South Asia Citizens Wire | 9 November, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Under Bush II, South Asia Could Be Worse Off (Praful Bidwai)
[2] India: Outsourcing of the struggle against fascism (Jawed Naqvi)
[3] India: Press Release - Citizens for Justice and Peace Approaches Apex Court for Top-Level Investigation into Zahira Shaikh's Retraction
[4] India: Protecting Witnesses (Editorial -The Hindu)
[5] India: Justice: The Weight on Her Shoulders (Bina Srinivasan)
[6] India: Maharashtra Election Verdict: Another showdown for Hindutva (Vinod Mubayi)
[7] [India's Atomic Energy Act - 1962] The Hazardous Mix: A Peculiar Act and The Perilous Energy
(S. P. Udayakumar)
[8] Human Rights Watch Letter to the European Union Regarding the EU-India Summit
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[1]
[November 6, 2004]
U.S. ELECTION: UNDER BUSH II, SOUTH ASIA COULD BE WORSE OFF By Praful Bidwai*
*President George W Bush's victory in a wrenchingly polarised and ideologically charged election will have a big negative impact on South Asia, one of the world's most volatile regions.
NEW DELHI, Nov. 5 (IPS) - * Strong evidence of divisiveness has already appeared in India, where the business class and the power elite have generally welcomed Bush's victory - and the stock market rose 1.5 percent on announcement of the results Thursday morning - while a majority of the population probably feels disappointed with the outcome.
Under Bush's second term, the United States' relations with India and Pakistan, South Asia's largest states, are likely to undergo significant change. Some of the smaller states, especially Nepal and Sri Lanka, will be affected too.
Ironically, the result could be radically different from the myopic calculus of many conservative and right-wing Indian commentators. This calculus, propagated through numerous articles speculating over the U.S. election outcome holds that a Democratic administration would be bad for India, while Bush's would be good: John Kerry would have preached the non-proliferation gospel and opposed outsourcing, affecting India's booming call centres.
The reality could be far more complex.
Similarly, analysts in Pakistan, who are pleased at the Republican administration's initiative to upgrade relations with Islamabad after September 2001, and the warm personal relations between Bush and General Pervez Musharraf, might find that their celebration of Bush's victory is premature.
Washington might mount more pressure on Pakistan both on dismantling the 'jihadi' support structure, and for more disclosures about the nuclear black market run by Dr. A.Q. Khan - the so-called father of Pakistan's atomic programme.
The impact of a new Bush administration on South Asia will be transmitted through ''external'' factors such as changes in the international order, weakening of multilateral institutions and aggravation of the Middle East crisis. Also, more directly, the impact will be felt through changes in Washington's relations with individual countries.
Precisely because Bush's foreign policy platform is heavily influenced by the neo-conservatives, there is likely to be a hardening of the U.S, posture on ''pre - emptive'' wars, campaigns against terrorism, and ''rogue states'', including North Korea and Iran.
The United States' increased belligerence and its pursuit of Empire will tend to legitimise the use of military force as the preferred method of dealing with conflicts. In the long run, this spells a radical right-wing restructuring of the post-World War II global order, in which multilateral institutions, in particular the United Nations, could be the greatest loser.
And most South Asian states will be harmed by this.
A weakening of multilateral institutions will shrink the space for diplomatic manoeuvre available to the region's governments. India will find it hard to keep its commitment, made explicit by the Manmohan Singh government, to return to its ''traditional'' foreign policy, in departure from the recent obsession with the U.S., and with an emphasis on multi-polarity, non-alignment, and a balanced, peaceful global order.
No amount of fancy footwork may reconcile that commitment with the imperatives of building a ''strategic partnership'' with an increasingly unilateralist and imperious United States.
Similarly, Pakistan - whose utility to Washington as an ally against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden has lost its immediacy now that the election is over - might come under renewed pressure to decisively end its patronage of 'jihadi' groups. The intensity of pressure will depend to an extent on the emerging India-U.S. relationship and on the situation in Kashmir. To that extent, an India-Pakistan peace offers the best protection against an overweening Washington.
Now however, a new actor has now emerged in the US-India-Pakistan triangle. This is the 1.9 million-strong Non-Resident Indian (NRI) community in the U.S. These Indian-Americans, America's richest ethnic group, are more prosperous than the average American, with a 46 per cent higher median family income.
