidia Naipaul: the one who would escape to Oxford, work for the BBC and become a writer. Naipaul had done all that, but he had also learned that you can?t escape the past. Now travelling in places like those he came from, he found a proliferation of anxious, wounded men like his father. But this time round, their sons wouldn?t fester. They would turn to a new machismo, a politicised Islam, ?because all else had failed.? Late in Among the Believers, Naipaul runs into my cousin Nusrat Nasarullah, then a journalist for the Morning Star. Nusrat, with his ?fruity voice and walrus moustache?, tells him: ?We have to create an Islamic society. We cannot develop in the Western way. Development will come to us only with an Islamic society. It is what they tell us.? Around the time of the Iranian revolution Bob Dylan released ?You Gotta Serve Somebody?, which elaborates the impossibility of not being devoted to someone or something. Seeking a space outside of the colonisers? ideology, Naipaul?s subjects in Among the Believers could only repeat ? only this time more harshly ? what had already been done to them. What began as an indigenous form of resistance, cheered on by a few Parisian intellectuals, soon became a new, self-imposed slavery, a self-subjection with an added masochistic element ? one manifestation of which became Osama bin Laden?s devotion to death. Hence the helplessness and disillusionment that Naipaul found. If the coloniser had always believed the subaltern to be incapable of independent thought or democracy, the new Muslims confirmed it with their submission. They had willingly brought a new tyrant into being, and He was terrible, worse than before. One of the oddest things about my first stay in Karachi was endlessly hearing people tell me how they wished the British would return and run things again. There were many shortages in Pakistan, but that of good ideas was the worst. A few months after the Bosporus boat trip, Naipaul was invited to Turkey again, to address the European Writers? Parliament, an idea of Jos? Saramago?s. This time there was an uproar: Naipaul was said to have insulted Islam after saying in an interview that ?to be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history.? Naipaul never returned to Turkey ? where now, as we know, there are more than three hundred journalists and writers in jail. Legitimate anger turned bad; the desire for obedience and strong men; a terror of others; the promise of power, independence and sovereignty; the persecution of minorities and women; the return to an imagined purity. Who would have thought this idea would have spread so far, and continue to spread? ======================================== 24. THOUSANDS RALLY IN GERMANY TO CALL FOR MIGRANT RESCUE ======================================== CGTN 2018-09-03 About 20,000 people have marched on Sunday in Berlin and Hamburg to urge the German government to accept more migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, as a response to the violent anti-migrant protests in Chemnitz in recent days. In the northern city Hamburg, almost 16,000 people were marching on the street, urging authorities to open up the city's ports to welcome migrant rescue ships stranded in the Mediterranean. Some pro-migrant protestors held up orange life vests, which are often worn by migrants stranded in the sea after fleeing their homeland in Africa to Europe by ships. Some protestors reportedly held banners reading "Human rights, not right-wing human" and "Seebr?cke instead of Seehofer." Protesters hold a banner reading "Berlin as a safe harbor!" as they demonstrate for unhampered sea rescue of refugees in Berlin, September 2, 2018. /VCG Photo "Seehofer" refers to Germany's hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer, who once offered resignation over migration row, though he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel reached a compromise later. Seebr?cke (Sea Bridge) is an international group, which demands German and European policymakers to establish safe routes for refugees, stop the criminalization of sea rescue and humanely receive the poor migrants while respecting their rights. "We must not allow refugees to drown at sea, nor must we allow them to be mobbed and beaten up," German media DW quoted Hamburg's Protestant bishop Kirsten Fehrs as saying. Some 2,500 people also participated in pro-migrant protests in Berlin, holding a banner "Berlin: A safe haven for refugees." Police maintain the security during an anti-migrant protest in Chemnitz on September 1, 2018. /VCG Photo It's reported that the Seebr?cke group had sent Berlin's authorities a petition, pushing the capital city to allow in migrants rescued at sea. Berlin should do all it could to provide visas and residency rights to those rescued, according to the group. Meanwhile, other German cities including Frankfurt also saw people marching to protect migrants on Sunday. The marches on Sunday are said to be a positive response to the clashes between far-right anti-migrant protesters and leftist protesters in Chemnitz, which were halted by police. (With inputs from Agencies) _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Mon Sep 3 16:06:43 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 01:36:43 +0530 Subject: SACW - 4 Sept 2018 | / Myanmar: Massacre / Bangladesh: Shahidul Alam / Pakistan: / India: crackdown; Blasphemy Law; Academic Freedom / Afghan War / Krishna Reddy / Vietnam seeks US reparations / Germans march for migrant rescue Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 4 Sept 2018 - No. 2998 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Massacre in Myanmar - A Reuters Special Report 2. India: Text of Open Letter from Former Civil Servants to Punjab CM on Expansion of Blasphemy Laws 3. India: Shrinking Academic Freedoms - books Dropped From Delhi University?s history reading list 4. ?We don?t have any fear?: India?s angry young men and its lynch mob crisis | Annie Gowen 5. India: Reminiscing ABVA?s Struggle for Gay Rights in the Twentieth Century ? A Brief History of That Time | Shobha Aggarwal 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Bhima Koregaon: The man who lodged FIR against Mevani and Khalid is distancing himself from ABVP - India: For Sanatan Sanstha, all?s fair in the war for a Hindu Rashtra - India: Hindutva extremists planned the assassination of Gauri Lankesh a year before - India: How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? - 4500-year-old DNA from Rakhigarhi reveals evidence that will unsettle Hindutva nationalists - India: Wink not blasphemous or insult to religion, says Supreme Court - If Pakistan shuns the term ?Ancient India? in its history books, is it entirely to blame? Haroon Khalid - Can India's Patriotism Be Built on Accepting Differences? - Hindu right wing group Sanatan Sanstha planned blast at Pune Sunburn festival - an annual electronic dance music festival - India: Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village - Hiren Gohain: ?popular political consensus? as the only guarantee for peace and normalcy in Assam ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka gets six years' jail in contempt case 8. British artists join fight for release of Bangladeshi photojournalist / Shahidul files petition for HC bail 9. Indus water breakthrough - Editorial, Dawn 10. When Pakistani and Indian soldiers dance | Kamran Yousaf 11. Myanmar: Guilty verdict against Reuters journalists sends stark warning on press freedom 12. Bangladesh: Cabinet approves draft law to soften trade union regulations 13. The Afghan War Is No Place to Turn a Profit | Brad Taylor 14. India: An ecosystem of fear? Santosh Desai 15. India: No room to say ?no?: The arrest of human rights activists is the arrest of democracy | Pritam Singh 16. India: The changing faces of the ?Sangh parivar? | Prayaag Akbar 17. India: BJP MPs want a men?s commission, say women are ruining marriages | Pragya Kaushika 18. Fears about difference: Social media and the anxieties of democracies | Dipesh Chakrabarty 19. Krishna Reddy obituary | Oliver Basciano 20. The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult | Pankaj Mishra 21. Germany?s politicians are now enabling the far right | Doris Akrap 22. Vietnam seeks US reparations for the chemical Agent Orange | Christina Lin 23. Travelling to Find Out | Hanif Kureishi 24. Thousands rally in Germany to call for migrant rescue ======================================== 1. MASSACRE IN MYANMAR - A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT ======================================== On Sept. 2, Buddhist villagers and Myanmar troops killed 10 Rohingya men in Myanmar?s restive Rakhine state. Reuters uncovered the massacre and has pieced together how it unfolded. During the reporting of this article, two Reuters journalists were arrested by Myanmar police. http://www.sacw.net/article13891.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: TEXT OF OPEN LETTER FROM FORMER CIVIL SERVANTS TO PUNJAB CM ON EXPANSION OF BLASPHEMY LAWS ======================================== "The need of the hour is for all responsible stakeholders to act to reduce the space provided to religious fundamentalists of all kind ? not open up space further to them." http://www.sacw.net/article13894.html ======================================== 3. INDIA: SHRINKING ACADEMIC FREEDOMS - BOOKS DROPPED FROM DELHI UNIVERSITY?S HISTORY READING LIST ======================================== INDIA: SHRINKING ACADEMIC FREEDOMS - TWO BOOKS ON DELHI UNIVERSITY?S HISTORY READING LIST RECOMMENDED FOR REMOVAL Nandini Sundar?s Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-2006 and Archana Prasad?s Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-modern Tribal Identity recommended for removal by university?s standing committee on academic matters http://www.sacw.net/article13885.html INDIA: BOOK TITLES DROPPED FROM READING LIST, DELHI UNIVERSITY SURRENDERS TO SAFFRON PRESSURE | PRESS STATEMENT BY DEMOCRATIC TEACHERS FRONT If the news item appearing in Times of India on 30.08.2018 that the Standing Committee on Academic Affairs has suggested to the History department that Nandini Sundar?s Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-2006 and Archana Prasad?s Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-modern Tribal Identity should be removed from the reading list as the books are ?unfit for students in DU? is true, it is a sad and shameful day for the Delhi University?s academic reputation. http://www.sacw.net/article13887.html ======================================== 4. ?WE DON?T HAVE ANY FEAR?: INDIA?S ANGRY YOUNG MEN AND ITS LYNCH MOB CRISIS | Annie Gowen ======================================== It?s been a summer of rage in India. Dozens have been killed by lynch mobs, and extremist Hindus continue to assault and kill others, many of them Muslims. . . . India?s problem of male rage has roots beyond the strident Hindu nationalism embraced by the current government. http://www.sacw.net/article13875.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: REMINISCING ABVA?S STRUGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ? A BRIEF HISTORY OF THAT TIME by Shobha Aggarwal ======================================== In the late eighties AIDS scare had gripped the country. ABVA (AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan/ AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement) came into existence in 1988-1989 though it was formally christened later as more members joined the group. http://www.sacw.net/article13888.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Bhima Koregaon: The man who lodged FIR against Mevani and Khalid is distancing himself from ABVP - India: For Sanatan Sanstha, all?s fair in the war for a Hindu Rashtra - India: Hindutva extremists planned the assassination of Gauri Lankesh a year before - India: How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? - 4500-year-old DNA from Rakhigarhi reveals evidence that will unsettle Hindutva nationalists - India: Wink not blasphemous or insult to religion, says Supreme Court - If Pakistan shuns the term ?Ancient India? in its history books, is it entirely to blame? Haroon Khalid - Can India's Patriotism Be Built on Accepting Differences? - Hindu right wing group Sanatan Sanstha planned blast at Pune Sunburn festival - an annual electronic dance music festival - India: Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village - Hiren Gohain: ?popular political consensus? as the only guarantee for peace and normalcy in Assam -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BUDDHIST MONK IN SRI LANKA GETS SIX YEARS' JAIL IN CONTEMPT CASE ======================================== channelnewsasia.com 08 Aug 2018 COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday handed a six-year jail term to a Buddhist monk accused of inciting violence against Muslims, holding him guilty of contempt just months after he was convicted of intimidating the wife of a missing journalist. The monk, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, leads the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force", which government ministers and Muslims have accused of stirring up violence against Muslims and Christians, allegations he has denied. Advertisement The court sentenced him to six years' rigorous imprisonment over a 2016 incident when Gnanasara interrupted a court hearing on the abduction of the journalist, Prageeth Eknaligoda, in which military intelligence officials were accused. He shouted at the judge and lawyers because the military officials had not been given bail, and threatened Eknaligoda?s wife. "The convict intentionally committed the offence to undermine the judiciary," Preethi Padman Surasena, the president of the court of appeal, said in delivering Wednesday's judgment, adding, "Found guilty of all charges beyond reasonable doubt." The monk was convicted on four counts of contempt of court, receiving terms of four years each on the first and the second counts, six years on the third and five for the fourth, all to run concurrently. Advertisement A BBS official told Reuters the group would appeal against Wednesday's ruling. "We feel there is an attempt by interested parties to have judicial process targeting Gnanasara, therefore, though we do not agree with the judgment, we accept the sentence, and we will appeal," said Dilantha Vithanage, the group's chief executive. Gnanasara, who is being treated in hospital for an ailment, was not in court for the ruling. He has been on bail since filing an appeal against a conviction in a separate case on June 14. In that case, he received two concurrent jail terms of six months, a fine of 1,500 rupees (US$9.39), and a compensation payment of 50,000 rupees (US$313) for having threatened the journalist's wife, Sandhya Eknaligoda. Since 2014, the monk has faced accusations in cases regarding anti-Muslim violence, hate speech, and defaming the Koran, the Muslim holy book. That year Gnanasara signed a pact with Myanmar's Ashin Wirathu, who once described himself as "the Burmese bin Laden", in what the duo called a bid to counter regional conversion efforts by Islamists. (US$1=159.7000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Source: Reuters Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/buddhist-monk-in-sri-lanka-gets-six-years--jail-in-contempt-case-10599910 ======================================== 8. BRITISH ARTISTS JOIN FIGHT FOR RELEASE OF BANGLADESHI PHOTOJOURNALIST Niece of Shahidul Alam adds major names to letter demanding justice for crusading photographer Vanessa Thorpe ======================================== The Observer 2 September 2018 Shahidul Alam was arrested in Dhaka on 5 August and remains in jail. Photograph: Alamy Leading British artists and curators have stepped up pressure on the Bangladeshi government to release the crusading photographer Shahidul Alam from jail in Dhaka. Creative voices, including the film-maker and artist Steve McQueen, the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, and the artists Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, have joined an international call for justice and transparency about Alam?s alleged crimes, ahead of a bail hearing scheduled for 3 September. A British exhibition of his work is also being planned in support of the cause. On 5 August the 63-year-old, who launched his career in Britain, was abducted by more than 30 members of the Dhaka metropolitan police and arrested for damaging ?the image of the nation?. The arrest follows the photographer?s vocal support for student protesters in the city, many of whom were also arrested after taking part in a demonstration in response to the killing of two students by a speeding bus. An open letter written by his niece, the architect Sofia Karim, who lives in Britain, has garnered signatures from 47 leading names in the art world in just a week. ?Alam?s crime, we are told, is to have contravened the Information and Communication Technology Act. Described as ?draconian? by Human Rights Watch, the act has become an infamous means of clamping down on freedom of expression in Bangladesh,? the letter reads. ?Given that Bangladesh presents itself as a democracy, the state should respect the right of Dr Alam, and all other citizens, to freedom of expression. Instead, he has suffered inhumane treatment at the hands of the police and judicial system.? Leading curators, such as the Tate?s Frances Morris, Nicholas Cullinan, the director of London?s National Portrait Gallery, Sarah Munro, director of Gateshead?s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and Sophie Wright of Magnum Photos, have also put their names behind the cause. ?Freedom of speech, artistic expression and talking truth to power are vital barometers of civilisation. Whatever is done to one person against these central pillars of a fair and tolerant society is done to all of us,? said Cullinan. ?I always felt that artists would sign the letter, but it?s been very heartening that leaders of our largest cultural institutions have also publicly supported my uncle so warmly, simply from our personal appeals,? said Karim. The morning after the arrest, Alam was produced in court, shouting that he had been assaulted and threatened with further violence. He was initially remanded for seven days, but then sent to prison before the week was up; neither Alam nor his lawyer was informed or called before the judge. Alam?s photography focuses on exposing abuses of power, including images of the genocide of the 1971 Bangladeshi war of liberation. He has also chronicled the use of state death squads and the plight of the Rohingya refugees. He founded the picture agencies Drik and Majority World, and the photography school Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. ?When they told my uncle in jail that exhibitions around the world were being held for him, he smiled and said, ?A big thank you?,? said Karim. ?He is in great physical and mental pain at the moment.? o o o The Daily Star August 30, 2018 SHAHIDUL FILES PETITION FOR HC BAIL Bangladeshi Photographer Shahidul Alam seeks high court bail Shahidul Alam. Photo Courtesy: Rahnuma Ahmed Staff Correspondent Internationally-acclaimed photographer Shahidul Alam on Tuesday filed a bail petition with the High Court in a case against him under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act. Shahidul submitted the petition through his lawyers Sara Hossain and Jyotirmoy Barua. The petition stated that he may be granted bail as he is physically ill, adding that he will, however, face the trial proceedings and, if granted bail, will not leave the country. The HC may hold a hearing on the bail petition next week, his lawyers told The Daily Star yesterday. Citing from the bail petition, Sarah said separate petitions were filed twice, with the lower courts concerned, seeking bail for Shahidul, but the courts hadn't allowed them to move the petitions. The petition was included in yesterday's hearing list of the HC bench of Justice Md Ruhul Quddus and Khandaker Diliruzzaman. Justice Ruhul told the lawyers that they (court judges) would examine the decisions of the HC and Appellate Division in such cases, and asked them to move Shahidul's bail petition next week. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the government in the courtroom. The photographer was sent behind bars on charges of ?spreading propaganda and false information against the government?. Shahidul, 63, was picked up by law enforcers on the night of August 5 from his home in the capital's Dhanmondi area. The following day, he was placed on a seven-day remand after police had produced him before a court seeking a 10-day remand. He told the court that he was tortured in custody, but police denied the allegation. Upon completion of his remand, he was sent to jail on August 13. Meanwhile, Dr Pabitra Sarkar, former vice chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, and poet Subodh Sarkar, chairman Pashchimbanga Kabita Academy, criticised the Bangladesh government over the arrest of Shahidul Alam. While speaking to The Daily Star on Tuesday, they said they hoped for Shahidul's quick release. ARREST APPROPRIATE: JOY Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT affairs adviser and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy today called ?appropriate? photographer Shahidul Alam's arrest and claimed that Shahidul had spread rumours instigating violence during last month's student protests for road safety, reports BSS. In a signed article in the US-based RealClearPolitics (RCP) media outlet, Joy wrote that Shahidul was one of those responsible for turning a peaceful protest into a violent one. He added Alam was arrested for ?inciting violence, which, because of his celebrity [status] and despite the facts, led to an international outcry on his behalf. ?Police arrested Mr. Alam not because he held a contrary view but because his latest pronouncements caused real harm. Mr. Alam's words helped transformed a peaceful protest into lawless violence,? Joy wrote. He added that hijacking a protest by young students and endangering their lives, along with those of many other Bangladeshis, was not politics but rather a form of terrorism. ======================================== 9. INDUS WATER BREAKTHROUGH - EDITORIAL, DAWN ======================================== Dawn September 1, 2018 Editorial After many years, a small but significant breakthrough seems to have been made in the talks between the Pakistani and Indian water commissioners. The talks had been largely stalled since 2014 so the latest agreement by the Indian side to permit an inspection of two of the facilities being built on the Chenab river is a step forward. Even in the latest round of the Permanent Indus Commission talks, the first day seemed to lead to a cul-de-sac. It was only at the end of the second day that news of the breakthrough emerged. It would have been better for both sides had they jointly briefed the media, or if that were not possible, issued a joint press release. Ending the talks without any public word is counterproductive as it creates an impression that runs contrary to the positive news emerging of an agreement for inspections. Now that it seems a deal has been struck for inspection, the next step is for Pakistan to make the most of the opportunity. At issue are two hydropower projects that India is building on its side of the Chenab river whose waters belong to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty. The same treaty, however, gives India the right to build hydroelectric projects on the river provided that it does not divert water for agricultural purposes. One other project on the same river, the so-called Baglihar dam, had already been the subject of a bitter feud between the two countries around a decade ago when the matter was sent to a neutral expert for settlement. The results of that exercise were mixed, with both sides claiming victory once the neutral expert?s verdict came in. The two projects this time round are the Pakal Dul dam and the Lower Kalnai hydroelectric project. The former is a large project totalling some 1,000MW, while the latter is smaller at about 48MW. But both of them involve the diversion of waters from tributaries that feed the Chenab, much like their cousin built on the Neelum river, the Kishenganga Dam. This is a different design configuration that involves the diversion of water from one tributary to another to take advantage of the water head, but the same water is returned to the river at a different spot further downstream. As such, its technical evaluation becomes more difficult, and the Indian side should honour its agreement in full by allowing the Pakistani delegation to visit the entire area where the project is spread out. Both sides should make an effort to ensure that resorting to arbitration is avoided. Almost every Indian project on the Chenab and Neelum is landing up at the altar of the World Bank, portending an unhealthy trend with regard to both countries that appear unable to resolve their mutual differences. ======================================== 10. WHEN PAKISTANI AND INDIAN SOLDIERS DANCE by Kamran Yousaf ======================================== The Express Tribune September 3, 2018 The writer is Senior Journalist and host of ?Capital Connection? on Tribune24/7. He tweets @Kamran_Yousaf It should have been a big breaking story. But there was a near-complete blackout on this side of the border. The coverage was not prominent either on the other side of the frontier too. Perhaps, the story does not fit into the narratives the two neighbours pursue for their respective domestic audiences. Nevertheless, in this day and age where social media is more powerful, the story of Pakistani and Indian soldiers dancing together was bound to attract attention and even trigger debate. The venue was Russia where Pakistani and Indian troops were participating in the joint military drills under the banner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). On the second last day of the anti-terror exercises codenamed ?Peaceful Mission 2018? Indian army invited troops from the participating countries, including Pakistan, to celebrate the ?India Day?. The event soon turned into a meeting ground for soldiers from both countries who were seen testing their dancing skills on Bollywood tunes. Some on social media began to question what would have happened had politicians from the two countries danced together. Their loyalty to the country would have certainly been questioned as had happened recently with former Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu after he hugged Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sidhu faced tough time from his countrymen, who described his act as treacherous. Despite hostility at the government level, the fact remains that people of both countries by and large go along nicely with each other. And this is true even in the case of men in uniform. For years, Pakistan and Indian troops have been part of the UN peacekeeping missions and they go about their business without any hassle. However, unfortunately that private bonhomie is rarely reflected in our bilateral ties. The reasons are obvious. The two neighbours have a long history of bitter relationship because of the unresolved disputes, including longstanding Kashmir. But the question is for how long the two neighbours would avoid each other and how long the people of the two countries would be held hostage to the false egos of their respective governments. Today, relations between the two countries have reached a level where media would feel reluctant to run stories that may give some positive vibes. But someone somewhere has to break that logjam. Pakistan has a new government. Prime Minister Imran Khan has already offered an olive branch to India for restarting the dialogue process. The good news is that for the first time in many years, Pakistan has a Prime Minister who enjoys the backing of all state institutions. The unprecedented welcome given to him during his visit to the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi was seen as refreshing change. The top brass standing in queue and saluting the elected Prime Minister was not an ordinary event. He was also seen presiding over the meeting at the GHQ, something his predecessors could only wish for. The icing on the cake is that the Army Chief stated in categorical terms that the armed forces like other state institutions are bound to follow the elected government. Some may say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. However, let?s not doubt the intention of the Army Chief and take his statement at its face value. The newly-elected Prime Minister has a historic opportunity to take some of the difficult decisions. India must take him seriously when he offered a hand of friendship. Unlike, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Khan is seen as someone who cannot betray and compromise on the national interest. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also enjoys the same status in his country. This may present a glimmer of hope for the two countries for a new beginning. But for now, we must applaud the dance performance of our men in uniform. ======================================== 11. MYANMAR: GUILTY VERDICT AGAINST REUTERS JOURNALISTS SENDS STARK WARNING ON PRESS FREEDOM ======================================== Amnesty International https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/09/myanmar-guilty-verdict-against-reuters-journalists-sends-stark-warning-on-press-freedom/ ======================================== 12. BANGLADESH: CABINET APPROVES DRAFT LAW TO SOFTEN TRADE UNION REGULATIONS ======================================== Dhaka Tribune Tribune Desk September 3rd, 2018 Labour Act 2018 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chairs a regular cabinet meeting where the draft Bangladesh Labour Act 2018 was approved yesterday FOCUS BANGLA In the case of natural death, the family of the worker concerned will get Tk2 lakh as compensation, up from Tk1 lakh in the previous law Factory workers will be able to form a trade union with the support of only one in five of their colleagues and can go on strike with a simple majority in favour under new legislation approved by the Cabinet yesterday. Cabinet Secretary Md Shafiul Alam said that under the draft Bangladesh Labour Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018, the percentage of workers' participation required for forming trade unions in factories will be reduced to 20% from the existing 30%, reports UNB. Other features of the act approved in principle at the weekly Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday include new maternity and compensation facilities for workers. "The amended law will be a labour-friendly one," the Cabinet Secretary said. "Under the proposed law, no child will be allowed to work in factories. If anybody employs child workers, then he or she will have to pay a fine of Tk5,000.? In the draft bill, punishments for violating laws have been halved, with both owners and workers now facing a one-year jail term and a fine of Tk10,000 for misconduct, which was two years in the previous law. According to section 47 of the draft, any female worker who gives birth to a baby will be allowed an eight-week period of leave within three days of informing the authorities. If the factory authorities do not allow her to go on leave, they will be fined Tk 25,000. Any worker who reports for duty during a festival will be given one day of leave and wages for two days after the festival. In the case of natural death, the family of the worker concerned will get Tk2 lakh as compensation, up from Tk1 lakh in the previous law. In the case of injury, they will get Tk2.50 lakh, double the current rate of Tk1.25 lakh. As per the draft law, the government will have to give registration to a trade union within 55 days from receiving the application - down from 60 days in the previous law. ?The support of 51% workers is needed against the present two-thirds of total workers to call a strike,? Shafiul Alam said. "Illegal enforcement of strike will also be considered as misconduct." If anyone is found to be a member of a number of trade unions at the same time, he or she will be sentenced to one month's imprisonment which was six months in the previous law. The draft bill has been prepared and updated following the observation of the International Labour Organization (ILO). ?According to the ILO convention, the draft law has a scope to form a tripartite advisory council consisting of the government, owners and workers,? Shafiul Alam said. Under the draft law, the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment has been upgraded to the level of Directorate. Shafiul Alam said the post of the chief inspector of the department is now inspector general, while deputy director general is additional inspector general, and the post of labour director has been upgraded to the rank of director general. Once the proposed bill is passed in Parliament, the Labour Court will have to deliver judgment in a case within 90 days from the date of filing it. If it is not possible to announce the verdict in the stipulated time, the court must deliver its judgment in the next 90 days. ======================================== 13. THE AFGHAN WAR IS NO PLACE TO TURN A PROFIT by Brad Taylor ======================================== Bloomberg 30 August 2018 Erik Prince thinks 6,000 mercenaries can do what 110,000 troops could not. That?s a deadly mistake. Brad Taylor is the author of the Pike Logan series of military thrillers including the forthcoming "Daughter of War." He served for more than 20 years as a U.S. Army officer in various special operations positions. The idea of ?privatizing? the war in Afghanistan is back. Erik Prince, the founder of the now-defunct security firm Blackwater Worldwide, is making the rounds in a self-described ?aggressive media air campaign? to make the case that 6,000 private military contractors can do what 110,000 uniformed soldiers couldn?t. Anonymous White House sources have said President Donald Trump has shown interest. This would be a terrible mistake. I?m a capitalist at heart, but capitalism has no business in a war zone. Privatizing our fighting forces would ultimately cause any national strategic objectives to be subsumed by profit motive. How do I know this? Because after serving more than 20 years in the Army, most of that time in Special Forces, I retired and became a private military contractor. I was one of the first soldiers in Afghanistan after 9/11, fought in Iraq, and I?ve seen it from both sides. Trust me, the U.S. doesn?t want a company looking to turn a profit running national policy. One of Prince?s favorite talking points is that small teams of Special Forces and CIA operatives overthrew the Taliban in lightning speed in 2001, then the conventional forces took over, and 17 years later we?re at a stalemate. Thus, the argument goes, it?s time to go back to an unconventional campaign. This makes a great sound bite, but is a completely flawed comparison. At the outset of the war, we were fighting an established government with a standing army; now, we are defending an established government while training a standing army. When we entered, we, along with the Northern Alliance, were the insurgents; now, we?re fighting a Taliban insurgency. The strategies required for the two tasks are diametrically opposite. Much of the debate over bringing in contractors has focused on legality, chains of command and integration of private forces with uniformed ones ? and rightly so. But the idea falls short well before we even get to those nitty-gritty details. Taking a close look Blackwater's role in Iraq shows why: profit over policy. While the company was initially formed with vetted Navy SEALs, over time the need to ramp up operations led to the firm hiring just about anyone who?d held a gun in a war zone. The result: the Nisour Square massacre, in which Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians. This debacle not only set back the nationwide counterinsurgency mission America?s uniformed soldiers were attempting to accomplish, it also led to Prince changing the name of his firm to Academi to get out from under the cloud. I have worked with half a dozen private military companies, and I?m not saying that they are all evil. Far from it. Some have our nation?s interests at heart, and I continue to work with them. But eventually, the bigger they get, the more the profit motive takes hold. Taking over an entire country?s military strategy for the U.S. government? About the worst I can think of. For instance, Triple Canopy ? a company christened for the nickname of the three tabs worn by elite Army troops: Special Forces, Ranger and Airborne ? initially only hired the best of the best and paid very well for the talent. But as the war in Iraq ground on and the company expanded rapidly, things got lax. Last year, based on a former employee?s lawsuit claiming fraud, it paid the Defense Department a $2.6 million settlement for hiring Ugandan soldiers who had never qualified on a rifle to guard al-Asad airbase. Prince says his plan is to embed only ?professional ex-Special Operations soldiers? with the Afghanistan army, and that they would operate in-country for years, solidifying their knowledge of the terrain and friendly and enemy forces. Doing so would halt the constant rotation and the inevitable re-learning that happens with the U.S. military?s current tours. This is an admirable goal, and makes sense on the surface. But where will these ex-Special Forces troops be found? Who is qualified to carry out the mission? Me, and people like me. People who have been at war for over a decade. People with families they haven?t seen, birthdays missed, anniversaries lost, and holidays spent eating cold spaghetti out of a bag in the field while dodging bullets. Does Prince really believe there are 6,000 Lawrence of Arabia types willing to spend a decade embedded in an Afghan army unit with no rotation ? after most have spent nearly two decades embedded in Afghan and Iraqi army units already? Unlikely. But he has contacts all over the world to provide manpower, perhaps the equivalent of those hapless Ugandans. Hiring private contractors in a war zone makes sense when there is a specific and limited goal, such as building wells, electrical grids and schools. But it makes no sense on such an overarching scale: A profit motive runs contradictory to the national strategic goals of the mission in Afghanistan. Why would the company that wins this billion-dollar contract ever want the war to end? In so doing, it would put itself out of business. At the worst, the profit motive could lead the company to subconsciously thwart any effort at reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government. Fortunately, the Pentagon brass understands this: On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis restated his opposition to the idea. Afghanistan is an intractable problem, no doubt, and we have slogged our way through 17 years of war with little to show for it. But turning it over to a private army won?t accomplish any of our strategic aims, unless the goal is simply to leave and let Erik Prince get rich. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. To contact the author of this story: Brad Taylor at Brad at bradtaylorbooks.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw at bloomberg.net ======================================== 14. INDIA: AN ECOSYSTEM OF FEAR? Santosh Desai ======================================== The Times of India September 3, 2018 The arrest of several rights activists across the country on charges of having Maoist links has created deep disquiet among many commentators. Accompanied as it is, by a new label- ?Urban Naxals?, it is being seen as a sign that this government is determined to act against all signs of dissent and build a narrative of the country being under threat from organised internal forces. And yet, there are those that argue that nothing dramatically new is happening. The law under which the action has been taken was strengthened by the UPA government, and some like Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira have been imprisoned even under previous regimes. Also, the fact that so many commentators have been able to criticise the government in the harshest possible terms is being pointed to as a sign that the freedom of expression is alive and well. While it is true that previous governments also have a poor track record when it comes to dealing with dissent, there is no question that there is a difference today. That there is a clear attempt to create an atmosphere of fear, is possible to discern when one examines all the actions taken by the government. The production of fear at scale is being achieved not only through harsh punitive measures, but through a complex and elaborate network of actions, real and symbolic. The case of media is illustrative. Media, for instance, has been subject to pressure and arm-twisting before. The raid on NDTV apart, most other actions deemed coercive, including the removal of key voices critical of the government, have been taken by the owners of media platforms and not by the state directly. One can infer that the state was indirectly responsible for the same, but the question is, why should media owners, hardly unused to facing political pressure give in this time around? There is no special leverage that this government has that previous regimes didn?t. But the clear feeling among media circles is that this time around, the sense of threat is more palpable. This government is deemed capable of much more than what it has actually done; the fear is evoked by latent violence in the body language of the government rather than in its actions alone. ?Violence in the air? is a more effective way of fostering self-censorship than any direct method. But there is another variable at work. In the case of media, the problem does not stem only from fear, but also from greed. The taming of media is largely a voluntary phenomenon, guided by a desire to cater to one?s commercial self-interest by deferring to the needs of the market. When one outlet of the same media house can take an ideological line completely at odds with another, it is clear that fear alone is not at work. Market segmentation is. The state uses both levers, fear and greed to get most of media in line. And then there is social media where keyboard warriors create a new vocabulary of fear with predictable regularity. Individuals are targeted, new labels are created, lists are generated and campaigns are launched to build a narrative of fear. The reward for these non-official soldiers is a dizzying rise from obscurity and in some cases, the promise of official recognition and rewards. Even bureaucrats and serving officers have an incentive to speak and act on behalf of the government. The differential treatment meted out to those that amplify the government?s line and those that don?t is stark. The orchestration of fear is carried out with finesse. Fear reproduces itself thanks to the elegant design of the ecosystem of intimidation that is in place today. The more commentators connect the dots and discern larger intent from everyday actions, the more actively they participate in the production of fear. Showing signs of fear itself becomes proof- unless you are an anti-national, why should you be afraid? The calibrated use of reward and punishment, the taking of action against victims rather than perpetrators, the penetration of virtually every institution that matters, the creation of voluntary and vocal cheerleaders for the actions of the state, the regular encouragement given from the highest level of the government to those that carry out intimidation, the periodic acts of brutal violence that indicate that the threats are not only symbolic in nature, the breeding of several kinds of private armies that publicly display their muscle, the succession of violently intemperate statements made by minor party leaders, and actions like the arrest of activists on charges that that align with the larger narrative that is being built- these are all part of this ecosystem of fear. The electoral advantages of such a strategy are unclear. The fear of ?Urban Naxals? is unlikely to galvanise a significant number of voters, for it is difficult to correlate this with any observed experiences in our everyday lives. The argument that the nation is under threat from such forces, is one that might have great resonance with a small group of diehard supporters, but is unlikely to connect with a wider audience. The conspiracy outlined is far-fetched even by the standards of contemporary political discourse. From the perspective of voters, the ?enemies? identified have neither currency nor deep emotional resonance. As a political gambit, it is weak given that it leaves out most key opposition parties from this line of attack. The production of fear might have been carried out very effectively, but it looks unlikely to deliver great electoral effect. Those that believe that things will change if the BJP is defeated might be deluding themselves. It does not matter who is in power; what matters is who sets the agenda. The power of a negative agenda is that even when one counters it, only more negativity is produced. The fear that has got manufactured does not come with an expiry date. That might well be the abiding legacy left by this government. ======================================== 15. INDIA: NO ROOM TO SAY ?NO?: THE ARREST OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS IS THE ARREST OF DEMOCRACY Pritam Singh ======================================== The Tribune August 30, 2018 What?s to fear? The crackdown shows the vulnerability and meanness of the State. The coordinated action in many cities of India on August 28 to arrest rights activists marks a qualitative scaling up of attack on human rights and democracy. States all over the world dislike critics and dissidents because such dissenters bring to light many misdeeds of those who control and misuse power. The dissemination of knowledge about State?s misdeeds empowers those who are adversely affected by the actions of the State. Such empowerment is especially of critical importance in strengthening democracy in developing societies, where there is a significant cultural and educational gap between the rulers and the ruled. Rights defenders and democracy activists thus become intermediaries between the State and the powerless masses by siding with the masses. The sporadic attacks on human rights, civil liberties and democracy have been a constant feature of the Indian republic but a systemic onslaught took place during the Emergency rule of Indira Gandhi. The latest crackdown will go down as the second most extensive attack on rights, although in intensity, the 1984 and the 2002 riots mark the darkest spots in the history of post-colonial India. The guilty have not been brought to book, and this impunity adds to the lurking dangers behind the August 28 arrests. Among the arrested, the names of five individuals that have featured prominently are: Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer-cum-trade unionist; Gautam Navlakha, a journalist and civil liberties activist; Varavara Rao, a radical poet and intellectual; Vernon Gonsalves, a rights lawyer, and Arun Ferreira, a rights activist and lawyer. I know Sudha Bharadwaj and Gautam Navlakha; have reviewed books by Varavara Rao, and have some knowledge, though limited, of the work of Gonsalves and Ferreira. I know Sudha since her childhood. She is the daughter of the late Prof Krishna Bharadwaj, who was my research supervisor at JNU and the founder of JNU?s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning. Professor Bharadwaj was an internationally known historian of economic thought who worked at Cambridge University with Piero Sraffa, one of the most distinguished theoretical economists of the 20th century. Sudha was a school student when she would sometimes participate in the discussions between Prof Bharadwaj and me and make observations reflecting a sharp sensitivity to socio-economic issues. I had thought that she would also become an economist because she could easily get a scholarship for doctoral work at one of the leading universities in the Western world, but she decided to devote her talents to defend the workers? rights by participating in trade union work and trained herself as a lawyer specialising in labour laws. She chose to work in Chhattisgarh, one of the most underdeveloped regions of India. A good society should be proud of such young people who choose to abandon the life of privilege and devote themselves to defending those who are the most vulnerable. The big corporate interests want to have unquestioned access to exploit the human and rich natural resources of regions such as Chhattisgarh. The legal expertise and moral commitment of people like Sudha is a hurdle to the exploitative designs of corporate capital. To what extent the corporate capital can go to pursue its goals can be judged by the fact that Shankar Guha Niyogi, who founded the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), a labour union, was killed in 1991. Sudha has been working with the CMM and defending Adivasis, Dalits and Christians in areas under attack from Hindutva activists. Her arrest is to terrorise activists like her who defend the defenceless and extend the space for assertion of democracy. Gautam Navlakha has done sterling work on defending civil liberties. For years he has reported in Economic and Political Weekly, internationally the most respected social science journal from India, the results of his enquiries on rights violations in Kashmir and areas where the Adivasis have been resisting the encroachment of corporate capital. Prof David Harvey, Marxist geographer, has theorised this form of exploitation as ?accumulation by dispossession? where the original owners of the natural resources are dispossessed to enable corporate control of these resources. The role of violence facilitated by State power in this strategy leads to extensive rights violations. Attempt to silence the critics of such dispossession strategies is behind the arrest of Navlakha. Varavara Rao, a popular Telugu poet, has been an inspiring figure in the struggle for the defence of the most exploited sections of society. He has also edited an excellent book on the struggles of nationalities in different regions of India. That a regime can fear even a poet, who is 77, to the extent that it decides to arrest him shows both the vulnerability and the meanness of the regime. Both Gonsalves and Ferreira have been providing legal assistance to social and political activists. When a regime starts arresting even the lawyers defending political opponents of the State, it is a sign that it is entering a qualitatively new and higher level of repression of legal and democratic rights. The attack on rights activists may further shrink the democratic space in India, but it is equally probable that it may provoke a backlash against the increasing authoritarian tendencies of this regime. Irrespective of the domestic response, internationally this crackdown on lawyers, journalists and poets will certainly further tarnish the image of this regime. Pritam Singh Professor of Economics, Oxford Brookes University ======================================== 16. INDIA: THE CHANGING FACES OF THE ?SANGH PARIVAR? | Prayaag Akbar ======================================== Livemint August 31 2018 How did the RSS become an organization with networks in every corner of the country? A new analysis of its journey over the last three decades throws light on its working methods RSS volunteers at a camp in Shimla last year. Walter Andersen and Shridhar Damle?s extensive analysis of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), perhaps the most fascinating political organization in contemporary India, begins at an appropriate juncture. The RSS: A View To The Inside looks at the vast network of affiliate organizations?collectively known as the Sangh Parivar?that has enabled the Hindu nationalist body to spread its influence and outreach to, now, almost every corner of the nation. It is through these organizations that the RSS derives its unique, multivariate strength. The duo seeks to demonstrate how these various affiliates, each differing in scope, size and mission, have a bearing on the national policy decisions made by the Sangh Parivar?s best-known member?the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Further, they want to show how seriously the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes the inputs of the RSS, especially compared to the government of his forebear, A.B. Vajpayee. [The RSS?A View To The Inside: By Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, Penguin Random House, 400 pages, ?699.] Click here for enlarge When Modi assumed power, the prevailing wisdom held that he and BJP chief Amit Shah would rule alone, as they apparently had in Gujarat, because Modi?s overwhelming electoral triumph meant he would not need the elders of the RSS. There was even talk of the BJP?s emancipation from its parent. An early signal to both the organization and the nation came during Modi?s televised 2014 victory address, given on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi, where he tearfully evoked the role of the RSS in his ascent. Once again, much of India?s English-language media had failed to properly understand Modi?and the RSS. Andersen and Damle show that the RSS has grown with stunning speed in the last three decades, standing now as ?one of the world?s largest non-governmental associations??an amusing characterization, given the BJP government?s 2017 ?crackdown? on NGOs. In 1989, the RSS carried out 5,000 service projects; in 1998, it had reached 50,000; in 2012, the number stood at 140,000; and in 2015, 165,000. What explains this remarkable growth? The authors identify the role of Madhukar Deoras, who ran the RSS from 1973-94, as crucial to this. One of their key insights pertains to how this expansion reflects in the internal tensions and debates the RSS is now able to accommodate, such as the shift towards economic liberalism. Far from being the intransigent top-led organization that it is often believed to be, Andersen and Damle liken the Sangh Parivar?s current shape to that ascribed to the Congress decades ago by the political scientist Rajni Kothari?that of a party of consensus, with a clear left, centre and right, accommodating distinct groups as they seek to influence the policy process. This portrayal is convincing to an extent, but it does create the impression of a wider range of debate than the RSS genuinely allows. Yet the authors? discussion on the RSS and economic self-sufficiency, which gets its own chapter, is compelling. The drive towards economic liberalization, frequently championed by Modi at international fora such as the World Economic Forum at Davos, is sharply opposed by important RSS affiliates like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (which premises its calls for redistributive policies on its reading of Advaita Vedanta), and the Sangh?s farmer union?the largest union in India?the Bharatiya Mazdoor Kisan Sangh. At first the Modi government seemed determined to ignore them. Andersen and Damle find that Mohan Bhagwat?s crucial Vijay Dashami speech, in October, to the RSS faithful ?catalysed a populist turn in the Modi government?s economic policies?. Hence the discernible thrust of the 2018 Union Budget, which prompted virulent criticism from economist and former NITI Aayog chairman Arvind Panagariya, where duties on a range of consumer imports were increased. The authors suggest that Modi, after the sobering results of the 2017 Gujarat state election, listened to the feedback-networks the Sangh organizations provided. [RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (centre) addressing a rally.] The RSS is host to other intellectual conflicts, such as on the issues of conversion of non-Hindus (homecoming, or ghar wapsi, in RSS terminology), though the authors undercut their central argument here, showing that there is not any argument about whether there is actually a need to ?re-convert? religious minorities to Hinduism?which is certainly the crux of the matter, but about which there seems to be little internal debate. Instead, this argument focuses on the political practicability of the movement, and the problems such far-right ideologies cause to the BJP?s goal of retaining power at the centre. This is similar to the different stances it has adopted on cow protection, depending on the political and cultural context of the region in which it is operating. There is no genuine ideological debate on the right of religious and caste minorities to eat what they like; the RSS? ideological flexibility is predicated on the need for political success, via the BJP. Yet the authors show, convincingly, that this explains partly at least its increased strength in areas where it did not operate three decades ago. To wit, research on the spread of the RSS in the North-East makes for fascinating reading. It shows how the BJP?s recent electoral success in Assam is linked to the RSS? vast organizational imprint, including service projects, shakhas (branches) and schools. Twenty-one RSS affiliates operate in the state now. In Meghalaya, one of the three Christian-majority states in the North-East, the RSS has been operating since 1972, but has never sought to challenge the absence of restrictions on cow slaughter and the consumption of beef. Instead, it has quietly, shrewdly, grown its base: ?The RSS?had in 2016 over 6000 swayamsevaks in Meghalaya, ran fifty schools located in all eleven districts of the state and managed medical camps in about 1000 villages.? One review of the book centres on Damle?s close association with American affiliates of the RSS and argues it is biased because the authors are insufficiently distanced from the subject matter. It also raises the pertinent question of why this association was not declared in the text. The authors? portrayal of the RSS as a meeting ground of ideas does seem overblown?while there might be affiliates with a left-leaning focus in economic or some social aspects, they are still adherents of a larger, nativist, right-wing ideology that cannot accommodate, for instance, Muslim or Dalit self-assertion, but instead hopes to subsume such politics in a blatantly paternalist manner. Certainly, the organization does not encompass the wide range of ideas that would accommodate a genuine national left, right and centre. But the great learning from this new study is how fundamentally the organization has transformed itself between the authors? last work, published in 1987, and today. Perhaps most crucial is the RSS? current understanding that the electoral success of the BJP strengthens its ability to attract recruits and promote its ideology. The BJP?s primacy all over the country is now a vital goal of the RSS. It also examines how the vast Sangh Parivar manages to stay together. It has been surprisingly responsive, in the last three decades, to change in India (think of its decision to drop the iconic short pants after social media mockery). Within the umbrella of Hindu high- and middle-caste political action, it has come to occupy the role that the Congress once did, and replaced the Congress? national grass-roots structure, gutted over the years as it became a family outfit, with a saffron-inflected one of its own. ======================================== 17. INDIA: BJP MPS WANT A MEN?S COMMISSION, SAY WOMEN ARE RUINING MARRIAGES Pragya Kaushika ======================================== The Print 3 September, 2018 The two MPs call for an amendment to anti-dowry law, say men are scared of marriage and that?s why they prefer live-in relationships. New Delhi: Two BJP MPs from Uttar Pradesh, Harinarayan Rajbhar and Anshul Verma, are demanding a statutory commission for men, on the lines of the National Commission for Women (NCW), claiming that wives are increasingly foisting false cases against husbands under Section 498A, commonly called the ?anti-dowry? law. The two MPs claim that such is the widespread ?abuse? of Section 498A, that young men are ?scared? of marriage. ?It is why young men increasingly prefer live-in relationships these days. The law needs an amendment as law enforcement agencies are reluctant to verify the veracity of complaints and end up harassing husbands,? said Verma, who is also a member of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice. Also read: India?s lopsided adultery law: Adverse impact of patriarchy on men or women? While the two MPs will be in New Delhi on 23 September, to raise the pitch for a ?Purush Aayog? (men?s commission), the BJP has distanced itself from their ?individual demand? and refused to comment on the issue. ?498A stalling Mallya, Modi extradition? Verma, the MP from Hardoi, also said that Section 498A is one of the laws stalling the extradition of absconding Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. He blamed overcrowding of Indian prisons because of 498A, and claimed that a large number of ?targeted husbands? are being lodged as undertrials in poorly-maintained prisons across the country. ?The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that approximately 1.5 lakh husbands and their relatives were lodged as undertrials in prisons between 1998 and 2015. There have been 27 lakh arrests under Section 498A during this period. Of these, 6.5 lakh are women,? Verma said. ?The capacity of the prisons is much lesser than that. People like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi are contesting their extraditions by citing these unliveable conditions brought on by overcrowding in prisons?. The BJP had called for an amendment to Section 498A, claiming that the laws in the country are ?blindly? stacked in favour of women. Section 498A deals with domestic abuse and cruelty against women in their marital homes. In 2017, the Supreme Court had issued guidelines preventing the immediate arrests of those accused, with activists terming it as a ?dilution? of the law. The apex court has, however, agreed to reconsider the decision. ?Damage to institution of family? Verma claimed there are gangs operating in Uttar Pradesh where women zero in on potential husbands, extort money and lodge fake cases against them. This, he says has made men afraid of getting married and hence the family as an institution is losing its sheen for many of them. ?The institution of marriage rests on trust and with wives threatening to file cases against husbands, it is certain that it will collapse in times to come. The foundation of society will crumble,? he said. To strengthen his argument, Verma cited the movie Martyrs of Marriage, which he claims is based on a true incident. ?It is a Deepika Bhardwaj movie where a man is happily married but falls ill and his son is tested for DNA. He finds that the son is not his,? he said. ?The wife and her family slap a case under Section 498A. The case goes in favour of the woman and the man commits suicide on video,? said Verma, who is working on a draft proposing amendments to the ?anti-dowry? law. Also read: Maneka Gandhi joins pushback against 498-A, calls anti-dowry law ?strange? The BJP MP further said that cases that go to court are never resolved amicably and called for mediation and counselling to be strengthened. ?The chances of reconciliation increase when it is done through counselling and not in courtrooms,? Verma said. ======================================== 18. FEARS ABOUT DIFFERENCE: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ANXIETIES OF DEMOCRACIES Dipesh Chakrabarty ======================================== The Telegraph Aug 30, 2018 In The Great Indian Phone Book (2013), Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron wondered if the cell phone equalled democracy. Five or so years later, however, cell-phone technology is no longer an unquestioned blessing. Phones now come with the capacity to install free apps. From the land of Donald Trump to that of Narendra Modi, all kinds of anxious questions are being asked about the relationship between these apps, in particular Facebook and WhatsApp, and the purveying of false or fake news. These applications are undeniably useful. You can keep in touch with your dispersed family, colleagues and friends for free, thanks to these apps. Anyone with access to and some understanding of how a smart phone works can now originate or relay information. The sheer amount and variety of information we process everyday make it impossible for us to check the veracity of all that comes our way. But the concerns voiced - even at the level of the Supreme Court in India - are not really about information as such; they are about how these little computers we carry on our persons could harm our polities and society by encouraging trends that undermine democracies. Commentators and public intellectuals write on the ostensibly 'post-truth' age that digital technology has helped create. As a lead character in the Australian television series, Secret City, remarks, the distinction between truth and plausibility is what matters now. If we can make something seem plausible, it can indeed trump (pun intended) truth! These complaints sound similar across nations. But there remain some fascinating differences distinguishing Western democracies from the likes of the Indian one. Fears about authoritarianism in the West grow out of two major concerns: citizens' desire to protect their privacy, and the fear that governments and political parties could unfairly influence electoral outcomes by getting access to their personal information. The Cambridge Analytica scandal involving Facebook data that made news a few months ago is a good example of this second fear. Personal information about tens of millions of Facebook users, many of them in the United States of America, were reportedly fished out by Cambridge Analytica and used for targeted political campaigns. Now, one could always ask whether personal data collected by various apps that we download for free can ever be fully protected from the ravages of capitalism. As a friend remarked once, "if you are getting a product free under capitalism, then you yourself must be the product that somebody wants." But, however illusory this desire to keep politics away from sales intelligence, the Western anxieties arise out of a value promoted vigorously in the 19th century and re-emphasized when totalitarian regimes arose in the 20th century: that the citizens' right to privacy was something sacrosanct. The complaints about social and big data in India speak of fears that are different. It is, of course, true that a big-data operation like the Aadhaar project has led to concerns about how safely guarded such data might be in the hands of a government not otherwise known for efficiency. But this concern hinges on a basic question of trust: can one trust the government with the safe-keeping of one's personal information? It is the end-use of the data that is in question, not the principle of its collection. This is, indeed, why the recent attempt by the chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, R.S. Sharma, to reassure the public of the 'safety' of Aadhaar data by making his personal Aadhaar number public boomeranged. It allowed many to dig up his mobile number, date of birth, (old) residential address, chat threads and so on. Sharma's insistence that people would still not be able to harm him with such data points to the real issue in this debate. The fear expressed here is about possible material losses, and not reflective of any deep commitment to some 'outworn' liberal idea of the inviolability of the personal. Trust and mistrust are key words here. True, Indians are a deeply social - and not privacy-oriented - people. More than sharing practical information, my South Asian friends and I use WhatsApp, for instance, to forward video clips, photos, cartoons, write-ups and so on. If I had to watch all the video clips that are sent to me, I would spend a good 45 minutes to an hour, maybe even more, everyday doing just that. Our sociality knows no time - anytime is good for a joke, song, or story. But issues of trust and mistrust have always qualified the sense of the social in South Asia. Even among my highly-educated friends in WhatsApp groups, issues of social trust and mistrust turn up sometimes. I have been sent material asserting, for example - and on flimsy grounds - that West Bengal is on the verge of a Muslim takeover, thanks to certain policies of the state government. My friends were entirely civil in discussing the issue but some expressed the fear that this might be true and referred to their personal experiences. But it left me wondering if the language of 'experience' - as distinct from the language of statistics bearing on the actual state of Muslims in West Bengal - was not itself a pointer to the issue of trust and mistrust. We often do not trust statistics. Perhaps state or nation-wide statistics stand for some inclusively imagined space of the social that probably does not exist beyond academic discussions. The question of the Muslim in Hindu-majority West Bengal is perhaps always at its root a question of trust. Can 'we' trust the Muslim? The fear of those who seem different makes up a deep part of our sense of the social. I remember growing up as a child in Calcutta with the fear of the child-kidnapper (the chheledhora, literally a boy-catcher). The first fridge my parents bought in the 1960s came with locking device in its door, for there was the fear of domestic servants stealing. The West has tried - with very partial success - to tame this dangerous aspect of the social by developing the idea of cosmopolitanism, an outlook that embraces diversity. We are an intensely diverse people but our cosmopolitanism is weak. Applications such as WhatsApp can be used to stoke and intensify the fear of the stranger in our midst. This stranger could be the non-political figure of the child-kidnapper; it could also be the politicized figure of the beef-eating Muslim. At such moments - aided no doubt by interested political parties and the liberal use of money - the social can take the form of a lynch mob, regardless of the target of its violence. The stranger then is just like vermin, there to be exterminated. When we speak of the dangers that social media poses to Indian democracy, we do not speak of protecting our right to privacy. Our real fear is that, left uncontrolled or directly encouraged, the lynch mobs can double up as fascist thugs. It is a fear that arises out of the fact that some of our politicians want to make cynical use of a deep and enduring feature of Indian society - the fear of those who seem different. ======================================== 19. KRISHNA REDDY OBITUARY Pupil of Krishnamurti who became a world-leading printmaker and art teacher Oliver Basciano ======================================== The Guardian 30 August 2018 Whirlpool by Krishna Reddy, 1963: the print is a frantic composition of discrete blues. Photograph: Experimenter In the late 1950s, on moving to Paris, the Indian artist and printmaker Krishna Reddy, who has died aged 93, found himself in the heart of bohemian society. ?There was one tiny little street,? Reddy recalled, ?in which all the great artists gathered.? He regularly met Alberto Giacometti, and would look in on Constantin Br?ncu?i every Sunday. In the cafes of Montparnasse, Reddy would discuss how the spiritualism he had learned from his first teacher, the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, had blended with European modernism. Underpinning his ideas was a technical knowhow that produced several innovations in the medium Reddy made his own. Reddy joined Atelier 17, the studio of a fellow printmaker, Stanley William Hayter, at 17 Rue Campagne-Premi?re, and together they developed ?viscosity printing?, in which multiple colours can be applied to the same metal printing plate, each paint mixed to a different thickness with linseed oil so that it does not contaminate the others. Whirlpool, a work from 1963 held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is typical in its frantic composition of discrete blues. His accomplishment as a printmaker, which could be seen in a 2016 show at the Met, led naturally into an equally successful career as a teacher, in particular through his establishment in 1976 of Color Print Atelier, a studio at New York University (NYU), and invitations to hold workshops from over 250 institutions globally. Born to Nandanoor and Lakshmamma Reddy, agricultural workers, in a village on the outskirts of Chittoor in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Krishna could hardly read or write until the age of 11 and yet expressed a prodigious talent for art. Copying the mythological paintings of south Indian gods and goddesses, and inspired by Nandanoor, who made sculptures for the local temple, from the age of six the boy would paint murals. He attended Rishi Valley school, established in nearby Madanapalle by Krishnamurti. Radically egalitarian in respect of caste, gender and religion, the school was raided in 1941, the colonial authorities seizing Marxist books and literature promoting independence. Krishna became vocal in his support of the Quit India Movement and was beaten on several occasions while protesting. In 1943, aged 16, he was sent by his parents to Santiniketan in West Bengal, where he studied at the art college founded by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore at the Visva-Bharati University. Their hopes that the move north would keep him out of trouble were frustrated: having volunteered to clear the streets of bodies during the Bengal famine of 1943, Reddy?s leftwing politics sharpened. In 1949, after three further years of study in Chennai (then Madras), and with the help of his old teacher Krishnamurti, Reddy attended the Slade in London. There he took classes with Henry Moore and Lucian Freud, before he received a scholarship in 1951 to be apprenticed to the Russian artist Ossip Zadkine in Paris. Soon afterwards he joined Atelier 17, and became its co-director in 1965. He produced posters in support of the Algerian revolution ? which led to his being interrogated by the French police on several occasions ? and witnessed the student uprisings of May 1968, a seismic event he documented in Demonstrators, a rare figurative series of prints and bronzes. Nature also fascinated him. Butterflies, trees, waves, spiders? webs and blossom were frequent subjects, depicted in dream-like compositions that take their cue from abstraction and surrealism. Krishna Reddy in 2011 in his studio, lined with tools. Photograph: Ram Rahman Throughout his time in France Reddy made repeated trips across the Atlantic, initially with his first wife, Shirley Witebsky, an artist with whom he exhibited at the first International Sculpture Symposium in Montreal in 1964, and then, after Shirley?s death in 1966, with the artist Judy Blum, whom he married the following year, to teach classes at the American University, Washington DC, and the University of Wisconsin. In 1976 the couple moved to New York. There, after establishing the Color Print Atelier, Reddy became director of graphics and printmaking in the art department at NYU, a post he held until 2002. Krishna and Judy lived on Wooster Street, in the space where George Maciunas and Yoko Ono had previously established the Fluxus collective. His studio, lined with hundreds of tools and piled high with printing plates, became a haven for young artists from all round the world, especially those new to the US. In 1981 the Bronx Museum held a retrospective of his work, which toured various museums in India. The Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City staged another survey in 1988, the year in which Reddy published his first book, the practical guide Intaglio Simultaneous Color Printmaking: Significance of Materials and Processes. The publication emerged from the classes Reddy was by then teaching at museums and schools across the US, Europe and Asia. Regular commercial shows took place throughout the 90s, and in 2000 the British Museum acquired a cache of prints by Reddy. Tate Britain and the Kiran Nadar Museum in New Delhi also own his work. Reddy is survived by Judy and their daughter, Aparna. Krishna Reddy, artist, born 15 July 1925; died 22 August 2018 ======================================== 20. THE RELIGION OF WHITENESS BECOMES A SUICIDE CULT A wounded and swaggering identity geopolitics puts the world in grave danger. by Pankaj Mishra ======================================== The New York Times August 30, 2018 Mr. Mishra is a contributing opinion writer focused on ideas and politics. ?White men,? an obscure Australian academic named Charles Henry Pearson predicted in his 1893 book ?National Life and Character: A Forecast,? would be ?elbowed and hustled, and perhaps even thrust aside? by people they had long regarded as their inferiors ? ?black and yellow races.? China, in particular, would be a major threat. Pearson, prone to terrors of racial extinction while living in a settler colony in an Asian neighborhood, thought it was imperative to defend ?the last part of the world, in which the higher races can live and increase freely, for the higher civilization.? His prescriptions for racial self-defense thunderously echoed around the white Anglosphere, the community of men with shared historical ties to Britain. Theodore Roosevelt, who held a complacent 19th-century faith, buttressed by racist pseudoscience, that nonwhite peoples were hopelessly inferior, reported to Pearson the ?great effect? of his book among ?all our men here in Washington.? In the years that followed, politicians and pundits in Britain and its settler colonies of Australia, Canada and the United States would jointly forge an identity geopolitics of the ?higher races.? Today it has reached its final and most desperate phase, with existential fears about endangered white power feverishly circulating once again between the core and periphery of the greatest modern empire. ?The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,? President Trump said last year in a speech hailed by the British journalist Douglas Murray, the Canadian columnist Mark Steyn and the American editor Rich Lowry. More recently, Mr. Trump tweeted (falsely) about ?large-scale killing? of white farmers in South Africa ? a preoccupation, deepened by Rupert Murdoch?s media, of white supremacists around the world. Image Donald Trump?s presidential campaign appealed to those voters with existential fears about endangered white power, Pankaj Mishra writes.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times To understand the rapid mainstreaming of white supremacism in English-speaking liberal democracies today, we must examine the experience of unprecedented global migration and racial mixing in the Anglosphere in the late 19th century: countries such as the United States and Australia where, as Roosevelt wrote admiringly in 1897, ?democracy, with the clear instinct of race selfishness, saw the race foe, and kept out the dangerous alien.? It is in the motherlands of democracy rather than in fascist Europe that racial hierarchies first defined the modern world. It is also where a last-ditch and potentially calamitous battle to preserve them is being fought today. This ?race selfishness? was sharpened in the late 19th century, as the elites of the ?higher races? struggled to contain mass disaffection generated by the traumatic change of globalization: loss of jobs and livelihoods amid rapid economic growth and intensified movements of capital, goods and labor. For fearful ruling classes, political order depended on their ability to forge an alliance between, as Hannah Arendt wrote, ?capital and mob,? between rich and powerful whites and those rendered superfluous by industrial capitalism. Exclusion or degradation of nonwhite peoples seemed one way of securing dignity for those marginalized by economic and technological shifts. The political climate was prepared by intellectuals with clear-cut racial theories, such as Brooks Adams, a Boston Brahmin friend of Roosevelt, and Charles B. Davenport, the leading American exponent of eugenics. In Australia, Pearson?s social Darwinism was amplified by media barons like Keith Murdoch (father of Rupert and a stalwart of the eugenics movement) and institutionalized in a ?White Australia? policy that restricted ?colored? migration for most of the 20th century. Anti-minority passions in the United States peaked with the 1924 immigration law (much admired by Hitler and, more recently, by Jeff Sessions), which impeded Jewish immigrants and barred Asians entirely. By the early 20th century, violence against indigenous peoples, immigrants and African-Americans reached a new ferocity, and nativist and racist demagogues entrenched a politics of dispossession, segregation and disenfranchisement. Image Illustration of international diplomats at the Palace of Versailles for the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.CreditThe New York Times Seeking to maintain white power globally, Roosevelt helped transform the United States into a major imperialist power. Woodrow Wilson, too, worked to preserve, as he put it, ?white civilization and its domination of the planet? even as he patented the emollient rhetoric of liberal internationalism that many in the American political and media establishment still parrot. At the post-World War I Paris Peace Conference, which Wilson supervised, the leaders of Britain, the United States, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada not only humiliated the many Asians and Africans demanding self-determination; they also jointly defeated an attempt by Japan, their wartime ally, to have a racial equality clause included in the Covenant of the League of Nations. The exposure of Nazi crimes, followed by decolonization and civil rights movements, generally discredited quasi-scientific racism and stigmatized overt expressions of white supremacism. In our own time, global capitalism has promised to build a colorblind world through economic integration. But as revolts erupt against globalization in its latest, more disruptive phase, politicians and pundits in the Anglosphere are again scrambling to rebuild political communities around what W. E.B. Du Bois in 1910 identified as ?the new religion of whiteness.? The intellectual white web originally woven in late-19th-century Australia vibrates once more with what the historians Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds termed ?racial knowledge and technologies that animated white men?s countries and their strategies of exclusion, deportation and segregation.? Mr. Trump, for instance, has chosen Australia?s brutal but popular immigration policies as a model: ?That is a good idea. We should do that too,? he said in January 2017 to Malcolm Turnbull, Australia?s prime minister at the time, as he explained his tactic of locking up refugees on remote islands. ?You are worse than I am,? Mr. Trump told Mr. Turnbull. If right-wing Australian politicians were among the first to mainstream a belligerent white nationalism, the periodicals and television channels of Rupert Murdoch have worked overtime to preserve the alliance between capital and mob in the Anglosphere. Indulged by Mr. Murdoch?s newspapers, writers like Bernard Lewis, Niall Ferguson, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan and Andrew Roberts repeatedly urged American neoconservatives after the Sept. 11 attacks to take up the aging white man?s burden and quell mutinous natives. A broad range of figures in the Anglosphere?s establishment, including some of Mr. Trump?s most ostentatious critics today, contributed manure to the soil in which Trumpism flourishes. Cheered on by the Murdoch press, Tony Blair tried to deepen Britain and America?s ?special relationship? in Iraq. Leaders of Australia and Canada also eagerly helped with the torture, rendition and extermination of black and brown brutes. Not surprisingly, these chieftains of white settler colonies are fierce cultural warriors; they are all affiliated with private donors who build platforms where political correctness, Islam and feminism are excoriated, the facts of injustice and inequality denied, chests thumped about a superior but sadly imperiled Western civilization, and fraternal sympathy extended to Israel, the world?s last active settler-colonialist project. Emotional incontinence rather than style or wit marks such gilded networks of white power. For the Anglosphere originally forged and united by the slave trade and colonialism is in terminal crisis today. Whiteness denoted, as Du Bois wrote, ?the ownership of the earth forever and ever.? But many descendants of the landlords of the earth find themselves besieged both at home and abroad, their authority as overlords, policemen and interpreters of the globe increasingly challenged. Image Pennsylvanian white supremacists? fear was reflected in this 1866 poster attacking the Radical Republican politician John White Geary for his support of black civil rights.CreditMPI/Getty Images Mr. Trump appears to some of these powerful but insecure men as an able-bodied defender of the ?higher races.? The Muslim-baiting British Conservative politician Boris Johnson says that he is ?increasingly admiring of Donald Trump.? Mr. Murray, the British journalist, thinks Mr. Trump is ?reminding the West of what is great about ourselves.? The Canadian YouTube personality Jordan Peterson claims that his loathing of ?identity politics? would have driven him to vote for Mr. Trump. Other panicky white bros not only virulently denounce identity politics and political correctness ? code for historically scorned peoples? daring to propose norms about how they are treated; they also proclaim ever more rowdily that the (white) West was, and is, best. ?It is time to make the case for colonialism again,? Bruce Gilley, a Canadian academic, recently asserted and promptly shot to martyrdom in the far-right constellation as a victim of politically correct criticism. Such busy recyclers of Western supremacism, many of whom uphold a disgraced racial pseudoscience, remind us that history often repeats itself as intellectual farce. The low comedy of charlatanry, however, should not distract us from the lethal dangers of a wounded and swaggering identity geopolitics. The war on terror reactivated the 19th century?s imperial archive of racial knowledge, according to which the swarthy enemy was subhuman, inviting extreme and lawless violence. The rapid contraction of suffrage rights witnessed in early-20th-century America is now mimicked by Republican attempts to disenfranchise nonwhite voters. The Australian lawmaker who recently urged a ?final solution? for Muslim immigrants was only slightly out of tune with public debate about immigration in Australia. Hate crimes continue to rise across the United States, Britain and Canada. More ominously, demographic, economic and political decline, and the loss of intellectual hegemony, have plunged many long-term winners of history into a vengeful despair. A century ago, the mere suspicion of being thrust aside by black and yellow peoples sparked apocalyptic visions of ?race suicide.? Today, the ?preponderance of China? that Pearson predicted is becoming a reality, and the religion of whiteness increasingly resembles a suicide cult. Mr. Trump?s trade wars, sanctions, border walls, deportations, denaturalizations and other 11th-hour battles seem to push us all closer to the ?terrible probability? James Baldwin once outlined: that the rulers of the ?higher races,? ?struggling to hold on to what they have stolen from their captives, and unable to look into their mirror, will precipitate a chaos throughout the world which, if it does not bring life on this planet to an end, will bring about a racial war such as the world has never seen.? Pankaj Mishra, a contributing opinion writer, is the author, most recently, of ?Age of Anger: A History of the Present.? ======================================== 21. GERMANY?S POLITICIANS ARE NOW ENABLING THE FAR RIGHT Doris Akrap ======================================== The Guardian 31 August 2018 The reaction to the racist attacks in Chemnitz suggests the mainstream is appeasing extreme views. We could be heading for dark times The far-right group ?Pro Chemnitz? stage a protest at the entrance to the stadium of Chemnitz FC, where Minister President of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer will meet with members of the public on August 30, 2018 amid tensions sparked by a deadly stabbing in Chemnitz, eastern Germany. - After the fatal stabbing of a German man allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi, thousands of far-right protesters marched in the city of Chemnitz some chasing down people they believed were immigrants. (Photo by Odd ANDERSEN / AFP)ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images Hundreds of Germans plan to march side by side with neo-Nazis tomorrow for the third time in a week, after the fatal stabbing of a 35-year-old man last Sunday in the eastern German town of Chemnitz. Since then, innocent foreigners have been hunted down and attacked. Racist slogans have been chanted amid illegal Hitler salutes. These shocking scenes have been all too reminiscent of events in Rostock in 1992, when neo-Nazis set fire to an apartment block containing Vietnamese refugees. I thought we had moved on from that time in Germany. Now I fear we are actually going backwards. The most alarming aspect of the tension in Chemnitz is the sympathetic hearing the protagonists have been given. Locals tell reporters that they have nothing against foreigners, but feel unprotected by the state. So somebody has to offer that protection to those who say they ?daren?t go out at night? ? and it?s the far right that is offering it. Of course, we heard the same thing a hundred times in the 1990s. But what do these frightened people actually fear? Crime rates are falling, not rising. For the first time since the ?90s, I sense ?the liberal progress that Germany has made could be reversed The sizeable presence of the far-right Alternative f?r Deutschland in the Bundestag has changed and darkened Germany?s national conversation about migrants. Even mainstream media and politicians are giving credence to the narratives of the right, fuelling fears that refugees are violent sexual abusers and dangerous criminals. With its inflammatory statements and interventions in parliament, on talkshows and on public platforms, the AfD is setting the agenda. This summer of German racism began when the interior minister, Horst Seehofer, put the ruling coalition at risk by demanding that Angela Merkel set up holding pens for migrants on Germany?s borders. Then there was the grotesque scapegoating of the German-Turkish football star Mesut ?zil, who was blamed for Germany?s poor showing at the World Cup. As the summer ends, we have neo-Nazis hunting down people in daylight and the police nowhere to be seen. Advertisement Seehofer has been virtually silent. Saxony?s prime minister, Michael Kretschmer, has said emptily: ?We fight rightwing extremism. We always did.? Only Merkel has truly spoken out, condemning the ?hate in the streets?, and stating unequivocally that it has no place in the country. In Saxony, the ruling Christian Democratic Union ? just like Seehofer?s Christian Social Union in Bavaria ? is reacting to falling poll ratings by veering to the right. It claims many citizens have ?fears and sorrows that have to be taken seriously?. We know this line too. We?ve heard it over and over again. It?s the line that allowed a far-right party to gain seats in the German parliament, emboldening the racists. But racism is not a ?fear? or a ?sorrow?: it?s a mindset. To take it seriously means understanding that it has steadily become part of mainstream discourse. These people want power, and they want power as rightwingers and racists, even though they call themselves democrats. Racism was and is part of Germany?s daily life. There are German people who think that other people in our society have to be removed. There are also people who stand on the other side of the street as Nazis and racists try to take it over. Once we thought the German far right was an anachronism, a remnant of a dying culture. Since the racist disturbances of the early 1990s, German society has undoubtedly become far more liberal. But the neo-Nazi organisation National Socialist Underground, which killed at least 10 people in seven years, was also founded in the 90s. It found shelter in Chemnitz at the time. For the first time since the 90s, I sense the progress made could be reversed. Why? Because the reaction to Chemnitz suggests that the political mainstream is prepared to accommodate the narratives of the far right. Migrants, and their children and grandchildren who ? like me, the daughter of a Yugoslavian Gastarbeiter ? were born and raised in Germany, have genuine ?sorrows and fears?. We fear that the permanent rise of an extreme rightwing movement in Germany is being enabled by this appeasement of racism. We lived through this once. And we think responsible politicians should take our sorrows seriously. On Wednesday night, in Wismar, another town in the east of Germany, a 20-year-old migrant was beaten with an iron chain by three assailants. If that?s not a warning our politicians should heed, then we are surely heading for dark times. Doris Akrap is a journalist at the Berlin-based newspaper Taz ======================================== 22. VIETNAM SEEKS US REPARATIONS FOR THE CHEMICAL AGENT ORANGE by Christina Lin ======================================== Asia Times August 31, 2018 Hanoi is demanding compensation from US manufacturers of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, as a last resort to help families still suffering traumatic birth defects almost 50 years after the end of the Vietnam war. On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry demanded that Monsanto and other US companies pay damages to victims of Agent Orange, a defoliant that contained highly toxic dioxin. From 1961 to 1971, the US dropped more than 75 million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in what was then called Operation Ranch Hand, in a scorched-earth policy to strip the terrain of foliage and food supplies in an effort to defeat the Viet Cong. During the 10 years of this operation, more than 2 million hectares of forest and 200,000 hectares of crops were heavily damaged or destroyed. The US Air Force sprayed about 95% of the chemical using the call sign ?Hades,? and the remaining 5% was sprayed by the US Army?s 266th Chemical Platoon. Dioxins are highly persistent in the environment, seeping into the soil, water supply, and food chain, contaminating fish, molluscs and fowl. As such, although the war has ended, new generations of the Vietnamese population continue to suffer from prolonged effects of the poison through the food supply as well as deformed children from genetic mutations passed on by their parents. The Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) says more than 4.8 million people were exposed to the herbicide and 3 million of them suffered deadly diseases. Washington finally began to help Vietnam with cleanup efforts in 2012, starting with Danang International Airport, which used to be a US airbase that stored Agent Orange. However, the Vietnamese are not the only ones demanding compensation ? American veterans of the Vietnam War suffering from the poison have also sought compensation from the US government. Almost 30 years ago, then-US senator Tom Daschle sponsored the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to study the linkage between diseases and exposure to dioxin and other chemical compounds in herbicides. In 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid US$24 billion in disability compensation to 1.3 million Vietnam War veterans. However, Vietnam itself has not received compensation for similar damages. Despite the fact that its government purposely filed its claim against a company (Monsanto) rather than proceeding with a state-to-state filing, in order to preserve the stable bilateral ties between Hanoi and Washington in recent years, the legacy of Agent Orange remains a thorny issue. It is likewise a thorny issue between Washington and Vientiane, as Laos was also a target of chemical spraying in Operation Ranch Hand. While the US has established programs to address the Agent Orange issue in Vietnam, there have not been similar programs to aid the people of Laos, though when then-US president Barack Obama visited Vientiane in September 2016, Washington did offer aid for the cleanup of unexploded cluster bombs ? another legacy of America?s ?secret war? in Laos. As covered in a previous Asia Times article, Laos holds the record for being the ?most heavily bombed country per capita? ? between 1964 to 1973 the US dropped more than 270 million tiny cluster ?bombies? on the country. Additionally, between 1965 and 1970, the US dropped at least 2 million liters of Agent Orange on southern Laos to defoliate the Ho Chi Minh Trail ? the north-to-south supply route enabling North Vietnam to conduct its war in the South ? and to deny food supplies to local Lao supporters along the Annamite mountain range. Although the Vietnam War did not end until 1975, the US stopped using Agent Orange in 1971. Because of growing international opprobrium over the use of ?poisonous spray? during the war, the new Richard Nixon administration announced a partial ban on the precursor 2,4,5-T on April 15, 1970, and the Pentagon shortly followed suit by banning all Agent Orange missions in Vietnam. Today, Operation Ranch Hand and the Vietnam War long gone, but Laos remains a poor country while Vietnam has fared better economically. In Laos, the number of unexploded mines and other ordnance strewn throughout exceeds 80 million, which continue to kill, maim, and tragically keep the country in an impoverished state decades after the war. Farmers are not able to use fertile land for agriculture nor develop the land for infrastructure, industry, or residential needs, while Vietnam faces similar problems in some parts of its country, with an estimated 350,000 tons of live bombs and mines remaining. It would take 300 years to clear them from the Vietnamese landscape at the current rate. Thus for many people in these countries, the war is not yet over. And whether Hanoi will finally win compensation from Monsanto or prompt further US assistance to both Laos and Vietnam remains to be seen. Finally, given that other chemical agents such as CS gas and napalm were very effective in fighting tunnel warfare during the war, and the increasing use of tunnels by jihadists in the Middle East, this may also prompt renewed debate on the balance between ethics and efficacy of chemical warfare in modern anti-terror operations. Christina Lin Dr Christina Lin is a California-based foreign and security policy analyst. She has extensive US government experience working on China security issues, including policy planning at the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Department of State, and her current focus is on China-Middle East/Mediterranean relations. ======================================== 23. TRAVELLING TO FIND OUT Hanif Kureishi ======================================== London Review of Books 30 August 2018 One night, I went on a boat trip down the Bosporus with about a dozen models, fashionistas, several transvestites, someone who appeared to be wearing a beekeeper?s outfit as a form of daily wear, the editor of Dazed and Confused Jefferson Hack, and Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue. We were in the European capital of culture, but it was like a fabulous night at the London club Kinky Gerlinky transferred to Istanbul and financed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. At one end of the boat, in his wheelchair, was Gore Vidal. At the other end was V.S. Naipaul. It must have been June 2010 because I remember catching Frank Lampard?s ?ghost goal? against Germany on a TV in the hotel lobby just before we dashed out. As the high-tech drum and bass beat on, and the Ottoman palaces drifted by, we godless, depraved materialists and hooligans became more drunk, stoned and unruly. Vidia, with his entourage, kept to his end of this ship of fools, and Vidal to his. We had been instructed to keep the two aged warriors apart, and I don?t believe they exchanged a single word during the four days we were in Turkey. Vidal was accompanied by two ?nephews?, strong young men in singlets and shorts who took him everywhere. He was unhappy, usually violently drunk, occasionally witty, but mostly looking for fights and saying vile things. Vidia, in love and cheerful at last, accompanied by the magnificent Nadira, remained curious, ever observant and tight-lipped. Earlier, despite his supposed animus against female writers, he had been keen to talk about Agatha Christie and how fortunate she had been never to run out of material. In contrast, from a ?small place?, he himself had had to go on the road at the end of the 1970s, to explore the ?Islamic awakening?, as he put it. He had been ?travelling to find out?. I had packed Naipaul?s Among the Believers, as a kind of guide, when I first went to Pakistan in the early 1980s to stay with one of my uncles in Karachi. I wanted to see my large family and get a glimpse of the hopeful country to which my uncle Omar ? a journalist and cricket commentator ? had gone. Like my father and most of his nine brothers, Omar had been born in India; he had been educated in the US with his schoolfriend Zulfikar Bhutto, finally turning up in Pakistan ? ?that geographical oddity? ? in the early 1950s. In his memoir, Home to Pakistan, he wrote: ?There was in the early Pakistan something of the Pilgrim Fathers who had arrived in America on the Mayflower.? At night, alone at the back of the house, I had insomnia, and felt something of a stranger myself. In an attempt to place myself, I began to work on what became My Beautiful Laundrette, writing it out on any odd piece of paper I could find. In Britain we were worried about Margaret Thatcher and her deconstruction of the welfare state of which I had been a beneficiary. I wanted to do some kind of satire on her ideas, but in Karachi they barely thought about Thatcher at all, except, to my dismay, as someone who stood for ?freedom?. My uncles and their circle were more concerned with the increasing Islamisation of their country. In Home To Pakistan Omar wrote: ?There is an appearance of a government and there is the reality of where real power lies. I had serious doubts that we would become an open society and that democracy would take root.? Zulfikar Bhutto had been hanged in 1979 and his daughter Benazir was under house arrest just up the street, at 70 Clifton Road, a property with a huge wall around it, and policemen on every corner. One thing was for sure: my family, like Jinnah, had envisaged Pakistan as a democratic home for Muslims, a refuge for those who felt embattled in India, not as an Islamic state or dictatorship of the pious. Zulfikar Bhutto (left) with Omar Kureishi Naipaul, who in the late 1970s travelled around Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan, had grasped early on that this distinction no longer held up. In Among the Believers ? surprisingly without preconceived ideas, and with a shrewd novelist?s eye for landscape and individuals ? he interviews taxi drivers, students, minor bureaucrats and even a mullah. He writes down what they say and mostly keeps himself out of the frame. As a teenager I had been a fan of what had become known as personal journalism, of firecracker writers like Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and James Baldwin, imaginative writers who included themselves in the story, and who often, as with Thompson, became the story itself. Naipaul, in one of the first reports from the ideological revolution, was doing something like this. But he was more modest, a writer of loss and restlessness. From Chaguanas, Trinidad (?small, remote, unimportant?), he now travels widely, has an extensive look around and actually listens to people ? mostly men, of course. He never interviews anyone as intelligent as he is, but he is genuinely curious, a rigorous questioner and not easily impressed. He even greets one subject, in his hotel room, while wearing ?Marks and Spencer winceyette pyjamas?, of which he is so proud he mentions them twice. Around the same time, Michel Foucault ? more leather than winceyette ? visited Ruhollah Khomeini outside Paris, and went to Tehran twice. Foucault, who was fascinated by the extreme gay lifestyle he found in San Francisco, had also written for the Corriere della Sera defending the imams in the name of ?spiritual revolution?. This inspiring revolt or holy war of the oppressed, he believed, would be an innovative resistance, an alternative to Marxism, creating a new society out of identities shattered by domination. It was new. But as Naipaul discovered, there was very little spirituality about this power grab by the ayatollahs. Soon they were hanging homosexuals from cranes; women had to wear the chador. Even in Pakistan women covered up before they went out, and no one in my family had been veiled before. One of my female cousins revered Khomeini ? ?the voice of God? ? as an example of purity and selfless devotion. He was everything a good man should be. But she also took me aside and begged me to help her children escape to the West. Pakistan was impossible for the young; everyone who could was sending their money out of the country, and, when possible, sending their children out after it, preferably to the hated but also loved United States or, failing that, to Canada. ?We want to leave this country but all doors are shut for us,? my cousin wrote to me. ?Do not know how to get out of here.? ?Fundamentalism offered nothing,? Naipaul wrote. He didn?t find much to idealise. The people Naipaul is drawn to want more, but they don?t know what it is. They are aware of their relative deprivation, but gullible ? just like the protagonist of Naipaul?s masterpiece, A House for Mr Biswas. Biswas becomes a journalist; he is working on a story called ?Escape?. But he is too intelligent for his surroundings. He becomes hysterical, endlessly dwelling on his wounds and victimhood. He is subject to a power ? colonialism ? that always humiliates him, and he has internalised its contempt. There is only one way out: the belief that at least your children will have better lives than you. Biswas?s clever son, Anand, is Vidia Naipaul: the one who would escape to Oxford, work for the BBC and become a writer. Naipaul had done all that, but he had also learned that you can?t escape the past. Now travelling in places like those he came from, he found a proliferation of anxious, wounded men like his father. But this time round, their sons wouldn?t fester. They would turn to a new machismo, a politicised Islam, ?because all else had failed.? Late in Among the Believers, Naipaul runs into my cousin Nusrat Nasarullah, then a journalist for the Morning Star. Nusrat, with his ?fruity voice and walrus moustache?, tells him: ?We have to create an Islamic society. We cannot develop in the Western way. Development will come to us only with an Islamic society. It is what they tell us.? Around the time of the Iranian revolution Bob Dylan released ?You Gotta Serve Somebody?, which elaborates the impossibility of not being devoted to someone or something. Seeking a space outside of the colonisers? ideology, Naipaul?s subjects in Among the Believers could only repeat ? only this time more harshly ? what had already been done to them. What began as an indigenous form of resistance, cheered on by a few Parisian intellectuals, soon became a new, self-imposed slavery, a self-subjection with an added masochistic element ? one manifestation of which became Osama bin Laden?s devotion to death. Hence the helplessness and disillusionment that Naipaul found. If the coloniser had always believed the subaltern to be incapable of independent thought or democracy, the new Muslims confirmed it with their submission. They had willingly brought a new tyrant into being, and He was terrible, worse than before. One of the oddest things about my first stay in Karachi was endlessly hearing people tell me how they wished the British would return and run things again. There were many shortages in Pakistan, but that of good ideas was the worst. A few months after the Bosporus boat trip, Naipaul was invited to Turkey again, to address the European Writers? Parliament, an idea of Jos? Saramago?s. This time there was an uproar: Naipaul was said to have insulted Islam after saying in an interview that ?to be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history.? Naipaul never returned to Turkey ? where now, as we know, there are more than three hundred journalists and writers in jail. Legitimate anger turned bad; the desire for obedience and strong men; a terror of others; the promise of power, independence and sovereignty; the persecution of minorities and women; the return to an imagined purity. Who would have thought this idea would have spread so far, and continue to spread? ======================================== 24. THOUSANDS RALLY IN GERMANY TO CALL FOR MIGRANT RESCUE ======================================== CGTN 2018-09-03 About 20,000 people have marched on Sunday in Berlin and Hamburg to urge the German government to accept more migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, as a response to the violent anti-migrant protests in Chemnitz in recent days. In the northern city Hamburg, almost 16,000 people were marching on the street, urging authorities to open up the city's ports to welcome migrant rescue ships stranded in the Mediterranean. Some pro-migrant protestors held up orange life vests, which are often worn by migrants stranded in the sea after fleeing their homeland in Africa to Europe by ships. Some protestors reportedly held banners reading "Human rights, not right-wing human" and "Seebr?cke instead of Seehofer." Protesters hold a banner reading "Berlin as a safe harbor!" as they demonstrate for unhampered sea rescue of refugees in Berlin, September 2, 2018. /VCG Photo "Seehofer" refers to Germany's hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer, who once offered resignation over migration row, though he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel reached a compromise later. Seebr?cke (Sea Bridge) is an international group, which demands German and European policymakers to establish safe routes for refugees, stop the criminalization of sea rescue and humanely receive the poor migrants while respecting their rights. "We must not allow refugees to drown at sea, nor must we allow them to be mobbed and beaten up," German media DW quoted Hamburg's Protestant bishop Kirsten Fehrs as saying. Some 2,500 people also participated in pro-migrant protests in Berlin, holding a banner "Berlin: A safe haven for refugees." Police maintain the security during an anti-migrant protest in Chemnitz on September 1, 2018. /VCG Photo It's reported that the Seebr?cke group had sent Berlin's authorities a petition, pushing the capital city to allow in migrants rescued at sea. Berlin should do all it could to provide visas and residency rights to those rescued, according to the group. Meanwhile, other German cities including Frankfurt also saw people marching to protect migrants on Sunday. The marches on Sunday are said to be a positive response to the clashes between far-right anti-migrant protesters and leftist protesters in Chemnitz, which were halted by police. (With inputs from Agencies) _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 17:10:43 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 02:40:43 +0530 Subject: SACW - 9 Sept 2018 | Bangladesh: Shahidul Alam / Pakistan: Secular Sisterhoods / India: Section 377 ends / Feminist Revolution In Syria / Asia: waste management / Latest Incarnation of Capitalism Message-ID: <5F3523D1-294F-4CF0-A2CF-098B952F88C7@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 9 Sept 2018 - No. 2999 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Bangladesh: ?The mixture of Islam as a state religion adjoining secularism is not healthy.? ? Sara Hossain 2. Pakistan: Faith no criterion for public service - Press release by HRCP 3. Secular Sisterhoods in Pakistan - Book Review by Aneeqa M. Wattoo 4. The Supreme Court of India Decriminalises Homosexuality, Puts An End to Section 377 (6 Sept 2018) | reports, commentary and a link the Judgment 5. India: Human Rights (i) India: Those in Authority Want to Arrest the Growing Consciousness About Human Rights | Manoranjan Mohanty (ii) India: Why the UAPA must go | Jawahar Raja 6. India: Rose Petals for a Terror Convict | Subhash Gatade 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - Protest video -- Coalition Against World Hindu Congress Chicago 2018 - India: Two members of parliament from the BJP want a national commission for men, What's up? - India: High Court loses its cool over leaks in Dabholkar murder probe | Times of India, 7 sept 2018 - India: The World Hindu Congress (WHC) in Chicago (7-9 sep 2018 - with participation of RSS chief and the Vice president of India - The gaushala games - Edit. by Times of India Regarding Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath?s election promise - India: Cartoons on the supreme court of India decriminalising same sex relations and the diapproving homophobic clerics - India: Homophobia of the clerics - upset with supreme court order of 6 sept 2018 - Abbas Bhai, Forgive Me for Revealing Your Pain to the World - India: The Conspirators Behind Gauri Lankesh Murder - A graphic via twitter ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Bangladesh Court Refuses To Hear Photographer Shahidul Alam's Case 9. Imran Khan govt succumbs to Islamists pressure, cancels appointment of Ahmadi economist | REUTERS 10. Section 377 verdict in India: Full text of select editorials 11. India: Cartoonist P Mahamud Wins the First PEN-Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism 12. India: Stop persecuting Lois Sofia, stop crushing dissent 13. India: ?Government Is Preparing The Ground For Decline Of Rural Jobs Programme? - Jean Dreze Interviewed | Shreehari Paliath 14. India: The Four Thorns in Sanatan Sanstha?s Flesh | Yogesh S 15. India: The dead tell tales | Sankarshan Thakur 16. Book Review:: Antoinette Burton. Africa in the Indian Imagination: Race and the Politics of Postcolonial Citation 17. Amid Death & Despair, A Feminist Revolution Is Happening In Syria | Rahila Gupta 18. Asia's waste management failures reach crisis levels- Japan offers lessons . . . | Geoffrey Jones 19. The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism | Grace Blakeley ======================================== 1. BANGLADESH: ?THE MIXTURE OF ISLAM AS A STATE RELIGION ADJOINING SECULARISM IS NOT HEALTHY.? ? SARA HOSSAIN ======================================== On the sidelines of the LSE-Berkeley Bangladesh Summit held at LSE in June 2018, Mahima A. Jain interviewed to Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain, who was a panellist discussing ?Civil Society and the State?. http://www.sacw.net/article13902.html ======================================== 2. PAKISTAN: FAITH NO CRITERION FOR PUBLIC SERVICE - PRESS RELEASE BY HRCP ======================================== Lahore, 8 September 2018. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed serious concern over the government?s decision to withdraw its nomination of Dr Atif Mian for the Economic Advisory Council (EAC). http://www.sacw.net/article13905.html ======================================== 3. SECULAR SISTERHOODS IN PAKISTAN - Book Review by Aneeqa M. Wattoo ======================================== . . . there is much to reflect upon in post-colonial Pakistan when feminists who draw global attention to cases of gender abuse are warned not to ?wash their dirty laundry in public? and are routinely labelled ?native informants? and ?imperial collaborators?. Afiya S. Zia?s brave and insightful book, Faith and Feminism in Pakistan, draws attention to the history, achievements and threats faced by the secular feminist movement in Pakistan today. In this welcome intervention in the field of gender in South Asia, Zia attempts to challenge a dominant historiography that she claims has failed to recognise the potential of feminist movements in Pakistan. http://www.sacw.net/article13904.html ======================================== 4. THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA DECRIMINALISES HOMOSEXUALITY, PUTS AN END TO SECTION 377 (6 SEPT 2018) | REPORTS, COMMENTARY AND LINK TO THE JUDGMENT ======================================== New Delhi, 6 Sept 2018: A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decriminalised part of a 158-year-old colonial law that made "unnatural" sex a criminal offence under Section 377. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra termed the part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that relates to sex against the order or nature between men and women as irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary. http://www.sacw.net/article13897.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: HUMAN RIGHTS ======================================== (I) INDIA: THOSE IN AUTHORITY WANT TO ARREST THE GROWING CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS by Manoranjan Mohanty Mounting state repression acknowledges the growing solidarity among the oppressed. The August assault has opened up political possibilities for the opposition in the run up to 2019. http://www.sacw.net/article13900.html (II) INDIA: WHY THE UAPA MUST GO by Jawahar Raja The UAPA is an undemocratic law that allows governments to use the cover of ?terrorism? to stifle dissent. http://www.sacw.net/article13901.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: ROSE PETALS FOR A TERROR CONVICT by Subhash Gatade ======================================== The presence of BJP and VHP leaders in the ?grand welcome? for Ajmer dargah bomb blast convict Bhavesh Patel in Bharuch is not the first instance. Such gatherings for fanatics are becoming common in Hindutva supremacist circles. http://www.sacw.net/article13903.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Protesters briefly disrupt World Hindu Congress in Chicago - Protest video -- Coalition Against World Hindu Congress Chicago 2018 - India: Two members of parliament from the BJP want a national commission for men, What's up? - India: High Court loses its cool over leaks in Dabholkar murder probe | Times of India, 7 sept 2018 - India: The World Hindu Congress (WHC) in Chicago (7-9 sep 2018 - with participation of RSS chief and the Vice president of India - The gaushala games - Edit. by Times of India Regarding Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath?s election promise - India: Cartoons on the supreme court of India decriminalising same sex relations and the diapproving homophobic clerics - India: Homophobia of the clerics - upset with supreme court order of 6 sept 2018 - Abbas Bhai, Forgive Me for Revealing Your Pain to the World - India: The Conspirators Behind Gauri Lankesh Murder - A graphic via twitter - India - Malegaon Case: Court Defers Framing of Charges Against Lt Col Purohit, Others -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. BANGLADESH COURT REFUSES TO HEAR PHOTOGRAPHER SHAHIDUL ALAM'S CASE ======================================== ndtv Bangladesh Court Refuses To Hear Photographer Shahidul Alam's Case Shahidul Alam was arrested on August 5 for making "false" and "provocative" statements on Al Jazeera and on Facebook Live during massive student protests in Dhaka Agence France-Presse | Updated: September 04, 2018 18:23 IST A lower court rejected the bail, his lawyers moved to the high court but the court did not hear the case Dhaka,Bangladesh: Award-winning photographer and rights activist Shahidul Alam, whose month-long detention has triggered an international outcry, failed to win bail on Tuesday after Bangladesh's high court refused to consider the request, his lawyer told AFP. Alam was arrested on August 5 for making "false" and "provocative" statements on Al Jazeera and on Facebook Live during massive student protests in Dhaka. Rights groups, UN rights experts, Nobel laureates and hundreds of academics have called for the immediate release of the 63-year-old, who says he has been beaten in custody. After a lower court rejected a bail petition for Alam last month, his lawyers moved to the high court in Dhaka and a hearing was set for Tuesday. But "the court did not hear the case because one of the judges (said he) felt embarrassed to hear the case," lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua told AFP. Barua said the judge did not give any further explanation. He said Alam's legal team was now trying to get the case heard by another bench of the high court. Alam's arrest capped a turbulent month in Bangladesh as teenage students poured onto the streets for nine straight days after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus. Alam had told Al Jazeera that the protests were the result of pent-up anger at corruption and an "unelected government... clinging on by brute force" that had looted banks and gagged media. He is being investigated for allegedly violating Bangladesh's internet laws, enacted in 2006 and sharpened in 2013, which critics say are used to stifle dissent and harass journalists. Alam whose work has appeared widely in Western media and who founded the renowned Pathshala South Asian Media Institute faces a maximum 14 years in jail if convicted, along with others detained during the protests. The photographer told reporters outside court last month that he had been beaten so badly in police custody that his tunic needed washing to get the blood out. New York-based Human Rights Watch has demanded his release, denouncing authorities for targeting activists and journalists instead of prosecuting those who attacked students when last month's protests were broken up. COMMENT Last week activists beamed images of Alam onto buildings in Kathmandu during a seven-nation Asian summit that included Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. ======================================== 9. IMRAN KHAN GOVT SUCCUMBS TO ISLAMISTS PRESSURE, CANCELS APPOINTMENT OF AHMADI ECONOMIST | REUTERS ======================================== The Hindu ISLAMABAD:, SEPTEMBER 07, 2018 Under Pakistani law, Ahmadis are forbidden from calling themselves Muslims or using Islamic symbols in their religious practices. Pakistan's new government cancelled the appointment of a renowned Princeton economist to its Economic Advisory Council, after a strong backlash against the choice of a member of the Ahmadi religious minority, an official said on Friday. The failure of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government to resist pressure to drop economist Atif Mian reflects the increasing clout of hardline Islamists, whose parties won around 10 % of the vote at the last July election. Faced with a looming balance of payments crisis that may force the country to seek a fresh bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or other lenders, the government had picked Mr. Mian to join an 18-member council to advise the Prime Minister. Mr. Mian (43), a scholar in finance and macroeconomics, is regarded as one of the world's top young economists. The Prime Minister's adviser on media, Iftikhar Durrani, confirmed that Mr. Mians appointment had been revoked, while the government's main spokesman alluded to the pressure the government had come under from religious quarters. ?The government wants to move forward with the religious leaders and all segments of society, and if one nomination gives a different impression, then it's not appropriate,? Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Twitter. Mr. Chaudhry had defended Mr. Mian's appointment, saying: ?Pakistan belongs as much to minorities as it does to the majority.? The government, however, changed course following a widespread social media campaign criticising the appointment and protest threats by the emergent ultra-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik party. Under Pakistani law, Ahmadis are forbidden from calling themselves Muslims or using Islamic symbols in their religious practices. They face discrimination and violence over accusations their faith insults Islam, including impediments blocking them from voting in general elections. The Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims but their recognition of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded the sect in British-ruled India in 1889, as a subordinate prophet, is viewed by many of the Sunni majority as a breach of the Islamic tenet that the Prophet Mohammad was God?s last direct messenger. ?Whenever and wherever any Ahmadi is needed to serve the nation they will be the first to offer their services,? community spokesman Salim Ud Din told Reuters when asked to comment on Mr. Mian's removal from the council. ======================================== 10. SECTION 377 VERDICT IN INDIA: FULL TEXT OF SELECT EDITORIALS ======================================== The Times of India September 7, 2018 Editorial Step out fearless: Homosexuality is no crime. From fearing state and society, gays now have law on their side Supreme Court has consigned over 150 years of discrimination against the LGBT community, wrought by enactment of the Indian Penal Code in 1860, to the annals of history. Section 377 IPC, that denied India?s homosexual citizens the right to pursue their sexual orientation, applies no more to consensual sexual behaviour. In restoring their rights to equality before law, personal liberty, privacy and life with dignity ? all fundamental rights guaranteed to an Indian citizen which should have been theirs from birth ? a grave constitutional wrong that questioned the Republic?s commitment to minority rights stands corrected. The next logical step would be to recognise gay marriage. Supreme Court (SC) has also ejected from its precedents the problematic verdict of December 2013 that recriminalised homosexuality and its observations about ?so-called rights of LGBTs? who constituted ?a miniscule fraction of the country?s population.? This had stoked much unease over law giving precedence to social mores over constitutional morality. But subsequent judgments including the historic Right to Privacy verdict and the present one have conclusively rejected the state?s right to police bedrooms or deny constitutional rights to a minority. From Justice Chandrachud beginning his judgment by noting ?The lethargy of the law is manifest yet again? to Justice Nariman concluding that ?it is clear that Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 have all been transgressed without any legitimate state rationale to uphold such provision?, SC?s focus on individual rights promises to bridge the gap between constitutional aspirations and ground realities. After all, current Indian politics is predisposed towards religion and caste ? or more broadly towards large collectives having strength of numbers. This is where a judiciary committed to democracy and constitutional values is the last resort for harried citizens. Recall how in reuniting Hadiya with her husband or quashing bans against Padmaavat, SC faced down majoritarian impulses. For similar reasons, successive governments shrunk away from amending 377. Before SC recognised privacy as a fundamental right, government stood in opposition, regarding it as an abstract concept. After helping demolish 377 and more cases like Aadhaar and adultery awaiting their turn, the privacy judgment may just have begun impacting our lives in concrete ways. What Supreme Court does in the realm of safeguarding individual liberties must shine like a beacon for lower courts to replicate. The defence of a person?s rights ? even when you disagree with that person ? keeps democracy, dissent and diversity alive. This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India. o o o The Hindu September 07, 2018 Editorial The right to love: on Section 377 verdict The Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 furthers the frontiers of personal freedom The stirring message from the Supreme Court?s landmark judgment decriminalising gay sex is that social morality cannot trump constitutional morality. It is a reaffirmation of the right to love. In a 5-0 verdict, a Constitution Bench has corrected the flagrant judicial error committed by a two-member Bench in Suresh Kumar Koushal (2013), in overturning a reasoned judgment of the Delhi High Court reading down Section 377 of the IPC. The 2013 decision meant that the LGBTQ community?s belatedly recognised right to equal protection of the law was withdrawn on specious grounds: that there was nothing wrong in the law treating people having sex ?against the order of nature? differently from those who abide by ?nature?, and that it was up to Parliament to act if it wanted to change the law against unnatural sex. The court has overruled Koushal and upheld homosexuals? right to have intimate relations with people of their choice, their inherent right to privacy and dignity and the freedom to live without fear. The outcome was not unexpected. When the courts considered Section 377 earlier, the litigation was initiated by voluntary organisations. When those affected by the 2013 verdict approached the Supreme Court, it was referred to a larger Bench to reconsider Koushal. In the intervening years, two landmark judgments took forward the law on sexual orientation and privacy and formed the jurisprudential basis for the latest judgment. In National Legal Services Authority (2014), a case concerning the rights of transgender people, the court ruled that there could be no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (2017), or the ?privacy case?, a nine-judge Bench ruled that sexual orientation is a facet of privacy, and constitutionally protected. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra?s opinion lays emphasis on transformative constitutionalism, that is, treating the Constitution as a dynamic document that progressively realises various rights. In particular, he invokes the doctrine of non-retrogression, which means that once a right is recognised, it cannot be reversed. Taken together, the four opinions have furthered the frontiers of personal freedom and liberated the idea of individual rights from the pressure of public opinion. Constitutional morality trumps any imposition of a particular view of social morality, says Justice R.H. Nariman, while Justice D.Y. Chandrachud underscores the ?unbridgeable divide? between the moral values on which Section 377 is based and the values of the Constitution. Justice Indu Malhotra strikes a poignant note when she says history owes an apology to the LGBTQ community for the delay in providing the redress. The dilution of Section 377 marks a welcome departure from centuries of heteronormative thinking. This is a verdict that will, to borrow a phrase from Justice Chandrachud, help sexual minorities ?confront the closet? and realise their rights. o o The Telegraph September 7, 2018 Editorial ?galit? Discrimination - eventually - is transient. This is the message of hope that can be gleaned from the Supreme Court's historic verdict that has overturned parts of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that had, for over 150 years, criminalized homosexuality. The progress of civilization is predicated on the nimbleness of thought. Almost five years ago, the Delhi High Court's 2009 judgment decriminalizing gay sex between consenting adults had been struck down by the apex court, dealing a crushing blow to those who seek to uphold the principle of equality. The present ruling would restore the public faith that India's highest court remains a cherished fount of wisdom that also possesses the magnanimity, courage and litheness in thought to address not just older conflicts but also the lacunae in India's judicial apparatus. It is not without reason that one of the judges happened to mention the "lethargy of law" in the given context. It would be limiting to view the pronouncement as a triumph for India's persecuted sexual minorities only. The spirit of the decree should be seen as a society's reaffirmation of the foundational principles of equality, privacy, dignity, the autonomy of individual choice and so on. This commitment, however, cannot be taken for granted, even in democracies. Contagions such as prejudice, regressive morality and even majoritarianism - the blight of New India - can combine to undermine the rights that have been guaranteed by the Constitution. The Supreme Court's unambiguous rejection of antiquated sensibilities - a "Victorian morality" in the court's view - in favour of "Constitutional morality" in its assessment of a prejudiced, discriminatory legal code is thus as heartening as its indictment of majoritarianism trampling liberty. Yet, the victory for the LGBTQS community will remain partial if it remains excluded from rights and entitlements. Perhaps the court had this embedded culture of exclusion in mind when it stated that decriminalization is only the beginning, and that the Constitution envisages a lot more. The Supreme Court has done all that it can to make Indian society more representative. The momentum that has been generated must now be carried forward by the political constituency. The marginalized - not just sexual minorities - must be able to live, work and love in the manner that they choose to without fear. That is democracy's litmus test. o o The Tribune September 7, 2018 Editorial Equal in love No bar on consensual sex between adults THE Supreme Court on Thursday lay to rest Section 377 that criminalised and discriminated specific sexual acts in private between consenting couples. No political party can take credit for the battle fought twice in the Supreme Court to remove the colonial vestige. Rather the engine behind the initiative were individuals not earlier involved in activism, NGOs and, what are today dismissively called, ?human rights? lawyers. The striking down of Section 377 should bring an end to the stigma, silence and violence that triggered a sense of shame and loss of self-esteem among those whose natural inclinations made them opt for a different sexual orientation. As a result, several of the petitioners confessed to having had to grapple with depression, self-harm and other mental health issues, including suicidal attempts. It was ironical that while the British have legalised gay marriage, the political class in its former colonies, including India, Singapore and Malaysia, besides 60 other nations, pandered to majoritarian or religious sentiments in preserving Section 377 in their statute books. Sexual orientation and gender expression form an integral part of an individual?s identity the world over and the five-judge Constitutional Bench rightly observed that the 150-year saga of criminalising gay sex was ?irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary?. Over years, the rationale of this illogical law seeped into popular consciousness, giving rise to extremely prejudicial societal behaviour towards people with a different sexual orientation. At a wider level, the judgment ought to be framed in the context of a blow against a particularly virulent strain of religious conservatism that tends to view the ?other? in a judgmental manner instead of being tolerant, inclusive and empathetic to those with a different orientation. Justice Indu Malhotra felt that history owed an apology to the LGBTQ community for denying them rights and compelling them to live a life of fear. That may be a bridge too far. For now the liberation from an atmosphere of blackmail and harassment by authorities should be adequate compensation as activists gear up to cross the next Rubicon ? legalising same-sex marriages. o o The Asian Age September 7, 2018 Editorial Landmark SC order: Gay sex not a crime Same-sex relationships had been badly affected by rigid and systematic discrimination with gays also subjected to police harassment. People react after the Supreme Court verdict which decriminalises consensual gay sex, in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) People react after the Supreme Court verdict which decriminalises consensual gay sex, in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) In a truly historic verdict, the Supreme Court has ruled that consensual gay sex is no longer a criminal offence in India. A tyrannical colonial-era law on the statute book for 157 years, including in independent India for 71 years, refused to acknowledge that differences exist in sexual orientation. The right of consenting adults of the same sex to intercourse was a criminal offence. The striking down of parts of Section 377, in a unanimous verdict, is a truly liberating moment for those with a sexual orientation that may be different from the one between male and female in more traditional sex, which subsumed the reproductive process. The Chief Justice?s words ? ?I am what I am. So take me as I am? ? rang clear and true on what was a red-letter day for a large section of people with different sexual orientation as well as those of indeterminate sex among the LGBTQI community and who have been discriminated against for just that reason. Constitutional morality must not be interpreted literally, the judges said. The old law punished ?carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal?. Ostracised sections of society can now live without fear. It?s a matter of individual identity, and violence and even stigma against those who don?t conform to the majority?s mores, and are considered ?straight?, is a violation of human rights. India can consider itself a modern society now even if it takes more time for the ruling to sink in and all sections of society begin to accept in a wholesome way that sexual preferences differ from individual to individual. Same-sex relationships had been badly affected by rigid and systematic discrimination with gays also subjected to police harassment. Given the liberty to be open about their sexual preferences and orientation, such people can also freely seek medical help, if indeed such help is needed. ?Sexual orientation is natural and people have no control over it,? a part of the judgment read. This has been so historically, as made out from epics and ancient texts. To have regressed then into accepting a British law and perpetuating discrimination in the land of the Kama Sutra was unnecessary. Further, a landmark order decriminalising gay sex was passed by the Delhi high court in 2009, later overturned in the Supreme Court in 2013. The changing times have at last been recognised by the highest court too. The judges cannot change history, but they have given a future for those with a sexual orientation that does not fall under the male-female category. It is also logical that any kind of sexual activity with animals remains a penal offence under the same section. In this defining moment, what becomes clear is that the State, which has no business in bedrooms of citizens, cannot rule over private lives. o o Deccan Chronicle September 7, 2018 DC Comment Landmark Supreme Court order: Gay sex not a crime ?Sexual orientation is natural and people have no control over it,? a part of the judgment read. India can consider itself a modern society now even if it takes more time for the ruling to sink in and all sections of society begin to accept in a wholesome way that sexual preferences differ from individual to individual. India can consider itself a modern society now even if it takes more time for the ruling to sink in and all sections of society begin to accept in a wholesome way that sexual preferences differ from individual to individual. In a truly historic verdict, the Supreme Court has ruled that consensual gay sex is no longer a criminal offence in India. A tyrannical colonial-era law on the statute book for 157 years, including in independent India for 71 years, refused to acknowledge that differences exist in sexual orientation. The right of consenting adults of the same sex to intercourse was a criminal offence. The striking down of parts of Section 377, in a unanimous verdict, is a truly liberating moment for those with a sexual orientation that may be different from the one between male and female in more traditional sex, which subsumed the reproductive process. The Chief Justice?s words ? ?I am what I am. So take me as I am? ? rang clear and true on what was a red-letter day for a large section of people with different sexual orientation as well as those of indeterminate sex among the LGBTQI community and who have been discriminated against for just that reason. Constitutional morality must not be interpreted literally, the judges said. The old law punished ?carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal?. Ostracised sections of society can now live without fear. It?s a matter of individual identity, and violence and even stigma against those who don?t conform to the majority?s mores, and are considered ?straight?, is a violation of human rights. India can consider itself a modern society now even if it takes more time for the ruling to sink in and all sections of society begin to accept in a wholesome way that sexual preferences differ from individual to individual. Same-sex relationships had been badly affected by rigid and systematic discrimination with gays also subjected to police harassment. Given the liberty to be open about their sexual preferences and orientation, such people can also freely seek medical help, if indeed such help is needed. ?Sexual orientation is natural and people have no control over it,? a part of the judgment read. This has been so historically, as made out from epics and ancient texts. To have regressed then into accepting a British law and perpetuating discrimination in the land of the Kama Sutra was unnecessary. Further, a landmark order decriminalising gay sex was passed by the Delhi High Court in 2009, later overturned in the Supreme Court in 2013. The changing times have at last been recognised by the highest court too. The judges cannot change history, but they have given a future for those with a sexual orientation that does not fall under the male-female category. It is also logical that any kind of sexual activity with animals remains a penal offence under the same section. In this defining moment, what becomes clear is that the State, which has no business in bedrooms of citizens, cannot rule over private lives. o o The Indian Express September 7, 2018 Editorial The long road to equality SC?s Section 377 verdict brings a belated but soaring moment. It?s a victory for individual and minority rights, underlines primacy of Constitution as a transformative document In the case of Section 377, judiciary has been supported enthusiastically by civil society, more reluctantly by the political class, to deliver a much belated but historic reform. Section 377 IPC is irrational, indefensible and arbitrary,? the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday while striking down a law that had oppressed India?s LGBT community for more than 150 years. What consenting adults do in their bedrooms is no longer the business of the state. ?The sexual orientation of each individual in the society must be protected on an even platform, for the right to privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution,? the five-judge bench ruled. That, in itself, makes the verdict historic. But the judgment must also be celebrated for tying the issue of sexual freedom with questions of minority rights, the protection of which is essential in any system that calls itself a constitutional democracy. ?Constitutional rights cannot be held hostage to majoritarian consensus and popular morality,? said the apex court. While striking down Section 377, the five-judge bench delineated the law?s discriminatory character. ?Section 377 IPC assumes the characteristic of unreasonableness, for it becomes a weapon in the hands of the majority to seclude, exploit and harass the LGBT community. It shrouds the lives of the LGBT community in criminality and constant fear mars their joy of life. They constantly face social prejudice, disdain and are subjected to the shame of being their very natural selves.? The judgment then tries to locate homosexuality ?as a matter of identity?. ?Attitudes and mentality have to change to accept the distinct identity of individuals and respect them for who they are rather than compelling them to become who they are not,? the five-judge bench notes. It quotes scientific research to show that the behaviour is ?as much ingrained, inherent and innate as heterosexuality?. In doing so, the bench makes a strong case for the rights of the individual. ?The LGBT community possess the same human, fundamental and constitutional rights as other citizens do since these rights inhere in individuals as natural and human rights. Respect for individual choice is the very essence of liberty under law?. Thursday?s verdict is in line with the apex court?s recent inclination to subject some of its past verdicts to scrutiny ? this was most noticeable in last year?s ruling on the privacy issue. In fact, a major portion of that landmark verdict was devoted to Section 377. The court had weighed its 2013 ruling that resuscitated Section 377 against the Delhi High Court?s verdict of 2009 that decriminalised homosexuality and had come out in support of the latter. ?Discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual,? it said. In a fundamental sense, the verdict that reads down the colonial-era law is an affirmation of the principles that underlay the privacy verdict. ?The mere fact that the percentage of population whose fundamental right to privacy is being abridged by the existence of Section 377 in its present form is low does not impose a limitation upon this Court from protecting the fundamental rights of those who are so affected by this Section,? the court has said. Its words, ?The constitutional framers could have never intended that the protection of fundamental rights was only for the majority population,? while intended as a critique of its 2013 judgment, have resonance beyond this case. In fact, the court notes that the ?struggles of citizens belonging to sexual minorities is the struggle against various forms of social subordination. This includes various forms of transgression such as inter-caste and inter-community relationships, which are sought to be curbed by society. What links LGBT individuals to couples who love across caste and community lines is the fact that both are exercising their right to love at enormous personal risk and in the process disrupting existing lines of social authority?. The battle against Section 377 has politicised generations of activists, influenced popular culture, sparked public discussion and debates ? within the LGBT community as well ? and raised awareness around sexuality and gender-related issues. Thursday?s verdict acknowledges this socio-political context: ?The challenge to Section 377 has to be understood from the perspective of a rights discourse. While doing so, it becomes necessary to understand the constitutional source from which the claim emerges. When a right is claimed to be constitutionally protected, it is but necessary for the court to analyse the basis of that assertion?. The richness of the verdict lies in the way the five judges link their understanding of the discriminatory nature of Section 377 with the role of the Constitution as ?a transformative document?. ?Our Constitution is a living and organic document capable of expansion with the changing needs and demands of the society?. The verdict calls upon courts to ?act as sentinel on qui vive for guarding the rights of all individuals?. CJI Dipak Misra, introduced the verdict with a call to ?vanish, prejudice and embrace inclusion and ensure equal rights?. The judiciary has, time and again, proved it is up to the task. In the case of Section 377, it has been supported enthusiastically by civil society, more reluctantly by the political class, to deliver a much belated but historic reform. ======================================== 11. India: Cartoonist P Mahamud Wins the First PEN-Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism ======================================== http://indianculturalforum.in/2018/09/05/cartoonist-p-mahamud-wins-the-first-pen-gauri-lankesh-award-for-democratic-idealism/ Cartoonist P Mahamud Wins the First PEN-Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism ICF Team September 5, 2018 Cartoonist P Mahamud was awarded the first PEN-Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism today in Bengaluru on the first anniversary of journalist Gauri Lankesh's assassination. The prize money for the award is one lakh rupees. The award celebrates what Gauri Lankesh stood for ? a life of commitment to equality and justice, fearlessness and above all, a strong connection with the idea of an India where diverse voices can speak with freedom. That the first award has gone to a cartoonist is significant. Cartoonists such as G Bala and Satish Acharya have been arrested or lost their jobs because of their cartoons. The award does more. In the face of multiple attacks on freedom of expression in India today, it insists that voices like Gauri Lankesh, and her counterparts in journalism, art, cartooning, film, literature and activism must be allowed to speak up, loud and clear. P Mahamud has always been very vocal about the advancement of social and economic justice through his work. In the past, he worked as a freelance cartoonist with Taranga, the Kannada weekly, The Guardian of Business and Politics, the English newspaper, Andhra Pradesh Times and the Kannada newspapers Mungaaru, Jana Vahini, Prajavani and Vijaya Karnataka. His works have always offered a non-partisan critique of political corruption, communalism and caste prejudice, in the country in general, and in Karnataka in particular. He has also published a book of his cartoons around the Ayodhya controversy, an anthology of his political cartoons titled Vyanga (Vi)chitra, and participated in the Sahmat workshop, ?Cartoonists Against Communalism? in 1993. PEN was founded in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers. PEN defends the rights of writers internationally. PEN has three centres in India ? Delhi, Bombay and South India. PEN South India was founded in 2017 and is based out of a different city each year. This annual award has been instituted by PEN South India and Delhi. A jury will be established each year, to identify the recipient of the annual award. The first award is being given to an individual or an organisation who has worked in Kannada, and the jury consists of Chandan Gowda, Sangamesh Menasinakai, Arshia Sattar, and Vivek Shanbhag. ======================================== 12. INDIA: STOP PERSECUTING LOIS SOFIA, STOP CRUSHING DISSENT ======================================== The Times of India September 4, 2018 Editorial If you call the government fascist will you be branded a terrorist and summarily arrested? This ironical turn of events has actually come to pass for research scholar Lois Sofia. Travelling on a flight from Chennai to Tuticorin in which BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan was also travelling, Sofia shouted ?fascist BJP government down, down?. She was taken into custody after Soundararajan filed a complaint with the airport police. It sends a very worrying message about political leaders? intolerance and their eagerness to use their power and privileges to crush criticism. Note that it wasn?t the airline that took this call, on Sofia causing public nuisance. Why couldn?t Soundararajan let Sofia?s slogans pass unpunished? Surely politicians should take criticisms, even if yelled at them, in their stride. After all, their own supporters would also be doing plenty of yelling at the opposition. All this sound and fury is the oxygen of democracy. Or as the Supreme Court opined last week, ?Dissent is the safety valve of democracy.? Soundararajan has been quoted as saying that she thought she shouldn?t ignore a terrorist, an accusation grounded simply in Sofia using the word ?fascist? and raising her fist. The immediate need is for the persecution of Soundararajan to stop. Over the longer term political leaders must grow more tolerance for criticism. It can hardly be the right of their supporters alone. Youthful passion should not be crushed with colonial style whips. ======================================== 13. INDIA: ?GOVERNMENT IS PREPARING THE GROUND FOR DECLINE OF RURAL JOBS PROGRAMME? - JEAN DREZE INTERVIEWED | Shreehari Paliath ======================================== IndiaSpend ?Government Is Preparing The Ground For Decline Of Rural Jobs Programme? Shreehari Paliath, September 7, 2018 Mumbai: In the budget for 2018-19, the government allocated the largest sum for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the world?s largest job-guarantee programme, since its launch in 2006. Yet, the allocation was no more than the 2017-18 revised estimate (that approximates actual requirement) of Rs 55,000 crore. In 2012-13, the share of MGNREGS was 55% of the rural development ministry?s allocation, and has since dropped seven percentage points to 48%, IndiaSpend reported on May 4, 2018. Further, the wage payments to MGNREGS workers have been routinely delayed. Nearly 57% of wages due were unpaid at the end of April 2018, as per government data. The delays were ?simply not acceptable?, the Supreme Court said, warning that red-tape could not be ?pedalled? as an excuse to deny payment, the Business Standard reported on May 18, 2018. Jean Dr?ze, a development economist and activist who is one of the architects of MGNREGS, says stagnation of real wages and the government?s chronic inability to ensure timely and reliable wage payments is discouraging workers from taking up MGNREGS work, which will lead to a decline of the scheme. Dr?ze is a visiting professor at Ranchi University. He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics, and has recently authored ?Sense And Solidarity ? Jholawala Economics for Everyone?, a collection of essays from opinion pages written between 2000-17, highlighting his action-oriented research. With Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, he has co-authored ?Hunger and Public Action? and ?An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions.? Dreze has travelled across rural India to work and research on social inequality, elementary education, child nutrition, health care and food security. In an email interview with IndiaSpend, Jean Dr?ze speaks about the issues dogging MGNREGS, the use of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in the public distribution system, and the idea of a quasi-universal income that would transfer a basic income to a target population. There have been reports of starvation deaths in Jharkhand, some of which have been blamed on technical glitches in the process of linking bank accounts with beneficiaries? Aadhaar numbers, leading to them being denied access to subsidised foodgrains through the public distribution system (PDS). In 2016, you wrote that ?the main vulnerability today, at least in the states I am familiar with, is not identity fraud but quantity fraud?. Have the circumstances changed since 2016? Has Aadhaar linking improved or worsened the situation? Two careful studies of the PDS in Jharkhand have recently emerged [only one has been released to the public as of now], and despite some differences, they agree on important points. First, there is little identity fraud, such as duplicates, in the lists of ration cards [through which beneficiaries access PDS]. The streamlining of ration-card lists, mainly using the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011, happened soon after the National Food Security came into force, and before Aadhaar came into the picture. Second, the principal vulnerability is indeed quantity fraud. Quantity fraud mainly takes the form of what is called katauti in Jharkhand. Katauti means that the PDS dealer gives everyone a little less than their due, say 32 kg of rice instead of 35 kg, for an Antyodaya [poorest of the poor] household. Both studies indicate that katauti remained much the same after Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) was made compulsory in most ration shops [PDS outlets]. That is what one might expect, since ABBA is powerless to prevent quantity fraud. Third, these studies suggest that ABBA led to a new type of fraud, at least initially. Briefly, when someone fails the biometric test, his or her rations are often appropriated by the PDS dealer. The closing stocks are supposed to be adjusted against the next month?s allocation, but that did not happen for a long time. Aside from this, the imposition of ABBA has caused significant exclusion problems, especially for vulnerable groups such as single women and the elderly. In short, the outcome of ABBA in Jharkhand can be summarised as ?pain without gain?. This is not an appropriate technology for rural Jharkhand, where connectivity problems are rampant. Smart cards would be more appropriate there. Unlike ABBA, smart cards do not depend on internet connectivity or biometrics. They have been used with good effect in Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, why not Jharkhand? In close to a decade until 2016-17, more than half the participants in MGNREGS have been women. Between 2016-17 and 2017-18, women person-days fell nearly 3 percentage points from 56.1% to 53.4%, as per government data. What are the reasons for the high participation of women and the present decline? Should the fall in total women person-days be a cause for concern? The high participation of women is a very positive feature of MGNREGS. India has one of the lowest rates of female labour force participation in the world, an issue that received little attention until recently. Of course, Indian women do a huge amount of work at home and on the family farm, but that does not enhance their economic independence since most of it is unpaid. And the economic dependence of women on men is one of the main drivers of gender inequality in India. Only a woman who has nowhere to go would take the kind of oppression, humiliation and violence that so many Indian women endure within the household. Against this background, MGNREGS work is an important opportunity for Indian women. Evidently, it is an acceptable form of employment for many of them, perhaps because it is available close to their homes, at a public worksite where they can work with their husband or other women, if need be. MGNREGS worksites are also free of private contractors, who are a major source of harassment for female workers. Further, MGNREGS wages are higher than what most rural women would be able to earn elsewhere, and they are deposited in women?s own bank accounts. So it is not surprising that large numbers of rural women have participated in MGNREGS, not only as casual labourers but at all levels. This is a valuable development, for which MGNREGS gets too little credit. The small decline in women?s share of MGNREGS person-days, from 56% in 2016-17 to 53% in 2017-18, is possibly a concern but I think it is too early to tell. If the decline persists, it will certainly be an issue. The present government seems indifferent towards MGNREGS, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi having said that it is ?a living monument? to the United Progressive Alliance?s (UPA) policy failures. What is the future for the jobs-creation programme as the government tries to increase employment and speed up growth? I would not make too much of this passing remark of the Prime Minister. The central government?s actions are more important, but they happen to be consistent with the Prime Minister?s statement. The Modi government has grudgingly accepted that MGNREGS is here to stay, but it is preparing the ground for a decline in the programme by keeping the wages constant in real terms year after year. The stagnation of real wages, along with the government?s chronic inability to ensure timely and reliable wage payments, is discouraging rural workers from taking up MGNREGS work. Sooner or later, this is likely to translate into a decline in MGNREGS employment. In fact, I believe that it is already happening in some states, though it is hidden in official statistics because of a revival of fake work attendance. When workers lose interest, corrupt middlemen step in and fudge the records to siphon off MGNREGS funds. There are also other reasons for growing corruption in MGNREGS, including misguided technological innovations that create new vulnerabilities such as the nexus between private contractors and data-entry operators. Between the wage-payments crisis and the revival of corruption, MGNREGS seems to be losing steam right now, in some states at least. There has been criticism about the quality of work completed under MGNREGS. Do you believe this aspect is misunderstood? While MGNREGS is a crucial source of employment and social security, is there an alternative where skilling/re-skilling of workers could also be undertaken? We know little about the quality of MGNREGS works, all the more so as it tends to vary a great deal across states and worksites. The best MGNREGS works have high rates of return, judging for instance from a recent study of MGNREGS wells in Jharkhand. [The study found that nearly 95% of completed wells were being utilised for irrigation, leading to a near tripling of agricultural income in the command area.] The worst are useless, as many other works in the same state illustrate. But how MGNREGS works are distributed between these two extremes is hard to guess. My sense is that in the better-governed states, MGNREGS is reasonably productive on average. This is borne out, in the case of Maharashtra, by a recent study from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. But much remains to be done to achieve similar standards of work quality across the country. As far as skill formation is concerned, one option would be to reinforce the skill formation component of MGNREGS itself. There is a perception that MGNREGS is just about unskilled work like digging, but in fact, it also includes a skill-formation component. Indeed, aside from casual labourers, MGNREGS employs a large number of people in different capacities?skilled workers, worksite supervisors, barefoot engineers, social auditors, data-entry operators, Gram Rozgar Sevaks [?village employment assistants?, which are administrative positions], and so on. Being contractual staff, most of them move to the private sector at some stage, with the benefit of the skills they have learnt under MGNREGS. This skill-formation aspect of MGNREGS could be strengthened, for instance through better training programmes for worksite supervisors and barefoot engineers. Perhaps some sort of skill ladder could also be built into MGNREGS, so that workers have a chance to become worksite supervisors, supervisors to become Gram Rozgar Sevaks, and so on. This is a little futuristic, but some steps could be taken in that direction at least. The aspirational districts programme looks to improve the socio-economic indices of 115 backward districts in India, many of which fall in the so-called ?BIMARU? states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, considered laggards in terms of growth and development). Earlier there was the backward regions grant fund (BRGF). Why are some regions continuing to fail to develop? How much of it is cultural and institutional? What are the solutions? One thing that India lacks badly is a strong sense of universal minimum standards. For instance, every school should meet some minimum standards in terms of facilities, teacher-pupil ratio and so on, wherever it is located. Of course, the Right to Education Act does set some standards. But in practice, it is still considered alright for schools in deprived areas to lack the basics. You don?t have to go to the country?s backward or aspirational districts, as they are called, to see this. You can see it in any small town, by comparing public facilities in privileged areas and deprived neighbourhoods. I mention this because it seems to me that the district is not necessarily the best unit to think about when it comes to spatial disparities. In the most advanced districts, there are backward pockets, and in the most backward districts, there are prosperous areas. This struck me when I visited Mewat, one of the poorest areas in the country, at a time when it was still in Gurgaon district, one of the country?s most prosperous districts. When special grants are allocated to the backward districts, there is a risk that they will end up doing little for the deprived areas of these districts. A different approach would be to ensure minimum standards across the country, such as RTE norms for every school, an all-weather approach road for every gram panchayat [cluster of villages], electricity for every village, and so on. In this approach, the poorer districts would still get most of the resources, since they have the largest shortfalls from minimum standards, but the resources would go where they are really needed, including deprived areas in other districts. All this, of course, is easier said than done. But the Backward Regions Grant Fund did not achieve much and the aspirational districts programme does not even seem to have a budget. So it is worth considering an alternative approach. It has been close to two years since demonetisation. Has the rural economy recovered or is it still battling the after-effects? I doubt that anyone really knows. If you believe the official statistics, the crisis was short-lived and the old trends are back. These trends are bleak as far as the rural economy is concerned. The growth rate of agriculture is sluggish, certainly compared with the rest of the economy, and real agricultural wages are barely rising. Having said this, the official statistics have lost some credibility. For one thing, the Modi government is a bit of a public-relations agency, and it is hard to believe that economic statistics are not being massaged here and there. For another, there is little direct evidence on the informal sector, which accounts for a large part of the rural economy. Annual economic statistics for the informal sector are largely based on economic modelling, using formal-sector data and whatever little information is available on the informal sector from periodic surveys. This approach may be good enough for estimating medium-term trends, but it is not geared to measuring the short-term impact of a shock like demonetisation. It is, thus, quite possible that the rural economy is faring worse, or rather even worse, than official statistics suggest. But we are in the dark on this. As agrarian distress rises, the government is attempting to double farmer income by 2022. Could you share your views on universal basic income (UBI) or quasi-UBI to farmers and agriculture labourers as advocated by Arvind Subramanian, the former chief economic adviser to the government of India? The promise to double farmers? incomes by 2022 is meaningless. For one thing, it would require a growth rate of 20% per year in real terms for four years in a row. That?s just a pipedream. For another, we have no reliable data on farmers? incomes, so this promise does not commit the government to anything tangible. As far as income-transfer proposals are concerned, the term UBI is inappropriate. The idea of basic income is that it covers the basic costs of subsistence. None of the current proposals for India meet that criterion. There are various proposals for a quasi-universal income top-up (QUIT), in the sense of modest income transfers aimed at a large majority of the population. I am not at all opposed to the idea of a QUIT for rural areas, but the modalities pose difficult questions. For instance, who is eligible, how much is to be given to different categories of eligible households, and should it be in cash or kind? In the Rythu Bandhu scheme [farmer investment support scheme launched by the government of Telangana] projected by Arvind Subramanian as a quasi-UBI, the modalities look far from ideal. Only landowners are eligible, and the transfers are proportional to the amount of land owned. That sounds very regressive. On the other hand, these modalities may be less regressive and more rational than the current structure of power and fertilizer subsidies, and indeed, Subramanian?s proposal is to replace the latter with the former. But in practice, it is not happening, and the Rythu Bandhu transfers, as I understand it, are supplements and not substitutes for other subsidies. So this does not look like a good model at all. My view is that the poorer Indian states already have a QUIT scheme in the form of the PDS, though it is in kind rather than cash. Unlike Rythu Bandhu, the PDS is progressive, and not restricted to landowners. In these states at least, it would be better to consolidate the PDS than to introduce ill-designed cash-transfer schemes. The disastrous consequences of the recent experiment with ?DBT for food subsidy? in Nagri Block of Jharkhand is an important warning in this regard. (Paliath is an analyst with IndiaSpend.) ======================================== 14. INDIA: THE FOUR THORNS IN SANATAN SANSTHA?S FLESH Yogesh S ======================================== NewsClick 06 Sep 2018 As per the SIT, the group headed by Amol Kale had plans to assassinate playwright Girish Karnad, Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami of Nidumamidi Mutt, and rationalists K.S. Bhagavan and Narendra Nayak. Rationalists under threat The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Wednesday, which also happened to be the first death anniversary of activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh, revealed that a group headed by Amol Kale, arrested in connection with Lankesh?s murder, also had plans to assassinate Girish Karnad and Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami of Nidumamidi Mutt from Bengaluru, and rationalists K.S. Bhagavan in Mysuru and Narendra Nayak in Mangaluru, immediately after Gauri Lankesh. The investigation of Amol Kale, a former convener of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) by the SIT of Karnataka, has established the fact that the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh were ideologically motivated; and have brought to light a larger conspiracy to silence the voices against Hindutva politics. The investigations have shown that the Sanatan Sanstha and its volunteers had a full-fledged plan to kill all those who opposed their idea of a Hindu Rashtra. During the course of its investigation, the SIT recovered two lists from Kale containing names of 34 targeted individuals who had publicly condemned Hindutva politics. One of the lists named Karnad, a well-known playwright and activist from Karnataka, followed by Lankesh. The second list had 26 other names. KS Bhagwan, BT Lalita Naik, Veerabhadra Channa Mallikarjuna Swamy of Nidumamidi Mutt, C S Dwarakanath, Yogesh Master, Chandrashekhar Patil, Banjagere Jayaprakash, Patil Puttappa, Nataraj Huliyar, Baraguru Ramachandrappa, Chennaveera Kanavi, Narendra Nayak, and S M Jamadar. The four names that the SIT revealed on Wednesday, have been attacked in the past by Hindutva outfits in the state... Why Were These Four Targeted? Girish Karnad Girish Karnad a Jnanpith, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee had on several occasions attacked Hindutva forces. One such occasion was a public gathering in Mysuru in 2004. He noted that none of the scriptures mentioned words like Hinduism and Hindutva, and also pointed out that these words were RSS ideologue Veer Savarkar?s contribution to carry out their regressive politics. On another occasion in 2015, Karnad had said that had Tipu Sultan been a Hindu, he would have enjoyed the status that Shivaji enjoys today in the pages of history. These instances had enraged the extremist Hindutva groups and resulted in him being attacked. The playwright has been a staunch critic of Hindutva forces. Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami is the pontiff of the Nidumamidi math, a Veerashaiva Lingayat seminary in Gulur of Kolar district. The pontiff and the math follow the philosophy of 12th century philosopher Basavanna. M M Kalburgi, who researched the philosophy, argued that Lingayats, the followers of Basavanna, were not Hindus. Lankesh, a Lingayat, also advocated this. Both Kalburgi and Lankesh were assassinated for their support to the LIngayat movement that demanded independent religion status for Lingayats. Saffron-clad Chennamalla Swami does not represent anything that the saffron robes in today?s India have come to embody. On the other side, he and Nidumamidi Math have had a strange relationship with the rising saffron-clad advocates of Hindutva ideology. On July 25, 2015, Swami in Davangere had said, ?Children or young people are often ordained as swamis. At their age they have no idea of what ascetic demands are or what renunciation is all about. It has not been possible even for people meditating in the Himalayas to achieve complete celibacy. They have strayed at times. They are riddled with questions and have had to battle paradoxes. When such is the case, how can we expect our swamis, who live a life of luxury in maths, which have come to resemble palaces, to practice celibacy? Including the Nidumamidi math, there is no 'satvik' environment left in any of our seminaries to practice celibacy...? The SS and its affiliates aim to establish a HIndu Rashtra by building armies and killing their enemies. For them and Hindutva forces in general, a saffron-clad swami critiquing Hindutva outfits is the real threat. K S Bhagavan ?It?s (Hinduism) a religion that has flourished disintegrating people based on the four-fold caste system,? was what K S Bhagavan, Kannada writer, had said in response to threats by Bajrang Dal and other Hindutva forces. Bhagavan had in 2015 had said that the Bhagavad Gita was a sectarian text which legitimises discrimination. Enraged by this, the Hindutva forces had threatened him but he refused to apologise. Speaking to The Hindu newspaper about these developments, Bhagavan had said, ?After attaining Independence, they did not try to educate the masses on the drawbacks of religion. There was this euphoria of freedom. Only the communists attempted to do this in a small way. The ignorance of religion by the masses is now being exploited by fundamentalists.? A staunch critique of the exclusionary politics and ideology of Hindutva, he has on several occasion been attacked by the likes of Bajrang Dal. Dr. Narendra Nayak The president of Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations and a godman debunker, Nayak has earned enemies from among the superstitious and religious fanatics. There have been reports of various attempts made in the past to eliminate Professor Narendra Nayak, a notable rationalist, based in Mangalore. Professor Nayak?s name was seventh in the hit list that was released on the internet following the murders of Pansare and Kalburgi. He has been facing death threats and has been attacked in the past ? the reason why he has also been given protection. Speaking to Newsclick, Nayak recollected talking to Lankesh about her safety. He says, ?Gauri had laughed it off by saying, nothing like that would happen. I do not know if she was remarking on the threat to her life or denying the protection.? Nayak says the first time he received a threat was nearly three decades ago. He, along with several others, had moved the High Court of Karnataka challenging the grant to the land to a mosque at Mangalore Harbour. Such a grant, Nayak had argued, would open the floodgates for a number of such demands. He had obtained a stay order from the court, following which, he had received death threats and was also attacked on number of occasions. He has been provided a gunman by the police since July 2016. Questioning the existence of god, ghosts and other supernatural powers is seen as a threat to the religious belief system. Rationalists, who invoke science to explain and debunk superstitions, are the enemies of SS which is a factory of superstitions. SS, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), hundreds of gau raksha samitis, and networks of named and unnamed Hindutva organisations, that pledge for Hindu Rashtra, are functioning fearlessly in the country now. With the patronage of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, these organisations continue to carry on with their terror activities in broad daylight. ======================================== 15. THE DEAD TELL TALES: VIOLENCE IS CONCEALED BY A LIE, AND THE LIE MAINTAINED BY VIOLENCE Sankarshan Thakur ======================================== The Telegraph September 05, 2018 Somewhere in his copious meditations on the nature of Soviet Russia, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had made a remark whose truth has far outlasted the life of his oppressor regime. Paraphrased, the sense Solzhenitsyn conveyed was that violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Violence, inspired mass violence in particular, is easier enacted than erased. Very often, it lives on in the decibels of denial. There lie layers and layers of subterfuge in the recurrent trapeze bouts of blame the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party play over 1984 and 2002. For every reference to the horror of 1984, the Congress brings up 2002, and for every reference to the unspeakable crimes of 2002, the BJP raises 1984. And so it plays on and on in a nauseous loop, the excess of allegation and the absence of admission. Perhaps, in a cynical fashion that we have unfortunately been inured to, it serves the interests of political parties to spar on, unmindful of the requirements of regret or redress or both. What that also serves, frighteningly, is the purpose of history's chilling lesson to the future: mass murder can be ordered again and will bring few consequences other than arguments over it. Often profitable arguments. Here lies another layer of the subterfuge. It involves us all, the lies we tell of ourselves to ourselves. Who kills? And maims and rapes and arsons about? We do. At the exhort of an H.K.L. Bhagat or a Sajjan Kumar or a Jagdish Tytler; a Maya Kodnani or a Babu Bajrangi, or some debased stoker of evil from the Sanatan Sanstha, or any or many of the lynch clubs that have sprung up across our geography? We hang the blame on them - and blame does lie on the vanguard that screams violence - but it is we, people among us, who enact that script. For a talkative society, we tell very little of the essence of ourselves. We babble in the subconscious hope it will drown our truths. We've erected opaque mental monuments to Buddha and Gandhi to blind our eager resort to bloodletting. When the glare catches us red-handed, we wipe our sins on others and melt into our vast convenience of numbers. What continues to cloy and will not go away is the memory nearly three decades old from a village called Logain near Bhagalpur in Bihar. It was the winter of 1989, the shivered evidence of crimes we collectively wreak and bear no responsibility for. It was eventually left to the vultures to rip the cover. The bodies, 116 of them, had lain there decomposing for six weeks. In that period, the village had grown wiser to the fineries of tilling - dead men made good compost. A lush winter crop of mustard had sprung on the bed of corpses they had laid. But the village was also to grow wiser to a thing or two about old idioms: dead men do tell tales, it is seldom they don't. The stench had risen high off the field and the vultures had begun to swoop low. The killing had been consummated weeks ago, an entire settlement of Muslims on the edge of Logain. Their common guilt the villagers had consigned to a common grave. The carnage was an open secret in the village but to the world beyond it was just a secret. Until the vultures arrived, followed by that rare thing called a policeman with a conscience. He had the crop shaved and the field dug up. The skulls flew into the sky as the spades got to work... Some among us were there and told the story. Logain became, like many of our stories, the child of memory's whore - an unwanted, forgotten consequence of collective shame. We are a nation eddying with bastard deeds. Nellie. Moradabad. Bhiwandi. Hashimpura. Maliana. Meerut. Kanpur. Bhagalpur. Sopore. Baroda. Aligarh. Mumbai. Chittisinghpura. Ahmedabad. Delhi. We lay blood-litter on the streets and retreat into our homes. Nobody owns up. We decamp from facts and populate our horrors with clich?d characters of fiction - a violent mob, a murderous horde, a crowd screaming, slashing, burning, a mass that suddenly descended and vanished. Who? Where from? Us. Here from. Every single time. It is we who pillage, rape and murder. Under wrongful excitement and exhortation. Under criminal instruction and protection, yes, but it is we who do it. We are the apparatchik of serial and periodic political madness, we are the midwives of the abortion of the senses. Then we wash our hands and line up for secular prabhat pheris, our opaque monuments to Buddha and Gandhi urgently recalled to veil memory and guilt. The Babel Tower of inquiries and commissions, reports and recommendations that we have piled for ourselves is a route of escape. A talkative society talking endlessly. Or an argumentative society, as we are told on formidable authority, arguing on. About who and how. About cause and consequence. About crime and the absence of punishment. Never once do we dare look ourselves in the mirror. Never do we stop pointing fingers at others. Outraged, shrieking justice, baying retribution, if legal. Hush. Where were you at the time? And what were you doing? You were electing Narendra Modi under whose watch sectarian violence proceeded unbridled. You were voting Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler back to respectable titles and hallowed portals. You were turning up in thousands to pirouette to the twisted bigotry of Pravin Togadia. You were letting Thackeray hone your hatreds. We need to ask a few questions of each other. We need to ask questions of the households that were spared the mayhem of Trilokpuri. Ask the shopkeepers of Mandvi Ni Pole. Ask around in the bylanes of Hashimpura. Ask those who live across the charred remains of Gulberg. Ask the villagers of Logain, it's been 28 winters since that resplendent mustard crop that contained a gene of murdered blood. We cannot pretend being a civil society when we claim, every now and again, rights over uncivil liberties. We cannot invoke laws that we ourselves violate. We cannot look up to a Constitution that we trample underfoot. There are a myriad contemporary Indian stories we have forgotten. They are all true stories. They have dates and datelines. They have pegs and dead people hanging by them. And there are, among us, the many hands that hung them there that have since been washed in collective and convenient forgetting. The truth about mass murder in this country we haven't learnt to tell. Even less to confront. Which is why someday, when that diabolical sloganeer appears again with a manic prescription and a surcharged bloodcry, we will again turn upon each other and consume. We live in times that implore us to beware of far too many dangers lurking about. Or above. Among them, let's face it, we should count ourselves as well. That'll be a beginning that awaits any people that wish to call themselves civilized. ======================================== 16. Book Review:: Antoinette Burton. Africa in the Indian Imagination: Race and the Politics of Postcolonial Citation ======================================== Antoinette Burton. Africa in the Indian Imagination: Race and the Politics of Postcolonial Citation. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 200 pp. $22.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-6167-1; $84.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-6148-0. Reviewed by Jyoti Mohan (Morgan State University) Published on H-Empire (June, 2018) Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University) This is a slim volume of collected essays written over several years. Antoinette Burton focuses on an individual piece of literature in each essay, a novel or a nonfictional work, authored by an Indian or African Indian. Her primary goal is to ascertain to what extent the politically stated aim of ?brotherhood? or ?solidarity? between Indians and Africans in the Bandung Conference of 1955 is echoed in the work of four authors: Anasuyah Singh, Frank Moraes, Chanakya Sen, and Phyllis Naidoo. The short conclusion states that more often than not, racial tension rather than brotherhood is the dominant theme of the works. Burton not only highlights the simple fact of racial tension between brown and black but also explores it in a sensitive manner, placing the racial relationships against the developing political backdrops of emerging movements for independence (for instance, in Singh?s Behold the Earth Mourns [1960] and in Naidoo?s accounts of anti-apartheid), postcolonial efforts to define individual and national identity (Moraes?s The Importance of Being Black [1965]), and older, existing tropes of sexual danger from darker races (represented in the resistance to interracial relationships in Sen?s The Morning After [1973]). Burton has chosen her material wisely; these are not simplistic representations of binaries but complex works with protagonists who are rebels, politically active in the movement for South Africa?s independence from colonial rule, participants in the larger Afro-Asian struggle against imperialism. The protagonists demonstrate the complexities of the political and social environment, and a constant evolution of their own thought and opinions. Burton?s stated aim is to encourage ?a politics of citation,? to view the writings by Indians and African Indians through the lens of a ?citationary apparatus,? which, defined by her, consists of the prominence of Africa and Africans in shaping the evolving ?Indian postcolonial imaginaries.? While this is a laudable goal, there are many questions that Burton leaves unanswered. The four authors she has chosen to highlight in this volume, thoughtful and complex in their works, are yet only marginal to the ?Indian postcolonial imaginary.? The same sort of political rhetoric that the Bandung Conference perpetuated can be seen in Jawaharlal Nehru?s oft-cited quote, ?Hindu- Cheeni, bhai-bhai,? which roughly translates to Indians and Chinese are brothers, but does not mitigate the fraught political and militant relationship between India and China over Tibet. To prove that the claims of the Bandung Conference went beyond simple political rhetoric, Burton needs to have provided substantial evidence of this claim playing a key role in policy decisions or even the public representation of Africans in India. This volume is incomplete in that sense. Another shortcoming of the book is its very logic. Burton is a master historian, who has proven her skill and craft time and again. In this volume, she presents four individual essays with thoughtful nuance, highlighting the presence of complex relationships of race, gender, and politics between different groups of disenfranchised people. Published as essays in journals, each would have been a worthy contribution to the larger research on the Indian diaspora in Africa. Yet, as a stand-alone volume, it lacks justification. Apart from the suggestion to apply a ?citationary approach,? Burton has added little to the analysis of the Indian diaspora in Africa. The most obvious example of the manner in which Indians in Africa generally looked down on Africans was seen in the fallout of Idi Amin?s coup when Indians were all exiled from Uganda. Even cinematically, Mississippi Masala presents the complex relationship between browns and blacks poetically, juxtaposing prejudices and political awareness in a new geographical environment. South Asians were/are racist. As a generality, this is fact. This racism is not built into South Asian culture or heritage but is yet another remnant of colonial detritus, one that South Asia has yet to unpack and dismantle. Burton has merely examined a new set of texts that echoes this message. Students looking for literary evidence of Indian racism will find excellent analyses in this volume. Generalists of history who may know nothing about the Indian diaspora in Africa but know of Burton?s renown as a historian of imperial history will learn something. Postcolonial scholars of the South Asian diaspora or the Indian subcontinent will find this volume disappointing. ======================================== 17. AMID DEATH & DESPAIR, A FEMINIST REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING IN SYRIA Rahila Gupta ======================================== Refinery 29 5 September 2018 Photo: Kongra-Star Soza Qamishlo Ever wondered what it might be like to live through a revolution? A revolution which puts women and young people at the leading edge of change? When society as you know it and all its institutions are turned upside down, virtually overnight, in the pursuit of ideals such as women?s equality or true democracy or environmental protection? Ideals which you may be passionate about but which constantly crash into walls erected by a society which puts profit before people and planet. There is a revolution going on right now. A feminist revolution, led by women, in Syria of all places ? a country of death, destruction, dust and despair, if we are to believe what we see on our TV screens. When I visited Rojava (now the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria) in 2016, all the journalists were heading to the front line. Among the forces that drove ISIS out of Raqqa ? a battle of huge significance to the West ? were a number of Kurdish women but you would have had to be extremely attentive to the news to notice them fighting alongside the men. Influenced by the ideas of Abdullah ?calan, the leader of the Kurdish freedom struggle, currently imprisoned in Turkey, who believed that "A country can?t be free unless the women are free," the women of Rojava set about building a society on the principles of democratic confederalism. With President Assad distracted by the rebel uprising in the south of Syria, the Kurds in this northern strip of land, an oppressed minority, were able to proceed with an almost bloodless revolution. Neighbourhoods were formed into communes co-led by a man and a woman, which had committees to deal with local issues like health, conflict resolution and education, which had a guaranteed 40% quota for each sex. Representatives were elected by the local people and this structure was replicated all the way up to city level. Alongside this structure was an unprecedented, women-only governance structure which had the right to veto any policies affecting women?s rights. Shortly after the women?s ministry was set up in 2014, a huge number of women-friendly laws were introduced; polygamy, child marriage and forced marriage were banned. Sharia courts which flourished under Assad and ISIS were disbanded. What is life like for young women living in a revolutionary society? I particularly wanted to speak to women from different religious and ethnic backgrounds because the revolution is Kurdish-led but actively inclusive of all minorities, to the extent that the Kurds have voluntarily surrendered their majority in this area by sharing power with Arabs and Syriac Christians in parliament. Soza Qamishlo, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, signed up with the women?s defence forces, YPJ, along with her sister in 2013, a month after the unit was formed. Coming from a family of revolutionaries, her decision to join the YPJ filled her father with pride. Although it was an easy decision, it is one that is constantly tested. She finds it hard to describe the pain she feels at the loss of her friends in the war, and the death of her sister in 2017. During the fighting there is a numbness, she says; the pain comes later. One of the most frightening moments she faced was when her fellow fighters ran away and she was left alone to confront ISIS. Soza is a serious young woman who forswears marriage, wants to write books about her time in the YPJ and dreams of meeting ?calan. She, like others I have spoken to in the YPJ, downplays the 'gals with guns' angle; their training focuses on their cause and history, on why women have to stand firm against the patriarchy. She says ISIS "didn?t give them a chance to protect themselves any other way". Photo: Kongra-Star Khawla Issa Until Raqqa, the de facto capital of the ISIS caliphate, was liberated in 2017, life for women in the city was like "living in a room with closed doors," says Khawla Issa, a 27-year-old Arab woman. Her father used to run a cheese and bread stall in the market to sustain a family of 11 children which included 10 girls and one boy. After he lost his foot in an accident, three of Khawla's sisters took over the running of the market stall but once ISIS occupied Raqqa in 2014, women were no longer allowed to go out without a male guardian. This spelled starvation for the family, who had to rely on occasional handouts of bread from ISIS. Afraid that their brother would be taken away to fight with ISIS, the family hid him. Khawla, who had been studying to become a lawyer, had to give it all up and stay at home, where she discovered the pleasures of dressmaking, an activity which fills her leisure time today. Mariyana ?sa, a 26-year-old Christian woman, also had to abandon university in Deir Azzor where she was studying chemistry when ISIS took over the city. She was lucky to be able to return to her family home in Qami?lo, Rojava. She was wise to leave when she did. Khawla's sister was shot at 11 times for defying ISIS and driving the family car. The bullets lodged in four places and she had to lie and say that they were accidental in order to get treated in the ISIS-run hospitals. To this day, Khawla has issues with her ears, which she puts down to the nose bleeds she sustained when forced to wear the niqab in very hot conditions. Despite being covered from head to foot, she attracted the attentions of an ISIS soldier; she managed to deflect his marriage proposal by lying that she was already married. Like Soza, she has no intention of getting married. Three of her sisters are already married; her parents have left it up to her even though Arab culture sees marriage as the natural destiny for women. Since Raqqa was liberated, Khawla has been working for the revolution, at the Democratic Council of Raqqa, running awareness-raising seminars on women?s rights for Arab women. When I ask her why she is wearing the hijab ? the only one of the three women I interview to do so ? she says that her work takes her into the heart of conservative communities who will ignore her work because her uncovered head will indicate that she is not a good Muslim. Although ISIS were brutal in the restrictions they placed on women, Khawla asserts that their ideas were not so different from those of Assad. Soza describes how she discussed these ideas with an ISIS fighter who was taken prisoner by the YPJ. Asking her why women were taking up arms, she explained their ideology to him and says he was "touched". Unlike the YPJ, which is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the ISIS prisoner couldn?t really articulate what he was fighting for beyond the creation of an Islamic caliphate. She asked him what kind of rights he would get in this society and he was stumped for an answer. When he asked her the same question, she was able to quote chapter and verse. Unlike ISIS, the secular Rojava revolution values all ethnicities and religious groupings, a point underlined by Mariyana. She believes that Christians are better respected by the Kurds than they were by Assad. Photo: Kongra-Star Mariyana ?sa They are free to follow their religion but the new laws, which give better rights to women, allow them to divorce, which was not formerly granted by the Church. Even in cases of domestic violence, the best you could achieve was a three-year separation to give the man a chance to change himself. Mariyana says she would like to get married one day, and hopes "to choose a good person so that the marriage lasts because all girls in this society want to get married". For now, though, her priority is qualifying and working as a chemistry teacher. Mariyana volunteers with Christian youth and the Assembly of Christian Women, undertaking small projects in the community. They have recently built a park for children. When I ask how she survives without an income, she says she asks for money when she needs it. This is something I come across often in Rojava; it is totally incredible to someone like me, raised with capitalist values. My translator says that because they are at war, there is not enough to go around, so those who need money are prioritised. Before the revolution the communities were segregated, going to their own schools, learning their own languages. Mariyana loves the fact that "the revolution has brought us together" but if she has one frustration, it is that they don?t speak each other?s languages. However, the main languages are now being taught to everybody in school, so it is just a matter of time before this changes. The future of Rojava is fragile but it will not stop these revolutionary young women from continuing to fight for their freedoms. A Feminist Revolution Is Happening In Syria Today written by Rahila Gupta ======================================== 18. ASIA'S WASTE MANAGEMENT FAILURES REACH CRISIS LEVELS Japan offers lessons in how to handle the challenge quickly and cost-effectively Geoffrey Jones ======================================== Nikkei Asian Review September 05, 2018 Asia's cities have driven the region's extraordinary growth, but they have become polluted and polluting nightmares sinking under mountains of waste. While almost the entire populations of the developed West have their waste collected and disposed of hygienically, this is far from true in many Asian economies. The percentage falls as low as 20% in poorer countries such as Pakistan and Cambodia. Collection services are best in big cities, far worse in rural areas, and rarely reach the many millions in informal settlements. Worse still is how many Asian cities dispose of most their waste in open dumps. The result is severe pollution, disease, and urban flooding. Dumps are major generators of greenhouse gases. Mumbai's huge Deonar dump is a vast concentration of methane gas which regularly catches fire. Waste is also a major social issue. In many Asian countries, people who collect and process waste face stigmatization, as well as health risks. In India, Dalits, the lowest castes in the Hindu system, perform the most unpleasant jobs. Better systems of collection and disposal cost money, but it is not evident that this is the entire, or even the major, problem in Asia. Policymakers have not prioritized collection and, especially, productive and ecologically sound disposal of waste. Most prefer to spend on other pressing issues, such as health and transport. The fact that the immediate victims of vast dumps are low in social hierarchies helps explain such preferences. Unhygienic dumps are not inevitable in poorer countries. Japan offers important lessons how to transition from a nightmare of waste to a system which uses waste productively and hygienically. These lessons are especially relevant in Asia as Japan has many similarities to other Asian nations in terms of big crowded cities and import-dependence for energy and natural resources. Japan was also a country which after decades of economic growth had mountains of waste -- until it decided to do something about it. It would be tempting, but misleading to explain this by path dependency or even culture. The Japanese word "mottai-nai" which means not letting things that have value go to waste, is said to have originated in the thirteenth century. It is still talked about in schools today. Yet there was no straight line between the past and the present. Japan grew rich with no regard to the environment in the decades after 1950. A Ministry of the Environment was created in 1971 to counter air and water pollution which made Tokyo resemble Manila and Jakarta now. But soil contamination and many other environmental issues remained remarkably unregulated even as incomes rose. Japan began disposing of urban garbage by incineration in 1960, but the process -- which produced huge volumes of exhaust gas -- only made things worse. Dioxin levels reached a record high in the 1990s. Meanwhile, illegal dumping of the products of a now-affluent consumer society went unchecked. Then it began to change. Beginning with the Basic Environmental Law of 1993, national laws were passed providing an overall framework for a new kind of waste management system, but leaving execution to local governments. Here are two immediate lessons from the Japanese experience. First policymakers must take the issue seriously by establishing mandates. Secondly, execution needs to be local. Waste is a local problem, and solutions need to be matched to local circumstances. The story of the successful system which Japan put in place begins with collection of household garbage by municipalities. The streets of big cities now contain detailed roadside signs with weekly schedules and colorful icons which set the rules. Municipalities publish waste disposal guides that can be up to 30 pages. Households and companies are mandated to separate garbage into items which can be burned, such as kitchen scraps and paper, those that cannot be burned, like batteries and electronics, and things that can be recycled such as newspapers. These are collected on different schedules, and taken to different places. The rules vary across the country. In some cities regulations require polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, bottle caps to be separated from bottles classified as plastic, while in others they are recycled together as PET bottles. What happens to the waste which is collected? In most of Asia, solid waste budgets are primarily spent on collection, but Japan devoted considerable resources to disposal also. Thirty years ago the overwhelming majority of Japanese waste went to landfills or illegal dumps. Only 5% of municipal waste was recycled. Today only 1.2% of Japanese waste goes to landfill. This is similar to the much-lauded green economy of Denmark, and much better than the U.S., which still puts over half its garbage in landfills. Most Asian countries are far higher: Indonesia and Philippines dump all their waste, not even in environmentally managed landfills. Japan uses landfills imaginatively. Tokyo Bay now has a new forest known as the Sea Forest built on 12.3 million tons of garbage, designed by the renowned architect Tadao Ando. It was funded by public donations and planted by thousands of volunteers. Here is another Japanese lesson -- the need to engage civil society in waste management Japan now recycles 20% of its waste, which is not high by developed country standards -- Germany and Austria recycle over half of their municipal waste -- but much higher than many other Asian countries. Organization rather than spending is fundamental to the system. Numerous startups have been created to recycle particular products, such as styrene foam used to pack fish. The majority of Japanese waste -- some 70% -- is turned into energy. This is an extraordinary high level, which dwarfs the U.S. (13%) and beats the best-performing European nation, Sweden (50%). Japan had begun incinerating waste in the 1960s, but the process produced huge amounts of exhaust gas, which provoked public opposition to new plants. Municipalities responding by promoting clean technologies, including burning the waste over 850 C. By 2015 dioxins emitted into the atmosphere were one-50th of the 1998 level. However there was more to this success than technology. As incinerators were located in heavily populated urban areas. An elaborate process was developed to engage stakeholders. The process of building a furnace begins with dialogue with local residents, and an assessment of environmental impacts. Furnaces are regularly designed to look good rather than be an eyesore. They often include sports and other facilities and are heated by the electricity generated by the plant. Waste serves a cultural asset. Japanese waste management is not rocket science, and it is not even cripplingly expensive. The environment ministry calculates that the total cost of waste management is now 15,300 yen ($139) per head annually. This is a lot more than Asian countries -- the Thai government may only spend $2 per head annually on municipal waste -- but the costs of missed opportunities in waste re-use and pollution are currently very high. In any case, Japan's success was not driven by huge spending, but rather a determination to prioritize the issue, and a willingness to consider waste as a resource, rather than a costly problem. The other lessons from Japan are the importance of effective local execution, high levels of civic engagement, and imaginative public-private interaction. Talking about waste in schools, as in Japan, can bring behavioral changes. Japan provides a model of how within two decades a chaotic and polluting system of waste management can be transformed. Others in Asia should take note. Geoffrey Jones is a professor at Harvard Business School and author of "Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship" (Oxford University Press, 2017). ======================================== 19. THE LATEST INCARNATION OF CAPITALISM by Grace Blakeley ======================================== https://jacobinmag.com/ Financialization isn?t a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. It?s just capitalism?s latest survival mechanism. Philosophers and economists have decried the parasitical effect of finance on productive economic activity. Plato opens his Republic with an exchange challenging the idea that one should always repay one?s debts. Adam Smith argued for attacks on landlords? entrenched privileges, while Keynes called for the ?euthanasia of the rentier.? This narrative is still prominent today. Indeed, many modern economists argue that we are entering an era of ?rentier capitalism,? in which financial capitalists thrive at the expense of good, productive industrialists. And they have a point. There is mounting evidence that an ever-increasing portion of economic output is accruing to those who gain their money from unproductive economic rents ? that is, from monopolizing inputs to production and charging above-market rates for their use. The ?rentier share? increased from 4 percent to 14 percent of total income between 1970 and 2000. Financial profits increased by a similar magnitude over the same period. These trends are linked: much of finance?s modern activity is little more than rentierism. But any analysis that sees financialization as a ?perversion? of a purer, more productive form of capitalism fails to grasp the real context. What has emerged in the global economy in recent decades is a new model of capitalism, one that is far more integrated than simple dichotomies suggest. As we pass the tenth anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, developing conceptual tools to understand financialized capitalism is vital to building strategies to overcome it. The Rise and Fall of Global Finance Financialization ? ?the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial elites in the operation of the economy? ? is a process that began in the 1980s with the removal of barriers to capital mobility. Global capital flows rose from about 5 percent of world GDP in the mid-1990s to about 20 percent in 2007. This is about three times faster than world trade flows. Increases in capital mobility helped facilitate the emergence of large imbalances between creditor countries with large current account surpluses and debtors with large current account deficits. According to textbook economic theory, these imbalances should be self-correcting. When a country runs a deficit, currency is flowing out of the country. If this currency does not return in the form of capital inflows, the resulting increase in supply will exert downward pressure on the currency. A less valuable currency makes your exports cheaper to international consumers and should therefore increase demand for those exports. Played out over the scale of the global economy, this should lead to equilibrium. In the lead-up to the crisis, the fact that this equilibrium was not forthcoming puzzled some economists. Deficit countries should have been experiencing large currency depreciations, given the size of their current account deficits. These depreciations should, in turn, then have increased the competitiveness of their goods. Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the Fed, accused a number of emerging economies of ?hoarding? savings to protect themselves from future crises, preventing the global economy from reaching equilibrium. In fact, deficit countries were able to maintain strong currencies because, even though there was relatively little demand for their goods, there was strong demand for their assets ? particularly financial assets. The main reason for the high demand for UK and US assets was the financial deregulation undertaken by neoliberal governments in these states in the 1980s, which facilitated a dramatic expansion in the provision of private credit to individuals, businesses, and financial institutions. In the UK, consumer debt ? primarily composed of mortgage lending ? reached 148 percent of household disposable incomes in 2008, the highest it has ever been. While UK banks? lending to the non-financial economy rose 50 percent between 2005-8, their lending to other financial institutions rose by 260 percet. Capital from the rest of the world flowed into banks in the UK and the US, which were generating significant returns from this lending. High levels of bank lending dramatically increased the broad money supply. All this new money led to sharp increases in asset prices. In the fourth quarter of 2017, UK house prices were almost ten times what they had been in fourth quarter of 1979, while consumer prices increased just five times over the same period. The FTSE index increased from under 100 points pre-1980 to almost 3,500 in 2007. New financial securities were also created during this era: the mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that will be familiar to those who have seen The Big Short. Rising asset prices attracted yet more international capital, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that led many to believe the party would continue forever. But ultimately this model, like any model premised on the continuous expansion of private credit, proved unsustainable. The combination of capital mobility and financial deregulation led to the emergence of a huge speculative bubble that eventually popped, resulting in the crisis of 2007-8. After the Crash Mainstream economists failed to see the crash coming. Rather than looking back through history and observing that in finance a period of calm always precedes a storm, they saw booming asset prices as a vindication of their management of the economy. Some even went so far as to declare the ?end of boom and bust.? Financial crises like that which occurred in 2008 simply didn?t fit their theoretical models. Some economists, however, did see it coming. Nouriel Roubini was referred to as Dr. Doom before the 2008 crisis finally hit. Ann Pettifor?s book The Coming First World Debt Crisis was largely ignored by the economics profession. Steve Keen was ridiculed for teaching his students about the ?global debt bubble.? These economists had one thing in common: they had read Hyman Minsky. According to Minsky?s ?two price theory,? the rules governing asset prices are different than those governing goods and services. In essence, during good times investors become overly optimistic based on their recent experience of high and increasing returns, so they borrow to invest more in assets that are increasing in price. Higher levels of investment increase the prices of those assets even more, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of optimism-driven asset price inflation. As their optimism grows after several periods of strong returns, investors will borrow more and more to invest in riskier projects because they anticipate that their returns will continue to grow. Eventually, the financial cycle enters a phase of ?Ponzi finance,? with investors piling into assets one after another based purely on the speculation-driven price rises of the recent past. This creates further asset price inflation, driving a positive feedback loop that leads to bubbles which eventually burst, creating a ?Minsky moment.? The reason the financial cycle matters is that, when the Minsky moment occurs, it can lead to an extended period of debt deflation, in which asset prices start falling and panic selling begins, catalyzing a chain reaction throughout the financial system. This causes deflation in the real economy, leading to falls in profitability, and therefore the need to liquidate even more assets to pay down debts. As business and consumer confidence is shattered, this feeds through into employment, output, and financial stability in a debt-deflation spiral that mirrors the upswing of the financial cycle in both size and severity. Unrestricted lending exacerbates these dynamics by prolonging the upswing and exacerbating the downturn. In this sense, the prolonged period of financial stability before 2008 should have been a warning sign to economists, not a source of comfort. The deficit countries experienced their Minsky moment in 2008 when lending slowed, house prices fell, and financial assets such as mortgage-backed securities and credit-default swaps effectively became worthless. Mass panic ensued when the banks suddenly found that many of the assets on their balance sheets were not really assets at all. This drove some of the world?s largest banks into insolvency ? a situation from which they were quickly rescued by frightened governments. But saving the banks couldn?t save the economy. In the UK today, we are in the longest period of wage stagnation since the 1860s. Households? outgoings exceeded their incomings in 2017 for the first time since 1988. Productivity has stalled since 2008, and the UK now produces 13 percent less output per hour worked than the G7 average. All in all, the recovery from 2008 has been the weakest since World War II. Rather than dealing with the underlying issues that led to the crisis, policymakers have attempted to engineer a return to the pre-crisis world. The Bank of England, the Fed, and the ECB pumped huge sums into the financial system by printing money to buy government debt, creating a new round of asset-price inflation that allowed bank profits to recover fairly quickly. But as much as central banks might want to, there is no going back to before 2008. "Rather than dealing with the underlying issues that led to the crisis, policymakers have attempted to engineer a return to the pre-crisis world." Since then, global cross-border capital flows have declined by 65 percent. Globalization, many believe, is now ?in retreat? owing to the collapse of its financial wing. UK corporations have become net savers rather than borrowers. Investment flows between banks have contracted as they have become much more risk averse. While household debt is rising again, it is doing so more slowly than once anticipated. We?re still securitizing much of this debt ? though today CDOs and ABSs are much more likely to be based on car loans and student debt, which are much smaller than mortgages. It is clear that the debt-boom of the pre-2008 period is over, at least in the UK and the US. But the debt overhang remains. We are entering a period of zombie capitalism, in which little new debt can be created to drive growth, but there is not enough productive economic activity to pay the old debt off. In this situation, only an extended period of extremely low interest rates can keep the economy ticking over. The Financialization of (Nearly) Everything One of the most common narratives about the rise of financialization sees this development as a product of the victory of financial over industrial capital. According to this perspective, industrial capital in the Global North experienced a profit squeeze in the 1970s amid rising input costs and increasing competition from the Global South. Weakened industrial capital found many traditional avenues of accumulation closed off, and financial speculation emerged as the most profitable alternative. However, as Costas Lapavitsas has argued, that narrative overstates the division between financial and industrial capital. Finance should not be ?treated as surface phenomena sitting atop the ?real? economic activities of production and exchange,? but as an essential system to support capitalist accumulation. Financialization does not represent a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning capitalism; instead it is the adaption of the capitalist class to the escalating contradictions evident in capitalist political economy. We aren?t witnessing the ?rise of the rentiers? in this era; rather, all capitalists ? industrial and not ? have turned into rentiers. The modern manifestation of this phenomenon is the ideology of shareholder value maximization. Since the 1980s, share ownership has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of of financial intermediaries like hedge funds and pension funds. As this process has intensified, incentives have been created for corporate executives to distribute money to shareholders today, rather than investing in ways to boost the profitability of the enterprise tomorrow. "We aren?t witnessing the ?rise of the rentiers? in this era; rather, all capitalists have turned into rentiers." In fact, nonfinancial corporations are increasingly engaging in financial activities themselves in order to secure the highest possible returns. The fact that this model is unsustainable ? resting as it does on rising leverage and increasing profit distribution over investment in future production ? is beside the point. Production was never the point of the capitalist enterprise ? profit was. And the financialization of nonfinancial corporation has been an excellent way to maximize profit. Certain households have also been able to extract peculiar benefits from the financialization of the economy. Globalization was a convenient excuse for wage repression in many parts of the Global North. The problem of overaccumulation this created ? that is, when workers aren?t paid enough to buy what capitalists produce ? was solved by the proliferation of debt. The dramatic increases in consumer lending between 1979 and 2007 improved people?s subjective sense of prosperity and allowed them to purchase luxuries like cars, iPhones, and laptops produced by hyper-exploited labor in the Global South. Some of this debt was used to purchase assets like housing, which increased in value as more people were able to purchase them. Large sections of society, and a majority of the electorate, were therefore able to materially benefit from the new economic model through capital gains. This class of ?mini-capitalists? had a material interest in the continuation of the model of debt-driven asset price inflation. The privatization of pensions was another critical extension of this model. Together, ?property owning democracy? and ?pension fund capitalism? sustained a bargain between financial capital and the middle classes that lasted all the way up to 2008. Government itself was also financialized. Under the UK?s private financing initiatives (PFIs) of the 1990s, for instance, when the government wanted to build something it would outsource the job to a private firm, which also came up with the capital to fund the project, with the government paying them back over several decades. PFI was just one way of replacing public money with private: the privatization of pensions schemes, the marketization of higher education, and the privatization of our health services have all taken liabilities off the public books and placed them with individuals and investors. Austerity can also be seen as an extension of this model. States have used private financing to demonstrate their fiscal rectitude. Part of the reason governments consider such a demonstration necessary is that they need private investors to believe that they will honor their debts. Demand for government debt is inversely correlated with yield: the higher the demand, the lower the interest payments. This gives the markets a huge amount of power to discipline states that fail to demonstrate a commitment to creditworthiness. States that fail to implement neoliberal policies can be punished through bond sell-offs (and through runs on their currencies), giving international investors the power to determine the policies of democratic states. It doesn?t matter that forcing states to implement neoliberal economic policy actually reduces their creditworthiness over the long term; the time horizons of financial capitalism are shorter than at any other period in history. Financialized Capitalism All these processes of financialization in the Global North rest on hyper-exploitation in the Global South. Facing rising input costs and increasingly militant workers in the Global North, capitalists took advantage of falling transport costs in the 1970s and ?80s to offshore production to places less integrated in the global economy. In some places, such as China, this offshoring has led to the development of a domestic capitalist class and a fundamental transformation in economic relations. In others, the process merely entailed greater levels of extraction by capitalists in the Global North. Newly independent states in the Global South didn?t have the power to boost domestic industry as the Chinese state did, so foreign direct investment was focused on multinationals extracting commodities from these countries, and surplus value from their workers, while reshoring the profits to the Global North, paying off domestic capitalists and functionaries for the privilege. "The glory days of financial globalization are now over." The processes of capital extraction visible at an international level are also visible at the sub-national level within financialized economies. Capital inflows have allowed deficit countries to maintain strong currencies, eviscerating exporting industries and leading to ever greater concentrations of power and wealth within the finance sector, concentrated geographically in one space. An economy that is overheating in one area and stagnating in another is an inevitable outcome of this process of asymmetric integration. Huge financial entrep?ts sit atop domestic economies with little interest in what goes on in the nation-states below. Financialized governments are quite happy to allow this to continue: London?s imperial role in the global economy is not only a source of tax revenues, but of national pride. As Marx argued, each adaptation of capitalism merely kicks the can down the road. The crash of 2008 was a structural crisis of the financial capitalist model. And the malaise into which the global economy, and particularly the economies of the Global North, has sunk since then is a result of the failure to paper over the contradictions of the old model or move onto something new. The glory days of financial globalization are now over. But moments of crisis are also moments of opportunity. Sustaining late-capitalist political economy in the Global North requires the continuous expansion of middle class home ownership and constant house price inflation. In the post-crash world, it is no longer possible to rely on continuous expansions of debt, partly because of changes to banking regulation. This has created serious political problems, due to the role once played by asset price inflation in sustaining neoliberalism politically. You can?t create mini-capitalists without providing them with increasingly valuable capital. And it isn?t just housing; contradictions abound. Households have become so indebted that permanently low interest rates are required to avoid another crisis, yet permanently low interest rates only lead to higher levels of indebtedness. When the next crisis comes, central banks won?t be able to loosen monetary policy much more and the resulting shock to the economy will be much worse. Aware that the current model is unsustainable, businesses aren?t investing or increasing wages. Instead they are using the profits they gain from the debt-driven spending of consumers to increase payouts to shareholders and engaging in financial activities, whether hedging, real estate investment, or even, in the case of Google and Amazon, buying up the debt of other corporations ? in essence, acting like banks. This failure to invest in production, in turn, acts as a further brake on current and future economic growth. The rising indebtedness of the state adds to these problems. Traditional Keynesian economists would argue that getting out of this mess simply requires using fiscal policy to manage demand, solving the problem of overaccumulation. But government debt doubled practically overnight during the financial crisis, primarily due to the bailout of the banks. This isn?t an economic problem, but a political one. Selling ever greater amounts of public debt to private investors involves giving more and more power to creditors, who are able to discipline governments into adopting their favored economic policies. Greece is only the most extreme example of this trend. A mass sell-off of UK government debt would create a huge crisis for the British economy, which is the logic that underlies austerity. But austerity only increases the debt burden by shrinking economic growth and impoverishing large swathes of the population, exacerbating the crisis of overaccumulation. Way Out The question that remains is, can the Left provide us with a way out? For the first time in many decades, we have the opportunity to build a coalition for socialism based on the material interests of non-capitalist classes in the Global North. Low levels of investment mean declining productivity and stagnating wages ? both of which feed into the consumer debt problem outlined above. Anyone who does not own capital ? i.e. most of the population ? will, under our current economic model, become worse off for the foreseeable future. And most of them know it. Even those who do own capital are increasingly squeezed. The inability of the system to sustain increases in wealth based on debt-backed capital gains was made painfully obvious in 2008. Late capitalism after the debt bubble has burst means falling living standards, rising inequality, and increasing political turmoil as a result. These are the changes that underlie the rise of left-wing alternatives like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. But the Left needs to do more to highlight them. Most people know capitalism is broken, but few people can tell you how. Our economic narrative has yet to move beyond ?austerity is bad? to a wider diagnosis of the structural conditions that led the economy to collapse in 2008, and which have kept it on life support ever since. Labour?s 2017 manifesto was excellent given the constraints under which it was drafted, but it merely represents an extension of a social democratic settlement that is already creaking under the strains of financialization all over the Global North. Recently, John McDonnell addressed a group of bankers saying, ?When we go into government, you come into government with us.? In the coming years the Left must refocus on the central economic questions of our time, showing that the suffering most people have endured since 2007 can be traced back to the financialization of our economy. We must show that previous governments have been too busy protecting the interests of finance to support the needs of ordinary people. And we must adopt a policy agenda that challenges the hegemony of financial capital, revoking its privileges and placing the powers of investment back under democratic control. In doing so, we might just be able to move beyond capitalism altogether. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 15:34:25 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 01:04:25 +0530 Subject: SACW - 14 Sept 2018 | Bangladesh: Bonya Ahmed recounts / Pakistan: Silencing the Press / India: Hindutva on a rampage / Brazil: Lula ends presidential bid / Kwame Anthony Appiah: race, nationalism and identity Message-ID: <4B47EEFA-AD71-4D7B-AC41-251F0239E5C1@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 14 Sept 2018 - No. 3000 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] [ with this 3000th edition of SACW an estimated 42000 articles have been distributed in our plain text mailer so far !] Contents: 1. Bangladesh: Simple narratives can be deadly - how I recovered from a terror attack | Bonya Ahmed 2. NCJP Review of education policy and on biased content in school curriculum and textbooks in Pakistan 3. Acts of Intimidation: Silencing the Press in Pakistan | Committee to Protect Journalists 4. India: Pandits living in Kashmir Valley at risk - Press release by Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (sept 10) 5. Video: Historian Ramchandra Guha interviewed by Maya Mirchandani about issues raised in his book ?Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World? 6. Study on Violence, Armed groups and Elections | Aila M. Matanock and Paul Staniland 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: 'State apathy' for lynch scars Machinery making heroes out of violators - India : BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation circular directs schools that students recite Gayatri Mantra - India: Inside Ahmedabad's Juhapura Ghetto | Christophe Jaffrelot and Sharik Laliwala - India: The Opposition?s feeble and piecemeal response to the BJP?s challenge is mystifying - Statement on violence at Hindu nationalist conference in Chicago - Chicago South Asians For Justice - India - Punjab: A foreign offence | Vinay Lal - India: Anand Patwardhan?s documentary ?Reason? holds a troubling mirror to the headlines - India: Sec 377 court verdict a threat to society - statement by Hindu Mahasabha ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 08. Bangladesh: Feeling voiceless, feeling unheard | Anupam Debashis Roy 09. Bangladesh photographer denied bail again 10. The shadowy extremist sect accused of plotting to kill intellectuals in India | Annie Gowen 11. Absence on the bench | Christophe Jaffrelot, Gilles Verniers 12. India: 1 Year, 160 Arrests - In Run up to 2019, NSA Is the Latest Weapon Against Muslims in UP | Neha Dixit 13. Primitive vision - Editorial, The Telegraph 14. What one leaves behind | Jawed Naqvi 15. Nightmarch by Alpa Shah ? among India?s Maoist guerrillas | Julia Lovell 16. The Politics of Memorialising Violent Memories 17. Kwame Anthony Appiah on race, nationalism and identity politics | Mark Vandevelde 18. Rights Activists Arrest: This Law Is An Ass | Manisha Sethi 19. India: Why Kanupriya?s election win in Punjab University is so significant | Pritam Singh 20. Tabligh Jama?at in China: Sacred self, worldly nation, transnational imaginary | Alexander Stewart 21. Brazil's Lula ends presidential bid, running mate Haddad takes his place ======================================== 1. BANGLADESH: SIMPLE NARRATIVES CAN BE DEADLY - HOW I RECOVERED FROM A TERROR ATTACK | Bonya Ahmed ======================================== Bonya and her husband Avijit Roy were targeted by Islamist terrorists in an attack which left her gravely injured and Avijit dead. Seeking to understand why this happened, she realised the question she must ask is not "Why did this happen to me?" but "Why NOT me?" In this deeply personal, powerful talk about her recovery and how we build a more peaceful world she urges us to reject the simple narratives http://www.sacw.net/article13909.html ======================================== 2. NCJP REVIEW OF EDUCATION POLICY AND ON BIASED CONTENT IN SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND TEXTBOOKS IN PAKISTAN ======================================== National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) from Pakistan has published the sixth edition of their research on the education system in Pakistan, which includes policy making, curriculum and the textbooks taught at schools across the country. http://www.sacw.net/article13916.html ======================================== 3. ACTS OF INTIMIDATION: SILENCING THE PRESS IN PAKISTAN | Committee to Protect Journalists ======================================== Although overall violence against journalists in Pakistan has declined, authorities have placed heavy restrictions on news outlets, severely curtailing the ability of the press to report the news. http://www.sacw.net/article13918.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: LIFE OF PANDITS LIVING IN KASHMIR VALLEY PUT AT RISK TO DIVERT THE ATTENTION FROM ARTICLE 35 A & ARTICLE 370. - Press release by Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (sept 10) ======================================== KPSS strongly believe that the religious minuscule minority (Kashmiri Pandit) who so ever is living in Kashmir Valley is living of his own and the kind of relationship maintained within their respective neighborhood. It seems that the news item about life threat to the religious minuscule minority (Kashmiri Pandit) in Kashmir Valley is a hoax pre-planned conspiracy and is aimed to sacrifice the Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir Valley to gain some vested interest political mileage http://www.sacw.net/article13912.html ======================================== 5. Video: Historian Ramchandra Guha interviewed by Maya Mirchandani about issues raised in his book ?Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World? ======================================== Ramchandra Guha interviewed speaks about his book ?Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World? http://www.sacw.net/article13914.html ======================================== 6. STUDY ON VIOLENCE, ARMED GROUPS AND ELECTIONS | Aila M. Matanock and Paul Staniland ======================================== published in Perspectives on Politics Sept 2018 this paper examines the ?porous? boundaries between ?normal? and ?armed? politics http://www.sacw.net/article13908.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: 'State apathy' for lynch scars Machinery making heroes out of violators - India : BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation circular directs its 765 schools that students recite Gayatri Mantra - a Hindu religious prayer during the morning assembly - India: Inside Ahmedabad's Juhapura Ghetto | Christophe Jaffrelot and Sharik Laliwala - India: The Opposition?s feeble and piecemeal response to the BJP?s challenge is mystifying - Statement on violence at Hindu nationalist conference in Chicago - Chicago South Asians For Justice - India - Punjab: A foreign offence | Vinay Lal - Can RSS be compared to Muslim Brotherhood - Google?s AI hate speech detector is easily fooled by a few typos | New Scientist - World Hindu Congress Chicago of Sept 2018 - Holy mantra: 'Bitch, bitch' - India: ABVP?s Delhi Uuniversity student union poll manifesto - points at "anti nationals" & wants ?nationalism? - USA: Sangh Jamboree in Chicago - Seema Sirohi's report on the World Hindu Congress in Chicago (sept 2018) that - Activists disrupt Hindu supremacist conclave in Chicago - Press Release from AJA - India: Anand Patwardhan?s documentary ?Reason? holds a troubling mirror to the headlines - India: "verdict was a threat to society and national interest" statement by Hindu Mahasabha against the Supreme Court Judgment striking down section 377 -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. BANGLADESH: FEELING VOICELESS, FEELING UNHEARD Anupam Debashis Roy ======================================== Dhaka Tribune September 11, 2018 All we can do is ask annoying questions This morning, I realized that I have lost my voice. I had some symptoms of the common cold the day before and noticed little cracks in my voice at night, but the morning was when I realized that I couldn?t even make a sound. All I could do is whisper at a high volume. But because there is so much noise around me, it?s impossible for people to listen to what I whisper. So, in exasperation, I often yell out words and phrases that cannot be written in the pages of a national newspaper. Whenever I use those words, everybody stops and looks at me for a minute with an expression of disgust and annoyance, but then they go on to do their everyday chores, as if I never made a sound, as if my voice never mattered. At times I get so desperate to be heard, I even resort to those words and those whispers to get my message across. But no matter what I feel, my voice is somewhat heard. In the last two decades, I have positioned myself in such a way that when I speak, people (no matter how narrow the definition of the word I have to make) often listen. I get to write a weekly column for an English newspaper that is read internationally and I get to write Bangla columns that face the common people through social shares. I have a voice even if I have throat irregularities. Every word of this very unorthodox column is proof that I have a voice even when I lose it. Maybe that is because of my class background, my upbringing, my education, or many of my other privileges, but I have a voice even if I don?t talk. So it?s hard for me to feel voiceless, but I still do because I am now (temporarily) disabled to pursue my preferred mode of communication (vocal). This makes me wonder, how do the real voiceless people feel? How does it feel to be silenced by noise from all directions? How does it feel to be marginalized so much that you lose every mode of communication and must resort to rumors and fake news in order to be heard? How does it feel when you are not trained (maybe because of structural designs) in the languages such that your thoughts are trapped in your head and you cannot make meaning out of them? What would we call that feeling? If you would excuse my brutal butchering of the very complex term, I would like to call that ?the subaltern feeling,? which is an emotion that one can experience in part by some compromise of their communicatory faculties, even if it?s as marginal as losing one?s voice to the common cold. By dint of the self-conscious mistake made in the previous paragraph, I will now try to speculate how some voiceless people feel through three simple questions. If you think that?s an outright wrong method, avoid reading what is below, but I must write this as a self-healing technique. I, an avid reader of fake news and a listener of rumours, will now pose some questions, without pretending to have the answers to them, and leave them for the readers? judgment. A girl was recently raped in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as per the police. A rumour was instantly spread that this was the doing of Bengalis. Someone commented that the amount of brutality that the child went through makes sure that this was not just a ?separate incident? but an action of systematic repression. This comment was never validated by the police or the authorities. But still, has politics been played with the Bengalis and indigenous populations to the extent that they spontaneously blame the other group when someone from their group is attacked? If so, how is this any different than ?divide and rule?? A movement was recently repressed in the streets of Dhaka. During the confrontation between the student protesters and the ruling party goons, a rumour was spread that two girls were abducted and raped. This was later confirmed as false news by many news outlets. However, does the ruling party have any blame in building up that image? Or was this also a ?separate incident and, therefore, should not be used for broad theorizations?? A stateless people have recently found themselves in an anniversary of their entry to a foreign land. Since then, they have tried their best to integrate into the majoritarian trend of the country, against that country?s will. Many of them have also been caught trying to learn Bangla, the majority?s language, so that they could pass as Bangalis and find jobs outside of the concentrated humanitarian camps that they are currently living in. Should they be prosecuted if they successfully escape those camps and infiltrate the general Bangladeshi population? Should they be disallowed from learning a new language? I will not give answer to these questions because I do not know them. But I, at this semi-voiceless state, am wondering if anyone is asking them, and even more, if anyone is even listening. All I feel is that these questions are worth asking, and possible answers to them are worth exploring. These are only three questions that I could surmise into globalspeak, but I wonder how many more questions are born and lost every day because the voiceless are systematically deprived of the training in languages. I cannot but feel that the world is losing out on much critical thinking because the voiceless are not allowed to speak. We could all have a better world if there was more voice and less noise. But that is not the set of cards we have. All we can do in this noisy world, then, is just to ask annoying questions that may take us towards a more inclusive world. That is all that I have tried to do in this piece. And now, it?s your turn. Anupam Debashis Roy is the Editor-at-large of Muktiforum. He can be reached at muktiforum at gmail.com. ======================================== 9. BANGLADESH PHOTOGRAPHER DENIED BAIL AGAIN ======================================== channelnewsasia.com 11 Sep 2018 DHAKA: A Bangladesh court refused bail for award-winning photographer and rights activist Shahidul Alam, whose month-long detention has triggered an international outcry, his lawyer said Tuesday (Sep 11). Alam was arrested on Aug 5 for making "false" and "provocative" statements on Al Jazeera and on Facebook Live during massive student protests in the capital Dhaka. Advertisement Rights groups, UN rights experts, Nobel laureates and hundreds of academics have called for the immediate release of the 63-year-old, who says he has been beaten in custody. After the country's high court last week refused to consider the request, Alam's lawyers moved to Dhaka's Metropolitan sessions judge on Tuesday, making another petition for his release on bail. "But the court rejected the bail application," his lawyer Sara Hossain told AFP, adding that the court did not explain the reason for the rejection. Prosecutor Abdullah Abu told AFP that they opposed Alam's bail after he incited people during last month's protests by making seditious comments against the government and the state. "He has said the present government must be overthrown," Abu said, quoting from the preliminary charges police filed against Alam. Alam's arrest capped a turbulent month in Bangladesh as students poured onto the streets for nine straight days after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus. Alam had told Al Jazeera that the protests were the result of pent-up anger at corruption and an "unelected government ... clinging on by brute force" that had looted banks and gagged the media. He is being investigated for allegedly violating Bangladesh's internet laws, enacted in 2006 and sharpened in 2013, which critics say are used to stifle dissent and harass journalists. Alam - whose work has appeared widely in Western media and who founded the renowned Pathshala South Asian Media Institute - faces a maximum 14 years in jail if convicted, along with others detained during the protests. The photographer told reporters outside court last month that he had been beaten so badly in police custody that his tunic needed washing to get the blood out. New York-based Human Rights Watch has demanded his release, denouncing authorities for targeting activists and journalists instead of prosecuting those who attacked students when last month's protests were broken up. On Monday the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, used her first statement to touch upon the attacks and arrests of journalists in Bangladesh. "The Government should do more to ensure freedom of expression, which is indispensable for free and fair elections," she said, as Bangladesh prepares to hold polls in December this year. Source: AFP/ad o o o SEE ALSO: THE ART OF SHAHIDUL ALAM, PRISONER IN SHEIKH HASINA?S JAILS Shahidul Alam, the recipient of Bangladesh?s highest cultural award, remains in prison. He was arrested on August 5, a month ago. Vijay Prashad 12 Sep 2018 Art is powerful. Things can be told with a glimpse that make one?s chest heave. In Budapest, during World War II, the Nazis and their Arrow Cross militia captured people ? Jewish people ? and brought them to the edge of the Danube River. The Nazis asked them to remove their shoes, then shot them ? the bodies dropping like leaves into the river. The number of those killed, on the Pest side of the River, and elsewhere in the city between December 1944 and January 1945 is 20,000. The Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated Budapest in February. About a decade ago, the film maker Can Togay and the sculptor Gyula Pauer placed sixty iron shoes on the river?s edge to commemorate the murders. Seeing these shoes gives one a deep sense of the enormous crime of fascism. Nothing more needs to be said. One can see the rest in one?s heart. https://www.newsclick.in/art-shahidul-alam-prisoner-sheikh-hasinas-jails ======================================== 10. THE SHADOWY EXTREMIST SECT ACCUSED OF PLOTTING TO KILL INTELLECTUALS IN INDIA by Annie Gowen ======================================== The Washington Post September 7, 2018 BANGALORE, India ? The killers trailed her for months, watching her every move. When the day came, they were ready for her. Journalist Gauri Lankesh had locked up the office of her scrappy weekly newspaper and had just returned home here when the killers arrived on a motorcycle. One of them ? his face obscured by a helmet ? drew close and began shooting. One, two, three shots. Lankesh tried to flee, but the last bullet ended her life. The journalist?s death a year ago reverberated across India. She was given a state funeral in Bangalore, and thousands marched in protest around the country, chanting, ?I am Gauri. We are all Gauri.? Many thought Lankesh was killed because of her outspoken criticism against the government and rising right-wing extremism. (Pushkar V, Senior Photojournalist, New Indian Express via Storyful) Police investigating the slaying think her death was part of a wider conspiracy, with evidence linking her killing to three other meticulously planned slayings of secular intellectuals since 2013. They say Lankesh?s killers were associated with Sanatan Sanstha, a shadowy extremist religious sect that has been accused of using hypnotherapy to incite its followers to kill those they consider enemies of Hinduism. Investigators uncovered a hit list of more than two dozen other writers and scholars. The hit list and the accusations against members of Sanatan Sanstha have frightened intellectuals and raised concerns about freedom of expression in the world?s largest democracy at a time when violence by fringe Hindu extremist groups ? many of whom helped propel India?s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to power ? appears to be rising. ?There is no doubt about it. This is an organized group of individuals who planned and executed all four murders, and some of those who are arrested are followers of Sanatan Sanstha,? said B.K. Singh, head of the special police team investigating Lankesh?s murder. On Aug. 27, at a news conference in Mumbai, members of the sect ? clad in the color saffron, sacred to Hinduism ? denied the accused were part of their organization. ?They must have attended our meetings and must have been staunch supporters of [the Hindu cause], but that does not mean they have been a part of Sanatan Sanstha,? said Chetan Rajhans, the group?s spokesman. Now Indians wonder who is next. Siddaramaiah, center, the chief minister of Karnataka, and other senior politicians from the state pay their respects to Gauri Lankesh in Bangalore in September 2017. (Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images) Connected violence The shooting deaths of the three other secular intellectuals in recent years bear striking similarities to Lankesh?s killing, investigators say. In 2013, gun-toting assailants on motorcycles killed doctor and activist Narendra Dabholkar; two years later, others shot and killed Communist Party leader Govind Pansare, who was also out for his morning walk. The same year, writer M.M. Kalburgi was shot and killed when he answered the door of his home. Police contend Sanatan Sanstha is the common thread: The accused gunman in the Pansare killing was a member of Sanatan Sanstha. Forensic tests show the gun used to kill Kalburgi was also used in Lankesh?s slaying, and an associate of Sanatan Sanstha is among those held in judicial custody in Lankesh?s death. None of the suspects in these cases have been convicted. The suspects in Lankesh?s killing used code names, but they also kept detailed diaries, which have been a boon to investigators in the wide-ranging investigation into the alleged extremist cell. One suspect kept a notebook that contained a map of Lankesh?s neighborhood. Another kept a hit list. An alleged recruiter for the group who was also arrested told police the suspects often took months to plan an attack, casing their targets? homes and memorizing daily routines, his statement shows. They recruited religious young zealots as triggermen, then sent them to arms training on a remote farm, investigators say. The alleged ringleader of the extremist cell, Amol Kale, a 37-year-old machine shop owner from Pune, was arrested in May in connection with Lankesh?s killing. Investigators say he provided arms and training to assailants in other attacks and that he has been associated with Sanatan Sanstha for more than a decade. Kale kept a coded diary with the names of targets and a chilling to-do list for future killings, including details such as who would bail the assailants out of jail if they were caught, investigators said. Kale?s lawyer said his client is innocent and confessed because he was beaten in custody, a charge police deny. Parashuram Waghmare, an unemployed 26-year-old who investigators say appeared in the closed-circuit footage of the killing, told police he scarcely knew who Lankesh was when he shot her. ?I killed her for my religion,? he said, according to an investigator of Lankesh?s slaying. Police think Kale hired Waghmare to carry out the killing. Allegations of violence have dogged Sanatan Sanstha since long before the deaths of the intellectuals. Members of the group were convicted in two small bomb blasts in 2008, and two followers accidentally blew themselves up trying to plant a bomb at a crowded religious festival in 2009. State authorities pressed the Indian government to ban the group as early as 2011. Violent rhetoric can be traced back to the group?s founder, Jayant Athavale, a London-trained doctor who became convinced he was an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu with a mission to establish a ?Hindu nation? in India, according to his website. About 500 followers spend their days chanting mantras, doing chores and editing the group?s newsletters in a spiritual retreat in India?s coastal haven of Goa, according to Rajhans, the sect?s spokesman. Athavale, now 76 and rarely seen, has advocated violence as part of a ?religious war,? according to one of his early books, ?The Duties of a Warrior.? ?It is very important that we slice/kill the evil-minded from the society,? Athavale wrote. ?Ours is a land of saints, we would not allow anarchy to perpetuate.? Police say Athavale once hoped to amass a huge army for his cause but eventually the focus shifted to targeting prominent secular scholars he thinks are ?durjan? ? enemies of Hinduism. Critics charge that these fringe groups are gaining strength in the current political climate in India, where Narendra Modi?s Hindu nationalist government has been faulted for doing little to stop religious violence. The sect has long maintained that it is a spiritual organization. ?Sanatan Sanstha has no connection with these killings,? Rajhans said in an emailed response to questions. ?All these allegations are baseless.? Relatives of followers who have filed a lawsuit in Mumbai allege that Athavale used manipulative hypnosis techniques to separate them from their families, coerce them into giving their money and incite them to violence, court records show. They have submitted ?The Duties of a Warrior? as evidence in court. Rajhans also rebutted that allegation: ?Nobody can be hypnotized against his wish and cannot be made to commit any evil deed. Therefore, such false things are spread only to defame Sanatan Sanstha.? A brave voice Lankesh had been an iconoclast her whole life, rejecting the constraints of India?s traditional society even as a young girl, her sister Kavitha, 53, a filmmaker, recalled in an interview. When her family tried to marry her off to a doctor, she went to the beauty parlor and got her hair cut as short as a boy?s, she recalled. ?It was like a Bollywood movie,? Kavitha Lankesh said. ?The guy wanted to marry her anyway!? She championed the rights of women, India?s lower caste and indigenous peoples, and wrote columns taking on establishment politicians and religious zealots ? whom she dubbed ?the lunatic brigade? ? without fear. Toward the end of her life, Lankesh, 55, was increasingly worn down by the demands of trying to keep her tiny newsweekly afloat while fighting defamation cases and online trolling, friends said. Hundreds of people participate in a rally against the assassination of Gauri Lankesh, in Bangalore, India, in September 2017. (Arijit Sen/Hindustan Times/Getty Images) ?People are more circumspect now about what they write and what they say. Your words can be misinterpreted and twisted very consciously,? said Umar Khalid, 31, a well-known student activist and friend of Lankesh?s. On Aug. 13, Khalid was walking into an anti-hate rally steps from the country?s Parliament building in New Delhi when he was attacked from behind by a gun-wielding assailant who tried to shoot him in the ribs. Khalid was spared only because the gun probably jammed. ?I immediately thought of Gauri,? he said. ?In those 10 seconds, I thought ? this is the end of my life.? The attacker eventually fired one shot and escaped into the crowd. Later, the alleged assailant, Naveen Dalal, released a video with another man claiming responsibility for the attempted killing. The two were subsequently arrested. They said they were going to kill Khalid as a gift to the nation. Azmathulla Shariff in Bangalore, Sangeeta Gandhe in Pune and Farheen Fatima in Delhi contributed to this report. Annie Gowen is an incoming correspondent for The Washington Post's National desk. She was previously The Post?s India bureau chief and has reported for The Post throughout South Asia and the Middle East since 2013. Before going to India, she was a member of The Post's social issues team covering wealth and inequality. ======================================== 11. ABSENCE ON THE BENCH Judiciary has become another institution where Muslims are more and more under-represented by Christophe Jaffrelot , Gilles Verniers ======================================== The Indian Express September 10, 2018 The SC has a history of defending Muslims against the high courts of other states. While the percentage of Muslims in prison has never been higher ? 21 per cent ? the proportion of Muslims convicted ? 15.8 per cent ? is closer to their share of the population (14.2 per cent in the 2011 Census). This indicates that many Muslims arrested by the police and charged end up being acquitted, usually for lack of evidence, after spending years, even decades, behind bars. This gap reflects police bias on the one hand, but also the resilient professionalism of the judiciary. Except that the professionalism of the judiciary tends to decrease as one climbs down the judicial institutional ladder. The recent trial of Mohsin Shaikh?s murder is a textbook case. This 24-year-old computer engineer was killed in a street in Pune while returning home from the mosque, by a group of about 20 individuals, who attacked him as they walked out from a Hindu Rashtra Sena rally, organised in protest against derogatory images of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray on social media. The court considered that Mohsin was attacked ?because he looked like a Muslim? and his 23 assailants were arrested and charged with murder. A high court justice of Bombay granted them release on parole, however, on the grounds that Mohsin?s religion constituted a provocation. The judge said that ?The applicants/accused otherwise had no other motive such as any personal enmity against the innocent deceased Mohsin. The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the applicants/accused?. The family filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, which overturned the judgment, stating ?the fact that the deceased [Mohsin] belonged to a certain community cannot be a justification for any assault much less a murder?. It moreover invited the lower courts to be ?fully conscious of the plural composition of the country while called upon to deal with rights of various communities?. That it required the highest court of the land to drive home such an obvious fact shows the degree of anti-Muslim bias in the system. The SC has a history of defending Muslims against the high courts of other states. The Allahabad High Court ? which handed down a controversial judgment in the Ayodhya case in 2010 ? decided in February 2018 to reclaim Waqf properties that did not meet zoning or architectural guidelines ? both subjective notions. The SC stayed the decision before the BJP government could implement it. Similarly, the SC has come to the aid of minority educational institutions, including the National Council for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI), whose mission is to accredit educational institutions that apply for minority status. The existence of this institution, created by the Manmohan Singh government in 2004, is currently threatened. Between its creation and 2017, it has recognised the ?minority? status of 13,331 educational institutions. Its last chairman, Justice MSA Siddiqui, resigned in 2014 and has not been replaced since. In April 2018, the SC upheld a decision taken by the NCMEI that had been challenged in the Calcutta High Court and seized the opportunity to reassert the rights that the Indian Constitution grants to religious and linguistic minorities. This majoritarian ethos of the high courts is compounded by the under-representation of Muslims in the judiciary. Since 2010 and with the exception of the Hyderabad High Court, the representation of Muslims among high court judges is significantly lower than their demographic share, state-wise. In addition, those numbers have been decreasing over time, with the exception of Hyderabad (again) and Jammu & Kashmir High Court. In West Bengal, the share of Muslims among judges has decreased from 25 per cent in 1991 to 8 per cent in 2011 (while the percentage of Muslims has jumped from 23.6 per cent to 27 per cent). The Karnataka High Court used to count 67 per cent of Muslims in 1961, a number that went down to 2.9 per cent in 2011 (whereas the proportion of Muslims has increased from 9.87 to 12.9 per cent). Over the same period, the share of Muslims among justices of the Jabalpur High Court declined from 14.3 per cent to 2.9 per cent (whereas the Muslim population has increased from 4 per cent to 6.6 per cent). It is the same story in Patna, where Muslims occupied 5.4 per cent of the bench in 2011, against 25 per cent in 1951 (whereas the Muslims? share of Bihar?s population has moved on from 12.45 to 16.9 per cent). The apex court offers a similar landscape. In the 1950s, among the 24 judges appointed to the SC, only four were Muslims (16.6 per cent). No Muslims were appointed during the 1960s (out of 16 nominations). Only two Muslims were appointed in the 1970s (out of 26), four in the 1980s (out of 33), that is 12 per cent. The ratio of Muslim SC judges decreases after the 1980s at the same time as the number of nominations increases: Three out of 40 in the 1990s, two out of 49 in the 2000s and three out of 40 since 2010, Justices MY Ekbal and FM Ibrahim Kalifulla in 2012 and Justice S Abdul Nazeer in 2017. In total, 18 Muslim judges were appointed in the SC, out of 229 (before 2018), that is slightly less than 8 per cent, for a demographic segment that represent 14.2 per cent of the total population. Those numbers indicate that the judiciary ? particularly high courts ? have become (or have been, in the case of the SC), another institution where Muslims have become more and more under-represented, alongside elected assemblies, police, army and administration. These numbers are revealing of the state of representation of India?s largest minority in an important institution. But one cannot derive from it that Muslim defendants would be better or equally well defended if they were better represented in the courts among the magistrates (although one could argue that the variations of sanction ratio between religious groups for similar offences might be less skewed had there been more Muslim, or Dalit, judges). In fact, the SC has a history of protecting minority rights and upholding India?s secular character in spite of its unrepresentative character. The social composition of the SC is also heavily skewed in favour of upper caste men and judicial dynasties, But the fact remains that Muslim remain largely absent from institutions of power and their decreasing number in those institutions is disturbing for those concerned about inclusion and participation in India?s public life. Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris and professor at King?s India Institute, London. Verniers is assistant professor, Ashoka University and co-Director, Trivedi Centre for Political Data. Shweta Bhutada and Meeta Tarani, students at Sciences Po, helped collect data on high court judges ======================================== 12. INDIA: 1 YEAR, 160 ARRESTS: IN RUN UP TO 2019, NSA IS THE LATEST WEAPON AGAINST MUSLIMS IN UP Neha Dixit ======================================== The Wire 10 September 2018 After attempts to instigate communal clashes all over eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Adityanath government is using the draconian law to target Muslims, even as Hindutva activists involved in the violence get off lightly. Lucknow: On March 4, 2018, a year after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power on the plank of improving law and order in Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Adityanath claimed that not a single incident of communal violence had taken place in the state since he took over. Ten days later, the Union home ministry tabled statistics in parliament which showed that Uttar Pradesh continues to top the list of states in terms of the number of incidents of communal violence incidents and related deaths ? 44 people were killed and 540 injured in UP in 2017. This compares poorly with 29 deaths and injuries to 490 people in 2016, and 22 deaths and 410 injuries the previous year. The incidents of communal violence in places like Bulandshahr and Saharanpur clearly showed the involvement of the Adityanath-led Hindu Yuva Vahini and local BJP activists. Those involved were reprimanded but strict legal action against the culprits did not follow. On January 16, 2018, the Adityanath government issued a press statement in which it said the UP police had invoked the National Security Act (NSA) against 160 people in order to control law and order. This was one of their prized achievements, apart from racking up 1200 police encounters in 10 months. The most prominent of the NSA detentus is of course Bhim Army founder Chandrashekar Azad, who has been lodged in jail since May 2017. In popular parlance, the NSA is known as a law in which there is ?no vakil, no appeal, no daleel? (no lawyer, no appeal, no argument).? The Act, whose stated purpose is ?to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters connected therewith,? came into force on September 23, 1980. It empowers the Central and state governments to detain a person to prevent him/her from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of India, the relations of India with foreign countries, the maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. The maximum period of detention is 12 months. The order can also be made by the district magistrate or a commissioner of police under their respective jurisdictions, but the detention must be reported to the state government along with the grounds on which the order has been made. Under the Act, a person can be detained for up to 10 days without being informed about the reasons for the detention. The government is allowed to withhold the information supporting the detention in ?public interest.? A detained person is not permitted to question his/her accusers or the evidence in support of their detention. Nor are they allowed a lawyer in this period. A three-person advisory board made up of high court judges or persons qualified to be high court judges determines the legitimacy of any order made for longer than three months. If approved, a person may be held extra-judicially for up to 12 months. The Wire met the families of 15 people detained under the NSA in the past one year from four districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh known as Poorvanchal; all the arrests were made after incidents of communal clashes. Even when there were allegations of the clear involvement of Hindu chauvinist groups like Hindu Yuva Vahini, Hindu Samaj Party and Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, those put behind bars were invariably Muslim. All the accused were first granted bail by the sessions court and as soon as they got bail, re-arrested by the police under the NSA. Locals believe that just as the 2014 elections were preceded by a large number of minor communal clashes which polarised voters, these clashes and selective detentions under the NSA are part of the Sangh parivar?s preparation for the 2019 general elections. Kanpur: Two clashes, but NSA only for the Muslims In response to media reports critical of religious celebrations inside UP police stations, Adityanath said on August 19, 2017, ?If I cannot stop namaz on the road, I have no right to stop Janmashtami at a police station.? In fact, when reports of hooliganism by kanwariyas through their loudspeakers, DJ and road shows was pointed out, he said, this was a yatra of Shiv devotee and not a ?shav yatra? (funeral procession). By introducing religious sentiments in the maintenance of law and order, the chief minister clearly indicated that religious celebrations are above the rulebook. [. . .] Full text at: https://thewire.in/rights/in-adityanaths-up-the-national-security-act-is-latest-weapon-against-muslims ======================================== 13. PRIMITIVE VISION - EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH ======================================== The Telegraph September 10, 2018 Editorial It is not often that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh finds common cause with the ulemas and the Church. Yet, the Supreme Court's path-breaking decision to strike down parts of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalizing consensual, adult sex among homosexual persons, has made strange bedfellows of the aforementioned entities. The anxiety among religious fraternities over the verdict is palpable. The RSS has concurred with the apex court that homosexuality is not criminal but says that the "issue needs to be taken care of at the social and psychological level". The psychological underpinnings of homosexuality have been implicit in the indignant response of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India's Office of Justice, Peace and Development, which said that there is a need to "reach out to homosexuals in care and concern including the psychological... aspects". Kerala's Muslim organizations have castigated the decriminalization of the LGBTQI community because of the threat of 'moral degeneration'. Certain broad inferences can be drawn from such reservations. The most apparent is that sexual minorities continue to be looked upon as aberrant. The repeated, if covert, suggestion of psychological rehabilitation of homosexual citizens in a democracy underlines a propensity to view the constituency as a misfit, a threatening one at that. The patronizing mindset, couched as care or, worse, tacit surveillance, lies at the root of the marginalization of minorities. This exclusion, in turn, is an anomaly among the principles of freedom of choice, individual dignity and personal liberty that have been upheld by the apex court. The bogey of moral degeneration referred to by the clerics is equally telling. The march of civilization is predicated upon the progress of ideas. The flexibility in thought has, even though belatedly, informed legal thinking. In the light of the criticism of the Supreme Court's wisdom, it must be asked whether the leading lights of religious orders have, unlike legal luminaries, been able to keep pace with broader changes in society. The advocacy of sex for procreation as opposed to pleasure further exposes the orthodoxy of the scholarship that originates in holy precincts. The upholders of faith must demonstrate their willingness to be nimble in thought and inclusive in deed. Otherwise, their flocks might eventually dwindle. ======================================== 14. WHAT ONE LEAVES BEHIND Jawed Naqvi ======================================== Dawn September 11, 2018 ATAL Behari Vajpayee?s ashes were immersed in the Ganga. Nehru had his scattered over the Himalayas from a plane. Theatre diva Zohra Sehgal desired no such fuss. She left a stark message for her followers to cremate her quietly and put her ashes in the flush. The electric furnace was malfunctioning as it often does, so Sehgal was put on a pyre. Priests who tried to intervene were shooed away. Nehru got an emotional farewell from millions he loved and who loved him back. Vajpayee was on the ventilator till a day after Prime Minister Modi?s last Independence Day speech. Then he passed away. In 1977, he assured fawning leftist students on a visit to JNU as foreign minister that he had decided to ?drop the bomb?, a significant disavowal of a core Hindutva objective of making a nuclear weapon. As soon as he got a wafer-thin majority he did Pokhran II. It is always different with leaders of the Dravida movement. Their mortal coils are buried in contravention of Hindu rites, a parting shot, as it were, to the Brahminical order they accuse of limiting a multi-fangled Indian culture. Communist leader Jyoti Basu?s body, true to form, was handed over for medical research after a sea of mourners bade him farewell. Sometimes the mourners switch sides. Take the late Somnath Chatterjee, the renowned parliamentarian who passed away last month. He was expelled from the CPI-M with which he had spent a lifetime as a respected parliamentarian. While his own party shunned him, the communist-hating Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh turned their aloofness into an embarrassment. In a two-page article in its English weekly Organiser, the RSS paid him glowing tributes as a true Indian. Why is there fanfare when some people pass away and not when their colleagues with equal merit go? Why is there fanfare when some people pass away and not when their colleagues with equal merit go? Khushwant Singh was a journalist who supported the emergency, and he later sponsored L.K. Advani?s candidature from Delhi, which he subsequently regretted. Kuldip Nayar who died at 95 was a gifted journalist. His Pakistani friends are said to have taken a fistful of his ashes to be interred in Lahore where he grew up. Khushwant Singh?s ashes were also scattered on a sapling. What about others in this line of great journalism, S. Nihal Singh for example? Inder Malhotra departed quietly. Nikhil Chakravarty was a truly towering journalist who went away without fanfare. Apart from being a highly informed journalist in the 1990s he is remembered also for refusing India?s coveted civilian award, saying it was not a journalist?s place to accept appreciation or critique from the state. He never lobbied to become an MP or to be sent out as ambassador. As journalists go, I have a surprise favourite. K.R. Malkani belonged to the RSS but he was a self-confessed atheist. His canvas of interests as a journalist was many times larger than that of his colleagues. He was better read than Vajpayee or Advani and edited the English party organ. One day Sushma Swaraj was paying obeisance at the pond of Katasraj temple off the Lahore-Islamabad highway. I joined her in the water ritual, but Malkani stood aloof smiling, to say he had nothing to do with what he had seen. Malkani?s views on Muslim and Christian converts were far from agreeable. However, instead of bearing a grudge against the community, he showed a high regard for Muslim history. In a collection of essays published as India First, he wrote: ?Many Muslim countries are occupied. Even after ?Independence? their governments are either toppled or turned into puppets. Their oil wealth goes to enrich the West. Their oil revenues are diverted to arms purchase. Neighbouring countries are encouraged and armed ? to fight each other ? In Iran when Mossadeq?s popular government nationalised oil, they toppled him. So much money was distributed as bribes that Nehru told the Indian parliament that the value of the dollar fell in Tehran bazaar.? Nehru?s ?sins? have been listed aplenty. ?The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,? said Shakespeare. The allegations ranged from his apparent stubbornness that led to Partition to his handling of the Kashmir dispute and ties with China. Would it not be fair to assess Vajpayee?s legacy with equal rigour? His musings from Kumarakom showed him up as a statesman. His easy affable ways with the opposition are missed today because his successor betrays no such quality. But Vajpayee left too many skeletons in his cupboard to be overlooked. Rajiv Gandhi has been accused of favouring a botched law to restrict media freedoms. It was Vajpayee though who got an Indian magazine?s woman journalist removed from covering his PMO. There?s no space here to go into Ayodhya or Nellie or Gujarat or even the ghastly murder of an Australian missionary and his two sons by Hindutva zealots, some of these when Vajpayee was prime minister. During a 13-day stint as prime minister, Vajpayee, without facing a trust vote in parliament, agreed to a damaging financial deal with the US-based Enron power company. And why forget the arms scam, which forced his defence minister to resign, or when his party chief was caught with his hands on the till? It was under his watch that Muslim extremists hijacked an Indian Airlines plane and got Masood Azhar and several others freed in Taliban-ruled Kandahar. Imagine the furore had an opposition leader carried out the transaction. They would perhaps be incinerated on the streets. It was under Vajpayee?s watch that a mere shepherd helped locate Pakistani positions in Kargil. And while we may accuse Modi of playing sectarian politics with the cow, it was Vajpayee who actually introduced cow protection as a state policy in the president?s address to parliament. It is not how people go. It is about what they leave behind in the bargain that counts. The writer is Dawn?s correspondent in Delhi. ======================================== 15. NIGHTMARCH BY ALPA SHAH ? AMONG INDIA?S MAOIST GUERRILLAS | Julia Lovell ======================================== The Guardian 12 September 2018 An anthropologist?s nuanced account of life with India?s revolutionary movement, including her 250-km trek, disguised as a male soldier, with a rebel platoon Between 2008 and 2010, the anthropologist Alpa Shah spent 18 months as a participant observer in India?s largely rural state of Jharkhand. She lived among adivasis, tribal peoples outside the caste system who count among the communities most neglected by the government. Jharkhand is also one of the heartlands of India?s Maoist insurgency, a civil war that in 2006 the country?s prime minister identified as the ?biggest internal security threat to the Indian state?. For decades, Indian politicians and commentators have argued about the country?s longstanding Maoist war: are insurgents ideological terrorists fixated on an outdated creed, or are they desperate rebels with a cause, forced to take up guns by state brutality? Dissatisfied by this polarised debate, Shah decided to immerse herself in the communities who live alongside the insurgents, to explore what the rebellion looks like from the grassroots. Alpa Shah. This was an exceptional undertaking. The geographic and cultural remoteness of these communities, together with the acute dangers of living in a warzone, mean few outsiders have based themselves there for longer than a few weeks. The lack of careful ethnographic investigation has permitted polemical views of the insurgency to dominate the Indian media. Even more remarkable is the fact that Shah spent her final week in Jharkhand?s forests disguised as a male guerrilla on a 150-mile (240km) trek with a Maoist platoon. Nightmarch ? a report of her time with the Maoists and adivasi civilians they govern ? provides one the most nuanced, informed accounts yet of this strange and awful conflict. The civil war is in some ways a cold war anachronism. India?s contemporary Maoists trace their lineage to the Naxalite rebellion of the late 1960s, which was heavily influenced and encouraged by Mao?s Cultural Revolution. While that earlier conflagration was for the most part extinguished in the early 1970s by a harsh state response, splinters of the original movement fought on. In 2004, several of these fragments reunited within a new political and military organisation: the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its People?s Liberation Guerrilla Army. The Indian government claims 20 of the country?s 28 states are affected. In reality, the Maoist operation is centred on central-eastern India: above all, on parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. It owes its survival to Maoist groups? readiness to attack some of India?s socioeconomic enormities, such as the hierarchical violence of the caste system and racist exploitation suffered by adivasis. In the new millennium, the Maoists have gained further traction by linking their cause to environmental protests. After 2003, the Indian state ? ambitious to increase taxation revenues ? began granting lucrative mining contracts to multinational corporations, especially in mineral-rich Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Maoist insurgents organised locals into resisting state and corporate efforts to empty land ready for industrial development. A witness to state and corporation encroachment on tribal land rights, Shah describes ?the juggernaut of perhaps one of the greatest people-clearing operations of our times?. For some, joining the Naxalites is an adolescent rebellion, a way of escaping the control of their families, and experiencing the world beyond their village Successive Indian governments have demonised and even criminalised any connection with or whiff of sympathy for the Maoist cause. In June this year, five human rights activists ? defenders of civil society from state attacks ? were arrested on charges of ?Maoist links?. In August, at least five more were detained on the same pretext. Shah, by contrast, humanises the Maoists she meets. She evokes the self-sacrificing idealism of the movement?s leadership. Many senior Maoists were born into high-caste, educated clans, were swept up in global protest movements of the 1960s and 70s, then abandoned their families and elite career prospects to fight as full-time revolutionaries for some of India?s poorest people. Shah notes how Gyanji, the leader of the platoon with whom she marched, still retains the tender, light-skinned feet of his high-caste upbringing, 25 years after joining the Maoist ?Jungle Sarkar? (forest state). He is in some ways an unlikely guerrilla, seemingly more interested in ?the dance of starlings? and ?European and Hindi-Urdu poetry? than in landmines. She is attentive also to the stories of rank-and-file adivasis, who join the Maoists for a bewildering variety of reasons. In the early 2000s, the Indian government sponsored the creation of local vigilante armies to fight Maoist control. Their scorched-earth destruction of villages accused of helping or harbouring Maoists drove many adivasis into the People?s Liberation Guerrilla Army. Others have smaller-scale grievances. A 16-year-old called Kohli ran away to the Maoists because his father slapped him for spilling a small cup of milk. For some, joining the Naxalites is an adolescent rebellion, a way of escaping the control of their families and experiencing the world beyond their village. Yet Shah does not romanticise the Maoists or their relationship with adivasi communities. She bears witness to how, despite their stated idealism, their political dogmas glorify violence and foster corruption. The hardships of the adivasi existence (there is at best precarious access to food, medical care and education) notwithstanding, Shah is also sensitive to what it can teach those outside the jungle: for example, adivasi women enjoy far higher levels of gender equality than exists in caste-ridden Indian society. She worries that the Maoists? contempt for tribal custom fundamentally erodes their claims to build popular democracy. ?It is inevitable that their cultures will be obliterated with development,? one senior Maoist tells her. Shah has only one long-term solution to the injustices of the continuing civil war: the proper exercise of India?s constitutional democracy, with full participation by those tribal communities long marginalised and even persecuted by it. Nightmarch ? a considered, sympathetic and balanced analysis ? is one of the few accounts we possess that gives them a voice. ? Nightmarch: Among India?s Revolutionary Guerrillas is published by Hurst. To order a copy (RRP ?20) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over ?10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of ?1.99. Topics ======================================== 16. THE POLITICS OF MEMORIALISING VIOLENT MEMORIES ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 53, Issue No. 36, 08 Sep, 2018 by Rudolf C Heredia (rudiheredia[at]mail.com) is at the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi. Violence and the Burden of Memory: Remembrance and Erasure in Sinhala Consciousness by Sasanka Perera, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2016; pp xvii +322, ?745. A society that has been traumatised by collective violence over decades will be haunted by painful memories which cannot be easily erased. Negation only represses memories into our subconscious with unintended consequences later. To cope with such remembrances, we must find conscious ways of expression that help healing wounded memories and recalling affirmative ones. Mourning loss and grief, and celebrating victory and deliverance are part of this commemorative process. All societies must remember their history to learn not to repeat it, either as tragedy or as farce. Personal and collective memories are tied in with personal and collective identities. Memories shared connect and enrich, whereas memory loss impoverishes and distances. Personal memories are treasured in family narratives and albums, while collective memories are embedded in a people?s past through their traditions and legends, literature and art. However, memory is always selective. What we remember and how we do so defines the process of remembering and forgetting and dictates the memorialisation, such as to remake the past so a projected future can be premised on it. Sinhala Exclusivism In Sri Lanka, a protracted period of brutalising violence was precipitated by the politics of Sinhala exclusivism. State terror against the violence of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurrection (1967?89) peaked in the 1980s. Rather than finding a political solution and accommodating the legitimate demands of this movement, the government resorted to brutal extrajudicial violence to suppress it, upping the ante with counter-violence and then dealing with the JVP as a terrorist movement. This further internalised the violence in a society increasingly familiar with growing levels of violence, leaving this to fester alongside already traumatised memories of loss and grief. The Tamil grievances were treated similarly. The roots of the Sinhala?Tamil civil war go back to the 1950s when Sinhala chauvinism with its linguistic exclusivism began marginalising Tamil sections. Inevitably, such aggressive majoritarianism precipitated a militant minoritism, which then spiralled into a secessionist civil war with neither side willing to concede any compromise: a federal state with Tamil autonomy was too much for the government and too little for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Of the many Tamil groups that fought for the rights of the Tamils, the LTTE, founded in 1976, was the most violent. After eliminating rival groups in the Tamil movement, the violence of the Tigers intensified in the 1980s and climaxed in the 1990s. It was only in 2009 that the Sri Lankan army, disregarding the collateral damage to non-combatants and the environment, ended the war and eradicated the Tamil Tigers. Even the cemeteries of the LTTE (p 191), which celebrated their war heroes, (mahaveer) were eradicated. This violence against the Tamil minorities inevitably brutalised mainstream Sri Lankan society as well. In the aftermath of the violence, the physical ruins could be restored but the brutality of the devastation still lingers in the memories of people, especially the Tamils who were its worst victims. For as the United Nations (UN) Commissioner for Human Rights said in Colombo in 2013, ?although the fighting is over, the suffering is not? (p 260). Sasanka Perera enters this narrative of terror trying to reach the other side: Metaphorically, I have waded through the blood, with numerous visions of unpleasant things I have seen and narratives of cruelties I have heard very clearly etched in my mind ? Those stories will continue in different registers and with different degrees of intensity. (p 262) Perera?s book focuses on the Sinhala experience and their remembrances in the aftermath of the war. Obviously, this is but half the story. Until the Tamil side is told and both narratives shared together, there is little hope for true justice to the victims and lasting reconciliation between the protagonists. Denial and unwillingness to come to terms with such serious human rights abuses, let alone address the legitimate demands and genuine hopes of the affected populations, does not bode well for the future. The refusal of an authoritarian majority government to countenance an independent UN inquiry into human rights abuses is tantamount to sowing the seeds of future troubles and violent disturbances, inviting a repeat of the past from which little has seemingly been learnt. Monuments and Memorialisation Perera describes, separately, official monuments celebrating state victory and glorifying heroism as well as personal remembrances recalling grief and loss. The connection with the larger society gives life to these structures, both personal installations in the private domain of family and friends, and official ones in the public domain. Thus, the monuments of the army and the police will have ceremonies and rituals enacted on national occasions to recall historic moments, including the Elephant Pass War Memorial (p 271), or the Victory Monument in Pudupattinam, Puthukkudiyiruppu (p 268) to celebrate the end of the civil war; while personal sculptures connect with those who share the same personal experience, as with the Monument for the ?Disappeared? at Seeduwa (p 129), or the Shrine of the Innocents at Sri Jayawardenapura to commemorate the youth killed in the JVP insurrection (p 110). The monuments are described in great detail in three chapters (Chapter 2: ?Celebrating Heroism and Glorifying Death,? Chapter 3: ?Remembering Death and Mourning the Loss of Innocence,? and Chapter 4: ?Domains of Private Memory?); while the visual arts and poetry are taken up in Chapter 5. These will be of great interest to historians and perhaps, tourist guides manning these sites. However, the introductory chapter ?The Burden of Memory,? and the concluding one ?Erasure, Lingering Memory and Moving Beyond,? would be of significance to a wider readership. We learn how non-verbal memorialisation deals better with the resistance of language in communicating powerful emotions and/or intense pain (p 22). Monuments are remembrances that allow for multiple levels of meaning-making and so can address those who connect more meaningfully. But this also means it can be contested by the different constituencies that interact with and interpret it differently, even from adversarial perspectives. However, in general, the purpose of a monument is twofold: (i) didactic or pedagogic, teaching/learning from the past for healing and closure from painful memories, and (ii) affirmative or celebratory, to open hope in the wake of traumatic events (p 23). Thus, the attack against Dalits on 1 January 2018 at their celebration of the British victory over the Maratha forces at Bhima?Koregaon 200 years ago in January 1818 is a stark illustration of this. For the Dalits, the victory pillar at the battle site celebrated the event that ended the Brahmin(ical) rule of the Peshwas. Their rallies at the war memorial in Pune were to affirm their own history and their membership in the victorious East India Company?s forces. For the upper castes, the battle marked the loss of their rule and subjugation by the colonial power. Their attack on the Dalits, therefore, was a reaffirmation of their dominance and a denial of the Dalits? right to interpret their own history. Sometimes symbols meant to represent national solidarity, like the national flag, get appropriated by chauvinist nationalists (such as the Hindu right wing in India). The assault on Muslims at the flag-hoisting ceremony at Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, on the occasion of Republic Day 2018 exposed the exclusivist Hindu rashtravadis (nationalists). The Muslims were expressing solidarity with the nation on a day of national importance, however the Hindutvawadis were acting in furtherance of Muslim alienation and imposition of Hindu dominance on them. Communalisation of Memory There are similarities across these violent communal divides, whether of ethnicity, or race, or religion or caste in the rest of South Asia and beyond. The savage civil war between the Unionists and the Confederates in the United States (1860?65) ended with the abolition of slavery, but left behind a subterranean racism. The civil rights movement almost a century later, beginning in 1962, was led by Martin Luther King Jr, who became a martyr to its cause in 1968 and a national hero. Yet in spite of all this, racism persists among the ?white supremacists? there, for whom Black lives do not seem to matter. The communal violence between Hindus and Muslims that led up to and peaked with the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was paused by the murder of Mahatma Gandhi; but the communal divide was not resolved. It is once again being deliberately revived by a jingoistic politics of hate. This is re-enacted with every communal riot in India, which has become a cruel instrument of regressive identity politics. This re-enacts collective violence, of the sort seen before and after the partition of 1947, and deepens the communal divide even further. ?Pakistan ya kabristan? (Pakistan or the graveyard) is the battle cry of deeply resentful militant Hindus who, in denial of their own role in the horrendous imbroglio, still continue to blame Muslims for the partition and use religious nationalism to fuel a politics of polarisation for electoral gain. This is a dangerous game for the future of all Indians. In the original Pakistani state, religious nationalism was soon superseded by ethnolinguistic politics which spilt over into a genocidal military attempt to subjugate East Pakistan?s Bengali province to the Urdu-speaking ones of West Pakistan. With the intervention of India in 1971, this stand-off ended with the cessation of East Bengal from Pakistan and its transformation into an independent nation called Bangladesh, only 24 years after the Indo?Pak partition. Such a process of fission may not end here. In Nepal, a violent Maoist insurrection launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), on 13 February 1996, ended with a compromise but after abolishing the monarchy in 2007. However, the young democracy is still struggling with its new constitution and the final outcome is yet to be stabilised. Civil wars and collective violence leave a long trail in their aftermath. Unless the underlying issues are addressed and resolved, they will sooner or later resurface. The residue of resentment these leave behind are easily politicised and the violence revived in periodic eruptions. These become a continuing attrition of the very soul of a society. They sharpen and deepen communal divisions and may sooner or later precipitate another civil war and another regional cession. This cannot be resolved if the underlying jingoist violent ideology is not neutralised and defanged, whether this ethnocentricity be based on race or caste or religious nationalism of whatever hue: Islamism or Hindutva, chauvinist Buddhism or Zionism. Or else history will repeat itself, and it will be all the more tragic for it could have been anticipated and avoided. ======================================== 17. KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH ON RACE, NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY POLITICS In an FT interview, the philosopher says we need a ?lighter hand? with identity categories Mark Vandevelde ======================================== Financial Times / FT Magazine August 31, 2018 Kwame Anthony Appiah is a black, gay, American man who is descended from aristocrats and speaks English with one of those BBC accents you pick up at the better British schools. You probably think these facts tell you a certain amount about him. Appiah, a professor of philosophy in New York, knows such badges matter ? he has made a career studying concepts like blackness and gayness, social labels that guide us through humanity?s ungraspable diversity ? but he wants you to know that most of what they signify is pure baloney. Consider race. Thomas Jefferson, often described as one the most enlightened of American thinkers, thought black people smelled worse than whites, required less sleep, had comparably good memories, but couldn?t master geometry. Today no one could count such outrageous views as enlightened; but as Appiah understood, they were the product of a time in which white colonialists had used the idea of an inferior race to justify mass exploitation. ?The truth is that there are no races,? he declared in a 1985 essay that earned him fame among philosophers and social theorists, and notoriety among some of his African-American peers. ?The ?whites? invented the Negroes in order to dominate them,? he later wrote in the award-winning essay collection In My Father?s House (1992). Appiah at home in New York: ?There are falsehoods there?s no harm in letting go? ? Yael Malka Appiah?s argument was grounded in science. In nature there are few package deals, and biologists know that variations in skin colour do not correlate well with other inherited characteristics, and that there is almost as much genetic variation within ethnic groups as between them. This could not be squared, he wrote, with the idea of a ?racial essence? that would pass from parents to children and influence everything from intelligence to strength to musical talent. The upshot was far-reaching, even revolutionary. Bogus labels had been plastered all over the face of humanity and Appiah, a cosmopolitan who abhors anything that stops strangers seeing eye to eye, was determined to rip them off in one excruciating swipe. Critics said it was tantamount to calling the very idea of race a fiction. ?I?ve backed off a little bit from that,? he says. But only a little bit. Appiah owns a sheep farm in New Jersey, but we meet in his apartment in New York, where the walls are heaving with books, including 170 novels he must read as the chair of the judges for this year?s Man Booker Prize. He has rules about what else to let in. Mayan heads are not welcome: the quota has been exceeded. Nor are British artworks: he already has one by the ?very great portrait painter? Augustus John. Artefacts from China and Cuba are also off the list. ?I?m allowed to add something so long as it?s not from somewhere we?ve already got,? Appiah explains. Cosmopolitanism is a trait he acquired at birth. His parents? marriage was tabloid material; it is said to have partly inspiredGuess Who?s Coming to Dinner, the movie about interracial marriage starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier. The film was released in 1967, just as Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to join the supreme court, but when the real-life nuptials were announced 14 years earlier in London, they shattered contemporary ideas about race and national hierarchies. I learnt, very young, the code-switching you do between places Peggy Cripps was the daughter of the former Labour chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps; Joe Appiah was a law student and a representative in London of Kwame Nkrumah, then the prime minister of Gold Coast, which was still a British colony. Cripps was determined to stand her ground against the racist censure of some of her peers. ?If we experience any difficulties in mixing with Europeans, I shall throw in my lot with the coloured people,? she told the Sunday Express. A few years after Kwame was born in 1954, Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana. Appiah travels with the ease of a native and the critical eye of an outsider. ?It?s very easy for someone with my background to be relatively relaxed [in different countries],? he says. ?I learnt, very young, the code-switching I suppose that you do between places.? The first part of his childhood was in the Ghanaian city of Kumasi. The gold-rich Ashanti region had long ago ceased to be its own empire, but nonetheless retained vestiges of statehood. When the king died in 1970, his successor was a man Appiah had known as uncle Matthew. The Ashanti rubbed along easily enough with Nigerian traders and Middle-Eastern shopkeepers. ?It seemed?.?.?.?so natural,? Appiah has written. ?I don?t remember ever having wondered how it came about that these people had settled among us of their own free will to pursue their businesses so far from home.? The Gloucestershire village of Minchinhampton, where he spent time with his grandmother while attending school in Dorset, was a different story. It was not hostile, but ?the skin and the African ancestry I shared with my sisters marked us out as different?. Even a few years ago, someone attending one of Appiah?s talks at the Aristotelian Society in London wondered aloud how a lecturer who was not white could be properly English. ?There?s a sense it?s obvious who?s English, because they?re the people who?ve been here all along,? Appiah says, tearing at another social label that matters deeply to those who claim it, and causes untold grief for some whose claims are denied. ?It?s news, I think, to a lot of English people that, in the 18th century, the Jews came and went. They forget that the Danelaw covered much of the north of England, and that England was run in some Norse language for a long time. ?They forget that actually the Romans left all kinds of traces, that the Normans came in significant numbers and people from England went to Normandy. They forget that, in fact, it?s as much of a goulash as anywhere else.? Appiah has raised his voice very slightly. ?In part, because most of the people who came didn?t have dark skins. So the trace of their ancestry isn?t evident on people?s faces.? He is in no mood to deny that Englishness exists, even if most people?s understanding of it is thoroughly ahistorical. ?There are falsehoods there?s no harm in letting go,? he says. ?When you?re living life and using identities?.?.?.?an intellectual [who] keeps complaining and picking away at the details is not helpful.? Still, whatever their religion, sexuality, racial identity, or nationality, ?people should have a lighter hand with their use of these identity categories in a way that would mean that moments in our cultures where conflicts arise might be somewhat defused.? Even saying that, he thinks, might be provocative. ?Because people do care about identities, you can get them cross by urging them to take them slightly less seriously than they do, so there?s a risk of that kind of backlash. ?But on the whole I think that?s fine, I?m up for that, and since I think what I?m saying is both factually correcter than the standard view and morally superior to the standard view, I think the more that gets out, the better.? Appiah practises what he preaches. In a family like his, ?race is probably not going to be the main axis of your identity because Christian, my eldest nephew, is blond and my first great-nephew is half-Nigerian and darker skinned than I am.? Being gay was a more important factor for him when he was younger; he wrote long essays advocating for same-sex marriage. In 2011, when that moral revolution arrived in New York, he was among the first beneficiaries, along with Henry Finder, the editorial director of The New Yorker and his partner of more than 25 years. ?I realise there?s a lot of homophobia in the world and I do care about that as a matter of justice,? he says. ?One reason for not being too preoccupied with gay identity is just that there?s not a lot of homophobia in the world I live in.? Being American, however, is something he takes seriously. This is the nation he chose. As an essayist, he has sought to influence it. As a sort of cerebral agony uncle ? he has a weekly column in The New York Times called The Ethicist ? he offers it advice. (?Can my cat go out if he bullies other cats??, one reader asked. Appiah?s answer, roughly: it depends.) ?I do think of myself as an intellectual,? he tells me. ?Someone whose main vocation is to try to understand things and to explain them to his or her fellow citizens.? He taught at the most prestigious universities in the US including Yale, Harvard and Princeton, before moving in 2014 to the philosophy department at New York University, where he remains today. (I was a graduate student there until shortly before Appiah arrived.) But spending a year in the US when he was in his twenties, and still a graduate student at Cambridge, was not an obvious choice. ?It?s racist and it?s dangerous, people get shot all the time,? he remembers thinking. ?I had all these stereotypes through Kojak?.?.?.?I grew up reading Richard Wright [the African-American author whose writings chronicled the country?s entrenched racism], who actually visited us when I was a child in Ghana.? In Britain, his work had concentrated on intellectual puzzles that consumed the attention of perhaps a few hundred professional philosophers. Now, to earn a living, he had to teach a course in African-American studies, confronting the raw grievance of a wronged group still battling to assert their citizenship. He approached it with the eye of an outsider and the rigour of a logician. He was also more willing than some American historians to delve into oral history. ?Reading transcribed material from interviews with uneducated people wasn?t their idea of how you found out about things,? says Appiah. ?Of course if you ask ex-slaves about slavery, you get a different picture from the one you get from the official records.? Back in Britain after that year, he returned to a dissertation called Conditions for Conditionals ? ?an unpublished work, but a thick work of thought about philosophical logic? ? and was disappointed it didn?t take off. Then came the break. ?Yale offered me?.?.?.??, he corrects himself. ?They advertised a job in philosophy and African-American studies. But there weren?t many people who could?ve been considered for it. And I applied and got it.? It is six years since Appiah collected a national humanities medal from Barack Obama for ?seeking eternal truths in the contemporary world?. Since then, the first black US president has been succeeded by a user of racial slurs who argued that a crowd of white nationalists included ?some very fine people?. Is it still realistic to hope Americans can be reasoned out of caring so much about divisive social identities? We should have a lighter hand with the use of identity categories Appiah thinks it is. Trump lost the popular vote. A survey in June showed more Americans thought immigration was a good thing than when he took office. Cities such as Atlanta, New York and San Francisco are among the most diverse in the world, and their populations are surging. ?If I lived in rural Minnesota I might be?.?.?.?? ? he seems about to say ?pessimistic?, or something of the sort, but stops. University campuses in Minnesota, he notes, are ?full of 6ft-tall blonde women students who have Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, but also a lot of Ghanaians, and they all seem perfectly happy with all that.? His final reason for optimism, however, sounds more like a concession. Accepting that other people have different ways of life might also mean allowing that some of those people do not accept yours. The Amish send their children away at 16, he notes, so that they can decide between the closed community of their youth and the open world outside. While this does not always go well for the ill-prepared children, the practice makes the Amish ?a paradigm of a liberal, despite that you might think this is an odd thing to say?. Even in Appiah?s rarefied circle, there are people whose interests are entirely parochial. The queen mother of Ashanti, a fountain of gossip about goings-on in Kumasi, had no interest in anything happening outside, and ?that?s fine by me?, says Appiah. ?Indeed it seems weird to say it?s fine by me because it?s none of my business.? The modern world, he believes, requires some people who are willing to engage across cultures: ?I?m optimistic that there?ll be enough of us. We don?t require everybody to be a cosmopolitan; that would be un-cosmopolitan.? Mark Vandevelde is the FT?s US private capital correspondent. Kwame Anthony Appiah?s ?The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity? is published by Profile, ?14.99. Appiah will speak at the FT Weekend Festival on September 8 ======================================== 18. RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ARREST: THIS LAW IS AN ASS Arresting activists is an attack on dissent in keeping with UAPA?s history Manisha Sethi ======================================== Outlook Magazine 17 September 2018 On August 28, the Pune police mounted raids across several cities,taking into custody five civil liberties activists, invoking that dreaded anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/rights-activists-arrest-this-law-is-an-ass/300588 ======================================== 19. INDIA: WHY KANUPRIYA?S ELECTION WIN IN PUNJAB UNIVERSITY IS SO SIGNIFICANT Pritam Singh ======================================== A woman student, Kanupriya, being elected to the top post in the student union elections at Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh, for the first time in the history of this university is significant in its own right as this university is one of the oldest in the Indian sub-continent. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/chandigarh/why-kanupriya-s-election-win-in-pu-is-so-significant/652128.html ======================================== 20. TABLIGH JAMA?AT IN CHINA: SACRED SELF, WORLDLY NATION, TRANSNATIONAL IMAGINARY Alexander Stewart ======================================== Modern Asian Studies Volume 52, Issue 4, July 2018 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/tabligh-jamaat-in-china-sacred-self-worldly-nation-transnational-imaginary/B0C0F70D0686E4A7BAA390E39531014F ======================================== 21. BRAZIL'S LULA ENDS PRESIDENTIAL BID, RUNNING MATE HADDAD TAKES HIS PLACE ======================================== https://www.france24.com/en/20180911-brazil-workers-party-selects-fernando-haddad-presidential-candidate-drops-lula _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Sep 19 16:08:01 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 01:38:01 +0530 Subject: SACW - 20 Sept 2018 | Afghanistan: Civilians losing the war / Bangladesh: Digital Jail / Pakistan: Religious Bias Okayed / India: Maoist Violence; Talking Equality / Crime, Class, Masculinity, and Fascism in 1930s Message-ID: <07389433-4F07-4423-9562-A41848FFE594@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 20 Sept 2018 - No. 3001 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Religious Bias Okayed | Pervez Hoodbhoy 2. India: Beating of civilians by Maoists in Phulpad - statement of Bela Bhatia and Soni Sori 3. 9 Members of the European Parliament say Suspend Agreements with India Until the Human Rights Activists are Released 4. Talking Equality, To a Conservative Society | Harsh Kapoor 5. Patriarchy and Structural Violence - Decoding Protection and Safety of Women | Shilpa Phadke 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: An account of everyday lives of the Bajrang Dal boys in Ahmedabad - Need to Combat Emerging Global Sectarianism - India: Sangh plans to push the content of the its sept 2018 meeting in Delhi on to social media - Day to mark Mahatma Gandhi?s return from South Africa is now a Hindutva pageant - India: Congress Party Again playing Soft Hindutva Politics - India: When the Vishwa Hindu Parishad begins talking about lawfulness, it is time to worry - India - Tamil Nadu: Communal clashes in Tirunelveli district over Vinayaka Chathurthi procession ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Bangladesh: From Digital Highway to Digital Jail | Selim Ahmad 8. Civilians Are Losing the War in Afghanistan | Patricia Gossman 9. Pakistan's Imran Khan pledges citizenship for 1.5m Afghan refugees 10. Why a 4,500-year-old skull is key to the politics of India?s Hindu-Muslim divide | Vir Sanghvi 11. Creative protection - Editorial, The Telegraph 12. India: Punjab Sacrilege Bill Is a Vigilante Legislation - Edit, EPW 13. No, Mr Kadam - Women cannot be kidnapped at will - Editorial (Sep 8, 2018, Times of India) 14. India?s shrinking democratic space | Malini Parthasarathy 15. Indian government websites ?hacked? to mine crypto currencies 16. India - Bhima Koregaon case: Liberty cannot be sacrificed at the altar of conjecture, says Supreme Court 17. Bebber on McLaren's 'Playboys and Mayfair Men: Crime, Class, Masculinity, and Fascism in 1930s' ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: RELIGIOUS BIAS OKAYED by Pervez Hoodbhoy ======================================== It?s always been easy for power-seeking Pakistani clerics and politicians to set our simple-minded religious masses on fire. But, as Prime Minister Imran Khan just discovered, jumping on to a man-eating tiger?s back is one thing; getting off is another. The saga of the Economic Advisory Committee appointment of Prof Atif Mian, a distinguished economist at Princeton University, tells of this. http://www.sacw.net/article13921.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: BEATING OF CIVILIANS BY MAOISTS IN PHULPAD - statement of Bela Bhatia and Soni Sori ======================================== We learnt that on the night of 5 September, around 3 am, a large group of Maoist cadre went to two paras of Phulpad (Koyalanpara and Markampara) and woke people up saying that ?sab ko jama hona hai?. Men, women and children all gathered at one place. Meanwhile the Maoists caught nine persons, including one woman who had tried to interpose when they caught her son. Some were beaten in front of the crowd, others some distance away. Many had their hands tied behind their back. http://www.sacw.net/article13924.html ======================================== 3. 9 MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SAY SUSPEND AGREEMENTS WITH INDIA UNTIL THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ARE RELEASED ======================================== Letter signed by the MEPs L?dia Senra, ?ngela Vallina, Paloma L?pez, Merja Killonen, Ana Gomes, Clara Aguilera, Ciprian T?n?sescu, Claude Moraes and Julie Ward condemning the raids on homes and arbitrary arrest of human and democratic rights activists across India on August 28, already sent again today to the EU HR/VP. http://www.sacw.net/article13919.html ======================================== 4. TALKING EQUALITY, TO A CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY by Harsh Kapoor ======================================== This court verdict recognises homosexuality, the right freely conduct one?s sexual life and stands up for equality of all citizens as enshrined in the constitution and gives hope for new jurisprudence challenging the thousand and one discriminations and exclusions that shape the realities of everyday life in India. http://www.sacw.net/article13923.html ======================================== 5. PATRIARCHY AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE - DECODING PROTECTION AND SAFETY OF WOMEN | SHILPA PHADKE, TEDX TALK VIDEO ======================================== In her TEDx talk, Phadke as a sociologist carefully dissects the intertwining of gender in urban spaces. Through this, she pursues the concepts of safety and risk, particularly how these concepts have evolved to frame our disposition towards women and loitering in public spaces. Risk and safety need not be absolutely distinct; instead, they can only be assessed in accordance with the societal norms governing them. http://www.sacw.net/article13920.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: An account of everyday lives of the Bajrang Dal boys in Ahmedabad - Need to Combat Emerging Global Sectarianism - India: Sangh plans to push the content of the its sept 2018 meeting in Delhi on to social media - Day to mark Mahatma Gandhi?s return from South Africa is now a Hindutva pageant - India: God in the Gym in Calcutta [Kolkata] - a photo from Twitter - India: Congress promises gaushalas, a boost to religious tourism to out-Hindu the BJP in MP elections - India: Congress Party Again playing Soft Hindutva Politics - USA: Protesters Attacked After Disrupting Hindu Nationalist Conference - USA: Indian-American politician ?ashamed? of the 2018 World Hindu Congress held in Chicago - India: When the Vishwa Hindu Parishad begins talking about lawfulness, it is time to worry - India - Tamil Nadu: Communal clashes in Tirunelveli district over Vinayaka Chathurthi procession -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BANGLADESH: FROM DIGITAL HIGHWAY TO DIGITAL JAIL Selim Ahmad ======================================== The Daily Star September 14, 2018 After 47 years of independence, Bangladesh is yet to embrace freedom of expression in the real sense. Free speech, under Article 39 of its Constitution, remains a highly qualified right and is subjected to restrictions. Although the current government won the 2008 election on the popular pledge to build ?Digital Bangladesh,? in the last few years, draconian laws, and its selective application, have made digital speech a heavily policed and punished arena. This is particularly manifested in Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act (2006, amended in 2013), and the wider provisions in the forthcoming Digital Security Act (2018). According to Human Rights Watch, between 2013 and April 2018, the police submitted 1,271 charge sheets against journalists and private citizens, most of them under section 57 of the Act and with many of the cases involving multiple accused. In July 2017, a Bangladesh Public Prosecutor told journalists that trials in 400 cases filed under Section 57 had begun. Human Rights Watch also published a list of recent cases filed under Section 57, which highlights the rise in digital prosecution, which corresponds with the increase in the use of internet in the country. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of internet usage, and Dhaka, with its 22 million active Facebook users, is the second highest Facebooking city in the world. Digital literacy in Bangladesh has unfortunately led to increasing digital prosecution, and the information highway's productive potential is getting derailed as it becomes a surveillance and prison grid. Even prior to the full expansion of Section 57, Bangladesh's court systems were frequently used to curb speech and traditional journalism. In a two-week period in 2016, 67 criminal defamation cases and 16 sedition cases were filed by private citizens against Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star. Prothom Alo, has faced more than 100 criminal cases against its staff since 2013, half of them still waiting resolution in the court system. One special aspect of prosecutions under Section 57 is that in addition to the state and the police, it also allows charges to be filed by private citizens. This last aspect is vulnerable to wide abuse, as personal grudges can be settled under this loophole. Cases have been filed by private citizens under Section 57 against academics such as Professor Afsan Chowdhury, co-editor of an eleven-volume history of the Bangladesh liberation war, for alleged remarks on Facebook. Section 57 was also invoked in the case of actress Nawshaba, and the arrest of photographer Shahidul Alam, for making online comments on the ?Safe Roads? student protests that began towards the end of July. Intolerance for diverse political views and opinions by a ruling party is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh. Successive administrations have had antagonistic relationships with the media, journalists, civil society actors and even private citizens critical of the government. This was evident when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) coalition was in power between 2001 and 2006, with journalists being charged with criminal defamation and sedition cases filed against civil society members. Similarly, under a military-backed caretaker government (CTG) in 2006-2008, the Emergency Powers Rules allowed legal action to be taken against media critics, and the military's intelligence wing, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), was known to have used threats and intimidation against journalists critical of the administration. The end of military rule, and the electoral victory, that brought the Awami League to office in 2008 did not bring a change in this antagonistic landscape. Instead, by 2009, especially after the brutal bloodshed of the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny, the space for criticism and dissent shrank. The Information and Communication Technology Act (ICT) of 2006 has been part of the current administration's policy to integrate digital communication and technology at the national and local levels with its admirable, and essential, goal of advancing development. This digital strategy has already seen dramatic progress in several socio-economic sectors including education, health, poverty reduction, women's empowerment, food security and export-oriented garments. But beyond the development objective, the Act was also drafted to serve as the primary legal reference for matters related to internet access, to define freedom of expression online, cover crimes committed through electronic means that do not come under the Penal Code and other legislations, and to regulate digital communications. For instance, by defining hacking as a crime punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine of Tk 1 crore or both, the Act recognised the rights of citizens whose rights to communicate electronically have been violated by others. Despite this, the possible role of the Act in undermining freedom of expression and speech has been the source of notable concern, particularly Section 57 of the law. Section 57 ?authorises the prosecution of any person who publishes, in electronic form, material that is fake and obscene; defamatory; 'tends to deprave and corrupt' its audience; causes, or may cause, 'deterioration in law and order'; prejudices the image of the state or a person; or 'causes or may cause hurt to religious belief.'? Photo courtesy: DRIK The vagueness of the premises of violations outlined here are disconcerting enough, but the use of Section 57 by state and non-state actors has been even more troubling. In 2012, gangs of men organised via social networks attacked the Buddhist minority community and destroyed their temples in Ramu village, following false accusations against a Buddhist man of defamation of Prophet Mohammed on Facebook. Similar attacks against Hindu minorities took place in 2013 in the town of Santhia following the use of a fake Facebook account to create the pretext for premeditated attacks. Against this turbulent backdrop where misinformation and unverified images were spread through social media, the government amended the Information and Communication Technology Act, eliminating the need for arrest warrants and official permission to prosecute, restricting bail, and increasing prison terms to 14 years. Under the 2013 amendment, a person could be arrested on the basis of a complaint to the police, regardless of whether the person filing it had themselves been prejudiced, defamed or otherwise ?injured? by the offending material. The Act also instituted a Cyber Tribunal to solely deal with offences under the law. This opened the door for arrests to be made for any statement that could be interpreted by any citizen as harmful. The biggest irony is that the amendment to the ICT Act was initially inspired by communal riots and targeted violence against Indigenous Buddhist Jumma people (Ramu, 2012) and the Hindu community (Santhia, 2013). Yet, since its passage, the amendment has rarely, if ever, been used against forms of hate speech and violence directed against minority Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, or Adivasi communities. Instead, it has most been used against secular activists, bloggers, journalists, photographers, and academics. Other detentions and arrests of bloggers, Facebook users, journalists and civil society activists who had criticised the government on social media or in the press followed. The majority of the charges involved criticism of the government, defamation, or offending religious sentiments, while the rest were allegations against men publishing intimate photographs of women without their consent. In addition to the frequent invocation of Section 57, which has resulted in the suppression of diverse opinions in the digital space, authorities in Bangladesh have also blocked Facebook, YouTube and other social network platforms without prior notification on multiple occasions. The frequent use of Section 57 underscores several realities: 1. The use of social media has too often led to unverified allegations and news spreading across the political landscape, exacerbating political tensions. This, in turn, has led, in some cases, to violence and human rights violations. 2. The authorities are ill-prepared to deal with online activism and hence resort to the draconian implementation of Section 57 to quell all forms of speech and freedom of expression, including political dissent and criticism of the administration. 