South Asia Citizens Wire | 31 October, 2005
[1] Sri Lanka: Remembering the Eviction and Recognizing the Rights of the Northern Muslims (SLDF) [2] Pakistan - India: Don't let Delhi bombings derail the peace process! (Editorial, Daily Times) [3] India: The Modi Factor and Massacre of the Innocent (I.K.Shukla) [4] Pakistan - India: Earthquake and Aftermath (Vinod Mubayi) [5] Pakistan: Officials Place Tents Intended for Victims in Storage (Human Rights Watch) [6] India: RSS invents another ram myth to capture the Dangs (Mahesh Langa) [7] November 2005 issue of International South Asia Forum Bulletin ______ [1] We reproduce the SLDF statement of 30 October 2004, as we remember the eviction of the Northern Muslims. Editor - SLDF Newswire ---- www.lankademocracy.org/documents.html#october30 30 October 2004 For Immediate Release REMEMBERING THE EVICTION AND RECOGNIZING THE RIGHTS OF THE NORTHERN MUSLIMS On the 30th of October 1990, fourteen years ago to this day the forced eviction of the Northern Muslims tore apart the social fabric of Northern Sri Lanka, and brought grief and trauma to tens of thousands of Muslim families. As we remember that day, we voice our sorrow and outrage that fourteen years after that cruel act of ethnic cleansing, and two and a half years into the signing the Ceasefire Agreement, the Northern Muslims have still not been able to return home, have not featured significantly in the peace process and have not had their political rights substantively affirmed by any of the major actors. The Ethnic Cleansing of Northern Muslims by the LTTE In 1990, the LTTE expelled all Muslims from the five districts (Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaithivu, Kilinochchi & Jaffna) of the Northern Province. Muslims represented about 7 percent of Sri Lankas total population, and had historically been concentrated in Northern Sri Lanka, Eastern Sri Lanka, and in the cities of Colombo, Kandy and Puttalam. In the Northern Province, substantial concentrations of Muslims resided in the Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mannar districts. On that terrible day 75,000-80,000 Muslims were given just 24-48 hours to leave the Northern Province (some residents in Jaffna Town were forced out in only two hours), or meet the fate of Muslims in the Eastern Province who had been massacred in the hundreds in August and September of that year. They were stripped of their belongings and houses and permitted to take only Rupees 500 with them. The plundering of the possessions from their homes followed soon after their enforced departure. The physical, economic, social and psychological suffering to which the entire Northern Muslim population was subjected was immeasurable and continues to this day. Since then the majority of Northern Muslims have been living in a variety of refugee settlements in the Puttalam district. This collective uprooting of tens of thousand of families was a cruel and calculated act directed against a group of people based purely on the fact that they were Muslims, from areas where Tamils and Muslims had lived together for centuries. It was also an act done without any popular support. Ordinary Tamil people were outraged and revolted, but they remained silent out of fear of LTTE retribution. The enforced evacuation of defenceless Muslim families was systematically carried out by LTTE cadres who went about in vehicles fitted with loud-hailers, ordering them to leave or face retribution. In the Jaffna town, Muslim males were ordered to gather at the grounds of the Mosque and told they and their families should leave the boundaries of Eelam within 24 hours. The movement of LTTE cadres from one local area to another, the way in which roads were blocked off to herd people through certain routes, and the systematic way in which peoples possessions were expropriated, sorted, and sold or distributed among the LTTEs chosen followers, revealed that this was a premeditated and well-planned operation, executed with menacing military precision and ruthlessness. The LTTE has never given an official reason for carrying out this enforced evacuation, leading us to conclude that it was purely an exercise in ethnic cleansing, driven by the bigotry of exclusivist Tamil nationalist militarism. After the Eviction, the Northern Muslims have attempted to rebuild their lives, mainly in Puttalam. Even though they arrived with nothing, they have struggled to give their children education, they sought employment under hard conditions to support their families, and they have rebuilt mosques, new village settlements and maintained their sense of dignity. Even as a new generation has been born in exile that has no memory of their parents homes or their relationship with the Tamil community, Northern Muslims have reached out to the Tamil community in their former homes. Their efforts to maintain relationships when possible with their former neighbours testify to their eagerness to rebuild Muslim Tamil relations. Duty of the Tamils The Tamil people have a responsibility to help and facilitate the return of the Northern Muslims to their homes. Civil society organizations including churches, schools, associations (fisher and agricultural and trader unions) among others must take the initiative in inviting Northern Muslims to visit their homes and engage in dialogue with a view to helping them to rebuild their lives there. Tamil people in the Diaspora, many of whom left the country due to violations of their own rights, must even belatedly recognise the predicament of the Northern Muslims, and champion their case for the restoration of their shattered lives. This includes their right to return to their own homes in the North, and their entitlement to substantial reparations for their inhuman and unlawful eviction, for the material losses they suffered in the process, and for the continuing