Tuesday, September 30, 2008

remembering..............gandhi

remembering .................... Bhagat Singh

...by crushing individuals, they cannot kill ideas.

Hunter Better Than Nanavati ........

Hunter Better Than Nanavati

By R.B. Sreekumar

The Nanavati Commission report deserves the description as a whitewashing document of the aggressors than the conclusion of an enquiry. This is an immature, partisan and inconclusive report which has a political motive. It can only be seen only as a predetermined script. The report hides the heinous acts of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and co, who were the perpetrators of the violence


Some Bombs Get Defused

By Smita Gupta

Just who is a terrorist? Definitions change when it comes to the Hindutva extreme


Delhi 'Encounter' Raises Tough Questions

By Praful Bidwai

It’s a matter of shame that India’s anti-terrorist police cells haven’t managed to rise above the suspicion that they prefer brutal and even barbaric methods over due process of law. Unless their anti- terrorist strategies and operations undergo radical reform, the minorities whom they selectively target will never feel secure or part of the national community as full citizens

click title to read full article

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Some Questions About The Delhi Encounter

Some Questions About The Delhi Encounter

By Shabnam Hashmi, Satya Sivaraman, Manisha Sethi, Tanweer Fazal,Arshad Alam & Pallavi Deka

A team comprising activists, academicians and journalists visited the site of the police operation against alleged terrorists staying in an apartment in Jamia Nagar in the afternoon of 20.09.2008 . Two alleged terrorists Atif and Sajid, along with Mohan Chand Sharma, an inspector of the Delhi Police's Special Cell died in the operation while a third alleged terrorist was arrested. On the basis of our interactions with the local residents, eye witnesses and the reports which have appeared in the media, we would like to pose the following questions

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

September 15, 2008 New Delhi

Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh,



The blasts in Delhi (September 12, 2008) are another in the series of tragic blasts in which scores of people have been killed. We strongly condemn the blasts and demand a proper, unbiased investigation into the same. We demand that the guilty be punished. At the same time it seems that our investigating agencies are ignoring some thing very crucial in the matters of investigating the acts of terror.
The acts of terror have been occurring and Home Ministry is watching helplessly. While the current investigation is totally focused around SIMI, many an alleged culprits have been put behind the bars, despite which now some unknown entity Indian Mujahideen seems to have been projected as being responsible for the current ones. At the same time another stark truth is being deliberately sidelined and undermined. And that relates to the blasts done by Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagran Samiti. We fail to understand as to why the investigation authorities are turning a blind eye to some of the well established facts.
1. In a serious case of blasts in Nanded in April 2006 two Bajarang Dal workers died when making bombs. Similar incidents of bomb blasts were witnessed in many places around that time, Parabhani, Jalna and Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Most of these were in front of the mosques. The Nanded investigation 'leads' were not followed. On the contrary the investigation in that direction was not pursued at all. The attitude of police in this investigation has been totally lax. Social activists made the complaint about this to Human Rights commission. The commission summoned the Superintendent of police, Nanded, in its hearing held on 17th June. The SP failed to turn up for hearing! There seems to be a deliberate cover up of this important finding of Maharashtra Anti terrorist Squad. ATS did investigate the links of the dead with Bajrang Dal, an RSS affiliate. At the same time the injured were visited in the hospital by the top brass of local BJP and associates. Local BJP MP told the police not to harass those related to the culprits in the wake of the Bajrang Dal involvement in the bomb making. In Nanded, ATS also found fake moustache and pajama kurta, the idea being that the culprits will dress like a Muslim while doing these black deeds.

