Holy Garb: Profane Agenda .....

 

Holy Garb: Profane Agenda
 
Seers Demand Dropping of Word Secular from Indian Constitution !
 
Ram Puniyani
 
 
What do spiritual leaders talk when they meet? One thought it may be the matters pertaining to the 'other world' that is the focus of their attention, away from the profane World, which is the matter of concern for ordinary people. One thought they may be deliberating on the issues of moral values of the religion. But it seems that is not the case. Recently when many of them met in Mumbai they showed that the saffron garb is the mere exterior, this color of renunciation and piety, is no representative of their political core.  On the top of that they use saffron color to hide their sectarian ideas and narrow politics in the name of religion. The only difference in their case being that their politics is couched in the language of religion. That their ideas are full 'Hate' for others, unlike the values Hinduism which teaches us Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam (whole World is my family). This got revealed once more.

 

Recently many a chiefs of Akharas and other assorted Saints came together at the First Conference of Dharma Raksha Manch (29th Jan 2009) in Mumbai. They were brought together by Vishwa Hindu Parishad, apparently for the agenda was Combating terrorism. They called for dropping the word secular from Indian constitution and replacing it with word religious. They Ram Temple, Malegaon blasts, terrorism, and amongst other things and demanded that they need Manu's parliament and not Christ's. They drew attention to terrorism breeding in Madrassa, and hit out at media for using the term Hindu terrorism. Finally Beginning Mid Feb. (2009) they plan to take out series of yatras (religious marches) covering large parts of the country, with the call for ending Jihad. 
 
Who are these assorted Holy seers, coming together on the call of Vishwa Hindu Parishad? VHP itself is the creation of RSS in the mid sixties. Initiative was taken by RSS chief and his close lieutenant to get different established mutt's to form VHP. It primarily became a religious wing of RSS, involving the Hindu achrayas etc, and attracted especially traders, affluent processionals and those who did not want to openly associate with RSS, as at that time RSS stood fully discredited in people's eyes due to its association with Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi.
 
VHP got involved in the identity issues strengthening the conservative politics and Ram temple became its central rallying point. Along with this it called for Dharma Sansad (religious parliament) where they stated that in the matters religious, in this case Ram Temple, the decision of saints is above the judgement of the courts. Place of Lord's birth became a matter not of History but of faith, and who else can decide these issues than these custodians of faith.
 
This congregation of holy seers has taken place long after their earlier meetings around Ram Temple issue. It seems it is their next innings where the focus is also on terrorism apart from its earlier concerns. At the same time they are reiterating that Indian Constitution is not welcome; let's go back to Manu Smriti. In a way there is nothing new in this. The RSS politics has always been against the Indian Constitution, against the values of secularism, democracy as these stand by Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Right from the time Constituent Assembly was formed, RSS opposed the same, saying that 'we' already have the best of Constitutions in the form of Manu Smirit so why a new Constitution. It was backed by eulogies for Lord Manu by the RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar, who also at the same time has heaped immense praise on the methods of Hitler. Later K.Surshan also openly called for scrapping of Indian constitution and bringing Manu Smriti instead.
 
While the saints are overtly for the subjugation of Muslims and Christians, at the same time their agenda is to push back the concept of equality for dalit, Adivasis and women. Interestingly RSS came up as a reaction to social changes of caste and gender during the freedom movement. Our national movement stood not only for freedom but also for the transformation of caste and gender towards equality. Barring some exceptions the concept of democracy and secularism go hand in hand. Freedom movement was the epitome of these political and social processes, leading to the emergence of secular India. Today RSS has many mouths to speak and many fora to articulate its agenda. VHP is the crude version of expressing its agenda while BJP, due to electoral compulsions, puts the same agenda in more subtle ways.
 
The VHP agenda is quite striking in combing the Holy language with profane goals. It will totally ignore the problems of 'this World'; the problems related to survival and Human rights and will harp on identity issues. This brings in a politics which targets the 'external enemies', Muslims; Christians, and intimidates internal sectors, dalits; Adivasis and women, of society. Its call for doing away with the word secular is nothing new in that sense. Its demand to do away with secular word and secular ethos shows that their Holiness is restricted to the appearance, while they want to maintain their social hegemony through political means. Secularism is not against religion. The best of religious people like Maulana Abul Kalam and Mahatma Gandhi had been secular to the core. They knew the boundary line very well. Also they used the moral values of religion to create bonds of fraternity (community) amongst the people of different religions. There were others who created Hate against the other community, and that too in the name of religion. One can cite the parallel and opposite roles of Muslim League on one side and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS on the other.
 
The seers, respected because of their Holy garb are misusing their appearance at the service of sectarian politics, they are playing the role of handmaidens of the divisive politics. Secularism precisely means that secular, this-worldly, issues should be the base of politics. So the genuine religious person like Gandhi could distinguish between the moral values of religion which should be adopted in life while shunning the identity related issues from political life, "In India, for whose fashioning I have worked all my life, every man enjoys equality of status, whatever his religion is. The state is bound to be wholly secular." It is a matter of shame and disgust the identity of a religion is being used to pursue the political goals of an organization, supplementing the goals a communal political party by appealing in the name of religion. 
 
At the same time to further demonize the Muslims it is taking up the issue of terrorism in lop sided manner. The slogan end of Jihad is a way to hide the anti Muslim agenda. There is an attempt to put the blame on Islam and Muslims for terrorism, which is totally false. A political phenomenon is being presented as the one related to religion. So Islamic terrorism word is acceptable to them! All terrorist are Muslims formulation is acceptable to them. But how dare you use the word Hindu terrorism if Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pande and their ilk is involved in acts of terror? In this meet, overseen by RSS representatives, lot of anger was expressed for the Maharashtra ATS for starting investigations against Sadhvi and Company.
 
The timing of the meet and the planned Yatras is more then striking. As we await elections, the VHP is trying to revive Ram Temple as an issue and will also be talking of terrorism; about Afzal Guru and will be reprimanding the state for 'torturing' Pragya Thakur. As a matter of fact VHP and this motley crowd of saints is an adjunct to the electoral goals of BJP. It articulates emotive things which BJP will not be able to do because of election commission and the media watch.
 