suffering to which they have been subjected to all these years. This outrage against the Muslim people, which was carried out by the LTTE in the name of Tamils will continue to remain one of the darkest episodes in the annals of our history. The Tamil people must call upon the LTTE and its leader Velupillai Pirpaharan in particular to make an unqualified public apology for the crime they have committed against the Muslim people. The Muslim people, just as much as their Tamil compatriots, are entitled to representation that ensures that their legitimate and reasonable aspirations are satisfied, and their interests protected. Hence, the Tamil people must reject as deplorable any attempt by the LTTE to prevent separate representation for the Muslim community at peace talks aimed at finding a political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. The LTTE Just as majoritarian Sinhala nationalists sought to deny the legitimate rights of the Tamil people based on the spurious claim that Sri Lanka was the homeland of Sinhala-Buddhists only, the LTTE seeks to deny the legitimate rights of the Muslims based on the claim that the North and East is the homeland of the Tamils only. The LTTE must recognize that the North and East is the homeland of all people who have made it their home. To this day, Vellupillai Pirapaharan has offered no apology or any guarantee that if the evicted Muslims were to return to their homes en masse they would not be evicted again. Muslims who have attempted to return to the North have been discouraged from doing so. Some who have taken the risk and returned to restart their business ventures have been taxed heavily and their freedom to operate has been severely curtailed. In some instances, these businesses have been taken over by the LTTE. It is the height of hypocrisy on the part of the LTTE to demand that the displaced Tamils from the High Security Zones should be allowed to return to their homes, when they will not permit the return of Muslims they themselves forcibly evicted some 14 years ago. It is high time that the LTTE acknowledged its responsibility, making a public apology for the crimes it has committed against the Muslim people and subjecting itself to a process by which reparations could be considered. It also should give a public guarantee that if and when the evicted Muslim people return to their homes, they would be allowed the right and freedom to occupy them without any fear of threats, harassment or violence in the future. Government of Sri Lanka The Government of Sri Lanka must offer the Northern Muslims who wish to return resources to enable them and their children born in exile to resettle in the North. It must ensure protection against further expulsions and provide constitutional guarantees for the political, economic and cultural rights of the Muslim community. The Northern Muslim question must be considered a significant part of the GOSLs negotiation of any interim arrangement or permanent political solution. The SLDF supports the call by the Muslim Peoples Action Front (Muslim Makkal Seyalani) for the appointment of a Special Presidential Commission with terms of reference to investigate the forcible eviction of the Northern Muslims and consider and assess all forms of damage that they have suffered during the intervening years and make appropriate recommendations including for the award of adequate compensation for the victims. The Peace Talks The Northern Muslims came up in the peace talks only as a humanitarian issue relating to the resettlement of internally displaced people. It was formally part of the mandate given to SIHRN (Sub Committee on Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs). SIHRN was confirmed in the fourth round of Peace talks to be the primary decision making body dealing with humanitarian and rehabilitation needs in the North and East. Subsequently, SIHRN virtually ceased functioning when the LTTE withdrew from the peace talks in April 2003. As a result even the Northern Muslims humanitarian needs have been neglected, much less their political right to return. Because the major actors in the peace process have failed to support the Northern Muslims political right to return home, Northern Muslims are placed in the position of having to individually negotiate their return home with local LTTE cadres. However, we note that in the fourth round of talks that the parties agreed that a Muslim delegation will be invited to the peace talks at an appropriate time for deliberations on relevant substantive political issues. SLDF demands a Muslim delegation including Northern Muslim representatives should be invited to any further peace talks. We demand that the substantive political rights of Northern Muslims to return to their homes and live without fear should be affirmed and incorporated into any peace process that aims for a just peace in Sri Lanka. International Community The International community has been playing a critical role in the Sri Lankan Peace Process. However, it has not engaged sufficiently with Northern Muslims on issues relating to their right to return, their right to be represented at the peace talks and their participation in rehabilitation and reconstruction. The Norwegian Facilitators should ensure a Muslim delegation at the peace talks. This Muslim delegation should comprise representatives from the Northern Muslims. The SLMM should investigate and report ongoing violations against Northern Muslims attempting to return with the commitment to ending such atrocities. The Sri Lanka Donor Co-chairs on 1 June 2004 noted "that a peace settlement can only be sustained if it respects the legitimate rights and involvement of all ethnic groups -- The Co-chairs encouraged the parties to agree on the modalities to invite a Muslim delegation to the peace talks at an appropriate time for the