3. The civilian population and media remain extremely vulnerable to the oppressive measures of the government legitimised by a problematic law. There has been severe criticism of the Information and Communication Technology Act, and Sections 56 and 57 in particular, on the grounds that they challenge Article 39 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression. In 2015, prominent members of civil society filed a High Court petition against Section 57 alleging that it violated freedom of expression and had created a hostile environment that promoted self-censorship among bloggers, journalists and citizens. In 2017, following public protest at the arrest of a reporter for a Facebook post in Khulna district, the Bangladesh government proposed replacing the Information and Communication Technology Act with the Digital Security Act, which it argued would include checks and balances on arrests over speech while being a timely response to cyber crimes. Comprising 36 sections, the new Act has not yet been passed by Parliament although it has been approved by cabinet. If it becomes law, it would mean that Sections 54, 55, 56, 57 and 66 of the Information and Communication Technology Act would be technically ?repealed.? But critics have expressed alarm about the draft law, claiming it is simply a redistribution of the disturbing provisions of Section 57 into four sections (21, 25, 28 and 29) and is in fact more far-reaching and draconian than its predecessor. In January 2018, the cabinet secretary stated that the Digital Security Act was not designed to target journalists. But journalists have argued that the provisions that treat ?the use of secret recordings to expose corruption and other crimes as espionage? would ?restrict investigative journalism and muzzle media freedom?. There are concerns about other provisions too. For instance, Section 21 of the new bill proposes a 14-year jail term for anyone convicted of ?negative propaganda and campaign against liberation war of Bangladesh or spirit of the liberation war or Father of the Nation?. Section 25 (a) says publishing information that is ?aggressive or frightening? is punishable by up to three years in prison, without defining how such determinations would be made. Section 28, which deals with speech that would be considered to ?injure religious feelings? and carries a prison term of up to five years, requires proof of intent. The abuse of such a provision to target citizens in the context of Bangladesh raises significant concern. Section 29 focuses on online defamation but, unlike the Information and Communication Technology Act, limits such charges to those that meet the requirements of the criminal defamation provisions of the Penal Code. But this still runs contrary to a growing argument in the country that defamation should be treated as a civil matter and not as a crime carrying a prison sentence. Section 31 says posting information that ?ruins communal harmony or creates instability or disorder or disturbs or is about to disturb the law and order situation?, and speech that ?creates animosity, hatred or antipathy among the various classes and communities?, would carry a prison term of up to 10 years. But it does not clearly define what kind of speech would be considered a threat to ?communal harmony? or one that would ?create instability?. Given past experience, we can expect that speech aimed toward minority populations would not be the main focus. Given the lack of robust definitions of what would constitute violations of such provisions, it is possible to extrapolate that similar to Section 57, the door to misuse of the Digital Security Act to target journalists, academics, and private citizens remains open. Combined with the harshness of the potential penalty laid out for each violation and the established record of the number of journalists, bloggers and civil society actors who have been arrested, detained and even jailed under Section 57; it is quite conceivable that the proposed law would increase the possibility of self-censorship and further curtail the right to freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed in the Constitution. As the space for dissent narrows in neighbouring India and Pakistan, Bangladesh, in its efforts to remain a democracy too should be vigilant of the slippery slope of gagging fundamental rights and freedoms in the name of ?law and order? using draconian legislation. Repealing Section 57 would be a step in the right direction, but implementing the Digital Security Act with its even wider powers would usher in fresh crises. The current trend of silencing citizens through legal intimidation does not bode well for the country's democracy. It remains to be seen whether the government can step back from the temptations of narrowing the space for public discourse, and instead step forward to harness digital technology to advance the achievements, economic growth, and promote social stability in Bangladesh in the ongoing effort to strengthen its democracy. Selim Ahmad is a member of a group of Bangladeshi technologists and academics called Katatare Prajapati. ======================================== 8. CIVILIANS ARE LOSING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN Unprecedented Violence and Failed Reforms Signal Dangerous Political Crisis Patricia Gossman ======================================== Human Rights Watch Who?s winning in Afghanistan? That?s not the right question. The important one is who?s losing. The answer: Ordinary people trying to get to work, kids in school, worshippers in their neighborhood mosque. Thousands of Afghan civilians are losing their lives, their loved ones, or suffering devastating injuries in bombings, gunbattles, and other violence. Since January, the United Nations documented the highest number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan since it started keeping track in 2009. At least 1,692 civilians died in the first six month of 2018 and over 3,400 were injured. A quarter of these were children. Given the difficulties of collecting information from remote areas of conflict, the number is likely higher. Suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks caused most of these deaths and injuries. The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, has targeted voter registration centers, public gatherings, and schools, singling out Afghanistan?s Shia community for attack. At the same time, people living in areas where these groups hold sway have experienced airstrikes by US and Afghan government forces that killed and injured more than 350 civilians between January and June. Donors who appropriately condemn insurgent attacks seldom raise any concerns about the 7 percent of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes by Afghan or US government forces. These donors are preparing for a ministerial meeting in Geneva in November that the UN has called ?a crucial moment for the government and international community to demonstrate progress.? What progress will they point to? Parliamentary elections should have taken place by then, and donors who footed the bill may say that while the elections were ?flawed,? maybe the presidential ones next April will be better. Don?t count on it. With highly suspicious voter registration numbers, a flood of fake ID cards, and infighting among political elites over the spoils of power, contested elections are one symptom of Afghanistan?s governance crisis. Here are some others: the government?s failure to prosecute violence against women and torture, and the fact that long-touted gains in terms of girls? education and media freedom are slipping away. Between parliamentary elections this year and the upcoming presidential vote, Afghanistan is facing not just an escalating war, but also an unprecedented political crisis, though one long foreseen. Donors need to stop checking boxes blindly and hold the government to account. ======================================== 9. PAKISTAN'S IMRAN KHAN PLEDGES CITIZENSHIP FOR 1.5M AFGHAN REFUGEES PM?s offer reverses decades of hostility in official policy but analysts question motives Memphis Barker in Islamabad ======================================== The Guardian 17 September 2018 Imran Khan has pledged to grant citizenship to 1.5 million Afghan refugees who have lived on the margins of Pakistan?s society for decades. According to the UN, Pakistan has the largest refugee population in the world, mostly made up of 2.7 million refugees from Afghanistan. Many fled the Soviet invasion in 1979, while others came across the border due to violence and economic turmoil. In a surprise announcement on Sunday at a public event in Karachi, the Pakistani prime minister said: ?Afghans whose children have been raised and born in Pakistan will be granted citizenship inshallah (God willing) because this is the established practice in countries around the world. ?They are humans. How come we have deprived them and have not arranged for offering them national identification card and passport for 30 years, 40 years?? Advertisement According to UN surveys, about 60% of the Afghan refugee population was born in Pakistan, meaning almost 1.5 million people stand to benefit. Khan also promised the same treatment for Bengali refugees, which would include the Rohingya minority. Pakistan?s citizenship act of 1951 guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the country. However, bureaucratic hurdles, ethnic rivalries and the exception against children whose parents come from ?alien? or enemy nations has made it close to impossible for Afghan and Bengali refugees to secure their rights, along with the Pakistani passport they would bring. Khan noted in his speech, broadcast on national television, that a lack of official documentation pushed many refugees towards black-market labour or crime. Human rights groups and commentators across the political spectrum welcomed the announcement as the first real sign of Khan?s promise to shake up the status quo and bring in a new, progressive Pakistan. He swept to victory in elections in July as the candidate for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. The pledge marks a reversal of decades of hostility towards Afghan refugees in particular, who are often blamed for producing or shielding terrorists. The official government policy has long been to promote ?voluntary? repatriation. In 2016, about 600,000 Afghans were sent back, in a process criticised as abusive by Human Rights Watch (HRW). Questions were being asked in Pakistan about whether Khan had cleared his proposal with the powerful military, which has traditionally held sway over refugee policy. The day before the prime minister?s speech, the foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is seen as close to the army, returned from a visit to Kabul stressing the need for ?dignified, sustainable repatriation?. Sources within the UN were pleased at the initiative, but expressed some scepticism as to how fully it would be carried out. Some analysts posited a political incentive for Khan. Afghan refugees belong to the Pashtun ethnicity and Pashtuns, thousands of whom live in Karachi, overwhelmingly ?voted for PTI? two months ago, said Saroop Ijaz of HRW. Offering more Pashtuns citizenship could cement the party?s hold on the crucial megalopolis, he added. o o o Dawn, September 18, 2018 Editorial CITIZENSHIP PROMISE It has come as a bolt from the blue, but if executed with care and by taking all communities along, it could alleviate the suffering and uncertainty of many. In his maiden visit to Karachi on Sunday, Prime Minister Imran Khan unexpectedly unannounced that Afghans and Bengalis living in the country for many decades would be issued CNICs and passports, which would effectively make them formal citizens of Pakistan. At this stage, it is unclear which categories of those residents will be considered for citizenship. Mr Khan mentioned both individuals who are living in Pakistan for more than four decades (presumably the first wave of Afghan refugees and Bengalis who remained in Pakistan after the separation of its eastern wing) and those who have been born and raised in Pakistan. Much will depend on the details of the citizenship schemes, but it is clearly welcome that a prime minister has turned his attention to the plight of marginalised and forgotten communities. As Mr Khan noted, the failure of Pakistan to provide effective rights to Afghan and Bengali communities with a long-term presence in the country often results in pushing individuals towards desperation and crime. All those who dwell in this country should have a life of respect and dignity. Article continues after ad Nevertheless, it is important that the PTI government not act unilaterally in the matter. Parliament should be consulted, as should the provinces and the communities in which the Afghans and Bengalis reside. While humanity and the state?s moral responsibilities demand that the lives of non-citizens living in Pakistan for decades or born and raised here be improved, there are significant electoral and political dimensions to the issue that will also need to be considered. For example, the granting of voting rights to large new groups in Karachi or Quetta could significantly alter the electoral dynamics of the provincial capitals and introduce shifts at the provincial level. Moreover, there could be concerns about ineligible individuals, such as those who have recently arrived in Pakistan, attempting to benefit from a citizenship drive. None of these issues are insurmountable or should stand in the way of giving long-term residents of this country their due rights. But it is important at the outset to recognise potential challenges to the scheme lest the government?s good intentions quickly be overwhelmed by both legitimate and cynical political opposition. Mr Khan?s idea to grant citizenship to long-term ?refugees? is significant and has the potential to positively transform the lives of many residents of this country. Yet, unilateralism at this stage by the federal government could sharpen political opposition to the PTI and mire a good idea in deep controversy. Parliament, the provinces and local communities should all be consulted and their input taken seriously. All sides should remember that the current state of affairs is dismal and unacceptable. ======================================== 10. WHY A 4,500-YEAR-OLD SKULL IS KEY TO THE POLITICS OF INDIA?S HINDU-MUSLIM DIVIDE by Vir Sanghvi ======================================== South China Morning Post 4 Sep 2018 / UPDATED ON 5 Sep 2018 Archaeological and historical theories surrounding an ancient civilisation in the Indus valley have been hijacked by political agendas It is a measure of the mood in today?s India that archaeology, genetics and racial purity have now been co-opted in a debate about current politics. Not since the middle of the 20th Century has racial purity been as important in the politics of a major nation. And yes, the term ?Aryan? is being bandied about with a worryingly familiar ease. The debate is centred on a genuine historical puzzle. In the early 20th Century, archaeologists discovered two ancient urban centres in the Indus Valley region (now part of Pakistan). These discoveries led to a rewriting of Indian history. They suggested that long before the dawn of recorded history (as far back as 3500BC perhaps, or even before), there was a highly developed urban civilisation in India. Love jihad and Twitter hate Later, archaeologists found more sites leading them to conclude that the civilisation was not focused only around the Indus river but stretched all the way south to the Indian state of Gujarat. New sites keep being discovered and it is now clear that the cities of the so-called Indus Valley Civilization extended all over North and Western India. The British archaeologists and historians who made the initial discoveries tried to reconcile them with their traditional view of ancient India. Their theory was that a race called the Aryans lived in Central Asia and then migrated around the world taking their advanced civilisation with them. One group went to Europe. Another went to Iran. Some came to India and so on. In this version, the Aryans vanquished the original inhabitants of the countries they went to and imposed their ?civilised? values. Adolf Hitler seized on this theory, appropriated the Hindu Swastika Symbol and based his politics on the racial purity of Aryan-Germans, treating non-Aryans (such as the Jews) as inferior beings. In Iran, the Shah called himself Aryamehr (or Light of The Aryans) and believed that Aryan-Iranians were more advanced than the Semitic Arabs of neighbouring countries. [A wall covered with swastikas, a symbol of Hinduism, in Ayodhya. Photo: AFP] A wall covered with swastikas, a symbol of Hinduism, in Ayodhya. Photo: AFP The main evidence for this theory was linguistic. There are many similarities between Latin and Sanskrit suggesting a common origin. But there were other parallels too, among them, the gods of early religions: you can equate Greek and Roman gods with ancient Hindu gods. But how did the people of the Indus Valley fit into this scheme? The British quoted ancient Hindu texts which suggested that the ?Arya? had defeated the ?dasa?. The British view was that the ?dasa? were Dravidians or early settlers in India who were pushed south by invading Aryans. The Indus Valley population was probably a Dravidian civilisation. Over the years, there have been many problems with this view. The Indus Valley language is still to be deciphered but there is no proof that it bears any relation to a South Indian (or ?Dravidian?) language. Nor do excavations reveal any sign of cities destroyed in battle. Whatever killed off the Indus Valley Civilisation, it wasn?t an Aryan invasion. What a controversy over the Taj Mahal says about a changing India But even as archaeologists were coming to grips with these mysteries, the Hindu right came up with its own theories. There was no Aryan invasion or even a migration, it said. In fact, there was no Aryan-Dravidian divide. And there was no difference between the people of the Indus Valley and the so-called Aryans. They were all the original inhabitants of India. Were these theories derived from archaeology and history? Or was there a political agenda? The answer lay in the issue that sat squarely at the centre of Hindu right-wing ideology: the Hindu-Muslim divide. According to the right, the Hindus were the original inhabitants of India. Muslims were invaders. Nobody questioned the right of Muslims to live in India but they needed to accept that they had come to a Hindu county from elsewhere. They could stay on as long as they accepted that India always was ? and would remain ? a Hindu nation. [A replica of a statue discovered at an archeological site of Mohenjo Daro, 425km north of the Pakistani city of Karachi. Archaeologists believe the ruins could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished around 3,000BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing. Photo: AFP] A replica of a statue discovered at an archeological site of Mohenjo Daro, 425km north of the Pakistani city of Karachi. Archaeologists believe the ruins could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished around 3,000BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing. Photo: AFP This position collapsed if it could be shown that the Aryans were also invaders or, at the very least, migrants. And as there was little evidence to suggest that the Indus Valley Civilisation was Hindu, then even Hinduism was a religion that had come to India from elsewhere. So the Hindu Right has struggled to prove that the people of the Indus Valley were Hindus and that today?s Indians are directly descended from them. India: no country for Muslims This position has had its successes and failures. Some images of a God-like figure found in Indus Valley excavations have been compared to the Hindu god Shiva. On the other hand, there is a very little evidence to suggest that there were horses in the Indus Valley while early Hindu texts mention the Arya riding in horse-drawn chariots. But what has more or less settled the issue is the recent development of DNA technology. Scientists have now established that most Indians are a mixture of two different DNAs called Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI). Though nobody uses the terms, the distinctions coincide pretty clearly with Aryan and Dravidian. Moreover the ANI DNA shares characteristics with Central Asian DNA, while ASI DNA is uniquely Indian. [A two-storey well at the archaeological site of Mohenjo Daro, thought to have been home to the Indus Valley people. Photo: AFP] A two-storey well at the archaeological site of Mohenjo Daro, thought to have been home to the Indus Valley people. Photo: AFP In some ways, this suggests the view that the Dravidians (ASI) were indigenously Indian while the Aryans (ANI) came from the Steppes, as the old theory had it, was not wrong. Perhaps there was no Aryan invasion, just a gradual migration. Naturally, the Hindu right has rejected this view, rubbished the evidence and launched a counter attack. The new battle is over Indus Valley DNA. Scientists have extracted the DNA from a human skull found during excavations at a site in Rakhigarhi. The skull is 4,500 years old and does not contain traces of ANI (or the so-called Aryan) DNA. These finds are bound to be contested but so far, at least, the bulk of DNA evidence suggests that there was an indigenous population in India, long before people with ANI DNA arrived. The people of the Indus Valley have more DNA in common with South Indians than North Indians. Why the world needs to sit up and take notice of India?s war on meat It is not hard to see why this would upset those who believe that the so-called Aryan-Dravidian divide does not exist and that Hinduism is an entirely indigenous religion. If the Aryans came from the Steppes and brought an early version of Hinduism with them, then how were they so different from the Muslims who came much later? At one level, the debate is silly. All nations are comprised of a mix of peoples who migrated over the centuries. Nobody in the UK for instance, bothers about Normans and Saxons. But once you base your ideology on racial and religious purity, then you commit yourself to a different kind of politics where the battles of thousands of years ago resurface in a modern contest and where research is not a scientific tool but a weapon in political skirmishes. Something like that is happening in India today. A former editor, Vir Sanghvi is a columnist and TV presenter ======================================== 11. CREATIVE PROTECTION - EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH ======================================== The Telegraph September 15, 2018 Editorial When the Vishwa Hindu Parishad begins talking about lawfulness, it is time to worry about aural health. Earlier this month, the VHP announced that it would give the Bajrang Dal lessons in law - not so that it stops pouncing on people in mobs to denude them of rights and lives, but instead 'acts' with a knowledge of the law so that it can be 'enforced'. Force is fundamental to the world view of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and all similarly coloured offspring of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. So even in this case, once the Bajrang Dal has learnt, say, the laws regarding trafficking of cows of each state, and has found a violation, its members should draft a complaint - an art yet to be taught, it seems, the acme of optimism - and approach the 'appropriate authority' and "mount pressure by citing rules and laws". Why would pressure be needed if the demand is lawful? But the mention of the law is suggestive, if not of change, then of a slight shift in emphasis, maybe temporary. Evidently, mob violence was getting too much even for hesitant law-enforcers to cover up. Could the growing pile of murders, although of minorities and underprivileged persons, matter a little in the 2019 elections? An appearance of reining in righteous passion could help. Besides, Praveen Togadia, the former international chief of the VHP, was a surgeon who went straight for the jugular. The cases against him ranged from the illicit distribution of trishuls to regular incitement of hatred and violence against a minority community. But the defeat of his prot?g? in the VHP organizational elections in April led to the anointing of V.S. Kokje, formerly the governor of Himachal Pradesh and high court judge in two states. No wonder the VHP's vocabulary now includes law. Not that there is any other change. The VHP's focus is precise: protection of cows and women. Cows and women arouse the holiest of the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal's protective instincts: these females are equally helpless, equally incapable of thinking for themselves, equally productive of good, enjoyable things, equally worthy of possession and control. On both groups of females devolve the honour of the religion, although in two completely different ways. That is indicated by the two approaches to protection. Cows should be protected from slaughter and trafficking, and women from marriage into the minority community through the trumped-up evil called 'love jihad'. Trafficking of women, their rapes, murder and torture are really not part of the syllabus. Extending protection there would be foolishly self-defeating. Strangely, though, as the lawman chief would know, India has laws against such violence, and not against marrying outside the community. So what law would the Bajrang Dal learn on this score? Perhaps something is to be evolved soon. As the Bharatiya Janata Party cabinet minister from Uttar Pradesh said - in the name of the people of course - the Supreme Court is 'theirs'. ======================================== 12. INDIA: PUNJAB SACRILEGE BILL IS A VIGILANTE LEGISLATION - EDIT, EPW ======================================== Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 53, Issue No. 37, 15 Sep, 2018 Progressive subordination of the domain of the sacred is the cornerstone of secularism. The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, mooted by the Congress-led Government of Punjab and subsequently passed by the Punjab assembly, seeks to amend Article 295-A to make the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib, Koran, Bible and Bhagavad Gita a punishable offence attracting life imprisonment. The immediate political context of the bill is the contestation between the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Interestingly, on an earlier occasion, the SAD-led state government had passed a bill making sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib punishable. However, it was sent back in 2017 by the union government on the grounds that the proposed amendments would violate the principle of secularism enshrined in the Constitution. The current Punjab government seeks to justify its bill because it has included the sacred books of other religions as well. This is an instance of how its understanding as ?sarva dharma sam bhaav? (equal treatment to all religions) turns the principle of secularism on its head. Commitment to the principle of secularism entails a progressive subordination of the sacred and continuous transition from the holy to the profane. Even though the bill does not invoke the term blasphemy, its inner logic aligns it with anti-blasphemy laws. However, some of the mainstream arguments against the potential threat of blasphemy laws to a liberal democracy seem to be operating within a minimalist understanding of secularism. One line of criticism faults the bill for defiling the sacred or the transcendental character of holy texts by using this-worldly state power to protect it. This attempt to expose the apparent irony underlying the bill is inadequate, for it misses the very political purpose of blasphemy laws. To deem certain ideas/thoughts/norms/values to be out of bounds for criticism or contestation is to argue that certain forms of power are beyond criticism or contestation. The creation, delimitation and expansion of the domain of the sacred is always a political (and not merely theological) exercise to create barriers of defiance for entrenched power. There is no irony involved in using this-worldly state power to protect the sacred, as the authority of the sacred is invariably invoked to strengthen this-worldly power structures. A second line of criticism faults the bill for importing the ?Judaeo-Christian? concept of blasphemy into Hinduism by including the Bhagavad Gita among the holy books. This is taken as a violation of traditions of pluralism and tolerance. However, this view ignores the historical fact of persecution, social boycott, outcasting of nastika/non-vedic/pakhandi heterodox streams, and the individuals and groups associated with these. Whatever apparent tolerance there is for the deviance from sacred texts is overshadowed by the fierce/violent opposition to the deviance in practice, particularly the practice of caste-based norms. Thus, this second view fails to see the sources of social sanction that blasphemy laws can receive in Indian society and thereby polity. What is common to these two critiques of the bill in question is the hesitation to subject the domain of the sacred itself to criticism. Such criticism, which is deemed blasphemous, is essential to nurture the principle of secularism. These hesitant critiques thus prove inadequate to explain the political implications of such legislation in the state of affairs marked by the erosion of the commitment to this principle. In recent times, there have been increasing demands for banning plays, books, and works of art on the grounds of insult to religious belief or identity of a particular community. In more recent times, attempts to insulate religious texts from fair criticism have become quite vicious. This was evident from the two cases of bomb blasts that were engineered by Hindutva groups outside theatres in Mumbai. These blasts were executed when a popular Marathi play, drawing on the rich folk traditions of irreverence to sacred authority and playful mockery of gods, was being staged. The self-styled custodians of tradition were outraged by this popularisation of heterodoxy. The Punjab legislation can lead to other states similarly pandering to the demands of different communities and groups. Such legislation would hinder the possibility of the immanent critique of religious/community practices, beliefs, and norms, as blasphemy laws strengthen the position of the dominant within the community by accepting their interpretation as authoritative. But, even more serious is the danger of such legislation indicating to the extremist and vigilante groups that their actions have the overt or tacit backing of state power. Therefore, the bill needs to be seen as a vigilante legislation that could potentially legalise vigilantism. We have seen the horrific consequences of such a symbiotic process in the case of the anti-cow slaughter legislation and gau-rakshak violence. Legal protection for the text in the domain of the sacred, even as hate speech and hate crimes against human individuals and collectives go unabated and unpunished, is a definite indicator of the extent of erosion of the secular principle in our polity and society. ======================================== 13. INDIA: NO, MR KADAM - WOMEN CANNOT BE KIDNAPPED AT WILL - Editorial (Sep 8, 2018, Times of India) ======================================== Ram Kadam, a BJP spokesperson and MLA from Maharashtra, undermined his party's Beti Bachao slogan when he offered to kidnap girls for the boys in his constituency. But the friendly MLA said he would disregard the girl's will only if the boy's family was on board. "If the parents of the boy like the girl, I will 100% help the boy in abducting the girl," he promised, even handing out his phone number. Of course, opposition parties pounced on him, with Congress politician Subodh Saoji revealing his own illiberal colours by offering a bounty to chop Kadam's tongue.? Kadam fails to see the women he promised to potentially kidnap are his constituents too, independent of the parents who want to protect them or the men who want to marry them. This is the crux of the issue. So it's not enough to mock Kadam and his party with ?Beti Uthao, Beti Bhagao' or ?Ravan Kadam' inversions, we must first acknowledge that women are not just betis or treasures or future nurturers of families, they are their own persons. Their security being threatened by their own MLA would then be the clear outrage it is. https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/no-mr-kadam-women-cannot-be-kidnapped-at-will/ ======================================== 14. INDIA?S SHRINKING DEMOCRATIC SPACE by Malini Parthasarathy ======================================== The Hindu September 15, 2018 The BJP?s dystopic national vision jeopardises the future of our republic With less than a year to go before we head into general elections in the summer of 2019, it is becoming evident that this will be no ordinary electoral contest between the BJP and the rest because what is at stake is the future of our democratic republic. It seems that a pivotal moment in our political life is approaching, with the BJP and its allied organisations embarking on a strategic course that is far more ambitious and combative than in 2014, seeking as it does to alter the fundamental postulates of the democratic framework of the Indian nation. As Indians, we are justly proud of the structure of our governance and our Constitution which has ensured that India is both a democracy and a republic. This powerful and well-articulated constitutional link between democracy and republic has entrenched all citizens as equal stakeholders in this nation state. The Constitution, which came into force in 1950, had ensured that Indian citizens were given a set of inviolable freedoms, including equality before the law and freedom of expression. An inheritance in peril It is this democratic inheritance which is now in peril, with the BJP signalling a willingness to depart from the traditional moorings of governance. The ruling party and its Hindu nationalist affiliates are becoming increasingly vocal in the public sphere in their questioning of the foundational principles of our democratic framework, airing afresh pre-Independence Hindu nationalist doctrines that question the basis of India?s composite nationhood. Meanwhile, the trend of the Modi administration?s policy responses and actions in recent months suggests a stronger tilt towards implementing the original agenda of Hindu nationalism, by making policy moves that seek to unsettle the governing consensus on nationhood and citizenship. The edgier tone of the policy statements emanating from the party?s top leadership, particularly its president, Amit Shah, indicate that the BJP is preparing for a more combative political strategy. In the recent meeting of the BJP National Executive, Mr. Shah asserted the party?s determination to not only win 2019 but rule ?for the next 50 years?. The purpose of the BJP?s recent political moves on the Citizenship Act, on the controversial concept of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and on the special status of Jammu and Kashmir is to challenge the prevailing governing consensus on key issues such as citizenship and the relationship of various States to the Union. All these moves would add up to a fundamental rewriting of the rules of engagement between the Indian nation and all other players, be it citizens, constituent States, or communities. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government is taking decisive steps on fulfilling several of its core Hindu nationalist doctrinal commitments. Its policy articulations on citizenship, on the status of J&K, and its strident public campaign against intellectuals and civil society activists, branding them as ?urban Naxals?, are all signposts of a new political culture that is sought to be forcibly entrenched in our public space. Yet, neither the Congress nor other opposition parties acknowledge emphatically that what is really unfolding in the political arena is a fundamental contest between the original pluralist vision of Indian democracy and the monocultural and exclusivist view of the Hindu nationalists. These parties do not seem to have grasped the deeper pattern of interconnected trends unfolding behind the policy steps taken by the Modi administration with the encouragement of the ruling party. When the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government assumed power in 2014, its initial approach to historically sensitive issues such as Kashmir and minority groups was cautious. It also appeared eager to prove its governing capability and demonstrate a willingness to adhere to the Constitution. Mr. Modi was quick to show his disapproval of the mob violence and the cow vigilantism of right-wing groups that erupted brazenly after its assumption of power. The gloves are off But now the BJP appears determined to take its gloves off, eager to wade into controversial issues such as the status of J&K and the Citizenship Act. By explicitly placing these issues that relate to citizenship and community rights at the top of the party?s national political agenda, it is clearly readying for elections. Government officials and party spokespersons are becoming explicitly combative on the concept of special rights for Kashmir. They are unapologetic on the controversy in Assam over the agony of genuine citizens who find their names missing in the new NRC. Undeterred by the strong public criticism, party and government leaders continue to affirm enthusiastically their commitment to the government?s proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016. This proposal, which blatantly omits Muslims from the list of communities in the South Asian neighbourhood who are invited to take Indian citizenship, has been widely condemned as unconstitutional because of its exclusivist intent, violating Article 14 mandating equality before the law. In recent months, the situation in the Kashmir Valley is at its inflamed worst, with the political process having collapsed as Governor?s Rule has been imposed. After the breakdown of the alliance with the PDP in June, the BJP has reverted to its traditionally hard-line position on the status of J&K, questioning the special provisions designed to protect its conditional accession to the Union. Article 370 of the Indian Constitution as also Article 35A were historical commitments to the State of Jammu and Kashmir based on the conditional terms of the Instrument of Accession in October 1947. Given that J&K?s adherence to the Indian Union remains vulnerable to external challenge, it is evidently bad strategy to embark on a confrontational course in respect of the special provisions designed to protect its status in the Union. Therefore, inexplicable are the loud musings from senior officials in the Modi government such as the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, reportedly calling the idea of a separate Constitution for J&K an ?aberration?. Also provocative was a BJP-sponsored challenge in the Supreme Court to the validity of Article 35A. Such a stand-off, while it possibly thwarts the prospect of a revival of a peace process in the State, benefits the BJP politically, as the hard-line stance is bound to appeal to its hard-core Hindu nationalist supporters. Likewise, the pronouncements of Mr. Shah at the recent BJP National Executive meeting on Assam, the issue of illegal migrants, the NRC controversy and the Citizenship Amendment Bill underlined the party?s determination to press ahead with its polarising strategy. The political resolution adopted at the meeting echoed Mr. Shah?s assertions. The resolution called the publication of the NRC ?a monumental work in securing the cultural, economic and demographic interests of the state as well as the national security interests of India?. Further, militating against the global trend of humanitarian sympathy for the plight of the Rohingya, the resolution says the BJP National Executive ?compliments the Modi government for its determination in weeding out the infiltrators, whether Bangladeshi or Rohingya?. Alarming too is the BJP National Executive?s welcome of the proposal in the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016 to grant citizenship in a shortened time frame to Hindu minorities from the South Asian neighbourhood. In effect, what emerges from the BJP?s recent conclave is an insular and rejectionist perspective sharply at odds with India?s hitherto strong humanitarian traditions. Unabated repression Meanwhile, in the public sphere, the repression of critical voices and dissent continues unabated. There is a vitriolic narrative being fed into the public discourse, aided by an incendiary social media campaign, against journalists and activists, painting them as ?urban Naxals?, peddling unsubstantiated allegations of links between these critics of the government and the Maoist insurgency. This McCarthyist campaign is intended to discredit the public resistance steadily building up against the government?s efforts to curtail democratic freedoms. If not for the Supreme Court, which is proving to be the last bastion in the defence of basic rights, India?s democratic governing framework would be under greater challenge. Political scientist Robert Paxton defined fascism in his seminal study in 2004, The Anatomy of Fascism, as ?a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood? and in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants ?abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion?. This could well be a description of the BJP?s mobilisation strategies and its political perspective. It is time for those of us invested in keeping India?s democratic imagination vibrant and expansive to resist such an exclusivist political vision. Malini Parthasarathy is Director, Editorial Strategy and former Editor of The Hindu ======================================== 15. INDIAN GOVERNMENT WEBSITES ?HACKED? TO MINE CRYPTO CURRENCIES The Indian government has tried to ban crypto, but hundreds of state-managed websites have allegedly been hacked to illicitly mine digital currencies by Luke Thompson ======================================== Asia Times September 19, 2018 India?s crypto industry is currently in a state of limbo, awaiting the green light, or perhaps another clampdown, when the Supreme Court case involving the Reserve Bank of India is finally resolved. Yet, allegedly this has not deterred cyber criminals of helping themselves to low-hanging crypto fruit on government websites. Indian media are reporting that state-built websites are usually knocked up on a budget using dated code and poor security practices. This makes them soft targets for hackers looking to exploit those vulnerabilities for their own gain. According to the media reports, there have been hundreds of government websites compromised in order to mine crypto-currencies, including those for the director of municipal administration of Andhra Pradesh, Tirupati Municipal Corporation and Macherla municipality. The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox By using malware, known as cryptojacking, the attacker harnesses the computing power of the compromised machine via a security flaw in the website. This CPU power is then used to mine crypto currency and secretly send it to the hackers? wallets. Security researcher Indrajeet Bhuyan told Economic Times that ?hackers target government websites for mining cryptocurrency because those websites get high traffic and mostly people trust them. Earlier, we saw a lot of government websites getting defaced (hacked). Now, injecting cryptojackers is more fashionable as the hacker can make money.? Security researchers notified IT staff at Pradesh?s offices but it appears that the malware is still in operation and the websites are still compromised and were offline at the time of writing. In addition to this incident an estimated 119 prominent Indian websites still run the Coinhive mining script which has been widely used to fraudulently mine the anonymous crypto Monero. Earlier this year the same script had infected over 200,000 ISP routers globally and continues to cause havoc to hardware and websites across the web. The official website of Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was affected by the same vulnerability in March, when it was discovered to be hosting malware. Cryptojacking is rapidly surpassing ransomware as an easier way to generate illicit income. ?Cryptojackers who manage to develop and maintain a network of hijacked computer systems are able to generate revenue with a fraction of the effort and attention (required by) ransomware,? said Rajesh Maurya, regional vice president of cyber security firm Fortinet. He added that Internet of Things (IoT) devices are likely to be the next targets after computers as they operate autonomously and are relatively easy to hack. Fortinet reported that cryptojacking malware increased from affecting 13% of all organizations globally in Q4 of 2017 to 28% in Q1 of 2018, more than doubling its impact. ======================================== 16. INDIA - BHIMA KOREGAON CASE: LIBERTY CANNOT BE SACRIFICED AT THE ALTAR OF CONJECTURE, SAYS SUPREME COURT ======================================== scroll.in 19 sept 2018 The house arrests of five activists detained in August will continue till Thursday, when the top court resumes hearing the case. The Supreme Court on Wednesday said liberty cannot be sacrificed at the altar of conjectures and that it would look at the submissions of the central and Maharashtra government with a ?hawk?s eye? while deciding on the arrests of activists in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence in January. The activists were arrested as part of the Pune Police?s investigation into the violence during the Bhima Koregaon event in January. While one petition was filed by five citizens a day after the arrests in August, an intervention application was also filed on behalf of five activists arrested in June. Activists Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj and Varavara Rao, who were held in August, are currently under house arrest. The house arrest will continue till Thursday, when the top court resumes hearing the case. Activists Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale were arrested in June. On Wednesday, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta disputed claims made on behalf of the ten activists and said procedures were followed in the case. Taking the court through the material related to the first five people arrested in June, Mehta said the relevant court was informed of the actions initiated at every step. ?It was based on concrete material that we arrested the persons,? he said. Mehta produced both the case diary and the evidence collected so far before the court. However, the evidence was not read out loud. Only the relevant page numbers and paragraphs were pointed out to the bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which read the paragraphs as and when they were cited by Mehta. Mehta also said that there were photographs of the activists with Milind Teltumbde, on whom there is a bounty of Rs 50 lakh announced by the Maharashtra government. Teltumbde, a central committee member of Communist Party of India (Maoist), is the brother of management professor and intellectual Anand Teltumbde, whose home in Goa was raided by the police in August. Earlier, appearing for the five eminent persons who had moved the public interest litigation against the arrests, senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that the letters purportedly written by the activists to members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) were ?cooked up?. In particular, Singhvi said Maharashtra has cited letters written to and received from one Prakash of the CPI (Maoist). Citing a lower court order that had convicted alleged CPI (Maoist) member GN Saibaba, he said the court concluded that this Prakash was indeed Saibaba?s false named used for communications. Singhvi said Saibaba was convicted much before the letters produced were written. ?How did someone serving in jail write these letters?? he questioned. The lawyer said witnesses for the arrest of activists in June were brought from Pune. ?They were stock witnesses. This is a grave violation of procedure.? Singhvi also sought to know why a first information report was not registered on a grave charge that there was a plot to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Replying to these points later, Mehta argued that the same lower court which convicted Saibaba had also found that he had changed his fake name from Prakash to Chetan in 2012. The Prakash in the letters was a member of the CPI (Maoist) central committee. Mehta did not read out the name but produced it before the bench. Mehta also claimed that there were dire references in some communications before 2014 to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram as well. When Mehta said some of these activists were sent into Maoist region in the garb of fact finding, Justice DY Chandrachud intervened and said someone going into a particular region for the sake of finding something out or for research cannot be deemed to be part of a banned organisation. At this point, Justice Misra asked Mehta to show his documents first. While Mehta took the court through the letters, lawyer Prashant Bhushan appearing for the activists said their fundamental case was that the letters have been cooked up. To this, the bench collectively said the court, at this stage, cannot comment on the veracity of the evidence. Mehta also said that except for Shoma Sen and Surendra Gadling, the others arrested have not moved for bail since they know exactly what has been recovered in the searches. Justice Chandrachud again intervened to reiterate that there has to be a distinction made between ?creating a sense of opposition? to the state and subversion of law and order through subscription to a banned organisation. Senior lawyer Harish Salve, who is representing the complainant Tushar Damgude, said the context of the act gains importance. Giving the example of burning of the Constitution, he said a liberal person doing such a thing seeking a new Constitution was on a different plane to a member of a banned terrorist organisation doing it. ?The means used should sync with the Constitution,? he said. Senior lawyer Rajeev Dhawan said the court has to make a differentiation between ?banality and complicity?. On Monday, the Supreme Court had said it may consider ordering an inquiry by a special investigation team if it found anything gravely wrong with the material used as evidence against the 10 activists. ?Every criminal investigation is based on allegations and we have to see whether there is some material,? Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud had said. In previous hearings, the Maharashtra Police have defended the arrest on the grounds that the accused were planning large-scale violence as part of the agenda of the banned outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist). They had earlier claimed that the activists were involved in an event in Pune that was followed by caste-related violence at the nearby village of Bhima Koregaon on January 1. The police have said the activists? speeches at the event were meant to incite hatred and claimed to have seized thousands of letters exchanged among ?underground? and ?overground? Maoists. Two retired judges who organised the event have said that the arrested activists had nothing to do with the event. ======================================== 17. BEBBER ON MCLAREN'S 'PLAYBOYS AND MAYFAIR MEN: CRIME, CLASS, MASCULINITY, AND FASCISM IN 1930S' ======================================== Angus McLaren. Playboys and Mayfair Men: Crime, Class, Masculinity, and Fascism in 1930s London. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. 272 pp. $24.95 (digital), ISBN 978-1-4214-2348-7; $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4214-2347-0. Reviewed by Brett Bebber (Old Dominion University) Published on H-War (September, 2018) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air War College) Playboys and Mayfair Men dives deep into the lives of four aristocrats tried for a brutal act of assault and robbery at the Hyde Park Hotel in 1937. Central to the book?s success is McLaren?s ability to understand the entangled webs of privilege that surrounded the four men and how it inspired an intense public interest in the case given the class and gendered social relations of the period. McLaren effectively uses the case as an aperture onto the Mayfair club scene and elite London social life, and the resentment and fear that these ?playboys? inspired among other Londoners. The book is a delight to read, due largely to its effective organization, clear analysis of the playboy identity, and the timeliness of its portrayal of class and gendered entitlement. A tight introduction sets the historiographical foundation for McLaren?s examination of the crime and its broader meanings. Following William Meier and Lucy Bland, McLaren depicts the theatrical aspects of public trials and the ways in which court arguments reveal normative aspects of gender, class, and generation in their criticisms of the four playboys. He also situates the characterization of the interwar playboy as emblematic of the decline of the aggressive, rugged Victorian male. By the 1920s and 1930s, portrayals of the playboy represented various concerns about masculine domesticity, dilettante daintiness, and leisurely suburban life. These representations emerged a decade and a half before the 1950s, where other historians usually situate the emergence of the playboy and its attendant masculinities. For McLaren and other experts on masculinity like John Tosh, identities like the playboy existed on the margins of interwar British life, challenging and contesting dominant hegemonic middle-class masculine archetypes. The book is divided into two halves, with the first giving a ?thick description? of the crime and exploring its ?micro-narratives? (p. 9). The second discusses the social and cultural contexts of 1930s London society as well as the receptions and interpretations of the event by the press and the broader public. From the first chapter forward, we learn about John Lonsdale, Peter Jenkins, David Wilmer, and Robert Harley, who not only were clumsy in staging and executing the jewel heist, but were also nearly comical in their cover-up and getaway. They invited a Parisian Cartier representative, Etienne Bellenger, to a hotel room by expressing their intention to buy. The first two chapters narrate the seedy details of how the men bludgeoned Bellenger in their hotel room and stole his diamond rings. The story is told largely through the review of Metropolitan Police records and the eyes of the chief investigator, Leonard Burt. Chapter 3 gives us the family background and social pretensions of each of the suspects, while chapter 4 walks us through the February 1938 trial. Chapter 5 provides a brief retrospective, recalling the prison sentences, reintegration, and subsequent relationships of each man. This first half reads like a solid crime chronicle, replete with key details. It only hints at how the public understood the act. The second half of the book makes a more concerted effort to digest press sources and mine them for the multiple threads of social change that surrounded the case. It is here that McLaren?s analysis and argumentation come to the fore, and where he deftly locates the story in a variety of social and geographical environments. A chapter on pain explores the undermining of class expectations introduced when two of the men were flogged by their social inferiors. Floggings, usually reserved for working-class criminals, were part of broader political conversations about corporal punishment and its utility by the mid-1930s. The trial became a blank slate onto which both proponents and reformers could pencil their illustrations of proper criminal punishment. Chapters 7 and 8 on masculinities and crime, respectively, link most closely to the book?s exploration of shifting male identities. Here McLaren deftly explores the playboy as both a subcultural personality and as a cultural construct through which critics could debate prevalent masculinities, exposing ?purported shifts in what it meant to be a man in 1930s Britain? (p. 106). McLaren?s trenchant pen exposes the playboys? links to consumerism, gentlemanly traditions, gender and sexual relations, and the purported dangers of modern British society which might make such a man. He also explores how the playboy interacted with images of womanhood, allowing critics to chastise independent women through their readings of the playboy. These chapters are a definite highlight and reveal McLaren at his analytical best. Chapter 9 takes a closer look at the interwar social hierarchy and describes the Mayfair scene. Unsurprisingly, many readers found it difficult to sympathize with the men on trial, in large part because the press played up their public school background and extensive family connections. The last substantive chapter is less fulfilling, as the author susses out exactly how Lonsdale, Jenkins, and Hervey all attempted to defraud republican Spain in a series of fool?s errands. The men?s links to fascism were thin, largely because their awareness of either British or continental fascism was fickle at best. H-War audiences get a brief overview of Sir Oswald Mosley and his appeal to British elites, but the book is really oriented for readers of British social and cultural history. An immensely interesting epilogue confirms this, connecting the 1930s playboy to its later iterations, including James Bond and the namesake men?s magazine from 1953 onward. The book includes a dizzying array of court cases that McLaren sees through the eyes of either the press or the court recorder. His exploration of the relevant papers, his main source throughout the volume, is very solidly contextualized too. McLaren?s style is compact and clear throughout, and the book would be an excellent addition to readers? lists for students interested in gender, class, and interwar Britain. On a more general level, the subject matter will appeal to anyone aware of the class privilege and playboy mentalities increasingly on display in our contemporary world. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 05:37:33 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 15:07:33 +0530 Subject: =?windows-1252?Q?SACW_-_30_Sept_2018_=7C___Afghanistan=3A__Life_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Under_a_Resurgent_Taliban_/_Sri_Lanka=3A_Rajani?= =?windows-1252?Q?=92s_Questions_/_Bangladesh=3A_gender_pay_gap_/?= =?windows-1252?Q?_Pakistan=3A_Media_freedom_/_India=3A_Modi=27s_?= =?windows-1252?Q?Faking_Love_for_Gandhi=3B_pseudo-science_/_Braz?= =?windows-1252?Q?il=3A_Women_against_Far_Right_/_The_Satanic_Ver?= =?windows-1252?Q?ses_-_30_years?= Message-ID: <0029B557-7DFB-4FA0-8EB3-D731370F78BA@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 30 Sept 2018 - No. 3002 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Peace activists disappointed at cancellation of talks between Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers in New York 2. Sri Lanka: Rajani?s Questions The Tamil Elite Have Refused To Answer | Rajan Hoole 3. Pakistan: Return of the jinns | Kamila Hyat 4. Free Shaidul Alam Demo outside the UN in New York City held on 27 Sept 2018 - Press release 5. India: Narendra Modi?s Lip Service to Mahatma Gandhi Rings Hollow - Ramachandra Guha 6. India: Dont promote pseudo-science - Text of petition by concerned scientists to state run technical education body 7. India: Starvation and Malnutrition in Jharkhand - Statement of the Right to Food Campaign, 8. India: Cases of assault on journalists from Jan. 2010 to June 2018 a list compiled by Committee Against Assault on Journalists (CAAJ) 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: How a Botched Investigation Helped Get 6 Accused in Pehlu Khan?s Killing off the Hook - India : Demand for segregated seats for vegetarian and non-vegetarian passengers in trains in Gujarat - Khaled Ahmed: How Gandhi was different - India - Flagrant impunity for the violent mob: Pehlu Khan lynching case - Witnesses ?fired at? while going to depose - India: After 3 years, Akhlaq's lynching by the mob in Dadri - select reports & commentary - Link to full text of Judgment on the Ayodhya Land Title by the Supreme Court of India (27 Sept 2018) ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 11. An economic analysis of the gender pay gap in Bangladesh | Abdullah Shibli 12. Pakistan: Foreign policy: A new direction? Ayesha Siddiqa 13. 'Criminalizing Journalism': Arrest Warrant Issued For Pakistani Journalist | Frud Bezhan and Daud Khattak 14. Afghanistan?s Islamic Emirate Returns: Life Under a Resurgent Taliban | Michael Semple 15. Sri Lanka: A Chinese Company Leaves a Troubled Trail | Sheridan Prasso 16. India: Militarisation diktat to educational institutions - September 29 as Surgical Strike Day to celebrate covert operations 17. Ayushman Bharat Trivialises India?s Quest for Universal Health Care | Jean Dr?ze 18. India?s classical musicians come under attack | Z.R. 19. India: How Chunni Bai?s death exposes the lie about Aadhaar | Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy 20. India: A Composite Statement on Three Cases by PEN Delhi and PEN South India Centres 21. Peking University threatens to close down Marxism society 22. The Satanic Verses sowed the seeds of rifts that have grown ever wider | Kenan Malik 23. Brazilian women lead nationwide protests against far-right candidate | Gram Slattery, Gabriel Stargardter ======================================== 1. PEACE ACTIVISTS DISAPPOINTED AT CANCELLATION OF TALKS BETWEEN PAKISTANI AND INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS IN NEW YORK ======================================== The Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) has expressed disappointment over the cancellation of a potential meeting between Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York http://www.sacw.net/article13935.html ======================================== 2. SRI LANKA: RAJANI?S QUESTIONS THE TAMIL ELITE HAVE REFUSED TO ANSWER by Rajan Hoole ======================================== Rains and early gloom harbinger the dying year. Fields are ploughed and sown in readiness for the earth?s renewal and the yield of her bounty. It was at such a time that Rajani Thiranagama was killed by the LTTE twenty-nine years ago. Her questions and aphorisms often challenged our assumptions at their core. http://www.sacw.net/article13934.html ======================================== 3. PAKISTAN: RETURN OF THE JINNS by Kamila Hyat ======================================== the concept of black magic, jinns and other forces has come back to campuses across Pakistan with something of a bang ? like a genie released from a bottle. http://www.sacw.net/article13945.html ======================================== 4. FREE SHAIDUL ALAM DEMO OUTSIDE THE UN IN NEW YORK CITY HELD ON 27 SEPT 2018 - PRESS RELEASE ======================================== (September 27, 2018 ? New York) Demonstrators gathered outside the UN General Assembly on September 27 to call for freedom of the press and protection of journalists in Bangladesh. Alam, an internationally renowned Bangladeshi photographer, photojournalist and activist, has been in police custody since August 5, following an interview on Al Jazeera in which he claimed that the broader context of ongoing student protests was pent-up anger at government corruption and misuse of power. http://www.sacw.net/article13925.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: NOTHING IN MODI?S IDEOLOGICAL TRAINING EQUIPS HIM TO ADMIRE MAHATMA GANDHI - Ramachandra Guha ======================================== Mr Modi?s bid to appropriate Gandhi is paradoxical. The prime minister spent most of his formative years in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a hardline Hindu organisation which reviled Gandhi for allegedly being too soft on Muslims. The antagonism between the RSS and Gandhi was at its most intense in the months after August 15 1947, when the subcontinent was freed from British rule but also divided into the separate nations of India and Pakistan. http://www.sacw.net/article13946.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: DONT PROMOTE PSEUDO-SCIENCE - TEXT OF PETITION BY CONCERNED SCIENTISTS TO STATE RUN TECHNICAL EDUCATION BODY ======================================== We, the undersigned researchers, educators and concerned citizens wish to take note of AICTE?s recent initiative about introduction of an elective course on ?Ancient Knowledge Systems? as part of its model curriculum. However, we are taken aback by the news story published yesterday that AICTE has chosen to endorse the book titled Bharatiya Vidya Saar by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan as a reference book for this course. This book makes a number of unsubstantiated claims . . http://www.sacw.net/article13944.html ======================================== 7. INDIA: STARVATION AND MALNUTRITION IN JHARKHAND - STATEMENT OF THE RIGHT TO FOOD CAMPAIGN, JHARKHAND 28 SEPTEMBER 2018 ======================================== Exactly a year ago, 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari of Simdega died of starvation while asking her mother for rice. Her family?s ration card was cancelled for not being linked to Aadhaar. In the last one year, at least 15 people have died due to hunger. Of these, 6 were Adivasis, 4 Dalits, and 5 of backward castes. All these deaths happened due to the denial of security pensions or rations from the PDS. http://www.sacw.net/article13942.html ======================================== 8. INDIA: CASES OF ASSAULT ON JOURNALISTS FROM JAN. 2010 TO JUNE 2018 A LIST COMPILED BY COMMITTEE AGAINST ASSAULT ON JOURNALISTS (CAAJ) ======================================== A document released at the National Convention Against Assault on Journalists held in New Delhi (22-23 September 2018) http://www.sacw.net/article13933.html ======================================== 9. India: Digital version of 1993 report ?Hard Times For Positive Travel? released by AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan ======================================== On the eve of ?World Tourism Day? AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) is releasing the digitized version of its report ?Hard Times For Positive Travel? which originally appeared as a hard copy in September, 1993 at New Delhi, India. The document is a Citizens? Report on the status of travellers with HIV/AIDS. It was prepared by nine ABVA members. The trigger point for this documentation was the inhuman and cruel treatment meted out to a French tourist visiting Calcutta (now Kolkata) who was deported from India on account of being HIV positive. http://www.sacw.net/article13940.html ======================================== 10. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: How a Botched Investigation Helped Get 6 Accused in Pehlu Khan?s Killing off the Hook | Shruti Jain's report in The Wire - India: Demand for segregated seats for vegetarian and non-vegetarian passengers in trains in Gujarat - Khaled Ahmed: How Gandhi was different - India - Flagrant impunity for the violent mob: Pehlu Khan lynching case - Witnesses ?fired at? while going to depose - India: After 3 years, Akhlaq's lynching by the mob in Dadri - select reports & commentary - Link to full text of Judgment on the Ayodhya Land Title by the Supreme Court of India (27 Sept 2018) -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 11. WHY DO WOMEN GET LESS PAY THAN MEN? An economic analysis of the gender pay gap in Bangladesh Abdullah Shibli ======================================== The Daily Star September 23, 2018 How long will women working the same job continue to earn less, sometimes 50 percent less, than men? And when do we expect this gap to go away? One can only speculate, or build models, to get a clearer picture of trends in future employment, wages and salaries, and working conditions. However, all projections indicate that gender wage gap will persist for a few more decades, and in certain professions and jobs. Many academicians are currently working with data, big and small, to get to the bottom of this issue which has existed for ages and has defied all efforts to lower the gap. The bottom line is, there is no easy and clear solution because to paraphrase Harvard economist Claudia Goldin, the actual ?gender pay gap? is far more complex than that math suggests. The gender wage gap is the difference between gross average nominal monthly wages of male and those of female employees expressed as a percentage of wages of male employees. In Bangladesh, for the same work, gender pay gap was 57 percent in 2017 and 54 percent in 2016, according to one study. By and large, women earn about half as much as men in Bangladesh; this gender gap is only exacerbated in the informal market where, for example, a male construction worker can make one and a half times more than his female counterpart. Studies show that a Bangladeshi woman earns on average 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. And again, mind you, we are talking about the same job, working the same number of hours. Fortunately, all studies also indicate that the gender pay gap in Bangladesh has been going down. A recent paper in World Development, an international journal, by Salma Ahmed and Mark McGillivray show that over the period 1999?2009, the gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31 percent and this is mostly due to better education of women and enforcement of laws. Other studies reveal another parallel trend, across all sectors. Women's wages do not rise as much and often fail to keep up with inflation causing a drop in real wages. For example, if the minimum wage for garment workers, mostly women, is raised to Tk 8,000 as proposed, the real income after accounting for cost of living increases will be lower than the increase in per capita income, which almost doubled between 2013 and 2018. So, why do women get paid less than men? This question has attracted a lot of attention in international academic literature. Some of the factors include less education, skills, and marriage. However, economists using very sophisticated tools found that 38 percent of the wage gap remains unexplained even when factors such as these are included as ?control variables? in the models. In other words, ?gender pay gap relates both to women's greater representation in lower-paid sectors such as teaching and health care, as well as the wage differential between women and men in comparable roles.? Three of the most significant contributors to the wage gap are ?the penalty women face for becoming mothers, women's lack of negotiating skills and the bias women face from employers,? according to Olivia Mitchell of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. ?The fact that such a large percentage of the gap cannot be explained underscores the need for policies directly targeting discrimination in order to completely eliminate the gap,? argue economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn of Cornell University. Measures to minimise the wage gap in Bangladesh include initiatives that have been working, including access to education for women, enforcement of minimum wage laws, and greater transparency. In addition, some extra steps are called for. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), key policy areas to reduce the gender pay gap are: contracts, promotions and remuneration. Bangladesh still has a long way to go in these areas, according to a study done recently by Manusher Jonno Foundation, in collaboration with others, in the RMG sector. 72.70 percent of the workers in Dhaka and Gazipur said that they did not have a job contract. The situation, however, was comparatively better in Chittagong and Narayanganj. Other initiatives focusing on reducing the pay gap between men and women centre on the appointment of an in-house equality officer and on training employees, creating inequality complaint procedures and treating each case individually to decide if discrimination has occurred because of any requirements inherent in the tasks to be performed. The Equal Pay Platform launched by ILO and UN Women is promoting awareness of good practices for eradicating gender inequality in wages, including legislation and mechanisms for dispute resolution; measures to advance women's leadership; wage transparency; and access to data on wages and other benefits disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, and migrant status. While the Sustainable Development Goals 5 (gender) and 10 (equality) address the issue of gender equality broadly, each country must find its own set of measures to tackle gender wage gap. Bangladesh also faces the challenge of inadequate data to track progress on these fronts. For instance, SDG 10.3 requires us to ?ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.? But this indicator will be difficult to monitor if we do not have adequate data as the Government of Bangladesh's self-assessment study reported last year. Nonetheless, campaigns to promote education and awareness can remedy some of these shortcomings, too. Bangladesh in collaboration with UN Women can strengthen the latter's advocacy campaign, ?Stop the Robbery?, which calls for equal pay and women's economic empowerment as part of achieving full gender equality. Dr Abdullah Shibli is an economist, and Senior Research Fellow, International Sustainable Development Institute (ISDI), a think-tank in Boston, USA. His new book Economic Crosscurrents will be published later this year. ======================================== 12. PAKISTAN: FOREIGN POLICY: A NEW DIRECTION? Ayesha Siddiqa ======================================== The News September 30, 2018 Pakistan under Imran Khan is cozying up with Saudi Arabia for reasons obvious Prime Minister Imran Khan has kept the state tradition alive by visiting Saudi Arabia for his first official trip abroad. It reminded me of Liaquat Ali Khan, who brushed aside an invitation from Soviet Union over a visit to Washington DC, even though the US was not the first to invite him. Those were early days of Pakistan. Back then, it was struggling to develop a strategic-dependency linkage with the US. More than six and a half decades on, the newly-elected PM Khan is following the same policy. The Saudi royals honoured their guest generously that included a visit inside the Kaaba, a gesture that is bound to increase Khan?s currency among his Muslim followers at home. This treatment indicates the Saudis would not allow absence of personal ties with Khan to cloud the relations between the two countries. It seems the Saudis do not want a repeat of 2008 when they were extremely uncomfortable with Asif Ali Zardari, and labelled him the greatest obstacle to the country?s progress. The US embassy cable published by WikiLeaks revealed that Adel al- Jubeir, Saudi Ambassador to the US, had said, ?We in Saudi Arabia are not observers in Pakistan, we are participants?. Saudi Arabia would not have allowed the Pakistani prime minister to get cozy with Iran; even though Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Khan on August 8, before Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud made the ceremonial call to the newly-elected PM. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the first foreign dignitary to visit Pakistan after the elections. At this juncture, when Iran is plagued by economic problems, Khan is likely to be more easily drawn to Saudi Arabia. Also, Pakistan is in desperate need of ?financial injection? from Saudi Arabia to save it from going to the IMF. Besides, Pakistan has always looked up to Saudi Arabia, for religious identity and cash flow problems. Soon after Khan?s Saudi visit, fake news started circulating that the Saudis had commited USD10 billion to Pakistan. Finance Minister Asad Umer, however, denied it later. Saudi Arabia would not have allowed the Pakistani prime minister to get cozy with Iran; even though Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Khan on August 8, before Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud made the ceremonial call to the newly-elected PM. Over decades, Pakistan?s financial needs have led to entrenchment of Saudi stakes in the country. And this time it doesn?t look any different. Currently, in Pakistan, the state of both non-development and development sector are worrying. The security establishment alone lost approximately USD900 million in the US aid, a shortfall that the government would like to fill through financial gifts from Saudi Arabia like it had back in 2013. Therefore, the new government clearly seems willing to create strategic space for Saudi Arabia, by offering it a partnership in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While the previous government had resisted Saudi pressure to overtly commit troops in the Yemen war, the new government may concede space to Saudi Arabia by allowing it to invest in Gwadar. Even before the visit, there was news of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi investing in real estate in Pakistan?s southern province. One may question Saudi interest in the Pakistani port of Gwadar ? to pursue Mohammd bin Salman?s infamous Vision 2030 that aims at reducing dependency on oil ? as this would require a generational change in his country to gather productive manpower. His vision looks more geo-strategic. The Saudi investment would augment Gwadar?s value regarding the Iranian port of Chahbahar. This is where Pakistani and Saudi states see eye-to-eye. Gwadar?s development has additional benefits for Saudi Arabia, as it may give it access to Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea and also help link up with its interests in Central Asia. Saudi Arabia has stakes in Tajikistan and other Central Asian Republics as well. While Pakistan?s new leader has voiced his intent to play a role of a mediator in the Middle East, in reality such claims are rather ambitious. Despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is willing to give Pakistan space to cater for its own security, considering the large number of Shias in the country, the CPEC partnership will increasingly impose limits on Pakistan?s neutrality. The Saudi and UAE investment in Balochistan may result in their greater influence in rest of the country. Already, there are reports of Saudi links with insurgent groups in Balochistan just like it has ties with Taliban in Afghanistan independent of Pakistan. Pakistan?s southern province is infested with both religious and nationalist militant groups that may benefit from Saudi interests. Also, there are religious groups and individuals in other parts of Pakistan that not only get Saudi financial assistance but also represent Kingdom?s larger political interests inside the country. Thus, even if Pakistan remains unwilling to fight a war in Yemen, it may end up creating bigger stakes for Saudi Arabia inside Pakistan. Besides the traditional Arab versus Persia rivalry that flows in the veins of the Middle East, the current Saudi partnership with the US and their combined aims of restructuring Middle East?s geo-politics have a lot to do with how it wishes to position itself in South Asia. Although the Pak-Saudi relationship holds its own set of risks for the master-planner of CPEC, China will not be averse to Pakistan opening more doors for it in the Middle East. The Saudi inclusion in CPEC will not have an impact on China?s relations with Iran. The more the energy resources, the merrier China would be. But there is no doubt that both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will have to walk on eggshells to keep the internal balance and peace. In the longer-term, Pakistan will secure what it has hoped for since the early 1950s ? a key role in the Arabian Peninsula as a mark of Pakistan?s identity as an Islamic state in South Asia. The Saudi visit will surely leave a mark on how the government?s Middle East policy will pan out in future. ======================================== 13. 'CRIMINALIZING JOURNALISM': ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR PAKISTANI JOURNALIST by Frud Bezhan and Daud Khattak ======================================== RFE/RL September 26, 2018 15:31 GMT A Pakistani journalist signs a banner during a protest against the deteriorating security situation for journalists in the country and to mark World Press Freedom Day in Karachi in May 3. For many, it didn't come as a big surprise when Pakistani authorities went after Nawaz Sharif following the thrice-ousted prime minister's suggestion in an interview that militants active on the country's soil had been allowed to cross into a neighboring rival state to carry out a major terror attack. But shock ensued after an arrest warrant was issued this week for the messenger -- Cyril Almeida, the journalist who conducted the wide-ranging interview published by the Dawn daily in May. Rights groups, independent media, and opposition politicians in Pakistan reacted critically to news that the Lahore High Court had on September 24 issued the order, without the possibility of bail, in relation to Sharif's ongoing treason case. Almeida was barred from leaving the country, and the authorities were ordered to bring the popular columnist before judges on October 8 for Sharif's next hearing. The underlying suggestion is that Almeida is being targeted for simply doing his job at a time when Pakistan's free press is coming under unprecedented pressure from the military -- an institution that has an oversized role in domestic and foreign affairs and which many see as the intended target of Sharif's comments. Cyril Almeida Almeida has not yet been charged with a crime and it is unclear if he has been arrested and is being held as he awaits his appearance in court. The formal court hearing on October 8 will determine what charges, if any, might be brought against the reporter. 'Parallel Governments' Sharif faces treason charges for allegedly attempting to defame Pakistan's state institutions in his headline-grabbing interview with Almeida. Prosecutors see Almeida as a facilitator to Sharif's alleged treason. Sharif told Almeida during the exclusive interview that Pakistan had "two or three parallel governments," a reference to the army's alleged attempts to control Pakistan's political system, and that "there can only be one government: the constitutional one." Sharif was also seen as insinuating that the military had backed the militants who carried out a series of deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008. The Pakistani military has long been accused of supporting militant groups fighting in India and Afghanistan. "Militant organizations are active," Sharif said. "Call them nonstate actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai?" he added, referring to the November 2008 attacks in which at least 160 people were killed by 10 gunmen over the course of three days. The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e Taiba was accused of being behind the attacks. Only days after Almeida's interview was published, authorities disrupted the distribution of Dawn -- Pakistan's oldest newspaper -- across most of the country. Sharif was dismissed from office by the Supreme Court in July 2017 for allegedly concealing assets abroad and other corruption allegations. He denies any wrongdoing. Allies of the three-time prime minister, who was toppled in a military coup in 1999 and lost his premiership in 1993 when the National Assembly was dissolved, called the proceedings a political vendetta and suggested the army might be behind it. 'Climate Of Fear' Rights groups and journalists in Pakistan have denounced the court order for the arrest of Almeida, saying it was an attempt to stifle the free press. "This step has added another sword to the many already hanging over the heads of journalists in Pakistan," Asma Shirazi, a Pakistani journalist and political commentator who hosts a primetime current-affairs show on Aaj News, told RFE/RL. "First it was the [military] establishment, then banned [militant] outfits, and now the courts," Shirazi added. "This warrant for Cyril Almeida will further increase the climate of fear for journalists and the already existing self-censorship in Pakistan." Iqbal Khattak, the Reporters Without Borders representative in Pakistan, told RFE/RL that the arrest warrant for Almeida risked "criminalizing journalism." "Writing a report, story, or an interview is the responsibility of a journalist," he said. "How can one charge a journalist for an interview? This will further cement self-censorship in Pakistan. Who else will dare to speak out or report the truth without any fear when a gigantic media organization like Dawn can face such consequences?" The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), an independent rights organization in Islamabad, said Almeida was "being hounded for nothing more than doing his job -- speaking on the record to a political figure and reporting the facts." The HRCP said placing Almeida on the Exit Control List and issuing a warrant against him was "excessive." Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), said he was dismayed by the court order. "This adds on to the perception that media is under siege in Pakistan. Mr. Almeida was doing his job -- nothing less, nothing more," he said in a statement. #IStandWithCyril was trending on Twitter on September 25-26 with many colleagues and politicians backing the reporter. "Who else will dare to speak out or report the truth without any fear when a gigantic media organization like Dawn can face such consequences?" "Who else will dare to speak out or report the truth without any fear when a gigantic media organization like Dawn can face such consequences?" Banned From Leaving The court order for his arrest is not Almeida's first brush with the authorities. Almeida was barred from leaving the country in 2016 shortly after he wrote an article about a rift between the government and the military. He left for New York when the government order was lifted weeks later. Almeida recently returned to Pakistan. The journalist tweeted on September 24 that a warrant for his arrest had been issued and his name was placed on a list of individuals who cannot fly out of the country. The Lahore High Court said it had taken the measure because Almeida had twice failed to appear in court in relation to Sharif's case, but Dawn said in a statement that the two earlier notices were never delivered. Stifling Free Press Almeida's arrest warrant comes as the Pakistani media bear the brunt of unprecedented pressure. Veteran reporters have been leaving after being threatened, the country's most popular TV station has been forced off the air, and leading columnists have complained that stories that are critical of the army are being rejected by outlets under pressure from the military. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report released in September that the climate for press freedom in Pakistan was deteriorating as the powerful army "quietly, but effectively" restricts reporting through "intimidation" and other means. The report said journalists who push back or are overly critical of the authorities were attacked, threatened, or arrested. The CPJ also said the Pakistani military, intelligence, or military-affiliated political groups were suspected in the killings of 22 reporters over the past decade. ======================================== 14. AFGHANISTAN?S ISLAMIC EMIRATE RETURNS: LIFE UNDER A RESURGENT TALIBAN Michael Semple ======================================== World Politics Review Sept. 18, 2018 In 1992, after groups of guerrilla fighters known as mujahideen succeeded in toppling Afghanistan?s communist government, which had been backed by the Soviet Union, they quickly turned on each other, kicking off a civil war. In response, a group of young clerics in the southern province of Kandahar took up arms themselves, promising to restore order and establish an ?Islamic system.? The Taliban movement, as the clerics became known, spread rapidly across the south and east of the country until 1996, when they ousted the fractious coalition of mujahideen and conquered Kabul. For the next five years, the Taliban governed most of Afghanistan. They extended their administration to all parts of the country under their control, which at the height of their power was about 90 percent of Afghan territory. Supreme authority rested with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and the Taliban renamed the Afghan state as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Away from the front lines of continued fighting against the mujahideen, the Taliban were largely successful in restoring security. They were also notorious for harshly enforcing their strict interpretations of religious rules. Afghanistan became increasingly isolated internationally, especially after the United Nations and the United States sanctioned the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and hosting his al-Qaida training camps. The Islamic Emirate nevertheless remained in place until 2001, when the United States military invaded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But while the U.S. war in Afghanistan, now in its 18th year, succeeded in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul, the Taliban never went away, as underscored by their gains against the Afghan military in recent months. Instead, for more than a decade and a half, they have appealed to widespread grievances stemming from rampant corruption under the new, U.S.-backed government, while framing themselves as defenders of the country?s territory, and of Islam itself. They have also capitalized on the failures of the government to re-integrate Taliban commanders and their men into Afghan society. These strategies have allowed the Taliban to experience a revival of sorts. Today, the Taliban find themselves again in control of much of the territory they claimed before 9/11. In short, they have succeeded in constructing a new version of the Islamic Emirate that the U.S. intended to eliminate. This is not to say that there has been a complete return to the pre-9/11 state of affairs in Afghanistan. Structurally, there are two main differences this time around. First, the Taliban?s national leadership issues orders from Pakistan, rather than from Kabul or Kandahar. Second, a dualist system has been established in Afghanistan, one in which the Islamic Emirate operates in Taliban-controlled areas while in government-controlled areas?mainly administrative hubs and some areas in the center and north of the country?officials report to the government in Kabul. The Taliban are now headed by an emir, Sheikh Haibatollah, and two deputies: Mawlvi Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar who is responsible for the west of the country; and Khalifa Seraj, who is responsible for the east. The movement shields its leaders from public view but puts out frequent statements in the name of the emir. The statements call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the full restoration of the Islamic Emirate. They also assert that the Taliban?s fight in Afghanistan is a legitimate jihad, that the Taliban have no ambitions outside Afghanistan, and that they are open to peace as long as U.S. troops leave. But policymakers who are looking to make peace a reality in Afghanistan, and who more broadly are trying to grasp how the new Islamic Emirate functions, should not rely solely on political statements and positions taken by the Taliban?s diplomats in Qatar and elsewhere. Rather, they should focus on what the movement has actually done in the areas under its control. I recently interviewed Afghan field researchers who have access to Taliban-controlled areas and Taliban personnel, in order to understand what life is like under the resurgent Taliban. The researchers have established a track record of accuracy over time, and, where possible, I validated their material by cross-checking with other sources and observers in Afghanistan. The Rule of Rahm Dil Afghanistan is administratively divided into 387 districts, within 34 provinces. Analysts have estimated that the Taliban control up to 61 percent of the districts, though this figure is contested. While the Taliban operates ?commissions??in effect, government departments?at the provincial level, few of them maintain a presence at the district level. This enhances the power of men like Rahm Dil, a Taliban uluswal, or district administrator, for Chapa Dara, a Taliban-controlled district in the Pech Valley region of Kunar province in the northeast of the country, bordering Pakistan?s tribal areas. A cleric in his mid-40s, Rahm Dil governs in a manner that seems fairly typical of how the Taliban exercises power nationwide. A close examination of his fiefdom is a snapshot of life under the Taliban today. The Taliban have succeeded in constructing a new version of the Islamic Emirate that the U.S. intended to eliminate. You can access Chapa Dara by road from Asadabad, the capital of Kunar. Pickup trucks carrying passengers leave from a bus stop in Asadabad, which is fully under the government?s control, and drive along the main road through Pech Valley, following a river that passes through the district centers of Watapur and Nangalam, which are also government-controlled. There are government security posts along the main road and in the district centers. But for much of the route, Taliban fighters are free to operate along the far bank of the river and within 100 meters of the road. After a slow drive of about three hours, you come to the last two government security posts that mark the turnoff into the Chapa Dara valley. Once the pickup turns onto the Chapa Dara road, it is in territory fully controlled by the Taliban, though there is no post or checkpoint demarcating any kind of border. Similarly, Taliban fighters do not man permanent posts along the road. Instead, they conduct patrols. At any point while moving through the valley, the pickup may be stopped and passengers searched and asked to identify themselves. Rahm Dil generally operates out of the guest quarters of a house close to the Chapa Dara bazaar. His main responsibilities fall under the categories of faisla, which means ?decision? in Dari, and jabha, which means ?front.? This means he adjudicates disputes among civilians while commanding a fighting force of about 50 men, though he could call on more forces if necessary. Under the Taliban?s Islamic Emirate, much like under the government based in Kabul, district administrators like Rahm Dil play a quasi-judicial role because people involved in criminal or civil disputes go to them first. If the administrator can offer a fair solution that is acceptable to both parties, the dispute goes no further. The disputes Rahm Dil hears typically involve issues like land ownership, grazing rights, debts and elopement. He has a district judge, known as a qazi, at his disposal, to whom he can refer difficult cases. But because Rahm Dil enjoys a reputation for fairness?a reputation he clearly values?he is generally able to get the parties to any given dispute to agree to a settlement. Even critics of the Taliban acknowledge that this system of dispute resolution is efficient, eliminating the need for bribes or lengthy appeals procedures. District administrators like Rahm Dil do charge fees, but these are considered ?official? rather than evidence of corruption. For example, when Rahm Dil releases members of the national army his men have detained, he charges 500 Pakistani rupees?around $4?for each day each soldier has been held, a fee that is intended to cover the cost of boarding them. In marked contrast to the Kabul-based government, Rahm Dil and his men do not have a reputation for enriching themselves as they administer justice. In addition to adjudicating disputes among civilians, district administrators like Rahm Dil function as the main arbiters for Taliban personnel facing difficult decisions. If a Talib in Chapa Dara arrests someone on suspicion of committing some kind of infraction, for instance, he will always quickly refer back to Rahm Dil for guidance on whether to hold, release or kill the person. The Taliban in Chapa Dara also operate a unit of the once notorious Amr bin Maroof, or religious police. The unit is headed by Mawlvi Abdul Rauf, who is subordinate to Rahm Dil but, unlike Rahm Dil, has a reputation for cruelty. As in the pre-9/11 Emirate, Abdul Rauf and his men enforce the Taliban?s cultural norms, looking out for men who trim their beards, women who breach the strict requirement that they be fully covered in public, and anyone who skips out on attending prayers. Yet the religious police are less powerful than they were before. And in principle, at least, Abdul Rauf?s men offer advice in the case of a first infringement, only resorting to beatings for repeat offenders. Afghan villagers gather around the bodies of people who were killed during clashes between Taliban and Afghan security forces in a Taliban-controlled village in Kunduz province, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2016 (AP photo by Najim Rahim). Residents of Chapa Dara are nonetheless terrified of the religious police. Abdul Rauf has previously served with one of the more brutal Pakistani jihadis, Mangal Bagh, who in 2006 launched his own jihadi movement, Lashkar Islam, styled on the Taliban, close to the Khyber Pass. Abdul Rauf is known to have killed people he?s suspected of being spies. No one doubts that he would be happy to execute adulterers or homosexuals if he ever got his hands on any. Smartphones and memory cards are a new focus for the religious police?something they didn?t need to concern themselves with as much in the pre-9/11 days. They seize and destroy any smartphones and memory cards they can find because of the devices? ability to facilitate ?moral corruption??via music videos, for example?and spying. Yet Rahm Dil?s men make exceptions, as many Taliban officials use smartphones and memory cards smuggled into Chapa Dara for their work. This is just one example of a parallel system of rules at work within the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. Another example, one that is more important for most people?s daily lives, is that the religious police and other units of the Taliban generally enforce rules only in public places, like the bazaar, and when they carry out searches along the road. Within the villages of Chapa Dara, social norms and peer pressure normally suffice to ensure compliance with Taliban rules?a deterrence effect magnified by the fear surrounding Abdul Rauf. The Taliban?s main economic function in Chapa Dara consists of maintaining security, thereby allowing businesses to operate safely. These businesses, including retailers, tailors, carpenters, and dentists, are then taxed to fund the local administration. In keeping with Afghan practice, the Taliban imposes a general tax on production and capital as well as specific taxes on regulated activities, such as transportation. Public Services Under the Taliban The Taliban actively involve themselves in the provision of public services, but the actual resources for those services come from elsewhere. In the education sector, the government in Kabul funds schools in the Chapa Dara valley, but Rahm Dil and his Taliban are in effect in control of these budgets. Afghanistan?s Ministry of Education also officially appoints the headmasters and all staff members at the schools, but many of these people are unwilling or unable to serve in a Taliban-controlled area. Therefore, they negotiate arrangements with locals who are able to live and work in Taliban territory. Under such arrangements, the government-appointed personnel remain on the official books, but they share their salaries with those who actually show up to the schools and do the work. Many of these fill-in teachers are members of the Taliban. In a remote area like Chapa Dara, those who have completed basic instruction in a madrassa, or religious school, are among the most educated people available. Although the curriculum is ostensibly the same one approved by the government, teachers have to practice self-censorship. The Taliban have made it known that they will close down any school that teaches anything they do not endorse; history and even handwriting are subjects that the Taliban have objected to in the past. Meanwhile, Taliban leaders are currently awaiting the arrival of newly printed Islamic Emirate textbooks. The Kabul-based government has more of a presence in the health sector. For example, a small government-funded health clinic in the village of Badgah, also in the Chapa Dara valley, is staffed with officially appointed personnel. But other, private clinics and pharmacies in Chapa Dara are staffed by ordinary residents. The Taliban attach a high priority to maintaining functioning health facilities because they have a steady stream of wounded fighters. In cases where fighters are seriously wounded, they are referred over the border to Pakistan, where the Taliban?s own Health Commission has a standing arrangement with the Pakistani authorities to treat wounded Taliban in hospitals in Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. Unlike their counterparts in Kabul, Taliban personnel are meticulous about obeying authorities and the chain of command. Rahm Dil also tolerates minor public works projects like culverts and road repairs in his district. Locals refer to the personnel implementing these projects, many of whom are urban-based professionals employed by construction companies or NGOs, as ?engineers.? An engineer wishing to work in Chapa Dara must approach Rahm Dil, who determines whether the project in question would threaten Taliban interests before issuing a written permit. In exchange for the permit, Rahm Dil claims a portion of the budget provided by the aid agency or government ministry funding the project. Like the other fees he collects, this is understood as a contribution to Taliban revenue rather than a bribe. Locals comment that a key difference between the Taliban and the Kabul-based government is that Taliban personnel are fairly meticulous about obeying authorities and the chain of command. The Taliban consider this obedience to be essential to the legitimacy and ultimate success of their jihad. They believe that a breakdown in discipline would threaten their sacred collective purpose. This holds true even though young fighters in Chapa Dara have little visibility when it comes to what goes on above the level of their district administrator. Rahm Dil is generally accessible to the people he rules and is able to go about his daily business with little interference from above. But he takes his orders from the provincial governor, who, like him, is appointed by the Taliban?s leadership in Pakistan. Anyone with a grievance about decisions made by Rahm Dil?s superiors would have to make the trek across the border to Peshawar or Quetta, where they would struggle to locate and petition members of the Taliban?s Military Commission, higher judicial bodies, the two deputy emirs or even the provincial governors, who spend much of their time in Pakistan. Stuck Between Two Systems The frictionless border between government territory and that of the new Islamic Emirate means that trade and the movement of civilians between the two zones continue relatively unimpeded. But anyone venturing into the Taliban-controlled area is still subject to the Taliban?s authority. This is particularly relevant for people serving in the government or Afghanistan?s armed forces, as well as their relatives. The Taliban are currently pursuing a campaign to encourage government personnel to resign from their posts en masse. As part of this campaign, Rahm Dil can issue a safe conduct letter to soldiers from Chapa Dara who want to desert the Afghan military and return home. But those who wish to stay in their posts can sometimes be forced to cut ties with their home districts. One soldier from Chapa Dara with close family connections to the Taliban recently sent word to Rahm Dil that he wished to return to the district to get married. But because he was not prepared to desert the military, which would mean giving up the benefits associated with serving, the young man ended up having to marry in Jalalabad, the closest big city, and shift his family out of Chapa Dara. This policy has significant implications for inequality and social cleavages in Afghanistan. Government service has long been one of the principal avenues of advancement for residents of Afghanistan?s rural areas. By forcing people like the soldier from Chapa Dara to choose between serving and living in Taliban-controlled areas, the Taliban?s restrictions provide incentives for the educated and ambitious to migrate to towns and cities and cut ties with their home villages, reinforcing the country?s deep urban-rural divide. Those who have no alternative stay in their villages and depend on whatever income they can generate from farming, with little prospect of improving their lives. These people are effectively stuck between competing systems?the Taliban or the Afghan government. This is just one way that the Taliban alienate local populations. Broadly speaking, while the Taliban in Chapa Dara see themselves as a benevolent force that is living up to its mission of implementing an Islamic system based on their own strict rules, it?s not clear that they?ve been able to win over non-Taliban. President Ashraf Ghani, center, speaks during the so-called Kabul Process conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 6, 2017 (AP photo by Rahmat Gul). Outside Chapa Dara, there are areas where the new Islamic Emirate is more openly contested by Afghans. A system with no local accountability or participation is poorly suited to manage a pluralistic society like Afghanistan?s. Many districts, especially in the north of the country, are multi-ethnic, and the local administration must balance the needs of competing groups. Achieving cohesion can be difficult, and the Taliban have come up short in some cases. In 2017, the sense among Uzbeks?one of several ethnic groups in northern Afghanistan?that they were being excluded from Taliban power structures prompted some Uzbek Taliban fighters in the north to join the self-styled Islamic State. There are also recurrent tensions in the north between Taliban officials appointed by leaders in Peshawar and Quetta and those who have a local support base. The concentration of power in the hands of an inaccessible Pakistan-based leadership reinforces the tendency of the Taliban to be impervious to important local considerations. For example, earlier this year the leadership prioritized the prosecution of a military campaign in northwest Afghanistan and sent a regional commander there to mobilize for the fight. But the area was severely affected by a drought. Had the Pakistan-based leadership been more attuned to local concerns, they might have made more concessions to civilians who were struggling simply to survive and were therefore unable to bear the burden of conflict. The perception among at least some Chapa Dara residents that the Taliban are honest also does not hold throughout the entire country. In the northern provinces and in Helmand province, in the south, reports have emerged of Taliban commanders abusing their positions to get involved in the narcotics trade for their own financial benefit. As a general rule, the visible parts of the illicit economy, such as heroin processing labs and drugs and arms bazaars, as well as smuggling routes, tend to be located in Taliban-controlled areas. And while it is correct to say that the sense of purpose among Taliban fighters tends to be much more ingrained than in the government ranks, some in the movement have become deeply cynical and view the jihad as a pretext to pursue heroin dealing and the acquisition of property, new wives and fancy cars. Evidently aware of this problem, the Taliban leadership have recently started to appoint officials responsible for institutional reforms and overseeing the spending and revenue-earning departments. Navigating Taliban-Government Relations This new version of the Islamic Emirate reveals much about what an Afghanistan under full control of the Taliban would look like and whether the Taliban have changed since they last ruled the country. The fundamentals of Taliban governance, in Chapa Dara and dozens of districts like it, hardly seem different from the system that was in place in the years before 9/11. Even with the induction of a new generation of Taliban fighters, the movement has largely preserved its political culture, for better or for worse. Even with the induction of a new generation of fighters, the Taliban have largely preserved their political culture, for better or for worse. The main achievements of the Taliban in the areas they control include establishing a modicum of security and creating a system of local administration that is less corrupt than the Kabul-based government. These achievements alone may prompt some to flirt with the idea that a nationwide Islamic Emirate might not be so bad. But a closer look at the realities of the new Islamic Emirate offers plenty of warnings about possible adverse consequences if the Taliban were to further extend their influence. The movement?s narrow sociopolitical base and resistance to any serious local participation or accountability mean that it would struggle to maintain popular support. And the Taliban?s willingness to incorporate the illicit economy into their system of governance suggests that a Taliban-run Afghanistan could be even more crime-ridden than the country is now. Rahm Dil and his peers across the Taliban?s tightly controlled districts have not faced the challenges of running the large, modern institutions that exist in cities, nor have many of them overseen multi-ethnic districts. And the way they have pursued the aggressive banning of soldiers and government personnel suggests that if they ever had a chance to take over urban areas, they would again cut themselves off from much of the population. These are just some of the reasons to suspect that the relative stability in Chapa Dara could not be replicated across Afghanistan. When it comes to pursuing peace, places like Chapa Dara offer some sense of what the Taliban might seek in return for a deal. At the grassroots level, the Taliban are proud of their successes in removing predatory or corrupt government officials. They have also used their military and political strength to install their cadre in positions of relative power and influence, whether through taking over the judicial system or assuming teachers? posts. The Taliban can be expected to try to preserve and extend these gains. It?s unclear how the Taliban could reconcile peace with the government with their conception of themselves as custodians of Islam?a conception that has shaped the system of rule they?ve developed in Chapa Dara and elsewhere. In the event of peace talks, if the Taliban were to stand by their demand for an Islamic system, there would be a need to develop consensus on what that should look like. And even if negotiators could do that, there?s no guarantee that Afghans would go along with it willingly. People in Taliban-controlled areas, of course, are not free to express their opinions about Taliban rule, so it?s hard to say how, despite the relative calm in Chapa Dara, the Taliban are genuinely perceived there. At the national level, though, survey evidence indicates that 80 percent of the population has no sympathy for the Taliban. For now, there are signs of an emergent modus vivendi between the new Islamic Emirate and the Kabul-based government. Yet there are four major factors preventing the government from building on this arrangement. First, the Taliban remain committed to their violent jihad against the government and use control of the countryside as an asset in that campaign. This includes recruiting and basing fighters in places like Chapa Dara. Afghan security personnel walk past the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 23, 2018 (AP photo by Rahmat Gul). Second, the fact that the Taliban pay no mind to the wishes of the civilian population is important. A national government could not sign off on the Taliban, or any other non-state actor, using violence or compulsion without sacrificing its own legitimacy. Third, a very real sovereignty issue arises in any kind of dealings between the Kabul-based government and the Taliban. Rahm Dil and his men acknowledge the authority of the Islamic Emirate?s judiciary and leadership, which is located in Pakistan. Given the sensitivities around sovereignty in Afghan political culture, it would be untenable for an Afghan government to accept a local administration that takes orders from bosses on the other side of the border. Finally, the elephant in the room is terrorism. Taliban commanders claim there are no al-Qaida cells in Kunar province, the home of Chapa Dara district and one of the places where al-Qaida has historically been based. Nevertheless, the alliance between the Taliban movement and al-Qaida is intact. A U.S.