Of all the techniques evolved by RSS, the use of these Holy men for political goals may be the worst insult of the Hindu religion. While these Holy seers infinite in number, many of them have succeeded in building up their own five star Empires, there are others who are sitting on the top of already established mutts. What unites them through VHP is the politics of status quo, the opposition to democracy. We had saints, who talked against caste system and social evils. We had Kabir, Chokha Mela, Tukaram and the lot who stood for the problems of the poor, and now we have a breed, whose agenda is to undermine the prevalent social evils of dowry, female infanticide, bride burning, atrocities on dalits and Adivasis. Their goal is to keep talking about the spirituality and religiosity which is so different from the concerns taken up by the likes of Gandhi and the whole the genre of Saints of Bhakti tradition in India. One hope the people of India can see this clever game of communal politics and differentiate the grain from the chaff.   
 
 
 
Links to other articles
1.
Who Inherits Gandhi's Mantle?
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ws280209Gandhi.asp
 
2. Loving to Hate: Valentine Day and Sectarian Politics
 
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ws210209LovingToHate.asp
 
 
--
 
Issues in Secular Politics
 
February II 2009
 
For Publication/Circulation

 

"VIBRANT" GUJARAT - LIES, HALF-TRUTHS AND ILLUSIONS...."The Gujarat Reality Today" - Fr. Cedric Prakash sj *

"VIBRANT"   GUJARAT

LIES,  HALF-TRUTHS  AND  ILLUSIONS

"The  Gujarat  Reality  Today"

-  Fr. Cedric Prakash sj *

 

 

 

It is January 14th 2009.....Makarsakranti, the only feast of the Indian calendar which is not observed  on a particular day of the Lunar month.  It is generally believed that on this day, the sun enters the constellation of Makar (crocodile) and begins to move towards the north.  In Gujarat, it is known as Uttarayan, the day on which thousands of kites dot the skies in order to propitiate the Sun-God.  The newspapers today (as those of yesterday) are filled with stories of 'Vibrant Gujarat'... of how the biggest  industrialists  of   the  country  have  "promised"  to  invest  thousands  of  crores  (millions of

dollars !) in Gujarat.  Overnight, the problems of the State seem to have been solved  !!  Some have decided that Gujarat can now take on China and a couple of industrialists have even anointed the CM of the State as the next Prime Minister of India !!!

 

Visitors and dignitaries who came to Ahmedabad were welcomed by posters and banners, by floodlights and illuminations, with newly paved roads and a city which was cosmetically  spruced up for the "mother of all events" to flaunt what is termed in Government propaganda, as "Vibrant Gujarat".

 

The local (and some national) media went "gaga".....showcasing how Gujarat is more than India, how the "whole world" had come to invest in this one State during the two-day affair know as 'Vibrant Gujarat Investors' Summit'.  The Government and their cronies flag-waved all over.....it's the Number One State in the Country !   The hype put forward by the well oiled propaganda machinery was so compelling that even the most diehard critics of Gujarat  fell into the trap,  and joined the chorus that "all is well".

 

Very few dare ask uncomfortable questions.  Everybody  knows the truth about who is doing the "flag-waving !".  There are voices who  say that ' the "emperor" has no clothes on ! ',  but at this moment, there are not too many listening.  The plain truth is that the cosmetic has stifled the reality.  If one scratches the surface a little, the bubble of euphoria will surely burst.  Let's look into how "Vibrant", is Gujarat.

 

Violent :

For a State that should have had 'Ahimsa' as its cornerstone, violence has in fact become institutionalized.  The  State  presided over the killing of hundreds of Muslims during the Carnage of 2002.  Trigger-happy policemen have eliminated several Muslim youth in 'encounters'. (One high-ranking police officer is now  in jail for such an 'encounter'.)   Innocent boys are killed in an ashram of a well known Guru, and, no one can do anything about it !  Young girls studying to be teachers  are raped in Government Hostels by their teachers for the sake of better grades.   Female foeticide is rampant.  One only has to skim through the daily newspapers to realize how violence has become a perfected art in the State. 

 

Intolerant :

There is a sophistication in the way intolerance has been mainstreamed.  One can experience it in the chaotic traffic on the roads.  If one is a Muslim,  one is denied to right to buy a house or a shop in the up-market areas of Ahmedabad, Surat and other cities.  One is forced to live on the periphery of many villages.  The Freedom of Religion Law prevents any one from embracing another religion, without permission from the civil authority.  Couples in love, are forcibly prevented from marrying if the partner belongs to a different religion or caste. Movies like "Parzania" and "Fanaa" are not allowed to be screened in the State – one, because it exposes the Truth, and the other, because the lead actor asks that the tribals who were dispossessed because of the Narmada Dam,  to be justly rehabilitated.

 

Bluffing :

The art of lying  seems to have taken a new meaning in Gujarat.  This is obvious when even a sheer Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is regarded  as "Mission accomplished !".  This bluff was called, when recently, under an RTI query, the Government of Gujarat  admitted that just about 25% of the  MoUs of the last three years  were actually in the pipeline !!  The waters of the  Narmada Dam is being utilized  by the rich and powerful of Ahmedabad.  The parched lands  of North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch still harbour illusions of the water reaching them !!!   State Government advertisements highlight projects and programmes which are in fact undertaken and executed by the Central Government, like the expressway, the airport, the railway system and the 108 ambulance service.    

 

Revengeful :

In Gujarat today, anyone standing up for Truth and Justice is at the receiving end.   The Government pulls out all stops (to stop School Grants, to impound Passports) to ensure that voices of dissent are silenced.  A few months ago, when the Times of India did an expose on the Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad, sedition charges were filed against some of those who ran the newspaper.  Honest and objective police officials and bureaucrats are transferred to insignificant postings; Government agencies like the Collectorate, the Police, the Charity Commissioner are used to intimidate and harass individuals and groups that work for the betterment of the poor, the vulnerable and marginalized.  Prominent citizens are kept under constant surveillance and many live under the veil of fear. 