deliberation on relevant substantive political issues". SLDF demands that any donor assistance to the peace process must be conditional on addressing the political concerns of the Northern Muslims. Funds being dispersed to the North and East for reconstruction must be accessible by all minorities and particularly the Northern Muslims. Towards a just peace SLDF demands that the Northern Muslims be integrated into any negotiations for peace and a permanent political solution. It appears that Northern Muslims political, economic and cultural rights have not been recognized as important enough to derail the peace process, and thus have been neglected. We say that it is precisely the political status of marginalised communities such as the Northern Muslims and their right to live in their homes free from harassment, extortion and eviction that the peace process if it is to committed to meaningful peace should address. SLDF calls on all of Sri Lankas citizens, Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese to work towards the rights of and justice for the Northern Muslims. ______ [2] Daily Times October 31, 2005 Editorial: DON'T LET DELHI BOMBINGS DERAIL THE PEACE PROCESS! The Indian capital of New Delhi was hit Saturday with three simultaneous bombs in marketplaces filled with citizens belonging to the middle and lower middle classes, killing 58 and injuring hundreds. In every incident the explosives were said to have been placed in a rickshaw or a motorcycle. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has denounced the terrorism, thankfully without any reference to Pakistan; and Pakistan has denounced it in the strongest, and thankfully most unequivocal, terms. Even the BJP opposition in parliament, while blaming the government for ignoring earlier signs of terrorism, has abstained from naming any organisation in Pakistan. Experts in New Delhi have pointed the finger at non-Pakistani organisations active in India's northeast and in Held Kashmir that are opposed to the Indo-Pak normalisation process. Meanwhile, in Islamabad, after some anxious hours of deliberation, the two countries went ahead and agreed to open five points on the Line of Control to facilitate relief operations in the areas of Azad Kashmir devastated by the October 8 earthquake. That the two sides are not jumping to conclusions and have decided to wait and see what kind of evidence emerges is a good sign. New Delhi clearly wants to finish questioning the suspects it has caught before "guessing" at whodunnit. Pakistan has most vehemently condemned the bombings and said they are an attempt to sabotage the peace process, a process that has stayed the hands of formerly rash alarmists in India. The formerly defiant All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), for example, has engaged in dialogue with the Indian prime minister and been allowed freer travel in and out of Kashmir than in the past. There is also a clearer understanding in both countries about elements on both sides that find it against their self-interest that the two countries should start patching up and settling their old, deadlocked disputes. So, despite there being much to jerk the two back into the old rut of accusations and counter accusations, the process continues. Terrorism experts have already looked at the pattern of near-simultaneous explosions adopted as a technique by Islamist terrorists in Iraq, Pakistan and Indonesia and opined that it could be the same elements once again. Pakistan itself experienced similar near-simultaneous bombings in Lahore only last month. On September 22 "bicycle" blasts at two markets in Lahore killed seven and wounded many. The police arrested two men and a couple, which "may lead the police to the bombers". The two men were arrested in Sadiqabad in southern Punjab with explosives and other bomb-making material, and on their information, a man and a woman were arrested from Lahore. The couple were originally from Jacobabad in Sindh and had been living near Lahore's Data Darbar shrine in a rented house. Police also seized Rs 200,000 in cash and found some "important" telephone numbers on them. The first reflex was to see the hand of the Indian RAW in the bombings, but there was also a doubt that organisations opposed to the Indo-Pak normalisation and provoked by Pakistan's contacts with Israel could have done it. Finally, there were some members of the "militant groups" among the 35 arrested who are being questioned by the police. In the past, India and Pakistan have not tried to understand the true dimensions of terrorism and have blamed each other for acts performed by organisations not controlled by any state. India's position has been that even the "out-of-control" groups were somehow Pakistan's responsibility. This meant ignoring the importance of cooperating with Pakistan to get rid of them. For example, the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament was finally discovered to have been the work of a defiant group of terrorists that had got out of hand in Pakistan. But the incident led to a period of extreme tension between Pakistan and India, with both amassing troops on the border. Pakistan's denial of complicity was held unacceptable by India, although most Pakistanis were not ready to believe that any Pakistan-based group had done it. In 2003, however, the true dimension of what the two countries were faced with began to become clear after President Pervez Musharraf was attacked by the very organisations accused of the New Delhi attack. In 2004, President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were both attacked again, not by RAW but by the jihadists working for Al Qaeda. After the leaders of India and Pakistan began to lower the bilateral temperature in 2003, a better understanding of the nature of terrorism began to dawn on both sides. We now learn that there