South Asia Citizens Wire | 25 June, 2005 [1] Pakistan: Losing the war on tarnished image (Miranda Husain) [2] Pakistan - India - Kashmir: The Peace Process - View from Srinagar (Prabhu Ghate) [3] India: Gujarat Genocide victims - Waiting for Justice (Teesta Setalvad) [4] That Long Night of Knives - When India's democratic structure was shaken to its roots (Ashok Mitra) [5] Announcements - Upcoming Events: (i) Public Discussion 'Emergency, State & Civil Liberties Today': (New Delhi, 26 June) (ii) Ethical Challenges in Health Care: Global Context, Indian Reality (Bombay, 25-27 November) (iii) The Kashmir Dispute and Building a Peaceful South Asia (Washington, 14 July)
______ [1] Daily Times June 25, 2005 LOSING THE WAR ON TARNISHED IMAGE by Miranda Husain Rozan has been accused of distributing 'obscene' material in schools. But what exactly did the guardians of our moral fibre find so reprehensible? Did the NGO distribute pornographic material at fair trade prices? Did it urge children to join the lucrative sexual exploitation trade? General Pervez Musharraf needs new 'enlightened moderation' spin doctors. For while he seems to understand that "public relations is the most important thing in the world", his image-protection team could not be doing a worse job. First there was the Mukhtar Mai house arrest debacle, which served to further consolidate Pakistan's image as a country where women's rights are not only routinely violated, they are not even to be discussed abroad for fear that the international community will be blinded by "poor perceptions" of the country. As if the world does not already know that a woman is raped here every two hours while 'honour'-related crimes take the lives of two women everyday. Yet the state's policy of preserving its public modesty by shrouding such 'vulgar' issues in enforced silence, lest they deter tourists from coming here, shows no sign of letting up. The latest victim of Islamabad's war on tarnished image is a non-government organisation, Rozan. The NGO has been blacklisted by those in the know for distributing 'obscene' material in schools. But what exactly did the guardians of our moral fibre find so reprehensible that they ordered the organisation to abandon all ongoing projects? Did the NGO distribute pornographic material at fair trade prices? Did it urge children to join the lucrative sexual exploitation trade and ask them to sign on the dotted line? No. As an organisation dedicated to, among other things, addressing the emotional health of children in general and child sexual abuse in particular, Rozan distributed questionnaires asking pupils if they had ever been victims of sexual abuse. By blacklisting Rozan, those charged with projecting the soft face of Pakistan on the global stage have unwittingly acknowledged that they just don't fear those 'foreign element' NGOs so hell bent on badmouthing the country abroad that they are akin to Islamic extremists. They fear equally the home-grown threat posed by Pakistani 'extremist' NGOs. This NGO-Muslim fundamentalist equation is interesting, coming as it does from the pioneer of enlightened moderation himself. When he first put forward his thesis a year ago, President Musharraf acknowledged that Muslims were probably the "most uneducated, most powerless and most disunited people in the world". Indeed, his heart wept at the thought of how the modern world had left Muslims lagging behind socially, morally and economically. It is therefore interesting to note that the first study into child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation in Pakistan was carried out in the pre-enlightened moderation era. In 1998, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) initiated a project entitled "Elimination of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth through Human Resource Development" in South Asia and the Philippines. ESCAP published its findings in 2001. It concluded that child sexual abuse was one of the least explored forms of child abuse in Pakistan. Children and adults had not been educated about the prevalence of this malaise and were thus ill-prepared to take preventive measures. But since the ESCAP report, things had appeared to be moving on in Pakistan. In 2003, again pre-enlightened moderation, UNICEF and its partners supported a Community Model School in Rawalpindi that offered a community-led rehabilitation programme for working children, most of whom had been victims of sexual abuse at one time or another. The school encouraged children to talk openly about their experiences and gave them access to professionally trained counsellors to help them deal with the psychological scars of their traumas. As head teacher and architect of the project, Mussarai Sherwani, pointed out: "Unless we speak about these issues in a way that everybody knows and understands, we shall never be able to protect these children and young people." But then came the era of enlightened moderation and the ensuing war on tarnished image. The principle objective of this war of choice was to present Pakistan abroad in a favourable light. And this meant turning a blind eye to sexual abuse, unless of course, it was used as a weapon against women to punish them for male crimes. Thus there was no way the establishment was going to acknowledge the sexual subjugation of children. For if it did, it would deny itself an exit strategy from the tarnished image war and instead find itself plunged deep into a quagmire of its own making. After all, it is a bitter enough pill to swallow when a grown woman does not simply fade into the shadows after enduring a barbaric panchayat-sanctioned gang rape. But it is quite another when 'fundos' at local NGOs start recruiting children to