 

Arrogant :

A sense of arrogance seems to have puffed up the chests of a few who try to control the lives and destinies of others.  Such arrogance was very visible in the hey day of  Nazism when Hitler brutally trampled on those who were "not like him".  Key people in the State roam about with immunity and impunity and are also elected to positions of power.   The underlying message that is conveyed is that "no one can touch them".    One needs to look at the judgments that are given from the Lower Courts and the High Court of Gujarat,  in order to experience the subjectivity and partiality that has permeated the system. 

 

 Negligent :

Large sections of society in Gujarat are totally neglected.  Systematic efforts are made to snatch the forests from the hands of the adivasis.   A recent study says that more than thirty-five thousand families will be displaced from the banks of the River Sabarmati because of the Sabarmati River Front Development Project.  Development-induced displacement is also the lot of several poor and marginalized farmers and others.  Fisher-folk along Gujarat's vast coastline, continue to be marginalized.  Dalits are at the receiving end and many of them continue to live in inhuman conditions.  The status of women in Gujarat is way down in comparison to several other States of the country.    Children are denied their rights:  a large percentage of them constitute the labour force; the textbooks dished out by the Gujarat State Secondary School Board is a clear violation of the rights of children – full of  errors, inaccuracies, myths and  distortions; only about 59.6% of the rural children of Gujarat can read Std. I text as against the All-India average of  66.6%.   The Indian Express of December 21st 2008, has this to say :  According to International Food Policy Research Institute's 2008 Global Hunger Index, Gujarat is ranked 69th alongwith Haiti, the nation infamous for food riots.  The State is placed in the 'alarming' category.

 

Terror-filled :

Gujarat State is truly terror-filled !   For almost  seven years now, the principles of democracy have been thrown to the wind.  Right-wing Hindu groups can put up bill boards almost anywhere proclaiming  a  "Hindu Rashtra".  Places of worship have sprung up on public space and they are given full protection by the law and order mechanism.  The Constitutional rights and freedoms of an ordinary citizen are not safeguarded.  In fact, in several cases, when a victim approaches the system for help, he / she is made the perpetrator of the crime  !!!   The diversity which has been characteristic of this State, has been totally decimated as communities are forced into ghettoization.  There is palpable fear all over. 

 

What  "Vibrant  Gujarat"   then,  does  one  talk  about ?    The   truth  is  that   Gujarat  as  a   State  is  

"Violent",  "Intolerant",  "Bluffing",  "Revengeful",  "Arrogant",  "Negligent"  and  "Terror-filled". 

 

Let's not live in lies, half-truths and illusions. 

 

Gujarat, wake up, before it is too late !!    Satyameva Jayate  !

 

 

 

(* Fr. Cedric Prakash sj is the Director of "Prashant", the Ahmedabad-based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace)

 

 

 

' PRASHANT '  (A Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace), 

Near Kamdhenu Hall.  Drive-in Road,

 Ahmedabad   380 052,  Gujarat,  India  

Tel:   79 66522333 /27455913    Fax:   79 27489018   

Email: sjprashant@gmail.com      www.humanrightsindia.in

 

 

 

 

14th January 2009

 

Muslim response to Mumbai terror in sync with the national mood, but what is wrong with our intellectuals?

 

http://NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1077

 

Muslim response to Mumbai terror in sync with the national mood, but what is wrong with our intellectuals?

 

 

 

From the very moment it became clear that the terrorists who attacked India recently in Mumbai were Pakistanis, Indian Muslim anger against Pakistan and the godfathers of terror in that county has been expressing itself in a variety of ways.  They are particularly angry that these marauders have been maligning the fair name of Islam and its image as a religion of peace. They seem to instinctively understand that Indian Muslims' peaceful co-existence and continued integration in the national mainstream is not in the interest of Pakistan's permanent establishment. It negates the Two-Nation Theory on which their country is ideologically based. They keep trying - and, fortunately for us, failing - to instigate communal violence on any pretext that may become available to them. They did that in the aftermath of Bombay riots in 1993. Dawood Ibrahim-organised serial blasts took 250 civilian lives and caused 700 injuries alongside massive economic disruption but India refused to fall in the Pakistani trap. Our country is displaying the same commitment to secularism now and thanks God for that.

 

Muslims recognise the reasons behind Pakistani desperation to attack our secularism, our tolerance and national cohesion, our growing prosperity. India presents a complete contrast to their divided house, virtually every ethnic community seeking to secede, every sect bent upon destroying every other sect, killing its members in as large numbers as possible. Only the day before yesterday a Sunni suicide-bomber killed 20 Shias in a mosque in an event that has become routine in that country. Hence the Mumbai Muslims' refusal to bury the Pakistani dead in their graveyards, refusal to mourn the loss of Babri Masjid on December 6 this year, which has become an annual event, a sort of another Muharram since 1992. Muslim fury at a clear Pakistani attempt to foment wider violence against them resulted in their participation in large numbers in fellow-citizen's efforts to show solidarity with the families of those who had died in the latest invasion of our territory – 40 out of 172 killed were Muslims – and condemn the barbaric atrocities while paying homage to those brave policemen and commandos who laid down their lives in the service of nation.

 

But as we open the Urdu newspapers on 6 th of December, we find the editorial pages recycling the same material they keep doing every year on this Moharram II day, the same bemoaning of the "shahadat"(martyrdom) of the Babri mosque, without explaining how can bricks and mortar become "shaheed"-  will they go to Jannat, one naturally wonders. You won't  find any of these newspapers ever bemoaning the "shahadat" in Saudi Arabia of Islam's holiest shrines and greatest heritage buildings, that were living proofs of the historicity of many events in Islam's and Prophet Mohammad's life (PBUH).