is no uproar about the pending sentence that a Delhi court is about to deliver to seven terrorists (one of them allegedly Pakistani) who had attacked the Red Fort in 2000. The men under trial are all Muslims and may be connected to the extremist organisations that have been forming in India. Apart from extremist elements in Held Kashmir, most Indian Muslims have by and large held aloof from terrorism. Indeed, now that New Delhi has started talking to the APHC, the chances are that the dangerous fringe organisations may become isolated to such an extent that acts of terrorism will no longer be popular. Meanwhile, as if forming a backdrop to what is happening in the east in India, Pakistan's south-western province of Balochistan continues to languish in the grip of terrorism. On Saturday, as Islamabad condemned the New Delhi attacks, the gas pipeline serving the capital city of Quetta was blown up for the second time. Needless to say, it is advisable not to start accusing RAW and the Indian consulates in Afghanistan just because it looks plausible. This "plausibility" game has muddied the waters in the past. Both sides must avoid this reflex if the process of normalisation is to be saved. * ______ [3] THE MODI FACTOR AND MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENT I.K.Shukla Well timed in the evening, targeting Eid and Diwali shoppers for dramatic effect, the three bomb blasts in Delhis three most populous and popular areas on Oct.28 destroyed far more than only 70 innocent lives and over 115 injured. Whose purpose this wanton massacre served, how it advanced a cause, whom the criminals sought to avenge, whom they so brutally taught a lesson, whether this is a prologue to the series of blasts in gestation, and where and when next we will never know, because our law and order machinery is unwilling and unable to probe it all. As has been the practice thus far, glibly or sagely it can all be laid at the doors of ISI, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and, of course, the ubiquitous monster Al Qaeda, which goes on getting invented endlessly for a multiplicity of purposes and by a slew of ever ready users. First, the police alacrity post-blasts. The whole city was covered with police patrol. Isnt that something the citizenry is expected to be grateful for? Why the intelligence failed to prime itself prior to the mayhem, or why it did not consider posting patrols in the dense shopping centres when it had received intimations of such threats materializing soon, which was what it could and should have done as the most minimum required in the name of civil safety, passes understanding. But, the establishment will not admit it was careless or clueless or incompetent. The other, ancillary question, from just not the usual run of skeptics. Why was this carnage timed to burn and blacken the bonhomie increasingly gathering strength and volume between the peoples of Pakistan and India? Whoever did it must have a vested interest in keeping the jihadi or patriotic pot boiling. Not above suspicion are the two nations institutional cabals of warmongers who, with peace and normalcy prospectively regnant, will be grievously bereft of their vested interest, their venal cause. These cabals can be political heavyweights, political parties, and the entrenched bureaucracies of the two nations who have to upstage each other just for the fun of it- grandstanding, keeping the other flustered and short of breath are such pure fun in underhand politicking! One aspect that by some unwritten but suspicious compact, always gets omitted from consideration, both in the media and government circles, is the Modi Factor. This is a small name for a large but lethal enterprise. The enterprise is Hindutva : liquidation of minorities in well-planned series of massacres, seemingly random, localized, and dressed up as reaction. This experiment of ethnic cleansing has signally succeeded in Gujarat. The plight of Gujarat Muslims ever since the 2002 genocide has remained abysmal, if the recent reports of Kuldip Nayar and Harsh Mander are any guide. No criminals were punished. Killers, rapists, arsonists, thugs and assassins were lionized as Hindu heroes. The saffronazi cult of crime and the dagger-invested brotherhood of mobsters, upgraded, the former as Hindu religion and the latter as its exemplars, were admitted, without any shame or apology or remorse, into national polity as legitimate constituents. It is this which on the one hand has led to a feeling of helplessness and humiliation among the victims and survivors, the state reduced in this perception as complicit or co-sponsor of the crimes of Hindu terrorists, and on the other a very starkly demonstrable proof of a failed state catering with determination to the interests of fascist gangsters and theo-terrorists, which cannot be confronted other than by its own methods of terror and tyranny, indiscriminate, endless, and unrelenting. The continual murders of Christians all over and their churches being vandalized and burnt, the non-stop murders of Muslims, more grimly and recurrently in western UP, the calls by Hindu outfits on BJP aggressively to pursue the Hindutva agenda, their main warlord Sudarshans assertion that there are no minorities in India except Parsis and Jews, and any slight concession to justice or even a modicum of legalistic equality in bourgeois terms is tantamount to appeasement, none of them being arrested or prosecuted for harboring killers and funding criminals all the mounting congeries of ever swelling volume of violence and terror against the minorities stresses the obvious repeatedly that the state in India is mired in a big failure, and that violence prevails both to undermine the state constitutionally and to indulge in ethnic cleansing with impunity. Whether the government at the centre was BJPs is immaterial in so far