talk about their experiences of sexual abuse. Left unattended, such practices, the administration fears, would certainly lead to a full-blown insurgency against the liberators of Pakistan's misunderstood image. And so we have it that the government does not take body counts for the victims of the tarnished image war. They are, after all, nothing more than unfortunate collateral damage. But let us hope that the Musharraf administration wastes no time in manoeuvring a flamboyant U-turn and recognise that it can, in fact, do nation building. What is at stake is the future of the Pakistani state. For a country that does not protect the most vulnerable members of its society risks its place at the table of civilised and peace-loving nations. But as the war on tarnished image shows no sign of relenting any time soon, let us nonetheless hope that Pakistan's key ally shows the necessary courage to stand up and denounce the entire enterprise as compromising its domestic interests. By supporting a war president, the US has placed itself in an awkward position at home. It still continues to pride itself as the self-proclaimed custodian of global human rights. But by siding with Islamabad, Washington has found itself engaged in an increasingly delicate balancing act. Its public support of the Musharraf regime has unleashed much anti-Pakistan sentiment at home, as the American people increasingly feel that Washington has sacrificed their interests in order to support an ally in an unjust war that does not even have the backing of the Pakistani people. Until this happens, the war on tarnished image may continue with no exit strategy in sight. ______ [2] The Economic and Political Weekly June 18, 2005 THE PEACE PROCESS VIEW FROM SRINAGAR The India-Pakistan peace process may have made several encouraging moves in recent weeks, but in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, old suspicions and fears still linger. For too long, militarism has been the preferred political solution. The people in divided Kashmir, separated by decades-old animosity, are now looking to both governments to take proactive steps in the shape of soft borders, open up trade links between the two regions and to ensure a transparent government. Prabhu Ghate Outwardly at least, Srinagar is limp- ing back to normalcy. The once ubiquitous sandbagged bunkers have thinned out, and there are fewer armour-plated vehicles tearing around with machine gunners peering out of turrets on top. The few one sees are often parked at intersections, their occupants standing around enjoying the sunshine. The army chief's instructions not to point guns at people are being followed, and the forces are talking about the need to maintain 'traffic etiquette'. The Dal boulevard is clogged with buses offloading tour groups massed around shikara stations, waiting to be taken to their houseboats. Further along the lakeside, the up-market hotels seem pretty full, with tourists and conventioneers. After a long lull, though bomb incidents have resumed, and perhaps more can be expected from spoilers, but they have not affected the influx of tourists. There is enough support for the peace bus to make it highly unlikely that it will be attacked, the bizarre incident, the day before it was first scheduled to start, notwithstanding. However, it is hard to discern a corresponding change in mood, at least among the Srinagar intelligentsia, which is so influential in shaping opinion. The sense of alienation continues to be fed by the petty humiliations and inconveniences of constant searches (security if anything has been tightened in the wake of the bus and renewed bomb incidents) and by the mere sight of olive green, even if less obstrusive than before. Human rights abuses are widely acknowledged to have declined, but what people emphasise is that they continue to be unacceptably high. Militancy is on the decline, and is confined to a few pockets mostly in south Kashmir, while security forces claim that the first and second rung of leadership have been largely 'eliminated'. A source in one of the security forces put the number of militants at only 750, down from 950 last year, and from 1,400 in 2003, a little more than half being foreigners, with new infiltration down to a trickle, whether because of the fence, or action by Pakistan. These armed militants are provided logistical support by perhaps a couple of thousand locals. Others point out that the seeming precision of such estimates is bound to be spurious. Kashmiris sympathetic to the separatist cause estimate the numbers to be considerably higher, and point to the fact that the militants have become more effective in targeting officers, with more lives being lost in the last two years than in the previous 14. Despite this, the security forces seem confident that they have the upper hand, and see themselves as now 'going for the kill'. At a recent high level meeting of the joint command, the minutes of which were leaked to a national daily, participants urged that the focus now shift from the militant underground, to OGWs, or 'overground workers', and monthly quotas be set for eliminating or incarcerating them. Thousands of such persons are said to be languishing in jails. The pressure to 'eliminate' every last militant or OGW, leads to a continuation of human rights abuses such as fake encounters. While I was in Srinagar there were demonstrations and stone-throwing for three days in the Maisuma neighbourhood where a youth who was claimed to have been killed crossing the LoC on a Wednesday night was seen later, leaving his home on a Thursday morning. As many Kashmiris claim about the peace process, 'nothing has changed on the ground'. An example of the constant insecurity