They are largely comprised of successful professionals like computer engineers, doctors and business executives, concentrated in big cities. These NRIs are also social conservatives, and have increasing sympathy for Bush's religious agenda and opposition to abortion, gay rights and gun control.
Ironically, NRIs have traditionally been Democratic supporters and many have raised funds for the Clinton and Gore campaigns.
But, in recent years, social conservatism, and upward mobility, combined with a rightward shift in U.S. society, have driven a sizeable minority of NRIs towards the Republicans. (One Republican NRI has just been elected to Congress from Louisiana.)
This group will want to give U.S.-India relations a strong military and business footing, and thus magnify pressures for right-wing economic policies. The NRI lobby has strong sympathies for the Hindu right and is viscerally hostile to Pakistan. This, too, will influence U.S. policy decisions and how Washington relates to South Asia.
Under the triumphalist Republicans, the Iraq conflict is likely to get bloodier and more intractable. This could generate renewed pressure on India and Pakistan to send troops to Iraq. In the past, both states resisted U.S. pressure, citing adverse domestic opinion. They will now find it harder to do so.
Iran, too, could confront India and Pakistan with new problems if Bush decides to adopt an aggressive posture with regard to Tehran's uranium enrichment programme, which it claims, is solely meant for peaceful purposes. A U.S. confrontation with Iran will highlight the global issue of nuclear proliferation and India and Pakistan's vulnerability to pressure for nuclear restraint.
This could more than compensate for the gains the Indian (and Pakistani) elite sees from the Republican administration's relaxed or indulgent attitude towards their nuclear weapons and missile programmes.
India has excellent relations with Iran and has not criticised its nuclear programme. The two have worked closely in Afghanistan, where they both backed the largely non-Pashtun Northern Alliance. An adversarial relationship or outright hostility between Washington and Tehran will make it hard for New Delhi to follow an independent policy for the Middle East -- in particular Iran.
Sunni Pakistan is not exactly a close ally of Shia Iran. But a military confrontation between the U.S. (or Israel) and Iran will provoke popular protests in Pakistan: Iran is a neighbour, as well as Islamic.
Bush's victory may have military implications too, especially in Nepal, affected by a Maoist insurgency, and in Sri Lanka, where there is a fragile peace process between the government and the Tamil minority. In Nepal, the U.S. has encouraged a heavy hand to deal with the Maoists as if they were just a terrorist group. Washington has recently sold arms to the government.
The U.S. has again put the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam on the ''terrorist'' list. This may have long-term implications for the peace process in Sri Lanka. (END/2004)
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[2]
Dawn - November 8, 2004
OUTSOURCING OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISM
By Jawed Naqvi
Teesta Setalvad is a committed and brave social activist. She has been fighting for the victims of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, for their legal protection, for their security and honour against difficult odds. She runs an NGO called Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and publishes from Mumbai, the hub of Bal Thackeray's unruly Shiv Sena gang, an incisive journal called Combat Communalism that tracks and debates issues of religious and ethnic bigotry in India.
Teesta was betrayed recently by Zahira Sheikh, the woman who was supposed to be the star witness in what is known as the Best Bakery massacre in Vadodara in which 14 people were hacked to death. Zahira organized a press conference in Vadodara last week where she accused Teesta of using threats to force her to identify some of those accused in the massacre before a special court in Mumbai.
Zahira has refused to name the men, claiming that she was tutored to makes false claims about certain characters belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Not only that; Teesta was a threat to her life, according to the newly "awakened" Zahira who had once earlier retracted her charges and then claimed it was because she feared for her life.
It was thanks to Teesta's unflagging efforts that the Supreme Court of India had the trial shifted to Maharashtra.
Earlier in the week, deposing before the special court, 19-year old Raees Khan Pathan had identified five persons as members of the group that attacked the Best Bakery in Vadodara on March 1, 2002, and killed 14 people.
Pathan, who used to prepare biscuits at the bakery, walked up to the accused and identified Sanabhai Baria, Dinesh Rajbhar, Suresh Vasava, Pankaj Gosai and Shailesh Tadvi. The first witness, Toufel Ahmed, had earlier identified Baria, Rajbhar and Vasava and four others as the men who had attacked the bakery during the riots in Gujarat.