as the constitutional safeguards were concerned in the case of Gujarat. There was a glaring case for the President to dismiss the delinquent government of Vajpayee. Then, the UPA government in New Delhi could have remedied the situation by kicking out Modi government. But, popular, democratically elected government seemed to have held UPAs hand. There was no such compunction on the part of Congress when it had sacked the Kerala government of Namboodiripad on far trivial excuses in the 1950s. In the Hindutva book Red Indians are not a minority because they belonged to the land. That they were massacred in millions to render them into a besieged minority is not a fact to bother him. That 1 million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkeys genocide by state connivance and sponsorship in 1917 too would not matter to him, despite the fact that both had lived there for hundreds of years. He would refuse to see they were the minorities singled out for liquidation just as Hindutva has singled out Christians and Muslims. Whether this violence was a plant or a vengeance of the weak we will perhaps never know. But, if we seek to have a grip on the situation, we will have to look deeper, look farther. What our police and military are capable of in terms of cold blooded murder in the lock up or fake encounters is public knowledge. Our army excelled itself in Chattisinghpura in Kashmir by slaughtering in cold blood 24 Sikhs and laying the crime at the doors of the militants, the more savagely to pursue them and win awards. Such plants are endemic to the institutional imperatives of a repressive state. As to vengeance. Those guilty of the murders of Christians, those guilty of the genocide in Gujarat 2002, those killing Dalits and adivasis in various urban and rural locations, must be seen punished, or the state would seem to have nullified itself. It is the frustration of the victims which may be stirring, however blindly, to resort to these wanton acts of terror. The perpetrators may not even care if they are thus helping the victims of state terror or inducing the state to intensify its regime of unremitting terrorism on the minorities. Did the shoppers in Paharganj, Govindpuri, and Sarojini Nagar not include Muslims? Two issues that are not so apart must be broached here. BJP has denounced Punjab government for the statues of seven terrorists in Ludhiana. It should have begun with denouncing itself for the two statues raised in Gujarat to its own terrorists. Two, have we not failed, as in Gujarat, to validate our claims and honor the constitutional guarantees in the case of Kashmir pulverized by quake? Have we done enough, and fast, and well to reach people there the much needed help and succor? Or, the Hindu majority (a fiction) is happy to get Kashmir, but cleansed by nature of thousands of Muslims? These utterances are not limited to a crazy fringe in India any more. And, they unmask us both as a state and tarnish us a society. The report of our national endeavor there are not upbeat (Yogi Sikand: countercurrents.org). Rounding up of Muslim youths following each such mayhem, torturing them, destroying their families with violent meanness and reckless mendacity, concluding even without any preliminary inquiry of substance that it was Al Qaeda or Lashkar-i-Tayyeba which caused the blasts, is, to put it mildly, both to revel in dereliction of duty, and promote terrorism for establishmentarian ends. 30Oct.05 ______ [4] INSAF Bulletin November 2005 EARTHQUAKE AND AFTERMATH by Vinod Mubayi A lot of words have been written to describe the tragedy that hit Kashmir and the north-west region of South Asia after the devastating earthquake. But all the words cannot come close to wiping the tears of the families who have suffered the loss of their near and dear ones and continue to suffer from the anxiety of what life has in store for them especially now that winter is fast approaching in areas that are known to experience heavy snowfall. All one can hope for is that the outpouring of words will lead to more effective action and larger aid on the part of global civil society. Thus far the quantum of aid is much less than what was offered after the tsunami last December although the magnitude of casualties and need is roughly on the same order of magnitude. Whether this indicates donor fatigue on the part of the global public that has witnessed an unprecedented number of natural and human disasters in the last year or whether it shows a reluctance to support aid to South Asia, especially Pakistan, is unclear. The entire Himalayan region is seismically active, threatened by the relentless advance of the Indian plate towards the Eurasian plate that, in fact, created the Himalayan range a few million years ago. Several high magnitude seismic events have occurred over the last century in the mountainous regions of South Asia: some in populated areas like the great Quetta earthquake in 1935 that is estimated to have killed more than 30,000 and the major quake in Assam in 1950 that fortunately took a lower toll of life because it affected mostly unpopulated areas. While there is not much that can be done to reduce the occurrence of these events since they happen due to natural causes, their impact on human populations can certainly be lessened by a combination of swift and effective relief actions after an event, improved building practices and better environmental policies. Setting up an emergency response capability and making plans and testing them through periodic drills is an essential first step for Pakistani and Indian authorities in the seismically active Himalayan region. Both countries have spent billions over the last half century on maintaining and equipping their armies in one of the most challenging terrains in the world where a soldier's risk of death from cold is more likely than death