and vulnerability experienced by even non-violent and peaceful proponents of the right to self-determination (which is not the same thing as calling for 'azadi', since self-determination includes maintaining the status quo as well as the new option of soft borders) is the latest attempt to intimidate Parvez Imroz, a lawyer and human rights activist. Imroz organises the Coalition for Civil Society, which puts together joint teams of volunteers from the plains and from Kashmir to monitor elections in the valley. A memorial meeting was held on April 20 to remember Aasia Jeelani, who was killed in a mine blast last April while monitoring the parliamentary elections. Ironically, and tragically, she fell victim to a human rights abuse, one committed by the militants in this case, since IEDs (landmines) do not discriminate between combatants and civilians. The event concluded the next day with the inauguration of a monument a few miles out of town on the Baramula road, put up by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. The impact of a disappearance on a victim's family is recognised internationally as a form of torture, denying relatives the right to come to terms with their bereavement. The small monument stands in what was once a paddy field, overlooked by snow-capped peaks, and says "Never again The justice we seek lies not in forgetting the past but in remembering those who should never be forgotten" There are over 500 graveyards scattered around Srinagar, with some of the graves holding two bodies. The parents, spouses and children of the disappeared now have the small solace of having a 'graveyard' of their own. Imroz has been calling for an official commission to investigate the disappearances, which have been one of the uglier abuses of the conflict, one committed by both sides. The APDP's latest estimate of the number of the 'involuntary disappeared' is 8,000 to 10,000, while the government puts the figure of those 'missing' to be about 4,000, but says most of them joined the insurgency voluntarily, and got killed, or are living on the other side of the LoC. The APDP says it excludes all such known cases, and has produced a list, with details, of (only) 10 youths who have 'reappeared' or whose bodies have been found. It is now engaged in a village by village survey in Baramula district, to be extended to other districts later, to prepare lists of those known to have been died at the hands of the forces, or of the militants, or in cross-fire, or in custody, as well as of widows, orphans, and of the involuntary disappeared. It took a team six days in one village in Bandipur tehsil to document 240 deaths. For all his pains, Imroz was woken up by someone banging at his door a few nights after the function, demanding he be let in as a prospective client. Imroz suspects he was one of the 'renegades' who now work for the security forces, sent to intimidate him, or worse. A lawyer was assassinated in similar circumstances last year. Imroz's senior partner, H N Wanchoo, was assassinated in the early 1990s, and another human rights lawyer, Jalil Andrabi was murdered in custody in 1966. Imroz and others like him are determined to carry on. The 'Bus' and Other Peace Measures Happiness about the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus was negated, temporarily at least, by what was seen as an attempt to steal the show, the credit for which rightfully belonged to the 'people of Kashmir' and their struggle. While universally welcomed as a step in the right direction, what is regarded as more important is how easy it will be for people to use the bus, and the other routes that will hopefully be opened up. (The vast majority of divided families live in the Poonch-Rajauri sector.) The security forces are already concerned about the risk of the bus being used by OGWs to cross over from the other side. As one of them said "one overground worker is more dangerous than 10 militants". If anyone who publicly but peacefully espouses self-determination is regarded as 'anti-national' and is denied a permit, the bus runs the risk of engendering more resentment than it alleviates. There is already considerable unhappiness about the difficulties and delays in getting passports. The valley has one of the lowest ratios of passports granted in the country. Clearly if the bus is to yield the benefits envisaged, the stranglehold of security considerations over all else will have to yield to a mindset at the working level that is more in keeping with the spirit of the changing relationship at the national level. There is need to follow up the bus with a series of other 'Kashmir specific' CBMs to reduce alienation as well as create and sustain a sense of ownership in the peace process. To enable widespread debate and consultation between different parts of the old undivided state of Jammu and Kashmir, including those across the LoC, freedom of speech and travel needs to be respected, restrictions such as S144 used only sparingly, and detenus not wanted for specific acts of violence released. The withdrawal of the army from the urban areas and a phased thinning out in the rural areas is near the top of everyone's list of CBMs which would have an immediate impact. Security duties would be taken over by the J and K police (minus the hated Special Operation Group which has been partially integrated with the regular police but not entirely dismantled), who could be assisted for the time being by the CRPF. The army and the BSF are not averse to a redeployment to the LoC and borders, but implementation has been held up by the illusion that militancy can be completely eradicated by anything other than a political solution, as well as the lack of preparedness of the CRPF in