At that time defence lawyer Adhik Shirodkar alleged that someone was helping the witnesses with their testimonies. "Someone has been telling them to add things," he said. Zahira's claim appeared to vindicate the fears expressed by the defence.
The news of Zahira's recanting was flashed, discussed and chewed to pulp by the time it reached Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi. Ms Gandhi was attending an iftar party at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence when a journalist asked her if she was aware of what had happened with Teesta. A visibly shocked Ms Gandhi said that she was horrified by the news. However, a lawyer MP of the Congress Party, who acts as the party spokesman, advised her to keep a low profile on the issue till "all the facts were known", whatever that means.
In the meantime, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, ideology, had put up the news of Zahira Sheikh's press conference on its website within minutes of the event. It had also got Panun Kashmir, a Hindutva organization working in Kashmir, to demand punishment for Teesta, preferably with imprisonment. The next day Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, an RSS man, demanded a probe into the functioning of NGOs in Gujarat.
In Mumbai, meanwhile, another set of social activists has been assisting Bilkis Yakoob Rasool alias Bilkis Banu in her efforts to get justice. Fellow villagers in the state-sponsored orgy of violence had raped her when she was five months pregnant. In the violence, she lost 14 relatives, including her three-year-old child, mother and two sisters.
And there is Rehana Vora who has been adopted by yet another NGO. She too is a key witness to a massacre, this one in Ode village in the Anand district of Gujarat, in which 27 persons were killed on March 1, 2002.
According to an interview she gave in June, Rehana was threatened periodically with dire consequences by the accused, all of whom were out on bail at that time. She was even offered a bribe of Rs 2.5 million to keep her mouth shut, she said. But that has only strengthened her resolve to fight on. At least that is how it has looked so far.
With no witness protection programme worth the name or any political campaign to help the victims, NGOs represent the main hope for these helpless women and men. They provide psychological counselling and material succour to countless survivors, many of whom have lost most if not all their family members. Others have lost their meagre economic support system and are still trying to recover from the trauma of being abused by the state and its agencies.
Across India, NGOs are engaged in a wide range of difficult tasks - whether it is on the right to information, girl child rights, basic education, health or communal harmony or even fighting for the helpless poor who have been thrown out of their homes by the building of a dam or because of the clearing of forests.
But if the assumption is right that the RSS, the BJP and their other offshoots represent nascent forms of fascism, then the NGOs, no matter how well meaning, cannot carry on the fight by themselves.
As Teesta must have realized, her grit and determination to fight communalism cannot be a substitute for a political movement against fascism. And that political movement seems to have been outsourced for the moment to well-meaning, but eventually helpless NGOs.
The legal battle against Nazi Germany could begin only after Adolf Hitler's forces were overwhelmed with an all out-war against his ideology and muscle-power. To fight Indian fascism through tedious and uncertain court battles - be it in Ayodhya or in Gujarat, is to play on a turf on which the nefarious ideology thrives. Hitler, it must be remembered, made nearly 400 changes to the legal statues of the Third Reich before he targeted the Jews. That is the stark lesson of the Zahira episode for the secular parties of India.
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[3]
November 6, 2004
Press Release
CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE APPROACHES APEX COURT FOR TOP-LEVEL INVESTIGATION INTO ZAHIRA SHAIKH'S RETRACTION
On November 6, 2004, the Citizens for Justice and Peace and through it's secretary Teesta Setalvad filed an application in the Supreme Court asking for high-level probe (by the Hon Court or the CBI) into the circumstances behind which prime witness Zahira Shaikh retracted her statement at a press conference in which the Vadodara police that is the prosecuting agency in the retrial actually played a part in the events. The application was filed on November 6, 2004.
The application states that, "It has been due to the intervention of this Hon'ble Court in the "Best Bakery Case". It was on the Citizens for Justice and Peace assurance of support that Zahira Shaikh and her family moved to Mumbai (Citizens for Justice and Peace has since been looking after all their financial and security needs) and in early July 2003, she told a hugely attended press conference why they were forced to lie before the court earlier and why they wanted a retrial of the Best Bakery Case outside Gujarat. The Secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace escorted Zahira Shaikh to Delhi for a full-bench hearing before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on July 11, 2003. It was thereafter that the NHRC decided on its rare step of filing an appeal in this Hon'ble Court endorsing Zahira's plea for a retrial outside Gujarat. Besides the NHRC and Citizens for Justice and Peace and Zahira Shaikh also filed a separate appeal before this Hon'ble Court, which has now been tagged with the NHRC petition."