from military action. A small fraction of this amount spent on developing an effective response capability to respond to natural disasters will do more, far more, to protect their populations than all the resources devoted to the military on both sides. Relatively low cost building practices and technologies that use locally available materials have been developed that can survive quite significant earthquakes. Stopping deforestation on mountain slopes can greatly reduce the chance of devastating mudslides that wipe out entire villages in the hills. Putting these into practice does not need as much in the way of resources as it does in changing the politics and organization of the civil society and the bureaucracy at all levels. However, these are longer range policies In the immediate short-term there is no doubt that reaching desperately needed shelter, food, and medical help to the survivors is the highest priority and all efforts must be made to ensure that this happens. In this regard, India being the immediate neighbor and having experienced the calamity in its own part of Kashmir, although at a significantly lesser level in terms of deaths than the disaster in Pakistan, has a special role to play in providing help. Although both countries have taken some initial steps to make this happen, it does seem that the biggest obstacle remaining is the character of their bureaucratic and political establishments that are simply unable to overcome the distrust and hatred of each other they have so carefully nurtured for over a half a century despite the overwhelming sentiments among the "aam aadmi" (common person) in both countries who are miles ahead of their so-called leaders in this respect. One bureaucrat was overheard remarking that one earthquake cannot change 50 years of history. This person (and others like him) needs to be told that while history is history the main lesson from this earthquake is that it is people like him that need to be urgently changed and the sooner it happens the better it will be for the future of all our South Asian countries. ______ [5] Human Rights Watch Pakistan: Officials Place Tents Intended for Victims in Storage Urgent Help Needed to Shelter Earthquake Victims (Islamabad, October 22, 2005)-Scarce tents and other relief supplies are being put in storage in the city of Muzaffarabad in earthquake stricken Pakistan-administered Kashmir by civilian authorities working under the supervision of the military, rather than handed out to needy, homeless persons, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 19 at Muzaffarabad's civil secretariat, Human Rights Watch was present at a supply depot where government civil servants were working to help store supplies on the promise of being provided tents at the end of a day's labor. The depot was under the control of officials from the "services group," an administrative unit working for the chief secretary, the highest ranking civil servant in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Several civil servants informed Human Rights Watch that they had been engaged in the activity for three days, only to return to their shelterless families empty-handed every night. Human Rights Watch was told by officials at the scene in charge of dispersing these tents, which had been designated for government workers in Muzaffarabad, that tents and other emergency supplies were being stored instead. Officials present said that this was being done so that they would be able to avoid problems when senior military and civilian officials demand supplies that otherwise would not be available. One official said that he would be fired if he handed out the tents. Under pressure from the intended recipients, one official did release some tents to some of the people on the list of designated civil servants. Each tent can provide shelter for six people. "In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, tents are the difference between life and death," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It is essential for the public to know that aid is being handled in a non-arbitrary, non-discriminatory manner." After the earthquake, Human Rights Watch warned that the greatest threat to human rights often arises in crisis situations and called on the government of Pakistan to adhere to international human rights standards in the organization and provision of relief. Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was also present at the scene. She told Human Rights Watch that, "Tents are now the most important commodity in Kashmir. But they are being used for power and patronage by military and civilian authorities that control the territory. This needs to be sorted out immediately." Hundreds of thousands of homeless and displaced victims of the October 8 earthquake that devastated Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Northern Pakistan face the threat of disease and death from exposure unless the supply of weatherized tents and blankets increases dramatically and quickly. Almost two weeks after the earthquake, there is a massive shortage of tents even in Muzaffarabad, the hub of international and Pakistani relief efforts. Relief efforts have been hampered by a lack of coordination between the army and civilian authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and a scarcity of resources. "The tsunami and other natural disasters have made it clear that it is critical to involve civil society and community leaders in the relief effort, regardless of political affiliation," said Adams. "This is a challenging situation for all concerned but it may worsen unless the Pakistani authorities become more inclusive in the coordination and organization of relief efforts." At least 55,000 people are thought to have died, though the number is likely to rise significantly. At least 70,000 are injured. Almost