 

Then you find Rashtriya Sahara reproducing historian Amareesh Mishra's conspiracy theories about Mumbai terror being the work of Israeli and Hindu Zionists' handiwork. You open your mailbox and find several Muslims enthusiastically lapping up Mishraji's theories and circulating them. Just sample one sentence of what a widely-circulated e-mail by convenor of the Mumbai-based Muslim Intellectual Forum, Firoze Mithiborwala, reads: "As far as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai are concerned, they are in all likelihood… controlled by the American CIA, the Pakistani ISI and the Israeli MOSSAD."

 

As Zulkif Manzoor, a Ramanujan Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore has been quoted in The Hindustan Times as saying: "Such poisoned opinion has only helped to strengthen prejudices (against Muslims)." Clearly our intellectuals are forgetting that Amareesh Mishra is a Kanyakubaja Brahmin and can say what he will, but we can't, not at this time.

 

Now does this mean that we are second class citizens; we don't have the same rights as Brahmins or others? No it doesn't mean that at all. We are and have been free to express ourselves in whatever way we will; our newspapers have been spreading venom for long - part of the reason why we have alienated ourselves to a certain extent from some sections of society and also injected cynicism in the minds of some of our youth. Mercifully, not many non-Muslims read Urdu newspapers. More mercy, not many of our own youth read Urdu newspapers either; that would have poisoned their minds beyond redemption perhaps.

 

We have been free and have misused our freedom to the hilt. What is different this time then? Well, as theatre personality Amir Reza Khan explained in a NDTV discussion, right now WE ARE AT WAR. And this war has been declared by a country inhabited by fellow-Muslims and not only in our name but also in the name of our religion. They have been posing as saviours of Indian Muslims and practitioners of Islam. Rules of the game are different in a war. We do, therefore, need to wear on our sleeves not only our patriotism but also a few verses of the Holy Quran preaching peace and opposing violence. As actor Shah Rukh Khan pointed out in his interview with Barkha Dutt on NDTV, it is not only Muslims in India, but all over the world who are being called upon to explain that Islam is not a religion of violence.

 

To those who love to spread conspiracy theories here is one that is more grounded in reality and common sense. Backed by US Imperialism, Christian crusaders and Israeli Zionism, Saudi Arabia has for decades been damaging Islam, not only destroying Islam's heritage buildings, but also spending billions of dollars to spreading a view of Islam that says that Muslims should not only kill all non-Muslims but also those Muslims who do not believe in this murderous version of Islam. Like the known enemies of Islam from the time of the first crusades, this Saudi Islam believes that Islam spread with the power of the sword that the Prophet and his successors wielded. Now use your imagination and you can easily surmise what the Crusader, Zionist game is in protecting the Saudi regime and promoting Saudi Islam, even after 9/11, while they destroyed the only bastion of secular and tolerant Islam in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, on a manifestly false pretext, and turned it into a Saudi or Iranian version of sectarian and intolerant Islam.

 

Fortunately the common Muslim understands the need of the hour that some of our intellectuals and journalists do not. I would appeal to Muslims to continue to walk the extra mile in condemning the Mumbai attacks and distancing themselves and their religion from Osama bin Laden's or Hafiz Saeed's version of Islam that has spawned Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and similar scourges.

 

Sultan Shahin, editor, NewAgeIslam.com

 

An article written by Anand Patwardhan which was rejected by the Times of India:

An article written by Anand Patwardhan which was rejected by the Times of India:
 
Terror: The Aftermath
 -     Anand Patwardhan

 

The attack on Mumbai is over. After the numbing sorrow comes the blame game and the solutions. Loud voices amplified by saturation TV: Why don't we amend our Constitution to create new anti-terror laws? Why don't we arm our police with AK 47s? Why don't we do what Israel did after Munich or the USA did after 9/11 and hot pursue the enemy? Solutions that will lead us further into the abyss. For terror is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It thrives on reaction, polarization, militarization and the thirst for revenge.

 

The External Terror
Those who invoke America need only to analyze if its actions after 9/11 increased or decreased global terror. It invaded oil-rich Iraq fully knowing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, killing over 200,000 Iraqis citizens but allowing a cornered Bin Laden to escape from Afghanistan. It recruited global support for Islamic militancy, which began to be seen as a just resistance against American mass murder. Which begs the question of who created Bin Laden in the first place, armed the madarsas of Pakistan and rejuvenated the concept of Islamic jehad? Israel played its own role in stoking the fires of jehad. The very creation of Israel in 1948 robbed Palestinians of their land, an act that Mahatma Gandhi to his credit deplored at the time as an unjust way to redress the wrongs done to Jews during the Holocaust. What followed has been a slow and continuing attack on the Palestinian nation. At first Palestinian resistance was led by secular forces represented by Yasser Arafat but as these were successfully undermined, Islamic forces took over the mantle. The first, largely non-violent Intifada was crushed, a second more violent one replaced it and when all else failed, human bombs appeared.

 

Thirty years ago when I first went abroad there were two countries my Indian passport forbade me to visit. One was racist South Africa. The other was Israel. We were non-aligned and stood for disarmament and world peace. Today Israel and America are our biggest military allies. Is it surprising that we are on the jehadi hit list? Israel, America and other prosperous countries can to an extent protect themselves against the determined jehadi, but can India put an impenetrable shield over itself? Remember that when attackers are on a suicide mission, the strongest shields have crumbled. New York was laid low not with nuclear weapons but with a pair of box cutters. India is for many reasons a quintessentially soft target. Our huge population, vast landmass and coastline are impossible to protect. The rich may build new barricades. The Taj and the Oberoi can be made safer. So can our airports and planes. Can our railway stations and trains, bus stops, busses, markets and lanes do the same?

 

The Terror Within
The threat of terror in India does not come exclusively from the outside. Apart from being hugely populated by the poor India is also a country divided, not just between rich and poor, but by religion, caste and language. This internal divide is as potent a breeding ground for terror as jehadi camps abroad. Nor is jehad the copyright of one religion alone. It can be argued that international causes apart, India has jehadis that are fully home grown. Perhaps the earliest famous one was Nathuram Godse who acting at the behest of his mentor Vinayak Savarkar (still referred to as "Veer" or "brave" although he refused to own up to his role in the conspiracy), murdered Mahatma Gandhi for the crime of championing Muslims.