2. A bomb blast took place at the RSS office at Tenkasi, in the Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu on January 24. After a thorough investigation, the Tamilnadu Police had arrested 7 persons belonging to Sangh Parivar outfits. They had confessed that they indulged in this terror act to instigate the local Hindu population against the Muslims. On further investigation, the Tamilnadu Police arrested Siva Alias Sivanandam, who is the General Secretary of Hindu Munnani at Kadayanallur, a neighbouring town of Tenkasi. Formed in 1980, Hindu Munnani is a frontal organisation of Sangh Parivar operating in Tamilnadu. Siva, who has earlier worked in quarries in the neighboring state of Kerala had supplied the ammonium nitrate and other raw materials for preparing the bombs.
3. The bombs which exploded in Gadkari Rangayatan on 4th June 2008 injured seven people. Again Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad succeeded in nabbing the culprits. The culprits were part of Hindu Janjagaran Samiti (HJS), an outfit of Sanatana Ashram in Panvel. These culprits were also involved in other blasts, in Vashi, Panvel and Ratnagiri. We have not heard anything about the further tracing of this very important lead.
4. On 24th August, in Kanpur two Bajrang Dal workers died while making bombs. Rajiv alias Piyush Mishra and Bhupinder Singh were killed while making crude bombs on Sunday afternoon. On 25th August, Monday, police recovered some crude hand grenades, lead oxide, red lead, potassium nitrate, bomb pins, timers and batteries from the spot, inside a hostel in Kalyanpur area of Kanpur, about 80 km from Lucknow. No further investigation, why?
Every time there is a bomb blast immediately the agencies and the media declare that it is done by some Muslim organization without any proof. Hundreds of innocent young boys are picked up, what follows are illegal detentions, torture, arrests, harassment of families, forcing the families and victims to sign blank papers. For years these helpless victims are tortured in jails, denied legal aid, even lawyers who try and fight their cases are attacked openly in courts. Their images tarnished for life time. If they are lucky they get let off after years as neither the agencies or the police have any proof against them. The cacophony of stricter laws rises so that a police can extract a confession by third degree torture and present that as evidence. Through this systematic vilification campaign the process of demonization of minorities continued unabated.
If we look at the timing of the terror attacks it is very clear that one and only one political outfit is gaining from it and that is Sangh. With their eyes on the central government their agenda of polarizing the voter is going ahead successfully.
On the other hand there are constant attacks on minorities on one pretext or another. Orissa thousands of Christians have been attacked, rendered homeless, their homes ransacked and looted and burnt down, churches attacked and even orphanages are not left alone.
Karnataka a similar picture is emerging. We have personally briefed very senior people in the government and the Congress party about the Karnataka situation and that it might explode but nothing was done and we have seen what has happened yesterday.
While we write to you now, the police are firing at Muslims in Yakutpura in Vadodara. Yesterday during the Ganpati procession a local dargah was broken down and shops of Muslims looted and ransacked. Already one boy has died and many are injured.
Last few days the only Muslim village Nandepeda in the Dangs, Gujarat has been attacked, ransacked. Villagers have been beaten up brutally including women and children. All men have fled to the jungles. The police not only took away all the goods but before going they poured kerosene into the eatable good so that they could not eat anything too. A proposed VHP rally today was stopped after spending 4 hours on the phone and pressuring various police departments.
UPA had formed the National Integration Council under tremendous pressure. The first agenda papers which were prepared, if you remember, were highly communal and objectionable. A number of us had raised it during the meeting and the Home Minister had replied' treat them as scrap' in your presence. Probably the Home Minister realized that people like us were too uncomfortable to have in the NIC, who would raise these questions. The NIC was never convened again. It was supposed to meet every six months.
The country unfortunately has been given on a platter to the Sangh and the government looks helplessly in providing security to ordinary citizens whether they are victims of terror attacks or victims of the constant attacks by the Sangh Parivar's various outfits.
We hope you will intervene and question why are such clear cases of involvement of RSS affiliates in terror attacks being ignored. It seems the investigating authorities deliberately want to cover up the role of RSS affiliates in these acts of terror. Can the real truth behind the dastardly acts come out without properly investigating these incidents, where the culprits' involvement is very clear? We urge upon you to instruct the investigating authorities to pursue the investigation in an unbiased, honest and professional manner. The life of innocent citizens is at stake and such irresponsible cover will definitely prevent the real truth from coming out. For the sake of fairness, honesty and the values of our constitution, we need to pursue these cases in their logical direction.
Can we look forward to you, Mr. Prime Minister to make your Government to rise above partisan attitude and unravel the truth behind the blasts which are rocking the country in a painful way?