On November 3, 2004, there appeared in the print media as well as the Bakery" trial by the present applicant. It has also been reported in the newspapers that she has been threatened and there was a "threat to her life" among other allegations against the Citizens for Justice and Peace and its office bearers in particularly against the applicant.
Hence in the interests of Justice and it the interests of free and fair trial the applicants have applied to the Supreme Court for directions that "an Independent Inquiry into the circumstances behind which Ms Zahira Shaikh has made unfortunate and utterly mala fide allegations against co-petitioner Teesta Setalvad, Secretary Citizens for Justice and Peace and hence put unto jeopardy the credibility of the justice system as a whole." The application also state that the Court should examined "the circumstances under which Ms. Shaikh called a press conference, the support she received in that time and the role of the Gujarat police in being silent spectators when their principal witness was going to turn hostile in a pending prosecution. Ideally, this application had to be moved the State of Gujarat, as it is their prosecution that has taken a major set back. Advocate Aparna Bhatt is the advocate for the applicant.
The application states that apart from being shocked and pained at the baseless allegations made against her, where on of the main witnesses has hurled allegations against the applicant, the timing of these allegations, made after three witnesses had deposed and identified accused in the re-trial in Mumbai itself makes the whole episode sordid and suspect.
The sudden retraction and baseless allegation made by a key witness in the "BEST Bakery" trial when three eye-witnesses who had never been given a chance to appear before the Vadodara court have deposed in the re-trial and actually identified accused gives remove for unfortunate suppositions and in fact casts a slur on Constitutional Bodies like the National Human Rights Commission and also the apex Court of the land, after the landmark in jugment of this Hon'ble Court in the present appeal.
Teesta Setalvad Citizens for Justice and Peace Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu, Mumbai - 400049 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[4]
The Hindu Nov 09, 2004 Editorial
PROTECTING WITNESSES
ZAHIRA SHEIKH'S FLIP-FLOPS may or may not have a bearing on the outcome of the Best Bakery case. But her shifting testimonies spotlight a larger issue - the urgent need to enact a comprehensive law on witness protection. The phenomenon of witnesses turning hostile during trial is not limited to high-profile cases such as Best Bakery, the BMW hit-and-run, and the Jessica Lal murder. It is a pervasive problem that has undermined public confidence in the criminal justice system and contributed to an abysmal rate of convictions in India. Successful law enforcement is predicated on the willingness of individuals to provide information and tender evidence. Experience around the world has shown that the extent of such willingness depends on the capacity of the state to protect people from threats and ensure their safety. The Supreme Court has stressed the importance of introducing a witness protection programme on a number of occasions, most recently in connection with the Best Bakery case. The Law Commission, which recently took up the subject suo motu because of its "immediate importance," has prepared a consultation paper on "Witness Identity Protection and Witness Protection Programmes." The object is to initiate public debate before drafting legislation.
Any comprehensive witness protection programme must have two distinct elements. First, it must have mechanisms to protect the physical safety and mental wellbeing of witnesses. The specific measures, based on risk assessment, are bound to vary from witness to witness. To be successful, these measures must be in force as long as needed. Further, the concept of personal protection must include the provision of funds to shift witnesses, when necessary, to a different location, and to maintain them there. The second and more problematic aspect of witness protection relates to the procedures for granting anonymity to witnesses. It is widely accepted that anonymity provides witnesses security to give evidence; in the absence of such security, vital information may not be forthcoming. However, as the Law Commission's consultation paper notes, it is important to strike a fine balance between "the need for anonymity of witnesses on the one hand and the rights of the accused, on the other." These rights include the right to an open trial, to cross-examine witnesses, and to know testimony details.