the face of continuing sporadic bomb and grenade incidents and assassinations. The best hope of reducing these, and isolating the jehadi groups is to push ahead with further CBMs and the peace process. A ceasefire would be a strong reinforcing element. The home ministry has been making prevaricating offers for one, but its last word was that it was waiting to see what is on offer in the talks. The forces too seem to be in no hurry to enter into a ceasefire in the mistaken belief that they can solve the problem militarily. A ceasefire would have to have the strong support of Pakistan to have the chance of carrying along the jehadi groups. Demonstrations against human rights abuses are much more tolerated under the Mufti regime, but effective and visible action continues to lag far behind of what is required. Imroz's group has documented about 140 involuntary disappearances since the Mufti government took over in November 2002, indicating the agency responsible, including in many cases, the militants. However of the 70 or so magisterial inquiries set up, only about five have led to reports being submitted to government, and reportedly only one SHO has been suspended. As peace returns the need to continue imposing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and other legislation should be reviewed. The toothless state human rights commission needs to be urgently empowered. Perhaps one of the most effective CBMs will turn out to be the intention to allow trucks on the Jhelum Valley Roadway (JVR) and presumably on other routes. The lion's share of J and K's horticultural production of about Rs 1,500 crore consists of about one million tonnes of apples, two-thirds of which are sent to the plains. Rawalpindi on the other hand, is located in the state, is in the backyard compared to Delhi, and will greatly enhance the bargaining power of valley producers. Apples might even be re-exportable through Karachi to west Asia. Cherries and strawberries are highly perishable items that need to be sent to the plains in refrigerated trucks. These will no longer be necessary on the JVR. The benefits of an expansion of horticultural production are potentially extremely broad-based. For all this to happen though, apart from strengthening the bridges on the JVR, Pakistan and India will have to carry out the necessary trade policy changes. One hopes that the story currently doing the rounds in Srinagar of Musharraf having told Gilani that he wants to see 4,00,000 tonnes of Kashmiri apples in Pakistan is not just apocryphal. Unlike horticultural products, with the exception of walnuts, Kashmiri handicrafts such as wood carvings and paper mache are largely exported, but with considerable 'bunching' to meet Christmas time deliveries. This is precisely when the Jammu road is often blocked by snow. Moreover, because of the tunnel and bends along JVR, it cannot take containers above a certain size. Exports through Karachi will obviate this difficulty. Rauf Panjabi, the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce, told me that given suitable financing and other facilities, Kashmir's handicraft exports of about Rs 500 crore could quickly double. If one adds to this the prospects of Pakistani tourists being allowed to visit, the potential economic impact of the opening up is considerable. For the moment however the valley is not brimming over with ideas on cross-border cooperation. On the contrary, one sensed a distinct lack of enthusiasm even for the more radical and ambitious version spelt out by Mubashir Hasan in a recent article in the Dawn, which sets out in draft treaty form an agreement between India and Pakistan to set up a fully autonomous, demilitarised, and reunified Jammu and Kashmir, which would be 'almost independent' and an autonomous member of SAARC, but with sovereignty continuing to vest with India and Pakistan along the LoC, with minor adjustments. The article was reproduced in two local papers but attracted no immediate editiorial comment. The proposal must feel like a bitter let down to those with long cherished dreams of 'azadi'. Most people are realistic and pragmatic enough to understand and accept the constraints that are leading the two countries to the soft borders approach, but whatever their private thoughts, it was still politically incorrect while I was there to discuss anything less than azadi. The reluctance to do so will no doubt dissipate, but only if the government enters into a genuinely broad-based and participatory search for solutions. It may take a little time before the existing and new leadership takes advantage of the totally unexpected new space that has been created since the Musharraf visit, but it is a reasonable bet that new and creative interpretations of azadi will be thrown up, and find substantial acceptance, although it could be a slow and messy process. Musharraf is probably right when he says the two leaders will have to provide strong leadership and remain proactive, but it will be essential to carry the people of Jammu and Kashmir along if any settlement is not to unravel in the future. ______ [3] Communalism Combat April-May 2005 Gujarat Genocide victims Waiting for Justice By Teesta Setalvad "Aaj bhi ham hamare mukkam par nahi ja ke rah sakte (Even today we cannot go back to where we belong)." - Aiyubmiya, eye-witness to the massacre where 33 persons from Sardarpura village, Mehsana were killed in 2002. The village his family had lived in for decades is no more their home. "Jab ham bach ke nikle, aath ghante ke baad, aur laash aur laash hamare ghar ke chabootre par giri hui thi; jakar kaanpte kaanpte ham police van me baithe, toh policewale ne kaha, 'kya itne log bach gaye hai, kya? Hamne socha sab khatm hue!' (When we escaped with our lives after eight hours of brutal targeting, there was a row of corpses outside our house. Trembling, we got into the waiting police van when a policeman in uniform said, 'What! So many saved! We thought all would be finished!')