 

Jump forward to 6th December, 1992, the day Hindu fanatics demolished the Babri Mosque setting into motion a chain of events that still wreaks havoc today. From the Bombay riots of 1992 to the bomb blasts of 1993, the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 and hundreds of smaller deadly events, the last 16 years have been the bloodiest since Partition. Action has been followed by reaction in an endless cycle of escalating retribution. At the core on the Hindu side of terror are organizations that openly admire Adolph Hitler, nursing the hate of historic wrongs inflicted by Muslims. Ironically these votaries of Hitler remain friends and admirers of Israel.

 

On the Muslim side of terror are scores of disaffected youth, many of whom have seen their families tortured and killed in more recent pogroms. Christians too have fallen victim to recent Hindutva terror but as yet not formed the mechanisms for revenge. Dalits despite centuries of caste oppression, have not yet retaliated in violence although a small fraction is being drawn into an armed struggle waged by Naxalites.

 

It is clear that no amount of spending on defense, no amount of patrolling the high seas, no amount of increasing the military and police and equipping them with the latest weaponry can end the cycle of violence or place India under a bubble of safety. Just as nuclear India did not lead to more safety, but only to a nuclear Pakistan, no amount of homeland security can save us. And inviting Israel's Mossad and America's CIA/FBI to the security table is like giving the anti-virus contract to those who spread the virus in the first place. It can only make us more of a target for the next determined jehadi attack.

 

Policing, Justice and the Media
As for draconian anti-terror laws, they too only breed terror as for the most part they are implemented by a State machinery that has imbibed majoritarian values. So in Modi's Gujarat after the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 2002, despite scores of confessions to rape and murder captured on hidden camera, virtually no Hindu extremists were punished while thousands of Muslims rotted in jail under draconian laws. The same happened in Bombay despite the Shiv Sena being found guilty by the Justice Shrikrishna Commission. Under pressure a few cases were finally brought to trial but all escaped with the lightest of knuckle raps. In stark contrast many Muslims accused in the 1993 bomb blasts were given death sentences.

 

The bulk of our media, policing and judicial systems swallows the canard that Muslims are by nature violent. Removing democratic safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution can only make this worse. Every act of wrongful imprisonment and torture that then follows is likely to turn innocents into material for future terrorists to draw upon. Already the double standards are visible. While the Students Islamic Movement of India is banned, Hindutva outfits like the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the Shiv Sena remain legal entities. The leader of the MNS, Raj Thackeray recently openly spread such hatred that several north Indians were killed by lynch mobs. Amongst these were the Dube brothers, doctors from Kalyan who treated the poor for a grand fee of Rs.10 per patient. Raj Thackeray like his uncle Bal before him, remains free after issuing public threats that Bombay would burn if anyone had the guts to arrest him. Modi remains free despite the pogroms of Gujarat. Congress party murderers of Sikhs in 1984 remain free. Justice in India is clearly not there for all. Increasing the powers of the police cannot solve this problem. Only honest and unbiased implementation of laws that exist, can.

 

It is a tragedy of the highest proportions that one such honest policeman, Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who had begun to unravel the thread of Hindutva terror was himself gunned down, perhaps by Muslim terror. It is reported that Col. Purohit and fellow Hindutva conspirators now in judicial custody, celebrated the news of Karkare's death. Until Karkare took charge, the Malegaon bomb blasts in which Muslims were killed and the Samjhauta Express blasts in which Pakistani visitors to India were killed were being blamed on Muslims. Karkare exposed a hitherto unknown Hindutva outfit as masterminding a series of killer blasts across the country. For his pains Karkare came under vicious attack not just from militant Hindutva but from the mainstream BJP. He was under tremendous pressure to prove his patriotism. Was it this that led this senior officer to don helmet and ill-fitting bullet proof vest and rush into battle with a pistol? Or was it just his natural instinct, the same courage that had led him against all odds, to expose Hindutva terror?

 

Whatever it was, it only underlines the fact that jehadis of all kinds are actually allies of each other. So Bin Laden served George Bush and vice-versa. So Islamic and Hindutva jehadis have served each other for years. Do they care who dies? Of the 200 people killed in the last few days by Islamic jehadis, a high number were Muslims. Many were waiting to board trains to celebrate Eid in their hometowns in UP and Bihar, when their co-religionists gunned them down. Shockingly the media has not commented on this, nor focused on the tragedy at the railway station, choosing to concentrate on tragedies that befell the well-to-do. And it is the media that is leading the charge to turn us into a war-mongering police state where we may lead lives with an illusion of safety, but with the certainty of joylessness.

 

I am not arguing that we do not need efficient security at public places and at vulnerable sites. But real security will only come when it is accompanied by real justice, when the principles of democracy are implemented in every part of the country, when the legitimate grievances of people are not crushed, when the arms race is replaced by a race for decency and humanity, when our children grow up in an atmosphere where religious faith is put to the test of reason. Until such time we will remain at the mercy of "patriots" and zealots.