-supported Afghan government cannot responsibly accommodate the Taliban without some guarantee that they will help keep out the terrorists. As frustration grows over the lack of progress toward implementing a nationwide peace process, there has been increasing talk of possible local cease-fire deals. But these deals would run into the same challenges impeding a broader deal between the Taliban leadership and the Afghan government. Therefore, if Taliban administrators like Rahm Dil really are looking for closer cooperation with the government, they will have to be prepared to make major changes. This would require a level of flexibility that none of the war?s actors have shown. Instead, the most likely scenario is that the war will drag on and the dualist system that has characterized the new version of the Islamic Emirate will remain in place. Meanwhile, the government and the U.S. will bomb the Taliban whenever they catch sight of them, and the Taliban will use the districts they control as launchpads for attacks on remaining government territory. This can continue for as long as the U.S. continues financing the Afghan government. Michael Semple is a professor at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen?s University Belfast. ======================================== 15. SRI LANKA: A CHINESE COMPANY RESHAPING THE WORLD LEAVES A TROUBLED TRAIL CCCC, Belt and Road?s biggest builder, is besieged by allegations of fraud, corruption, and environmental damage. By Sheridan Prasso ======================================== Bloomberg Business 19 September 2018 Christopher Fernando knows the price of rapacious development. It has eaten his kitchen. Only the sink remains along what was once an outer wall of Fernando?s seafront home on the west coast of Sri Lanka, about 20 miles north of Colombo. Part of his thatched-roof house where the 55-year-old fisherman has lived for three decades suddenly washed away last year. The dredger he blames, like a mythological sea monster ceaselessly sucking the sea bed, is visible in the distance as he speaks. Waves used to wash sand in, he says, but now they only wash it out, tearing away the shoreline?a charge government officials deny. ?From the taking of sand,? Fernando says, ?everything is being destroyed.? The sand is being dumped along the coast of Colombo?s business district, where it covers an area the size of 500 American football fields and weighs as much as 70 million Toyota Camrys. It?s the foundation of a development known as Port City Colombo being built by China Communications Construction Co., or CCCC. Plans envision a financial district?pitched as a new hub between Singapore and Dubai?with a marina, a hospital, shopping malls, and 21,000 apartments and homes. The project is part of China?s Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious plan announced in 2013 by President Xi Jinping to build an estimated $1 trillion of infrastructure to support increased trade and economic ties and further China?s interests around the globe. State-owned CCCC, one of the world?s largest companies with annual revenue greater than Procter & Gamble Co. or FedEx Corp., says its portfolio of 700 projects in more than 100 countries outside China has a value of more than $100 billion. That makes it the largest Belt and Road contractor, according to RWR Advisory Group in Washington, which tracks Chinese investments abroad for government and corporate clients. It is also one of the most vexed. CCCC and its subsidiaries have left a trail of controversy in many of the countries where they operate. The company was blacklisted by the World Bank in 2009 for alleged fraudulent bidding practices on a highway contract in the Philippines. Malaysia halted two rail projects this year amid corruption suspicions. In Australia, a government investigation published in March said that a CCCC-owned company may have been lax in supervising construction of a children?s hospital, where the water supply was tainted with lead and a subcontractor installed asbestos-filled panels?problems CCCC said weren?t its fault. The Colombo project has drawn protests over environmental issues and is dogged by worries about the types of businesses it will attract, its governance under a legal structure separate from the rest of the country, and the strain that such a huge development will place on surrounding transport, water, and energy infrastructure. The list goes on: allegations of mistreatment of railway workers in Kenya and of corruption in Bangladesh. In Canada, the company was blocked in May from acquiring a construction firm on national security grounds. And there have been calls by some members of the U.S. Congress to sanction CCCC because of its alleged role in helping the Chinese military build bases on reefs along a disputed area of the South China Sea?an issue that scuttled the company?s plans in 2015 to raise $1 billion by spinning off its dredging unit in a public offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange. There?s no shortage of companies, including American ones, that have been accused of bribery and environmental damage when operating abroad. Yet the number and scope of allegations involving CCCC set it apart. ?CCCC seems to be constantly pressing the envelope of how countries feel about having a foreign state-owned entity involved in their most strategic assets and critical infrastructure projects,? says Andrew Davenport, RWR Advisory?s chief operating officer. ?Recent controversies involving certain of their projects have not helped.? In an interview with Bloomberg Television at CCCC?s Beijing headquarters in August, Chairman Liu Qitao said changes in government in countries where the company has projects often bring forth accusations of corruption. Liu said CCCC complies with local laws and environmental regulations in all countries where it does business. It also monitors adherence to internal guidelines, he said. Liu wouldn?t comment on what, if anything, the company is doing in the South China Sea. ?We do not allow, nor is there any, corrupt behavior related to any official, because we know that this kind of corrupt behavior is not going to help with the company?s sustainable development,? the 61-year-old chairman said. ?And we, as a listed company, are subject to market supervision. If there is corrupt behavior, then the company is finished.? A CCCC dredging vessel at work on Port City Colombo. Photographer: Atul Loke/Bloomberg CCCC is a mashup of several engineering, dredging, and construction companies, two of which date back to the Qing dynasty around the beginning of the 20th century. Another got its start as the road building division of the People?s Liberation Army during the civil war that brought the Communist Party to power in 1949. In 2005, the government merged two state-owned entities, China Harbour Engineering Co. and China Road and Bridge Corp., to create CCCC and arranged a listing on the Hong Kong exchange. Today, the company has more than 60 subsidiaries and 120,000 employees, according to its website. Most of its projects are in China, and many investments have nothing to do with Belt and Road. CCCC owns an oil-rig design firm in Texas, and one of its real estate units is co-developer of the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue project in Los Angeles. Despite the company?s global presence, its chairman keeps a low profile and rarely grants interviews to Western media. Trained as a hydraulic engineer at Dalian University of Technology, Liu worked for years at Sinohydro Group, which built the Three Gorges Dam, before becoming president of CCCC in 2010. His official salary was about $120,000 last year, which is in line with those of top executives at other state-owned enterprises. At most such companies, the Communist Party occupies a central place in the leadership structure, and it?s no different at CCCC. Liu is party chief as well as head decision-maker. In one speech published on a government website, he speaks of turning CCCC into a reliable executor of the party?s vision. Dressed for the Bloomberg interview in a charcoal pinstripe suit and red tie, his hair combed back, Liu said the Belt and Road Initiative was ?proposed by Mr. Xi Jinping based on the concern for the development of mankind, and it invites participation from everyone, not just China but Western companies as well, and aims for shared gains through consultation and cooperation.? CCCC Chairman Liu Qitao. By the late 2000s, when China?s economy showed signs of stalling, CCCC began scouting for opportunities in Southeast Asia and Africa. But it ran into a roadblock in the Philippines when a World Bank investigation concluded that a CCCC road building subsidiary was one of seven companies involved in ?a collusive scheme designed to establish bid prices at artificial, non-competitive levels? in an auction for a highway contract. The organization blacklisted CCCC in 2009, a ban that lasted eight years. The company said at the time that the allegations had no merit and it had complied with all regulations. The year the World Bank ban went into effect, the same CCCC road building subsidiary allegedly paid $19 million to a son of the president of Equatorial Guinea to win a highway contract, according to a U.S. asset-forfeiture case filed in Los Angeles in 2013. The lawsuit says some of the money, combined with other ill-gotten gains, was used to purchase Michael Jackson memorabilia, including a signed Thriller jacket and a white, crystal-covered Bad World Tour glove. The president?s son settled the case, agreeing to hand over $30 million worth of properties (not including the jacket and glove). CCCC declined to comment. The Belt and Road Initiative gave the company a pipeline of new projects, as both Chinese commercial lenders and the government stepped up with financing. Loans from the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank meant CCCC didn?t have to rely on Western institutions such as the World Bank to fund ports and railroads. Chinese financing also sped up the process of getting complex infrastructure projects off the ground. As the company?s footprint grew, so did the controversy. Investigators in Malaysia are looking into whether CCCC overbilled for a railroad linking Kuala Lumpur with east coast cities, and whether some of that money went to pay debts incurred by government development fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., during the administration of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who?s facing trial on corruption charges. In Bangladesh, the finance minister told reporters in January that CCCC was blacklisted from future projects after allegedly bribing an official involved in awarding a contract to build a 140-mile highway. Liu said the suspension of rail construction in Malaysia was the result of a change in government this year, that the cost is in line with similar projects, and that he hopes work will resume because it ?means a lot for the development of Malaysia.? The allegations of bribery in Bangladesh were a ?mistake,? he said. ?We are still doing work in Bangladesh. We are not on the blacklist.? Finance ministry officials in Bangladesh didn?t respond to requests for clarification. Building the Belt and Road Chinese construction company CCCC has infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America Data compiled by RWR Advisory Group, a Washington-based research firm that tracks Chinese investments abroad based on media reports, corporate disclosures, regulatory filings, and in-country sources. CCCC projects, represented by circles on this map, are sized by dollar value. They include only projects that have been completed or initiated outside China since 2012 for which a project value could be ascertained. In certain cases, these values may reflect awards to groups of companies or joint ventures in which CCCC was a part. Canceled or pending transactions aren't included. As RWR research reflects only what has been publicly reported, errors and omissions are possible. The lure of Chinese money is hard to resist for poor countries in Asia and Africa. It?s the cheapest and fastest way to turbocharge an economy, says Sumal Perera, founder and chairman of Sri Lankan construction company Access Engineering Plc, which has worked with CCCC on a number of projects, including building apartments for Port City engineers and technicians. ?To work with the Chinese is to be in the fast lane,? Perera says. ?I can?t believe state-owned companies have so much dynamism and initiative.? The hazards of being in the fast lane are obvious in Sri Lanka. In 2010, before there was a Belt and Road Initiative, then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa was seeking to spark development in Hambantota, his rural home district on the island?s south coast, a four-hour drive from Colombo. CCCC subsidiary China Harbour was awarded a contract to build a port in Hambantota, and in 2014 it was granted the Colombo project as well. Now corruption allegations are swirling. In July, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said authorities are investigating $8.1 million in fund transfers to members of Rajapaksa?s staff during the six weeks before the January 2015 election, when Rajapaksa was running for a third term. The prime minister said the amount included payments from CCCC routed through an account at Standard Chartered Plc. Foreign contributions to political campaigns are not prohibited in Sri Lanka, and Rajapaksa, who lost his re-election bid in part because of voters? opposition to the Chinese projects, has denied any wrongdoing. CCCC dismissed as ?speculation? that its money funded the campaign, and the Chinese embassy in Colombo issued a statement saying Chinese projects in Sri Lanka adhere to the principles of ?extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits.? The winner of the 2015 election, Maithripala Sirisena, warned on the campaign trail that Sri Lankans ?would become slaves? to the Chinese if the projects went ahead, and he quickly shut them down once he took office. But he restarted both a year later, with even bigger footprints. His administration invited another state-run port operator, China Merchants Port Holdings Co., to bid against CCCC for resuming construction at Hambantota. China Merchants won the contract after wowing the government with a presentation about making the port like one it built in Shenzhen, China, according to Saliya Wickramasuriya, a senior adviser to both the Hambantota and Colombo projects. As compensation for the switch, he says, CCCC got a tentative commitment for 15,000 acres surrounding the Hambantota port to develop as an industrial zone. Today, Hambantota handles about one ship a day, not enough to make it commercially viable, and wild elephants regularly breach the perimeter fencing. At a nearby airport, which CCCC also helped build during Rajapaksa?s administration, the only commercial flight was canceled in June because of frequent peacock strikes and low demand. The government also renegotiated the Colombo project, seeking to address the issues that opposition politicians had raised. It dropped plans for a Formula One racetrack, gave CCCC a 99-year lease instead of outright land ownership, and drafted more than 70 environmental impact-mitigating requirements. It also increased the land area by 15 percent. The vision for Port City Colombo seems in part an answer to a problem that has long plagued Sri Lanka: Its $90 billion economy doesn?t generate enough employment, which is why the country is a net exporter of labor. Marketing plans tout the 80,000 new jobs the project will create, while computer renderings show 90-story luxury apartment towers, shopping malls, state-of-the-art health-care facilities, and fancy schools, all meant to reverse a brain drain of white-collar workers. Meanwhile, the multimillion-dollar, two-story homes that will line an artificial beachfront and a private marina are designed to lure the wealthy of Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, and Dhaka?and rich Chinese, too. ?We lost our opportunity to Dubai and Singapore, and now we are trying to catch up,? says Champika Ranawaka, who heads Sri Lanka?s Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development, one of two government agencies involved in approving the Colombo project. He says CCCC is putting up all of the $1.4 billion for the initial phase of construction, which the company says is 70 percent funded by loans from Chinese banks at commercial rates. That, plus an additional $800 million that CCCC is spending to build connecting roads, gives it the right to develop most of the land at Port City to recoup its investment, Ranawaka says. ?They?re taking a risk, so they have to somehow earn their money. Their success creates a lot of other opportunities for Sri Lanka.? The government intends to ring-fence Port City from Sri Lanka?s legal system to facilitate currency movement and create favorable tax and investment incentives. Harsha de Silva, a state minister who once campaigned against the project but is now one of its most vocal supporters, is involved in drafting the separate legal structure. ?This must be a top-10 city for doing business in the world,? he says. ?Otherwise, what?s the point?? Sri Lanka is currently ranked 111 out of 190 nations on the World Bank?s ease-of-doing-business index. Opponents of Port City see dangers. They say laws encouraging capital flows will make Sri Lanka a financial bottom feeder, a haven for hidden assets such as India?s so-called black money stashed abroad to avoid taxes. They fear casinos will move in and create the only gambling hub in South Asia?something government officials deny but may not be able to prevent. They?re worried about rising pollution levels and how Port City will get enough water and power. And they question whether the project, which has no committed investors, is a pie-in-the-sky vision of a future that won?t materialize. ?The whole deal is rotten to the core,? says Feizal Mansoor, a member of the People?s Movement Against the Port City, a group of environmentalists, fishermen, clergy, and other opponents. The sand and quarried rock used for the landfill is 100 years? worth of construction resources being used up at once, he says, and the Chinese should be paying for it. ?They?re going to make a 100 percent profit on their capital investment, and we?re going to make a 1,000 percent loss.? Workers and front loaders at the site of Port City Colombo. Photographer: Atul Loke/Bloomberg The biggest cost so far is the environmental damage along a 175-mile stretch of coastline north and south of Colombo and the impact on 80,000 households that make a living from the sea. Sri Lanka?s Environmental Foundation warned two years ago that building Port City would have a ?severe and highly detrimental? impact on the coastline, causing erosion and affecting marine biodiversity, fishery stocks, and breeding sites. Government officials issued a 421-page environmental impact assessment before the project was restarted, stating that studies ?clearly establish? that it won?t cause erosion. The report conceded that dredging would temporarily disrupt some fishing grounds and directed CCCC to pay $3.2 million to fund community projects in the affected areas. But officials say that they?re following mitigation guidelines and that critics don?t have any proof to substantiate their claims. A hunger strike by fishermen in 2016 resulted in an agreement forcing the dredgers farther offshore. But that has barely helped, says Herman Kumara, head of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement, which represents 17 organizations and unions in Negombo, the center of the fishing industry, north of Colombo. He disputes statistics compiled by Port City officials showing that fishermen?s livelihoods have improved and that fish catches are up. ?This is destroying the coast and the coral reefs, and the sea erosion is very serious,? Kumara says. Travel up the coast and you hear fishermen talk about a 20 percent decline in catch and hardships that threaten to wipe them out. ?Our future is now being destroyed,? says Aruna Roshantha Fernando, the president of the All Ceylon Fisher-folk Trade Union and a leader of the hunger strike, who brought an unsuccessful petition to the Supreme Court seeking to stop the Colombo project. ?We ask them: If somebody destroys our livelihood, what is your responsibility? They don?t answer.? Mervin Thamel, secretary of the Indiwara Fisheries Cooperative Society just north of Negombo, says that herring, which used to be plentiful and breed where Port City is going up, are nowhere to be found. ?We had to sell our gold? to buy fuel to keep the fishing boat operating farther and farther out to find fish, says Thamel, sitting on his front porch a few blocks from the sea. ?We?ve protested a lot,? he says, ?but we couldn?t stop it.? On Christopher Fernando?s stretch of beach, south of Negombo, his next-door neighbor, W. Mary Johanna, laments the loss of two coconut trees that recently washed out to sea. Since she was born here 52 years ago, she says, she never had a problem with erosion?until the dredgers showed up. Now she?s piling up garbage to stop the waves crashing in on her property, where more than 700 square feet have washed away. ?It?s difficult to push against the government; they won?t admit they?re causing this,? she says. ?What else can we do apart from die? Soon, I?ll just be washed out with the sea.? ?With Anusha Ondaatjie, Dong Lyu, Arun Devnath, Yudith Ho, John Liu, Iain Marlow, Jinglun Zhang, and Cathy Chan ======================================== 16. INDIA: MILITARISATION DIKTAT TO EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS - SEPTEMBER 29 AS SURGICAL STRIKE DAY TO CELEBRATE COVERT OPERATIONS ======================================== The Telegraph 21.09.18 SURGICAL STRIKE DAY DIKTAT TO INSTITUTIONS Modi government has asked higher education institutions to observe September 29 as Surgical Strike Day by Basant Kumar Mohanty in New Delhi The Narendra Modi government has asked higher education institutions to observe September 29 as ?Surgical Strike Day? and organise various activities, including campus visits by army officials for photo-ops with students. Criticism of the order has triggered a response that underscores how every non-conformist is being blindly branded a ?Naxal sympathiser?, reflecting the mindset behind government-sanctioned labels such as ?urban Maoists?. Eminent sociologist Andre Beteille, who said the government had no authority to instruct people on such matters, was described as a ?Naxal sympathiser? by an RSS supporter. The Centre?s decision to observe the ?Surgical Strike Day? comes two years after it said the army had carried out an operation across the Line of Control. The government has told the University Grants Commission to ask the 900-odd universities and 38,000 colleges to celebrate the occasion in a fitting manner and upload accounts and visuals of the activities on the UGC website. ?You may be aware, the Government of India has decided to observe ?Surgical Strike Day? on 29th September 2018,? said a letter from UGC secretary Rajnish Jain. Asked about the order, Beteille said: ?I look at it in a very negative light. The government has no authority to instruct people on these matters. The sacrifices of the army are appreciated. But this is not the way.? He said there are ways to encourage nationalism even though it is not ?necessary for everyone to be a nationalist?. Beteille said: ?One should be proud of belonging to the nation. But it is not necessary for everyone to be a nationalist.? Shri Prakash Singh, a Delhi University professor who confirmed he was an RSS supporter, welcomed the order. ?It is a healthy move. This will remind the students of the valour of the army and make the students feel proud about the army and the nation.? Told about Beteille?s views, Singh called the sociologist a ?Naxal sympathiser? and laid down a yardstick to measure academics. ?Prof Beteille is a Naxal sympathiser. Has Prof Beteille published any paper on Indian culture and glory?? Singh asked. Betielle is known for his independent and liberal views and has never been counted among Leftist academics, let alone being linked to any Naxalite group. N. Sukumar, an Ambedkarite who teaches political science in Delhi University, said nationalism was important but should not be imposed. ?The feeling of nationalism should come naturally,? he said. A move to celebrate the army?s contribution is all right but the government and the UGC never bother about the ordinary people?s sacrifices, he said. ?In the last 10 days, 11 manual scavengers have died in the country while cleaning sewer tanks. So many farmers have committed suicide. What is the stand of the government and the UGC on such sacrifices?? Sukumar asked. The UGC letter lists the steps to be taken to celebrate the day and asks students to pledge their support to the armed forces by writing letters and cards in physical or digital format. The letters and cards will be shared with the defence public relations officer and the Press Information Bureau for publicity. ?The physical letters so received can be given to the nearest cantonment or presented to the army officials visiting various colleges for short meetings with students. It will also provide photo-ops for the students,? said the letter. Asked about the letter and the criticism by a section of academics, the UGC secretary said: ?There may be differences of opinion. This has been done as per a government directive.? The institutions may organise meetings, inviting ex-servicemen who would sensitise the students about the sacrifices made by the armed forces in protecting the borders. The Bengal government said it would not follow the diktat. o o o CPI(M) Press Release WITHDRAW CIRCULAR ON SURGICAL STRIKE Date: September 22, 2018 The circular issued by the UGC under instructions from the HRD Ministry regarding the observance of ?surgical strike day? on September 28, is outrageous and objectionable as it seeks to create a jingoistic atmosphere in the country to take forward the political agenda of the ruling party. It is yet another example of the Government?s utter contempt for minimum democratic norms and respect for the autonomy of institutions in its efforts to push its narrow agenda. Not only has the UGC, a supposedly autonomous institution, been suborned by the Government to issue instructions to educational institutions, even the media has been told to carry programmes on the surgical strikes thus constituting a direct interference in the freedom of the press. The subsequent statement of the Minister Prakash Javadekar that this was not mandatory is nothing but a poor defence in the face of the strong opposition to the circular. The circular should be withdrawn forthwith. ======================================== 17. AYUSHMAN BHARAT TRIVIALISES INDIA?S QUEST FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE Jean Dr?ze ======================================== The Wire 24 September 2018 Little can be done without a massive increase in public health expenditure and a radical revamp of the primary health infrastructure. Even by Narendra Modi?s high standards, the level of deception involved in the recent launch of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) is breath-taking: the prime minister managed to claim that PMJAY is the world?s largest health programme without making any significant financial provision for it. It may be recalled that PMJAY is one of the two components of Ayushman Bharat, the Modi government?s flagship health initiative. The other component is the creation of 1,50,000 ?health and wellness centres?. The finance minister allocated Rs 1,200 crore for these centres in 2018-19. That comes to Rs 80,000 per centre. Essentially, it is just a new coat of paint for the old primary health centres, which are being renamed for the occasion. The budget allocation for PMJAY in 2018-19 is just Rs 2,000 crore. That is not much more than the previous year?s budget allocation or Rs 1,000 for Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, PMJAY?s predecessor, which is now being subsumed under PMJAY. In other words, there is virtually no new money this year for PMJAY. The government claims that PMJAY will provide a health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh to 10 crore families (about 50 crore persons). What would it actually take to provide this sort of insurance cover? If the beneficiaries spend just one per cent of their Rs 5 lakh quota in a year, on average, then the annual expenditure will come to Rs 50,000 crore. This a very conservative estimate ? if the scheme makes it reasonably easy for people to claim their insurance money, the actual cost could easily be twice as much, or more. There is absolutely no indication that the government is willing to spend that sort of money on PMJAY. According to recent media reports, NITI Aayog experts anticipate the annual PMJAY budget to rise to Rs 10,000 crore or so in the next few years, or something in that range. But Rs 10,000 crore (more than five times the current PMJAY budget) is still chickenfeed for the purpose of providing health insurance to 10 crore families. It comes to Rs 1,000 per family, or Rs 200 per person. For the whole year. How would you feel if you were told you that your budget for health care this year is Rs 200? An illusion has been created that putting this money in an insurance premium has some sort of multiplier effect. This is not the case at all. Insurance can help to redistribute health expenditure towards those who need it most, but it cannot turn Rs 200 into more. If the government spends only Rs 200 per person on health insurance, that?s the amount of health care an average person gets, that too assuming that there are no transaction costs. World?s largest health care programme or pie in the sky? Photo credit: Anant Nath Sharma/Flickr CC 2.0 Nevertheless, PMJAY is being projected as ?the world?s largest government funded health care programme?, as the finance minister put it in his budget speech. This is very misleading. The term ?largest? presumably refers to the proposed population coverage of 50 crore or so, but the wide coverage is achieved by reducing per-capita expenditure to a microscopic level. And even the coverage is not the largest in the world: China?s health care system, with its universal coverage, is much larger. In per-capita terms, public expenditure on health in China is about five times higher than in India. I suspect that PMJAY actually has little to do with health care, for the time being at least. The real purpose, judging from the National Health Stack documents, seems to be to enable private players to harvest huge amounts of health-related data. It is another instance of what the wizards of information technology call ?creating public platforms? (on the back of government schemes) that can be used to develop profitable applications. If that is the purpose, then it makes perfect sense to maximise the coverage and minimise expenditure per person. Maximising coverage, of course, is also a good strategy for the purpose of winning votes. In short, PMJAY trivialises the goal of universal health care (UHC). Many countries have already achieved UHC, or something very close to it ? not only rich countries (including all the OECD countries with the notable exception of the United States) but also many developing countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Thailand. This is a historic achievement, well on its way to being replicated across the world. India, however, is yet to initiate a serious debate on this issue, let alone make real strides towards UHC. Social insurance, of course, can be an important part of UHC, and PMJAY, despite its symbolic character today, could possibly develop into a useful form of social insurance. But whatever the approach, little can be done without a massive increase in public health expenditure and a radical revamp of the primary health infrastructure. Note: The budgetary allocation for PMJAY is Rs 2,000 crore. In an earlier version of this article, it was stated that this figure was for the entire Ayushman Bharat scheme. Jean Dr?ze is is visiting professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University. ======================================== 18. INDIA?S CLASSICAL MUSICIANS COME UNDER ATTACK Hindu nationalists disapprove of the interfaith melodies beloved by some Carnatic vocalists by Z.R. ======================================== The Economist Sept 28th 2018 Prospero IN JUNE Narendra Modi, India?s prime minister, spoke of the role that music plays in ?breaking all social barriers? in the country. He said that Indian music, an important part of the nation?s cultural heritage, is rich in its diversity and able to unite people regardless of religion or caste. Mr Modi pointed to the ?Hindustani music of the north, Carnatic music of the south, Rabindrasangeet of Bengal, Jyoti Sangeet of Assam and Sufi music of Jammu and Kashmir? in particular, as ?all these musical traditions set the base of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb?: a syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture. It is a nice thought, but a misleading one, as music has been squarely in the line of fire in India?s culture wars. Right-wing Hindu nationalists consider Carnatic music?composed and sung by musicians from upper-caste Brahman families?to be the last pure corner in the nation?s classical music scene. It relies upon a vocalist?s ability to sing and improvise from hundreds of combinations of chromatic scales, known as ragas. It is affiliated with Hinduism, often drawing on religious poetry which dates back to at least the 17th century (legend dictates that the songs are a direct gift to humanity from the gods). Many Carnatic tunes are bhakti, devotion to a favourite god in the Hindu pantheon, and narrate the god?s story, their kind deeds, adventures and love affairs. Songs about the childhood of Lord Krishna, the most mischievous deity, are particularly popular. ======================================== 19. INDIA: HOW CHUNNI BAI?S DEATH EXPOSES THE LIE ABOUT AADHAAR Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy ======================================== On September 27, 2018, a day after the Supreme Court?s Aadhaar judgment, Chunni Bai of Panton Ki Anti, Rajsamand district, Rajasthan died of starvation. She and her husband Uday Singh, both over 75 years old, had not eaten a meal in five days. For two months, they had not received their pensions or rations. Every time Uday went to the ration shop, the dealer would would send him back empty-handed saying his biometrics weren?t working. The Aadhaar-linked ?foolproof? POS machine would fail to authenticate Uday?s fingerprint. [ . . . ] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66009239.cms ======================================== 20. INDIA: A COMPOSITE STATEMENT ON THREE CASES BY PEN DELHI AND PEN SOUTH INDIA CENTRES ======================================== September 22, 2018 PEN Delhi and PEN South India centres join more than 180 writers, academics, artists, musicians, judges and activists in condemning the harassment being faced by musicians of the Carnatic tradition such as T M Krishna, O S Arun and Nithyashree Mahadevan from fringe groups in India and the US for performing songs on Christian and purportedly ?non-Hindu? themes. According to reports, many musicians have received threats from right wing organisations claiming to be ?Hindu? organizations, merely for bringing people and religions together on a musical platform. Some of them have been bullied into apologising and have had to cancel concerts. OS Arun, who was invited by T. Samuel Joseph, a long time student and teacher of Carnatic music, to render Carnatic compositions on Christ, was attacked online and pressurised to cancel. Within days, WhatsApp and social media clippings of Nithyashree Mahadevan rendering a Christian song was circulated with disapproving comments. Also, T M Krishna was invited to sing at the SSVT Temple in Washington DC. This was cancelled, according to reports, at the behest of self appointed ?Hindu? gatekeepers. Musician T M Krishna, rejecting all such attempts at coercion, has said, ?Considering the vile comments and threats issued by many on social media regarding Carnatic compositions on Jesus, I announce here that I will be releasing one Carnatic song every month on Jesus or Allah.? PEN Delhi and PEN South India stand in solidarity and express their support for creative artistes who refuse to let their voices be silenced. PEN Delhi and South India also condemn the arrest of defence analyst and writer Abhijit Iyer Mitra from New Delhi and demand that charges against him be dropped. Mitra was arrested on September 20 by the Odisha Police, days after his comments on the Konark Temple led to an uproar in the Odisha State Assembly. According to reports, he was granted bail on a surety of Rs 100,000 and has been asked to join the investigation in Bhubaneshwar by September 28. On September 16, Mitra had posted a video from the temple on Twitter. Pointing to the erotic sculptures of couples in various stages of intimacy at the temple complex, Mitra said: ?Can this be a holy place? Not at all. This is a conspiracy against Hindus by Muslims who want to keep us down. Jai Sriram. In our new Ram temple, such obscene sculptures will not be there.? Soon after, in another tweet he clarified that it was a joke. ?Jokes aside this temple is just mindblowing,? he wrote. ?The sculptures are exquisite & it has a great sense of symmetry & gravitas.? Following the uproar over the remarks, both in the Odisha Assembly as well as outside, he tweeted: ?Happy to answer to anyone for my allegedly ?distasteful? remarks. Says a lot about the abysmal intellectual Calibre of @Naveen_Odisha?s MLA?s the(y) cant tell satire from seriousness.? Mitra has been charged under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 295A and 298 (criminalising acts or words uttered intended to outrage or wound the religious feelings of any individual or class), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. Mitra?s arrest comes on the heels of an FIR being filed against another journalist in Kolkata ostensibly for tweeting that an upcoming film starring Bengali actor and Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Deepak Adhikari has been copied from a Pakistani film. For this, Indranil Roy, a film journalist with Sangbad Pratidin, was booked under sections 43 and 66 of the Information Technology Act and Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code on September 13. PEN Delhi and PEN South India centres express their concerns at such laws being used freely by random individuals and groups and by the state to intimidate and harass journalists, writers and creative artists to curb free expression in India. It reiterates that the enormous wealth of India?s many creative traditions must find expression in the works of different people, no matter what their religion, nationality or background. In India, a thousand ? and more ? flowers must bloom. ======================================== 21. PEKING UNIVERSITY THREATENS TO CLOSE DOWN MARXISM SOCIETY Students continue to back workers in dispute over trade union rights Yuan Yang and Xinning Liu in Beijing ======================================== The Financial Times 24 September 2018 China?s most prestigious university has threatened to shut down its student Marxist society amid a continuing police crackdown on students who support workers in a dispute over trade union organisation. Under China?s Communist party, Marxism has been part of the compulsory university curriculum for decades. But universities are now under pressure to embrace ?Xi Jinping thought? as the president strengthens his ideological control over the nation. The government is also inspecting primary and secondary school textbooks to remove foreign content. Peking University?s Marxist Society was not able to re-register for the new academic year because it did not have the backing required from teachers, the society said. ?Everyone can see what the Peking University Marxist Society has done over the past few years to speak out for marginalised groups on campus,? it added. The threat to close the society follows a summer of student and worker unrest in the Chinese manufacturing hub of Shenzhen. Students from Peking and other elite Chinese universities were detained for supporting workers trying to organise a trade union at a Jasic Technology factory. While workers? protests have become more common in China, the support of a small yet growing student movement has made the Jasic protests politically sensitive. Zhan Zhenzhen, a member of the Marxist Society at Peking University, was among those arrested in Shenzhen last month. In July, police detained about 30 workers in the biggest such arrest since 2015. In August, police wearing riot gear stormed a student dormitory and took away about 40 students who had been supporting the workers, according to witnesses. Mr Zhan and the Marxist Society initiated an investigation into working conditions for low-paid workers at Peking University this year. The group said its focus was labour rights, and it gained media attention in 2015 when it published an earlier working conditions report. The Marxist Society said it had approached teachers in the university?s department of Marxism for support with registration but had been refused, with no explanation. A teacher from another department had volunteered to register the society but said his offer was rejected by the university?s Student Society Committee. The university?s Marxism department did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The Student Society Committee declined to comment. Mr Xi visited Peking University this year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx?s birth. ?Peking University is the first place to spread and study Marxism in China. It makes a great contribution to the spread of Marxism and the foundation of China?s Communist Party,? he said at the time. ======================================== 22. THE SATANIC VERSES SOWED THE SEEDS OF RIFTS THAT HAVE GROWN EVER WIDER Kenan Malik ======================================== The Guardian 29 Sep 2018 Three decades after Salman Rushdie?s novel ignited Muslim fury and shook the world, we?ve yet to learn the right lessons An activist from the Pakistan Awami Tehreek party takes part in a protest against the British author Salman Rushdie in Karachi in 2007. Photograph: Zahid Hussein/Reuters Thirty years ago last week, Salman Rushdie?s The Satanic Verses was published. Rushdie was then perhaps the most celebrated British novelist of his generation. His new novel, five years in the making, had been expected to set the world alight, though not quite in the way that it did. The novel was, Rushdie suggested, both about ?migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death? and ?a serious attempt to write about religion and revelation from the point of view of a secular person?. At its heart was a clash of race, religion and identity that, ironically, prophesied the controversy that engulfed the novel and still shapes our lives today. Within a month, The Satanic Verses had been banned in Rushdie?s native India. By the end of the year, protesters had burned a copy of the novel on the streets of Bolton. Then, on Valentine?s Day 1989, came the event that transformed the controversy ? Ayatollah Khomeini?s fatwa calling for Rushdie?s death. The affair marked a watershed in British political and cultural life. There had long been conflicts between minority communities and the state, from the Notting Hill riots of the 1950s to the Grunwick dispute in 1977, to the inner-city disturbances of the 1980s. These were in the main political conflicts, workplace struggles or issues of law and order. The Rushdie affair was different. Muslim fury seemed driven not by questions of harassment, discrimination or poverty, but by a sense that their deepest beliefs had been offended. Today, such grievance is entrenched in the cultural landscape. Not so in 1988. The publisher?s response also seems from a different age. The fatwa forced Rushdie into hiding for a decade. Bookshops were firebombed. Translators and publishers were murdered. Yet Penguin never wavered in its commitment to The Satanic Verses. Today, all it takes to make publishers think again is the slightest hint that they might have given offence. Rushdie?s critics lost the battle, but won the war. The Satanic Verses continues to be published. Yet the argument that it is morally wrong to offend other peoples and cultures has become widely accepted in the three decades since. The fatwa has, in effect, become internalised. The Rushdie affair was an early expression of what we now call ?identity politics?. Back in the 1980s, there was no such thing as the ?Muslim community?. Britons of a Muslim background growing up in the 1970s and 80s called themselves Asian or black, rarely Muslim. The Rushdie affair gave notice of a shift in self-perception and of the beginnings of a distinctive Muslim identity. Many anti-Rushdie campaigners were not religious, let alone ?fundamentalist?, but young, leftwing activists. Some had been my friends and some friendships foundered as we took opposite sides in the controversy. They were drawn to the anti-Rushdie campaign partly because of disenchantment with the left and its failure to take racism seriously, and partly because the left itself was abandoning its attachment to universalist values in favour of identity politics, easing the path of many young, secular Asians towards an alternative worldview. That path was eased by official policy. Faced with secular militancy on the streets, policymakers ? at both local and national level ? often turned to religious leaders to act as conservative bulwarks, giving them new credibility. Secular Muslims came to be seen as betraying their culture (they belonged to the ?white left?) while radical Islam became not just more acceptable but, to many, more authentic. Some defenders of Rushdie began wrapping their arguments in the language of identity, too, questioning the very presence of Muslims as being incompatible with ?western values?. In the 1990s, the US political scientist Samuel Huntington popularised the term ?the clash of civilisations?, a notion that increasingly gained a hearing in liberal circles, particularly in the wake of 9/11. Many came to defend free speech and secularism and Enlightenment ideals not as universal values but as uniquely ?western? products; more as tribal weapons in the clash of civilisations than as means of advancing political rights and social justice. It?s a world view that, ironically, mirrors that of the Islamists. The controversy over The Satanic Verses brought into focus issues that have since become defining problems of the age ? the nature of Islam, the meaning of multiculturalism, the boundaries of tolerance in a liberal society and the limits of free speech in a plural world. That, 30 years on, we still blindly wrestle with these issues reveals how little we have learned from the Rushdie affair. And how the lessons we have learned have often been the wrong ones. Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist ======================================== 23. BRAZILIAN WOMEN LEAD NATIONWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST FAR-RIGHT CANDIDATE Gram Slattery, Gabriel Stargardter ======================================== Reuters World News September 29, 2018 SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Brazil?s major cities on Saturday in women-led protests against far-right presidential front-runner Jair Bolsonaro, who flew home after weeks in hospital recovering from a near-fatal stab wound. People demonstrate against presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes Angered by Bolsonaro?s history of making offensive comments, which includes belittling rape and calling the gender pay gap justified, female protesters used the hash tag #EleNao, or #NotHim, to drum up support for a series of international protests against the former army captain. Flag-waving protesters flocked to downtown Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo on Saturday afternoon, pouring out of subway trains and into the streets while chanting in unison against a divisive candidate who has led polls for months ahead of the Oct. 7 election, the most polarizing in a generation. Later, as night fell, television images showed protesters starting small fires and banging drums in the center of Rio. ?I could never be friends with someone who supports a person (like Bolsonaro), who is racist, homophobic and a misogynist,? said Tassia Casseli, who was at the Sao Paulo march. Brazil's presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro sits on a plane in Sao Paulo, Brazil September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto Bolsonaro nearly died from a stab wound earlier this month and has been confined to Sao Paulo?s Albert Einstein hospital ever since. He was discharged on Saturday morning, and flew to Rio, where he has served as a federal congressman for nearly three decades, in the afternoon. In a telling sign of the divisive nature of the election, videos uploaded to social media from Bolsonaro?s commercial flight back to Rio showed some of his fellow passengers clapping and chanting ?Legend? when he boarded, while others booed. ?Finally back home, with my family in the warmth of our home. There is no better feeling! Thank you for all the expressions of affection that I saw on the way back and all over Brazil,? Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter. ?A big hug to everyone!? A former army officer who has voiced admiration for Brazil?s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, Bolsonaro has won over many with his hard-line stance on crime, unvarnished rhetoric, and a career that has been largely free of corruption accusations. Yet he has also repelled many others with comments widely considered sexist, misogynist, and homophobic. Saturday also saw rival rallies in support of the right-winger across the country. Slideshow (9 Images) ?I never heard him say anything wrong about women,? said Alessandra Sampaio, 39, at a pro-Bolsonaro rally in Rio. ?He?s against rape, drugs and in favor of the family. I have two daughters and want the best for them.? Bolsonaro stirred fresh controversy on Friday night, when he said that he would not accept the result of next month?s election if he loses, adding that he could not ?speak for the armed forces commanders.? Bolsonaro?s relative lack of support among women could spell trouble for a candidate who has become investors? favorite after embracing free-market policies on the campaign trail. His biggest rival and likely opponent in an expected Oct. 28 runoff is leftist candidate and former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad. Haddad is running for the Workers Party, whose jailed founder, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was barred by a corruption conviction. Haddad has surged in recent polls with support from the working class and voters who cannot stomach Bolsonaro. According to a recent survey by pollster Ibope, 18 percent of women plan to vote for Bolsonaro in the Oct. 7 first round, versus 36 percent of men. In an Oct. 28 second round scenario, among those who expressed a preference, women favored Haddad over Bolsonaro by 47 to 30 percent. Among men 47 percent favored Bolsonaro versus 37 percent for Haddad. Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Pilar Olivares in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Alistair Bell and Marguerita Choy _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Oct 17 18:07:08 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 03:37:08 +0530 Subject: SACW - 18 Oct 2018 | Afghanistan: Privatizing War / Bangladesh: Secular Icon Ties up with opposition / Pakistan - India: Narrow miss amid tension on Kashmir border / Pakistan: Islamists push for execution of Asia Bibi / India: Punjab Blasphemy Law: Militarism on Campus / Brazil Elections: statement by MST / Message-ID: South Asia Citizens Wire - 18 Oct 2018 - No. 3003 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Women?s Action Forum files legal complaint against Chief Justice of Pakistan 2. India: Audio recording of 24th Sunanda Bhandare Memorial lecture - ?Women Under Religious Fundamentalism? by Nayantara Sahgal (9 Oct 2018) 3. India: Foisting Militarism and Hyper-nationalism on Educational Spaces 4. India: Punjab Blasphemy Law Violates Constitution and is an Attack on Democratic Rights of Citizens - Statement by PADS 5. Interview with Gita Sahgal: ?we should learn to distinguish between attacks on the people and right to criticise religion? 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Championing vegetarianism is discriminatory, Edit, The Telegraph - India: Despite all the proof, why Sanatan Sanstha has been handled so mildly | Subhash Gatade - A bit of naming history on Allahabad / Prayag, both in Mughal times and more recently - BJP's agenda and the frankness of Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh - India: The Supreme Court must consider gagging Amit Shah from speaking on the National Register of Citizens | Ajaz Ashraf - India: Sanatan Sanstha and Its Hindutva Designs | Sanghamitra Prabal - India: Allahabad city to be called Prayagraj, says Yogi Adityanath, the UP chief Minister - Sabarimala Temple and Women's Entry in Holy Shrines | Ram Puniyani - Cartoon by Manjul on anti migrant violence in Gujarat - India - More Religion in Politics: In Telangana, Swami Paripoornananda may join BJP, fight election - India: Religious segregation in a North MCD Boys? School, Wazirabad village, in Delhi - Report in Indian Express - Anti migrant violence in Gujarat - A report in Times of India, 10 Oct 2018 ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Privatizing War In Afghanistan Endangers Civilians | Mariam Amini 8. In Bangladesh, a Secular Icon and the Centre-Right Opposition Join Hands | Nazmul Ahasan 9. Modi should lower regional tensions before disaster strikes - Editorial in Dawn 10. Pakistan: When democracy turns into a farce | Raza Rumi 11. Blasphemy case: Pakistani Islamists push for woman?s execution | F.M. Shakil 12. India: Punish those who fabricate false cases 13. India and the RSS: Ever the opportunists | Mani Shankar Aiyar 14. Caste costs lives: Violence against inter-caste couples exposes gap between law and reality 15. India: Govt Keeps Job Data Close To Its Chest 16. India: Championing vegetarianism is discriminatory, Editorial, The Telegraph 17. India: Reign of ABVP - The students' wing of RSS gets ready for a new avatar | Radhika Ramaseshan 18. India catches cold with US interest rate rise | Pritam Singh & Vanessa Petrelli Correa 19. 1988 and the beginning of the Barelvi assertion | TCA Raghavan 20. India: The Unique Identity of Bengal Violence | Ranabir Samaddar 21. India: There are no short cuts to building State capacity | Yamini Aiyar 22. Manto speaks post-partition truth with relentless fury | Saeed Naqvi 23. Outraged by the Attacks on Yazidis? It Is Time to Help | Nadia Murad 24, MST Open Letter on Brazil Election ======================================== 1. WOMEN?S ACTION FORUM FILES LEGAL COMPLAINT AGAINST CHIEF JUSTICE OF PAKISTAN ======================================== The Women?s Action Forum (WAF) and members of the civil society have filed a reference before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) against Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar for his remarks and actions that are unbecoming of a judge. http://www.sacw.net/article13959.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: AUDIO RECORDING OF 24TH SUNANDA BHANDARE MEMORIAL LECTURE - ?WOMEN UNDER RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM? BY NAYANTARA SAHGAL (9 OCT 2018) ======================================== 24th Sunanda Bhandare Memorial lecture was delivered by Nayantara Sahgal, the distinguished writer and public figure in India. The lecture was held at the India International Centre, in New Delhi on the 9th of October 2018. This recording was made in public interest by sacw.net a the non profit public archive and website. http://www.sacw.net/article13956.html ======================================== 3. FOISTING MILITARISM AND HYPER-NATIONALISM ON EDUCATIONAL SPACES India: Tanks on Campuses to Celebrating Surgical Strike Day Growing Signs of Militarization ======================================== This has no place in a democracy where it is possible to not be a hypernationalist and yet be a good citizen. Educational institutions in any event are not the grounds for what is obviously a politically motivated drive to inculcate nationalism. http://www.sacw.net/article13954.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: PUNJAB BLASPHEMY LAW VIOLATES CONSTITUTION AND IS AN ATTACK ON DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS OF CITIZENS - STATEMENT BY PADS ======================================== Punjab assembly recently passed a bill for an addition to IPC clause 295 to give life imprisonment for any ?injury, damage or sacrilege? of four religious books, (Guru Granth Sahib, Koran, Bible and Geeta) ?with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people?. This is the first time in independent India that a punishment usually given for willfully murdering another human being has been recommended for defilement of religious books. ... The bill shifts the constitutional balance between fundamental rights of freedom of expression and religion on the one side and the powers of the sate machinery and organized social bodies to restrain these rights on the other. http://www.sacw.net/article13957.html ======================================== 5. INTERVIEW WITH GITA SAHGAL: ?WE SHOULD LEARN TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ATTACKS ON THE PEOPLE AND RIGHT TO CRITICISE RELIGION? ======================================== Gita Sahgal Interviewed by Prabir Purkayastha, 15 Oct 2018 Produced by Newsclick http://www.sacw.net/article13954.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Championing vegetarianism is discriminatory, Edit, The Telegraph - India: Despite all the proof, why Sanatan Sanstha has been handled so mildly | Subhash Gatade - A bit of naming history on Allahabad / Prayag, both in Mughal times and more recently - BJP's agenda and the frankness of Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh - India: The Supreme Court must consider gagging Amit Shah from speaking on the National Register of Citizens | Ajaz Ashraf - India: Sanatan Sanstha and Its Hindutva Designs | Sanghamitra Prabal - India: Allahabad city to be called Prayagraj, says Yogi Adityanath, the UP chief Minister - Sabarimala Temple and Women's Entry in Holy Shrines | Ram Puniyani - Cartoon by Manjul on anti migrant violence in Gujarat that has commissioned multi million dollar project called 'statue of unity' - India - More Religion in Politics: In Telangana, Swami Paripoornananda may join BJP, fight election - India: Religious segregation in a North MCD Boys? School, Wazirabad village, in Delhi - Report in Indian Express, 10 Oct 2018 - Anti migrant violence in Gujarat - A report in Times of India, 10 Oct 2018 - Ezhava outfit in Kerala denounces RSS plans for Sabarimala stir - Migrants under suspicion and attack in India - Cartoon in the Times of India, 10 October 2018 | Sandeep Adhwaryu -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. PRIVATIZING WAR IN AFGHANISTAN ENDANGERS CIVILIANS US SECURITY CONTRACTORS, AFGHAN FORCES HAVE LONG ELUDED ACCOUNTABILITY Mariam Amini ======================================== Human Rights Watch October 2, 2018 Smoke rises from the site of the car bomb attack on the police station in District Six, Kabul, March 1, 2017. ? 2017 Mohammad Ismail/Reuters This month, the US war in Afghanistan turns 17. Americans born after the conflict began can now enlist in the armed forces. It?s a war in which all parties have committed war crimes and grave human rights abuses, and civilian casualties have reached new highs. But Americans and Afghans looking for solutions to end the war should not lose sight that some approaches may exacerbate abuses and undermine what fragile justice systems exist. During a televised interview in Kabul last week, Erik Prince, billionaire businessman and brother of US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, pitched a plan to an Afghan audience to privatize the fighting. Prince said he could end the war in ?six months after the program is fully ramped,? using ?contracted veteran mentors? to support Afghan forces. Private contractors, including employees of Blackwater, who have made up a large proportion of US forces in Afghanistan since 2001, do not directly report to the military. While they can be prosecuted for crimes in US courts under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, they rarely are. Prince said his forces would be subject to Afghan law. Prince?s company, Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, has been implicated in serious crimes in Iraq. On September 16, 2007, Blackwater employees opened fire on Iraqi civilians, killing 17. Although five Blackwater employees were indicted on murder and manslaughter charges on December 31, 2009, a federal judge threw out the indictment. The case was reopened in 2013. On October 22, 2014, one Blackwater employee, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, and three others were given 30-year sentences for involuntary manslaughter. However, an appeals court threw out Slatten?s conviction and called for a retrial in 2017. On September 6, 2018, that trial ended in a mistrial. Afghanistan already has a poor track record prosecuting members of its security forces implicated in serious human rights abuses, including killing civilians. Given the impunity already enjoyed by the security forces, placing them under the command of private security contractors could further undermine accountability. US Defense Secretary James Mattis rejected Prince's proposal, as has Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. They recognize Afghanistan doesn?t need foreign contractors operating as a law onto themselves. President Trump should listen. ======================================== 8. IN BANGLADESH, A SECULAR ICON AND THE CENTRE-RIGHT OPPOSITION JOIN HANDS by Nazmul Ahasan ======================================== Defying all odds, Bangladesh?s centre-right opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, has just clinched a deal with Kamal Hossain, an 82-year-old secular icon, raising its hope to end the ruling Awami League?s decade-long rule. https://thewire.in/south-asia/bangladesh-kamal-hossain-bnp ======================================== 9. ATTACK ON AJK PM ======================================== Dawn, October 2, 2018 Editorial THE line between catastrophe and the tension-ridden norm along the LoC in the disputed Kashmir region has yet again been shown to be unbearably thin. On Sunday, Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Farooq Haider survived what could have turned into a nightmare attack for the region. A civilian helicopter carrying the AJK prime minister came under fire from across the Line of Control as Mr Haider travelled to a village along the LoC to condole the death of a relative of a cabinet member. Predictably, the Indian side has claimed that Mr Haider?s helicopter strayed across the LoC, but AJK officials have denied that to be the case. It is also unlikely that Indian security personnel mistook Mr Haider?s helicopter to be a military aircraft, which are required to inform forces on the other side of the LoC ahead of flights along the volatile and highly militarised zone. As ever, the facts are likely to be swallowed up by partisan accusations on both sides. Yet, the incident on Sunday should serve as an urgent warning to military leaders on both sides of the LoC that if tensions are not reduced and military-to-military communications not increased, disaster could strike at any moment. Over the years and decades, the pattern that has emerged is that when one side is perceived to have scored a psychological advantage or small gain over the other, the other side seeks to respond. With no less a person than the AJK prime minister himself coming under attack in murky circumstances, it is perhaps necessary for the DGMOs of the Pakistan and Indian armies to contact each other and reiterate the rules of engagement across the LoC. The recent bellicose statements of Indian army chief Gen Bipin Rawat, the Indian government?s bizarre spectacle of celebrating a so-called Surgical Strike Day ? an attack that Pakistan denies occurred ? and the continuing protests in India-held Kashmir against military repression are all contributing to an environment of intolerable tension in the region. While it is clear that India needs to reassess its approach to IHK and on the issues of talks with Pakistan, it does appear that at the moment it is heedless to the demands of peace, normalisation and the lowering of regional tensions. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to force the people of IHK into subjugation through repressive tactics and neither he nor any other Indian leader will be able to take away the legitimate rights of the Kashmiris. It is Mr Modi who has turned up the heat in the region to near intolerable levels and it is incumbent upon him to lower tensions not only along the LoC and the disputed Kashmir region but between India and Pakistan as well. Before dialogue, there must be a common-sense acceptance of regional realities. Mr Modi is totally on the wrong track. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN: WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS INTO A FARCE Raza Rumi ======================================== Daily Times October 7, 2018 Ultimately a free press, an independent judiciary and neutral accountability processes are non-negotiable for a well-governed polity The arrest of Leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif is a reminder of creeping authoritarianism and arbitrary governance that are turning into the new normal. Not that politicians should not be held accountable or punished, the timing of this action ?days before by-elections in Lahore ? raises questions and makes one wonder if its once again coming from the controlled democracy playbook. It was hoped that with a new government in office things would improve but the decline in democratic norms has been sharper than before. Three types of controlled democracy experiments have been conducted in our history. First, when a top bureaucrat would rise to the office of Governor General or Prime minister (1950s). Second, a weak civilian government controlled by a powerful President acting as the face of civil-military bureaucracy (1990s). Third, where a military chief would lord over an obedient civilian government (1980s, 2000s) and change prime ministers at will. A common thread in all these versions of democracy was the acquiescence of the judiciary from upholding dismissals of parliaments, prime ministers and selection of those who could be elected. Another common feature of such democratic experimentation was a controlled media and civil liberties. All three models are history now. Since 2008, we have witnessed the emergence of a hybrid democracy where the unelected institutions do not exercise direct control but have chosen their turfs to protect and exercise control through other means. The judicial appointments process approved by the Parliament under 18thamendment was resisted by the judiciary. And the civilian governments know the limits of their powers in security and foreign policies. Since the tenure of Gen Raheel Sharif and the launch of operations against militants, the role of the military has also grown in internal security matters. The apex committees, seemingly instruments of coordination, showed everyone who was in charge. The PFUJ has also highlighted the brewing crisis in media industry: ?The media owners have taken over editors in their newsrooms, and thus the role of editor ? which had played an important role (in preserving) the freedom of expression ? has been eliminated?? Since the restoration of judges under the PPP government, it was thought that independent courts would safeguard citizen rights and also protect democracy. There have been high-sounding declarations from judges that they would protect democracy at all costs and resist martial law. Yet, the courts seem to be the primary instrument of political cleansing. One cannot argue that there is a larger plan at work but the manner in which a sitting prime minister ? Nawaz Sharif -was ousted (based on something that the petition never asked for) and how he was jailed a year later on a judgment that has been assailed by a higher court, it appears that the courts are dispensing due process, which is a fundamental right of every citizen including those deigned and defamed as ?corrupt? or ?treasonous.? The real worry is that this is happening not under a martial law but a ?democracy? of sorts. The use of accountability regime ? national accountability bureau, the federal investigation agency, the special courts and assorted joint investigation teams with intelligence officials ? is a handy instrument for keeping the ?old? guard? out in favour of the ?new?. We have a free and noisy media that knows its limits. Dozens of talk shows appear to enjoy the freedom and there are no censorship directives. Yet, the executive council of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) at the end of last month stated: ?The state institutions are trying to control the media through curtailing their advertisements, hampering the distribution of newspapers and taking off-air those television channels who do not toe their line?? The PFUJ has also highlighted the brewing crisis in media industry: ?The media owners have taken over editors in their newsrooms, and thus the role of editor ? which had played an important role [in preserving] the freedom of expression ? has been eliminated?Most journalists and media houses have started self-censoring to avoid the wrath of the state institutions.? In a most bizarre and worrying development DAWN?s Cyril Almeida may face a trial for treason for simply interviewing the former PM wherein the latter mentioned the role of Pakistan in 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, something that has been said before by many others. Senior journalists such as Najam Sethi and former head of electronic media regulator Absar Alam are also facing cases for conducting and allowing ?anti-state? programming. All of this is made worse by the fact that media professionals are divided. And many journalists claim that these claims are exaggerated. If anything the media is free. In short the corporatisation of Pakistani media has destroyed the function of editors as more and more businessmen are operating media outlets primarily for their own narrow financial and institutional interests. Clampdown on civil society and free expression has other guises as well. At least 18 international NGOs are being sent packing. True that NGOs such as Save the Children were involved in spying but is that true for all others? What about thousands who are employed with these organisations and all the support they provide to some useful community based initiatives? The truth is that if the state was that responsive and effective Pakistan wouldn?t need aid or support by outsiders. Ironically, this move comes at a time when Pakistan?s government is all set to approach the International Monetary Fund for a bailout worth billions of dollars and the foreign minister has asked the United States to resume aid. A young man, Hayat Khan Preghal was arrested and prosecuted for his online posts that were critical of state institutions. Preghal was a supporter of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement and had been active online. One need not agree with what Preghal or PTM say but in a democratic society all voices should find space and political engagement is always a preferable option to dissenters choosing violence. This simple lesson from our own history seems to have been ignored by those who wield power. Amnesty International before Preghal?s release had asked for ?an end to the harassment, stigmatization, intimidation, unlawful surveillance and arrest of human rights defenders and ensure they can freely express their opinions and dissent without fear of reprisals.? In the first few weeks of the current government, an Economics Professor at Princeton was asked to resign from an advisory council mainly due to the outcry against his Ahmadi faith by the right wing and the opposition. The minister for Human Rights chided Human Rights Watch for its hypocrisy and claimed that minorities enjoyed protection and equal status in the country. That such a claim was made after firing someone for his faith was an irony altogether lost on the minister and her colleagues. More recently, the supposedly reformed police in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa unleashed a crackdown on students at the University of Peshawar. Their crime was to exercise a constitutionally-enshrined democratic right against a hike in tuition fees. It?s about time the state stops infantilizing students and crushing their civil liberties. Pakistan has a third elected government now but that is not enough for a democracy to function. The powerful institutions of the state and corporate media have joined hands to turn the country into a controlled democracy where curtailed press freedoms, selective civil liberties, political victimisation in the name of accountability and manipulated electoral process are being projected as acceptable. The new government led by Imran Khan should remember that things change fast in Pakistan. By enabling such an authoritarian environment, they might be harming their own cause. For the state of being ?in favour? usually is transient and uninsured. Ultimately a free press, an independent judiciary and neutral accountability processes are non-negotiable for a well-governed polity. The writer is editor, Daily Times ======================================== 11. BLASPHEMY CASE: PAKISTANI ISLAMISTS PUSH FOR WOMAN?S EXECUTION Asia Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad in 2009 by F.M. Shakil ======================================== Asia Times October 17, 2018 Radical Islamists in Pakistan are up in arms over the likely release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who has been on death row since 2010 on blasphemy charges, which she has repeatedly denied. The Supreme Court judges who heard her appeal against her death sentence have also been threatened with dire consequences. Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), an anti-blasphemy party headed by the firebrand preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, has spearheaded a fierce campaign since Friday to influence the verdict and pressure the judiciary to send Asia Bibi to the gallows. Pakistan?s Supreme Court, which reportedly heard a final appeal against her death sentence, reserved its judgment last week. The top court did not announce a date for the ruling and restrained the media from guesswork on the reserved order until the court makes it public. The TLP rose to prominence last year when it paralyzed the capital Islamabad by staging a three-week sit-in against ostensible modification of the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat (finality of prophethood) oath. The sit-in protest culminated in the resignation of federal law minister Zahid Hamid through a written agreement among TLP, the government, and the military establishment. The distribution of largesse among the participants by a serving Pakistan Army major-general raised eyebrows as well. Thus critics put a big question mark on the neutrality of the establishment. Asia Bibi, a mother of five, was born and raised in Ittan Wali, a small rural village in Sheikhupura district of Punjab province where she used to work in agricultural fields along with Muslim women. In 2009, her co-workers accused her of committing blasphemy against the person of the Prophet Muhammad. A prayer leader of a local mosque stood as a witness against her. In 2010, she was convicted under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code for the offense, punishable by execution. Mobilizing for death penalty Pre-empting flexibility on the part of judges to uphold the death sentence, the TLP started flexing its muscles to mobilize people for the purpose of creating political turmoil in the country. They took to the streets in different parts of Punjab and Sindh provinces on Friday and issued stern warnings that if the court set Asia Bibi free, the TLP would bring the country to a halt within hours. Pir Afzal Qadri, patron-in-chief of the TLP, said while addressing a rally: ?Judges? remarks created doubt and fears among the party leaders that Asia?s conviction may be set aside to stop her execution.? A four-point resolution approved by the party warned that the TLP would take the acquittal of Asia Bibi as an attack on Islam. They vowed to protect the constitution and the blasphemy law even if it meant the leadership laying down their lives. The TLP warned that the responsibility for the law-and-order situation would rest squarely on the judiciary, the executive and the establishment. ?Religious might has immense influence on our society as [it] can make and break state policies. Those inimical to theocratic rule and who struggle for secular dispensation, equality, and constitutionalism are being pushed aside by the state,? Dr Mehdi Hasan, a left-wing journalist, media historian and longtime human-rights activist who is a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Asia Times. Hasan said the court must take cognizance of the fact that a score of people suspected of committing blasphemy have been killed before they were even taken to a competent court for trial. ?I think the release of Asia Bibi prior to her [being sent] abroad would be hazardous for her life. The moment she stepped out of jail she would be killed,? he said, adding that the court must ensure that she gets safe shelter abroad if she is to be exonerated. Military and judiciary indifferent Interestingly, neither the judiciary nor the government and military establishment paid any attention to the TLP?s open intimidations. The judiciary, which earlier disqualified and jailed politicians for contempt-of-court offenses, preferred to ignore the TLP. The government and establishment also overlooked the threats to the judges of the superior judiciary and allowed the TLP leadership to challenge the writ of the state. ?The state and governments in Pakistan remain always apologetic towards religious forces and they seldom take steps to assert the legal authority of the state,? Hasan said. ?Present-day Pakistan is not what the founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah had thought of but it is shaped and gradually designed on the self-conceived Islamic doctrines of the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled the country from 1977 to 1988.? He added that what Jinnah said in Pakistan?s first Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, should have been incorporated in the preamble of the constitution. In a related development, a two-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Qazi Faez Isa last week resumed hearing a suo motu case pertaining to the Islamabad sit-in protest. The Supreme Court questioned the legality of registration of the TLP as a political party and summoned the Election Commission of Pakistan to submit a detailed report on the registration process and the scope of action against any political party found involved in illegal activities. In 2011, a bodyguard gunned down Punjab governor Salman Taseer, an upfront critic of blasphemy law, who obstinately struggled for the release of the Christian woman on death row. He was an ardent supporter of minority rights and sought amendments in the draconian blasphemy legislation but ended up losing his own life. Just months after Taseer?s killing, Pakistani minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, who also demanded justice for Asia Bibi, was ambushed by gunmen and shot dead. ======================================== 12. INDIA: PUNISH THOSE WHO FABRICATE FALSE CASES ======================================== The Economic Times September 21, 2018 Editorial Rocket scientist Nambi Narayanan had his career cut short, life disrupted and life experience stretched to the prison, where he spent 50 days, because of wrongful police action, political expedience and slow judicial procedure. He was arrested in 1994 and the case against him was dismissed in 1998. Twenty years later, the Supreme Court has ordered the government of Kerala to give him Rs 50 lakh as compensation, half the amount recommended by the National Human Rights Commission earlier. Narayanan got a raw deal, but rawer still has been the experience of another, Delhi-based, scientist at the Department of Electronics, Dr Narayan Nerurkar, who was accused, in 1987, of leaking official documents of a military nature. The case against him was dismissed by a trial court 31years later. In the evening of his life, he has the satisfaction of seeing his name cleared, but has no clue if the CBI plans to appeal against the dismissal of the charges against him or if the department plans to give him his back pay and pension. These are but two examples of miscarriage of justice, individual suffering and national loss because the victims were scientists working for government projects. It can be nobody?s case that every prosecution that fails is an act of mala fide. But some are. Some stem from lack of application of mind. Whatever motivated the prosecution, the consequence has been to shatter the lives of innocent people and their families. They must be compensated. It is equally important to act against those who initiated mala fide action resulting in the prosecution and those in a position of authority who went along, without application of mind. If only the police personnel responsible for fabricating cases and their superiors are given exemplary punishment, even after retirement, would future fabricators of false cases be deterred. Compensation for victims and punishment of those who misuse state power resulting in grave injustice to those they were duty-bound to protect and serve, and both delivered with dispatch ? this is the way to uphold justice and advance democracy. ======================================== 13. INDIA AND THE RSS: EVER THE OPPORTUNISTS Mani Shankar Aiyar ======================================== Dhaka Tribune October 1, 2018 Bhagwat?s speech reflects concerns Consistency has never been a virtue in the RSS. From VD Savarkar to Dr Hedgewar to ?Guru-ji? Golwalkar to Balasaheb Deoras to Mohan Bhagwat, opportunism has marked the politics of the RSS even though they have cleaved to a ?Hindu Rashtra? as their ideological goal. In working towards that goal, they have always favoured tactically adjusting their vocabulary and position to suit evolving situations. Bhagwat himself admitted to this when he said at the recent three-day convention of the RSS that situations evolve, and the RSS?s stated positions have to be adjusted to changing circumstance. At the World Hindu Congress in Chicago earlier this month, he was blunter: ?Politics must be fought like politics, but do it without changing yourself.? Thus it was that having got two of his chelas to actually fire the bullets that killed two Englishmen, Savarkar then found himself caught in conspiracy charges in London, and was recaptured at Marseilles, where he had escaped from the ship carrying him to trial and sentencing in India, and transported for life to the Andamans. Within months, he was writing the most cringing, debasing letters to the Viceroy, declaring his loyalty to the British, and begging to be released, so that he could deploy his many talents on mobilizing the youth of India in the cause of the empire. The Hindu right wing has always justified this craven submission to the colonial power as a tactic employed by Savarkar to return to the mainland, opportunism prevailing over principle. The Brits relented, and just about a decade after his incarceration, allowed him to be transferred to house arrest in Ratnagiri on condition that he abjured political activism, a condition to which he swore fealty and unflinchingly adhered to until his release in 1937. Savarkar was almost immediately elected president of the Hindu Mahasabha having, technically speaking, never been a member of the RSS. But the founder of the RSS, Dr Hedgewar, credited Savarkar with being the inspiration for the adoption by the RSS of ?Hindutva,? a term coined by Savarkar. Savarakar translated this new word into ?Hindudom? (modelled on Christendom), and excluding Muslims and followers of other Semitic faiths from equal citizenship in the ?Hindu Rashtra? he sought to promote. Following from his denunciation of Muslims and Christians as anti-national, Savarkar openly embraced Jinnah?s two-nation theory. It was a theory that had not emanated initially from Muslim communalism but from Savarkar?s own maiden presidential address in 1938. In that sense, Savarkar could claim parentage to both Hindu communalism and Muslim separatism. Savarkar, having set the example, the floundering RSS of the early days was given a shot in the arm by the grand reception accorded in Rome to Hedgewar?s closest friend and comrade, BS Moonje, by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Moonje returned to India fascinated by fascism and persuaded Hedgewar to reorganize the RSS by giving it a distinctive uniform -- the khaki shorts and black cap of the RSS came straight from the Black Shirts of Mussolini?? army of fascist goons. Yet, as soon as Mussolini?s dominance in authoritarian European regimes was overtaken by Hitler, MS Golwalkar, the upcoming future successor to Hedgewar, became an avid fan of the German dictator. In extended conversations with a German acolyte, Golwalkar moved from undying admiration of Mussolini to undiluted praise for Nazi racism, particularly commending the principle of ?racial purity? on which Hitler?s philosophy was founded. The conversations became the defining text of RSS propaganda after 1940 when Golwalkar succeeded Hedgewar as the head of the organization. But after Hitler came to be detested universally as the most vicious mass murderer in history, the RSS found Golwalkar?s fulsome remarks most damaging, and so conveniently dismissed the long published book, propagated by the RSS for the better part of a decade in the 40s, as ?not authentic.? Bhagwat is now doing exactly the same thing by bowdlerizing Golwalkar?s Bunch of Thoughts to exorcise the embarrassing bits, and circulate the revised edition as the true ?Thoughts? of the ?Guru-ji.? Hypocrisy on this scale is breath-taking. They won?t repudiate Golwalkar 1938 and 1966, but think that ?circumstances? require them to deny what might now be conveniently erased. Such ?lipa-poti? on Bhagwat?s part is nothing new; it is part and parcel of the RSS tool bag of deception, deceit, and denial. Nor is Bhagwat?s revisionism new. He began giving the RSS a new image from his Vijayadashami address last year when he and the RSS saw Modi?s support slipping, both because he was failing to fulfil the many bogus pledges he had made during the 2014 election campaign, even as demonetization and the hopelessly botched implementation of GST were transforming Modi from the Sangh Parivar?s greatest asset to their greatest liability. Moreover, while the excesses unleashed on minorities were galvanizing their cadre, they were alienating that large segment of Hindu ?fence-sitters? who had decided in 2014 to give the BJP a chance. Indeed, Walter Anderson and Shridhar Damle in their most recent book The RSS: A View to the Inside, firmly place Bhagwat?s drift from Modi-Shah in the context of the massive BJP losses in the 2018 Lok Sabha by-elections. The authors add, perceptively, ?The Opposition in 2018, meanwhile, shows signs of coalescing? even as the BJP?s ?favourability rating? declines. This is the setting that has led to Mohan Bhagwat mouthing a few sentences that he hopes will change public perception of the RSS as a communal organization dedicated to the replacement of our secular order. What Bhagwat has not taken into account is that an overwhelming majority of Indian Hindus have rejected the RSS view of Hinduism and the role of religion in our polity. Bhagwat?s recent speech is no more than a continuation of the Hindu right wing?s century-long tradition of political opportunism. It is yet another attempt at shoring up voter support for the BJP and, therefore, not to be read as defining a revolution in the ideology of the RSS. ?Bhagwat?, say Anderson/Damle, ?has often reiterated that all Indians are culturally Hindu, which is likely to remain the RSS?s stand on Hindu nationalism.? That accounts for why just weeks earlier, Bhagwat at the Vishwa Hindu Parishad?s World Hindu Congress in Chicago described his opponents as ?dogs.? The full sentence reads: ?Even a lion or a Royal Bengal Tiger, who is the king of the jungle, if he is alone, wild dogs can invade and destroy him. Our opponents know this.? To take the wildlife analogy further, may I remind the Hon?ble Sarsanghchalak that a snake may slough its skin but never drains the poison from its fangs. Mani Shankar Aiyar is a senior Congress leader and former MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. ======================================== 14. CASTE COSTS LIVES: VIOLENCE AGAINST INTER-CASTE COUPLES EXPOSES GAP BETWEEN LAW AND REALITY ======================================== The Times of India September 21, 2018 Editorials The recent historic verdict of the Supreme Court decriminalising homosexuality was a recognition of the universal principle that love transcends gender, social norms and traditions. But two incidents from Telangana serve as a stark reminder of brutal ground realities. Both cases involve inter-caste marriages with the fathers of the women unable to accept the so-called lower caste status of their sons-in-law. In the first case, Amruta Varshini and Pranay Kumar ? who had tied the knot at an Arya Samaj mandir in Hyderabad in January ? became victims of a murderous plot hatched allegedly by Amruta?s father. The latter simply couldn?t come to terms with the fact that his daughter had married a Dalit, and is accused of hiring a contract killer to murder the young man. On September 14, Pranay was killed outside a hospital right in front of his pregnant wife. The incident sparked protests and the police have now arrested seven people, including Amruta?s father. But the latter?s background as a real estate developer and reported political connections have raised concerns that justice may be subverted. Amruta herself is leading the charge to bring her husband?s killers, including her father, to book. As if this wasn?t shocking enough, just days later a man attacked his daughter and her husband in the middle of Hyderabad, again because the son-in-law was a Dalit. Although the couple escaped with their lives, the woman almost lost her forearm and the man received serious injuries in the attack. So entrenched is caste in Indian society that it cuts across economic classes. Clearly, the country?s political leadership has been unsuccessful in mitigating caste prejudice. On the contrary, our netas find it convenient to cultivate caste vote banks. It?s also anybody?s guess whether caste-based reservations, as practised today, alleviate caste divisions in society or actually reinforce them. Add to this a weak law and order machinery, and caste prejudice thrives in this climate of impunity. It doesn?t help when authorities rake up bogeys such as ?love jihad?, meant to impede interfaith marriages. The solution lies in speedy prosecution in cases of caste violence and honour killing. The Supreme Court struck a blow for primacy of individual choice and freedom in its homosexuality ruling. The same principle should apply to inter-caste and inter-faith marriages. Indeed, such marriages may be the best antidote to toxic levels of caste and communal sentiment that are the bane of Indian society and politics today. ======================================== 15. INDIA: GOVT KEEPS JOB DATA CLOSE TO ITS CHEST Two reports, published every 3 months of the Quarterly Employment Survey, not released by the Narendra Modi govt by Basant Kumar Mohanty ======================================== The Telegraph 1.10.2018 Quarterly employment data considered reliable by even critics of the Narendra Modi government have not been released for this year so far, prompting concern the survey may be discontinued to hide potential warts that hold considerable significance in an election year. Two reports of the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) are due now. The report is published every three months, covering the previous quarter. The second quarter (July-September) of the current financial year ended on Sunday without clarity on the fate of the reports for the last quarter of the previous financial year (2017-18) and the first quarter of ongoing one (2018-19). If the Centre fails to release the quarterly reports soon, it will reinforce fears expressed by critics that the survey may be given a burial since several previous reports had found negative job growths in key sectors like construction and manufacturing. Also, the Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey (EUS) report for 2016-17 has not been released 18 months after the financial year ended, although the report for 2015-16 was published as early as September 2016. Sources said the annual report might be published soon. The annual report for 2015-16 had found a rise in the unemployment rate for people above 15 from 4.9 per cent in 2013-14 to 5 per cent (no report was published for 2014-15). The government says the 2016-17 data are still being processed. Both the QES and EUS are done by the Labour Bureau. On June 11 ? by when one QES report was pending (January-March 2018) ? the labour and employment ministry had issued a media release saying a committee was examining the survey?s ?limitations?. The committee, headed by T.C.A. Anant, former chief statistician of India, was given a month but hasn?t yet handed in its report more than three months later. Another QES report (April-June 2018) is pending now. ?The QES gives more or less a practical picture in employment generation. The survey has found employment degeneration in many sectors,? Tapan Sen, general secretary with CPM labour arm Citu, said. ?The government is not interested in continuing the survey. The committee has been set up to find flaws in the survey so that it can be discontinued.? Anant said there were ?issues? with the survey?s design and sampling practices. ?I have asked the Labour Bureau and government statisticians to do certain exercises and provide the inputs. We are working on it,? he had told The Telegraph in August-end. On Sunday, labour ministry officials said the Anant committee had yet to submit its report. The then UPA government had started the QES in 2008 to assess the impact of the global financial crisis on India?s job scene. The survey used to collect sample data from 2,000 establishments, each employing more than 10 workers, from eight sectors: manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants, and IT/BPO. From April 1, 2016, the government revised the sample size to 10,000 establishments. Seven reports were released since then, the last in March this year for the period October-December 2017. All seven showed a rise in jobs in these sectors, but the additional jobs ranged from a low of 0.32 lakh (July-September 2016) to an unimpressive high of 1.85 lakh (January-March 2017). Taken individually, however, the manufacturing and construction sectors showed a fall in jobs, or zero additions, in some quarters. For example, jobs in the manufacturing sector declined by 0.12 lakh from 101.17 lakh in the April-June 2016 quarter. Jobs fell again in the April-June 2017 quarter. The construction business witnessed negative growth in four of the last six reports. The government says the survey?s ?flaw? is that it covers just eight sectors, and only those establishments that have 10 or more workers, taking into account just 2.4 crore workers against the national workforce of about 47 crore. For the annual EUS, started in 2010, the Labour Bureau conducts sample household surveys in urban and rural areas. Explaining why the 2016-17 report has not been released yet, junior labour minister Santosh Gangwar told the Rajya Sabha on August 1 in a written reply: ?Field work i.e. data collection work of the sixth round was done during 2016-17 and data processing work is being undertaken at present.? The government has, however, clarified that no fresh EUS will be conducted any more. The survey has already been replaced from 2017-18 by the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation. It?s anybody?s guess when that report would be published. Like the EUS, the PLFS will be released once a year and will have the same sample size of 1.3 lakh urban and rural households. But sources said it would collect the data across the whole year, better capturing the seasonal variations in the rural job scene than the EUS, which collected its data across eight-nine months. Additionally, like the QES, the PLFS will give a quarterly break-up of employment data, based solely on its survey of urban households. Since the urban households will be chosen at random, the survey is expected to cover all the sectors. Santosh Mehrotra, chairperson of JNU?s Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, said the choice of sectors for the QES was driven by the need to capture export-oriented and labour-intensive industries. ?The QES was a very useful source of employment data,? Mehrotra said. But he added that the PLFS would be useful too. ?These quarterly urban data will enable us to monitor employment on a regular basis. In less developed countries, workers move from agriculture to jobs in industry and the services, which are mostly in urban areas,? he said. ======================================== 16. INDIA: CHAMPIONING VEGETARIANISM IS DISCRIMINATORY, EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH ======================================== The Telegraph 12 October 2018 A contrived sense of difference perpetuates hatred, and hateful practices have trickled down into quasi-official policy By The Editorial Board The ?trickle-down effect?, it seems, seldom works for the good things. Yet it operates most efficiently when the urge is to divide and hurt. A primary school in Wazirabad village in Delhi has been separating its Hindu and Muslim pupils into different sections. The school falls under the aegis of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, which has promised to look into the matter after being informed of this by a group of teachers. While the bright spot in the induced darkness is the fact that the teachers complained, it is an indication of the successful spread of fear that they wished to remain anonymous. The decision to segregate pupils, reportedly, came from the teacher-in-charge, C.B. Singh Sehrawat, who was installed in place of the previous principal in July. According to this gentleman ? he has now been suspended ? the reshuffling of sections was a management decision, routinely done to preserve peace, discipline and a good learning environment. Apparently children were ?squabbling?, not exactly over religion but over food ? that is, some were ?vegetarian?. The implications of Mr Sehrawat?s comments are clear. Dividing up religious communities on the basis of food assumes that vegetarian food is ?pure? and eaters of flesh ?impure?. Surveys have shown that the strident insistence of the party in power at the Centre and its right-wing siblings that most of India is vegetarian is just a vociferous lie. The championing of vegetarianism is not only discriminatory from the point of view of faith, but is also casteist and region-specific. But it forms the basis of the drive against the trade in beef and leather, to the disadvantage of particular communities and castes. To indoctrinate children in primary school, even by indirect means such as classroom segregation, with this contrived sense of difference is to perpetuate hatred through future citizens. Such hate-based practices have ?trickled down? into quasi-official policy, too, where discrimination is more aggressive. Reportedly, applications for registration under the Special Marriage Act, needed for interfaith unions, are being routinely refused in Uttar Pradesh. One such couple had to get married in Calcutta because the registrar in UP had simply not allowed them to apply. The couple are now scared of their future as they return to work. Why are the founding principles of the republic being allowed to be subverted so easily? ======================================== 17. INDIA: REIGN OF ABVP - THE STUDENTS' WING OF RSS GETS READY FOR A NEW AVATAR In recent years, the ABVP has set its eyes on India's burgeoning private universities Radhika Ramaseshan ======================================== Business Standard September 23, 2018 he Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) ? the students? front of the Rashtriya Swayam-sevak Sangh (RSS) ? often makes news over kerfuffle with its ideological adversaries on prestigious campuses or when its leaders are embroiled in controversies. Recently, Ankiv Baisoya, the newly elected president of the Delhi University Students Union, has been accused of submitting fake marks sheet by the Congress-aligned National Students Union of India ? a charge rejected by the ABVP leader. That?s not how the RSS and the ABVP wanted the 70-year-old ... https://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/reign-of-abvp-the-students-wing-of-rss-gets-ready-for-a-new-avatar-118092300643_1.html o o o RSS body plans mega outreach to universities By Anubhuti Vishnoi, ET Bureau | Sep 22, 2018, 08.44 AM IST https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/rss-body-plans-mega-outreach-to-universities/printarticle/65908269.cms ======================================== 18. INDIA CATCHES COLD WITH US INTEREST RATE RISE Pritam Singh & Vanessa Petrelli Correa ======================================== The Tribune Oct 1, 2018 A ROLLERCOASTER: The likely political and economic instability is a domestic contributor to capital outflows and the relative rise of dollar against the rupee. THE US Federal Reserve has again raised interest rate to 2.25 per cent with another increase expected in December, three more in 2019 and one in 2020. Based on experience, it is expected that this interest rate rise too will have adverse consequences for emerging economies. India and Brazil are two of the most important emerging economies in the global economy and both have recently experienced rapid falls in the exchange rate of their currencies. Behind these currency falls (Indian Rupee and Brazilian Real), there are some tendencies in the US-dominated global capitalist economy which affect currency fluctuations in all emerging economies. But there are also some distinctive internal/domestic factors in India and Brazil that need to be taken into account to have a better grasp of the fall in the exchange rates of the rupee and Brazilian real. Regarding the impact of movements in the global capitalist economy on exchange rate volatility, there are three important stages in the last decade of the global capitalist economic crisis since the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 15, 2008 which have important bearings on the shifts in currency exchange rates. Kickoff by 2008 crises The first stage of this currency volatility started with the 2008 crisis that had led to a massive fall in business confidence in developed capitalist economies especially in the US, the nerve centre of the crisis. One manifestation was financial institutions holding on to their reserves and reluctant to invest. This is what created the credit crunch. The onset of the credit crunch by making borrowing more difficult, led to fall in profitability and investment. This contributed further to reinforcing the crisis. Alarmed by the prospect of deepening crisis due to credit crunch, the governments in the US and Europe lowered the interest rates to encourage borrowing and kick start economic activities. This fall in the interest rates in the two geo-economies and the relatively higher interest rates in the emerging economies led to a massive speculative movement of financial flows to the emerging economies. The increased demand for the currencies of the emerging economies led to rise in the exchange rates of currencies of nearly all emerging economies but especially of India and Brazil. The relative fall in the exchange rate of dollar facilitating increase in US exports and the easing of credit availability at low interest rate led to revival of some business activity in USA. Very soon this revival showing declining unemployment and possible rise in wages started generating fears about the possible emergence of inflation in the US economy. Sensitive speculative flows The second stage in this currency volatility emerged in 2013 when hints started being thrown by the Federal Reserve Bank that there might be a need to raise the interest rate to control inflationary pressures in US economy. Even without the interest rate being raised, but merely the possibility of being raised had important implications because the global financial flows, especially speculative flows, are very sensitive to not only the actual but even the expected movements in US interest rate. The reverse direction of financial flows towards the US started emerging leading to some appreciation, though not dramatic, in the exchange rate of dollar vis a vis the currencies of emerging economies. Fed finally hikes rates The third crucial stage in this current exchange rate volatility started with the first interest rate rise by Federal Reserve in December 2015 followed by a marginal increase in 2016, three increases in 2017 and has culminated in already three rises in 2018. These have led to massive speculative flows of financial capital to the US resulting in dramatic rise in exchange rate of dollar and a massive fall in the currencies of emerging economies which seems so uncontrollable that even when some central banks (Argentina, Indonesia and Turkey) tried to raise their domestic interest rates to stem the outward flow of capital, it did not work. Within this external financial environment, some of the domestic political and economic factors in Brazil and India are worth noting to capture the decline in the exchange rate of Real and Rupee respectively. Domestic contributors In Brazil, elections in October to Brazilian presidency and parliament have set the scene for intervention of speculative capital. A corporate-controlled media is generating an economic fear that a left-wing president might come to power which might lead to economic policies aimed at curbing the free market powers of big financial capital. This fear is further accelerating the speculative flow of capital to the US and decline in the exchange rate of Brazil?s currency. The political calculation behind this media strategy is that the average middle-class voter sensitive to exchange rate volatility is more likely to vote for market friendly right-wing candidates and even a marginal shift of this nature might eventually tilt the balance in favour of a right-wing candidate in the final count. In India, the global financial capital, once favourable to the Modi regime, is becoming wary of its economic governance in the light of disastrous economic policies such as demonetisation, GST and NPA fiasco of big banks. This economic misgovernance coupled with the confrontational foreign policy gestures towards Pakistan and violence-generating internal political mismanagement is creating an overall future scenario suggesting instability and uncertainty. This expected future political and economic instability is a domestic contributor to capital outflows and the relative rise of dollar against the rupee. The fact that Brazil is even more sensitive than India to speculative flows is due to relatively higher level of integration of Brazilian economy with the global capitalist economy. One big lesson from this experience of exchange rate fluctuations for future economic policy in India is to create and strengthen institutional checks against further opening of the economy to speculative flows of capital that contribute to increased volatility. Pritam Singh Professor of Economics, Oxford Brookes University, UK Vanessa Petrelli Correa Professor, University of Uberlandia, Brazil ======================================== 19. 