Sincerely

Shabnam Hashmi, Member, National Integration Council
Ram Puniyani, Social Activist, and writer

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

EXPOSING THE POLITICS OF TERROR

Dear All,

As part of our collective effort to organize a People's Tribunal to expose the Politics of Terror, we have been engaging in a dialogue with numerous organizations across Mumbai. As part of that process and in order to further our collective understanding of the Politics of Terror that is being waged against the People, we are organizing a discussion / debate as it is imperative that we possess an understanding that addresses the politics that is at the core of the issue and not only the Human Rights - Legal framework. If we are to successfully wage a united struggle against the politics of terror, it will require that we put forth a coherent analysis that goes beyond and also challenges the dominant paradigm that is being propounded by sections of the Indian State, the Security apparatus and the Corporate Media.

TOPIC: EXPOSING THE POLITICS OF TERROR in the AGE OF US-ZIONIST IMPERIALISM.

The discussion will be initiated by Feroze Mithiborwala and will be followed by an open debate.

VENUE: BOMBAY SARVODAYA MANDAL, ABOVE "GANDHI BOOK CENTRE", NEXT TO BHAJI GALLI, NANA CHOWK, NEAR GRANT RD STN (WEST).DATE: SEPT 17, 2008 / TIME: 6-9pm
Awami Bharat, Awaaz-i-Niswaan, Lok Shahi Hakk Sangathana, India Centre for Human Rights, NAPM, Nirbhay Bano, Phule-Ambedkar Vichar Manch, Yuva, Cehat, Vidyarthi Bharti, Indian Social Movement.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

from counter currents

Visit To Orissa

By Shabnam Hashmi

This account is based only on the testimonies for those who managed to escape and reach Bhubaneshwar. The situation is very serious in Orissa and only a full fact finding team can come out with full details after it is allowed to enter those areas


Hindutva's Violent History

By Angana Chatterji

The Sangh’s history in postcolonial Orissa is long and violent. Virulent Hindutva campaigns against minority groups reverberated in Rourkela in 1964, Cuttack in 1968 and 1992, Bhadrak in 1986 and 1991, Soro in 1991. The Kandhamal riots were not unforeseen

Bombs Defused In Newsrooms

By K.K. Shahina

The blast which occurred on 24th August hardly found even a single column space in the leading news papers like The Hindu and Times of India, next day. K.K. Shahina says the media uses different scales to measure terrorism


click to read full article

Then They Came For Christians…

Then They Came For Christians…

By Ram Puniyani

Orissa is witnessing unprecedented violence against the tiny Christian minority. On August 23, 2008, Swami Laxmananand along with his four followers was killed, probably by a group of Maoists. Immediately, anti-Christian violence began on big scale. The way it began it seemed as if preparations for it were well afoot. It was systematic and widespread. It sounded as if preparation was already there, just the pretext was being waited for

click above to read full article

An Encounter With The Terror Police

By Sandeep Pandey


An Encounter With The Terror Police



An eyewitness account of what happened when the police came to search the house of a terror suspect in Lucknow, and the high handed action that followed