three million people have lost their homes and been displaced. The United Nations says that the situation for survivors is worse than after the Southeast Asian tsunami. UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, has said hundreds of villages remain inaccessible and 10,000 children could die of hypothermia, hunger and disease over the next few weeks. Though the Pakistani military authorities and others are attempting aerial aid drops, the distribution to thousands of scattered mountain communities remains haphazard. Villagers who had trekked for hours to reach Muzaffarabad described to Human Rights Watch how helicopters sometimes miss their targets and the goods land thousands of feet below in valleys or forests, remaining inaccessible. International teams have set up field hospitals and provided some relief in Muzaffarabad and outlying areas. Pakistani relief agencies and volunteer groups have also ferried relief goods and personnel into the territory. The United Nations has only received firm commitments of U.S. $37 million of the U.S. $312 million flash appeal it launched in the aftermath of the earthquake. "Donors should make sure that they provide enough support and the right types of support, especially tents, blankets and medicine, as soon as possible," said Adams. "Inaction or further delay may mean that hundreds of thousands of people will freeze to death as the Himalayan winter approaches." ______ [6] Tehelka Oct 15 , 2005 RSS INVENTS ANOTHER RAM MYTH TO CAPTURE THE DANGS The Gujarat administration 'vibrantly' backs the RSS efforts in tribal-dominated Dangs to stem Christian missionary 'proselytisation'. Reinventing tradition and reconversion are stock-in trade of the Parivar machinery By Mahesh Langa Dangs, Gujarat The Legend Of Ram Reconstructed: Ram, Lakshman and Sabari idols Photo Laxman A Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad leaflet says Dangs is Dandakaranya Pradesh of Ramayana. To complete the picture, a check-dam over Purna River has been named Pampa Sarovar and a statue of Sabari installed on its bank On Christmas day in 1998, a nondescript village called Subir in Ahwa (Dangs, Gujarat) hit the headlines when a rally of about 1,500 people from Hindu right-wing outfits like VHP and Bajrang Dal turned violent, attacking a missionary school and church. Within a week, 35 churches and prayer halls were burnt down in this tribal district of south Gujarat. The rally was organised by right-wing groups to protest the alleged conversion of tribals to Christianity by missionaries. Importantly, the chain of events occurred after BJP rule was instated in Gujarat and the BJP-led NDA formed the government in New Delhi. According to Fr Raphael, a Jesuit at Nav Jyot School at Subir, "Barring that incident, we have never had a problem in the area since we started our work about a couple of decades ago." Countering the RSS claim that missionaries pose a threat to the country and Hindus, Fr Raphael said: "I don't know what we have done to pose a threat." The 1998 incident was the first time that missionaries, who have been working in the field of education and health in the Dangs for nearly a century, were directly attacked by Sangh Parivar outfits. Since then, however, no violent incident has occurred against minorities in this predominantly tribal district (Dangs has a population of 1.87 lakh and over 95 percent of it is tribal). To counter missionaries' activities and the supposed proselytisation among tribals, Sangh Parivar outfits and other neo-Hindu groups (like Swadhyay Parivar and Swaminarayan) have adopted new methods and new means to Hinduise Adivasis, including invention of new traditions and myth making. Attempts at staving off the missionary 'offensive' have continued unabated, and the latest is a Kumbh mela to be organised by RSS from February 11-13, 2006, at Subir village, around 35 kms from Ahwa, the district headquarter of Dangs. The selection of the place is very significant, because it was here that militant Hinduism was first asserted. In Dangs, there is a common belief among tribals that the legendary Ram and Lakshman had passed through the area on their way to Lanka. Cashing in on this belief, the Sangh Parivar has endeavoured to reconstruct the history of Dangs. This is how a leaflet of Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, a Parivar-affiliate, describes Subir: "Dangs is Dandakaranya Pradesh of Ramayana. Passing through densely forested hilly areas of the region here, Ram and Lakshman met Sabari (a mythological Bhil lady). Ram ate the fruits Sabari offered and blessed her on the bank of Pampa Sarovar. So Sabari had belonged to this village and therefore it is known as Subir." A Sabari Dham temple has been built on a hill in Subir, and every year on Sharad Purnima, a fair is held to celebrate Sabari's birthday. According to the Kumbh mela office at Sabari Dham, a Ram Katha of a well-known kathakar Morari Bapu was organised in 2002, and it was then that Bapu had suggested organising a Kumbh mela for vanvasis (tribals). To complete the imaginary Dandakaranya Pradesh and Sabari Dham, a check-dam built under the 11th Finance Commission scheme for tribal areas over Purna River, which passes through the area, has been named Pampa Sarovar and a statue of Sabari installed on its bank. Massive preparations undertaken for the upcoming event can be seen at the Kumbh mela office near Pampa Sarovar, but people at the office were not very forthcoming with information. However, during an informal talk, Mukesh Daga, an RSS activist at the office, divulged a few details of the planned Kumbh: "This programme is meant for the whole Hindu samaj. About five lakh people are expected to assemble here. Forty huge tents will be erected to accommodate them. The state government is going to assist with power, transportation and whatever is