." - Zakiabehn Jaffri, wife of former parliamentarian Ahsan Jaffri. "Mere bees saal ke bacche ko police ne nanga kar ke bithaya, peeth mod kar, goliyan mar mar kar police ne khatm kiya Maine socha tha ki badle mein bandook uthaoon magar phir socha ke nirdosh ko maar kar kya phayda? Aaj bhi hamara case waise hee pada hai, sessions court mein. (My 20-year-old boy was made to strip. The police bent him over and then pumped bullets into him I thought of picking up the gun in revenge but then I thought what good would killing innocents bring? My case still drags on in the sessions court)." - Zahid Kadri, a father. (Survivors' Speak, meeting organised by Communalism Combat, Citizens for Justice and Peace and SAHMAT, New Delhi, April 16, 2005). The criminal trial in six major massacres were stayed by the Supreme Court on November 21, 2003 after about 60 victims who are also eye-witnesses filed affidavits in the apex court of India detailing how the investigation into this massacre was being consciously subverted by the Gujarat police and witnesses continually threatened. Though 18 months have passed since the stay and several dates of hearing come and gone, the plea for reinvestigation and transfer is still pending before the apex court. On May 2, 2002, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) filed a petition through citizens of Gujarat in the Supreme Court of India requesting that the CBI, not the Gujarat police, investigate the major massacres. This was also a key recommendation made by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in its reports, March-July 2002, on the genocide. Three years later, this petition too is pending disposal before the apex court. With due respect, the three major acquittals - including the Best Bakery (in Vadodara), the Kidiad (where 61 persons were burnt alive in two tempos at Limbadiya Chowki in Sabarkantha district), and Pandharwada (where over 45 persons were massacred in two separate incidents in a village in Panchmahal district) massacre cases - may not have resulted if key recommendations made by the NHRC, which included investigation by the CBI into major carnage cases and trials by special courts, had been followed in these cases. A detailed report, 'Gujarat -Three Years Later' is currently being compiled by Communalism Combat. Our preliminary investigations reveal that on a rough estimate about 61,000 persons continue to be internally displaced within the state. Included among them are key witnesses of the major massacres, who even today cannot go back to their villages or localities simply because they have chosen to fight for justice. Many are both victims of the massacre and key eye-witnesses. The large majority of the internally displaced were small minority groups scattered across many of Gujarat's 18,000 villages. They have had to surrender their homes and petty landholdings in return for a life of penury-struck refugees. This is the stark and shameful reality of Gujarat, where even the political Opposition has stopped addressing issues arising out of a State-sponsored pogrom and where the perpetrators continue in seats of power and influence. Eye-witnesses who are also victims include survivors of the Gulberg massacre (February 28, 2002) where 68 persons were slaughtered including former MP Ahsan Jaffri and 10-15 girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence; Naroda Gaon and Patiya (February 28, 2002) where over 120 persons were similarly ravaged while a complicit police and elected representatives watched and led mobs respectively; Sardarpura (March 1-3, 2002) where 33 persons were brutally killed in one incident while 14 were burnt alive in the second); and the Ode killings in Anand district (March 1-3, 2002) in which a total of 27 persons were killed. All of them continue to suffer and sacrifice for their decision to struggle for justice. Many eye-witnesses, like a key witness from Naroda Gaon and his family members, have been penalised three or four times with false criminal cases being slapped against them. The attempt is clearly to intimidate all those who stand for the struggle for justice. Recent reports highlighting attempts to target citizens and human rights defenders who support the struggle only underline the state of affairs in Gujarat today. If there is one thing that the onerous struggle for justice has shown, it is this: For justice to be finally ensured at least in case of the major incidents of carnage let alone the hundreds of crimes that took place in Gujarat in 2002, the struggle for justice needs strong support from State agencies. But in reality, three years after the horrors in which they lost their near and dear ones, key witnesses of the major incidents of violence cannot even step into their villages or localities simply because they have chosen the path of justice. Further, the conduct of the state of Gujarat through the ongoing Best Bakery re-trial being conducted in Mumbai (see accompanying story) is far removed from that of a prosecutor state committed to ensuring justice. Apart from the questionable role of the Gujarat state in the Best Bakery case, the sheer brazenness of its conduct can be gauged from its decision to reappoint the controversial public prosecutor in the Best Bakery case, Raghuvir Pandya, allegedly a VHP sympathiser, as Vadodara's district government pleader. Pandya, who was indicted by the Supreme Court for acting "more as a defence counsel than a public prosecutor" in its historic