to read article click above

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

India's strategic Sellout

by seema mustafa

The drums are beating and the urchins are dancing on the streets. They are all celebrating the waiver obtained from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team barely slept the last night, as they carefully steered India through the next step of becoming a US subordinate.
The vigilant media chasing even drivers for sound bytes at Vienna was particularly ecstatic. The NSG waiver, the scribes insisted, allowed India to immediately start nuclear commerce with Russia, France and the rest. See, they parroted, we are not in the US bed, and can diversify. By the next day it was apparent to even the most supportive that this was not to be. And there was no waiver until the deal was cleared by the US Congress.
It is clear for those who want to see it that the Hyde Act, the enabling legislation for the 123 agreement, holds sufficient clauses to make even the Prime Minister admit that certain changes were required. His were just token noises that eventually sought refuge in the 123 agreement, insisting that India was bound by this little document and not the Hyde Act. The US officials, including Secretary Condleeza Rice, have repeatedly pointed out that the deal will be implemented under the provisions of the Hyde Act that are binding on the administration, and under which it has to ensure that India follows the prescribed path. Much has been written about this to bear repetition now.
The text of the NSG waiver has very clearly converted the voluntary moratorium on testing into a multilateral commitment. The safeguards on India's nuclear facilities will be in perpetuity. Any fuel supply agreement India agrees to will be subject to periodic NSG review. The restrictions on the transfer of sensitive technologies will continue. Any NSG country can block separate deals that India may contemplate, even with countries that offer better terms like cooperation in uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, P.K.Iyengar, analysed the policy document of the US State Department, spelt out as answers to 45 questions posed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He told this columnist that it was clear that now if India conducts a nuclear test, the US will immediately abrogate the 123 agreement, and take back all the nuclear materials including the fuel it has supplied; that there are no guarantees of perpetual fuel supply or provisions to stock for a lifetime; there will be no transfer of sensitive nuclear technology and the US is clear that its actions will not be dictated just by the 123 agreement, but also the Atomic Energy Act and the Hyde Act.
The NSG waiver has underlined this as well, being neither clean nor unconditional. This is crystal clear except to the poor urchins made to dance to any tune, the corporate media, the Congress party, the Prime Minister and his team, and of course sections of the middle class for whom the deal is just seen as a passport to the US. Ironically, it is very clear to the US that knows what it has entered to, has a plan for taking this forward, and is closely following its policy of bringing India on board to serve its interests. Defence Minister A.K.Antony has been summoned to Washington to discuss the big ticket items, that will include the 126 aircraft deal and the logistics initiative that the Left had been able to stall till now. The white wash has a habit of peeling away and it will not be long before even the most ardent supporters of the nuclear deal realize the extent and scope of the strategic sell out. The Prime Ministers visit to Washington next month will take this forward, to the post deal partnership.
The government, at US behest, has again gone silent on the Iran gas pipeline. The Iranians are looking at other options. One such serious option that is being voiced by government advisors in Tehran is to scrap this pipeline project altogether and divert the supplies to gas hungry Europe. This alternative is finding new supporters in Iran, with pressure mounting on the government to distance itself from India.
Prime Minister Singh will certainly go down in history. As the politician who sold India's strategic sovereignty to the US.

The NSG agreement and India's strategic sellout.