The monster in the mirror....by Arundhati Roy

The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed 'India's 9/11', and there are calls for a 9/11-style response, including an attack on Pakistan. Instead, the country must fight terrorism with justice, or face civil war
Arundhati Roy guardian.co.uk, Saturday 13 December 2008 00.01 GMT

We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11". Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.
As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the "Bad Guys" he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.
But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.
It's odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India's richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara – one of Kashmir's most ravaged districts.
The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously indicates that something's going very badly wrong in this country.
If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary people too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness. The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish centre.
We're told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said "Hungry, kya?" (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I'm sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't that war. That one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Lalgarh in West Bengal and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities.
That war isn't on TV. Yet. So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal with the one that is.
There is a fierce, unforgiving fault-line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially "Islamist" terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or even try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.
Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm's way. Which is a crime in itself.
The sayings of Hafiz Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hardline Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolsters the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias and Democracy and believes that jihad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world. Among the things he said are: "There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."
And: "India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir."
But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera): "We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire … we hacked, burned, set on fire … we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it … I have just one last wish … let me be sentenced to death … I don't care if I'm hanged ... just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs [seven or eight hundred thousand] of these people stay ... I will finish them off … let a few more of them die ... at least 25,000 to 50,000 should die."
And where, in Side A's scheme of things, would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or, Our Nationhood Defined by MS Golwalkar, who became head of the RSS in 1944. It says: "Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening."Or: "To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here ... a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."
(Of course Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two and a half months of violence which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of who now live in refugee camps.)
All these years Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud Daawa, which many believe is a front organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He continues to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jehad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11 the UN imposed sanctions on the Jammat-ud-Daawa. The Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure and put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest. Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and lives the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide he left the VHP to join the Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi, Bajrangi's former mentor, is still the chief minister of Gujarat. So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was re-elected twice, and is deeply respected by India's biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata.
Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, recently said: "Modi is God." The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted. The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and 7 million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former prime minister AB Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition LK Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and intelligence officers.
If that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.
So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick Side B. We need context. Always.
In this nuclear subcontinent that context is partition. The Radcliffe Line, which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain's final, parting kick to us. Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million people, Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Each of those people carries and passes down a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can't seem to emerge, a nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic Republic, and then, very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths. India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi's predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India's bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born.
By 1990 they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992 Hindu mobs exhorted by LK Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it. By 1998 the BJP was in power at the centre. The US war on terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy. This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance and it was in the interests of international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed.
This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism in the subcontinent and of the Mumbai attacks. It shouldn't surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is from Shimla (India) and LK Advani of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).
In much the same way as it did after the 2001 parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the government of India announced that it has "incontrovertible" evidence that the Lashkar-e-Taiba backed by Pakistan's ISI was behind the Mumbai strikes. The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies the Lashkar operates in India through an organisation called the Indian Mujahideen. Two Indian nationals, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal, have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy. Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen and undercover intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously. In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation state is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost impossible.
In circumstances like these, air strikes to "take out" terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not "take out" the terrorists. Neither will war. (Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let's try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighbouring Sri Lanka, one of the world's most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian army.)
Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to.
Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in heart of the Homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently remade. Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan's borders. Nobody, least of all the Pakistan government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world is mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistan government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more than it does on India.
If at this point India decides to go to war perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of "non-state actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbours. It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.
On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it's the best way for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home front. The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at "ground zero" kept up an endless stream of excited commentary. Over three days and three nights we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men armed with guns and gadgets exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation.
While they did this they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion or nationality. (Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. The U.S and Israeli armies don't hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.) But this was different. And it was on TV.
The boy-terrorists' nonchalant willingness to kill – and be killed – mesmerised their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news. Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that's worth.
Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the standoff the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people and inflict as much damage as they could before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered. When we say "nothing can justify terrorism", what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it's precious. So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they've died, they've journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.
One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the attackers, who called himself Imran Babar. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things contained in the "terror emails" that were sent out before several other bomb attacks in India. Things we don't want to talk about any more: the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir. "You're surrounded," the anchor told him. "You are definitely going to die. Why don't you surrender?"
"We die every day," he replied in a strange, mechanical way. "It's better to live one day as a lion and then die this way." He didn't seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.
If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, why didn't it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for? Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don't figure in their calculations except as collateral damage. It has always been a part of and often even the aim of terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden faultlines. The blood of "martyrs" irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project. A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theatre, spectacle and symbolism, and today, the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV. Even as the attack was being condemned by TV anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes were being magnified a thousandfold by TV broadcasts.
Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed (is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?). We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation. We had the death of former prime minster VP Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes and villain of Upper caste Hindus pass without a mention.
We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir, give us his version of George Bush's famous "Why they hate us" speech. His analysis of why religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim hate Mumbai: "Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness." His prescription: "The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever." Didn't George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can't seem to get away from.
Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and leftwing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army and virtually asking for a police state. It isn't surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of "pickings" is long gone. We're now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.
Dangerous, stupid television flashcards like the Police are Good Politicians are Bad/Chief Executives are Good Chief Ministers are Bad/Army is Good Government is Bad/ India is Good Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria.
Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that in the business of terrorism, victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles. It's an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we're still learning. (If Kashmir won't willingly integrate into India, it's beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)
It was after the 2001 parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including SAR Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Showkat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence. The supreme court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgment the court acknowledged there was no proof that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender." Even today we don't really know who the terrorists that attacked the Indian parliament were and who they worked for.
More recently, on September 19 this year, we had the controversial "encounter" at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat under seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad in 2008. An assistant commissioner of Police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well. He was one of India's many "encounter specialists" known and rewarded for having summarily executed several "terrorists". There was an outcry against the Special Cell from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local community to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, academics and activists all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. In response, the BJP and LK Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a "Braveheart" and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had dared to question the integrity of the police, saying it was "suicidal" and calling them "anti-national". Of course there has been no inquiry.
Only days after the Batla House event, another story about "terrorists" surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to a sessions court, the CBI said that a team from Delhi's Special Cell (the same team that led the Batla House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted 2kg of RDX and two pistols on them and then arrested them as "terrorists" who belonged to Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir). Ali and Qamar who have spent years in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been similarly jailed, tortured and even killed on false charges.
This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) that was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts arrested a Hindu preacher Sadhvi Pragya, a self-styled God man Swami Dayanand Pande and Lt Col Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian Army. All the arrested belong to Hindu Nationalist organizations including a Hindu Supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat. The Shiv Sena, the BJP and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that "Hindus could not be terrorists". LK Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble rousing speeches to huge gatherings in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.
On the November 25 newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high profile VHP Chief Pravin Togadia's possible role in the Malegaon blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai Attacks. The chances are that the new chief whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.
While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to camera: "Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan," he said, "I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting." For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today, amounts to incitement as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.
So according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police. This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake "encounters". This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world and yet refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they've escaped being "encountered" by our Encounter Specialists. A country where the line between the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.
How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them? There are those who point out that US strategy has been successful inasmuch as the United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 9/11. However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse. If the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing its true colors, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The US army is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed greatly to the unraveling of the American economy and who knows, perhaps eventually the American empire. (Could it be that battered, bombed Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of this one too?) Hundreds of thousands people including thousands of American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of terrorist strikes on U.S allies/agents (including India) and U.S interests in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11. George Bush, the man who led the US response to 9/11 is a despised figure not just internationally, but also by his own people. Who can possibly claim that the United States is winning the war on terror?
Homeland Security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It's not that kind of homeland. We have a hostile nuclear weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalise, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world. If ten men can hold off the NSG commandos, and the police for three days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?
Nor for that matter will any other quick fix. Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they're for people that governments don't like. That's why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They're just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go. Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It's what they want.
What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet.
The only way to contain (it would be naïve to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.