That justice should be meted out in open court is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence. However, most legal systems allow for exceptions to this rule where such waiver is necessary to achieve the ends of justice. For example, Indian criminal law provides for in camera trials for specific offences such as rape, and denies the accused the right to cross-examine a prosecution witness in certain exceptional circumstances. Special statutes dealing with terrorism, for example, the defunct Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the recently repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act, permitted the identity of witnesses to remain a secret, the justification being that anonymity was required for the successful prosecution of those involved in terrorist offences. Different countries have variously addressed the conflict between the need to protect the identity of witnesses and the rights of the accused. While countries such as Australia have a comprehensive statute dealing with witness protection, the legal system in countries such as Canada allows non-disclosure of witnesses on a case-by-case basis. India has the dubious distinction of having no witness protection programme worth speaking about. The application filed by Teesta Setalvad in the apex court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into why Zahira changed her story offers yet another opportunity to bring effective witness protection on the national agenda.
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[5]
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 16:01:46 +0530
JUSTICE: THE WEIGHT ON HER SHOULDERS by Bina Srinivasan
The Best Bakery case loomed large over the horizon a few months ago. It still does.
So do the 'cases' of a few other women who survived the Gujarat violence.
Gujarat 2002 meant a lot of different things to many different sections of people. I mean the state, the police, the politicians, the people, and above all, Muslim women and men. Two years later it is still as fresh, though going by local newspaper reports everybody wants to forget it and patch up as if nothing had ever happened.
Yet. Nobody ever forgets. Do they? Especially if the culprits are going about scot-free, as most of them are in circa 2004.
Zahira of the Best Bakery 'case' also now seems like a culprit. So the Muslim community in Baroda is burning effigies of her galore. Long live a political tradition.
I have a few questions to ask.
Why is it that in the aftermath of the violence in Gujarat the thinnest thread of hope of justice hinged largely on four women who had the courage to speak out? Zahira, xxx, xxx and xxx? Why?
When thousands of Muslim women and men met their gruesome deaths at the hands of tens of thousands of Hindus, when hundreds of Muslims were witness to the deaths of so many relatives and friends.
Why only these women?
And why don't we begin to see the continuities and the complicities of the powers that be with what happened?
On the one hand domestic violence is at a spectacular high in Gujarat as many studies will indicate, one of which I had also undertaken many years before I had even imagined Gujarat 2002 would have ever happened. So, Hindu, Muslim, Dalit and Christian women across the board in the marriageable and reproductive age group face horrendous violence and even possible death. The most popular form of death being, according to police reports, 'death due to stove bursts'. So you have hundreds of women, regardless of religion, languishing and then dying in state hospitals because of 'stove bursts'.
On the other hand is the fact that the sex ratio in Gujarat is nothing to boast of, and it is also nothing the state seems to be ashamed of. Specially now after the nationwide census has declared that the Muslim community is propagating at the rate that the Hindu right has always predicted: hum panch, hamare panch (we are five, and our twenty five').
Now, you will want to know, what is all this about? What is the connection between declining sex ratios and the violence against women? How does all this link up to Zahira, xxx, xxx, xxx?
It does, let me assure you.
High levels of domestic violence against women. High levels of public violence against Muslim women in Gujarat 2002. Public is the key word. Excuse the pun.
But it meant that Muslim women were raped by large numbers of men, and in front of large numbers of men. Don't get me wrong. Hindu women were also involved in this. Read the countless, said and unsaid testimonies of women in different parts of Baroda and Ahmedabad. But the spectacle was purely male. The sport was male, even if women participated it in spirit and action.
How do you juxtapose these facts? Women brutalised inside the house, across the board, female foeticide across the board (does not a dramatically declining sex ratio tell you that?), and women brutalised in the public realm. All women suspected of potential reproductive activity are potential targets in modern day Gujarat.
Now, this might seem like an exaggerated viewpoint. I am sure many of you will point this out to me. I just want you to look at the statistics. And if you want to refute me, you take the trouble to look at the police and hospital records. I am not going to do it for you. I have done it for too many years now.
All violence against women is sanctioned by society. Yet, of course, there is a difference between one kind of violence and another. One is sanctioned within the four walls of the home. Another is allowed outside.
Understand the difference.
In either case, breaking the quiet that shrouds the silence around violence against women is anathema. It breaks the myth of male protection, of female passivity. It breaks the myth of patriarchal norms, of the happiness of the status quo.
This brings me back to Zahira. She spoke out. And she withdrew. Like thousands of other women. Zahira does not deserve effigies.
She deserves a second look at the larger picture.
What happens to women surrounded by the community? In camp after camp I saw it in Ahmedabad. They gave in.
Zahira spoke out. In the face of grave danger she did it. Many of us grabbed at her words, her courage. It gave many of us the moral courage to go on. Good enough, I say.