needed. The main objective of the fifth Kumbh is to put a full stop to conversion of tribals. During the three-day mela, a special drive for Ghar Vapsi (reconversion) will be made. Only yesterday, we reconverted around 20 vanvasis here." The overall in-charge, Swami Asheemanandaji - a Bengali sadhu who has been active in Dangs for almost a decade - was unavailable for comment. But the local media has often quoted him saying: "Bharat is facing two big challenges in the 21st century. One comes from Islamic jehad and the other from Christian missionaries. To counter these challenges, we need to awaken the Hindu samaj. And this is what I have been doing here in Dangs. My main objective is to completely eradicate Christianity from this tribal district." Local tribals, though, are vociferously opposed to any such Kumbh. Says Rajubhai Pawar, sarpanch of the village, "I don't know what they are going to do here. But we villagers don't want such tamasha. They are outsiders from Surat and Navsari and other places. They want to assemble five lakh people here. What will happen if so many people throng the place? The district has no system to support such a huge crowd. It will certainly create environmental damage and law-and-order problems." The Parivar Troika? Narendra Modi with swamis involved in the project Photo Laxman Some local tribals are opposed to the Sabari Dham Kumbh, alleging that the organisers are outsiders from Surat, Navsari and other places. Backed by local MLAs and the erstwhile ruler of Dangs, they recently held two huge protest ralliesRecalling the visit of RSS supremo Sudarshan to the place last July, Rajubhai said the police beat up villagers in order to clear the road for the convoy. "He came here on a Wednesday, which is when we have our weekly mart. So there was a crowd. All of a sudden the police lathicharged, and four people were injured. So now we have decided to oppose such nataks." On September 28, locals organised a big sabha at Ahwa to formally decide opposition to the Sabari Dham Kumbh. Chhotubhai Vasava, the JD(U) tribal MLA from Jhagadiya, while addressing the meeting said: "They want to spent eight crore rupees in this Kumbh. I would like to ask: why splurge money on such tamashas? If you are genuinely interested, do some positive and constructive work here. Otherwise leave us alone, please don't divide our tribal society." This was followed by another recent protest led by the erstwhile ruler of Dangs and the sitting Congress MLA. Addressing a rally, the former maharaja spoke out against the plan. "As the king of the adivasis of Dangs, I would say that disputes in the community have increased ever since the Swami Asheemanandaji set up his ashram on the Chamak Dungar hills. He had taken one-acre land on the mountain for Rs 10,000 and now he occupies four hectares. Mokhanwad villagers will file a complaint against the ashram." The former ruler dubbed the Sabari Dham a sham, saying, "Our social fabric is being damaged. Previously, three stones atop the hill used to be worshipped as our own tribal gods. But now they have built a Sabari Mata temple and keep propagating that tribals worshipped Sabari there. This is totally false as it was never the case." Madhubhai Bhoye, Congress MLA of Dang Vansda, was more vocal and levelled serious allegations: "The Central government has allotted Rs 15 crore for carrying out development work in the district. There are 311 villages in Dangs but the district administration has spent Rs 9 crore on constructing check-dams all over eastern Dangs keeping in mind the venue for the Kumbh. They built 20 check-dams to create an imaginary Pampa Sarovar. I have written to the Central government to investigate the misuse of money." Bhoye also pointed out that the state government and district administration are helping the RSS in a big way to make the function "successful". Dangs Collector RM Jadhav confirmed the administration's involvement: "We are providing infrastructure support like electricity, check-dams etc. for the Kumbh." When asked whether Dangs needed a Kumbh, Jadhav parried it, saying, "It's a religious issue. What can you do if people want it?" The large-scale protests seem to have had no impact on the RSS and other outfits involved in organising the mela, though. Incidentally, all trustees of Sabari Dham are from Surat and Navasari - Jayantibhai Kevat, south Gujarat in-charge of BJP, Ramesh Bamrolia and Gopal Patel, a Surat-based textile trader. Gopal refused to believe that locals are against it. "The protests have been orchestrated by local politicians. Otherwise tribals are with us. It's their programme and they are doing it for themselves." He also denied that a special drive would be made for reconversion. "We don't believe in conversion or reconversion. As Hindus, it is our duty to help our Dangi brothers," he said. Satyakam Joshi, an associate professor at Centre for Social Studies, Surat believes that an event like Kumbh will have vicious impact on the locals: "The core issue of development and poverty eradication will take a backseat to Hinduisation." On the process of Hinduisation, Joshi considers this as not a recent phenomenon, only that now it is being done systematically. He believes the Hindu outfits would try to draw political advantage from the process at work. Joshi, however, believes that even Christian missionaries have also played this game. "In tribal areas of Dangs the process of Hinduisation and Christianisation has been going on since the last hundred years," he observed. ______ [7] November 2005 issue of International South Asia Forum Bulletin is now available, check: www.insaf.net/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ Sister initiatives : South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ Sacw mailing list [email protected] http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net