verdict transferring the Best Bakery case to Maharashtra on April 12, 2003 (see Communalism Combat, April 2005), is now back as state counsel and will again plead the government's case if any of the communal riot cases are reopened! Clearly undeterred by the spotlight of the apex court, the Gujarat government has appointed another allegedly active BJP member, MD Pandya, as special public prosecutor in a case related to Radhanpur town of Patan district where many BJP heavyweights like Radhanpur BJP MLA Shankar Chaudhary, former president of Radhanpur municipal council Pravin Thakkar, president of Radhanpur municipal borough Prakash Kumar Thakkar and member of the district BJP medical cell Dr. Jyotindra Raval were all implicated as accused in the case. The attitude of the Gujarat state headed by chief minister Narendra Modi who was re-elected by 51 per cent of the Gujarati electorate in December 2002, nine months after masterminding the pogrom, has been understood and absorbed nationwide. What escapes public attention is the realisation that even three years later there is absolutely no remorse or regret for what had been orchestrated in February/March-May 2002. If Modi is relatively silent today, it is only because of the legal battles in which his state is embroiled despite his best efforts. At the ground level his brigands carry on unashamed. At Desar village of Vadodara district on April 10, 2005, as hundreds of villagers watched in the presence of BJP MP Jayaben Thakkar, local MLA Upendrasinh Gohil and VHP leaders, two Swaminarayan sadhus unveiled the bust of Vakhatsinh Ramansinh Parmar. The inscription on the marble plaque under the bust read: "This memorial is to honour Ram Sevak Vakhatsinh Ramansinh Parmar who laid down his life in the attacks in retaliation to the killing of 58 karsevaks on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 2002. Parmar was killed in police firing on March 1, 2002, third Friday, Vikram Samvat, 2058". Parmar was, according to police records, part of a mob that torched Muslim properties and attacked the police when the police was trying to save properties from being torched. He was named as an accused in the case. This is the first time that a riot accused has been publicly felicitated in Gujarat albeit posthumously. The function was organised by the VHP. The local MLA and MP did not find anything wrong in erecting a memorial for a mob leader in a village where Muslims form 30 per cent of the population. "This is a fitting tribute to the youth for his sacrifices for the cause of Hindutva," Thakkar told The Deccan Herald. Asked about the incident, minister of state for Home Amit Shah said: "One is always innocent till he is convicted." An apt illustration of the perversion of values within the political class in Gujarat. Political campaign If justice is to prevail, a necessary condition for this must be created through the dismissal of the Modi government under Article 356 of the Constitution, say constitutional experts like Shanti Bhushan. There is legitimate apprehension among many about the use of Article 356, lest it set a precedent for the Centre to get rid of governments in Opposition-ruled states. But the Gujarat case is an exceptional one in so much as the state government has been seriously implicated by the NHRC and even the Supreme Court, in what are perhaps the most inhuman, horrendous and unconstitutional acts in the history of post-Independence India. In the past few months, courageous statements by serving police officers have echoed the outrage earlier expressed by these apex institutions and hundreds of groups and individuals. Statements by serving policemen that have been made public clearly show that orders were issued by none less than the present chief minister Narendra Modi that minorities who resist or protest be exterminated. Put together, the imposition of Article 356 in Gujarat is warranted not only on grounds of humanity and constitutional propriety, but also for the maintenance of the country's unity, integrity and secular fabric. _______ [4] The Telegraph June 24, 2005 THAT LONG NIGHT OF KNIVES - When India's democratic structure was shaken to its roots cutting corners ashok mitra A Congress working committee meeting, July 14, 1975 Thirty years almost to the day since the proclamation of Indira Gandhi's Emergency. That event had, at that moment, shaken to its roots the country's democratic structure. But apparently not a ripple is now left in the nation's memory. In any case, more than one half of those who constitute the nation today were yet to be born in June, 1975; several others were in their hazy infancy. Even for those who were then adult Indian citizens, the travails of daily living over the decades have extracted a price - an incapability, or even reluctance, to indulge in introspection. And yet, at least for some people, the sequence of happenings in that distant turbulent week are not easily cast aside from the stockpile of recollection. The verdict of the Allahabad high court, a stunned Congress unsure of what to do next, an even more unsure Indira Gandhi listening - or perhaps not actually listening - to the outpourings of counsel and advice from her acolytes during those raucous hours. One of her trusted confidantes, Durga Prasad Dhar, dies of cancer the very day the court judgement is delivered. Another éminence grise, once considered closest to her, but now a somewhat remote figure, Parameshwar Narain Haksar, dutifully turns up and does not bother to conceal his opinion: the prime minister should of course appeal to the Supreme Court, but, before she did so, she must vacate her office. The suggestion is received in hostile silence. At that juncture, the bounders take over. They