1988 AND THE BEGINNING OF THE BARELVI ASSERTION by TCA Raghavan ======================================== Hindustan Times Sep 22, 2018 The Barelvis asserted themselves as a political force in the recent Pakistan general election carving out space for themselves in the area hitherto occupied by mainstream Islamist parties many of whom are affiliated to the Deobandis. Massive demonstrations of street power have generally characterized Barelvi assertion in Pakistan in the past two years. An early and damaging controversy the new government in Pakistan has found itself facing is over the appointment of a prominent Pakistani-American economist to the economic advisory council. That he was an Ahmadi made the decision unusual but after some brave noises the government backed down in the face of mounting protests. An Anti-Ahmadi sentiment is not new in Pakistan and has long provided a platform to ideologically charged groups to consolidate and expand their following. This recent issue over the economic advisory council demonstrates the heft a new political formation the Tehreek-e-Labbaik has acquired. The recent controversy however, is also a throwback to the drama of two decades earlier over the publication of the novel Satanic Verses in 1988. 1988 does not enjoy the same cachet as the year that followed it. In 1989 a series of cataclysms mark it as a landmark year: the coming down of the Berlin Wall, the revolutions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania that made the iron-curtain history, the uprising in Tiananmen square, among others. Europe and Asia both seemed to be in the throes of a fundamental change. 1988 is certainly by contrast seems more placid. Yet in this year too there were developments with a long after life: The Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, General Zia died in a mysterious air crash and in the restoration of democracy that followed in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto became prime minister, the first woman head of government in an Islamic country. Satanic Verses comes to mind not just because this is its 30th anniversary of publication but because of the chain of events it triggered and the debate that emerged then between freedom of expression and the outrage of the devout when deeply cherished ideals of faith are violated. The Barelvis asserted themselves as a political force in Pakistan?s recent general election through the Tehreek-e-Labbaik by carving out space for themselves in the area hitherto occupied by mainstream Islamist parties many of whom are affiliated to the Deobandis. Massive demonstrations of street power have generally characterised Barelvi assertion in Pakistan in the past two years. That these coincided with Nawaz Sharif?s own frictions with the army did lead, not unnaturally, to the view that this may have had more than a nod and a wink from the men in uniform. Yet Barelvi activism has deeper roots. It first drew major notice following the assassination of the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in 2011 because he criticised the prevalent Blasphemy Law. The cult that grew around the assassin ?a bodyguard? enhanced the street power of a number of Barelvis maulvis and preachers whose prominence grew almost exponentially from month to month. There is however an even longer history to the process. Through the 1980s and thereafter it was the Deobandi groups who made news in Pakistan as the ISI and Petro dollar support fuelled militants affiliated to them in the Afghan Jihad and thereafter in Kashmir. As Pakistan itself faced the inevitable spillover effects and witnessed a growing radicalisation of its society, it was the Deobandis who grew in strength and acquired a disproportionate profile, or so it seemed to many in the Barelvi fold which has by far the larger number of followers. Barelvi leaders found themselves the target of terrorist attacks and they felt themselves losing out in numerous other ways. They remained a large but dispersed presence needing a catalyst to consolidate. This came in the form of the cult around the assassin of the Punjab governor. With that spark it was natural that veneration of the prophet, a deeply held article of faith for Barelvis in particular, would be the platform that would launch them. The Satanic Verses episode had demonstrated in the past how effective a slogan alleged insults to Islam and the prophet can be. The controversy over the appointment of an Ahmadi to an important post has largely blown blow over after it first erupted in the first half of September. For the Barelvis, the path ahead is very clear and controversies such as this one will propel them further to claim their slice of the radicalised spaces that now exist in Pakistan. The irony is that this sect has traditionally had in the subcontinent a strong reputation for moderation, inclusiveness and the rejection of puritanical interpretation. TCA?Raghavan is a retired diplomat and currently Director General of the Indian Council of World Affairs. The views expressed are personal ======================================== 20. INDIA: THE UNIQUE IDENTITY OF BENGAL VIOLENCE Violence is endemic in all states across India. But in Bengal, all acts of violence are essentially political in nature Ranabir Samaddar ======================================== The Wire 07 Oct 2018 Political violence has always been an integral part of Bengal?s history. The forms of such violence ? over time ? have mutated and transformed themselves. In the series Bengal: Genealogies of Violence, The Wire attempts to capture some of the milestones that mark the narratives of political bloodshed spanning more than eight decades. Read the other articles here. If you would like to receive the nine-part series directly in your mailbox, sign up here. The discourse on political violence as advanced by thinkers, administrators and politicians is indeed baffling. Even as the critics of violence are worried over the continuance and diversification of violence, they are unable to explain why people, states and nations have become so increasingly violent. Walter Benjamin, who perished while fleeing the Nazis on the border of France and Spain in 1940, reportedly observed that the war of 1939 actually had its origins in earlier times, dating back to 1933. The people, however, were still not aware that all episodes of violence tend to have their genesis in the past. Benjamin cautioned that while we tend to recognise mythical violence without any ambivalence, the real danger lies in the violence generated by the executive. He used the term ?pernicious? to describe the violence sponsored by the executive and the administration. Bengal context We need to analyse the different faces of violence in Bengal in this larger context of violence. And we need to clarify what we mean when we characterise Bengal as a land ridden with violence. Let?s not forget that all states have their respective genealogies of violence, and their mythic forms exist alongside executive and administrative violence which routinely visit people. But it is violence in its mythic form, such as a war, which captures popular imagination; which makes us aware of its cataclysmic nature. It is true that Bengal has had its fair share of such divine or pure violence. It is difficult to believe that Shah Shuja, the 17th century Bengal governor, son of Emperor Shah Jahan, had described Bengal as a fertile land of peace-loving, opium-consuming, idle villagers. The villagers, according to the governor, were loath to working hard because they could grow abundant crops with minimum amount of ploughing. Yet, within a century, Shah Shuja?s portrayal of Bengal as a peaceful state was shattered as famines, deaths, and violence savaged the state in 1770. W.W. Hunter, a colonial officer, immortalised Bengal?s plight in The Annals of Rural Bengal, which he wrote in 1865. Hunter quoted verses from John Shore, an officer of the East India Company who served as Bengal?s governor general between 1793 and 1797: Still fresh in memory?s eye the scene I view, The shrivelled limbs, sunk eyes, and lifeless hue; Still hear the mother?s shrieks and infant moans, Cries of despair and agonising moans, In wild confusion dead and dying lie; Hark to the jackal?s yell and vulture?s cry, The dog?s fell howl, as midst the glare of the day They riot unmolested on their prey! Dire scenes of horror, which no one can trace, Nor rolling years from memory?s page efface. Around the same time, the novelist Bankim Chandra, in his novel Anadamath, wrote about the violence that was triggered by the famine. Understanding how people tend to remember or recall such episodes of violence is important in understanding the history of violence and the multiple layers within that narrative. During the famine that took place between 1870 and 1880, litterateurs and administrators recalled the earlier famine that ravaged the land a century ago in 1770. But the linkages among famine, violence, and memory did not end here. Also read: The Forgotten Massacre of Dalit Refugees in West Bengal?s Marichjhapi Seventy years on, Bengal found itself in the throes of yet another cataclysmic famine ? which since has come to be known as the 1943 Bengal Famine. Three years later, unprecedented communal violence erupted across Kolkata. Significantly, intellectuals and administrators in 1943 barely recognised the palpable violence that was gestating underneath the famine-stricken land ? the violence that in no small measure contributed to the Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946. The killings, unfortunately, were projected as sudden upheavals ? divine retribution, as it were. Such projections befuddle the idea of ?violence? in normal times, or, to put differently, the idea of ?normal violence?. Normal violence is administrative violence, delivered within the framework of law. We tend to overlook or underplay the everyday violence in our life. It is only when confronted with unprecedented scales of violence ? a strike of divine retribution ? that we wake up to the presence of violence. Thus the Bengal Famine of 1943 in which an estimated 3 million people died did not appear as a violent episode, while the Great Calcutta Killings in 1946, were identified as markers of violence. Social history of violence in post-Partition Bengal Bengal was indeed once the peaceful land prince Shuja had believed it to be. But colonisation jolted the foundations of the state. During the long years of colonial rule, Bengal remained a violent land dotted with numerous bloody revolts alongside struggles for land rights, famines, police torture and burning of women on husbands? pyres. Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, became as violent a city as Mumbai was known to be in the latter half of the 20th century. Beginning in the 19th century, as a flourishing site of slave trade and transportation of coolies abroad, followed by gang warfare, opium trade, and murders along banks of rivers, urban violence in the course of time overwhelmed rural violence. Street violence and urban warfare, an integral part of post-Partition Bengal?s history between1950 and 1970, were consequences of such economic and social processes. The street fighters came from the ranks of lower classes and dispossessed refugees. And the police were trained by their colonial masters to tackle the restless streets, which were as much a site of gang warfare and communal violence as they were of protests. Street violence was remarkable not so much because of the number of casualties. But because of its pure nature, uncontaminated by conflicts of caste, language or religion. View of a rally in Calcutta in support of the peasant uprising of Naxalbari, 1967. Analysts and Bengal watchers often wonder at the lack or even absence of caste-based violence in Bengal. It is not that caste discrimination did not or does not exist in Bengal or that it does not generate violence against people from lower castes. What needs to be understood is that in Bengal, all forms of social violence seem to have been subsumed in political violence. The Naxalite decade (1967-1977), as it is popularly known, while claiming thousands of lives, epitomised Bengal?s changing face of violence. The movement subsumed all other forms of violence generated by caste, gender and religion. Following the ascendancy of the Left Front government in 1977, the form of violence once again mutated and transformed itself into everyday routine violence. The changing face of violence One can therefore argue that, like the face of protest and rebellion changes over time, so too does the face of violence. The violence one encountered in Bengal during the colonial regime changed its form in the post-Independence period. Violence in this period manifested in street warfare and strengthening of mafia economy, with extortions and informal taxes increasing. Another contributing factor to this changed form of violence was a particular kind of development model that started taking shape in this period ? the model that saw various rent-seeking groups resort to extreme violence in extracting income from land development and construction industry. Let?s consider some aspects of street violence Bengal witnessed during this period. The infamous murders of Vinod Mehta ? a police officer ? and Idris Ali ? a gangster ? in Kolkata during the 1980s and the 1990s are just some of such incidents. Yet, the scale of violence in this state has been much less compared that of, for instance, Uttar Pradesh, whether it was violence directed by police to eliminate gangsters or the kind of violence that one saw in Bihar?s Bhagalpur blinding case where the state police blinded 31 undertrial convicts by pouring acid into their eyes. Known as the ?Bhagalpur blindings?, the case made history in criminal jurisprudence by becoming the first in which the Supreme Court ordered compensation for violation of basic human rights. Also read: Memories of 1946 Great Calcutta Killings Can Help Us Understand Violence in Today?s Bengal During the Left Front regime, the cataclysmic violence lessened and political violence became ?normal?. Or to put it differently, what we can describe as violence became banal. We can recall here the words of the political theorist Hannah Arendt about the ?banality of evil? ? in this case the banality of violence. Political killings continued unabated during the Left Front?s 34 year rule. The scale of violence may have reduced now, but the police and para-military personnel are still standing guard over the people in conflict and tension prone regions like Jangalmahal. In general, we can argue that social violence still remains low in Bengal. The explanation for its seeming absence is that every incidence of violence in the state appears to be an act of political violence or ?pure? violence. The metamorphosis of social violence into political violence is an intriguing phenomenon, one that calls for a separate discussion. Bengal is a state whose levers of power can transform the social into the political. Political violence catches the eye, and in Bengal, encounters with violence is direct ? physical. One has to fight the enemy physically, one must risk one?s own life and try to kill the enemy. There is only one exception where, unfortunately, social violence has not become political. And that is gender violence. Finally, I argue that no state experiences the same kind of violence throughout its history. No land escapes the problematic linkage between social and political violence. Therefore, to suggest that Bengal is a state more violent than others points towards a lack of rigour in understanding the nature of violence in general. This laxity allows us to condemn violence without being specific, and to not acknowledge that violence can become the organising principle of politics in a society, where social violence can continue unrecognised. Bengal illustrates this point better than any other state in India. Ranabir Samaddar is Distinguished Chair in Forced Migration studies, Calcutta Research Group. He can be contacted at ranabir[at]mcrg.ac.in. ======================================== 21. INDIA: THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS TO BUILDING STATE CAPACITY by Yamini Aiyar ======================================== Hindustan Times Oct 05, 2018 Fixing India?s broken welfare system is about investing in the people that make the State. As the Aadhaar debate rages on, this must not be forgotten. Aadhaar is designed to address the problem of false identity or ghost beneficiaries. But, as activists and researchers have repeatedly pointed out, ghost beneficiaries are not the only form of corruption(Pradeep Gaur/Mint) The Aadhaar judgment and ensuing debate offer an important moment to revisit the current framework and associated solutions to the core challenge that Aadhaar sought to address: fixing India?s broken welfare architecture and building a strong, capable State system. At the heart of the debate is the question of the relationship between technology and State capacity and the degree to which technology is a tool or a solution to capacity failures. Drawing on an extensive review of the existing evidence, in a forthcoming article, Lant Pritchett, Shrayana Bhattacharya and I argue that much of the debate and experimentation with technology is based on the flawed assumption that technology can allow us to bypass State failures. The majority Aadhaar judgment, in my view, upholds this assumption. However, experience with using technology, Aadhaar included, point to the fact that the very State failure that technology seeks to fix particularly ? the people and organisation structures that make the State ? are in fact critical to the success (and failure) of technology solutions. This is best understood by examining the link between corruption in welfare programmes and identification ? the primary rationale offered and endorsed by the Supreme Court for linking Aadhaar to government subsidies. As a technology, Aadhaar is designed to address the problem of false identity or ghost beneficiaries. But, as activists and researchers have repeatedly pointed out, ghost beneficiaries are not the only form of corruption. In Jharkhand, for instance, Karthik Muralidharan?s work on PDS highlights that quantity fraud, where legitimate beneficiaries were given only a fraction of their entitlement, rather than identity fraud was the key driver of corruption. In Rajasthan, an Id-insights study finds that non-availability of ration was a key reason beneficiaries did not receive PDS. In both cases, it is likely that leakage will be reduced far more effectively by focusing on the pipeline problem of movement of grains to PDS stores rather than last mile benefiacry ?authentication?. The point is that Aadhaar and associated technologies are only as effective as the problem they are trying to solve. Understanding the nature of corruption is thus critical. Muralidharan argues that this can be best achieved by placing beneficiary experience at the centre of solution identification. But to do this, the State must be nimble, and capable of building feedback loops with citizens, with empowered frontline officers capable of adapting solutions. This is the antithesis of the current hierarchical culture accustomed to implementing one-size fits all solutions prevalent in the Indian State. The focus on corruption obfuscates another challenge with identification ? that of eligibility determination. Aadhaar can weed out ghosts and duplicates but it doesn?t help deal with the difficulties the State faces in identifying those who are eligible for benefits. The bottleneck here, as Pritchett, Bhattacharya and I argue, is not the predatory State that encourages ghosts. Rather, it is a State that is too small and too incompetent to deal with complex tasks. This was brought home to me by Centre for Policy Research?s Accountability Initiative, which studied the efficacy of using the socio-economic caste census (SECC) for housing subsidies. To ensure genuine beneficiaries received the subsidy, the panchayats were tasked with updating SECC lists. This required multiple transaction intensive tasks, including redoing parts of the survey, and dispute resolution as citizen claims differed from official records. All this was being handled by a few harried elected panchayat representatives and the sole secretary assigned. Lack of staff was one problem but an even bigger one was lack of skills. To update lists appropriately, panchayats needed a new set of skills, from data-entry skills, to people management skills to handle disputes. Without these skills and against tight deadlines, the updation process suffered and chances of genuine beneficiaries being left out were high. From a citizens? point of view, there are thus two challenges to identification. The first is that of asserting eligibility or declaring yourself a beneficiary; and the second is authentication. Aadhaar may help with the latter but it cannot solve the former problem. This is where discretion creeps in and politicians, as studies on targeted subsidies like pensions highlight, become critical. Getting eligibility right requires building local government capacities by employing and training cadres of workers to create beneficiary registers. Technology can help but it cannot be a substitute for people. Rather than strengthen the State, Aadhaar and associated technologies amplify the need to invest in building State capacity, particularly at the frontlines. For the moment, however, the debate remains caught between techno-optimists who see technology as a magic bullet and the sceptics who recognise the complexities but haven?t adequately engaged with the nuts and bolts of administrative reforms needed to strengthen State capacity. Fixing India?s broken welfare system is about investing in the people who make the State. As the Aadhaar debate rages on, this must not be forgotten. Yamini Aiyar is president and chief executive, Centre for Policy Research ======================================== 22. MANTO SPEAKS POST-PARTITION TRUTH WITH RELENTLESS FURY Saeed Naqvi ======================================== New Age Sep 29, 2018 NANDITA Das?s film on the subcontinent?s greatest short story writer, Saadat Hasan Manto, brought alive memories of days when it was fashionable to be on the left. That is where all the progressive writers were ? Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Ismat Chugtai, Sahir Ludhianvi, Krishen Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, the lot. The Pied Piper who lured them to Bombay (Mumbai) was the innovative secretary general of the CPI, PC Joshi. As part of the trend, actors like Balraj Sahni gave a boost to the Indian peoples? theatre. Socialism even in Raj Kapoor films was influenced by the ambience that this lot had generated. They determined the character of Bollywood by their lyrics, dialogue and sheer presence. Subsequently, the influence disappeared, but not totally. Witness Nandita Das. At one level, Manto?s uncompromising realism sustains the tension throughout the film because it clashes with the dogmatic idealism of his colleagues. Das assembles many of them and their friends in cinema, Ashok Kumar, Shyam (Chaddha) in the first Independence Day party where the legendary Jaddan Bai regales the gathering. The teenage girl behind her mother Jaddan Bai is unmistakably Nargis. It is superb casting. The way Manto protects Ashok Kumar through a mob of Muslim rioters is unbelievably realistic. His parting with his closest friend the handsome actor Shyam because of partition is rich in poignancy. The partition of India is replete with many tragic ironies but tragedies pale before the incident that Manto picks on as a metaphor for the mayhem: Toba Tek Singh. When the newly formed governments of the two countries complete the identification of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan?s mental asylum and Muslims left in such institutions in India, the governments decided to transfer them to the countries they were now deemed to be citizens of. When Bishan Singh, a Sikh in a Pakistan asylum, is being transferred to India under police escort he learns that his hometown, Toba Tek Singh has been left in Pakistan. Bishan Singh begins to walk in the opposite direction. The last scene shows him lying in no-man?s land. Let Manto end the story in his own words: ?There, behind the barbed wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between on a bit of earth, which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh. This is just one of the Manto stories Nandita Das weaves effortlessly into her film. ?Thanda Gosht? or ?Cold Meat?, a controversial masterpiece, becomes one of the film?s supporting columns. It provides occasion for a court drama where Manto defends himself against charges of obscenity. Faiz Ahmad Faiz as a witness in the case exposes the earliest fissures in the Progressive Writers Movement. In his testimony, Faiz describes ?Thanda Gosht? as not the ?highest form of literature? but clearly not obscene either. The backdrop, once again, are the riots following partition, the cataclysm Manto could never wrench himself away from. A well built Sikh, Ishwar Singh, has returned after joining the looters. In fact he has even murdered five men with his kirpan (sword). But when he is unable to make love to the passionate Kalwant Kaur, she, in a moment of suspicion and jealousy, slits his throat with the very same kripan, demanding that he tell her who he has slept with. The story?s final climax is ? it has many ? when a dying Ishwar Singh confesses: yes, he lifted a ?very beautiful girl? from a house, but when he laid her down, he realised to his horror? she was dead, ?Thanda Gosht?. An effort to critique Nandita Das?s film has involuntarily, meandered past the brilliant short stories which many readers must already be familiar with. There is a simple reason for my diversion. The succinct, vivid, picturisation of so many of the stories have made them more intimately accessible. Those who have read Manto will be enriched. The selection of stories is uncanny. When a doctor asks his helper to ?open? (khol do), the window to allow some light, Sakina (recovered from a riot affected area) gropes for the string of her shalwar in a daze and loosens it. She has developed a Pavlovian response to the sound ?Khol do?, so repeatedly has she been raped in captivity. There is a disturbing, Mantovian irony attending the end. On this occasion the instruction ?khol do? is for the window to be opened so that Sakina?s distraught father, who has spent days searching for her, can see her face. I can go on and on. The extraordinary directorial success lies in what Nandita Das has avoided. Despite the world?s finest short stories at her disposal, she has refrained from creating a catalogue of Manto masterpieces, however seductive the idea may have been. The stories are in the service of the director?s primary purpose: to bring out the multilayered life of a genius, struggling to keep the wolf from door, a difficult proposition when tight fisted publishers buy a short story only for rupees 20 against Manto?s demand for rupees 50. He accepts the humiliation because he is in desperate need for money for his child?s medical treatment. To be proud, sensitive and constantly in need is a lethal combination. Initially, when Manto copes with the humiliation, he reminds me of Majaz Lucknowi. ?Banyeen sael e gham o sael e hawadis Mera sar hai ki ab bhi khum naheen hai.? (A gathering storm of tragedy and pain approaches But I have not bowed my head ? the struggle continues) Eventually, on a cold December night, Majaz was found in a coma on the terrace of a Lucknow country liquor shop. He died the next morning in Balrampur hospital, surrounded by comrades who happened to be in Lucknow for a conference of progressive writers ? Ismat Chugtai, Sardar Jafri, Sahir Ludhianvi. Manto also dies of alcoholism but his is a slow end, by attrition. Both died in their 40s. The film?s other attraction is the portrayal of an era along a distinct track ? post-partition, mayhem, breakdown of friendships, relationships, Manto?s parting from Bombay deliberately preserving a one rupee debt to a cigarette seller as a ?precious? link with the city he loved. Saeed Naqvi is a senior Indian journalist, television commentator, interviewer, and distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. ======================================== 23. OUTRAGED BY THE ATTACKS ON YAZIDIS? IT IS TIME TO HELP by Nadia Murad ======================================== The New York Times Feb. 10, 2018 Three years ago I was one of thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped by the Islamic State and sold into slavery. I endured rape, torture and humiliation at the hands of multiple militants before I escaped. I was relatively lucky; many Yazidis went through worse than I did and for much longer. Many are still missing. Many have been killed. Once I escaped, I felt that it was my duty to tell the world about the brutality of the Islamic State. Yazidi women hoped that recounting our experiences of mass murder, rape and enslavement would bring attention to the Yazidi genocide. We received sympathy and solidarity all over the world, but now what we really need is concrete action to get justice and allow our community to return to its homeland. On Aug. 3, 2014, the Islamic State invaded the Sinjar region in northern Iraq with the mission of exterminating the Yazidis, whose numbers are estimated to be between 400,000 and 500,000. Our religion dates back to ancient Mesopotamia and preserves pre-Islamic practices. Because of that, the Islamic State called us pagans without a holy book, and used that slander to justify murder. The majority of Yazidis fled, initially to the mountains of northwestern Iraq, and then to Iraqi Kurdistan. Kocho, my village of 1,800 people about 15 miles from the city of Sinjar, was under siege for almost two weeks before it fell to the Islamic State. The militants lined up over 300 men behind a school and shot them. Their bodies were buried in irrigation ditches. Among those bodies were six of my brothers. The militants then took the women and boys to Sinjar and Solagh, a nearby town. My 61-year-old mother, Shami, and the other older women were killed. The younger women, including myself, were taken to slave markets throughout Iraq and Syria. The boys, including one of my nephews, 11-year-old Malik, were forced to join the terrorist group and brainwashed. Over three years later, Malik remains with the Islamic State and calls his mother to tell her he believes in its ideology. Thousands of Yazidis remain missing, and hundreds of thousands are stuck in refugee camps. With few opportunities for work or education, they are often forced to rely on donations of food and clothing. Again, I was lucky. I was among the 1,100 women and children moved to Germany through a program established in the southwestern German state of Baden-W?rttemberg. Canada and Australia have also agreed to take in hundreds of Yazidi survivors of Islamic State brutality, and their families. But the Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdistan?s refugee camps and elsewhere in the world live with the pain of losing their homeland and families. We live with growing frustration that the perpetrators are getting away. And the Yazidi religion is on the brink of dying out. Yet we are hopeful that one day we will return to Sinjar, rebuild our families and practice our religion freely, and that our rapists will face justice. That hope made us speak publicly about something as painful and private as our abuse by the Islamic State. By recounting what happened to us, we relived our pain and risked being judged harshly by those around us. When you ask a Yazidi to repeat her grim testimony, you should consider what an emotional toll that exacts. And when you recount what happened to us, please do not use that demeaning phrase ?sex slaves? to refer to us. We are survivors. Over the past three years, the world has come out in support of the Yazidis. But now we need to move away from the personal stories of survivors and take practical steps, steps toward prosecuting the Islamic State militants responsible for these crimes and toward reconstructing Yazidi areas in Iraq so that displaced Yazidis can begin to go back to their homes. My lawyer, Amal Clooney, and Yazda, a global Yazidi rights organization, helped me to plead our cause at the United Nations and to put pressure on the Iraqi government and urge the international community to act. In September, the United Nations Security Council finally passed a resolution to establish an international investigation into these crimes. We hope this investigative team will be deployed soon and that it will carry out the long overdue inquiry into the crimes of the Islamic State, including by exhuming the 94 mass graves of the group?s victims that have been found in Iraq. We continue to collect evidence of the genocide and are working with prosecutors around the world to get more cases heard. The lawyers helping us are working pro bono and with few resources. The conditions in the Yazidi areas of Iraq remain bleak. Land mines and homemade bombs planted by the Islamic State litter the region. An overwhelming majority of the buildings in the Sinjar area have been destroyed; basic services such as sanitation, electricity and water are lacking. Access to the area, which is controlled by Iraqi Kurdish forces, remains extremely difficult both for humanitarian organizations and for the Yazidis wishing to return. We are very grateful to President Emmanuel Macron of France, who pledged to help demine the Sinjar region. And together with the French government, we are working on starting the Sinjar Action Fund, a trust fund to rebuild Sinjar. But we need more help. I call on governments, international organizations, private entities and individuals to contribute to the Sinjar Action Fund and help us return home and rebuild our lives. Advertisement One day, I want to marry and have children. I will have to deal with the trauma of my rape personally and quietly. But like most Yazidi women, I am prepared to repeat my story, as long as it helps to achieve justice and to support genocide survivors. Some months back, after I gave a talk at the United Nations about the plight of my people, a young African woman approached me. Boko Haram militants had kidnapped her and raped her. We instantly recognized each other as survivors and formed a bond. Since my escape I have learned how often women are victimized by war, from Rwanda to Bosnia, from Syria to Myanmar. Yazidi women now belong to a vast network of survivors of rape and enslavement. Rather than emphasizing our victimhood, that connection to other women empowers us to take back our lives and to fight for our community?s future. Like those brave women, Yazidi survivors are much more than victims. We are activists and we need more than empathy. Nadia Murad is the author of the memoir ?The Last Girl.? A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 11, 2018, on Page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: We Need More Than Empathy. ======================================== 24, MST OPEN LETTER ON BRAZIL ELECTION ======================================== Landless Rural Workers' Movement [MST) October 7, 2018 Comrades and Friends of MST around the World, We would like to share some of our views on this delicate moment of Brazilian politics in the last week of the election campaign: 1. This election is very special because it can mean the victory or defeat of the coup against democracy started in 2014, which continued with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, extended into the illegitimate government of Michel Temer. For us, the coup is not just the moment of impeachment. The coup is the project that the elites and the financial capital did not have the strength to conquer in the elections and that needed to use the force and the illegality of other apparatuses like the media and the judiciary to execute. Thus, the coup is also the reforms of withdrawal of rights, the promotion of unemployment and, mainly, the political imprisonment of president Lula, without evidence and at a fast pace, to prevent that the favorite candidate of the population disputed the elections. 2. We further understand that the coup is a symptom of the profound economic, social and political crisis that affects not only Brazil, but the whole world, as a result of the hegemony of international financial capital and the accelerated destruction of natural assets, social rights and State around the world. It is important to have this understanding, because the elections will not solve this crisis and probably, even with the victory of the popular forces, we will have the continuity of the crisis and the confrontations that marked this period. 3. The Brazilian population understood that there was a coup and that it was necessary to defeat it. But it did not choose the path of the streets and mobilizations. With the exception of the victorious general strike that blocked the pension reform. In this way, the people chose in Lula?s candidacy the way to express its discontent and desire for change. The MST defended Lula?s candidacy as far as possible. We made a beautiful march to register his candidacy and with other popular movements we made a hunger strike that lasted 26 days and denounced the manipulations of the Judiciary System. And we have kept the Camp Lula Livre in front of the Federal Police?s jail in Curitiba as a living testimony of our conviction of the president?s innocence. Despite protests from the UN and a large civic movement by Lula Livre, the judiciary prevented President Lula from running for the elections. Faced with this, the Workers? Party chose to launch the former Education Minister and former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Hadadd as a candidate. And we, like the other democratic forces, decided to support his candidacy, because it represents the defeat of the coup, Lula?s freedom and the possibility of overcoming the serious economic and political crisis and resuming a path of development of the country. 4. On the other hand, in these four years of the coup, the Brazilian right has used numerous tools: fabricated social movements, active militancy of the judiciary and the media against democracy ? One of the fronts of these attacks was the encouragement of leaders with fascist speech like Jair Bolsonaro, a federal deputy for three decades (but presenting himself as an anti-system), former army captain, defender of the military dictatorship and torture, and the withdrawal of countless social rights. Bolsonaro is advised by military and foreign-funded funds economists. Bolsonaro?s speech of violence, homophobia and radicalism grew with the support of the media, who hoped that in the polarization between him and the left, the traditional right might present itself as ?moderate? or ?center.? However, the population decided to punish the parties that carried out the coup, such as the PSDB of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and A?cio Neves (whose candidate Geraldo Alckmin is expected to be fourth or fifth) and Michel Temer?s MDB (whose candidate Henrique Meirelles should not be among the top six). And the creation fled from the control of the creators, taking the vows of the old right. 5. We understand, therefore, that in this election there is a clear dispute between two antagonistic projects: the continuity of the coup and its reforms, represented by its more radical and authoritarian version, Jair Bolsonaro, and the reconstruction of democracy and rights, represented by Fernando Haddad. It is, therefore, an election marked by the class struggle. For a project that combines the most conservative sectors of our society and international capital against the workers? project. 6. From the point of view of foreign policy, this dispute of projects is represented on the one hand by Bolsonaro?s project, a more aligned U.S. policy, non-recognition of Palestine, and attacks on Venezuela and the progressive governments of Latin America. On the other hand, by Hadadd?s project, of resumption of Latin American integration and of strengthening relations with the countries of the Global South. 7. Therefore, this will be a difficult election, disputed both at the polls and on the streets, as demonstrated by the gigantic women?s movement #EleN?o (#NotHim) this past weekend. We also know that the results of this election will decisively influence the direction of Latin America and can signal a new progressive offensive throughout the world. For our part, we will continue to fight for popular agrarian reform and for a popular project for Brazil, and we ask our friends on all continents to remain attentive to developments in Brazil and to denounce both the conservative offensive and the political imprisonment of President Lula. ? MST National Board Sao Paulo, October 05, 2018 _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Wed Oct 31 17:12:47 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2018 02:42:47 +0530 Subject: SACW - 1 Nov 2018 | Sri Lanka: Coup & Crisis / Pakistan: Supreme Court ruling on Asia Bibi Case / India - Pakistan Must Talk / India: Media under Modi Regime; Mobs Defy Supreme Court / Palestinian Authority & Hamas have a human rights problem / Brazil: Bolsonaro victory / Gorbachev on New Nuclear Arms Race Message-ID: <77FCA726-0779-44FC-BA30-49180557B3EA@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 1 Nov 2018 - No. 3004 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Sri Lanka - Coup d?etat and Constitutional Crisis 2. Pakistan: Text of Supreme Court judgment on Asia Bibi Case 3. Bangladesh: Let Shahidul resume his journey 4. India: Media under Modi Regime - Remembering Balagopal 9th Memorial Lecture by Hartosh Singh Bal 5. India: A Growing Fear Among Us - Text of Keynote by Shanta Gokhale address at 2018 Ooty Literary Festival 6. India: News from Social Movements - Opposition to Nuclear Power projects / To Bullet Train Project / To Adani power-plant in Jharkhand 7. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India - Malegaon Terrorism Case 2008: Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Among 7 Hindutva Activists Charged - India: American Hindutva Activist Rajiv Malhotra Gets Appointed as Visiting Prof at JNU - Two part article by Abhishek Choudhary on the RSS and its role in shaping India?s future - India: Show of Force by Far Right Nationalists of the RSS at New Delhi's elite gated residential complexes - From Allahabad to Prayagraj-What's in the name? - Hindutva in Chicago | Slok Gyawali - The Right-wing?s use of draconian anti-free speech laws comes home to roost ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 8. Pakistani woman Asia Bibi acquitted after Supreme Court overturns death sentence for blasphemy 9. India, Pak leaders have to put in place a format for talks that is insulated from interruptions | Editorial, Hindustan Times 10. India?s glaring confidence deficit: It should not turn its quarrel with Pakistan?s government into a quarrel with its people | Sadanand Dhume 11. South Asia: High costs of not trading with neighbours | Seema Sirohi 12. India: Can SC [Supreme Court] stand up to mobs? | Dushyant 13. India: The BJP is turning faith into a corrosive force - Editorial, The Telegraph 14. India: Past perfect and a future tense | Rajesh Kochhar 15. Isakava on Gorter, 'The Red Soul' 16. Arbitrary Arrest and Torture Under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas 17. Brazil: What Bolsonaro?s election victory means | Benjamin Fogel + Hitler in Brasilia: The U.S. Evangelicals and Nazi Political Theory Behind Brazil's President-in-waiting | Alexander Reid Ross 18. A New Nuclear Arms Race Has Begun | Mikhail Gorbachev ======================================== 1. SRI LANKA - COUP D?ETAT AND CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS ======================================== (I) SRI LANKA: LAWYERS FOR DEMOCRACY (LFD) URGES PRESIDENT TO RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION & REVOKE PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT On 26 October 2018, President Maithripala Sirisena purported to remove the existing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and purported to appoint Mahinda Rajapakse MP as the new Prime Minister. Having examined the legal position, LfD concludes that this move is clearly unconstitutional and undemocratic for the following reasons http://www.sacw.net/article13968.html (II) SRI LANKA: PARADISE LOST? PRELIMINARY NOTES ON A CONSTITUTIONAL COUP There were three dramatic announcements on the evening of Friday 26th October 2018 from the Presidential Secretariat, which occurred in the following order: (a) the announcement of the withdrawal of the UPFA from the government; (b) the swearing-in of Mahinda Rajapaksa before President Maithripala Sirisena as the Prime Minister; and (c) the announcement that the President has informed Ranil Wickremesinghe in writing that he has been removed from the office of Prime Minister under Article 42(4). http://www.sacw.net/article13964.html ======================================== 2. PAKISTAN: TEXT OF SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT ON ASIA BIBI CASE ======================================== Asia Bibi had been living on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death under Pakistan?s blasphemy laws. Asia Bibi acquitted after Supreme Court overturns death sentence for blasphemy http://www.sacw.net/article13974.html ======================================== 3. BANGLADESH: LET SHAHIDUL RESUME HIS JOURNEY ======================================== It is nothing if not misguided to believe or suggest Shahidul Alam?s motivations were in any way mala fide, as he waded into the student protests in August to provide his own eyewitness accounts, taking advantage for the first time of that remarkable tool that has emerged for all story-tellers: Social media. http://www.sacw.net/article13961.html ======================================== 4. INDIA: MEDIA UNDER MODI REGIME - REMEMBERING BALAGOPAL 9TH MEMORIAL LECTURE BY HARTOSH SINGH BAL ======================================== Video recording of a public lecture by the noted India journalist Hartosh Singh Bal in early October 2018 http://www.sacw.net/article13962.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: A GROWING FEAR AMONG US - TEXT OF KEYNOTE BY SHANTA GOKHALE ADDRESS AT 2018 OOTY LITERARY FESTIVAL ======================================== on 14 September 2018 at Ooty Literary Festival in Tamil Nadu Shanta Gohale was given the Ooty Literary Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. This is the full text of the keynote address delivered by her. http://www.sacw.net/article13930.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: NEWS FROM SOCIAL MOVEMENTS - OPPOSITION TO NUCLEAR POWER PROJECTS / TO BULLET TRAIN PROJECT / TO ADANI POWER-PLANT IN JHARKHAND ======================================== (1) India: Forceful land acquisition and government brutalities define Jharkhand?s Adani power-plant project - Press Release by Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha With much fanfare, Jharkhand government signed an MoU with Adani groups in 2016 to setup a powerplant in Godda district. A recent fact-finding visit of members of Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, an umbrella network of more than 30 people?s organisations, found that this project has gathered several accolades in the last two years - forceful acquisition of land, severe violation of processes set by land acquisition act 2013, bulldozing standing crops of farmers, lying to people about the potential benefits, intimidating affected people with police brutalities, lawsuits and so on. http://www.sacw.net/article13971.html (2) Days of Nuclear Power are Over: Movement groups from across India demand Scrapping Chutkha and other Nuclear Power Projects Anti-Nuclear movement groups from across India, through the initiative of National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear movements came together in Bhopal for a two-days national conclave, and demanded the immediate scrapping of Chutka Nuclear Power Plant, and all other NPPs planned in India. http://www.sacw.net/article13965.html (3) India: Scrap the Bullet Train Project - Memorandum to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) by Bhumi Adhikar Andolan [Land Rights Movement] (signed by reps. of 12 political parties) http://www.sacw.net/article13975.html ======================================== 7. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India - Malegaon Terrorism Case 2008: Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Among 7 Hindutva Activists Charged - India: American Hindutva Activist Rajiv Malhotra Gets Appointed as Visiting Prof at JNU - Two part article by Abhishek Choudhary on the RSS and its role in shaping India?s future - India: BJP wanted the ayodhya hearings in court to go on as it would have helped before the 2019 elections - select tweets - India: Will the BJP take an ordinance route to the Ram temple in Ayodhya ? - India: Show of Force by Far Right Nationalists of the RSS at New Delhi's elite gated residential complexes - From Allahabad to Prayagraj-What's in the name? - India: Video about Nadeem, who was left with nothing after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar Riots and has from there - Hindutva in Chicago | Slok Gyawali - The Right-wing?s use of draconian anti-free speech laws comes home to roost - India: Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Sahayog Manch - the RSS?s new outfit quietly takes up much of VHP?s Ram Janmabhoomi work in Ayodhya -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 8. Pakistani woman Asia Bibi acquitted after Supreme Court overturns death sentence for blasphemy ======================================== South China Morning Post 31 October, 2018 * Asia Bibi has been living on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death under Pakistan?s blasphemy laws * She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2170993/pakistani-woman-asia-bibi-acquitted-after-top-court-overturns SEE ALSO: PAKISTAN - ASIA BIBI'S BLASPHEMY CASE: A NEVER-ENDING ORDEAL by Rabia Mehmood The News October 16, 2018 As the world awaits the Supreme Court?s verdict on Aasia Bibi?s unjust conviction and death sentence in a blasphemy case, hardliners have started agitating both online and offline, increasing pressure on the authorities to uphold the sentence. A not-so-cryptic tweet by Rizvi Media of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLYR) reads: ?Think carefully before making any decision.? The fate of those unjustly accused of blasphemy hinges on this emblematic case, which has created an environment of fear and hostility for Pakistanis especially those who adhere to religions other than Sunni Islam. Since Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer?s killing in 2010, I have interviewed and spoken to hundreds of Pakistani minorities. The impact of Taseer?s death, for taking a stand against Aasia Bibi?s arrest on blasphemy charges, came up a lot in the conversations. Many spoke about how unsafe minorities felt in Pakistan. If a governor could not be protected, then what of religious minorities, who are at a higher risk? Eight years on, the situation seems to be getting worse. Prosecutions on blasphemy charges have expanded to the internet and people have been accused even for social media posts. In February this year, a video of an injured young man, Sajid Masih, went viral on social media. Sajid alleged that he was tortured by an officer belonging to the Federal Investigation Agency who ordered him to have sex with his cousin, Patras. Unable to bear the humiliation, Sajid jumped off from the fourth floor of the FIA building. Patras Indreyas Masih, Sajid?s cousin, was charged with committing blasphemy ? taken into police custody on February 19 after being accused of posting a blasphemous message on Facebook. The case, which was filed by a TLYR supporter, went to trial on April 30. Patras Masih?s lawyer and family insist that he was a minor at the time of the alleged offence. However, the authorities have prosecuted and tried Patras as an adult. His family says that, despite allegations in the media that his National ID card showed he was 21, his age on his CNIC was changed for him to be able to get a job and provide for his low-income family. His birth certificate clearly shows he was born in 2001, proving he was 17 at the time of the post. Pakistan is party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which each child has the rights to freedom of religionand expression. Accusing and prosecuting children for blasphemy is not new to Pakistan. Many other minors who were arrested on blasphemy charges include Salamat Masih (11) of Gujranwala, Rimsha Masih (13) of Islamabad, Nabil Chohan (16) of Kasur, Ryan Stenton (16) of Karachi and Aqib Saleem (15), an Ahmadi of Gujranwala. Nabil Chohan has been in jail for two years without access to a lawyer of his choice. In addition to minors, the list of Pakistanis condemned under blasphemy charges include women, older people, persons with mental disabilities, teachers, school and university students and many others. In 2009, a blasphemy case against a Muslim woman living with schizophrenia, Zaibunnisa, was quashed by the Lahore High Court after she had spent nine years in jail and five in a mental health facility. Even the faintest suspicion of a blasphemy allegation is enough to put the accused and, in case of religious minorities, their entire community in danger. In 2012, I had reported on an Ahmadi man who was acquitted in a blasphemy case after spending years in prison sharing a barrack with militants. Despite being proven innocent, he ended up living in hiding, unable to step out the town his family was living in. He eventually had to flee Pakistan for a safer place for him and his family. Christians and Ahmadis have been displaced within Pakistan and others have had to either flee the country or seek asylum elsewhere due to the lack of protections and the constant threat of blasphemy laws pending over them. The impunity and free pass given to those who use blasphemy laws to threaten and attack minorities is not a mystery. So far, there has been no accountability for those who have justified and advocated hatred and discrimination against the most marginalised sectors of society. Despite decades of activism by civil-society organisations, journalists and legislators to amend the blasphemy laws to protect the rights to freedom of religion and expression for all, Pakistani authorities seem reluctant to bring laws in line with international law and have preferred to stay in the past. In the meantime, the list of victims who fall prey to blasphemy allegations keeps growing. The question is: will Naya Pakistan take a stand against the religious discrimination that has hounded minorities for decades in Purana Pakistan? Today, Patras Masih?s parents remain displaced from their home due to threats they have received since their son was accused. It is time for the justice system to ensure that blasphemy allegations are no longer used to silence and violate the human rights of any Pakistani. The writer is a South Asia Researcher at Amnesty International. Email: rabia.mehmood[at]amnesty.org Twitter: @rabail26 ======================================== 9. INDIA, PAK LEADERS HAVE TO PUT IN PLACE A FORMAT FOR TALKS THAT IS INSULATED FROM INTERRUPTIONS EDITORIAL, HINDUSTAN TIMES ======================================== Hindustan Times Oct 29, 2018 Editorial India, Pak leaders have to put in place a format for talks that is insulated from interruptions These talks must focus on low hanging fruit while chipping away at the more contentious issues If India and Pakistan have been unable to resume some form of dialogue in the 10 years since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, it is not for want of trying. The two sides have gone through the one step forward, two steps back routine several times in the years since. Indian leaders have made concessions on key issues such as Balochistan and undertaken surprise visits to Pakistan to get the ball rolling, and the national security advisers of the two sides have held secret meetings to help ease tensions. But the two sides never came to grips with the main issues that have bedevilled the bilateral relationship. India has consistently maintained that talks and terror cannot go together, a stand that isn?t surprising given the global clamour for Pakistan to do more to tackle terrorism emanating from its soil. Many in Pakistan are still reluctant to acknowledge how much of a game changer the terrorist assault on Mumbai was, and for millions of Indians, there is no sense of closure as Pakistan seems to be still dragging its feet on prosecuting those responsible for the attacks that killed 166 people. For Pakistan, Kashmir remains the ?core issue? to be addressed through any talks, and a worsening of the situation in the Indian state in the past few years appears to have only hardened the stance of the Pakistani leadership on this issue. There are numerous takers for the theory that Pakistan?s former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was targeted by the military for opposing its stranglehold on foreign policy by extending a hand of friendship to India. There are also many in India who believe Mr Sharif?s successor, Imran Khan, is in power today largely because he has the blessings of the military establishment and will thus toe the army?s line on all matters related to India. And as India pursues plans to consolidate its position in Asia, there is an inevitable feeling that Islamabad no longer figures on New Delhi?s, at least not for the foreseeable future. Mr Khan has already gone on record as saying that talks may be possible only after India?s general elections in 2019. However, Mr Khan needs to keep in mind the fact that any dispensation in New Delhi will be reluctant to engage with Islamabad as long as members of his cabinet openly share the stage at public events with Lashkar-e-Taiba founder, Hafiz Saeed. The two sides have to put in place a format for talks that is insulated from interruptions and focuses on low hanging fruit while chipping away at the more contentious issues. ======================================== 10. INDIA?S GLARING CONFIDENCE DEFICIT: IT SHOULD NOT TURN ITS QUARREL WITH PAKISTAN?S GOVERNMENT INTO A QUARREL WITH ITS PEOPLE Sadanand Dhume ======================================== The Times of India October 20, 2018 Is it still possible to have a sane conversation about Pakistan in India? If the hyperventilating shouting matches that pass for TV news programmes are anything to go by, it?s hard to answer in the affirmative. Earlier this month, former cricketer and current Congress Party politician Navjot Singh Sidhu riled both TV studio generals and Twitter hashtag warriors with perfectly anodyne observations about India?s western neighbour at a literature festival in Kasauli. In a discussion about Punjabiyat ? the common culture of Punjabis on either side of the border ? Sidhu pointed out that in many ways he feels more at home in Pakistan than in Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, said Sidhu, ?the culture is totally different.? He does not speak Tamil, and has only a limited appetite for idlis. Across the border, in Pakistan, they even share the same swear words. That such commonplace observations can induce outrage, even if only of the synthetic variety, suggests how much India?s national discourse on Pakistan has deteriorated in recent years. This ought to concern not just those who prefer butter chicken to butter masala dosa. A more even-keeled approach to Pakistan ? one that eschews both the breathless sentimentalism of the pappi-jhappi crowd and the clownish fulminations of studio generals ? is in India?s own best interest. The principles underlying this commonsensical approach are simple. Those Pakistanis who work against India ? primarily the military and the witches brew of jihadist groups it has nurtured ? do not deserve a shred of empathy. But with ordinary Pakistanis India ought to take the opposite tack. They are not an enemy people, merely estranged cousins who took a different path. You don?t need to be a woolly-headed peacenik who lights candles at the Wagah border to wish them well. At first glance this approach may carry the taint of sentimentalism, but in reality it?s grounded in plain facts. For starters, Pakistan may be a troubled nation but it?s not about to disappear any time soon. For all its problems ? over-bearing generals, a stuttering economy, fundamentalist mullahs, restive ethnic minority groups ? Pakistan has endured for nearly 50 years since the secession of Bangladesh. Indeed, in some ways Pakistan is a more coherent political entity than India. The vast majority of Pakistanis share the faith of Islam and the language of Urdu, albeit as a lingua franca rather than as a native tongue. India cannot simply wish away the fact that it will likely share a border with a nuclear-armed nation of more than 200 million people for a long time to come. Only Pakistan can fix its myriad problems, but if it manages to become a relatively stable and prosperous country that focusses on exporting garments rather than jihad, India will unquestionably be among the biggest beneficiaries. Indians ought to root for Pakistan growing richer, stabler and more democratic. We can call this hope ?getting to Canada.? Evidence suggests that the average Pakistani bears no hostility towards India. Over the past decade, both the left-of-centre Pakistan Peoples Party and the right-of-centre Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) have found that promising improved relations with India is a vote getter. Historically speaking, the parts of undivided India that became Pakistan had no appetite for Partition until shortly before it occurred. In undivided Punjab, the Unionist party dominated by Muslim, Hindu and Sikh landlords held sway until provincial elections in 1946. To be sure, the bloodletting that accompanied Partition created a measure of ill-will on both sides of the border. But, as the Pakistani scholar-diplomat Husain Haqqani points out in his fine book, Reimagining Pakistan, for the most part anti-Indian sentiment does not occur naturally in Pakistan. It is fostered by the army and its sympathisers as part of an ill-conceived attempt to yoke the argument that drove Partition to a modern nation-building project. A more self-confident India would couple a brass-knuckle approach to terrorism with an expansive embrace of talented Pakistanis. Instead of calling for Pakistani movie stars to be banished from Bollywood and cricketers to be banned from the Indian Premier League, India ought to actively woo them. Competition invariably raises standards. The added undercurrent of rivalry between Indians and Pakistanis would raise it more sharply still. India would be enriched by hosting more Pakistani writers, musicians, actors and cricketers. Instead of viewing Pakistanis as potential interlopers, India should aspire to be the stage on which the brightest talent from across the subcontinent shines. The US performs a similar function for Canada; Australia does the same for New Zealand. Those who believe India ought to shun Pakistanis are only hurting themselves, and stunting India?s soft power in one of the few countries genuinely receptive to it. Contrast this idea of an open and self-confident India with the current reality. TV anchors throw tantrums over the most innocuous praise for Pakistan. The ruling party?s troll factory has perfected the art of turning any visit to that country by an opposition politician into a lurid conspiracy against the Indian government. The government diminishes itself by making ordinary Pakistanis seeking medical treatment in India grovel for visas. This is not how aspiring great powers behave. These are hallmarks of the deeply insecure. ======================================== 11. SOUTH ASIA: HIGH COSTS OF NOT TRADING WITH NEIGHBOURS by Seema Sirohi ======================================== https://www.orfonline.org/ Raisina Debates Oct 25 2018 The politics of South Asia have always cast a shadow over the economics of the region, making it a tariff-ridden jumble of impossibilities rather than a neighbourly place of opportunities. Connectivity is abysmally low, information flows even lower and hidden duties are high, fragmenting a region already dotted with isolated and landlocked areas. Nowhere else, perhaps, is proximity such a curse as in South Asia where countries actively discriminate against each other on trade. The South Asian Free Trade Agreement of 2006 is undermined by long ?sensitive lists,? restricting almost 35% of intra-regional trade. Numbers have a way of waking governments and entrepreneurs up ? even if momentarily ? to see the tremendous cost of not trading freely with each other. Ironically, South Asia is the world?s most rapidly growing region at 7% but it is also the most disjointed, disconnected and distrusting group of countries. It muddles along, content to realize only a third of the trade potential. If things were normal trade among South Asian countries would be $67 billion not a mere $23 billion. More trade could lead to more trust, which would lead to more understanding to create a virtuous cycle. In 2015, intra-regional trade as a share of regional GDP was less than 1% -- the lowest in the world. Compare that to nearly 10% for East Asia and the Pacific. Latin America and the Caribbean did better at 3%. Similarly, intra-regional trade accounted for only 5% of South Asia?s total trade while it was 50% of the total trade in East Asia and the Pacific and more than 20% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Surely, something is wrong with this picture. The figures are from a recently released book titled, A Glass Half Full: The Promise of Regional Trade written by a team led by Sanjay Kathuria, lead economist for South Asia in the World Bank. The book takes a comprehensive look at regional ground realities and should be a ?must read? for trade officials in South Asia. It?s exhaustive in its research and analysis, using focus groups, surveys, stakeholder interviews and new data to make the case for more integration in a region that still has 33% of the world?s poor and 40% of the world?s stunted children, as Kaushik Basu, professor of economics at Cornell and the former chief economist for the World Bank, reminds in the foreword. Why should Sri Lankans pay $1.23 for a dozen eggs when the price in India is $0.91? The same goes for potatoes. Meanwhile, prices for eggs and potatoes in Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are comparable because of better links and flow of goods. Why should India discriminate against imports from South Asia when it puts fewer restrictions on imports from the rest of the world by comparison? Protectionist measures in Nepal against regional imports are the highest. The two elephants in the room are of course, India and Pakistan, and their tortured history. The debilitating dynamic between the two largest countries in the region makes a breakthrough very difficult. Politics always intervene. Some key statistics bear repeating. Trade between India and Pakistan is only $2 billion but it could be $37 billion if there were no artificial barriers, according to the book. The writers keep their distance from politics but one could argue that even the Pakistan army stands to make more money from more trade since it has a finger in many sectors of the economy. Pakistan?s civilian leaders in the past have tried to open doors to more trade only to be held back by domestic industry fears of being overwhelmed by competitive Indian products. Concerns raised by Pakistan?s pharmaceutical, auto and agriculture lobbies managed to dampen the enthusiasm of the Nawaz Sharif?s government, sending the idea back into the box. India for the time being has decided to create linkages minus Pakistan, especially in the east to bypass Islamabad?s intransigence. In the short and medium term there are no prospects that Pakistan will actually take measures to open up to India. Kathuria says there are ways to deal with the India-Pakistan concerns in serious trade negotiations ? backload the opening of sensitive sectors and give time to domestic industry to catch up. Decide on what?s fair ? 10 years or 15 years ? but the two sides need to start talking because the cost of not normalizing trade is very significant. ?Trade doesn?t have to be dictated by politics,? Kathuria told me in a telephone conversation. Just look at China-Taiwan trade or even India-China trade. ?Our analysis shows that trade can play a ver important role in building trust. South Asian countries have not allowed that to play out.? He advises a slow, systematic, low-key approach and building incrementally. Indian and Pakistani technical teams, for example, can meet to discuss food safety standards and try to bring down real and perceived barriers. This is already happening, for example, between India and Bangladesh.? ?I don?t see anyone raising objections to that and it would have a significant impact. No one is talking of producing a NAFTA overnight,? Kathuria says, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was recently renegotiated as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. A bright spot in a disconnected region is the Sri Lanka-India air connectivity. Colombo was quick to see the potential of tourism from India and an air travel agreement has allowed 14 Indian cities to be connected to the Sri Lankan capital with 147 flights every week. Pakistan has only 10 flights to Sri Lanka while Bangladesh has just six. The recommendation is not to wait for open skies agreement to begin liberalization in the air. The idea is to start modestly ? the book examines the weekly ?border haats? on the India-Bangladesh border and the immense impact they have had on the lives of ordinary people, especially women, to say nothing of the good will generated. The authors recommend scaling up the initiative and Kathuria suggests trying it out with Pakistan on the Wagah border. India?s leadership is critical ?to deepening trade and reducing the trust deficit ? because others worry about its size and economic might. , India has a trade surplus of $15 billion with the region despite all the problems. India must increase its imports from the region from 0.6% of total imports and incentivize Indian companies to invest more in South Asia. ?One has to have oodles of optimism to work in this space in South Asia. You can?t give up from the development standpoint. Some day the decision makers will see that the costs have become unacceptable,? Kathuria says. ======================================== 12. INDIA: CAN SC [SUPREME COURT] STAND UP TO MOBS? By Dushyant ======================================== Mumbai Mirror Oct 19, 2018 Protests after Sabarimala and Jallikattu verdicts show that majoritarian views can dictate constitutional rights. SC must assert authority if it wants its decisions respected. "We are not a tiger or something. We are not a maneating tiger. They should not have fear." A bench of the Supreme Court of India felt the need to make this statement in a case pertaining to allegations of illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh last month. Perhaps it would help if the court was feared more. Not a single woman has been able to enter the Sabarimala Temple despite the Supreme Court?s verdict, which held that they have the right to. Women journalists have been attacked ? kicked, beaten with sticks, their hair and clothes pulled, and their vehicles damaged. Protesters, including ?rightwing? elements?, even tried to pull a 22-year-old woman out of a bus. Reports say police vehicles have been damaged, and a video appears to show cops taking out their anger on some parked vehicles. In his annual address, the sarsanghchalak of the RSS spoke out against the judgment, which said women of all ages can enter the temple. ?The Supreme Court did not take tradition into consideration... The situation is not conducive for the peace and healthiness of the society (sic),? he said. Given the tone and thrust of his speech, it is difficult to say which ?situation? was he referring to, but I can list some options: 1) the existence of a Supreme Court; 2) The Constitution of India superseding many discriminatory practices, regardless of whether they are traditional or not; 3) The existence of organisations such as the RSS that are devoted to defending the Heckler?s veto; 4) The violence against people trying to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India and upheld by the Supreme Court. ?Majoritarian and popular views cannot dictate constitutional rights. We have to vanquish prejudice, embrace inclusion and ensure equal rights,? the court observed in its judgment, which read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. If the developments after the court?s orders on Sabarimala, Jallikattu and Dahi Handi are anything to go by, it is more than clear that majoritarian views, and protesters out to enforce them through violence, can very well dictate constitutional rights. Public personalities can deliver speeches defending this behaviour and get away with it. The Supreme Court?s fury was on display when retired justice Markandey Katju expressed views that disagreed with its observations. It was on display on many occasions when it was not warranted. The challenge today, however, is clear. The Supreme Court needs to answer if its judgments, especially those which are progressive, especially those which go against majoritarian views, are at the mercy of the mob. Sure, the Kerala government is responsible for maintaining law and order and I dare say it is trying hard. Section 144 has been imposed, for instance. But it is the moral and practical authority of the apex court, which is under threat today. Even in the NRC case, where the court has censured a government officer for making comments on the matter, senior politicians seem to have no fear whatsoever. The consequences of ignoring this challenge are not limited to erosion of respect for the court. They indicate that much worse could be in store in cases where majoritarian views have a much bigger stake. For instance, even though utterances by politicians make it seem otherwise, the Ram Janmabhoomi case is yet to be decided. Will the apex court be able to execute its writ whichever way it decides? If not, what will be the consequences of such hypothetical failure? If the court wants its orders to be taken with the seriousness they deserve, if it wants that the respect for the institution remains healthy, then it cannot afford to look away when mobs challenge it with impunity. The court, as it said last month, is certainly not a man-eating tiger, but it needs to do more than just roar at the mob. What the court does now will be keenly watched by those who look towards it for protection and also by those who express displeasure when it rules against ?tradition?. ======================================== 13. INDIA: THE BJP IS TURNING FAITH INTO A CORROSIVE FORCE - EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH ======================================== The Telegraph 30 October 2018 Editorial The ruling party's leaders seem eager to use faith as a tool to subvert the institutions that form the base of a democracy Faith in public institutions is of paramount importance in a democracy. But the matter of faith is a rather curious thing in New India. Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party ? the architect of New India ? seem to be eager to use faith as an expedient tool to subvert the very institutions that form the base of a democracy. On a visit to Kerala, the BJP president, Amit Shah, had thundered that courts should not pass decrees that ?hit people?s faith?. Mr Shah ? seemingly indifferent to the prospect of legal contempt ? was alluding to the Supreme Court?s recent ruling that lifted the ban on the entry of women of menstruating age to the Sabarimala temple. Mr Shah?s motive is expressly political. Over the years, in spite of sustained efforts, the electoral returns from Kerala have been rather poor for Mr Shah?s party. In 2016, the BJP bagged a solitary seat. It is evident that the Sabarimala ?controversy? ? the BJP had initially welcomed the apex court?s order but there are whispers of the party extending covert patronage to protesters ? is now being viewed in the sangh fraternity as a potential weapon to make inroads into Kerala before the general election. Polarisation has been the BJP?s preferred strategy when it comes to political mobilisation. The consequences have been injurious to India?s inclusive fabric. But that is no longer the only threat. Explicit attempts are being made to exert pressure on crucial institutions that have, so far, held the nation?s secular edifice together. Earlier, while delivering a speech on Vijaya Dashami, Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, demanded that there should be a legal provision for the construction of the Ram temple, ignoring the fact that the highest court is deliberating on this sensitive issue. Tellingly, Mr Shah has been joined by Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, in this dangerous chorus. He has pushed the envelope further by claiming to have spotted a schism between ?constitutionalists? and ?devotees?. Does this mean that India?s ruling party finds devotion to constitutional principles and to the agencies that uphold them to be an aberration? This could only strengthen suspicions that the sangh parivar?s real agenda ? political and ideological ? is to transform India?s representative Constitution into a majoritarian one. The court is one of the bulwarks against such a disastrous transition. Is that why it is now a target? ======================================== 14. INDIA: PAST PERFECT AND A FUTURE TENSE Legitimising suspect ?traditional knowledge? and passing it off as proven wisdom is perilous. by Rajesh Kochhar ======================================== The Indian Express October 31, 2018 AICTE should put its present proposal on hold for the time being. It should ask Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to heavily annotate its textbook so that a reader can check the veracity of the claims made. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar) The things All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) wishes to formally teach engineering students in the name of ancient Indian scientific achievements is a gross insult to ancient India. Making unsubstantiated claims about the past detracts from the genuine contributions that were actually made, and brings ridicule to an otherwise respected discipline. AICTE is an apex body set up by the HRD ministry for the promotion of quality in technical education. The Delhi centre of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is offering, through its website, a post-matric course on ?essence of Indian knowledge tradition?, and a post-graduate diploma in ?Indian knowledge tradition: Scientific and holistic?. To serve as a text for these courses, a book titled Bharatiya Vidya Saar has been prepared. AICTE, no doubt guided by HRD ministry, has co-opted this programme and decided to offer a credit course based on the Vidya Saar ? meaning that students will be formally examined in it and assigned grades. The proposed textbook is not freely available. Whatever excerpts have been published makes for disturbing reading. Students will be told that ?In Vedic age, ?Maharshi Bhardwaj wrote an epic called Yantra Sarvasva and aeronautics is a part of the epic. This was 5,000 years before Wright brothers? invention of the plane? Yantra Sarvasva is not available now but out of whatever we know about it, we can believe that planes were a reality in Vedic age.? A number of questions arise immediately. How do we know that Yantra Sarvasva existed? If it discusses aeronautics, what is the actual term used? If the text does not exist anymore, which are the works that have preserved the extracts? Details should be provided so that readers can decide for themselves how much credence is to be placed on such claims. In the same fashion, it is claimed that Maharishi Agastya in Agastya Sanhita talks about the discovery of electricity and invention of batteries. Students should, no doubt, be made aware of ancient Indian science. We cannot, however, ask students to switch off their mental faculties when they are being instructed in the essence of Indian learning, but bring their intellect into full use an hour later when the regular curriculum is taught. In recent years, a flourishing industry has sprung up which takes stray passages from ancient texts and relates them to modern scientific and technological discoveries. In 2002, B G Matapurkar, a surgeon at the Maulana Azad Medical College Delhi, claimed that the Mahabharata description of the Kauravas? birth proved that ?they not only knew about test-tube babies and embryo splitting, but also had the technology to grow human foetuses outside the body of a woman ? something unknown to modern science?. If the learned surgeon had taken the trouble of reading the original description (given in Adi Parva, Chapter 14) he would not have been so rash. Gandhari could not possibly have given natural birth to 100 sons. One is inclined to believe that 100 was not meant as an exact number but as a poetic exaggeration. The Mahabharata tells us that Gandhari was pregnant for two years after which she delivered a piece of flesh which was as hard as iron. It was irrigated with cold water and split into 100 thumb-sized portions. These portions in turn were placed in pitchers filled with ghee which were carefully kept at secret places. After another two years, each pitcher produced a boy. A small piece of the aborted flesh was still left from which, after a month, a daughter was born. Immediately on birth, the first born, later to be known as Duryodhana, started braying like a donkey whereupon, the ?other? donkeys, vultures, jackals and crows in the area also joined the chorus. Here is an attempt to take Duryodhana?s villainy back to his birth itself; any resemblance to modern research is purely incidental. It is extraordinary that the creativity and imaginativeness of ancient poets and dramatists should be sacrificed at the altar of modern science. In October 2016, the PM, while inaugurating a hospital in Mumbai, claimed that the Hindu god Ganesha?s having an elephant head showed that plastic [?] surgery began in India. He also speculated that genetic science must have been known in ancient India because the Mahabharata says that Karna was born outside the mother?s womb. The Mahabharata also says that virgin Kunti?s motherhood was due to her recitation of a mantra and that, fearful of the public opinion, she clandestinely set the newborn afloat in a river. What use is a scientific discovery if it has to be presented as a miracle and hidden from the public at large? More recently, the newly-elected Chief Minister of Tripura concluded that internet existed in the age of Mahabharata, because Sanjaya narrates the happenings in the war-field to Dhritarashtra who is located miles away. Such dubious claims have been made by persons in power or in inaugural addresses, etc. But, alarmingly, the government has now decided to give such claims the legitimacy of a teachable subject, and that too, at the level of professional colleges. By definition, science today is better than science yesterday. It is, therefore, anachronistic to pit one against the other. Production of wealth today depends on modern science. Prosperity in ancient India depended on agriculture and un-organised manufacturing activity ? knowledge systems connected with these two spheres were exclusively the domain of farmers and artisans and there was no reason for sacred Sanskrit texts to incorporate this parallel knowledge system into their own. In other words, it makes no sense to look for products of modern technology in ancient sacred texts. AICTE should put its present proposal on hold for the time being. It should ask Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to heavily annotate its textbook so that a reader can check the veracity of the claims made. The draft text should be uploaded online, and comments invited on its content. The textbook should be finalised in the light of the feedback received. Only then should it be placed in the hands of teachers and students. The proposal, as it stands now, is an insult to human intelligence and aimed at the ?moroni-fication? of the students. Rajesh Kochhar is with the mathematics department, Panjab University. ======================================== 15. ISAKAVA ON GORTER, 'THE RED SOUL' ======================================== Jessica Gorter, dir. The Red Soul. Brooklyn: Icarus Films, 2018. 90 mins. Color/B&W. Reviewed by Volha Isakava (Central Washington Universiy) Published on H-SHERA (September, 2018) Commissioned by Hanna Chuchvaha (Independent scholar/Alberta College of Art + Design) Red Soul begins with a beautifully shot sequence of a remote farmstead on a sandy, grassy beach. Quickly an old woman comes into focus. She boards a small row boat, and the first few panning shots of this bucolic, secluded countryside are accompanied by her narration, a description of GULAG mass graves in her area. This powerful beginning of the film encapsulates its preoccupation with memory, history, and trauma narrated through the intense and private lens of witness accounts. Directed by a Dutch filmmaker, Jessica Gorter, and released in 2017, this documentary film looks into hot-button social issues surrounding Stalin's legacy in today's Russia, and the politics of memory and justice for the victims of the Great Terror. Following well-established narrative and visual approaches within the social justice documentary genre, the film seeks to elucidate the individual experience of the historical and the political. It tackles difficult questions through impartial observation, unscripted interviews, and location cinematography. The film features attentive and observant camerawork, allowing its subjects to express themselves without too much narrative guidance; only a few times in the film does the filmmaker ask a pointed direct question. In a sense, the film itself is a witness: it gives voice to the long-gone victims via their immediate family members, bearing witness to their tragic private family histories. It also provides a window into contemporary controversies by interviewing an assortment of actors: from teenage participants of pro-Putin youth camp in Crimea to ageing Communist Party members protesting in today's Moscow. Alongside a heartbreaking story of two orphaned sisters, now in their old age, who vividly recall being violently separated from their parents, the film shows an intimate portrait of a father ravaged by the drug-related death of his son, giving us a glimpse into how an ordinary middle-class Muscovite might become a hard-line Stalinist. The unmediated narratives of grief, political persuasion, and traumatic memory in the film recall the Nobel Prize-winning oral histories by the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich. Her monumental pentology, Voices from the Big Utopia that concludes with Second Hand Time (2013) is a self-professed exploration of the "Red Man," bearing witness to individual stories at particularly turbulent and tragic junctions of Soviet history. (Among Alexievich's subjects are Chernobyl, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, WWII, and Stalinist repressions). The interviews in Red Soul are powerful and, similarly to Alexievich's books, they point to a depth of human suffering that is not easy to process. However, what struck me most as a viewer were the film's visuals. Similar to the opening sequence, Red Soul's impact is in the powerful juxtaposition of landscape cinematography and first-person narration. Following its subjects to the sites of mass graves, the film often finds itself in natural settings: thick woods, grassy fields, sandy ravines. A middle-aged woman is shown picking up bone fragments in a thick pine grove. She carefully describes the bones before placing them in a plastic shopping bag. An old man and a young girl walk in a sunlit boreal forest deciphering burial grounds along old trenches now covered by soil and foliage. Perhaps the most striking image of the film happens when the camera, at an extreme low angle, fixates its gaze on pine-tree tops: the sun is shining through the branches, the wind is gently rocking them back and forth. Then, slowly, the camera pans down and lingers on an old photo affixed to the tree trunk at eye level: it reveals a face of a man, the dates of birth and death. As the camera zooms out we see many more photos, and then few scattered visitors to this forest of mourning. These visuals poignantly present to the viewer the spaces and rituals of public mourning for the victims of Stalinist repressions. It is an "indifferent nature:" silent forests, fields, and ravines that bear witness for the dead and those who grieve them. In parallel, it is the crammed spaces of archives and libraries, tucked away from the public eye, that represent the grassroots efforts of activists who sustain the collective memory. In contrast to these images, the film takes us through officially sanctioned public spaces of remembrance: examples include celebratory commemorations of WWII, or lively discussions about Stalin, the commander in chief, at a Crimean youth camp. The film's poignant visuals unambiguously point to the lack of public investment in restorative justice for the victims and their descendants, as well as the lack of public recognition for spaces of trauma and mourning. The issues the film raises could not be more timely given recent troubling developments around these sites of memory and the people who work with them. A case in point is criminal charges brought against Karelian historian and activist Yuri Dmitriev (featured in the film but not identified by name), seen by government critics at home and abroad as politically motivated.[1] Another recent controversy involves a Russian Military-Historic Society excavation of the mass graves in Karelia, seen by the critics as a move to reinterpret the history of the Sandarmokh memorial site.[2] The film effectively introduces the viewer to one of the most prominent debates in recent post-Soviet history: the politics of memory in relation to state violence. I commend Red Soul for capturing polarizing and divergent views on public remembrance, but it needs to be pointed out that it hardly breaks any new ground, especially considering vast scholarly research and public debates stretching back to the 1980s on the politics of memory in Russia. This comes as no surprise because the film's target audience is likely international, aiming to educate the foreign viewer on controversial issues surrounding the Putin-era treatment of history and memory. It is no coincidence that the film ends with the elderly sisters insisting that the filmmaker not "slander" (ochernit') Russia in her final product, as if understanding implicitly that the film does not aim to tell their story to their own countrymen, but instead is made for external consumption. This fact does not detract from the Dutch film's value and importance. However, it does open the door for some exoticizing and essentializing rhetoric. Take the film's title. "Red Soul" alludes to a cliched narrative of the "Russian soul" in its Cold War incarnation that has entered the Western imagination through the now iconic words of Winston Churchill. The film's own promotional website describes it as laying "bare the Russian psyche of today." To use terminology such as national psyche, character, mentality or soul is both to grossly generalize and to arrogantly assume essentialist views of nations and people. Such essentialism imagines nations as monolithic entities whose movement through history is defined by a set of inalienable traits supposedly propelling them towards catastrophe or triumph. While the director's statement on the same website provides a nuanced and sophisticated take on her work, the film's title becomes a red flag for any education professional who is to consider using this film in the classroom. That being said, "Russian soul" is an easily recognizable trope that anchors the film in popular imagination, perhaps providing an easier marketing path for this independent documentary. The film bounces back and forth between pro-Putin summer camp, Communist Party demonstrations, sequences featuring grassroots activists' work, and sequences that illuminate personal narratives of the repressed without establishing any contextual connections beyond a simplistic pro-Stalin vs. anti-Stalin dichotomy. This diminishes the complexity of Russia's contested political landscape of memory and remembrance, especially when it comes to pro-Stalin public sentiment. Stalin's legacy in today's Russia is subject to much political appropriation precisely because it is not imagined as one-size-fits-all: Stalin of the Communist Party and pro-Putin youth camps are not identical products from the same social and political imagination and ideological bias. A more interesting question, which I wish the film had asked, is how the historical legacy of Stalinism is used in today's political and cultural battles to shape collective memory and the collective vision of history. Finally, there are some relatively minor translation inaccuracies in the film's subtitles. I would like to point out just one: the Russian word tiazhelo, which means hard or difficult, is rendered as "awkward" in the film. The word is used to describe the relationship between local townspeople and GULAG prisoners whose labor was deployed to build the town. "Awkward" might be a good descriptor for a less-than-exciting date or a party; the context of forced labor and state violence is something else. I recommend this film to international audiences unfamiliar with the topic and to education professionals seeking to introduce their students to the debates on politics of memory in post-Soviet context. Notes [1]. For ongoing coverage of Dmitriev's criminal case, see: "Two weeks after acquittal is overturned, historian Yuri Dmitriev is again detained by Russian police," Meduza, June 27, 2018, https://meduza.io/en/news/2018/06/27/two-weeks-after-his-acquittal-is-overturned-russian-police-again-detain-the-historian-yuri-dmitriev. [2]. "Dig Near Stalin-Era Mass Grave Looks to Some like Kremlin Dirty Work," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 4, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/dig-near-stalin-era-mass-grave-looks-to-some-like-kremlin-dirty-work/29470518.html. ======================================== 16. TWO AUTHORITIES, ONE WAY, ZERO DISSENT Arbitrary Arrest and Torture Under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - A report by Human Rights Watch ======================================== Human Rights Watch October 23, 2018 In the 25 years since Palestinians gained a degree of self-rule over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, their authorities have established machineries of repression to crush dissent, including through the use of torture. https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/10/23/two-authorities-one-way-zero-dissent/arbitrary-arrest-and-torture-under ======================================== 17. BRAZIL: WHAT BOLSONARO?S ELECTION VICTORY MEANS ?Benjamin Fogel ======================================== Mail and Guardian 28 Oct 2018 Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America and the world?s sixth most populous elected a neo-fascist this weekend in the second round election run-off against Fernando Haddad of the Workers? Party (PT). Jair Bolsonaro has promised to enact a historic cleansing against the left, promising that ?red bandits? will be imprisoned or banished. The problem with the term fascism, is that it has been so frequently used as a political pejorative it has lost its meaning, like the boy who cried wolf overuse has meant that when a real wolf arrives people are too weary to recognise for what it is. Bolsonaro is the embodiment of the most hardline faction military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for twenty-one years that embraced torture, murder and rape, as necessary tools in the fight against communism. He has always been quite open about his contempt for democracy and the majority of the Brazilian electorate is ready to vote for him. This election has been driven by Anti-PT sentiment, which has come to stand end for anti-systemic rage encompassing, class hatred of the rich, weariness brought upon by the party?s four successive election victories, the bias of the mainstream media, anti-corruption sentiment and WhatsApp driven fake news. Paranoid ?rooi gevaar? type propaganda ?? despite there being no active communist threat ?? has been promoted by the mainstream media, fake news groups and the centre-right, who have made the PT to be some sort evil communist conspiracy. Bolsonaro?s Social Liberalism Party (PSL) has ridden this wave jumped from irrelevance to become the second-largest party in the country overnight, as an array scoundrels including Bolsonaro?s sons, an ex porn-actor and a police officer who achieved fame after killing a suspect on camera were elected through their connection to Bolsonaro. Who Supports Bolsonaro? Bolsonaro?s base is strongest among the upper-middle class who after traditionally voting for centre-right parties have radicalised en masse in the last few years and the powerful evangelical bloc who have put their huge numbers and resources behind Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro?s support base also includes large numbers of women, black and working class voters, all of who stand directly in his cross hairs. This can be explained in large part by security concerns, in the context of Brazil?s rising levels of violence driven by organised crime. Large numbers of working class Brazilians are prepared to support an increase of violence against ?criminals? as a solution or like his support for gun ownership. Although it is worth noting that Bolsonaro?s support is lower in the most violent areas of the country. Bolsonaro?s elite support Bolsonaro has refused to debate his opponent, claiming that he belongs in prison and only grants interviews to the most sycophantic journalists. He has flaunted all standards of a normal election; he can get away with this because he has the backing of Brazil?s elite. Big capital is salivating over his pro-market policies and he is openly backed by powerful sections of the armed forces. Bolsonaro?s military allies far from being a moderating force are actively supporting many of his most extreme policies. Brazil?s judiciary has also a key role in Bolsonaro?s election campaign. Brazil?s electoral court ?? the TSE for instance banned a PT campaign video containing testimony from the victims of Brazil?s military dictatorship highlighting Bolsonaro?s unashamed and open support for torture, while allowing Bolsonaro supporters to go around calling Haddad a paedophile. The court has proved itself unwilling to tackle the illegal campaign financing and fake news key to Bolsonaro?s campaign. S?rgio Moro, the protagonist of Lava Jato (Brazil?s gigantic anti-corruption investigation for instance) released damaging testimony from a close Lula ally collected six months before in the week before the first round in a clearly move designed to enact maximum damage to the PT?s electoral prospects. Bolsonaro in turn has mooted his name as a possible future Supreme Court pick. Despite posing as an anti-corruption crusader, Bolsonaro?s campaign has been driven by illegal funds set up by businesses to fund WhatsApp groups spreading toxic fake news. A survey of popular fake news stories will reveal such gems as the PT giving out ?gay kits? to kindergarten kids, complete baby bottles with penis shaped teats. This would be comedic, if large sections of the Brazilian public didn?t believe it, and it hadn?t poisoned public discourse. Brazil like South Africa suffers from high levels of violence, however in the past few weeks this violence has begun to take an openly political character. This includes incidents such as a transwoman being murdered by thugs chanting Bolsonaro?s name, a woman having a swastika carved into her neck for wearing an anti-Bolsonaro t-shirt and a capoeira master being murdered after admitting that he voted for Haddad in Bahia. The darkest sides of Brazilian society, the violence, racism and misogyny are being brought into the open as part of Bolsonaro?s campaign. Bolsonaro will likely unleash a historic slaughter. In a country where already 63 000 people are murdered every year (5 000 by the police), the police and the military will have carte blanche to kill poor youth from the favelas. Right-wing paramilitary groups could expand and implement social cleansing in the territories they seize, given state backing in the war against ?crime?. Organised crime will not be destroyed like Bolsonaro promises, instead factions tied to the military or comprised of police will instead see will likely benefit. Brazil?s social movements such as the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) will be declared terrorist organisations and hunted down by the police or the private militias of landowners, activists will be either imprisoned or killed with the backing of Brazil?s congress, media, and big business. There is a good chance that the PT, which is still Brazil?s largest party, will be criminalised with its leading members joining Lula in prison after being found guilty of ?corruption? Bolsonaro?s election will have profound repercussions for the rest of the world. Bolsonaro has said little on foreign policy during the campaign, but from his political stance a number of key aspects can be gleaned. He will certainly pull out of the Paris Accords and move Brazil?s foreign policy towards the United States (and Donald Trump). This will see Brazil break with multilateralism, and might include leaving Brazil leaving BRICS. Bolsonaro will also move Brazil?s Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. It could even include future military confrontation with Venezuela and cooling relations with China ?? Brazil?s leading trade partner. What can we learn from Brazil?s tragedy? The social and economic crisis that has set the stage for the entry of Bolsonaro to the political stage is not too different from our own. Inequality, racial segregation, an absence of political leadership, corruption and an increasing disillusionment in politics as vehicle for meaningful change are all things that will sound familiar to South Africans. It is by no means a stretch of the imagination too much to imagine that if the state fails to tackle underlying security concerns or offers a meaningful and progressive alternative politics large sections of South Africa could embrace an openly authoritarian politics. This would likely take the form of a chauvinism mobilised around xenophobia rather than Bolsonaro?s brand of anti-leftism. Politicians frequently call for military intervention in the townships and xenophobia is almost a political consensus among mainstream parties, the warning signs are there, but will anybody heed them? In these circumstances one hopes that the South African government and civil society will take a strong stand against Bolsonaro, offering solidarity and even perhaps exile to those he will target after taking power. ?Benjamin Fogel Currently based in S?o Paulo, Benjamin Fogel is a PhD candidate in Latin American history at New York University and is a contributing editor for Jacobin magazine and website Africa is a Country. o o o SEE ALSO: HITLER IN BRASILIA: THE U.S. EVANGELICALS AND NAZI POLITICAL THEORY BEHIND BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT-IN-WAITING Alexander Reid Ross Mix up fascist geopolitics, Pat Robertson's LGBT hate, Bannon's nationalism and Putin's shills and you get Jair Bolsonaro, who's nostalgic for the U.S.-backed dictatorship that tortured and killed thousands of leftists - and he's about to come to power Haaretz, Oct 28, 2018 https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-hitler-in-brasilia-the-u-s-evangelicals-and-nazi-political-theory-behind-bolsonaro-1.6581924 ======================================== 18. A NEW NUCLEAR ARMS RACE HAS BEGUN President Trump says he plans to withdraw from a nonproliferation treaty that I signed with Ronald Reagan. It?s just the latest victim in the militarization of world affairs. by Mikhail Gorbachev ======================================== The New York Times Oct. 25, 2018 Mr. Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union. Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and I signed in Washington the United States-Soviet Treaty on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. For the first time in history, two classes of nuclear weapons were to be eliminated and destroyed. This was a first step. It was followed in 1991 by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the Soviet Union signed with President George H.W. Bush, our agreement on radical cuts in tactical nuclear arms, and the New Start Treaty, signed by the presidents of Russia and the United States in 2010. There are still too many nuclear weapons in the world, but the American and Russian arsenals are now a fraction of what they were during the Cold War. At the Nuclear Nonproliferation Review Conference in 2015, Russia and the United States reported to the international community that 85 percent of those arsenals had been decommissioned and, for the most part, destroyed. Today, this tremendous accomplishment, of which our two nations can be rightfully proud, is in jeopardy. President Trump announced last week the United States? plan to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and his country?s intention to build up nuclear arms. I am being asked whether I feel bitter watching the demise of what I worked so hard to achieve. But this is not a personal matter. Much more is at stake. A new arms race has been announced. The I.N.F. Treaty is not the first victim of the militarization of world affairs. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty; this year, from the Iran nuclear deal. Military expenditures have soared to astronomical levels and keep rising. As a pretext for the withdrawal from the I.N.F. Treaty, the United States invoked Russia?s alleged violations of some of the treaty?s provisions. Russia has raised similar concerns regarding American compliance, at the same time proposing to discuss the issues at the negotiating table to find a mutually acceptable solution. But over the past few years, the United States has been avoiding such discussion. I think it is now clear why. With enough political will, any problems of compliance with the existing treaties could be resolved. But as we have seen during the past two years, the president of the United States has a very different purpose in mind. It is to release the United States from any obligations, any constraints, and not just regarding nuclear missiles. The United States has in effect taken the initiative in destroying the entire system of international treaties and accords that served as the underlying foundation for peace and security following World War II. Yet I am convinced that those who hope to benefit from a global free-for-all are deeply mistaken. There will be no winner in a ?war of all against all? ? particularly if it ends in a nuclear war. And that is a possibility that cannot be ruled out. An unrelenting arms race, international tensions, hostility and universal mistrust will only increase the risk. Is it too late to return to dialogue and negotiations? I don?t want to lose hope. I hope that Russia will take a firm but balanced stand. I hope that America?s allies will, upon sober reflection, refuse to be launchpads for new American missiles. I hope the United Nations, and particularly members of its Security Council, vested by the United Nations Charter with primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, will take responsible action. Faced with this dire threat to peace, we are not helpless. We must not resign, we must not surrender. Mikhail Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union. This article was translated by Pavel Palazhchenko from the Russian. A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 26, 2018, on Page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: The New Nuclear Arms Race. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Sat Nov 3 05:06:02 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2018 14:36:02 +0530 Subject: =?utf-8?Q?SACW_-_3-4_Nov_2018_=7C_Sri_Lanka=3A_Back_to_old_days?= =?utf-8?Q?=3F_/_Rohingya_at_Risk_/_Pakistan=3A_Blasphemy_Screami?= =?utf-8?Q?ng_Mullah=E2=80=99s_Go_Berserk_/_India=3A_Rising_Hate_?= =?utf-8?Q?/_Brazil=3A_Pinochet-style_fix_/_Italy=3A_Rossana_Ross?= =?utf-8?Q?anda?= Message-ID: <9E49CE10-6F3E-4017-B579-3F85F286F33C@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 3-4 November 2018 - No. 3005 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Pakistan: Tied to the river - a court ruling has suddenly set rivers free for bonded fishers | Asad Farooq 2. After the Aasia Bibi verdict, a longer battle: Public statement by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) 3. India - News from Social Movements - Land Grab in the name of industrial development in Tamilnadu - Statement by Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group on the Arrest of Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj - A national convention organised by Joint Forum for Movement on Education 4. Gender gap in mobile phone adoption in India - A Study by Harvard Kennedy School of Government 5. Protect news media professionals against trolling - A study from Sweden 6. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: Editorial, The Hindu - Ending impunity: on Hashimpura massacre (November 01, 2018) - India: Right Wing blabbermouth Arnab Goswami among new appointees at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library - Canada: Consul General of India in Toronto Delivers Keynote at Hindutva Event organised by International arm of RSS - Netaji Bose, Patel, Nehru and anti-colonial struggle - India - Malegaon Terrorism Case 2008: Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Among 7 Hindutva Activists Charged - India: American Hindutva Activist Rajiv Malhotra Gets Appointed as Visiting Prof at Centre for Media Studies, JNU ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 7. Back to the bad old days - Sri Lanka?s president installs his arch-enemy as prime minister 8. Myanmar/Bangladesh: Plan Puts Rohingya at Risk 9. Bangladesh: HC finds inconsistencies between allegations against Shahidul Alam and what he actually said 10. Pakistan acquits Asia Bibi: But The Blasphemy Screaming Mullah?s Go Berserk 11. India: BJP Has Shown That Curbs on Freedom Come in Many Guises | Zoya Hasan 12. India: Select Editorials 13. Rising Hate in India | Annie Gowen and Manas Sharma 14. India: The proposed citizenship amendment bill may turn out to be the beginning of a major shift in India?s refugee policy | Sanjib Baruah + The NRC Process and the Spectre of Statelessness in India | Ranabir Samaddar 15. India: A decade on, only 40% of FRA claims approved | Ishan Kukreti 16. A pan-India Dalit assertion | G. Sampath 17. India: After cancelling FCRA licences of over 18,000 NGOs, Centre asks states to track 'anti-national' NGOs 18. Book Review: Is this Azaadi? review: Lived realities | Mogallan Bharti 19. Bolton Hails Bolsonaro as Welcome Ally in Crushing Latin American Left | Jake Johnson, Common Dreams 20. Brazil?s new finance minister eyes Pinochet-style fix for economy | Andres Schipani and Joe Leahy 21. Italy: Rossana Rossanda: ?The left has lost its electorate? ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN: TIED TO THE RIVER - A COURT RULING HAS SUDDENLY SET RIVERS FREE FOR BONDED FISHERS by Asad Farooq ======================================== Many years ago a similar Sath was held in which the adivasi fishers had decided to assert their right to fish freely. Then the contractors and the state wielded the threat of a violent assertion of legal right and so the fishers caught fish only to release it back into the river, disarming the State functionaries and symbolic of their non-violent approach to struggle. This year, the Sath culminated in a yatra and a manooti, a pilgrimage and a pledge, to the river, and then they fished. http://www.sacw.net/article13980.html ======================================== 2. AFTER THE AASIA BIBI VERDICT, A LONGER BATTLE: PUBLIC STATEMENT BY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN (HRCP) ======================================== Lahore, 1 November 2018. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has greatly welcomed the Supreme Court?s landmark judgement acquitting 47-year-old Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sentenced to death. http://www.sacw.net/article13976.html ======================================== 3. INDIA - NEWS FROM SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ======================================== (1) INDIA: EXCESSIVE LAND GRAB IN THE NAME OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN TAMILNADU - PRESS RELEASE BY NAPM (2 NOV 2018) The major issues raised by local committee members were that they have already lost much of their land under the SIPCOT scheme of industrial development. Whatever land is remaining with us is being polluted by release of effluents. Ground water has also got polluted and its colour has changed. Pollution is rampant and the inaction by local pollution control board and other responsible agencies. http://www.sacw.net/article13977.html (2) INDIA: PUBLIC STATEMENT BY JAGDALPUR LEGAL AID GROUP ON THE ARREST OF ADVOCATE SUDHA BHARADWAJ The Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and Collective strongly condemns and mourns the incidents of arrest and police remand of Advocate, friend, mentor, and colleague Sudha Bharadwaj and calls upon a collective expression of solidarity and strength from all activists, students, lawyers, democratic rights and civil liberty communities, friends and the general public. http://www.sacw.net/article13978.html (3) INDIA: CRISIS IN HIGHER EDUCATION - A NATIONAL CONVENTION ORGANISED BY JOINT FORUM FOR MOVEMENT ON EDUCATION | PRESS RELEASE 29 OCT 2018 The JOINT FORUM FOR MOVEMENT ON EDUCATION successfully organised a Mass National Convention of all national organisations of teachers, students and parents who are active in elementary, primary, secondary and tertiary levels of Education in India. The well-attended Convention took place at the Mavalankar Auditorium in New Delhi today, October 29, 2018. http://www.sacw.net/article13979.html ======================================== 4. GENDER GAP IN MOBILE PHONE ADOPTION IN INDIA - A STUDY BY HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT ======================================== Today in India, 71% of men own mobile phones, but only 38% of women do. http://www.sacw.net/article13981.html ======================================== 5. PROTECT NEWS MEDIA PROFESSIONALS AGAINST TROLLING - A STUDY FROM SWEDEN ======================================== Fojo Media Institute report describes and analyses how online propaganda against journalists across the world http://www.sacw.net/article13982.html ======================================== 6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: Editorial, The Hindu - Ending impunity: on Hashimpura massacre (November 01, 2018) - India: Right Wing blabbermouth Arnab Goswami among new appointees by the Modi Govt at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library - Canada: Consul General of India in Toronto Delivers Keynote Speech at Hindu Nationalist Event organised by International arm of RSS - Netaji Bose, Patel, Nehru and anti-colonial struggle - India - Malegaon Terrorism Case 2008: Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Among 7 Hindutva Activists Charged - India: American Hindutva Activist Rajiv Malhotra Gets Appointed as Visiting Prof at Centre for Media Studies, JNU -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 7. BACK TO THE BAD OLD DAYS - SRI LANKA?S PRESIDENT INSTALLS HIS ARCH-ENEMY AS PRIME MINISTER MAITHRIPALA SIRISENA RODE ROUGHSHOD OVER THE CONSTITUTION TO DO SO ======================================== The Economist Nov 1st 2018 | COLOMBO FIRST TO GO was the navy honour guard, in crisp uniforms with brass buttons. Then the maintenance staff departed, followed by the cooks and gardeners and cleaners. The next day no drivers showed up, marooning a fleet of fancy cars in the compound?s garage. By the third day all but a token ten out of a normal complement of 1,008 dedicated security personnel?round-the-clock shifts of police, watchmen, bodyguards and the like?had abandoned Temple Trees, the stately official residence of the prime minister of Sri Lanka. Its sole inhabitant, Ranil Wickremesinghe, insists for now on staying. The suave 69-year-old, a four-time prime minister, says he will only leave when it is clear that he is no longer constitutionally entitled to the residence. To his supporters, who have crowded Temple Trees to protect him from eviction, this means when he is no longer able to command a majority in the 225-seat parliament. Perplexingly for this mildly prosperous island-state of 21m people, it is not clear whether Mr Wickremesinghe can or not. Since October 26th the country has been locked in a constitutional crisis. That evening, without any warning, Maithripala Sirisena, the president, took three shocking steps. He withdrew his party from the ruling coalition, dismissed Mr Wickremesinghe and swore in a replacement. He then ?prorogued? or suspended parliament, blocking any debate of all this. The biggest shock was his choice of prime minister: Mahinda Rajapaksa (pictured), a charismatic strongman who was president from 2005 to 2015. Mr Sirisena loyally served him as a party official and cabinet minister before betraying him by joining Mr Wickremesinghe in a successful bid to unseat him. For the past three years Mr Sirisena has blasted Mr Rajapaksa for alleged nepotism, corruption and human-rights abuses. Now, suddenly, the two have been beaming before the cameras and gleefully blaming all the country?s woes not on each other, but on Mr Wickremesinghe. Power couple The president is not popular, but constitutionally wields important powers over the army, judiciary and administration. Mr Rajapaksa, by contrast, remains a hero to many among the island?s 70% Sinhala-speaking, Buddhist majority; his populist rule brought a ruinous quarter-century-long civil war to a brutal close. Earlier this year his new political party won crushingly in local elections. It has been widely predicted to sweep the polls in the next parliamentary election, scheduled for 2020. That, in turn, would almost certainly have brought Mr Rajapaksa back as prime minister by the usual route. Instead, Mr Rajapaksa has become prime minister in a legally dubious manner. No one disputes that Mr Sirisena has a constitutional right, under Sri Lanka?s hybrid presidential-parliamentary system, to give legislators a holiday. And no one challenges his right to choose any MP who looks likely to muster sufficient votes in parliament as prime minister. But a constitutional amendment introduced in 2015, which was intended to dilute the executive powers that Mr Rajapaksa was widely condemned for abusing, stripped the president of the right to sack the prime minister. Only parliament can do that. At the time of his dismissal, Mr Wickremesinghe, despite the fading popularity of his government and even after the withdrawal of MPs allied to the president, still controlled the most seats in parliament. He could muster 106 compared with Mr Rajapaksa?s 95. Although that is short of the 113 needed for a majority, in event of a showdown he could probably count on a further 22, from ethnic Tamil and leftist parties loth to see Mr Rajapaksa?s return. So why, then, did Mr Sirisena suddenly embark on a legally risky course, and Mr Rajapaksa jump to seize a prize that in just a few months? time he would likely have won by acclamation in any case? It was no secret that the suspicious, earthy president and the polished, aloof Mr Wickremesinghe had grown to detest each other. It was also clear that the prime minister?s camp was moving to accelerate legal challenges to Mr Rajapaksa?s wider family, which has been entangled in a range of lawsuits. Mr Sirisena may also have calculated that, with his term expiring in a year?s time, he would be wiser to win points now with Mr Rajapaksa, than to wait until he had little to offer the likely future prime minister. Both the president and his newfound ally may have reckoned that they could bluster through any legal challenges to what many have labelled a constitutional coup. In the meantime, by suspending parliament, Mr Sirisena gave the conspirators time to suborn or shanghai enough defectors from Mr Wickremesinghe?s camp to reach the magic 113 MPs. This, in fact, is what has happened. As Mr Wickremesinghe demands a parliamentary vote, his opponents have begun poaching his MPs with offers of cabinet posts and other inducements. Several have joined Mr Rajapaksa?s camp. The president has called a parliamentary session on November 5th, which suggests he has found enough votes. Mr Rajapaksa?s swift re-emergence, following an abrupt exit only three years ago, has left the country sharply polarised. The large Tamil and Muslim minorities fear a resurgence of Sinhalese nationalism, and an end to already hesitant efforts at post-war national reconciliation. Civil-rights activists fear curbs on free speech and human rights. Businessmen worry that Mr Wickremesinghe?s painstaking but thankless efforts to straighten out the economy may be undone by more populist policies. (Mr Rajapaksa?s profligacy in office has helped push public debt to almost 80% of GDP.) And Sri Lanka?s Western allies and closer neighbours, chief among them India, are concerned that Mr Rajapaksa will steer the country back to a closer embrace of China, his favoured partner in the past. But it is the president who has earned the most opprobrium. Thinking back to the heady days when Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe conspired to unseat Mr Rajapaksa, a minister in the dismissed cabinet shakes his head at the president?s mix of treachery and tenacity. ?We thought we were getting a Mandela as president. Instead we got a Mugabe.? This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Back to the bad old days" ======================================== 8. MYANMAR/BANGLADESH: PLAN PUTS ROHINGYA AT RISK UN Not Consulted; Refugees Reject Returns Without Security, Citizenship ======================================== Human Rights Watch November 2, 2018 (New York) ? The Myanmar and Bangladesh governments should immediately suspend the proposed repatriation of Rohingya refugees set for mid-November, Human Rights Watch said today. The expedited plan, announced on October 30, 2018, would return refugees to dire conditions in Myanmar where their lives and liberty are at risk. ?Myanmar?s government keeps talking about returns, but it has done nothing to allay the Rohingya?s fears of being returned to the same violence and oppression they fled,? said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director. ?If Bangladesh moves forward on repatriations without the UN, it will squander the international goodwill it has accrued over the past year as a host to Rohingya refugees.? Bangladesh and Myanmar officials met in Dhaka on October 30 and 31, the third meeting of a joint working group to carry out a bilateral repatriation agreement signed in November 2017. Following the meeting, representatives announced they had developed a ?very concrete plan? to begin repatriations in mid-November, with the first round to include 2,260 Rohingya from 485 families. According to Myanmar officials, starting on November 15, 150 refugees would be received each week at the Nga Khu Ya reception center before being transferred to the Hla Poe Kaung transit camp. The government of Bangladesh appears anxious to begin repatriations in advance of upcoming national elections. The 2,000 Rohingya identified to take part in the initial returns were selected from a list of 8,032 refugees that Bangladesh presented to Myanmar in February, about 4,600 of whom Myanmar has said it verified. Bangladesh culled the names at random from its registration rolls, without consulting the refugees to confirm their willingness to return or to have their names and other details shared with Myanmar officials. ?The names on the list we prepared were not chosen because they particularly wanted to go back,? Abul Kalam, Bangladesh?s refugee relief and rehabilitation commissioner, told Human Rights Watch. Bangladesh officials said they provided Myanmar with a second list for verification of more than 22,000 refugee names and addresses. In June, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and UN Development Programme signed a memorandum of understanding with Myanmar to facilitate returns. They have since begun limited assessments in Rakhine State. Yet Bangladesh and Myanmar officials did not consult with UNHCR or Rohingya refugees on the list of names being presented for repatriation before making their announcement. The UN has opposed the proposal as ?rushed and premature.? A UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, told Voice of America: ?Because we consider that conditions in Rakhine state are not yet conducive for voluntary return in the conditions of safety, dignity and sustainability, UNHCR will not, at this stage, facilitate any refugee returns to Rakhine state.? The refugee agency reported this week that it ?was not involved in preparation, transmission or receipt of this list nor in the verification and clearing that was reportedly carried out by the government of Myanmar.? Bangladesh should provide Rohingya refugees with legal refugee status and documents and give UNHCR the lead role in coordinating the humanitarian response and any voluntary repatriation operations. More than 730,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh over the past year to escape the Myanmar military?s campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. They joined about 200,000 refugees who had fled previous waves of violence and persecution. A UN fact-finding mission found ?sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw [armed forces] on charges of genocide.? The Myanmar government has claimed since January that it is ready to accept repatriated refugees, yet has done nothing to create conditions for safe and dignified returns or address the root causes of the crisis, including systematic persecution and violence, statelessness, and military impunity for grave violations. Recent Rohingya arrivals in Bangladesh have reported killings, burnings, enforced disappearances, extortion, and severe restrictions on movement. Myanmar authorities have detained and tortured Rohingya who returned from Bangladesh in the past year. As Marzuki Darusman, chair of the UN fact-finding mission, told the UN Security Council at an October briefing on the Rohingya: ?Returning them in this context is tantamount to condemning them to life as sub-humans and further mass killing.? In central Rakhine State, more than 124,000 Rohingya have been confined to open-air detention camps for six years, since being displaced by violence in 2012. They are arbitrarily deprived of liberty, forced to live in conditions described as ?beyond the dignity of any people? by the UN deputy relief chief after an April visit. The ?reception centers? and ?transit camp? Myanmar built this year to process and house returnees are surrounded by barbed-wire perimeter fences and security outposts, similar to the physical confinement structures in the central Rakhine camps. The Hla Poe Kaung reception center was built on land where Rohingya had been living, before security forces burned and the government bulldozed the area. Although Bangladesh is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention, it is bound under customary international law not to forcibly return refugees to a place where they would face persecution, torture, ill-treatment, or death. At the Security Council in October, Bangladesh?s representative to the UN said that before Rohingya could return, Myanmar?s government needed to abolish discriminatory laws, policies, and practices; address the root causes of their flight; guarantee protection, rights, and pathways to citizenship for all; and bring accountability and justice to prevent atrocity crimes. This was the ?minimum requirement for creating a situation that could be considered favorable to the Rohingya?s sustainable return to Myanmar.? The repatriation plan was developed without consultation and consent from Rohingya refugees, in contravention of international standards. To have a genuinely free, fully informed choice, refugees should be consulted and provided with objective, up-to-date, and accurate information about conditions in areas of return, including security conditions, assistance, and protection to reintegrate. Many of the hundreds of Rohingya refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they want to go home, but only if their security, access to land and livelihoods, freedom of movement, citizenship rights, and self-identification could be ensured. A Rohingya group gave a letter to the Myanmar-Bangladesh delegation that visited the camps on October 31, outlining their conditions for return regarding citizenship, security, and justice. The letter states: ?We demand to see evidence of your political commitment to treat us as equal citizens and human beings. We hereby inform you that we will not agree to be repatriated from Bangladesh to Myanmar until we see evidence of our above demands being fulfilled.? ?This repatriation plan is just Myanmar?s latest attempt to deflect international criticism from its brutal ethnic cleansing campaign for which no one has been brought to justice,? Frelick said. ?Donors should be clear that they will not fund this dangerous plan, which threatens Rohingya refugees? rights to dignity, security, and liberty.? ======================================== 9. BANGLADESH: HC FINDS INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SHAHIDUL ALAM AND WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID Staff Correspondent, New Age ======================================== New Age [Bangladesh] November 2, 2018 The High Court Division on Thursday found inconsistencies between the allegation made by the Detective Branch against acclaimed photographer and right activist Shahidul Alam quoting his statements in the interview with Al Jazeera and Facebook?s live and what he actually said. The inconsistencies became clear to the court after the case investigation of ficer showed the video footage time and again until the court was satisfied. A bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice SM Mozibur Rahman, however, excluded Shahidul Alam?s bail application from day?s cause list and advised his lawyers to move it in another bench. The inconsistencies was detected by the bench after seeing the transcript of Shahidul Alam?s interview with Al Jazeera and what he said on Facebook live during the school children?s peaceful movement for road safety. The case investigation officer and DB inspector Arman Ali logged in Shahidul Alam?s Facebook account and showed to the bench all the postings he had made during the schoolchildren road safety movement. The bench asked the DB officer to explain why the allegations made against Shahidul Alam in the first information report were quite different from what he said actually said, the DB officer replied that the inconsistencies occurred as he had presented Shahidul Alam?s remarks in ?concise form.? After a two-hour hearing when the bench asked Shahidul Alam?s lawyers to take the matter to another bench, Barrister Sara Hossain in her reaction said, ?Where he would get justice if you can?t give the decision after seeing the inconsistencies between the FIR account and what her client had actually said in the interview with Al Jazeera and Facebook live.? She said, ?It?s not at all fair not to give a decision after keeping us waiting for three weeks for giving time to the attorney general on various excuses.? Sara called it unprecedented for a bench to drop a bail application from the cause list after issuing ruling and hearing the ruling for days together. And there is no precedence for the attorney general not to reply to the ruling, submitted Sara. She said that there was no precedence to detain a citizen for 88 days on the basis of concocted allegation of the police which again failed to make any progress in investigations for obvious reasons. All this, she said, tarnished the image of Bangladesh across the world. At this point, attorney general Mahbubey Alam shouted at Sara Hossain demanding to know why she was defending a man like Shahidul Alam who committed sedition by telling a foreign TV that the government would be overthrown. Neither the transcript nor Facebook live show that Shahidul Alam never said that the government would be overthrown. The Supreme Court?s IT experts were called to the courtroom to help the DB investigation officer to play the transcripts of Shahidul Alam?s statements. The bench scolded the investigation officer for his failure to play the video of the interview with Al Jazeera and the link on Facebook live for an hour. ?What are you showing? Show us what you alleged in the case,? the bench told him angrily. Earlier, two other benches declined to hear Shahidul Alam?s bail application since August 27. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN ACQUITS ASIA BIBI: BUT THE BLASPHEMY SCREAMING MULLAH?S GO BERSERK ======================================== (1) Daily O 01-11-2018 PAKISTAN ACQUITS ASIA BIBI: A GREAT STEP, BUT MILES TO GO, STILL Countless brave Pakistanis have suffered, fought against, prayed for and died because of the country?s blasphemy laws. Farahnaz Ispahani Wednesday has been a groundbreaking day for the millions of people both within and outside Pakistan who have worked and prayed for the release of Asia Bibi. Asia Bibi has become an icon of justice and rights in Pakistan.Asia Bibi has become an icon of justice and rights in Pakistan. (Photo: Reuters) Bibi, an illiterate berry picker, was accused and then convicted for allegedly defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed. Her Muslim neighbors objected to her drinking water from the same glass as them because she was Christian. Under Pakistan?s blasphemy law, her alleged comment is punishable by death. In 2010, Bibi, at age 45, was sentenced to hang ? but just a few hours ago, her sealed judgement was released by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The judgement had been announced a few days earlier but it was kept sealed until today. The Supreme Court of Pakistan, on Wednesday, acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death over blasphemy allegations. Asia Bibi was cleared of all blasphemy charges and the court ordered her immediate release. Many people have lost their lives to the mere allegation of blasphemy in Pakistan ? my very dear friends and colleagues, former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, and Shahbaz Bhatti, former Minister for Minority Affairs, were murdered. Shot in cold blood for speaking in defense of Asia Bibi and for speaking against the blasphemy laws. Voices of courage, killed for speaking up. Voices of courage, killed for speaking up. (Photos: Reuters) A three-judge special bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel heard Bibi's 2014 appeal against her conviction and death sentence under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The chief justice wrote that it was a ?well settled principal of law that the one who makes an assertion has to prove it. Thus, the onus rests on the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt throughout the trial. The presumption of innocence remains throughout the case until such time the prosecution on the evidence satisfies the court beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the offence alleged against him.? ?The judgments of the High Court as well as the Trial Court are reversed. Consequently, the conviction as also the sentence of death awarded to the appellant is set aside and she is acquitted of the charge. She should be released from jail forthwith, if not required in any other criminal case.? Justice Khosa?s opinion added, ?Blasphemy is a serious offence but the insult of the appellant?s religion and religious sensibilities by the complainant party and then mixing truth with falsehood in the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was also not short of being blasphemous.? ?It is ironical that in the Arabic language the appellant?s name Asia means ?sinful? but in the circumstances of the present case she appears to be a person, in the words of Shakespeare?s King Leare, ?more sinned against than sinning??, Justice Khosa?s opinion read. Pakistan owes much of its blasphemy trouble to Zia Ul-Haq.Pakistan owes much of its blasphemy trouble to Zia Ul-Haq. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Pakistan?s laws on blasphemy date back to the military dictatorship of Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. In 1980, making a derogatory remark against any Islamic personage was defined as a crime under Pakistan?s Penal Code Section 295, punishable by three years in prison. In 1982, another clause was added that prescribed life imprisonment for ?willful desecration of the Quran? and, in 1986, a separate clause was added to punish blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed with ?death, or imprisonment for life.? Bibi?s case illustrated how blasphemy laws are used to persecute the weakest of the weak among Pakistan's religious minorities. As a poor Christian from a low caste, Bibi was among the most vulnerable and susceptible to discrimination. And the legal system ? which, in theory, should be designed to protect the innocent ? failed her in every way. However, Bibi?s case isn?t the first in which Pakistan?s blasphemy laws have been used to punish minority groups. Since Zia ul Haq imposed the laws, their application has unleashed extremist religious frenzy. Lawyers who dare to represent someone accused of blasphemy have also been killed. In 2014, Rashid Rehman, a distinguished human rights lawyer brave enough to represent those most vulnerable to blasphemy charges ? women and children of religious minorities, people with mental disabilities, and the weak and impoverished ? was killed in his office by two unidentified gunmen. Brave lawyer Rashid Rehman was killed for protecting the most vulnerable victims of the blasphemy law.Brave lawyer Rashid Rehman was killed for protecting the most vulnerable victims of the blasphemy law. (Photo: Reuters) Judges who have dared to acquit an alleged blasphemer, or convict the killer of an alleged blasphemer, have either been forced to leave the country ? or face death. We must never forget the brave Pakistanis who have suffered, fought against, prayed for and died because of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan. We must keep Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti, Rashid Rehman, Mashal Khan, Salamat Masih, Manzoor Masih, Rehmat Masih, Ayub Masih, Bishop John Joseph,Younis Sheikh, Samuel Masih, Anwar Masih and many more innocent victims of this pernicious law in our thoughts and prayers. This is one huge victory but the laws remain. Much work remains to be done for their amendment ? or repeal. As with her previous trials and appeals, large crowds gathered outside the court in Islamabad on Wednesday demanding her conviction be upheld and the execution carried out. In messages being sent to the media, Tehreek e Labbaik, Pakistan, an extreme religious party, is openly threatening the three judges. Tehreek e Labbaik?s Afzal Qadri has also asked soldiers to rebel against Army Chief in the aftermath of Asia Bibi's acquittal as the military is presumed to be behind this bold judgement. Tehreek e Labbaik chief Afzal Qadri is demanding death for Asia Bibi.Tehreek e Labbaik chief Afzal Qadri is demanding death for Asia Bibi. (Photo: YouTube screengrab) As Pakistan gets increasingly isolated internationally, the military may feel the need to relieve some pressure on Pakistan?s image in the world. The Jamaat e Islami party, which, like Tehreek e Labbaik, has a very strong street presence, has asked its members to come out in Islamabad to demand this judgement be repealed. In this climate of uncertainty and possible violence, the governments of Sindh and Punjab province have imposed Section 144 in light of the ?constant threat alerts regarding possible terrorist activities?. Carrying arms, gatherings of more than four persons, pillion riding, and taking out rallies are some of the acts prohibited under Section 144. Meanwhile, the national media, especially electronic, has gone totally silent on Asia Bibi?s release, as they too are under threat from the baying mobs. Asia Bibi has been offered asylum by several countries and is expected to leave the country. The family said they feared for their safety and would likely have to leave Pakistan. Mobs are already baying for her blood. After years spent in jail on a mere allegation, Asia Bibi will now have to leave her home along with her family merely to be able to live her life. Writer Farahnaz Ispahani is a former member of Pakistan?s National Assembly. She is Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC and the author of Purifying the Land of the the Pure: Pakistan?s Religious Minorities. o o o (2) The Guardian 31 Oct 2018 QUASHING OF ASIA BIBI?S BLASPHEMY CHARGE WILL NOT END HER SUFFERING Pakistani woman who spent eight years in solitary confinement faces death threats from fundamentalists Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent @harrietsherwood Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer, will almost certainly have to start a new life abroad with her husband and children. Photograph: Bibi family handout/EPA She may have been freed, but she?s never likely to be free. Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer who has spent the past eight years in solitary confinement after being convicted of blasphemy, will almost certainly have to start a new life with her husband and children outside Pakistan, perhaps with new identities. She will spend the rest of her days looking over her shoulder in fear of an international assassin. And not just Bibi and her family. The lives of the three judges, who apparently made the decision to overturn her conviction three weeks ago but held back from announcing it for fear of the consequences, are also at risk from fundamentalists intent on revenge. Within hours of the supreme court judgment, Afzal Qadri of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP), a political party dedicated to punishing blasphemy, said the judges faced death. There is precedent. In January 2011, Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab who had lobbied for a presidential pardon for Bibi and urged reform of the blasphemy laws, was shot in the back by one of his bodyguards, Mumtaz Qadri. The bodyguard was found guilty of murder and executed; tens of thousands of people attended his funeral in March 2016. Protesters hold placards reading: ?Hang Asia Bibi? after the supreme court acquitted her. Photograph: Nadeem Khawer/EPA A few weeks later, more than 70 Christians were killed in a suicide bombing at a church in Lahore on Easter Sunday. A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan?s religious minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad. On Wednesday, TLP supporters took to the streets to protest against the supreme court decision in cities including Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, with major roads blocked. Officials urged people to stay inside. Many of Bibi?s supporters have been afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. Amnesty International accused the Pakistani government of failing to take ?effective measures to curb the campaign of hate and violence incited by certain groups in the country following [Bibi?s] conviction?. The state had shown ?immense tolerance for the narratives of hate?, a researcher, Rabia Mehmood, told CNN. In July, campaigners for religious freedom were dismayed when Imran Khan defended Pakistan?s blasphemy laws in the run-up to the country?s general election. Critics accused Khan ? now prime minister - of using the issue to win support from religious rightwingers. ?Imran Khan is a coward; he is supporting murderers and mob violence. This law is persecuting people, it is not respecting our prophet,? Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the murdered Punjab governor, told the Guardian. According to Open Doors, which monitors Christian persecution around the world, Pakistan?s blasphemy laws ?target Christians in particular?. It says: ?The abuses of Pakistan?s blasphemy laws are some of the starkest examples of persecution in Pakistan. They have been devastating for minorities, including Christians, who must always act with caution in case an allegation of blasphemy is raised to settle a personal score. This year, a blasphemy case was brought against a boy for simply responding to a cartoon about Islam on social media.? Pakistan is number five on Open Doors? league table of countries in which Christians are at risk. On Wednesday, advocates for religious freedom and Christian organisations welcomed the supreme court?s decision. Kelsey Zorzi of ADF International, which promotes religious freedom, said: ?Blasphemy laws criminalise the exercise of fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. ?Blasphemy laws directly violate international law. All people have the right to freely choose, and live out, their faith. We, therefore, urge all governments to uphold this right by ceasing enforcement and initiating repeal of their blasphemy laws.? Neville Kyrke-Smith of Aid to the Church in Need said: ?Today is like the dawn of new hope for oppressed minorities.? He saluted the courage of the judges in acquitting Bibi, saying: ?It is important that justice is not just seen to be done but is done.? There are fewer than 4 million Christians in Pakistan out of a total population of 197 million. The vast majority of the population is Muslim, with Hindus the biggest religious minority. Most Christians live in or near the southern city of Karachi, the Punjab region and around Peshawar. Many are poor and do menial jobs, although there are more affluent Christian families in Karachi. o o o (3) BLASPHEMY, PAKISTAN?S NEW RELIGION by Mohammed Hanif https://t.co/S0XMQkPBsZ o o o (4) ASIA BIBI IS SAFE AND REUNITED WITH HER FAMILY IN CANADA. SAYS ? SHAAN TASEER, SON OF LATE SALMAN TASEER https://twitter.com/i/status/1058304308993761282 ======================================== 11. INDIA: BJP HAS SHOWN THAT CURBS ON FREEDOM COME IN MANY GUISES Zoya Hasan ======================================== The Wire 2 November 2018 Top leaders of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) never fail to caution citizens against the trauma of the Emergency, but the last four years have witnessed a steady hollowing of public institutions. File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with BJP president Amit Shah and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley at BJP headquarters in New Delhi. Credit: PTI It is quite common for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to remind the public that the Congress had declared the Emergency. Top leaders of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) never fail to caution citizens against the trauma of the Emergency and the abuse of power that occurred more than 40 years ago and the curbs on political freedom imposed by Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977. Undoubtedly, the Emergency was the first clear evidence of the danger that democracy faced from the turn to authoritarianism purportedly in the national interest. The Emergency suspended political freedoms and set off nearly two years of widespread arrests, censorship of the press, severe curtailment of civil liberties and limited the power of the judiciary to review and check the executive?s actions. Opposition leaders were rounded up in midnight raids, arrested and jailed. For the 21 months that the Emergency lasted, it seemed that India was going to follow the political fate of many of its neighbours and newly independent states as its democratic ambitions were rudely shaken. But in 1977, Indira Gandhi called elections and suffered a major defeat, signalling mass opposition to authoritarian rule. Democracy was not only restored. It took stronger roots. The Emergency?s aftermath gave legitimacy to new forms of dissent. It witnessed an upsurge of political activism, most notably the birth of the civil liberties movement which made a significant contribution to the restoration of democracy. Mass protests enlarged the political arena and expanded the field of political democracy. Jana Sangh was in the forefront of these protests, in fact, the BJP itself, was formed in the heat of the anti-Congress protests. The greatest beneficiary of the new atmosphere of freedom has been the Hindu right. Four decades later, the right-wing establishment stormed to power in 2014 by winning a majority on the back of the anti-corruption movement (2010-11). But now that the BJP is in power, the party regards protests and dissent as anti-national and against the nation. But with job famine, banks in trouble, rising petrol prices, falling rupee, the NDA government is having difficulty in convincing voters that ?acche din? will arrive any time soon. Despite attempts to curtail dissent, public protests have rocked India against economic policies, agrarian distress, caste tension and mob violence. Top leaders of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) never fail to caution citizens against the trauma of the Emergency and the abuse of power that occurred more than 40 years ago. Credit: PTI Curbs on freedom come in different guises Recent political events indicate that curbs on freedom come in different guises and forms. In this regard, historian Gyan Prakash notes the differences between the political trajectories of Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi; Indira Gandhi acquired absolute power during the Emergency, but the decision to impose it wasn?t purely political, it was shrouded in a constitutional framework. At the other end of the spectrum, Modi?s climb to authoritarian power is political; he enjoys untrammeled power without a formal declaration of Emergency or press censorship or arrest of opposition leaders. Unlike Indira Gandhi, Modi is powered by the surge of Hindu nationalism and mobilisation by the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres. Unlike Indira Gandhi, he is powered by the surge of Hindu nationalism and mobilisation by the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres. One thing is clear: Emergency is not the only method available to contain anti-regime opposition. There are other strategies such as the national/anti-national labeling to corner critics or the ?development? slogan to vanquish opponents. It is a well thought out strategy ? speak against the government and you?re anti-national and anti-development. Hence, those who highlight government failures or speak against the excesses of the government are silenced or arrested. Targeting of dissent on such a large scale has not been witnessed since the Emergency. It is no wonder that the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the BJP president Amit Shah and finance minister Arun Jaitley have denigrated mass actions from below and attacked recalcitrant institutions in the name of ?nation is above institutions?. None of their arguments are entirely new but the political weight of majoritarian ideology has reinvigorated them in recent weeks. Jaitley warned against the dangers of popular politics and assertions of independence by ?non-accountable institutions?, while Shah took up cudgels on behalf of Ayyappa devotees who are mostly BJP workers and sympathisers doubling up as devotees. A false binary At the India Foundation?s Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture, Jaitley wondered, ?Are we weakening the authority of the elected and creating a power shift in favour of non-accountables?? He claimed he was not providing any answer to the vexed questions, but the answer is obvious: the binary between the elected and the unelected is false. To project the former and disparage the latter as anti-national is unmistakably undemocratic. Oddly enough, by pitting an elected government against existing institutions, Jaitley seems to suggest that you can have one or the other and not both. Significantly, Jaitley?s statement comes close on the heels of his party president ticking off the Supreme Court for passing what he deems an unenforceable order allowing women in the age group of 10 to 50 to enter the Sabarimala temple, while threatening to uproot the Kerala government if it persisted in enforcing it. Shah?s statement that the Supreme Court should only come out with orders that can be followed sends the message that the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution are not to be implemented. Politicians in India know only too well that elected majorities are not permanent. Democratic politics shouldn?t be about the dominance of numbers. Those who believe so tend to ride roughshod over the opposition and trample dissent. This binary rests on another false assumption that permanent majorities exist from the start, and are fixed forever. This notion is based on a conflation of ethno-religious majority with a political majority as both are invariably treated as the same. What is more, the BJP?s political majority is not nearly as impressive if you consider the party?s vote share. The party has 31% of the national vote. But under the first-past-the-post-system it translated into an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. Importantly, electoral majorities are contingent and don?t endure. For example, the Mandal (caste) interregnum of the early nineties upstaged Hindutva politics which had been catapulted to centre stage by the Ayodhya movement. A major consequence of this power shift was that the Hindu right could not consolidate its popular mandate. In 2014, the BJP won a majority. But numbers change and what now appears to be an invincible majority may slip when the tide turns. At the India Foundation?s Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture, Jaitley wondered, ?Are we weakening the authority of the elected and creating a power shift in favour of non-accountables?? Credit: PTI India?s democracy has stood the test of time Despite the good and bad times, India?s democracy has stood the test of time, it has proved resilient and stable in large part because of its institutional structures ? an independent judiciary, election commission, and the central bank ? have helped democracy to grow and take deep roots in India. Also, one might add regular institutional innovations such as the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments (the panchayati raj amendments), which came into effect in 1993, and creation of new institutions such as the Central Information Commission which came into effect in 2005, has helped the consolidation of democracy. The Modi government?s uneasiness with institutional autonomy is understandable because it weakens their authoritarian claims to power, especially as several institutions have begun to guard their turf against government interference. The latest in the line is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), whose deputy governor Viral Acharya warned that undermining a central bank?s independence could be ?potentially catastrophic?. This statement came in the context of the ongoing conflict between the government and the RBI with the former invoking never before used powers under the RBI Act that allow it to issue directions to the central bank governor on so-called matters of public interest. There?s no question that Congress has played its part in weakening institutions. Indira Gandhi was responsible for centralisation, de-institutionalisation and politicisation of institutions including the bureaucracy, judiciary, parliament and the presidency. But this has not changed. Rather, the shadow of authoritarianism and fascism (with Indian characteristics) is hanging over our democracy like never before. The autonomy of important institutions such as the Election Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Central Vigilance Commission and he Union Public Service Commission has been compromised. The demand for a law to build a grand temple in Ayodhya even when the matter is sub-judice is a way to run down the Supreme Court as an institution. The environment in universities has been vitiated and dissent stifled to a point of choking critical inquiry. Overall, the last four-and-a-half years have witnessed a steady hollowing of public institutions with leaders of the BJP and the government leading the charge against constitutionally mandated rights and against the autonomy of institutions to serve the interests of the ruling party and the supreme leader. Zoya Hasan is professor emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. ======================================== 12. INDIA: SELECT EDITORIALS ======================================== The Times of India October 30, 2018 Editorials NOT LETTING OUR WOMEN TAKE WINGS: THE INDIA STORY THAT SHAMES US An attempt to commit suicide by a 22-year-old woman in Jodhpur, owing to coercion from a local panchayat to marry a man to whom she was betrothed when she was just three, is a pointer to multiple and contradictory realities in India. First there is the woman who overcame such archaic practices to study and become a chartered accountant. Then there is her family which consigned an infant to such a horrific custom but then recognised her potential and stood with her, despite alleged harassment from the panchayat. We also have the panchayat, empowered by the Constitution of India to deliver governance at the grassroots, acting antithetical to individual freedoms. Then there is the police, who the victim had to reportedly approach thrice to file an FIR, and who failed subsequently to probe the case, forcing her to consume poison at a police station itself. In one case, we see multiple trajectories of India?s evolution: of progress and regression. Every day in India we read and hear of women who achieve big things when they receive encouragement from families. But those women who do not receive such backing despite their potential become the untold story of India?s demographic disaster. Just as India has a liberal elite, it also has a conservative elite in its smaller towns and villages who rule by patriarchal diktats and kangaroo courts against young people wishing to escape rigid social norms. When courts warn against social morality and the need to uphold constitutional morality this is a textbook case of social fatwas against citizens. Far more damning is the police collusion with such regressive elements, an indicator of their power in society. The Rajasthan government and high court must take note of this case and ensure exemplary action against those who forced this young woman into an attempt to end her life. Read story: Engaged at three, chartered accountant ?forced? by panchayat to consume poision https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jodhpur/panchayat-diktat-forces-girl-to-consume-poison/articleshow/66422127.cms o o The Telegraph 12 October 2018 INDIA: CHAMPIONING VEGETARIANISM IS DISCRIMINATORY, EDITORIAL, THE TELEGRAPH A contrived sense of difference perpetuates hatred, and hateful practices have trickled down into quasi-official policy By The Editorial Board The ?trickle-down effect?, it seems, seldom works for the good things. Yet it operates most efficiently when the urge is to divide and hurt. A primary school in Wazirabad village in Delhi has been separating its Hindu and Muslim pupils into different sections. The school falls under the aegis of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, which has promised to look into the matter after being informed of this by a group of teachers. While the bright spot in the induced darkness is the fact that the teachers complained, it is an indication of the successful spread of fear that they wished to remain anonymous. The decision to segregate pupils, reportedly, came from the teacher-in-charge, C.B. Singh Sehrawat, who was installed in place of the previous principal in July. According to this gentleman ? he has now been suspended ? the reshuffling of sections was a management decision, routinely done to preserve peace, discipline and a good learning environment. Apparently children were ?squabbling?, not exactly over religion but over food ? that is, some were ?vegetarian?. The implications of Mr Sehrawat?s comments are clear. Dividing up religious communities on the basis of food assumes that vegetarian food is ?pure? and eaters of flesh ?impure?. Surveys have shown that the strident insistence of the party in power at the Centre and its right-wing siblings that most of India is vegetarian is just a vociferous lie. The championing of vegetarianism is not only discriminatory from the point of view of faith, but is also casteist and region-specific. But it forms the basis of the drive against the trade in beef and leather, to the disadvantage of particular communities and castes. To indoctrinate children in primary school, even by indirect means such as classroom segregation, with this contrived sense of difference is to perpetuate hatred through future citizens. Such hate-based practices have ?trickled down? into quasi-official policy, too, where discrimination is more aggressive. Reportedly, applications for registration under the Special Marriage Act, needed for interfaith unions, are being routinely refused in Uttar Pradesh. One such couple had to get married in Calcutta because the registrar in UP had simply not allowed them to apply. The couple are now scared of their future as they return to work. Why are the founding principles of the republic being allowed to be subverted so easily? ======================================== 13. RISING HATE IN INDIA Reports of hate-crime cases, many involving ?cow vigilantes,? have spiked since Narendra Modi?s party came to power in 2014. By Annie Gowen and Manas Sharma ======================================== The Washington Post Oct. 31, 2018 Alimuddin Ansari, a van driver, knew the risks. Smuggling beef in India, where the slaughter of cows is illegal in some states, is dangerous work, and Ansari eventually attracted the notice of Hindu extremists in Jharkhand. One hot day in June 2017, they tracked him to a crowded market. When he arrived with a van full of beef, the lynch mob was waiting. Reports of religious-based hate-crime cases have spiked in India since the pro-Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, according to new data from IndiaSpend, which tracks reports of violence in English-language media. The data shows that Muslims are overwhelmingly the victims and Hindus the perpetrators of the cases reported. The government of India does not record religious-based hate crimes as separate offenses and so does not provide data on the category. The government does monitor incidents of communal violence ? such as riots between religious communities ? and has data that shows such incidents rose 28 percent between 2014 and 2017. Some of the violence in the reported cases centers on cows because Hindus ? nearly 80 percent of India?s population ? believe the animals are sacred, and many states have laws that protect them from slaughter. Violent ?cow vigilante? groups patrol the roads, beating and killing those suspected of smuggling beef. Modi has said that state governments should punish these vigilantes and that his administration is committed to upholding the law, but critics say his party has emboldened Hindu extremists across the country. And the data supports that trend: More than half of the cases reported this year through October came from three states in northern India ? Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand ? where Modi?s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, enjoys strong support. BJP spokesman Sudhanshu Trivedi said the government acts promptly if tensions occur between groups. He noted that India has suffered only ?minor incidents? in the last four years, and there were no large-scale religious riots. ?Our objection is that the political class and a certain section of media want to highlight the [religious] angle in order to malign the image of government,? he said. ?This is not happening for the first time. It has been happening for years.? FULL TEXT HERE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/reports-of-hate-crime-cases-have-spiked-in-india/ ======================================== 14. INDIA: THE PROPOSED CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT BILL MAY TURN OUT TO BE THE BEGINNING OF A MAJOR SHIFT IN INDIA?S REFUGEE POLICY by Sanjib Baruah ======================================== Via: Indian Express November 2, 2018 When it comes to trade relations with its immediate neighbours, India is strikingly different from other regionally-dominant major countries. Despite being the region?s largest and fastest growing economy, India absorbs as little as 1.7 per cent of Bangladesh?s exports, and accounts for only 14 per cent of its imports. Economist Ashok V Desai, who has pointed this out recently (The Telegraph, October 16), contrasts India?s trade profile with that of other regionally dominant countries such as the US vis-?-vis Canada and Mexico, the European Union vis-?-vis Poland and the Netherlands, and South Africa vis-?-vis Namibia and Mozambique. In order for India to achieve a similar trading position as those countries, Desai would like to see India take the initiative to free the movement of goods and people between India and Bangladesh. It not only makes eminent economic sense, he believes, it is quite practical. After all, India treats Bangladeshis as foreigners and has an ?extremely costly infrastructure to prevent illegal immigration? from there. But Indian policy vis-?-vis another regional neighbour is not as economically dysfunctional: Nepalis are treated as ?permissible aliens?. How has the legal status of Nepalis and Bangladeshis come to be so different in post-colonial India? One would not necessarily have predicted this from past history. It hardly needs to be stated that the ties between present-day Bangladesh (eastern Bengal) and India in British colonial times were closer than those between India and Nepal. After all, both were part of the same political entity. Moreover, the district of Sylhet in Bangladesh was a part of the province of Assam; and for a brief period from 1905 to 1911, Eastern Bengal and Assam constituted a single province. But Nepal was not a part of British India. However, like the neighbouring Himalayan kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim, it was part of Britain?s informal empire. During the British colonial period, migration across this entire region ? whether from Bengal to Assam or from Nepal to India ? was not only unrestricted, it was actively encouraged. Thus the ethnic Nepali population of Darjeeling district in West Bengal, Sikkim, parts of Northeast India as well as Bhutan is a legacy of the informal empire. Decolonisation created a new territorial order in the region and it tried to bring a period of extraordinary mobility to an end. The illegality regimes created by newly-independent countries made the status of many people in the region ? most importantly in India ? suddenly more vulnerable. There is nothing predetermined about the fact that the legal status of Nepalis in post-colonial India would be different from that of Bangladeshis. Ethnic Nepalis have had to struggle for this status; and in certain parts of India, they continue to feel quite vulnerable. Indeed, ethnic Nepali political mobilisation in the entire transnational region has been an effort to assert citizenship rights in response to a growing sense of post-colonial vulnerability. After all, nearly 1, 00,000 ethnic Nepalis of Bhutan or the Lhotshampas ? southern Bhutanese in the Dzongkha language ? were expelled from Bhutan in the 1990s. Ethnic Nepalis form the social basis of the Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling. Indeed, the use of the term Gorkha is itself a way of making claims to Indian citizenship, since it avoids confusion between citizens of Nepal and ethnic Nepali citizens of independent India inherent in the term Nepali. But what are the chances of India making policies vis-?-vis Bangladeshis that are in India?s economic interest? The expectation that the NRC process would lead to a resolution of Assam?s long-festering citizenship crisis has now faded. The confrontational atmosphere building in Assam around the Citizenship Amendment Bill has eerie similarities with the Assam of the early 1980s. A group of Mumbai-based activists now describes the NRC updating process as the NRC crisis since it has led to 30 suicides so far. Whatever else one can say about the Citizenship Amendment Bill, it is hard to argue that it will promote greater economic integration between India and Bangladesh. The distinction between Hindus and Muslims in India?s citizenship laws that the bill will introduce ? albeit through the backdoor ? would only make the situation worse for ?Bangladeshis in Bangalore?, who in economist Desai?s words, ?are treated as illegal immigrants and hounded?. The proposed bill may turn out to be the beginning of a major shift in India?s refugee policy. Its closest international analogue may be the Cold-War era refugee policy of the US. From 1952 to 1980, the Cold War shaped the very definition of a refugee in US law. A refugee was defined as a person fleeing ?from a Communist-dominated country or area?. Cubans became the biggest beneficiary of this policy because of the island nation?s proximity to the US. Not unlike India?s Citizenship Amendment Bill, Cuban immigrants according to the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 could not be treated as illegal in the US. They qualified for US residency within a year of being in the US and were eligible for citizenship five years later, no matter how they entered the country. Since they were admitted for humanitarian reasons ? allegedly for fleeing communist oppression ? Cubans quickly became a significant immigrant group in the US. Within a decade after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Cuban population in the US grew by six-fold. If the proposed amendment to India?s citizenship law is passed, it could stimulate a similar wave of emigration of Hindus from Bangladesh, perhaps from Pakistan and Afghanistan as well. The proposed amendment will, of course, limit refugee status and the road to citizenship, to those already in the country. But the history of immigration from the communist countries to the US during the Cold War suggests that signals are always very important in pushing modern emigration. Former BJP leader Jaswant Singh, known for his strategic thinking, once said that ?in considering the totality of national security, economic security is the pivot: Its vitality, growth and dynamism becomes the principal security imperative?. If one follows his insight, Desai?s recommendations should be very high on the ruling party?s policy agenda. But unfortunately, while the BJP-led government proclaims a foreign policy of ?neighbourhood first?, the ruling party is also presided over by a president who talks of Bangladeshis as ?termites? that are ?eating the grain that should go to our poor and they are taking our jobs?. The major reason why India cannot make the ?vitality, growth and dynamism? of its economy a priority in its policy-making has to do with the country?s internal weaknesses and the ideological predilections of its ruling elite. India does not have the domestic political constituencies to back the kind of policies that Desai proposes. Nor is there willingness on the part of the ruling elites to invest in creating potential constituencies to make its immigration and refugee policies compatible with India?s economic aspirations. India in recent years has displayed an ample supply of national self-confidence, pride, and perhaps even some hubris. Unfortunately, there is no straight-line between self-confidence and good public policy. The writer is Professor of Political Studies in Bard College, New York. o o o See Also: THE NRC PROCESS AND THE SPECTRE OF STATELESSNESS IN INDIA by Ranabir Samaddar https://thewire.in/rights/the-spectre-of-statelessness-in-india/amp/ ======================================== 15. INDIA: A DECADE ON, ONLY 40% OF FRA CLAIMS APPROVED The latest status report of the FRA says most claims were rejected by either gram sabhas or district committees by Ishan Kukreti ======================================== Down To Earth 02 November 2018 Only 6.67 per cent forest land has been recognised till the end of August this year. Credit: Getty Images In the last decade, tribal communities across the country have filed 4.21 million claims to acquire forest land under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA). But, just 40 per cent or 1.74 million of them have been approved, says a status report compiled by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). The report, which has looked at data on land titles till August 31, says the highest number of claims were rejected or sent back either by the gram sabha or the district-level committee. Under FRA, a claim, which is made by an individual or a community living in the forest, has to first go through the gram sabha, then a sub-divisional level committee and finally through the district-level committee. Once the district-level committee approves it, the title deeds are distributed. Experts have criticised the performance of MoTA in implementing FRA. ?Only 7,504.32 sq km of forest land has been recognised, while total forest land under occupation prior to 2005 was 1.12 lakh sq km. Only 6.67 per cent forest land has been recognised till the end of August this year against the countrywide potential of land rights recognition under FRA. MoTA has failed in executing its own responsibility for effective implementation of the Act, except issuance of the letters,? says Giri Rao of Vasundhara, a Bhubaneswar-based non-profit that works with tribal communities. He also says that the ministry has failed to provide segregated information of Community Rights and Community Forest Resources rights under Section 3 (1) and Section 3(1)(i). ?There is no information on conversion of forest villages into revenue villages. On July 31 last year, Jaswantsinh Bhabhor, Minister of State, MoTA, told Parliament that there are 4,526 forest villages. Expect few, most of the states are yet to identify and follow the process as provided in the FRA to turn them into revenue villages,? he said. Keywords: Forest Rights Act, Land rights, tribal rights, Union Ministry ofForests. India ======================================== 16. A PAN-INDIA DALIT ASSERTION G. Sampath ======================================== The Hindu September 24, 2018 Bhim Sena supporters hold a photo of BR Ambedkar as they raise slogans demanding immediate release of their chief Chandrasekhar Azad during the Bahujan Sankalp Mahasabha, at Parliament Street in New Delhi on August 19, 2018. Bhim Sena supporters hold a photo of BR Ambedkar as they raise slogans demanding immediate release of their chief Chandrasekhar Azad during the Bahujan Sankalp Mahasabha, at Parliament Street in New Delhi on August 19, 2018. | Photo Credit: PTi The story of the Bhim Army of western U.P. is a lens to understand the Dalit challenge to the Hindu Right In a move that took many by surprise, the Uttar Pradesh government recently released Chandrasekhar Azad, the founder of the Bhim Army Bharat Ekta Mission, from jail. It was unexpected for many reasons. For starters, he had been arrested last year following clashes between Dalits and Thakurs in Saharanpur in western U.P. In November 2017, when the Allahabad High Court granted him bail, it observed that the charges against him seemed ?politically motivated?. Why now? Notwithstanding the bail order, the U.P. government had invoked the National Security Act (NSA) to arrest him again. It kept him in jail ? without trial and without any charge sheet being filed ? for more than 15 months. He was not due for release until November 2. So why did the Yogi Adityanath government suddenly change its mind and release him two months early? The official explanation is that the decision was taken in response to a request from Mr. Azad?s mother. But that doesn?t explain why her request remained unheeded for so many months. It is likely that the real reasons involve a combination of two factors. First, the petition filed in the Supreme Court challenging his detention. Dalit groups have claimed that the petition was up for hearing soon, and that the government wanted to avoid a reprimand from the apex court, as it would have given the Opposition a fresh opening to paint the BJP as ?anti-Dalit?. The other reason is that the Dalits in U.P. have been getting increasingly restive over Mr. Azad?s continued incarceration. The campaign for his release was becoming a tool for uniting Dalits across the country. A national-level mobilisation of Dalits for the release of an Ambedkarite leader jailed by a BJP government would not only bust the claims of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of upholding B.R. Ambedkar?s legacy but also put Dalit leaders within the Sangh Parivar under immense pressure, as it indeed already has. Besides, Dalit unity and political awareness were precisely what Mr. Azad had been working towards, and continuing to keep him in jail made no sense if the very fact of his detention was catalysing the achievement of these objectives. In other words, to borrow a metaphor from chess, the Bhim Army chief?s early release was what one might call a ?forced move?. It not only represents a moral victory for the Dalit community but is also part of a larger pattern of Dalit assertion that is gathering steam across the country. It is a phenomenon that the ruling dispensation views as a threat, but it is a threat to which it has no coherent response. Its inability to come up with one is not accidental. It is unable to do so because this threat is a manifestation of the contradiction at the heart of their political project, the creation of a Hindu Rashtra. Different from before The singular contradiction that is steadily unravelling the Hindutva project even as it seems to be making progress is the same element that is fuelling Dalit assertion in India today: caste society. Ironically, it was the demon of caste that necessitated the ideology of Hindutva in the first place. It is an ideology that seeks to bury this demon by propping up another in its place: the demon of hatred towards the Other. While the default Other of Hindutva is the Muslim, the communal demon is broad-minded enough to consider other minorities as well on a need-to-hate basis. Rendering the fault lines of caste invisible in a fog of communal paranoia has only one objective: the creation of a nation of Hindus. This brings us to the second contradiction in the Hindutva project: a nation, by definition, is a community of (notional) equals. But a community whose nationhood is predicated solely on the religious and cultural identity of being Hindu can never be a community of equals, for as Ambedkar elucidates with breathtaking clarity in Annihilation of Caste, Hindu religious belief and cultural practice are marked by the graded inequality of caste at their very core. This is the kernel of Ambedkarite insight that the Bhim Army has been planting in young Dalit minds through its hundreds of tuition centres in western U.P. Much like its founder, who used to be a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Bhim Army?s ranks are filled with people who have dallied with the Hindu Right. Their disillusionment with the Sangh Parivar was almost always triggered by the refusal of their saffron brothers to back them in inter-caste clashes. This proved to be a moment of truth that set in sharp relief the moral and other kinds of support that they had received when their antagonists happened to be a religious minority instead of upper-caste Hindus. In other words, their experience in the Parivar had primed them into ideal subjects ready to imbibe what the Bhim Army had to say. The Bhim Army, emblematic of the current phase of Dalit assertion, is different from earlier mobilisations in one important respect ? its recognition that social unity is more important than political unity. So much so that loyalty to the Dalit community precedes every other affiliation, including that to political parties. If the current wave of Dalit assertion, which seems to have taken to heart Ambedkar?s slogan of ?Educate, Agitate, Organise?, were to succeed in its project of invoking Dalit pride as a common factor to knit the thousands of Dalit-Bahujan sub-castes across the country into a singular political community, it could mark the beginning of the end for the Hindu Right, whose ?foot-soldiers?, in many cases of targeted communal violence, have historically been Dalits. The very condition of possibility for a Hindu Rashtra requires that Scheduled Caste communities remain invested in the social identity proffered by their respective sub-castes while continuing to identify politically as Hindus. Activists or outfits focussed on educating Dalits and propagating an Ambedkarite self-respect are naturally inimical to this project. It is, therefore, not surprising that the ruling dispensation is panicking at the spread of a Dalit political consciousness. And panic is not the best frame of mind in which to initiate counter-measures. So, first came a judicial manoeuvre to dilute the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act ? a move that backfired. It backfired so badly that the Union Cabinet scrambled to quickly pass an amendment nullifying the Supreme Court judgment. Next was the arrest of five social activists for their alleged involvement with the Bhima-Koregaon event on January 1, 2018, an annual programme whose very objective is to celebrate Dalit pride. The term used by the police to describe the detainees, ?urban naxals?, is already gaining currency among Dalits as the state?s vindictive label for people who fight for Dalit empowerment. Clues in nomenclature And most recently, the Central government, citing a High Court order, issued an advisory asking the media to stop using the word ?Dalit? altogether and stick to the term ?Scheduled Caste?. While it remains unclear why a self-proclaimed ?pro-Dalit? regime would want to eliminate the very term from usage, the move has managed to further alienate Dalits from the BJP. Interestingly, the first thing Mr. Azad said after being released is that he would work hard to ensure the BJP?s defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. He also squelched any speculation that he might serve as a counter-weight to Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, by swearing loyalty to her. What remains to be seen is whether this rare convergence of Dalit political assertion and social unity acquires a fully pan-Indian character, and how it plays out in the electoral arena. ======================================== 17. INDIA: AFTER CANCELLING FCRA LICENCES OF OVER 18,000 NGOS IN 6 YEARS, CENTRE ASKS STATES TO TRACK FUNDING, 'ANTI-NATIONAL' ACTIVITIES OF NGOS ======================================== Firstpost Nov 02, 2018 India FP Staff Continuing with its crackdown on Non-governmental organisations which receive foreign funding, the central government has asked states and Union territories to "monitor" and take "urgent action" against organisations which are "involved in anti-national activities". Stating that it has noticed "some NGOs and organisations are involved in anti-national activities", the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in an advisory urged all states/Union territories to instruct the police to "monitor the activities and funding of such NGOs and other organisations," the Indian Express reported. The directive is a result of the government's rising concern over the role of NGOs in "anti-national" and "anti-development" activities. Citing the protest at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu in May which led to the loss of 11 lives, the MHA also said that involvement of NGOs in such incidents will also be discussed during the DGP-IGP conference in December. Most recently, the role of a Leftist organisation also came under the scanner in the Bhima Koregaon violence in January. Foreign funding of NGOs has been a matter of concern for the BJP-led NDA as well as the previous Congress-led UPA governments, but the Modi government has received a lot of criticism for its actions especially after NGOs of international reputation such as Greenpeace, Ford Foundation as well as those involved in human rights violations cases came on the line of fire. Between 2011 and 2017, the government cancelled the licence of 18,868 NGOs for violation of various provisions of FCRA, 2010, and Foreign Contribution (Regulation) rules, 2011, Minister of State Kiren Rijiju had told the Parliament in December 2017. In 2017 alone, the Home Ministry cancelled registration of 4,842 NGOs for failing to submit annual returns in compliance with the FCRA rules, Rijiju had said, according to IANS. In July this year, in a closed-door, high-level meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked top security officials to work with the state police to monitor how NGOs and groups suspected to be involved in anti-national activities are funded. Sources had then said that the MHA will soon engage with states to deal with the matter. Most recently, ED officials raided the India office of Amnesty International Amnesty International in Bengaluru for remittances from abroad allegedly in violation of FDI guidelines. As Firstpost had reported, Amnesty's Indian arm came under the scanner for alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) after security agencies learnt to have detected that Amnesty International (UK) has been remitting huge amount of foreign contribution through its four Indian entities, which did not have either license or prior permission to receive foreign contributions. The security agencies alleged that modus operandi of using FDI route to funnel the foreign fund was carried out in a bid to evade the FCRA. The human rights watchdog, however, alleged that the government is instilling fear among civil society organisations by conducting such raids. "...We reiterate, our structure is compliant with Indian laws," Amnesty India said in a tweet. The government has also announced several steps to monitor foreign funding received by NGOs. In June this year, the Centre launched a web-based analytical tool to closely monitor the flow and utilisation of foreign contributions received by different organisations registered or permitted under the FCRA. The tool conducts big data mining and data exploration, and is integrated with the bank accounts of FCRA-registered entities through the Public Financial Management System for updation of transactional data on a real-time basis. In 2017, the Union Home Minister had directed that existing NGOs, registered under the FCRA, and those which were seeking registration or prior permission or accepting foreign contributions, were required to register with the DARPAN portal. With inputs from IANS Updated Date: Nov 02, 2018 16:12 PM ======================================== 18. Reviews IS THIS AZAADI? REVIEW: LIVED REALITIES Mogallan Bharti ======================================== The Hindu October 27, 2018 A moving document of Dalit struggles in rural Bihar Sociologist Anand Chakravarti?s work, Is this Azaadi? ? Everyday Lives of Dalit Agricultural Labourers in a Bihar Village, besides being a documentation of Dalit struggles in rural Bihar, is a personal journey of the author committed to understand the depth of India?s social hierarchy and how it influences the political economy. The work is a moving document of Dalit lives in Muktidih village in southwest Bihar and underlines the presence of ubiquitous ?structural conditions? that keeps the landlessness among the lower castes unscathed, despite years of India?s independence and the subsequent constitutional safeguards in place for them. The book traverses through the lives of the most subjugated of India?s people and highlights their living conditions, that ?fall below? the ?threshold of well-being? ? an obvious lived reality of India?s Dalits, i.e. lack of basic access to livelihood, health, education and a life of dignity. The study analyses the lives of Dalit agricultural labourers in two parts, following the author's field experience from 2001 till 2015 in a sporadic manner. The core of the research lies in the poignant description of the lived reality of Dalit landless agricultural labourers. Their food habits, clothing, access to health and housing is a sobering read for those tantalised by India?s development success and champions of the politics of social justice. The pervasive wretchedness of Dalits reminds us of Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki. Just as Valmiki illustrates the everyday horrors faced by a semi-urban Dalit household, Chakravarti?s works details the ordeals of Dalit labourers stuck in endless debt, compelling them to live a life devoid of dignity. He underscores the significance of education among the poor, as it brings a possible decent employment and hence an opportunity to come out of their economic destitution, and emphasises the factors responsible for the prevalence of an ?education deficit? among Dalit labourers of Muktidih. However, the otherwise meticulous dossier of everyday hardships misses the woods for the trees when it locates Dalits? vulnerability in the failure of the state in upholding constitutional guidelines. Holding the state responsible for the miseries of Dalits, while overtly true, is rather simplistic and evades from the real subject of caste Hindus? grip on the state apparatus deployed to maintain caste hierarchies. It is on this aspect of India?s eternal social reality of graded caste hierarchy that this excellent work appears wanting, as it lacks the analysis of Brahmanism in perpetuating social inequalities. However, it is an incisive micro study of rural Bihar that enables one?s understanding of the region?s caste dynamics and how it affects the socio-political reality. Is this Azaadi?; Anand Chakravarti, Tulika Books, ?750. ======================================== 19. BOLTON HAILS BOLSONARO AS WELCOME ALLY IN CRUSHING LATIN AMERICAN LEFT by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams ======================================== truth out.org November 2, 2018 Declaring not just sympathy but outright admiration for a fascist who has threatened violence against his leftist political opponents, celebrated the use of torture, and promised to give the police free rein to murder at will, US national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday praised Brazil?s newly elected strongman President Jair Bolsonaro as a ?like-minded? partner who shares the Trump administration?s commitment to so-called ?free market principles.? ?The recent elections of like-minded leaders in key countries, including Ivan Duque in Colombia, and last weekend Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, are positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance,? Bolton said during a speech at Miami-Dade College. ?[T]oday, in this hemisphere, we are also confronted once again with the destructive forces of oppression, socialism, totalitarianism,? Bolton added. But Bolton went on to proclaim that with the rise of Bolsonaro, ?the Troika of Tyranny in this hemisphere ? Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua ? has finally met its match,? coining a phrase that immediately drew comparisons to former President George W. Bush?s infamous ?Axis of Evil? line, which was used repeatedly to justify America?s disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Vox?s Alex Ward described Bolton?s remarks as a ?modern-day ?Axis of Evil? speech.? Intensifying fears that the Trump administration could be considering military action against Latin American nations it has deemed enemies, Bolton announced that the White House plans to take ?direct action against? Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua ?to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region.? Shortly after celebrating the ascent of Bolsonaro ? whose promise to pry open Brazilian markets, accelerate the corporate plunder of the Amazon rainforest, and privatize his nation?s public services has also been met with unabashed giddiness by the global business community ? Bolton righteously proclaimed that the United States ?will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers,? despite its long and gruesome history of doing precisely that. Completely ignoring Bolsonaro?s enthusiastic praise of Brazil?s 21-year military dictatorship ? which came to power after a US-backed coup in 1964 ? Bolton concluded that America will not ?appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere.? While Bolton?s effusive praise for Bolsonaro was met with revulsion by analysts and commentators, one former State Department official noted that his remarks are hardly cause for surprise. ?It is not surprising that Bolton and the US government would see the president-elect of Brazil as an ally,? Jana Nelson, a Brazil desk officer at the State Department from 2010 to 2015, told Vox. ?Jair Bolsonaro is an open admirer of Trump.? ======================================== 20. BRAZIL?S NEW FINANCE MINISTER EYES PINOCHET-STYLE FIX FOR ECONOMY Andres Schipani and Joe Leahy ======================================== Financial Times November 1, 2018 For Brazil?s new finance minister Paulo Guedes, the government of far-right president-elect Jair Bolsonaro could represent a ?Pinochet? moment for Latin America?s largest economy. Mr Bolsonaro, who won elections last Sunday, ending almost 15 years of leftwing rule, will take over a moribund economy burdened by a bloated public sector when he assumes office on January 1. Chile?s late dictator General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in 1973 after overthrowing socialist president Salvador Allende in a military coup, at a difficult time for the economy, when the country was suffering high inflation and fiscal deficits. The Chilean dictator?s solution was a dose of Milton Friedman-style free market economics from University of Chicago-trained academics. Mr Bolsonaro is considering the same medicine in the form of Mr Guedes, who has a doctorate from Chicago and taught at the University of Chile in 1980 when Pinochet was in power. ?The Chicago boys saved Chile, fixed Chile, fixed the mess,? Mr Guedes told the Financial Times during a wide-ranging five-hour interview at his beachside office in Rio de Janeiro. If Mr Bolsonaro, known for his nostalgia for Brazil?s military dictatorship, represents for many voters an extreme but necessary solution to end the country?s long flirtation with the left, Mr Guedes is his counterpart in the world of economics and finance. Under Workers? party governments from 2002, Brazil?s public sector spent as much as a European social welfare state without the same quality of services. Interest rates are among the highest in the world, public debt is soaring, corruption is endemic and the economy is still struggling to emerge from years of recession. For supporters of Mr Bolsonaro, the 69-year-old Mr Guedes? uncompromisingly free market view of the world is the only answer. ?Liberals know how to do it,? Mr Guedes once said. The gruff-speaking investor from Rio de Janeiro was hitherto little known outside academic and business circles. After returning from Chile in the early 1980s, he co-founded Banco Pactual in 1983, which later became BTG Pactual, once Brazil?s biggest homegrown independent investment banks. He then joined asset-management firm JGP before running his own investment fund Bozano Investimentos. Mr Guedes sourly recollected that on his return from Chile in the 1980s, he was ?discriminated against because of my association with Chicago and Pinochet. I was attacked as a radical liberal?. One senior Brazilian economist who knows Mr Guedes said fellow academics never respected him, seeing him as a ?gambler? from the banking world. However, former Brazilian central bank governor Carlos Langoni, who was Mr Guedes? professor at the Get?lio Vargas Foundation (FGV), the Brazilian academic institution and think-tank, said he was the top student of his class. ?We have for the first time in many, many years someone with the right vision for Brazil,? Mr Langoni said. Like the Pinochet plan, Mr Guedes ? who first considered joining Mr Bolsonaro?s campaign only last year ? has repeatedly said his priority is to end Brazil?s 7 per cent fiscal deficit through privatisations of the country?s 147 state-owned enterprises. Latin America?s largest economy wastes the equivalent of a Marshall Plan each year in servicing its huge debt, he said. ?There are no sacred cows,? he said of the privatisations. The challenge will be to convince Mr Bolsonaro, who analysts believe is a nationalist at heart and has already ruled out the full sales of important state-owned companies such as oil producer Petrobras, electricity generator Eletrobras and state lender Banco do Brasil. Without those, warned Zeina Latif, chief economist at brokerage XP Investimentos, ?talking about privatisations gets complicated?. Investors are far less interested in the smaller, less profitable companies. Mr Guedes? other plans include a radical simplification of Brazil?s tax system, one of the world?s most convoluted, and reforming the country?s costly pension system, which is threatening to overwhelm the budget. Some fear the irascible Mr Guedes is ill-suited to public life. On Sunday, pressed by an Argentine reporter about Brazil?s role in the regional trading bloc, Mercosur, he lost his temper: ?You see there?s a style that matches that of the president, because we speak the truth. We?re not worried about pleasing you.? He later apologised. But Rodrigo Constantino, an economist, who worked under him and considers him a mentor said it was ?inevitable there will be some kind of heavy friction? between the minister and his boss, Mr Bolsonaro. Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at FGV, said Mr Guedes would retain one ?powerful weapon? that he could use to impose his will: the right to resign. ?He knows that the minute he resigns, markets will tank big time,? he said. The hope will be that he fares better than Pinochet?s Chicago boys. While they shrank the fiscal deficit, liberalised trade and privatised state companies, they established a fixed exchange rate that went bust after the region?s debt crisis of 1982. A much-lauded reform to introduce a private pension system is also today facing problems, with retirees complaining that payments are too small. But Mr Guedes? supporters are optimistic. ?This is the right timing to do things,? said Mr Langoni. ?There is now a unique chance to implement this liberal shock because of the fiscal price of the public sector in Brazil.? As for Mr Guedes himself, he referred to the slogan emblazoned on Brazil's flag, Order and Progress. ?Order is meeting progress ? order is Bolsonaro, progress are the liberal ideas,? he said. ======================================== 21. ITALY: ROSSANA ROSSANDA: ?THE LEFT HAS LOST ITS ELECTORATE? written by Diego Bianchi ======================================== Il Manifesto October 30, 2018 Interview. ?The 5 Star Movement is nothing at all. The Italians want this kind of formless, generic thing, and they like to be told stories. With the Lega, they are seeking an evil form of identity. That?s what Salvini is about. Di Maio doesn?t stand for anything bad, he just doesn?t stand for anything.? On Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, on Propaganda Live, a program on the Italian network La7, Diego Bianchi broadcast his interview with Rossana Rossanda, a co-founder of il manifesto. The full-length show can be found here. Rossanda?s interview starts around the 1:55 mark. We publish the transcript below, with the generous permission of the author of the interview. In the Sunday edition of il manifesto, we published a second article by Rossanda, after her piece on abortion of a few days earlier. You?ve just returned from France, and you told me you didn?t think you?d find Italy in such a condition. What did you mean by that? I have been away from Italy for 15 years, and I thought I?d find a country in economic trouble, at a political low point?but not a country that has slipped to the point where it is now, with this constant fighting. No one seems acutely aware of the problem of explaining just how we got to this point, how it?s possible that today we hear things being said out loud that seemed to be unthinkable after the Second World War. The left, which has lost millions of votes, doesn?t seem to be asking itself about this?or, if it is, it?s not telling us. Before, it used to ponder such questions. Of course. Nowadays, I don?t know if the Democratic Party, or whatever it?s called nowadays, would be able to organize a Congress. Those beautiful Congresses we had once. They weren?t ?beautiful.? They were even a bit tedious. But they were addressing the problem of saying where we are, what is happening on a global scale and on the scale of Italy, and what we are proposing. These are basic things, because a political force has to ask itself about what kind of world it exists in, what kind of country it?s in, and what it would do if it were in government. Let?s make a little Congress here, just by ourselves. Have you found an answer, a reason for what is happening? On an international scale, for example, the far right is winning in Brazil. [Jair Bolsonaro was elected president on Sunday.] It?s happening everywhere. One hypothesis is that this is because of the disappointment that has come from the left, both in places where it got to govern and in places where it didn?t. There is disappointment now. The workers are no longer voting. They aren?t voting left anymore? They aren?t voting anymore. The left has lost its electorate. Are you optimistic about anything in the short term? No. The left of the Democratic Party has not actually proposed anything very different from what the right is doing, so why should it keep its electorate? Are you referring to something in particular? Immigration is a unique issue because it is a new phenomenon. Of course, it was unimaginable before that one could pass something like Salvini?s latest decree, and even have it signed by the President of the Republic. The same rights that we want for ourselves, we can?t grant them to migrants. It?s just unbearable, don?t you think? This is one of the reasons why the Democratic Party has been criticized from the left. But what left? The left is not being represented. Indeed, the largest party is the party of non-voters. Many on the left abstained from voting, as they didn?t find any political option that could persuade them. I think it?s a mistake to abstain. When you don?t have representation, you have to work to rebuild it. And what do you think? I am a leftist. I was expelled from the Communist Party because I was too far left. A mild-mannered person like me was considered an extremist. I think nowadays even Bergoglio would be less likely to excommunicate me. It was just today that Bergoglio started pontificating about abortion. It?s a delicate issue. Better him than the Verona cabal that voted against abortion. I?d like an Italian politician who said the same things as the Pope, for example on migrants. If Minniti were a bishop, Bergoglio would have had him caned. There is much talk about this right-wing government, about the return of fascism, of racism. I?m asking you, as you lived through fascism. I?m not going to say it?s like we?re back in the ?30s. I?m worried, although I don?t think the country would accept an explicit return to fascism. There are the seeds planted by half a century of democracy. But Salvini?s ridiculous ?Italians First? is something intolerable. Why ?Italians first?? What have they really done better than others? What does that have to do with the ideas that have made Italy what it is? The fact that the Italian left didn?t have the courage to vote for the ius soli is really unbearable. It?s not enough to be born here to be Italian? What would be enough then? I don?t want to go looking, I?m sure I?d find someone talking about Aryan and non-Aryan faces. I smell something rotten here?something very old. You were in charge of the Communist Party?s cultural politics. Who gave you this role? Togliatti. And what do you think, is there any cultural politics nowadays? I don?t think so. Culture means values, the things you fight for. Nowadays, the Democratic Party isn?t fighting anymore, not even for equality for migrants. I have not seen the PD in the lead, or even as an ally, on women?s issues. Law 194 was passed in the ?70s. Today, maybe they wouldn?t even vote for it. So, being a figure from the last century can become something of a boast? Yes, absolutely. I am from the 20th century, and I?ll defend it. It was the first century in which the people spoke out everywhere. And where they managed to do this, they did so with the support of the left. The question that many are asking themselves, including on the left, is how to communicate. Do you use social media? No. Zero. I have always been poor, but I wouldn?t help Zuckerberg make even 50 cents more. It?s largely because of him that we are in the current situation. But these communication tools exist now?even, and especially, in politics. I don?t know if this is real communication. Communicating means talking to someone you consider to have the same intrinsic dignity as you. How can one appeal to reason and not just to appetite? The left seems to be tone deaf when it comes to either. Is it not able to express itself, or does it not know what to say? It?s because it no longer believes. It?s not able to. If the left speaks the language of the right?or what passes for the right nowadays?it can?t get the votes of the workers. The left has to speak to the weakest part of Italy, which has the least powerful voice. On the other hand, voting for something like the Jobs Act weakens the workers? defenses even more. You can keep calling it a contract with increasing protections, but the truth is that it has hurt the working class. What do you think about the 5 Star Movement? The 5 Star Movement is nothing at all. The Italians want this kind of formless, generic thing, and they like to be told stories. With the Lega, they are seeking an evil form of identity. That?s what Salvini is about. Di Maio doesn?t stand for anything bad, he just doesn?t stand for anything. Thank you, comrade Rossanda. Dear comrade? of course, it?s difficult to use this word nowadays. They don?t understand the meaning we gave to it. It?s a beautiful word, and it describes a beautiful relationship between comrades. It?s something similar to being friends, but at the same time different. ?Friends? is something more intimate, while ?comrades? also includes the public and social projection of a relationship where you might not be friends, but you want to work together. And this is important, in my opinion. Diego Bianchi Originally published in Italian on October 28, 2018 _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== From aiindex at gmail.com Thu Nov 8 17:18:47 2018 From: aiindex at gmail.com (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2018 03:48:47 +0530 Subject: SACW - 9 Nov 2018 | Sri Lanka: Constitutional Crisis / Nepal: Labour / Bangladesh: Hefazat-e-Islam Fundos to honour Hasina / Pakistan: perils of appeasement / India: An Alliance With We The People / The Rising Sea Message-ID: <8781BA26-6694-44EE-9207-EF623552C737@gmail.com> South Asia Citizens Wire - 9 Nov 2018 - No. 3006 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996] Contents: 1. Afghanistan: UNAMA Report ?2018 Elections Violence? - Taliban campaign to disrupt polling 2. Bangladesh: 2016 attack on Santals a shame for nation, says Sultana Kamal 3. A Short Brief on the Present Constitutional Crisis in Sri Lanka by Lawyers for Democracy 4. Sri Lanka: Political Is Personal ? An Essay In Despair by Jayadeva Uyangoda 5. Recent on Communalism Watch: - India: City renaming madness continues - India: Christian event in Ahmedabad faces protest from Hindu outfits - Report in Indian express - India: BJP Minister in Rajasthan Booked for Seeking Votes in the Name of Religion - India: ?Act Against BJP President for Questioning Authority of Supreme Court? - Letter from Retired Civil Servants & Diplomats - India: The Birth of the Ram Mandir Agitation, a Ticking Communal Time Bomb | Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - Ram will not help BJP that has broken all promises - Press Release by Socialist Party of India (6 Nov 2018) - India: Hashimpura verdict highlights the bias within police against religious minorities | Vrinda Grover - India: Strike beef off Team India's menu: BCCI to Cricket Australia - India - Assam: Ethnic tensions following killings in Tinsukia - India: National meet of Hindu monks calls courts ?anti-temple? ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 6. From Bonded to Industrial Labour: Precarity, Maoism, and ethnicity in a modern industrial factory in western Nepal | Michael Peter Hoffmann 7. Sri Lanka: Has Sirisena?s Conspiracy Misfired? Kumar David 7.1 The West is upset about Sri Lanka?s sacked PM, but it?s not about democracy | Kalinga Seneviratne 8. Pakistan: The perils of appeasement | Zahid Hussain 9. Bangladesh: Hefazat-e-Islam Fundamentalists to honour PM for Dawra-e-Hadith recognition 10. Pakistan: The warning signs are here ? is anyone listening? | Raza Rumi 11. Captain Pakistan?s Wild Ride | Max Rodenbeck 12. India?s refusal to talk to Pakistan has much to do with BJP?s electoral narrative | Christophe Jaffrelot 13. An Alliance With We The People | Akeel Bilgrami 14. Our real ranking: Highest statue in the world ? and other sad tales of rising India | Kanti Bajpai 15. Failing to lead by example: on Kerala and the Sabarimala tension | Krishna Kumar 16. India: Political karma comes full circle for BJP as it returns to Hindutva | Bharat Bhushan 17. Black hole of silence on demonetization | C. Rammanohar Reddy 18. Mining in India?s Bundelkhand causes drought and destruction | Inder SIngh Bisht 19. ?Intellectuals, Philosophers, Women in India: Endangered Species? Women Philosophers' Journal, Issue N? 4-5 20. Bangalore | Jasmina Tesanovic (8 Nov 2018) 21. The Rising Sea | Brian Stone ======================================== 1. AFGHANISTAN: UNAMA REPORT ?2018 ELECTIONS VIOLENCE? - TALIBAN CAMPAIGN TO DISRUPT POLLING ======================================== Afghanistan?s long-awaited parliamentary elections took place on 20, 21 and 27 October 2018. The Government made efforts to secure polling centers enabling more than four million Afghans to safely cast votes. Many citizens, however, exercised their right to votein the face of violence, with the first day of polling seeing the highest number of civilian casualties recorded on any election day since UNAMA began systematic documentation of civilian casualties in 2009. Additionally, those who made efforts to vote did so in defiance of an orchestrated campaign of abductions, threats, intimidation and harassment of voters and election workers carried out by the Taliban in the weeks and months leading up to the elections. http://www.sacw.net/article13989.html ======================================== 2. BANGLADESH: 2016 ATTACK ON SANTALS A SHAME FOR NATION, SAYS SULTANA KAMAL ======================================== Earlier, hundreds of Santals carrying red flags, placards, banners and festoons brought out a procession demanding justice for the attack and return of their forefathers? lands at Sahebganj sugarcane farm belonging to Rangpur Sugar Mills in Gaibandha. http://www.sacw.net/article13988.html ======================================== 3. A SHORT BRIEF ON THE PRESENT CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS IN SRI LANKA WHETHER THE SPEAKER CAN CONVENE PARLIAMENT BY LAWYERS FOR DEMOCRACY ======================================== Since the commencement of the constitutional crisis on 26th October 2018, the Speaker has made several public statements on the need to reconvene Parliament. His most recent statement issued on 5th November reiterates this position. This is not the first time a Speaker of Parliament has made such a decision. In 2003 the then-Speaker, Joseph Michael Perera, came to the same conclusion. We also have a rich history of decisions where the separation of powers is clearly established. In this short brief, Lawyers for Democracy, sets out why the reconvening of Parliament is in accordance with the spirit and the letter of our Constitution, and must be respected and upheld by all parties. http://www.sacw.net/article13987.html ======================================== 4. SRI LANKA: POLITICAL IS PERSONAL ? AN ESSAY IN DESPAIR by Jayadeva Uyangoda ======================================== October 26 was a Friday. Although I am not a superstitious person, I look back at that rainy, gloomy Friday as the day I felt personally betrayed too. I can no longer think of Mr. Maithripala Sirisena as a symbol of political hope for the citizens of this country, and particularly for the younger generation. His actions that Friday marked a shockingly tragic end to the political hope and promise he had epitomized since November 21, 2014. http://www.sacw.net/article13986.html ======================================== 5. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - India: City renaming madness continues - India: Christian event in Ahmedabad faces protest from Hindu outfits - Report in Indian express - India: Kinnar akhara from Ujjain that works with the transgender bats for Ram temple & Modi - UP Chief Minister Adityanath renames the city of Faizabad as Ayodhya - India: BJP Minister in Rajasthan Booked for Seeking Votes in the Name of Religion - India: ?Act Against BJP President for Questioning Authority of Supreme Court? - Letter from Retired Civil Servants & Diplomats - India: The Birth of the Ram Mandir Agitation, a Ticking Communal Time Bomb | Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - Ram will not help BJP that has broken all promises - Press Release by Socialist Party of India (6 Nov 2018) - India: Hashimpura custodial killings - Delhi High Court ruling of 31 oct 2018 - multiple commentaries - India: Hashimpura verdict highlights the bias within police against religious minorities | Vrinda Grover - India: Strike beef off Team India's menu: BCCI to Cricket Australia - India - Assam: Ethnic tensions following killings in Tinsukia - India: National meet of Hindu monks calls courts ?anti-temple? - India: Proposal by Ajaz Ashraf for Ayodhya title suit having 'only Hindu' judges on Supreme Court bench will set a dangerous precedent -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 6. FROM BONDED TO INDUSTRIAL LABOUR: PRECARITY, MAOISM, AND ETHNICITY IN A MODERN INDUSTRIAL FACTORY IN WESTERN NEPAL by Michael Peter Hoffmann ======================================== Modern Asian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 6 November 2018 , pp. 1917-1937 Abstract This article focuses on how people who formerly worked as bonded labourers adapt to the new realities of an insecure capitalist labour market. It examines how the past shapes the uncertain labour situation of the present, including resistance. The article reflects on the current experiences of precarious labour at industrial sites in western Nepal. It describes how former bonded labourers and their descendants have begun working as contract workers in a modern industrial food-processing factory, with the help of contractors related to them by kin. The article further shows that one of the defining features of their new life as contract labourers is its chronic precariousness. Undisguised forms of confrontation, such as open disregard for management instructions, are also part of their new reality in the labour market. Contract labourers are often strongly assertive in the face of managerial authority, and this assertiveness has been shaped largely by either past experiences or memories of bonded labour. The article contributes to debates about bonded labour and its transformations in South Asia. It also offers a reflection on the limited impact of the Nepali Maoist Revolution on precarious labour and on the ethnic dimensions of this segment of Nepali society. Finally, it contributes to discussions about industrialization and Adivasi communities in South Asia and beyond. https://is.gd/QFYfAo ======================================== 7. SRI LANKA: HAS SIRISENA?S CONSPIRACY MISFIRED? by Kumar David ======================================== Colombo Telegraph November 6, 2018 What motivates this short note is the Colombo Telegraph report yesterday that Sirisena has activated ?Plan B?. That is his meeting with Rajiva Senaratne and John Amatratunga proposing a UNP-SLFP (what about the SLPP?) so-called national government, excluding Ranil Wickremesinghe but including as many UNP traitors as Rajitha and John could drag in. Without Mahinda Rajapaksa where is the money going to come from to buy over a large number of parliamentarians? Who will come only for a cabinet job in the dying days of parliament and face ruthless public opprobrium? Big money has been paid to ALL who crossed-over early, don?t think Amunugama and Fowzie because they come from the monied class are above suspicion. The richer the greedier they say? Is it not likely that Sirisena is probing Plan-B because Plan-A is not going well? No one can predict for sure whether Mahinda Rajapaksa can get 113 votes. The hatred and contempt in which his bribe-taking Cabinet, if it survives a vote of confidence, will be held by the public is gigantic. The filthiest gutter cases like TNA cross-overs will be lynched when the full swell of public anger explodes. Worst of all this exercise will ruin Mahinda Rajapaksa?s chances at the next elections. It seemed that he was gaining ground after the 10 February victory; now that is in tatters. I am optimistic that this conspiracy cum political coup will end in a setback for predator-MR and guttersnipe-Sirisena. And I mean this this will be the case in a matter of months even if MR gets 113 bandits to vote for him, What about Rajitha and John? Did they consult their party, go with a mandate to meet Sirisena and find out what the guttersnipe was up to, and come back and report to their party? In that case it?s a UNP information seeking tactical move. That?s ok. Or have they followed Sirisena?s example and sunk into the moral gutter typical of recent Sri Lankan politics? o o o 7.1 South China Morning Post 6 November, 2018 THE WEST IS UPSET ABOUT SRI LANKA?S SACKED PM, BUT IT?S NOT ABOUT DEMOCRACY by Kalinga Seneviratne On the night of October 26, most Sri Lankans were taken by surprise when President Maithripala Sirisena named his former leader and later political foe Mahinda Rajapakse as Prime Minister. Within minutes, celebratory firecrackers were lit across the country, as Rajapakse is still widely popular, especially among the Sinhalese majority, for having brought peace to a nation rocked by a 30-year civil war. China at a Glance Get updates direct to your inbox E-mail * By registering you agree to our T&Cs & Privacy Policy But the news flashed across the world by the Western-dominated international media was different. They depicted the President?s move as dipping Sri Lanka into a new era of ?dictatorship? and possible violence, going back to the old narrative of Rajapakse as a ?ruthless? human rights violator and war criminal. They went to the sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, still holed up in his official residence refusing to quit, and his supporters including Western-funded NGOs, for quotes that fit their narrative. Wickremesinghe, who comes from an Anglicised, urban background, is widely unpopular with the predominantly Sinhala Buddhist majority because he is seen as unable to connect with them and too aligned with Western, Christian interests. He is more comfortable speaking in English than in the native Sinhala language. President Sirisena, who is the son of a rural Sinhalese Buddhist rice farmer, is poles apart culturally, and when both of them came together to defeat Rajapakse in 2015, many people wondered how long the alliance could last. Thousands of Sri Lankans take to streets in support of new government led by former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa Their differences have now come to the surface, and were reflected in Sirisena?s address to the nation on October 30, in which he explained Wickremesinghe?s sacking through a devastating put-down of his character. Sirisena pointed out the sacked prime minister?s inability to connect with the common people, Wickremesinghe?s disrespect for those outside a small circle of Colombo-based elites, his disregard for the country?s sovereignty and his tendency to favour foreign business over locals. It was only towards the end of Sirisena?s speech that he referred to an assassination plot against him, which he said Wickremesinghe did not take seriously. The international media largely latched on to this comment, making the president look childish for sacking the prime minister on these seemingly flimsy grounds. [Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena makes a televised statement from his official residence in Colombo. Photo: AFP] Sirisena was the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which was led by Rajapakse during his tenure as President from 2005 to 2015. He defected in November 2014 and became the opposition candidate to challenge Rajapakse ? a decision that shocked the nation. Along with a slogan of yahapalanaya, or ?good governance?, coined by Western agencies and delivered via NGOs funded by them in Sri Lanka, it connected with the masses, who resented the corrupt practices of Rajapakse cronies, including his family members. Thus, riding on this popular anti-corruption wave, he won the presidency narrowly in January 2015. A day after being sworn in as President, Sirisena appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister, citing a campaign promise, even though Wickremesinghe?s United National Party (UNP) only had 46 MPs in the 225-member parliament. After the appointment, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe alliance forced the existing prime minister D.M. Jayaratne to submit a backdated resignation letter to avoid any constitutional hassles. US and Japan freeze billions in development aid to Sri Lanka after Wickremesinghe ousted as prime minister Today, when Wickremesinghe loyalists accuse Sririsena of breaching the constitution, Rajapakse supporters point out the ?unconstitutionality? of the Wickremesinghe appointment in 2015. They argue that since Sirisena?s SLFP withdrew from the ?National Government? formed in 2015 a day before he appointed Rajapakse as prime minister, the existing cabinet and prime minister ceased to exist, and thus the president was within constitutional norms in his appointment of Rajapakse. This could be why Wickremesinghe has not gone to the Supreme Court to challenge it, and instead has tried to mobilise his Western allies to bail him out. Immediately following the events of October 26, the ambassadors of the United States, Britain, the European Union, Canada, Japan and Australia met Wickremesinghe at his ?official? residence, which the new government says he is illegally occupying. After this, their governments issued statements calling for the ?restoration? of democracy and recalling of parliament (which the president has prolonged until 16 November). They have also had meetings with opposition leaders and foreign-funded NGOs. [Sri Lanka?s ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Photo: AFP] On October 30, President Sirisena summoned all foreign envoys for a meeting to brief them about his actions. During the meeting, EU Ambassador Tung-Lai Margue warned that if democratic norms and constitutional provisions were not observed in handling the ongoing political crisis in Sri Lanka, the EU might consider withdrawing the trade concessions the island nation enjoyed under the General System of Preferences Plus. On Sunday, it was reported that the US and Japan are withholding some US$1 billion of promised ?aid? to Sri Lanka. On the perceived unpopularity or unacceptability of his act of removing Wickremesinghe in the way he did, Sirisena reportedly told the Western envoys it was best to leave the governance of Sri Lanka to Sri Lankans, and that the government and the people of Sri Lanka knew best what was good for them. At a time when the US and EU are complaining about Russian interference in their domestic politics, the western envoys? behaviour in Sri Lanka is a clear violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations adopted in 1961. Sri Lanka: supporters occupy banquet hall of sacked PM?s residence ?Temple Trees? as power struggle deepens ?We are facing blatant external interference in a domestic political process ? A climate of insecurity is being created artificially by the defeated allies of the West whose objective may be to provoke a violent situation that will provide justification for external intervention,? warned Tamara Kunanayakam, former Sri Lankan ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva in a commentary published by local media. In October 2015, the Sri Lankan government co-sponsored UNHRC resolution 30/1 ?Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka?, an action taken by then-Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, which Sirisena claims was not approved by him. This invited direct interference by the UNHRC in the country?s domestic affairs, even to the extent of trying to establish war crimes tribunals with foreign judges. The people of Sri Lanka are vehemently opposed to this, except for a few urban elites and NGOs around Wickremesinghe. [Wickremesinghe supporters taking part in a rally near the Prime Ministerial residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo: EPA] Under Wickremesinghe, western aid agencies, think tanks and corporations shaped, drafted and helped to implement policies, opening ?new frontiers? for US hegemony. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which claims to be independent, is a US government body chaired by the US Secretary of State, has a project unit physically located inside the Prime Minister?s office and was involved in drafting Wickremesinghe?s eight-year economic development plan, ?Vision 2025?, that was believed to be planning to recommend constitutional changes to make it easier for foreigners to buy land in the country. Wickremesinghe on Sunday told Reuters the MCC was withholding US$480 million worth of aid for a ?motorways project and improving land administration?. While the US and its allies have widely criticised the allocation of about 100 hectares around the Hambantota harbour to a Chinese government-linked company on a 99-year lease as infringing on Sri Lanka?s sovereignty, the Vision 2025 plan is suspected to include provisions to declare government land across the country as economic assets that could be acquired by foreign investors. ?I?m not leaving?: Sri Lanka?s ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe digs in at Temple Trees as political crisis deepens When parliament resumes later this month, Rajapakse is expected to present an interim budget in place of the budget that was due to be presented in parliament last Friday. He had previously said he would prepare an economic plan to encourage domestic production and agricultural sector activities, and hinted that the outgoing government?s outward-looking policies favouring foreign investors would be curtailed. If he loses the vote on the budget, it will allow Sirisena to dissolve parliament immediately and call for a snap general election, which Rajapakse loyalists want and the UNP, Wickremesinghe?s party does not. There are also many UNP members who have not yet completed five years in parliament, upon which they will receive a government pension. If a new election is held many of them are likely to lose; they could abstain from voting, giving Rajapakse victory. Winning the budget vote will legitimise his appointment as prime minister, and Wickremesinghe?s allies will find it difficult to move a no-confidence motion. However, with a lot at stake for US, India and China in the geopolitical battle in Sri Lanka, things can also take a nasty turn outside the confines of parliament. Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lankan-born journalist, media analyst and international communications expert based in Singapore ======================================== 8. PAKISTAN: THE PERILS OF APPEASEMENT Zahid Hussain ======================================== Dawn November 07, 2018 ONE thought the moment had arrived. The judges had broken the ring of fear. The prime minister?s tough words reassured the nation. The civil-military leadership were said to be on the ?same page?. Yet, when crunch time came, the government capitulated. Surely, it was not the first time the state had been brought to its knees by rampaging zealots, but the terms of submission had never been so humiliating. And the ordeal of Aasia Bibi, despite her acquittal by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, is far from over. It is not just about the content of the agreement; in fact, what matters more is the government yielding to radical clerics who openly called for the killing of the judges and incited mutiny against the army chief. Their call for the overthrow of the civilian and military leadership can be seen as sedition. While the government claims that the accord has helped restore peace, its politics of appeasement has eroded the authority of the state and further empowered the religious right. One cannot agree more with Shireen Mazari, the federal minister for human rights, that appeasement to ?avoid bloodshed? sends a dangerous message to non-state actors, and undermines the very concept of democratic peaceful protest. She is among the few saner voices in the ruling party that is torn by its own contradictions. The division within became more pronounced during the handling of last week?s crisis. Surely, the policy of appeasement does not seem to be working as the situation remains volatile with the TLP not backing down. The crackdown on rioters in the aftermath is not going to contain Khadim Rizvi and his followers who appear emboldened after the agreement that promises to bar Aasia from leaving the country. It is tantamount to signing her death warrant. Even more alarming is that the issue has become a battle cry for all religious groups including the mainstream Islamic parties who are threatening to come out on the streets. The blasphemy law comes in handy to whip up public sentiments for Islamic parties of all hues, who had been swept aside in the elections. It is no more an issue restricted to hard-line Barelvi groups such as the TLP. The Aasia Bibi court judgement seems to have brought together squabbling sectarian groups, making it more difficult for the government to deal with the impending challenge. Despite the warning, the administration had not taken any preventive measures to stop the violence. What happened last week did not come as a surprise. The religious groups with the TLP in the lead had turned the case into a highly emotive issue. The matter was highlighted with the murder of Salmaan Taseer, the Punjab governor, by his security guard for defending the poor Christian woman. The execution of his assassin Mumtaz Qadri also led to the rise of Barelvi militancy that is represented by the TLP. The movement is built entirely around the blasphemy question. Its followers not only come from the Barelvi madressahs spread across the country but also draw support among the less-educated, poorer sections of the urban and rural population mainly in Punjab. Notwithstanding the rise of religious extremism in the country, this new phenomenon is more dangerous as it evokes wider emotional appeal among the populace. The filthy language used by these clerics and the open incitement to violence has made the lives of not only members of minority religious communities but also moderate Muslims more vulnerable to mob violence. Their siege of Islamabad last year contributed to the spectacular rise of the group. The capitulation by the state gave the group the boost it needed before elections. The widespread perception that the security agencies were behind the sit-in in the capital may have also been a factor in its meteoric rise on the political scene. Although the TLP may not have won a single National Assembly seat, it did have a significant impact on the elections securing more than two million votes across the country. This newfound sense of power was manifested in the recent protests that almost brought the country to a halt and forced the government to sign a controversial, five-point agreement, the legality of which is questionable. Ceding to the demands of a group that refuses to accept the Supreme Court order will further weaken the authority of the government and state. It was evident that despite the warning, the administration had not taken any preventive measures to stop the violence. There was no clear plan or strategy to deal with the situation. One of the reasons for this paralysis is the PTI?s own soft position on religious extremism. It was the only political party that justified the TLP?s Islamabad siege and supported the demand for the law minister to step down. Some senior PTI leaders have also attended rallies of extremist sectarian groups and played the religious card in the elections. How can one forget the spectacle of the Punjab provincial information minister visiting the grave of Mumtaz Qadri and paying homage to a convicted murderer? So it was not just a question of the government?s capacity, but also the PTI?s own hidebound views that have been responsible. It was certainly not a spontaneous movement that had paralysed the country. The TLP was well prepared for protests after the Supreme Court reserved its judgement in the case in early October. The violence spread like a prairie fire, taking law-enforcement agencies by surprise. The statement by the ISPR chief at the peak of the violence giving the impression that the military would not intervene added to the confusion. The statement was more surprising as the TLP leaders were inciting mutiny within army ranks. Indeed, it is primarily the responsibility of the government to protect the rights of the people and uphold the rule of law. But the issue of violent extremism must also be the concern of the state as a whole, as well as other stakeholders in the democratic set-up. The writer is an author and journalist. ======================================== 9. BANGLADESH: PM HASINA, ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY, 560 MODEL MOSQUES / HEFAZAT-E-ISLAM FUNDAMENTALISTS TO HONOUR PM ======================================== Dhaka Tribune PM HASINA: ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY, 560 MODEL MOSQUES TO BE BUILT Ashif Islam Shaon Published at 02:19 pm November 4th, 2018 qawmi rally Thousands of students and teachers of Qawmi madrasas gather at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka to attend a rally titled "Shokrana Mahfil"on SundayMehedi Hasan/ Dhaka Tribune She was accorded a reception for recognizing the top Qawmi degree Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the government will construct 560 model mosques and an Islamic university. ?The Saudi government will assist us in these projects,? she said in her speech as the chief guest at a rally, titled ?Shokrana Mahfil,? at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka on Sunday. Al-Hiyatul Ulya Lil-Zami'atil Qawmiya Bangladesh, the highest organization of Dawra-e-Hadith of Qawmi madrasa, organized the rally to receive the prime minister following the government?s recognition of the Dawra-e-Hadith (Takmil) degree of the Qawmi madrasa system. The organization?s chairman, Hefazat-e-Islam Ameer Shah Ahmad Shafi, chaired the event. Thousands of students and teachers of Qawmi madrasas started gathering at the venue, from across the country, since morning. Thousands of students and teachers of Qawmi madrasas gather at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka to attend a rally titled "Shokrana Mahfil"on Sunday Mehedi Hasan/ Dhaka Tribune The government postponed Sunday's Junior School Certificate and Junior Dakhil Certificate examinations to November 9 for the event. At the rally, Qawmi leaders expressed their desire to see the prime minister in power for a third consecutive term. ?Since Sheikh Hasina has recognized [ the top Qawmi madrasa degree] we want her to come to power again, so that she can fulfill the rest of our demands,? Qawmi leader Fazlul Karim said. The speakers said there is a change in Bangladesh now, and Qawmi leaders were not able to receive a prime minister before, with such warmth, because none had listened to their demands. On September 18, parliament passed a bill to recognize the Dawra-e-Hadith (Takmil) degree as equivalent to a post-graduate degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic. o o Dhaka Tribune HEFAZAT CHIEF TO HONOUR PM FOR DAWRA-E-HADITH RECOGNITION Tribune Desk October 1st, 2018 WEB_PM Sheikh Hasina_Hefazat chief Ahmad Shafi_2017_Edited_Courtesy_01.10.2018 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, during a meeting with Bangladesh Qawmi Madrasa Education Board and Hefazat-e-Islam on April 11, 2017, announced that Qawmi madrasa's Dawra-e-Hadith would be recognized as a post-graduate degree Courtesy A 15-member committee has been formed to host the reception in Dhaka this month Hefazat-e-Islam Ameer Shah Ahmad Shafi will hold a reception for the Prime Minister since a bill to recognize Dawra-e-Hadith (Takmil) degree of Qawmi madrasa was passed in parliament. This reception will be given on the initiative of Al-Haiatul Ulya Lil-Jamiatil Qawmia Bangladesh, the highest organization of Dawra-e-Hadith of Qawmi madrasa. The decision was taken at a meeting on Monday at Al-Haiatul Ulya Lil-Jamiatil Qawmia Bangladesh in Hathazari in Chittagong with Hefazat chief Shafi in chair. Also Read- Madrasa teachers to be barred from politics A 15-member committee has been formed to host the reception in Dhaka this month at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center. Shah Ahmad Shafi will preside over the reception, the date of which is yet to be set. The meeting was also attended by Ashraf Ali, Anwar Shah, Mahmudul Hasan, Abdul Halim, Abdul Halim Bukhari, Mufti Muhammad Waqqas, Mufti Faizullah, Maulana Muslehuddin Raju, Maulana Anas Madani, Maulana Abdul Kuddus and Maulana Mahfuzul Haq. On September 18, parliament passed a bill to recognize the Dawra-e-Hadith (Takmil) degree with the status of post-graduate degrees of Islamic Studies and Arabic. ======================================== 10. PAKISTAN: THE WARNING SIGNS ARE HERE ? IS ANYONE LISTENING? If the political elites occupying Parliament, the Army and the judiciary are serious ? they will have to unite in setting a new direction for the country Raza Rumi ======================================== The Daily Times November 4, 2018 Asia Bibi, a poor Christian farm worker, wrongfully accused of blasphemy was acquitted by the Supreme Court (SC) after nearly a decade. This was a rare occasion whereby the highest court in Pakistan overturned a blasphemy conviction and delivered a clear verdict. The hope was that this verdict would become the basis for a robust national debate aimed at reviewing the man-made laws that have been flagrantly abused over the years. Not unexpectedly, Asia Bibi?s acquittal prompted a severe backlash with all shades of Islamists joining hands, baying for blood and pressurising the state to retreat. Within days of the landmark judgment, the euphoria has evaporated and the state has once again surrendered to the demands of the extremists. Immediately after the SC announced its historic verdict, the Barelvi clerics comprising Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) started to mobilise their supporters on the streets. The protests were violent in nature and attacked the Army chief while asking other generals to step in. Worse, the judges were threatened and one of the leading clerics asked the domestic staff working with the judges to kill them! Of course, Imran Khan was also called a Jewish agent and there was a demand for the removal of his government. As protests and verbal assaults grew in intensity, the Prime Minister appeared on national television and reassured most Pakistanis that he meant business when it came to protecting the writ of the state and upholding the rule of law. Shortly thereafter the PM left for China and it is unclear who in his absence was holding the fort. Another day of protests, road blockades, violence ended with an agreement with the TLP assuring the protestors that a review petition would not be opposed and that legal action would be initiated to place Asia Bibi?s name on the Exit Control List (ECL). The latter point of agreement was not just bizarre but blatantly illegal. For how can citizens be barred from leaving the country when there is no case against them? In fact, by placating extremist passions, the state of Pakistan has even overlooked the grave threat that the [majoritarian] sectarian mobilisation now poses. In other words, a non-Muslim Pakistani even when acquitted by the highest court must face the mobs. The rise of TLP is also an assertion of the Barelvi re-entry into politics. Since the 1980s, the Barelvi political power had been subsumed under the growth of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in urban Sindh. Both were the favoured political entities of the establishment until the 1990s when cracks appeared in the political alliances. During the past two decades, these compacts have virtually broken. The third ouster of Nawaz Sharif (and splintering of MQM) in 2017 formalised this separation. TLP was actively encouraged and launched as an instrument to undermine the PMLN in the Punjab and it succeeded in delivering this short-term objective. The cost of nurturing religious extremists is way too high. The 2017 experiment has evidently backfired; even sooner than expected by Pakistani standards. TLP?s instrumentalisation as a political proxy is a reality. But this is not to overlook its genuine support base as was witnessed during the past few days First, it brought the PMLN government to a standstill in November 2017; and prevailed in inserting the Khatam-e-Nabuwwat issue in the election campaign. Because the PMLN government had hanged MumtazQadri, the murderer of the former Governor of the Punjab, it found itself on the back-foot. Some leaders within the now ruling PTI actively played the Khatam-e-Nabuwwat card in their voter mobilisation. Furthermore, when the July 2018 elections came around, the TLP managed to reduce the PMLN majority by 10-20 seats; participating in the polls and securing two provincial seats. Moreover, it bagged more than 2.2 million votes to emerge as the third largest electoral force in the Punjab. Even bigger than the mainstream PPP; which was once a popular in the province. But Pakistan?s history is replete with examples whereby using religion for political gain backfires time and again. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto used the Islam card during his turbulent tenure during the 1970s. Parliament responded by declaring the Ahmadi sect non-Muslim; and later the Islamisation drive by Bhutto provided the necessary groundwork for Gen Zia?s to intensify this over the next decade. Bhutto was ousted and hanged with the full right-wing support. Nawaz Sharif continued the trend and during his tenure the blasphemy laws were amended by the Parliament; when death penalty was introduced as a new punitive measure. It is ironic that two decades later he was also accused of blasphemy and fatwas were issued against him. But the use of religion has not been limited to the domestic political project. In fact, it has been most pronounced when it comes to foreign policy. After the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution, the Pakistani state patronised non-state actors who employed the jihad narratives; serving ?national? interests as well as those of allies Saudi Arabia and the US, among others. The Mujahedeen in Afghanistan transformed into the Taliban in the 1990s while various splinters of anti-Shia groups kept the Iranian influence under check. Some of these Mujahedeen also became useful vis-?-vis the Kashmir conflict with India. The cost of such instruments was borne by Pakistanis when these proxies became a liability during the post-9/11 war on terror which has resulted in at least 50,000 deaths in the past decade or so. The Taliban then splintered and started attacking the Pakistani state and civilians. And it is only in the last few years that such policies have been revised. The sectarian militias and Pakistani branch of Taliban, the TTP, have been dealt with through police and military action. During these decades, the reliance of the state was on the Deobandi sect to juggle Salafi doctrines of jihad with foreign policy goals. The Barelivs remained largely out of this equation until recently. In the domestic arena, the mainstream religious parties like Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) and Jamiat-e-Ulema-I-Islam-Fazal (JUIF) have also lost ground as their appeal finds little traction and their conventional supporters especially in KP province are switching to the PTI with its promise of clean government and economic progress. As the alliances with Deobandi groups are waning, the Barelvis have found it expedient to acquire more power. The TLP is a force to reckon with for it enjoys a much wider support base and the majority of Sunni Muslims in Pakistan adhere to the Barelvi subsect. And blasphemy is an emotive issue that also fits into the larger narrative of global Muslim injury by the West. If there is a singular lesson to be learned, it is this: the cost of nurturing religious extremists, be it at the hands of the political elites or the establishment, is way too high. The 2017 experiment has evidently backfired; even sooner than expected by Pakistani standards. The TLP?s second agitation and brazen threats to the state within one year attest to that. Its instrumentalisation as a political proxy is a reality. But this is not to overlook its genuine support base as was witnessed during the past few days. The ideological state since Gen Zia has filtered into laws, judicial verdicts, executive directives, textbooks, media narratives; and the notion that Pakistan?s destiny is to be an Islamic state has indoctrinated an entire generation. Imran Khan?s reference and goal to create the state of Medina also fits into this populist framework. Aasia Bibi?s acquittal is therefore a watershed moment. If the political elites occupying Parliament, the Army and the judiciary are serious ? they will have to unite in setting a new direction for the country. Otherwise, the scenes of violence and mayhem and threats to state institutions represent clear warning signs for the future. The writer is editor, Daily Times ======================================== 11. CAPTAIN PAKISTAN?S WILD RIDE Max Rodenbeck ======================================== The New York Review of Books November 22, 2018 Issue Reham Khan by Reham Khan Lancashire: SK, 534 pp., ?17.99 (paper) Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State by Husain Haqqani HarperCollins India, 336 pp., $34.99 When he was young and dreaming of a career in cricket, long before he dreamed of being prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan was told to trim his ambitions. He wanted not just to play the sport professionally; he wanted to be a fast bowler, a niche talent in what Americans call pitching that consists of mastering the essential skill and craftiness of spinning, curving, and plotting the bounce of the ball, and then combining all this with the most intimidating possible speed. Khan says he was told by coaches and peers that he simply had the wrong physique to be a fast bowler. But rather than accept the verdict, he set out to change his own shape. It took years of effort to develop the powerful shoulders and limber throwing arm needed to terrorize a stationary batsman, and to perfect the bounding, windmilling approach followed by a precision launch of the ball at up to ninety miles per hour. In the end, Khan rose to the pinnacle of cricket in Pakistan, where the sport comes a close second to religion in the passion it inspires. As a two-time captain of the country?s team in the 1980s and 1990s, he carried Pakistan to its greatest glory since the country?s independence in 1947: the capture of the Cricket World Cup in 1992. He also had the crowning good sense to retire from the game after that peak. On August 18, following a national election in July in which his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, or Justice Party), won the largest number of seats, Khan was inaugurated as Pakistan?s prime minister. It might be said, however, that as a politician Khan has battled a handicap similar to the one he overcame in cricket: he is in many ways the ?wrong shape? to lead a strategically important but poor, religiously conservative, and chronically troubled nation of 201 million that has slowly drifted toward the bottom rankings of human development indexes. [ . . . ] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/22/captain-pakistans-wild-ride/ ======================================== 12. ELECTIONS AND BORDERS: INDIA?S REFUSAL TO TALK TO PAKISTAN HAS MUCH TO DO WITH BJP?S ELECTORAL NARRATIVE. by Christophe Jaffrelot ======================================== The Indian Express November 8, 2018 Sometimes what has not happened needs to be explained as much as what has happened. External Affair Ministers of India and Pakistan, Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mehmood Qureshi, did not meet on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. Why? In his victory speech in July, Imran Khan had said that Pakistan would respond by taking two steps for any step taken by India for normalisation of relations. In his congratulatory message to Khan on his swearing in in August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had responded constructively and called for dialogue. Imran Khan had then sought a meeting between the two ministers of foreign affairs in New York. India had agreed ? the meeting was supposed to take place on September 26 ? but called it off less than 24 hours later for two reasons: The ?brutal killings? of Indian security personnel at the hands of ?Pakistan-based entities? and the release of 20 postage stamps ?glorifying a terrorist?, Burhan Wani. These two incidents happened before the Ministry of External Affairs had confirmed the talks. Some analysts have pointed out that only after confirming the talks did New Delhi realise that three days after the meeting, it would celebrate the second anniversary of the ?surgical strike?. Contradictory signals would be sent if peace talks were followed, that closely, by a grand commemoration of a transborder attack against Pakistan. This explanation is convincing but needs to be seen in a larger perspective. The BJP is in an election mode and that makes it more difficult for the government to talk to Pakistan. After all, this country has figured prominently in all the recent election campaigns of the party ? those by Modi in particular. As the chief minister of Gujarat, Modi had constantly spoken about the Pakistani threat and projected himself as a strong leader vis-?-vis Pakistan and its jihadists. During the 2012 Gujarat election campaign, he arraigned then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for being weak vis-?-vis Pakistan. In a letter to Singh that was released to the public even before it reached the PMO, the then Gujarat CM warned that ?any attempt to hand over Sir Creek to Pakistan would be a strategic blunder?. Singh responded that that was not his intention. This tactic gained momentum during the 2014 election campaign. In March that year, Modi tweeted, ?3 AKs are very popular in Pakistan: AK 47, A K Antony & AK-49?. While Antony was the then UPA government?s defence minister, Modi dubbed Kejriwal ?AK 49? in obvious reference to his first term of 49 days as Delhi?s chief minister. In a meeting in Hiranagar in Jammu and Kashmir, he said that the three AKs were helping Pakistan in different ways. In Kejriwal?s case, this accusation stemmed from the fact that ?his website shows Kashmir as part of Pakistan?. Antony was seen as too weak vis-?-vis Pakistan. One month later, a former BJP minister of the Bihar government and a future Union minister, Giriraj Singh, declared at an election meeting in Mohanpur in Jharkhand: ?Those opposing Narendra Modi are looking at Pakistan, and such people will have a place in Pakistan and not in India.? Modi himself never indulged in such rhetoric, but constantly referred to Pakistan during subsequent election campaigns. The 2017 Gujarat assembly election is a case in point. During the campaign, he declared: ?There was a meeting of the High Commissioner of Pakistan, the former foreign minister of Pakistan, the former vice president of India and the former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh at Mani Shankar Aiyar?s house (?) My brothers and sisters, this is a grave matter. Pakistan is a sensitive issue; what was the reason behind this secret meeting with that high commissioner, especially when elections are taking place in Gujarat?? To suggest that Congressmen were conspiring with Pakistanis over a dinner (that, incidentally, held no secrets) was part of an electoral tactic, but it also aimed at creating a politics of fear. Such politics were fostered by alleged recurring jihadi attempts to assassinate Modi, that were exposed by the Gujarat police in the early years of his tenure as CM. While the sense of vulnerability vis-?-vis the Pakistani threat is particularly acute in the border state of Gujarat, BJP leaders have referred to Pakistan during other state elections. During the 2015 Bihar election campaign, for example, Amit Shah said: ?If the Bharatiya Janata Party is defeated in the Bihar assembly polls and does not form a government, firecrackers will be burst in Pakistan.? During the 2017 assembly election in UP in 2017, a BJP leader told journalist Prashant Jha (How the BJP Wins): ?We want anti-Muslim polarisation. Why pretend otherwise?? Another BJP member explained his party?s success in UP to the same journalist in simple terms: ?It was an India-Pakistan election.? The way one relates to Pakistan can be used as an acid test, not only to polarise society along religious lines but also to differentiate the patriots from the traitors. The February 2016 JNU event that resulted in the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar and others is a good illustration of this process. They were arrested because of the alleged anti-national slogans they had raised ? these were publicised via video broadcast. Journalist Vishwa Deepak gave a revealing testimony after resigning his job at Zee TV: ?The video, that never had a slogan of ?Pakistan Zindabad?, we ran again and again to stoke passions. How could we convince ourselves so easily that the voices in the darkness belonged to Kanhaiya or his friends? Blinded by prejudice we heard ?Bharatiya court zindabad? as ?Pakistan zindabad?.? Deepak does not attribute the words, ?Pakistan Zindabad? to any doctored tape, here, but to his own confusion, the confusion that had been created by propaganda. Pakistan has become part of India?s election campaign for good reasons. Election campaigns are the right time for debating issues such as national security. And there is evidence of the fact that the ISI did orchestrate the Mumbai attack in 2008 and engineered infiltrations of jihadists though the Line of Control. Other terrorist attacks, including the one in Pathankot, have also been convincingly attributed to the Pakistani security establishment. But peace talks are made even more difficult when the party in office tries to mobilise voters by highlighting its military achievements against its neighbour. For instance, in an Aap ki Adalat show in September on India TV, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was asked: ?During the election campaign, you people had said that if they cut two heads, we will cut 10 heads. But 10 heads are not really being cut.? The minister responded: ?We are also cutting heads, but not displaying them.? Another election campaign has started. Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King?s India Institute, London ======================================== 13. AN ALLIANCE WITH WE THE PEOPLE | Akeel Bilgrami ======================================== Outlook Magazine 01 November 2018 Coalition-making and opposition to authoritarian politics must have not just form but content?and that content must come from the street, the farm... The state in polities broadly described as ?liberal democracies? with political economies broadly described as ?capitalist? are characterised by a feature that Gramsci called ?hegemony?. This is a technical term, not to be confused with the loose use of that term to connote ?power and domination over another?. In Gramsci?s special sense, hegemony means that a class gets to be the ruling class by convincing all other classes that its interests are the interests of all other classes. It is because of this feature that such states avoid being authoritarian. Authoritarian states need to be authoritarian precisely because they lack Gramscian hegemony. It would follow from this that if a state that does possess hegemony in this sense is authoritarian, there is something compulsive about its authoritarianism. Now, what is interesting is that the present government in India keeps boastfully proclaiming that it possesses hegemony in this sense, that it has all the classes convinced that its policies are to their benefit. If so, one can only conclude that its widely rec?orded authoritarianism, therefore, is pathological. There have been spectacular cases of this authoritarianism such as the recent arrest of five journalists and professors on charges that are virtually nonsensical. The liberal middle class has expressed some anger about these and, given how authoritarian the government has become, that took some courage. But Muslims and Dalits and, quite generally, the unprotected poor suffer from brutality and arbitrary arrest each day and this goes unreported even in the regional media. It is so pervasive that it is not news and it invokes nothing but indifference from the liberal middle class. Quite apart from this compulsive tic of authoritarianism (compulsive, as I said, ?because it exists in spite of the more or less plausible claim to hegemony), a good question to ask is what underlies the hegemony itself? Before the 2004 election, there was a similar claim to hegemony by the then BJP government. All was said to be luminous, all classes were told to bask in the Indian sunshine and vote the government in again. The electorate refused. No doubt this was partly because of the unexpectedly impressive campaign carried out by Sonia Gandhi?s leadership. But, more relevant to the question of hegemony is the fact that India was saved by its illiteracy. The propaganda of ?India Shining? by an uncritical press reached mostly the literate middle class. The illiterate among the electorate got a far better political education from their own experience of life and politics. They voted the government out. What, then, was different in 2014? Well, for one thing there is no denying that apart from the period of the Emergency, the incumbency of UPA-II was about as bad a period of governance as has been known in independent India. But y?s failures cannot explain x?s hegemony, which can only be explained by x?s success in convincing others that the interests of those it represents are the interests of all. And this was achieved not merely by the media (as cheerleading as before and possibly with wider influence now as a result of an increase in its reach) but, as is well known, by a swaggering leader?s charisma. As is also well-known, the substance of what he said and what his party stood for is to be found in two elementary propositions: open India to globalised finance even more than the past quarter century so as to create jobs and opportunities; and India is a Hindu country, with others to be tolerated on a strict understanding that that is so. Where the latter could not possibly be the basis of hegemony, the former was intended to pick up the slack. There was nothing new about the first of these substantial promises. Manmohan Singh and his economic advisors had pursued just that strategy for ?development? and its outcome had been foretold by every honest economist (which is not to say that there were not many more, as always with that discipline, dishonest ones): an intensification of the impoverishment and insecurity of the poor and working people of the country, and a continuing criminal transfer of the nation?s wealth to the ultra-rich corporate elites. Yet all classes came to believe in its efficacy even so, and this was the real achievement of the demagoguery of a charismatic leader and the crores his party acquired from the corporate elites both at home and abroad to spend on a fantastic public relations campaign that would turn a demagogue into a demigod of economic hope. Will the voter believe next year that these hopes have been fulfilled? Will she find the pathological authoritarianism tolerable? Will she embrace the open season against Muslims and Dalits as the India she wishes to live in? Politics is a demanding and difficult terrain. Anyone with a humane politics cannot allow the world to sober her too much. Anyone with a sensible politics cannot allow her idealism to make her politics remote and arcane. How to navigate these twin constraints, pulling in different directions, requires a sense of balance that is hard to maintain. Nothing seems more important today than maintaining it. A humane politics is bound to answer each of the questions I posed above with a resolute ?No?. But having given that answer, what sensible political options are available? Democratic politics, whether in India or elsewhere, surfaces both at the parliamentary site and at the site of movements. Photograph by AP Anyone with a sensible politics can?t allow idealism to make her politics remote and arcane. Let?s, first, consider the former. Hegemony surfaces in very different ways in different political systems of democracy. In two-party systems such as the United States, very often the ruling class simply spans both parties, and their differences are minor (though it is not as if they don?t often make a difference to people?s lives.) It is very hard indeed to break out of the consensus between the two parties. And it is a symptom of how precarious the lives of working people have become in that country that they gave support to two leaders within the parties who were prepared to defy the consensus between their respective party orthodoxies. (Sanders with considerable success in the primaries even though he failed to secure the nomination, and Trump in both the primaries and the national elections?though it predictably turns out that Trump on every important issue is taking the orthodox positions of that party even further in the direction of an inhumane politics.) Britain is not strictly a two-party system, but carries the historical weight of a two-party tradition and there again it is a symptom of how deep working-class dissatisfaction goes that both the Brexit vote and the continuing popularity of Corbyn has managed to finesse the long consensus that Blair and his successors in the party had managed to forge with post-Thatcherite Conservatives. India, unlike these countries, is fortunate to have a thriving multi-party political system. It is to that ext?ent easier to oppose a consensual hegemony. Even if major parties form a consensus, more minor and regional parties can form alliances against the consensus. Fighting the consensus does not always require one to fight one?s own party?s orthodoxies as in two-party systems. The tasks in India are, thus, quite different. The idea that any one existing opposition party can, without forming alliances, defeat the BJP in 2019 is wholly without sense. A refusal to contaminate one?s idealistic and humane politics by alliances with other parties is not sensible, it is a recipe for a party?s eventual dem?ise. Thus, for instance, it is becoming clear that some parties (the CPI-M, for instance) will bec?ome irrelevant for decades to come if they don?t seek to exert their (already dwindling influence) through alliances. To some extent, this common sense has finally emerged and parties seem to be seeking such alliances. But equally, such a sensible politics must throughout be guided by a humane politics and not embrace these sensible alliances at the cost of it. What does that imply? There is an obvious lesson to be learnt from the period of the Emergency and its aftermath. Opposition alliances emerged then with an exclusively negative purpose. It would be wrong to dismiss them as opportunistic since the purpose was a worthy one then (as it is now): to overturn an intolerably authoritarian regime. But such victories as that opposition achieved were short-lived and in fact, as we know, it suffered an utterly crushing defeat at the hands of Indira Gandhi?s Congress in 1980 for the very plain reason that it stood for nothing positive over and above opposition to a previously authoritarian Congress government. And the situation is far worse today because nobody would describe that Congress government as relying on anything like the Gramscian hegemony that the current government and the class it represents enjoy. In fact, the Emergency was declared out of an anxiety that such hegemony was precisely what it did not have. That leaves one with the absolutely alarming eventual prospect of another 1980-style outcome in the future. If the rec?ently emerging opposition alliances do succeed next year, it would be a scary prospect to imagine the kind of ?hegemony a subsequent returning BJP government might have after the ineffectual rule of a government formed by an alliance of parties with no positive platform apart from ending the nightmare of the past four years. It becomes a matter of some urgency, therefore, that an election should be fought by a set of alliances at the national and regional levels with a common, positive, hum?ane ?platform which can carry conviction. To draw and erect such a platform requires a lot of enormously hard work, a great deal of tact and resolution and vision, and a leadership in each party of each alliance that fetches respect and has authority. Photograph by HT I can just hear the sneering dismissal of all this by the orthodoxies within the Congress. What positive common programme will suffice? It is here I think that the parliamentary site of politics has to pay attention to what is surfacing on the site of movements and provide a sort of unifying force in a common and integrated electoral platform of the causes that they reflect. Only such a conscientious effort to integrate in the electoral field seemingly miscellaneous yearnings surfacing on the street and the maidan has any chance of getting the support of a massively heterogenous electorate with its prodigiously varied interests. In my country of domicile, such attentiveness to causes emerging on non-parliamentary sites was the basis of virtually every fundamental and effective change in society: to give just two examples, FDR?s attentiveness to the demands of the labour movements of the 1930s and Lyndon Johnson?s acknowledgement of the civil rights movement. So also, Sanders?s remarkable success in the Democratic primaries was entirely because of the energy that went into bringing together quite diverse ongoing causes in movements, ranging from the protests around post-financial crisis unemployment and wage stagnation to the protest against foreclosures of homes, to the students? protests against the costs of higher education, and the mobilisations of millions marginalised on the health care front. Something similar lies in Corbyn?s success. The recent farmers and workers rallies in Maharashtra and in the north (and last November in Delhi) and the adivasis? recent long march in Chhattisgarh, the repeated and remarkable Dalit display of political agency over the past few years against the recurring violence they face, the courageous and brilliant students? campaigns against the communal elements on campus, the women?s protest against rampant sexual violence, are all causes that need to be integrated into a common platform speaking to the issues that concern labour and peasantry and the youth, women and the oppressed castes. It is true that Muslims have in recent years not shown the mobilisational agency that Dalits have shown and that they themselves showed in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the mosque in Ayodhya. In the face of the viciousness of the almost daily attacks on them (sanctioned tacitly by the very presence of BJP in positions of power at the Centre and the regions), they have gone entirely into their shells. They need particularly deliberate inclusion, therefore, in forging such a common platform. Above all, any common agenda that doesn?t offer a serious pro?gra?mme of uplifting the poor through food schemes, employment schemes (both of which were started in small measure under UPA-I) and extending to health and housing schemes, will never have any chance of long-term success against the domination of the BJP. I can just hear the sneering dismissal of all this by the ort?hodoxies within the Congress and the experts who advise the prince and would-be princes: ?All these schemes for employment and food and health etc can only be pursued by first growing the economy and that growth is precisely what the successive governments since 1990 have sought.? I?ve said this before, as have many others, and I?ll say it again. The kinds of schemes that we are talking about increase the ?social wage? of ordinary people and thus actually produce growth (a quite different kind of growth, of course, from the bubble-generated growth of neo-liberal economies, a growth that can be sustained rather than end up in a crash). They increase the purchasing capacity of the vast mass of ?ordinary people and that expands the market at home and that, in turn, increases the investment to meet it. It is not for nothing that the period in the West in which this was tried and done (roughly the thirty-year period after the end of the Second World War) was called ?The Golden Age of Capitalism? with high rates of growth. This is a point so obvious and straightforward that you don?t need to be an economist to understand it. Anyone can und?erstand it?in the plains of the Ganga, in the fish?ermen?s villages of Kerala, in the slums of Mumbai?in every corner of the land and by the humblest and least educated citizens. No opposition that dismisses these possibilities as merely humane but not sensible politics will sustain the support of ordinary people for more than a fleeting term. It will not win and does not deserve to win. And even if it does win next year, it will predictably lose and lose big five years thence. Akeel Bilgrami is Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy and Professor, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University ======================================== 14. OUR REAL RANKING: HIGHEST STATUE IN THE WORLD ? AND OTHER SAD TALES OF RISING INDIA Kanti Bajpai ======================================== The Times of India November 3, 2018 Apparently, we should be proud that India has the highest statue in the world ? taller than anything the US and China possess. Poor Sardar Patel ? his memory invoked in such a schoolboy way. A giant leader, with all his strengths and weaknesses, represented by a monstrous metal emblem of rising India. As we think about the tallest statue in the world, we should also remember the other rankings we own. Here are some health snapshots. India?s life expectancy, in one estimate, is low enough to put us at 164th out of 224 nations ? in our region only Pakistan ranks worse. In 2016, India had the highest incidence of tuberculosis and the largest number of cases of multi-drug resistant TB. Three years ago, India and Nigeria accounted for 40% of under-5 diarrhoeal deaths. Plus, 60% of new leprosy cases globally are in India. Despite stellar economic growth over the past 20 years, the Global Hunger Index ranked India 103rd out of 119 countries. In 2017, we recorded the highest number of malnutrition cases. Not surprisingly, we also have the highest number of stunted children in the world. On average, Indian men are short in stature: we rank 90th out of 101 countries for which there was data in 2016. India is an environmental disaster. Fourteen out of the 15 most polluted cities in the world were in our country. In 2018, two million premature deaths in India were attributed to pollution, a quarter of the world?s premature deaths in this category. India also has the highest number of children under the age of 5 dying from the effects of pollution. According to the Environmental Performance Index, India ranks 177th out of 180 countries. Our water situation is parlous. We have the highest freshwater withdrawal in the world. By 2050, India?s per capita water availability will be a frightening 1140 cubic metres. This means we will just be above the water scarcity threshold of 1000 cubic metres. In 1950, India?s per capita water availability was 5000 cubic metres. If India could count on a vibrant educational system, the picture wouldn?t be all gloomy. Unfortunately, in 2018, India was ranked 115th out of 158 countries in the World Human Capital Index (a finding promptly and predictably rejected by a brittle government). We fell 12 places in one year: in 2017, we had ranked 103rd. In 2017, we were placed lower than Nepal and Sri Lanka (though, small mercies, higher than Bangladesh and Pakistan). We often like to boast about our computers and IT sectors. The ICT Development Index recently put India at 134th place amongst 176 countries. Let?s complete this melancholy rendering with two political rankings. The Global Impunity Index, which measures the dangers for journalists, noted that India was 14th out of 14 countries with the worst record. This placed India in the same abysmal league as Somalia, Syria (war-torn, terror-ridden Syria), Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Worse, on the Rule of Law Index, democratic India was 62nd out of 113 nations ? and below neophyte democratic Nepal! These are just some of the indicators of the quality of life of an average Indian. The real picture is much worse. The next time the prime minister tapes his Mann ki Baat broadcasts, an act of truly good governance and statesmanship would be to tell us where the ordinary Indian really stands in the world. This government and its predecessors have failed ordinary Indians, year after year. Our governors don?t tell us the truth about our condition and allow us to be distracted by statues and Sabarimalas. It is laughable to talk about a rising India given our sad, scabrous state. Sardar Patel would not be impressed by the unity he helped engineer. Sixty eight years after his death, he would be appalled by today?s India. ======================================== 15. FAILING TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE: ON KERALA AND THE SABARIMALA TENSION Krishna Kumar ======================================== The Hindu November 05, 2018 Kerala?s success in education is hard to reconcile with the palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused Politics alone cannot explain the aftermath of the Supreme Court?s verdict in the Sabarimala case. This is because for the rest of India, Kerala has served as a model of progress guided by a long-sustained pursuit of welfare policies, especially in health and education. Kerala also has a history of social movements that mobilised people to let go of the grip of custom and ritual. Some of these movements were aimed specifically at propagating reason and knowledge. If the regime of modernity got a fair test anywhere in South Asia, surely it was in Kerala. A patriarchal ethos These common impressions are hard to reconcile with the discomfort and palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused. Conflict and the threat of violence can, and perhaps, should be attributed to political rivalry and administrative ineptitude. But there seems to be a wider unease with the verdict. In a phone-in programme of the Hindi service of the BBC, a senior woman journalist, who knows Kerala socially, said that the verdict is ahead of the times, that it will take one or two more generations for people to accept the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala temple. That sober prognosis left me wondering about the value and meaning of Kerala?s achievement in public literacy and children?s education. Was it wrong to imagine that the spread of education would cause a deep enough dent in all forms of gender inequality? Persistence of dowry certainly suggests that. So does the acceptance of misogynist humour I have myself witnessed in the middle of serious discussion. Apart from its failure to dilute a patriarchal ethos, education has also performed rather poorly in widening the space available for dialogue between contending positions. This is one reason why both the state and society are finding it difficult to appreciate a civic solution to a faith-related practice. Promise of education Education tends to arouse many expectations, both in the individual and the social mind. First, there are economic expectations. They are so strong that the educated do not mind enduring long stretches of unemployment. Equally complex is the political expectation association with education. It is widely believed that education nourishes democratic values and behaviours. But historical evidence suggests that education can nurture democracy as well as dictatorship. It depends on what is taught and how. If schools and colleges are intellectually exciting places, and if the curriculum encourages critical inquiry, we can expect education to strengthen democracy. If schooling stifles curiosity by regimenting the body and the mind at an early age, education can nourish authoritarianism. Similarly, if language and literature are taught to train young minds for participation in open-ended dialogue, we can expect education to sustain an ethos where freedom to differ without fear is guaranteed and dissent is tolerated. The opposite may happen if language and literature are marginalised in the curriculum or subjected to mechanical testing and other means of oppression. Similar things can be said about the teaching of the subjects that constitute the social sciences. They can either be used for indoctrination or to encourage reflection. Subject to regime change The question why education has not improved Kerala?s capacity to sustain a culture of dialogue is not difficult to answer. Education did spread widely, but efforts to reform its inner world ? curriculum and pedagogy ? remained weak and somewhat confused. Significant initiatives were taken more than once, but the financial and intellectual resources deployed for this task were inadequate. Also, the effort remained subject to regime change. In teacher training, one had expected that Kerala would make a breakthrough by investing significant academic resources in this unfortunate area. That did not happen. Bridges between universities and schools remained half-built. As in other States, progress of education in Kerala remained confined mainly to expansion of the system. That too did not proceed coherently. Social and economic divisions got entrenched within the system of education. Successive governments remained indifferent to this trend and to the need to create a provincial policy. Hailed as a model, Kerala has disappointed. Apart from failing to create an ethos where dialogue and deliberation are conveniently possible, Kerala?s progress on the gender front has also remained unimpressive. The grip of early socialisation into deep-set notions of womanhood has stayed tight. One consequence of this grip is the perpetuation of deeply negative beliefs about the physical aspect of maturation. At this level, gender disparity deserves to be understood as a far more complex cultural phenomenon than merely a matter of unequal opportunities. Education can influence gender roles and their relations by creating new predispositions in early childhood. This is a tough area for reform. It has remained on the margins of education, both in terms of funding and status as a policy sector. Few would admit that they do not fully understand it or its significance. Moreover, not everyone believes/wants education to disturb established social patterns. In fact, many people feel unsure about the introduction of critical pedagogy in schools. Why Kerala disappoints us today is because it had fostered the hope of being different. It probably is, but not to the extent one had assumed. Its system of education is just as bureaucratised and compartmentalised as anywhere else. Complacent attitudes also block vision and direction. A common meaning of progress now is to secede from the local board and join the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or its private counterpart. Kerala set the benchmark for total literacy and implementation of the Right to Education Act. Looking ahead, Kerala could have sorted out the tenacious points of confusion such as the crucial role of language, both in children?s growth and in enhancing society?s capacity for dialogue. The social incoherence one sees in Kerala gains strength from poor teaching of language and related fields of knowledge. The Sabarimala prism It is true of many other parts of India, but Kerala?s case hurts because a sound basis for putting in place a sophistical system of education existed there. Had its early advantages been used with greater focus and commitment, we might have witnessed a somewhat smoother transition in Sabarimala. Krishna Kumar is a former director of the NCERT ======================================== 16. INDIA: POLITICAL KARMA COMES FULL CIRCLE FOR BJP AS IT RETURNS TO HINDUTVA Bharat Bhushan ======================================== https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/political-karma-comes-full-circle-for-bjp-as-it-returns-to-hindutva-118110500097_1.html Miffed at the Supreme Court according low priority to hearings on the Ayodhya land dispute case, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has threatened to launch a 1992-like agitation for the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The 1992 agitation began with a rath yatra by Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani which left a trail of communal riots in its wake. Claiming that it respects judicial processes, the RSS has nevertheless urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its priority on the ?sensitive issue? as Hindus in the country felt ?insulted?. Emotive religious issues are returning centerstage for the RSS and its political front, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as the general election approaches. However, little seems to be going right for the Hindutva agenda. Central to the Hindutva agenda are: the construction of a Ram Temple at the site of the destroyed Babri Mosque; abolishing the special status of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state and privileges granted to its residents under Article 370 and 35A, and implementing a uniform civil code. To these have been added the issue of allowing women of menstruating age entry into the Ayappa shrine at Sabarimala in Kerala. The most emotive of these is the construction of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Those in power must have hoped that a pliant judiciary would deliver a quick verdict on the land dispute, leaving them some months before the general elections to begin construction at the site. However, the Supreme Court has postponed the hearing to January next year despite the pleas of the Uttar Pradesh government. The court?s verdict is unlikely to be out before the general elections putting paid to hopes of temple construction during Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s current tenure. A frustrated BJP and its mother organisation are asking the government to bring an ordinance for land acquisition at the site or bring a Bill in Parliament to facilitate temple construction. However, as long as the land ownership is not resolved by the Supreme Court neither an ordinance not a Parliamentary Bill will allow temple building to start. A Bill will only be a symbolic reiteration of the BJP?s resolve and serve at best to brand the Opposition as ?anti-Hindu?. Diwali, Ayodhya People lighting earthen lamps on banks of River Saryu during Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya In South India, the religious issue of the moment is the removal of restrictions on the entry of women worshippers into the Sabrimala temple. The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of gender equality over misogynous interpretation of ?Hindu faith?. Initially the BJP welcomed the Supreme Court?s judgement. It is a position supported by the RSS since 2006. However, the BJP?s central leadership had to backtrack when its state unit in Kerala revolted against the apex court?s ruling. Meanwhile the Congress party in Kerala opposed the verdict and gained a head start over the BJP on the issue. The core constituency of the BJP is also upset that the government has not opposed the Supreme Court order curbing Diwali celebrations by imposing a two hour limit on lighting firecrackers. Well-worn Hindutva arguments are circulating once again that while celebration of Muslim festivals like Eid and Christian festivals like Christmas are not interfered with, Hindu festivals are always being subjected to restrictions. It is all the more galling that this is happening under a ?Hindutva? government. The revoking of the special Constitutional status of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir has always been central to Hindutva conceptions of national unity encapsulated in Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?s slogan, ?Ek deshmein do vidhan, do Pradhan aur donishaannahinchalenge". Literally, A single country cannot have two Constitutions, two Prime Ministers and two emblems. (At the time the Chief Minsiter of J&K was also called Prime Minsiter). Article 370 of the Indian Constitution allows J&K certain degree of autonomy within the Indian Union. Its provisions have been considerably reduced by a series of Presidential ordinances. Now the attempt is to challenge the constitutional validity of Article 35A in the Supreme Court, which empowers the J&K legislature to define ?permanent residents? of the state who are entitled to special rights and privileges. Although the Modi government did not itself institute the legal case, it did not file an affidavit in support of the Constitutional provision, even though previous governments had done so on two earlier occasions. The issue of Article 35A is unlikely to be resolved soon as the issue evokes strong local sentiments. Hearings were postponed to January next year at the instance of the Attorney General himself citing potential law and order problems as local body and panchayat elections were due in the state. That was at the end of August. The political situation is unlikely to become any more conducive to resuming hearings on Article 35A by January 2019. Governor?s rule imposed on the state on June 20 this year will come to an end in December. In every possible scenario that follows, the law and order situation in J&K will only deteriorate should hearings resume without the government taking a stand against its abrogation. The failure of the government in implementing a uniform civil code is all too apparent. Going to the polls with the ban on instant triple-talaq as its only ?achievement? will neither fetch it substantial votes among Muslim women nor among Hindus. Under these circumstances, the options before the BJP and Prime Minister Modi are limited. Job creation cannot take a quantum jump in the short time remaining before the general election. Nor does setting up imposing statues translate into votes, as the experience of former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati, demonstrates. It may be that the Modi phenomenon is about to come full circle. Arthur C Brooks, president of the conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, recently said in Chennai: ?Once every 50 years there is a financial crisis in which we have a populist leader. Usually, within five years, the populist leader becomes incredibly ineffective and unpopular and we go back to status quo.? Brooks was talking of his own country of course, but might his observations be relevant about populist leaders elsewhere? ======================================== 17. BLACK HOLE OF SILENCE ON DEMONETIZATION C. Rammanohar Reddy ======================================== livemint.com Nov 06 2018 Two years on, why do we still not ask about the people and economic activities that were severely disrupted by this ?surgical strike?? There is one ?surgical strike? from two years ago that will not be celebrated this year: the 8 November 2016 demonetization of ?500 and ?1,000 currency notes. Two years on, the economy and its institutions continue to experience the negative after-effects of the processes and the events surrounding demonetization. For instance, the central government is now brazenly able to put pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and its governor, Urjit Patel, to hand over its surpluses only because two years ago the same RBI under the same governor did not demur on the demonetization of 2016. Since there is always an official fog of rationalisation spread around demonetization, it is important to remember what the objectives were as laid down in that late evening speech on 8 November 2016 of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the gazette notification later that same day. The prime minister outlined three sets of objectives, (i) ?to break the back? of corruption and black money, (ii) to end the circulation of fake currency and (iii) to end terrorist financing. The gazette notification outlined the same three objectives but did not mention corruption. Gift wrapping note ban The BJP-led NDA government, which places so much importance on packaging, had to suitably wrap demonetization in a manner that would sell. It was therefore not surprising that ending fake currency circulation and terrorism financing were tagged along with the main objective of rooting out black money. These two objectives were drawn up at a time when a fervour against ?anti-nationals? had been cultivated. By themselves, neither objective made much sense. There was indeed a spike of fake high denomination notes (HDNs) of ?500 and ?1,000 detected during the surrender of notes in late 2016. This was to be expected since ultimately nearly all the HDNs in circulation returned to the banking system and were then processed by the RBI. But since the new series of currency notes did not have any additional unique security features, the counterfeit presses were soon in operation: a small number of fake notes of the new ?2,000 were detected in the last few months of 2016-17 itself and a much larger number (almost 18,000 pieces) in the next year, 2017-18. So much for demonetization ending the spread of counterfeit currency. The less said the better about demonetization ending terror financing. As many noted at the time and thereafter, it is in the nature of terrorism that it wreaks a destructive impact with the most limited of financial resources. In any case, disaffection as expressed in terrorism in the two years since November 2016 has been no less than before, giving lie to the strange claim that demonetization would reduce terrorism. An old man crying for missing his spot in the long queue at a State Bank of India branch during demonetization. Photo: Hindustan Times An old man crying for missing his spot in the long queue at a State Bank of India branch during demonetization. Photo: Hindustan Times That leaves us with the main and perhaps only objective of demonetization of the HDNs of ?500 and ?1,000 notes which took out 86% of the currency in the market: ending the scourge of black money. In late 2016, the attorney general told the Supreme Court, which was hearing a petition against demonetization, that the government expected a quarter to a third of the HDNs in circulation not to return to the banking system, i.e., this would be the amount of black money destroyed. It took almost two years for the actual picture to emerge: The RBI Annual Report for 2017-18 had this bald statement: ?The total SBNs [specified bank notes] returned from circulation is ?15,310.73 billion .? Or as the newspapers put it so well, this was 99.2% of the ?15,440.5 billion of the HDNs in circulation on 8 November 2016. It is clear that along with the honest who stood in line and deposited their cash in banks, the dishonest had got the better of the government. They had invented innumerable ways to deposit their illegal holdings of cash in the banks. This should not have surprised the government. The previous governor of the RBI, Raghuram Rajan, had advised the government that demonetization would not achieve its objective of unearthing black money because, among other things, the tax evaders would find ways to launder their holdings. Yet, such advice was ignored and the Prime Minister?s Office went ahead with a decision that by all accounts, the prime minister himself took the lead on, based on a half-baked set of suggestions from a Pune-based NGO. In the end, far from turning into ?worthless pieces of paper? (words used by the prime minister in his 8 November 2016 speech), almost the entire stock of illegal cash holdings had been successfully legalised. New grand narrative When, soon after November 2016, the aim of destroying black money looked to fail, the government?s attention shifted to creating new objectives and to then arguing that the deposits of the HDNs in banks was a positive development because this gave the government information that it could use to track down the money-launderers. To take the second first, it is revealing that more than 18 months after the Union finance minister announced in the February 2017 budget speech that his ministry would harness the powers of ?data analytics? to track down the crooks, we are yet to see a single press release about the success in even a single case. The big shift in objectives was of course to talk about digitalisation, better tax compliance, ?formalisation? of the economy, the goods and services tax (GST) and demonetization as inter-connected parts of one giant mosaic of a modern and clean economy in which the success of the announcement on 8 November 2016 was crucial. Unfortunately, the reality says otherwise. The govt is now brazenly able to put pressure on RBI because two years ago the same RBI governor did not demur on demonetization - To begin with, first, nobody was going to be fooled with this new grand narrative. Everyone knew that this was an ex-post rationalisation as the black money objective began to collapse. Second, demonetization?a surprise decision eight months before the tortuous introduction of GST?was a disruption that did not make the transition to GST easy. Third, digitalisation was not a new initiative; it had been in progress since the early 2000s. Demonetization did compel an acceleration in the process (which subsequently slowed but has since remained at a higher level of adoption), but as many have said we did not need the sledgehammer of demonetization to push digitalisation. Fourth, this new talk of ?formalisation? of the economy driven by digitalisation, demonetization and GST seemed to see the vast informal sector as nothing more than a community involved in regulatory arbitrage and tax evasion. Such talk ignored the fact that while there are indeed arbitrageurs and tax evaders in the informal sector, India?s ocean of informal activity consists of workers involved in low productivity jobs because there is no alternative. Fifth, credit is claimed for and much is made of the fact that the cash-GDP ratio post demonetization is now about 1.5 to 2 percentage points less than before. It is always assumed that a less cash-intensive economy is a mark of progress. Yet, Japan and Switzerland have much higher cash-GP ratios than India and no one sees them as being backward. True, the use of cash can mask an audit trail and facilitate tax evasion. But we should not be blind to the fact that the larger part of black money generation now takes place inside and not outside the circuits of the banking system. Nirav Modi and Mehsul ?Bhai? Choksi looted the banks and transferred wealth through banking channels; they did not do so with suitcases of cash. Finally, there is the metric of improved tax compliance. Depending on what the data can be made to say, the metric that is used by the government to claim success is either (i) income tax collections, or (ii) number of returns filed, or (iii) the number of assesses or (iv) the income declared. Direct tax collections have indeed gone up. Some of it is to be expected as the money launderers make one-off payment of income tax. Some of it is also because to register under GST you also needed to be filing returns and with a PAN. After a 6.6% growth in direct tax collections in 2014-15, there was an acceleration to 14.5% in 2016-17 and then to 18% (unaudited) in 2017-18. Yet, it is far too early to claim any transformation in tax revenue collections. Growth of over 15% in a year is not unusual. In 2010-11 as in 2017-18, direct tax collections jumped by 18% before growth fell off thereafter. Sounds of silence If the ?successes? of demonetization seem hollow, there is a big black hole of silence as well. It is remarkable that while the dislocation of late 2016 and the first half of 2017 is behind us, we do not ask anything about how the people and the economic activities that were severely disrupted emerged from this policy blunder. How many were permanently affected? How many enterprises were compelled to shut down for good? How many temporarily? What survival strategies did they use? Did indebtedness increase? This government did not commission a single survey of a geographical area or economic activity or socio-economic group in order to understand what happened, to separate the permanent from the temporary, and to draw up a package of relief and rehabilitation measures. To do so would have been to acknowledge a mistake, anathema to this government. After all the suffering and all the dislocation, do we have by any reckoning a cleaner economy now? Even if we accept that the return of all black cash into the banking system has now brought it all into the white economy, and has therefore been for the good, is the larger economy less afflicted by black money after November 2016? Illegal cash flows continue to flood elections like water. We should expect a huge spurt ahead of the 2019 elections in illegal expenses - Nobody would say so. The central engine of black money generation and use?real estate?has as many anecdotal reports as before of the use of illegal money in transactions. Illegal cash flows continue to flood elections like water. There has been no change in the splurge of money in elections since the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2017. We should expect a huge spurt ahead of the 2019 elections in illegal expenses, which are always made more by the ruling party since it usually has access to more funds. In some respects, a government that said it wanted to root out black money has actually taken steps to facilitate the greater use of black money. Its system of electoral bonds (introduced in 2017 after demonetization) in which the donor is anonymous?and can therefore call in favours after an election?is designed for corruption. Demonetization was a Himalayan disaster but the voter has not punished the government for this folly. The BJP does not project it as an achievement in its poll campaigns; nor does the Opposition use it as a stick to beat the BJP. A country crushed by corruption, and tired of seeing rivers of black money coursing through society, was successfully sold on the idea that this was a bold measure that would rid society of this ill. People were bewildered, but the honest by and large supported it while the dishonest successfully escaped detection. With time the support has faded and the bewilderment has been replaced by a cynical resignation. There is now fear too. There is a fear that if the State can at one stroke remove 86% of the cash in circulation and thereby dishonour something as basic as legal tender, what could it possibly do next? This is perhaps the true permanent outcome of the demonetization of 8 November 2016?the demonstration of naked State power that now makes people fear that the State can without any thought and discrimination hurt who it wants and where it wants. Perhaps that was the true aim of demonetization. Looking back, it now all seems unreal. Living a dark fantasy seemed the only way then to make sense of a Tughlaq-like decision. Some TV outlets were convinced that each new currency note would carry a chip that would allow the government to track cash when it was used for illegal transactions. Social media was filled with outlandish news that many counterfeit currency presses that had surrounded India and were ready to flood India with fake currency. And no less a person than the finance minister said demonetization had enfeebled the ?stone pelters?. The only thing that was real at the time was the enormous patience and fortitude with which the citizen accepted the dislocation, pain and suffering that had been inflicted on her. C. Rammanohar Reddy is the author of Demonetisation and Black Money, Orient BlackSwan, 2018. ======================================== 18. MINING IN INDIA?S BUNDELKHAND CAUSES DROUGHT AND DESTRUCTION The large region has been transformed from a forest-based economy to a mining-based economy, at great cost to the environment by Inder SIngh Bisht ======================================== Asia Times November 7, 2018 Spread across 13 districts in the neighboring Indian states Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the Bundelkhand region has suffered from drought for over a decade. This has caused an exodus by the majority of its working population who have left to seek a living in other parts of the country. With agriculture starved by the drought and an absence of alternative industries, mining is one of the few sectors that provides a semblance of regular income to locals. This helps keep a lid on popular opposition to mining activities in the area, even when the industy is also a major cause of environmental degradation and disease in the region. Silicosis, a form of lung disease caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica dust, is common among people who work in mines or live near stone-crushing plants. But an insidious and even more harmful impact of mining is on the ground-water table of the region, say environmentalists who are angry that no substantial study has been undertaken to assess the environmental impact of mining in Bundelkhand. Mining-induced drought The use of explosives to blast underground mines damages the aquifer?an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock?causing the water to leak away and leading to depletion in the water table, said Dr. Anil K Gupta, associate professor at National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM). ?In developed countries, trenchless technology is being used for mining which has a minimum impact on surface and ground-water levels. Here in India, due to the destruction of surface with explosives, underwater aquifers develop cracks which affect the water-retention capacity of the aquifers,? says Gupta. Gupta further says that even in India, people are aware of mining technologies that could minimize damage to the earth surface. But since their use are not legally enforced and no political will is available to promote their use, miners still resort to their old ways of working. The result is drought. Drought, according to Gupta, has multiple dimensions in its occurrence and impact. It can be categorized as meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural depending upon its stages such as rainfall deficit, and level of impacts on the hydrological cycle and agro-ecosystems. Another environmental blow from mining comes when large numbers of trees are felled while digging up hills for stone quarries. Environmentalists say that a thick forest cover helps in the precipitation of rain, an important condition to ward off meteorological drought. ?Stone quarrying in Bundelkhand has been flattening hills with dense forests and ruining the chances of their afforestation, which is important for the formation of clouds and their precipitation,? says Dr. Abhimanyu Singh, assistant professor at Institute of Environment & Development Studies, Bundelkhand University. Rendering lands barren Mining?s impact is visible around stone-crushing units, where a large expanse of agriculture land is rendered barren due to the blanket of stone dust that emanates from the nearby crushing units and settles on the crops, trees, and water bodies. ?Dust produced by hundreds of stone crusher units being put up by various mining companies in the region settles on the leaves and stems of the plants and blocks the evaporation of water vapors,? Singh adds. Rising demand for granite and other minerals for the construction industry along with the availability of cheap labor makes more and more private players lease mines in the region. This results in the denudation of hills making them look like construction sites. Ashish Sagar, a social activist from Banda who has been fighting illegal mining in the area for a decade, said that miners openly flout rules while installing stone-crushers as they are hand-in-glove with government officials. ?Government rules permit installation of stone crushers at least 500 meters away from a highway. But you can see the units are very close to the roads. The rules say there should be boundary wall around the crushers, greenery and regular sprinkling of water to kill the dust, but hardly anyone follows the rules,? he says. Bhartendu Prakash, a senior environmentalist operating in the area for the last four decades, and also a co-author of a government backed-study titled, Problems and Potentials of Bundelkhand With Specific Reference to Water Resource Base, concurs with the view that mining is one of the biggest man-made reasons behind the drought-like situation in the area. Plunder as a business practice ?Granite business has now become a highly lucrative business because of which there is a furious urge to flatten the hills and also to remove the granite from deeper levels. As granite mining goes deeper, considerable quantities of groundwater flow to the areas of mining operation. This is considered a hindrance, hence, [it is] pumped out on the surface causing waste of large volumes of water,? says Prakash. ?Where the granite (is) detected under cultivable lands, the earth cover has been removed allowing it to get washed down to the rivers, rivulets and the dammed reservoirs and to silt these up. Mining starts with deforestation and leads to groundwater wastage, soil erosion, silting and pollution of rivers and streams,? Prakash adds. Successive governments have pumped in billions of rupees in the region in the form of rehabilitation packages without producing any signs of tangible change. ?From a forest-based economy the region has changed into a mining-based economy,? said Gupta, adding that ?Mining per se is not a bad thing but to what extent it should be allowed and what technology should be deployed must be studied and debated. It?s high time a comprehensive study was initiated.? ======================================== 19. ?INTELLECTUALS, PHILOSOPHERS, WOMEN IN INDIA: ENDANGERED SPECIES? WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS' JOURNAL, ISSUE N? 4-5 ======================================== http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/resources/periodicals/women-philosophers-journal/issue-n-4-5/ ======================================== 20. BANGALORE | Jasmina Tesanovic (8 Nov 2018) ======================================== I still have Indian dust on my shoes from the city of Bangalore, where I spent almost a week at the international literary festival. I was mind-boggled at the scale of this national Indian event: literature, politics, activism, feminism. There was music and even street art, but what a crowd. Sixteen thousand highly literate participants, roaming from one outdoor stage to another, and engaged with every atom of their souls. Literary culture persists in this part of the world, where people still believe that leafing through books is a transformative spiritual experience that can change the world. Authors of the first world, beset with Internet and economic crisis, often seem like plastic vanity-toys kept past their sell-by date, but maybe what they lack most keenly is a creative readership. As a passionate reader, I often claim it is more difficult to read a book well than it is to to write one. As a less passionate writer, I know that even one ideal reader is enough to motivate a decent book. The beautiful literary carnival ?- held on the broad, leafy grounds of one of Bangalore?s finest hotels, an oasis of glamor and privilege ? contrasted with the crooked streets of Bangalore where the sacred cows, pariah dogs and torrents of honking traffic live with a passion for survival. This was not my first visit to India, so I was ready for the epic scale of grandeur and abject poverty, but it was still a culture shock. The jet-set?s digitized skyscrapers tower like phantoms over vast bazaars seething with a seize-the-day human vitality. It?s reflected in Indian literature, where the English language, global yet somehow frail, towers over sixteen vernacular publishing scenes. In the Bangalore festival, professional writers traded erudite quips in English because thats how one gets it done, but they were singing in the English-speaking choir, and they knew it. The seething, vibrant life in those modern Indian streets, half chopped coconuts and half cellphone components, is never taught at Oxford. All over the world we women haunt conflict zones, and India, which is vast, has plenty of them. The gunfire tends to sound the same but the conclusions are different. The national patriot woman works to support her brave men at war; the peace activist withdraws support from men who aren?t brave enough to refuse the uniform and leave the slaughterhouse. There is one common ground, though: whether life is called ?peace? or ?war,? the women always struggle in a trench. The ongoing #metoo scandal in India is briskly spreading all over the country through social media. It started with celebrities ? actresses and directors, but spread through media centers, universities, publishing, wherever women get sexually harassed by wealthy and powerful men, which is to say, all over the place. It?s evidence that complaints of Western feminism have a universality, and wherever women don?t speak up about the suffering of women, it?s not because the oppressions aren?t noticed; it?s because the complaints are repressed. It?s taboo to speak up, and even a small distance in cultural mores can make the speakable unspeakable. Women are keenly attuned to what can be said in what conditions. At the festival, one female mystery writer complained that she simply can?t bear to read a ?classic English whodunnit novel? which is set in Scotland. All those careful cultural assumptions about who gets battered to death by the butler with the fire iron, they are fine in a homey English county but just don?t work in distant Glasgow, which seems as incongruous as Bangalore, almost. This may be indeed be a literary problem, but it doesn?t explain why crime and detective fiction thrives inside India for Indians, because it does. At the festival, a female science fiction writer complained: why must I be targeted as a woman when I write fiction about science? I may be a biological woman, but why should that restrict what I can write? I remembered that as a young writer, and as a young woman, I shared her frustration, but I gave it up as soon as I realized that my writing didn?t emerge from some gender-neutral science laboratory. When women were not on the page, it was an absence. My favorite writers of novels missed the women's perspective. My own life experience was visibly missing from classical novels. The women characters were lame, my world was not that world of canonic literary classics, I was invisible there, and not withstanding the fact that literature was my safe place, and a source of worldly education, I was miserable. I had no power, I had no words. My experience and wisdom had not been captured in those novels I read. It was in my body, as in every other living woman through history, outside of genre, in a gender gap. As a woman without a fatherland and without a mother language, my own literature had to be born ante literam. The luxury of writing without a gender also has a gender, it is male ?mainstream.? But the stream is not the ocean, and dams can break. In Bangalore I did a ?book signing? without books! My books have never been in print in India, but I do have website with many of my books online, and an old fashioned pen in my hand. A handshake, a signature, and a hug for a book from a website address! It was fair barter. Bangalore has many temples, small and big, fancy and clean, awkward and trashy. The whole city conveys the impression of a temple on the move. The pavements are broken by banyan roots, the skies are speckled with vultures, the soil is overrun by small but aggressive striped squirrels, so watch your step! The traffic is Los Angeles times ten, with no lane or crossing discipline. Pedestrians including the numerous cows and dogs simply amble through the noisy torrent of motor-rickshaws, endless scooters, bikes ringing, cars honking, trucks blasting. Traffic policemen occasionally shake-down the worst offenders, who can either appear in court or else cough up half the cash on the spot, for cop?s pocket. Somehow the whizzing vehicles respectfully avoid killing elderly women and small children. In the old summer palace of the Sultan Tipu, a historic structure which in Italy would be guarded relentlessly with video cams, the local people sat on the gleaming wooden stairs, meditating, solemn. A little girl danced as endlessly as an extra in a Bollywood movie, gently applauded by her neighbors. It is a densely crowded, communal life in India. Most every task that might be done by one person in the West is parceled out among three or four people, then performed for an audience. In a coffee shop I simply asked for a cold soda. The waiter conveyed the request to the boss; the owner gave the waiter a key to the refrigerator; another waiter opened the fridge, yet another retrieved the bottle and, finally, my original waiter, with a flourish, brought it to me, opened it and carefully poured it out for me. Then I drank it in a rather showy fashion, because, after all that fuss, I felt obliged. People want to listen and to serve: in my hotel the Don?t Disturb sign is replaced by the written board: Please let us clean the room soon, our pleasure is to serve you. As a writer, as an activist, I confess I feel much the same. I feel edified and cleansed after being in Bangalore. In India, people check on your condition all the time, emotionally and materially. Then they certify your stay with a nice red stamp, ink in your passport, or henna on your body. ======================================== 21. THE RISING SEA Brian Stone ======================================== The London Review of Books Blog 10 October 2018 Tags: climate change A quarter of a century has passed since the impact of human activity on the global climate was formally recognised by the United Nations. The latest IPCC report, published on 8 October, calls for the average global temperature to rise no more than 1.5?C above pre-industrial levels, but climate change has already and irreversibly altered the physical world in ways that are fundamentally altering the human world: extreme droughts, a rising frequency of intense storms and wildfires, the geographic expansion of vector-borne diseases. The collective implication of these changes is uniform: a rising level of risk to your health and stability, regardless of who you are or where you live. For anyone under the age of 30 ? more than half the world?s population ? the experience of a stable climate is entirely unknown. That is to say, not a single month in their lifetime has fallen within the limited range of temperature, precipitation or storm activity that governed the planet for the previous 10,000 years. Climate change is as much about our lived experience as our distant fate, despite its popular characterisation as a future threat only. No biological community observed by science has been untouched by the changed chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, by the repositioning of global wind patterns and currents, or by the rapidly migrating seasons. The residue of our species is detectable in a spadeful of soil collected from anywhere on Earth, revealed as a distinct horizon in the stratigraphic record, rich with coal dust and radionuclides, and securing our place alongside meteor strikes in the deep history of the planet. A single species has now ushered the planet from one geologic epoch to another, an occurrence without precedent in the paleoclimatic record, and unlikely to occur again. Across the Earth?s biomes, the oceans wear the mark of the Anthropocene most plainly, with their steady, relentless rise ? their contrapuntal response to the Earth?s disappearing ice. The oceans are a persistent, easily measured and inarguable record of our effect on the global ecosystem. About 40 per cent of the global population lives in coastal zones; the inexorable inland shift of the seas foretells a migration unseen in human history. Prior migrations brought about by human-driven ecological change ? such as the Dust Bowl in the American West ? were localised in space and in time. The climate migration unleashed by recent Atlantic hurricanes, in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean, and well underway in more arid regions of the planet, is more likely to play out over a timescale measured in centuries than in decades, and will not be contained by continental or hemispheric boundaries. On a recent trip with students to Charleston, South Carolina, we paused at a storm drain to observe seawater pulsating into a parking lot in syncopation with the nearby lapping of the tide. We were surrounded by building sites. One of the many challenges presented by the rapid transition to a new planetary epoch is that our economic systems are firmly rooted in a set of unspoken environmental assumptions that are no longer operational. The persistence of this fallacy may constitute a greater threat than the rising sea itself. But the rising sea is a threat on two primary fronts: as a slow-moving occupier of densely settled land and as an acute hazard during extreme weather. The succession of powerful hurricanes forming in the Atlantic basin in 2017 compressed more weather-related destruction and economic loss into a few weeks than ever before experienced in the Americas. The quantity of rain deposited on Houston during Hurricane Harvey was consistent with at least a 500-year storm ? a flooding event so rare as to be expected to occur only once between the discovery of the New World and today. Yet Houston has experienced a ?500-year? flood in each of the last three years. For the last 10,000 years, the probability of a 500-year storm occurring in three successive years would have been 1 in 125,000,000. In the current age of climate instability, the probability of such an occurrence is unknown but appears to be rising. The assumption that a weather event rare in the past will remain rare in the future is reasonable only in a stable climate. Among the many untruths we tell ourselves about climate change, the assertion that yesterday?s flood zone will protect us against tomorrow?s flood may be the least defensible. Oceans are less often the primary dumping ground for industrial waste than they used to be, but virtually all of our most persistent pollution finds its way to the sea. Two gyres of industrial refuse the size of Texas float beneath the surface of the North Pacific ? two ceaseless, swirling hurricanes of plastic to which every reader of these words has probably contributed. The post-consumer lifetime of the billions of plastic bottles now spinning in the Pacific is estimated to be 450 years, a period of slow biodegradation that will leave the oceans far more degraded than they are now. Yet even such an infusion of industrial waste is unlikely to alter the ocean?s chemistry as substantially as the fuel consumed in its production and use. The carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels is both heating the atmosphere and cycling into the oceans. Were the oceans not increasing their uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide, we would be much farther along the global warming trajectory than we are. Converted by seawater into carbonic acid, our carbon pollution since the Industrial Revolution has increased the acid content of the oceans by 30 per cent, bleaching corals worldwide and eroding the base of the oceanic food web. The fact that we now eat species not long ago referred to as ?trash fish? is only the most visible symptom of a dying ocean. Some studies project the loss of all wild seafood within three decades. The most pressing environmental threats ? violent weather, pollution, resource scarcity ? are not new, but rather a heightened version of long-established threats, which come at the same time as an exponential increase in our numbers. The intertwining of population overshoot and ecosystem collapse has informed more than a generation of wildlife management practices, but the texts never depict our own species as subject to such natural laws. Every ecological indicator available to us today suggests they should. A recently convened group of experts from the physical, natural and social sciences did not include climate change among the top three existential threats to our species, ranking it below genetically engineered pathogens, a unforeseen threat such as an alien invasion, and artificial intelligence. What seems to unite these perceived threats, and to elevate them beyond the far more likely but familiar scenarios of a global pandemic or climate-induced famine, is their exotic nature, and the common tendency to assign excessive risk to the unknown. Complacency has a recurring role in the annals of human miscalculation, and nothing breeds complacency like the familiar. We might do better to see the parallels between our overshooting society and the many that have succumbed to ecological limits in the past. What then might we do? For a growing number of people, the most promising course of action would harness the very forces that have fuelled the climate problem in order to contain it ? more and better technology. Having engineered the climate to make the Earth inhospitable, we simply need some reverse engineering to restore stability ? giant mirrors in space, perhaps, or machines to suck carbon from the air. But our track record in directing the Earth?s many complex workings to our purposes ? a record stretching over millennia ? suggests that geo-engineering is hubris. An alternative path still open to us may be less exotic than a geo-engineered world, but it is also less uncertain. It is still possible for us to re-engage in a way of life not so long ago lost ? adhering to an ecological budget, acknowledging codependency with other species, and elevating the shared responsibilities of humanity. To understand climate change not as a new environmental problem, but as the long-running interplay of all environmental problems, is to return to an immutable truth: the only way out is through the door we came in by. It is, for now, still open. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. =====================================