Every section of society needs to act fast to heal wounds - By Fr Cedric Prakash, Sj

Every section of society needs to act fast to heal wounds
News
FINANCIAL CHRONICAL
Nov 27 2008

By Fr Cedric Prakash, Sj

The terror attacks on Bombay have created panic and fear in every section of society. They have left us grappling for responses and solutions.
Terrorist attacks are not new to India. They happen with frightening regularity. But the reality is that they always happen to "somebody else" far away.... So, in many ways, civil society seems unaffected — as long as their interests are not touched, they are not disturbed.
A classic case is the Gujarat carnage of 2002, when thousands of Muslims in Gujarat were hounded out of their homes, brutalised, raped and murdered.

Some did speak out at great risk, but there was no moral outrage on what was taking place. The connivance of the government, the role of the police, was beyond doubt and that is why, perhaps, terror continues to rule the roost. Today, most of Gujarat is a highly polarised society, with divisions running right down the middle.

When terror attacks continue, as in Bombay, the obvious question is, "Who could be responsible?" As a result, there is a tendency "to find someone" as soon as possible, and very often, there are scapegoats, leading to a whole religion/community being demonised. This definitely does not lend to healing scars or to building bridges.
What is imperative for every section of society today is to act fast to heal the wounds. Governments, both at the Centre and states, must be seen as fair and impartial while deal with the issue.

Terrorism has no religion, so it is ridiculous that politicians defend alleged terrorists from "their own" religion, and strongly condemn those who belong to "another" religion. Governments and political leaders must, therefore, must not draw political mileage or indulge in
vote bank politics when terror strikes.

People from all walks of life need to come out to condemn the terror acts and try to usher in an environment of normalcy as soon as possible.

This can be achieved if we have visionary and charismatic leaders, who transcend the narrow confines of language, culture, race and religion. Victims have to be reached out to immediately, and those traumatised, need to be cared for.

At every step, we need to defend the secular character and the diversity guaranteed to us by our Constitution. We have to create ownership of the rights and freedom guaranteed by it, and ensure that these are protected and enjoyed by every single citizen.

Yes, we need to heal the scars of terror right now. We cannot wait for tomorrow. A sagacious political will and a deep commitment from every single citizen will go a long way in doing so.

The writer is director of PRASHANT, the Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace, based in Ahmedabad

THE FASCIST STATE: Setting the agenda to counter

Resolution

THE FASCIST STATE: Setting the agenda to counter


We, the participants of the Seminar on 'The Fascist State: Setting the agenda to counter' held at the Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, on Sunday, 23rd November 2008, are extremely concerned at the increasingly fascist nature of the Indian State, as illustrated by several instances in the recent past.
Gujarat 2002 certainly heralded the fascist era in Indian politics; but it is getting deeply entrenched in Indian politics as a whole, without exception of the party in power. The genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, the subversion of the criminal justice system in order to achieve this, the application of POTA on Muslims in Godhra and other cases, the refusal to acknowledge the large numbers of Internally Displaced Muslims, the persecution of Christian and Muslim Adivasis and the holding of the Shabri Kumbh in the Dangs – all these did expose the fascist characteristics of the State in Gujarat. Encounter killings of Muslims under the pretext of a conspiracy to kill the CM, the appointment of Sanghis in the universities and the saffronization of the campuses, the recent massive drive against Muslim youth following the Ahmedabad blasts also reiterate this.
The brutal and blatant attacks on Christians and their institutions in Orissa and Karnataka, with total connivance of the State Governments has exposed the massive fascist project that is underway. The misrepresentation of the constitutionally granted right to practice and propagate one's religion as "forced conversions", in order to threaten the marginalized communities into submission and acceptance of the dominant Hindutva discourse which finally culminates in draconian anti-conversion laws, seems to be passively accepted by the political parties and civil society across the board.
We express deep anguish at the increasing fascist mobilization in society, rising State terror and a circumvention of the rule of law by the law enforcing agencies, and the large scale violation of civil and political liberties.
We condemn these acts of repression in no uncertain terms. We call upon the Central and State Governments to act immediately : uphold and protect the sanctity of the Constitution, to guarantee the rights and freedom of all citizens and to contain the fascist forces which are inimical to the pluralism and diversity of the country.
We invite civil society and all citizens of India, to raise their voice against these fascist forces and make our country in the real sense of the word, one which is 'by the people, for the people and of the people'.
Organizers:
Action Aid * Aman Biradari * Aman Samuday * Antarik Visthapit Haq Rakshak Samiti * Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan * Centre for Development * Documentation and Study Centre for Action * Himmat * INSAF * JanVikas * Lok Kala Manch * Mahila Swaraj Abhiyan * Movement for Secular Democracy * National Alliance for Women * Niswa * PRASHANT * PUCL * Safar * SAHR WARU * Women's Action and Resource Unit * Samarpan * Samerth * Samvedan Cultural Program * Sanchetna * Saurashtra Dalit Sangathan * St. Xavier's Social Service Society * Swabhimaan Andolan * URJAGHAR
Ahmedabad
23rd November 2008
'DARSHAN' – An Organization Committed to Cultural Transformation
B-2/1, Sahajanand Towers, Jivraj park, Ahmedabad – 380 051, Gujarat, India.
PHONE: +91-79-26815484, 65413032.
Email: hiren_darshan@yahoo.com, darshan.org@gmail.com
WWW: www.geocities.com/samvedan2004