help Indira Gandhi make up her mind. Why is Part XVIII there in the Constitution? Use it, arrange to declare an Emergency. Was not the evidence as glaring as it could be? The nation's judiciary were in cahoots with a bigoted opposition, the nation was in gravest peril. Besides, has not one of her sycophants-in-waiting already clinched the issue - the prime minister is the nation and vice versa? The goons move centre-stage. The arrests begin soon after dusk on June 25, power is cut off from the Indraprastha Estate area to shut out the press, a near-senile Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed is rooted out of his bed in Rashtrapati Bhavan to sign the proclamation; members of the cabinet are assembled in the early hours of the morning to put post facto seal of approval on the Emergency that was already on. That long night of knives marked a watershed of a sort. All political parties in democratic India had all along felt the necessity of keeping a clutch of musclemen under their command. But this species was scrupulously kept under wraps; they asserted their presence only on particular occasions, such as in the election season, for purposes of booth-capturing. Indira Gandhi's Emergency changed all that; the goons openly took charge. The important point was established: constitutional proprieties are sheer bunkum, the country's administration, including the direction of its polity and economy, would henceforth be determined by a coterie of hoodlums. Few had the moral courage to protest. Once thousands were picked up and thrown into prison; ruthless destruction of poor people's slums, accompanied by round-the-clock festivals of vasectomy and tubectomy, added lustre to the ceremonies. It is always debatable whether, if Indira Gandhi had not revoked the Emergency on the eve of the 1977 Lok Sabha poll, she would have experienced enormous hurdles to carry on. Indians, as a community, tend to get used to situations; they might not have felt any different about the Emergency. Perhaps this cynical statement will not have many takers. A second suggestion is, however, bound to have a wide measure of agreement: at this distance of thirty years, it is awesomely difficult to distinguish between the heroes of the Emergency and its anti-heroes. The sickening display of feuding and factionalism by elements within the Janata Party was enough to ensure the triumphal return to power, by public acclaim, of Indira Gandhi within thirty months of her supposed eclipse for ever. One erstwhile godfather of the anti-Emergency campaign, Chaudhuri Charan Singh, fulfilled his life's desire to be the country's prime minister, even if for a brief six months, by cringingly seeking the support of Indira Gandhi. Some sort of a repeat took place barely a decade later when another pretender-hero of the Emergency, Chandra Shekhar, fulfilled his ambition to be prime minister leaning on the support extended by Indira Gandhi's son; the rug was pulled from under him within three months. Yet another of the heroes, George Fernandes, has been hard at work ever since to reduce his once-held socialist beliefs to a joke. He is now every inch a hack politician, prepared to break bread with all and sundry, as long as that last hallmark of Lohiaism - a pathological hatred of the Nehrus - is not put under strain. The person whose company he mostly keeps these days, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has however wobbly credentials in this matter. Vajpayee's anti-Emergency credentials are always somewhat suspect; he had described Indira Gandhi as Durga Bhagavati; he realized a little bit late that this particular goddess is not only the creator but also the destroyer, the Emergency merely put on show her virtuosity in the latter role. The individual who had brought these disparate characters together to fight what he considered a magnificent moral war, Jayaprakash Narayan, would have found the post-1977 developments bizarre beyond description. Good for him, he died soon enough and was spared the spectacle of the disintegration, like a house of cards, of the anti-Emergency coalition. Perhaps one should allot a morsel of respect for the long-departed fogey, Morarji Desai, too. Morarji was not an attractive person. His views on social and economic issues were hard to stomach, but there was conceivably a core of basic honesty in him. He faded away without compromising with his dignity. That leaves only those belonging to the left. But they were never a part of the formal network of resistance stitched by Jayaprakash Narayan, just as they are not today a part of the Untied Progressive Alliance. They applauded from the sidelines JP's efforts to build an effective opposition to Indira Gandhi's excesses. They were, after all, direct victims of her penchant for applying Article 356 at the drop of a hat; they were equally worried over her relentless use of the Central Reserve Police and the Central Industrial Security Force to overrun their citadels in West Bengal and Kerala. Their views on these issues have undergone some transformations because of the exigencies of circumstances. Even so, they will readily admit that, had not Indira Gandhi's authoritarian reign come to an abrupt interruption in the first quarter of 1977, the tenancy of the Left Front in West Bengal might have experienced both a different kind of commencement and a different span of longevity. At this point, please inscribe a couple of sentences for Jyotirmoy Bosu. Thirty years have elapsed since the revocation of the Emergency; poor Bosu has been dead for 27 of these years. Nobody remembers him anymore, nobody remembers that, at least for over three years before the Emergency was clamped upon the country, Jyotirmoy