Ok, she changed her mind. I don't know what made her change her mind. But I don't hate her because she did so. A heroine at a given moment in history. Then that history changed.
I don't know what made her do it. But then so did Shahbano, and so did MF Hussain.
It is about being Muslim in a 'secular' country that decided to change colours. Surely we can do more than vilify her. Let us try and understand her .
And the bigger picture.
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[6]
insaf Bulletin [31] November, 2004 International South Asia Forum http://www.insaf.net
MAHARASHTRA ELECTION VERDICT: ANOTHER SHOWDOWN FOR HINDUTVA Vinod Mubayi
The results of the elections in Maharashtra confirm that the BJP, the Shiv Sena, and other assorted hangers-on and followers of Hindutva are on a downward trajectory in public esteem and credibility. There was every expectation prior to the election that the lackluster performance of the Congress-Nationalist Congress coalition government over the last 5 years would result in their losing power.
Economic growth in India's bellwether industrial state was tepid, the state debt had ballooned, and farmers unable to meet their debt obligations were reported to be committing suicide, just like in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, a phenomenon that sank the Telugu Desam regime of Chandrababu Naidu earlier this year. The perception of misgovernance was enhanced by the mid-term ouster of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and the resignation of the Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal in the Telgi stamp paper scandal. It was widely felt that anti-incumbency sentiment alone would dislodge the Congress-NCP coalition and reinstall the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in power.
The BJP's election chief, Pramod Mahajan, had devised another strategy, of encouraging Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party to split the Dalit-neo Buddhist vote that would ordinarily have gone to Congress or Congress allies in the hope that BSP would support the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition to come to power in the Assembly. BJP's icon of yesteryear, former Prime Minister Vajpayee, and the rabble-rousing Uma Bharati, were brought into the campaign.
But, in the end, the average voter had a different idea. Although the margins were close in several districts, the verdict was unmistakable; the people deemed the communal, Hindutva coalition a worse option than continuing with the secular Congress-NCP incumbent regime. This is a very hopeful sign that voters can now see through the largely media created hype of the "party of natural governance" as the BJP styled itself. The impact of the loss of the BJP-led NDA government at the Center is now beginning to be felt over the country. It portends further trouble for the BJP whose leaders are now rushing to Nagpur to get further instructions from their gurus in the RSS. In contrast, the Congress-led UPA at the Center has made a decent start generally, despite occasional hiccups and differences among the allies.
Another hopeful sign is the steep decline, hopefully a signal of its eventual demise, of the thuggish Shiv Sena. Its leader, Bal Thackeray, in his latest rant after the election results were declared sounded more like Charlie Chaplin's "Great Dictator" than the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, a figure Thackeray has frequently admired in press interviews. The Sena rose to prominence on a one-point political program, sons-of-the-soil chauvinism of the Hindu Maharashtrian middle and lower middle class in cosmopolitan Bombay where the higher levels of industry and trade were dominated by the Parsis, Gujaratis, and Marwaris, white collar employment by Tamilian Brahmins and service sectors such as transport by Sikhs and Muslims. The Sena's cadres were largely drawn from Bombay's extensive underworld involved in smuggling, gambling, liquor and other rackets. Emotive rabble-rousing against migrants and "outsiders", plus a rent-a-thug policy allowed the Sena to acquire both resources and political power.
In the late 1960s and 70s, industrial capitalists used the Sena's cadres to destroy the Communist trade unions through violent attacks on and murders of individual trade union leaders like Krishna Desai. Earlier Congress governments in the state also cynically used the Sena's muscle power when it suited them at election time. Violent campaigns in the 1970s against "South Indians", called "Madrasis" in Bombay, including Malayali workers, Tamil white-collar workers in many public sector enterprises, riots on Maharashtra-Karnataka boundary issues, were followed by sustained violence against Muslims in the 1980s when Thackeray realized that while being anti-South Indian could gain him a following in Maharashtra, being anti-Muslim could make him an all-India leader.