The President-Elect and India

by: Martha Nussbaum

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/

http://dailyalochona.blogspot.com/2008/11/alochona-martha-nussbaum-president.html

President-elect Barack Obama will face many challenges in foreign policy, but forging a productive relationship with India will be high on that list. President Clinton took a keen interest in India, and, especially, in issues of rural development. He visited rural development projects with his usual zest and curiosity, taking a particularly keen interest in the situation of women. After his Presidency, Clinton has continued his work on issues of poverty and development. He was also virtually the only major international leader to stand up right after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and publicly condemn the perpetrators.

President Bush, by contrast, focused his efforts on the nuclear deal, more or less neglecting issues of poverty and development. One bright spot in the generally dismal record of his dealings with India, however, was the decision to deny a visa to Narendra Modi, who had been invited to lecture here by a group of Non-Resident Indians (NRI's). The State Department cited his role in the Gujarat pogrom as its reason for denying him a diplomatic visa and revoking his tourist visa. This courageous stance in favor of human rights and against the perpetrators of a genocide was surprising but highly welome to the large number of U. S.-based scholars of India who had petitioned the State Department in this matter.

What course will President Obama choose? Will he, like Clinton, focus on poverty, quality of life, gender equality, and an end to the politics of hate? Or will he follow the lead of the NRI community, focusing on entrepreneurship and nuclear partnership? Much discussion, this week, has focused on Obama's appointment of Sonal Shah to his transition team. I shall not add to the growing volume of commentary on Shah's links to the VHP-A, since she has already issued one statement condeming the politics of hate, and will soon be invited to clarify her position further. Shah personally is involved with only the VHP-A's relief efforts. There is room for concern, however, that someone with such close ties to an organization that has been complicit in terrorist activities against Muslims and Christians should hold such a prominent place. The whole issue deserves the further clarification that it will receive.

Instead of pursuing that question further, however, I should like to focus on a letter written by then-candidate Obama to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, dated September 23, 2008, and published in India Abroad, the October 10 issue. I address these remarks to my former University of Chicago Law School colleague in the spirit of the type of respectful yet searching criticism that I know he will recognize as a hallmark of our faculty workshops and discussions.

The Obama letter has three slightly disturbing characteristics.

First, the letter gives lengthy praise to the nuclear deal, without acknowledging the widespread debate about the wisdom of that deal in both nations. Perhaps, however, this silence simply reflects politeness: Obama is surely aware that Singh has been an enthusiastic backer of the deal, risking much political capital in the process.

Second, the letter speaks of future cooperation that will "tap the creativity and dynamism of our entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists," particularly in the area of alternative energy sources, but never mentions a future partnership in the effort to eradicate poverty and illiteracy. This silence, unlike the first, cannot be explained by politeness, since Singh has devoted a great deal of attention to issues of rural poverty, and it is plausible to think that he could have gotten a lot further had he had more help from abroad.

Third, and most disturbing, the letter commiserates with Singh for the Delhi bomb blasts, but makes no mention of Gujarat or Orissa. Obama offers Singh:

"my condolences on the painful losses your citizens have suffered in the recent string of terrorist assaults. As I have said publicly, I deplore and condemn the vicious attacks perpetrated in New Delhi earlier this month, and on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7. The death and destruction is reprehensible, and you and your nation have my deepest sympathy. These cowardly acts of mass murder are a stark reminder that India suffers from the scourge of terrorism on a scale few other nations can imagine."

Obama's use of the word "terrorism" to describe acts thought to be perpetrated by Muslims, while not using that same word for acts perpetrated by Hindus, is ominous. Muslims suffer greatly in India, as elsewhere, from the stereotype of the violent Muslim, and both justice and truth demand that we all do what we can to undermine these stereotypes, bringing the guilty of all religions to justice, and protecting the innocent. (The recent refusals of local bar associations in India to defend Muslims accused of complicity in terrorism, under threat of violence, shows that the rule of law itself hangs in the balance.) Particularly odd is Obama's omission of events in Orissa, which were and are ongoing. His phrase "the scourge of terrorism" is virtually Bushian in its suggestion that terrorism is a single thing (presumably Muslim) and that many nations suffer from that single thing. (Note that it is not even true that most world terrorism is caused by Muslims. Our University of Chicago colleague Robert Pape's careful quantitative study of terrorism worldwide concludes that the Tamil Tigers, a secular political organization, are the bloodiest in the world. Moreover, Pape argues convincingly that even when religion is used as a screen for terror, the real motives are most often political, having to do with local conflicts.)

Obama's letter was written during a campaign. Perhaps it reflects awareness of the priorities of NRI's who were working hard in that campaign. At this point, however, he can start with a clean slate and decide how to order his priorities regarding India. Let us hope that, like Bill Clinton, he will give the center of his attention to issues of human development (poverty, gender equality, education, health), and that, when discussing the issue of religious violence, he will study carefully the violence in Gujarat and Orissa, learn all he can about the organizations of the Sangh Parivar, and adopt a policy that denounces religious violence in all its forms. To mention one immediate issue, it would be a disaster for global justice if Obama, as President, were to heed the demands of the diaspora community to grant Narendra Modi a visa -- especially since the Tehelka expose has made so clear the cooperation of the government of the state of Gujarat in those horrendous acts of violence.

President Obama has repeatedly shown a deeply felt commitment to the eradication of a politics based upon hate. Can we have confidence that he will carry that commitment into his relationship with India, even when the demands of powerful leaders of the NRI community make that difficult? I certainly hope so.

Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at The University of Chicago, and the author of The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future.