Bosu had run a relentless one-person campaign against Indira Gandhi's waywardness, bringing into the open, inside parliament and outside, instances of her financial and other shenanigans. History is a cruel arbiter. It takes a dim view of one-person campaigns, even if these turn out to be reasonably successful in the short run. Besides, Bosu had no business to die when he did. Finally, if you think that the consequence of the Emergency was a wake-up call for the Congress, you are sadly mistaken. The Congress is like the avyaya in Sanskrit grammar, it never changes. For Congressmen, the chant was "Indira is India and India is Indira" in 1975. Thirty years later, all that is needed is to substitute a six-letter name by a five-letter one, the rest is stet. The conviction that the entire terrestrial system revolves round the dynasty is unshakeable; the party's losing its security deposit in each of the recently-held by-elections for four assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, the sanctum sanctorum of the dynasty, has left it unfazed. _______ [5] ANNOUNCEMENTS (i) 26TH JUNE- THE ANTI-EMERGENCY DAY P.U.C.L.(Delhi), JAN HASTKSHEP, CHAMPA- The Amiya & B.G.Rao Foundation, and Forum For Democracy and Communal Amity will observe Anti-Emergency Day on 26th June as per following programme : Subject: EMERGENCY, STATE & CIVIL LIBERTIES TODAY Time : 4.30 PM, Sunday, June 26, 2005 Venue : Dy. Speaker Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi-02 All are invited to participate. N.D.Pancholi (ii) Dear Friends, Greetings from Mumbai. 20 institutions/organisations from different parts of the country have come togehter to organise the first National Bioethics Conference of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics published from here for last 13 years. The dates of the Conference are November 25, 26 and 27, 2005; and the venue is YMCA International House, Mumbai Central, Mumbai. The organisations that have come together for this include NGOs (8 out of 20), national biomedical and public health institutions (AIIMS, New Delhi; Sree Chitra, Trivandrum; NARI, Pune), medical colleges (CMC, Vellore; KEM/GS Medical College, Mumbai; LTMC/Sion Hospital, Mumbai), national social science institutions (CWDS, Delhi; TISS, Mumbai; GIDR, Ahmedabad), some well known hospitals (Jaslok hospital) etc. I am attaching a brochure and application form for the registration for the conference for your information. Conference Theme is: "Ethical Challenges in Health Care: Global Context, Indian Reality" It has four Focus Sub-themes: (a) Ethical challenges in HIV/AIDS, (b) Ethics of life and death in the era of hi-tech health care, (c) Ethical responsibilities in violence, conflict and religious strife, (d) Ethics and equity in clinical trials For more information please visit: www.issuesinmedicalethics.org We expect about 250 persons to participate (of them, 120 will be from the 20 Collaborating Organisers). Representatives from several international bioethics institutions have also confirmed their participation. The conference will have parallel academic sessions for paper presentation, group sessions for organising workshops, lectures, sharing current work, etc, and it will have sessions for bioethics training - case study discussions, demonstrations of functioning of ethics committees, viewing and discussion on bioethics films etc. Abstracts for paper presentation and concept-notes/outlines for workshops/panel-discussions etc are invited from all interested scholars and health acivists. Given in your interest in the subject, we hope you will submit abstracts/concept notes, and share this email and its attachments with your friends and colleagues. The last date for submission of the abstracts/conceptnotes/outlines has been extended from June-end to July-end, 2005. Thanking you. Sincerely Amar Jesani (Conference Coordinator) CSER (Centre for Studies in Ethics and Rights), 4th Floor, Candelar, 26 St. John Baptist Road, Bandra West, Mumbai 400050, India. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (iii) Association of Humanitarian Lawyers & Kashmiri American Council Invite you to the Fifth International Kashmir Peace Conference 'The Kashmir Dispute and Building a Peaceful South Asia' At the Cannon House Office Building Cannon Caucus Room(345) [Washington] (Independence Avenue and New Jersey Avenue) (Nearest Metro: Capitol South, Orange/Blue Lines) Thursday July 14, 2005.Ý Registration: 8:00 a.m. Speakers Prof. K. Mitra Chenoy, School of International Studies, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi; Mr. Gautam Navlakha, Economic and Political Weekly, New Delhi; Mr. Riaz Khokher, Former Foreign Secretary; Mr. Nasir H. Chattha; Amb. Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan Amb. to the US; Dr. Robert G. Wirsing, Professor, Department of Regional Studies, Honolulu; Prof. Stanley Wolpert, UCLA; Ms. Karen Parker, Esq., Dr. Douglas Johnston, President, International Center for Religion & Diplomacy; Mr. T. Kumar, Amnesty International; Dr. Hameeda Banu, Kashmir University; Dr. Vijay Sazawal, President, Indo-American Kashmir Forum; Amb. Yusuf Buch, former Advisor to the UN Secretary General; Dr. Ghulam N. Mir, President, World Kashmir Freedom Movement; Sardar Sikender Hayat Khan, Prime Minister Azad Kashmir; Sheikh Tajamul Ul Islam, Kashmir Media Service; Mr. Lars Rise, Member of Norwegian Parliament; Barrister Majeed Tramboo, Kashmir Center, Brussels; Mr. Farooq Siddiqi, JKLF; Prof. Nazir Shawl, Kashmir Center, London, Ali S. Khan, Kashmiri Scandinavian Council; etc. Call Misbah at KAC Tel: 202- 628- 6789 or fax at 703-295-8683 Or E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. 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