Lately, the Sena also launched a violent campaign against North Indians, assaulting many young men from U.P. and Bihar who were coming to Bombay for recruitment into the Indian Railways, while continuing a high-decibel rant against Bangladeshi "infiltrators" and "Muslim terrorists" in general. Their defeat, even in their strongholds in Mumbai and in the Konkan areas, could either be a sign of organizational weakness, particularly after the succession struggle between Thackeray's son and nephew, or a sign of public weariness or both. Hopefully, a new and younger generation of Maharashtrian youth has sensed the emptiness and thuggishness behind the Sena's emotive appeals.
But the Congress has to be on guard and realize the significant amount of cleansing it has to do within its own house before the specters of the Shiv Sena and their clones and the votaries of Hindutva can be laid to rest. Pandering to outright Maharashtrian sub-nationalism by striking ultra-chauvinist postures and being complicit in historical falsification can extract a heavy toll. One example is the complete inability to permit even scholarly writing and debate on a Maharashtrian historical figure like Shivaji as witnessed by the shameful attack on the famous Bhandarkar Institute library in Pune where Congress cadres were also involved.
The other is the tailing behind BJP and Shiv Sena on the issue of Savarkar, the founder of Hindutva, the father of the two-nation theory long before Jinnah, and a key plotter in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi who escaped being charged solely on a legal technicality, whose portrait now hangs in Parliament, courtesy of the former BJP regime, opposite that of Gandhi. Only Mani Shankar Aiyar, now a Minister in the Central Government, had the courage and good sense to call a spade a spade on the issue of Savarkar. But the leaders of the Maharashtra Congress ran away from the truth and tried to outdo the BJP-Sena chauvinists in their fealty to Savarkar. This approach will not pay dividends in the long run.
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[7]
South Asians Against Nukes November 7, 2004
o o o
[INDIA] THE HAZARDOUS MIX: A PECULIAR ACT AND THE PERILOUS ENERGY
by S. P. Udayakumar (October 22, 2004)
Q: What is it that is benign in appearance but malignant in nature?
A: If cells, it is cancer. If law, it is Jim Crow legislation.
Both can hurt, harm and even kill if left unchallenged.
The Atomic Energy Act 1962 (33 of 1962) is supposed to serve a few specific purposes: enhancing the safety of the "ordinary citizens" of India; safeguarding India's natural resources and talents for the country's development; and controlling and using atomic energy for the welfare of Indians and for other peaceful uses.
In reality, this law has failed miserably on all counts. Instead, it is used for a few other anti-people purposes: to threaten the critics who disagree with the authoritarian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE); to undermine the democratic fabric of the Indian society, and soon to help private profiteers reap rich dividends at the cost of public safety and costs. [...]
[FULL TEXT AT: URL: http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org/PMANE/spuk22oct2004.html ]
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[8]
EU: Engage India on Human Rights
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN UNION REGARDING THE EU-INDIA SUMMIT
November 8, 2004
To the European Union:
We urge the European Union to use the occasion of the EU-India summit on November 8, 2004, in The Hague to increase its engagement with the Government of India on human rights issues. We believe that a dialogue built on mutual respect should involve not just economic concerns but also improvement of India's human rights record. This is important for the people of India, for India's neighbors, and for the developing world, given India's significance as a role model, and as a military and aid donor.
The new government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken some important positive steps with regard to respect for human rights. These include repeal of the oft-abused Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and a re-evaluation of federal government educational policies that fostered communitarian resentments. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement, particularly in the protection of minority and marginalized groups such as Dalits and other lower-caste populations, religious minorities and tribal groups. The EU's increasing economic interactions with India should include calls for better equal opportunity policies. We also urge the EU to call for better justice mechanisms to curb impunity and prevent police abuse. Indian security forces continue to operate without adequate accountability, engaging in serious human rights abuses not just in conflict-zones such as Kashmir, but also when dealing with criminal suspects and detainees.
In order to help the EU-India dialogue, Human Rights Watch highlights the following areas of particular concern:
Persistent discrimination against marginalized groups: The European Union should call upon India to implement legislation or enact new laws to end discrimination based on caste and religious grounds, and to vigorously enforce laws against discrimination in the private sector. Despite legislative measures to protect marginalized groups, caste, religious, or gender-based discrimination continues in practice. Local police often do not implement the special laws set up to protect Dalits and members of tribal groups. Women remain highly vulnerable to abuse, both inside and outside the household. Trafficking for sex slavery continues. While Indian law calls for affirmative action in government jobs, with increasing privatization, it is crucial for the European Union to encourage European companies operating in India to adopt equal opportunity policies that benefit Dalits, members of tribal groups, women and religious minorities.