By Seema Mustafa


The story is not over. And the story, regardless of the euphoric media, is no longer in the passage of the nuclear deal as that has become a foregone conclusion. If a government is willing to bend over backwards, accept any clause, any tail pulling, any compromise, there is no international deal that will fall through the world over. The reason why some deals do not make it is because these tamper with a nations sovereignty, dignity and pride and are not equitable in their impact. When a government is willing to swallow all that a nation stands for, even the most difficult pacts will go through.The story has long since shifted from the nuclear deal to the UPA government's ability to sink as low as it possibly can for a divisive deal that compromises the country's future. The hype is such that the NSG waiver is being interpreted as a major victory, an end to India's nuclear isolation, of having reached the 'high table' if not by sitting on the chair, then at least as one television commentator put it excitedly, by sitting on the stool. The story will unravel in the coming weeks and months. The first indications will come from the small print in the NSG waiver. The second will come from the visit of the Union Defence Minister A.K.Antony to the US where the Indian Air Force is currently in the 'final run' of the Red Flag Exercises that the US earlier only carried out with Nato member nations. India is now a proud participant having paid Rs 80 crores for the exercises where the air force of all the participating nations basically learn to work together through a series of complicated exercises. The third will come from the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US in September, where he will no doubt be privately entertained by the lameduck, highly unpopular US President George W.Bush.What is going to be the cost of sitting on a stool, or even a chair, at the high table? Most of this has already been answered, some of it will be answered by the NSG waiver when it is finally released, read and understood. This cannot remain a secret document as was the letter written to late chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee Tom Lantos by the State Department. In this 45 key questions were answered in what amounts to a policy declaration by the Bush administration on the nuclear deal. The Indian government has claimed it had no idea about this, surprising really as every one concerned with the nuclear deal or writing on the nuclear deal was aware of its existence and some of the contents. The government should have asked the US administration for the document that was neither secret or classified. The US claims that New Delhi knew the details, the government here continues to deny this hoping that the generated vagueness will work to its advantage.
The letter establishes what has been written by India's nuclear scientists and strategic experts over and over again, spoken of by the Left and Opposition leaders, and discussed threadbare in Parliament. The government instead of responding to the consensus against the nuclear deal in Parliament has sought to buy approval with money and berths, and has resorted to every little trick in the book to see this dubious deal through. The letter released now by the US foreign affairs committee of the House of representatives clearly shows that 1) if India conducts a nuclear test, the US will cut off nuclear trade and take back all the nuclear materials it has supplied, including fuel.2) there will be no guarantees of perpetual fuel supply; 30 there will be no transfer of sensitive technology and 4) the Hyde Act and the US Atomic Energy Act will be as binding on this nuclear deal as the 123 agreement. Pointing this out former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission P.K.Iyengar says, "we find ourselves in the following impossible situation. If we go ahead with the nuclear deal and by some miracle we even manage to import nuclear power at competitive prices (many years from now) we simultaneously destroy our strategic programme as well as put ourselves at the mercy of the nuclear cartel. How can this deal be in the national interest?"The Hyde Act that the US has to implement as the enabling legislation for the nuclear deal, further shackles India's foreign policy options to those "congruent" with the US. It is amazing how not a single diplomat, present or former, ecstatically supporting the deal has stopped to ask what the US is getting from the nuclear deal. In fact they have all joined the Prime Minister and his ambassador to the US Ronen Sen in projecting Bush as a messiah committed to solving India's energy problems for little more than climate change returns! India has been already garnering its foreign policy to that of the US. The vote against Iran at the IAEA, the complete silence on the terrible developments in Iraq, the support for the Karzai government with little word about the regrouping of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the China threat, the reluctance to endorse the Maoists in Nepal, in short the inability to think and act for ourselves. In defence, we have been diverting procurements away from Russia to Israel in what is yet another major strategic shift.
The UPA government has taken the deliberate decision to push India out of the non aligned camp into the US embrace. The nuclear deal is the symbolic and strategic step towards this. US State department officials have said as much, pointing towards the significance of the nuclear deal for the new relationship in South Asia, now that Pakistan has become defunct as a strategic partner, and for bringing India into the non proliferation regime without signing the NTPT or the CTBT. In doing so Singh and his cronies have ensured 1) India does not test, as the price of testing will be too much in terms of just dollars for this country to bear. It is a fact that India does not have a credible deterrent, and by refusing to define this the government has abdicated responsibility at this stage; 2) India no longer has independent control over its nuclear asserts with the US Congress now having a bilateral say in determining the nature of the civilian nuclear program; 3) the nuclear energy generated ---after twenty years---will meet only five to six per cent of the total national requirement, and will be phenomenally expensive and 4) the larger agreement on defence, agriculture, knowledge, democracy that was signed between Singh and Bush will now be acclerated. One of the goals is to draw India into the Proliferation Security Initiative, and make it a firm partner for implementing US plans in Asia.The reasons for India's opposition to the nuclear deal have not been diluted with the NSG waiver. Rather these have been strengthened, and the loud bleating of supporters cannot take away from the fact that the government has surrendered strategic space to another country. And what makes it worse, there was no need to. A defence officer was so right when he said the other day, "we are in a position today to dictate our terms and conditions, we are such a huge market, every one is coming here, but somehow we end up accepting every thing others dictate." Why? Because our Prime Minister is not able to show us the way, and the party in power believes its better to crawl when asked to bend.