The European Union should extend all cooperation to the Indian government in its campaign against violence by extremist organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In a recent report, Discouraging Dissent, Human Rights Watch documented the attacks and intimidation of witnesses, lawyers and activists campaigning for the prosecution of those responsible for the Gujarat violence that resulted in the death and forced displacement of thousands of Muslims in 2002. Christians, particularly priests and nuns, continue to be attacked throughout the country. It is important to help the Indian government to bring to account those responsible for orchestrating violence against religious and ethnic minorities.
Impunity of security forces: Indian security forces, including the military, paramilitary forces, and the police, routinely abuse human rights with impunity. The Indian federal government too often fails to prosecute army and paramilitary troops in a credible and transparent manner. The result has been an increase in serious violations throughout the country. In July, Manipur state witnessed unprecedented civilian protests against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act after army troops sexually assaulted and killed a woman in custody. In Kashmir, military, paramilitary, and police forces continue their practice of torturing detainees, leading to custodial killings. There has also been a nationwide rise in allegations of extrajudicial executions by security forces, who typically justify their actions by claiming to have killed suspects in an exchange of gunfire. The EU should offer the Indian government assistance for improving human rights training for its police forces and to implement judicial reforms. The EU should also urge the Indian government to ratify the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Continued misuse of counter-terrorism laws: Repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) did not end the legal mechanisms that give security agencies unchecked powers of detention that often foster torture during interrogation. The European Union should recommend a comprehensive review of legislation that allows overbroad authority for law enforcement to infringe on civil liberties. Laws such as the National Security Act, the Disturbed Areas Act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act or the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act have spawned abuses in various parts of the country, including many deaths in custody and widespread allegations of torture. For instance in Kashmir and Manipur, people are held in army camps and barracks and routinely tortured before being released or sent to police custody in violation of local laws that require the armed forces to immediately hand over the detainees to the civilian police.
Monitoring mechanisms: The National Human Rights Commission has emerged as one of the best such institutions and is a powerful means of protecting human rights. However, its capacity is limited because it is only allowed funding through government and is severely short-staffed. In addition, the Commission is not allowed to investigate abuses committed by the armed forces. The European Union should encourage India to further empower its NHRC and to create enforceable, transparent monitoring mechanisms that serve as a model for other countries where such institutions remain ineffective.
Failure to protect those affected by HIV/AIDS: Legislation is currently being drafted to end discrimination against those affected by HIV/AIDS, but unless properly implemented, people affected with HIV/AIDS will continue to be denied jobs, shelter, medical attention and access to education. In a recent report, Future Forsaken, Human Rights Watch documented discrimination faced by HIV+ children as well as children from families affected by AIDS. The European Union should support the Indian government's efforts to end the stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in India through age-appropriate awareness and education campaigns. The European Union should also urge India to repeal section 377 of the Indian Penal code, which effectively criminalizes sex between men and is frequently used as justification for harassment of HIV/AIDS educators.
Failure to protect the rights of children: Millions of children are going to work instead of learning at school. The European Union should ask the Indian government to protect children from engaging in the worst forms of child labor. Hundreds of thousands of children are bonded laborers who toil as virtual slaves, particularly in the silk industry. It is also important to encourage parents to send their children to school, but they can only do so when education is affordable and accessible. Currently almost half the children in India are out of school. Discrimination on the basis of caste and religion has to end in schools. India should be urged to ratify the 1960 Convention Against Discrimination in Education.
India's Role in the Region: As India increases its political and economic prominence in South Asia, the EU should encourage India to adopt policies that link human rights standards to aid. Increasingly, India has been providing significant amounts of financial and military aid to its smaller neighbors. For instance, India is the largest provider of military assistance to Nepal and should be encouraged call upon the Nepali government to comply with human rights obligations in its brutal civil war with Maoist insurgents. India should also be encouraged to use its evolving partnership with Burma to push for human rights and rule of law. India should also provide greater protection to Burmese refugees and economic migrants from Bangladesh.
We believe that India's potential as a leading global power would be enhanced and strengthened by an explicit commitment to human rights. We request the EU to highlight these issues at the upcoming summit.
Yours sincerely,
Brad Adams Executive Director, Asia Division
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