South Asia Citizens Wire | 28-29 May, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2252 [1] Pakistan: What a bomb cannot buy (Pervez Hoodbhoy) [2] India, US Tighten Nuclear Handshake (Praful Bidwai) [3] India: Two Years of UPA and Communal Amity (Ram Puniyani) [4] India: The Assault on the Poor (Prashant Bhushan) [5] India: Letter to the Editor re the skewed Bombay Film (Mukul Dube)
_____ [1] The News on Sunday May 28, 2006 pakistan WHAT A BOMB CANNOT BUY Eight years after the nuclear test, a lot many promises remain unfulfilled and costs unacknowledged By Pervez Hoodbhoy On the eighth anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear tests, there is little point in debating whether we should have followed India down the nuclear gutter. But there is need for a sober stock-taking that moves us away from the still rampant, simple-minded, nuclear triumphalism. So far the region's nuclear 'experts' and 'strategists', actively assisted on both sides of the border by their respective states, have effectively monopolised discussion on nuclear policy. But many promises remain unfulfilled and various political and social costs for Pakistan are barely acknowledged. What are these? The most obvious fact is that testing the bomb speeded up the subcontinent's arms race, rather than slowing it down. If you had believed what the nuclear pundits used to say, it should have been the other way round. Their argument was so seductive and simple that even well-meaning people were taken for a ride. They said acquiring the bomb would ensure national security into eternity -- the threat of a nuclear response would deter territorial violations by the other, and hence the need for conventional arms would evaporate. Just a few bombs would do. Before the May 1998 tests, and even for several months after it, some Pakistanis cheerfully wrote that after going nuclear, little more than salaries for soldiers would be needed. Defence budgets could be slashed, and (at last) funds would go into development and education. Instead, what have we seen? Today the need for acquisition of battle tanks, artillery, fighter aircraft, surface ships, submarines, anti-ballistic missile systems, early warning aircraft, and space-based surveillance systems is now claimed -- by many of the same people -- to be more urgent than ever before. The US-India nuclear deal, if ratified by Congress, will add fuel to the fire. After India's breeder reactors come on line, it will be able to produce as many nuclear warheads in just one year as it had in the previous 30. Pakistan is sure to react in various ways. The once-popular concept of 'minimal deterrence' died after India's firm statement that the requirements for a deterrent force will be 'dynamically determined' and cannot be explicitly stated. In other words, it will never say how many bombs are enough. That is not how it used to be. I well remember my intervention during a conference in Chicago (1992) which provoked the Indian strategist K. Subramanyam to angrily protest that "arms racing is a Cold War concept invented by the western powers and totally alien to sub-continental thinking". We Pakistanis and Indians were supposed to be infinitely wiser than the compulsive Americans and Soviets. But one sees that Cold War racing has been followed to the letter on the subcontinent. Tactical nuclear war-fighting, once considered escalatory, is reported to be incorporated into current Indian and Pakistani military doctrines. The fact is that nuclear racing and doctrines is everywhere and always driven by the same implacable, mad, runaway logic. Should there be the slightest danger of the race slackening, a nuclear 'expert' will point to the other side's latest acquisition and shout wolf. With every passing decade, advances in technology make it easier and cheaper to create ever more deadly nuclear weapons, buy or make longer range and more effective missiles, and go for various hi-tech weapon systems that could not have been imagined just a while ago. For Pakistan, the nuclear cost -- political and social -- has been even higher than for India. First, nuclear weapons led to Pakistan's Kargil debacle. The 1998 tests gave the country's leaders a false sense of security. This was the direct cause of a misadventure that ended in a stunning political and diplomatic defeat for Pakistan. If anything, it made clear that Pakistan could no longer hope for a military victory in Kashmir. The Kargil episode offers the very first example in history where nuclear weapons, by dint of creating a presumed shield for launching conventional covert operations, were responsible for having brought about a war. The unrestrained propagation of false beliefs in nuclear security brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-blown confrontation that could well have been the very last one. Arguably it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that, by ordering Pokhran-II, fathered Kargil. Second, Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons has made it effectively a less independent state, rather than it being the other way round. While Pakistan became popular in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries after testing, its inability to stand up for real Muslim interests remains as chronically weak as ever. Unlike many European and non-aligned countries -- which were vociferous in their opposition to the US war upon Iraq -- Pakistan chose the side of pragmatism. One can also be sure that if Iran's nuclear facilities are bombed by the US, Pakistan's leaders will do no more than shake their heads in mild disapproval. The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline provides yet another example of weakness. Although nukes have pushed up Pakistan's rental value for fighting the wars of other nations, the constraints on its behaviour have also greatly increased. The danger that our nukes may turn loose is a source of deep discomfort to Pakistan's chief patron and paymaster, the United States of America. The fiery rhetoric of religious parties, who claim the bomb for the entire Muslim Ummah rather than just for Pakistan, understandably terrifies many in the West. Moreover, the A. Q. Khan episode -- in spite of Pakistan's repeated assertions that the matter has now closed -- is still very much on the minds of the US establishment and media. These reasons account for the US's flat rejection of any kind of nuclear deal with Pakistan along the lines that it had proposed to India. For the time being, with General Pervez Musharraf in power, the US is willing to tolerate Pakistan's nuclear arsenal -- and may even satisfy some of its needs for advanced conventional weaponry. But this could be shortlived. Many gaming scenarios played in the US strategic war planning institutions indicate there are well-rehearsed contingency plans if Pakistan's political situation changes radically in the event of General Musharraf's departure. Clearly, Pakistan is a country that is closely watched and monitored. Third, and finally, while a connection is sometimes alleged, in fact nuclear weapons have been irrelevant to two of Pakistan's critical needs -- national integration and high technology. If anything, the effect has gone the other way. National integration remains a distant goal, and the hope that the bomb would be a rallying call for all Pakistanis has disappeared. The tumultuous, officially inspired, 1999 celebrations of 'yaum-e-takbir' all over the country were supposed to infuse a new sense of national spirit in Pakistanis. Bomb and missile models were installed at every other street corner; many still survive. But instead of love for the centralised Islamabad-based Pakistani state, the ongoing widespread insurgency in Balochistan and rising bitterness in Sindh are sending clear messages of a dangerous disaffection. Nuclear weapons cannot compensate the absence of a democratic process, which alone can weld Pakistan's disparate people into a nation. The failure is evident. Punjab celebrates the bomb while Balochistan protests it. It resents the fact that the nuclear test site -- now radioactive and put out of bounds -- is located on Baloch soil. Accused of dumping nuclear wastes, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission is now being increasingly targeted by Baloch nationalists as an instrument of foreign domination. On May 15, 2006, Baloch insurgents reportedly launched a mortar attack on a Pakistani nuclear establishment controlled by the PAEC in the vicinity of the Dera Ghazi Khan-Quetta highway. And, what of the Bomb being a technical miracle? Over thirty years ago, fearful of India's newly acquired nuclear weapons, Pakistan set out on its own quest to become a nuclear weapons state. It lacked a strong technological base. But its secret search of the world's industrialised countries for nuclear weapons technologies was successful. It now advertises itself as a high-tech state. But in a world where science moves at super-high speeds, nuclear weapons and missile development is today second-rate science. The undeniable fact is that the technology of nuclear bombs is six decades old. Famine-stricken North Korea, with few other achievements, is probably also a nuclear power and clearly has a very advanced missile programme. In fact it had transferred this technology to Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and other countries. While Pakistani and Indian weapons programmes have diverted substantial financial and material resources away from social and scientific needs, they have merely used scientific principles discovered and developed elsewhere. Not surprisingly, there are no worthwhile spin-offs. Surely it is time to drop the pretence that making nuclear weapons and guided missiles is a wonderful thing. The author is professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. ____ [2] Inter Press Service May 27, 2006 INDIA, US TIGHTEN NUCLEAR HANDSHAKE Praful Bidwai NEW DELHI, May 27 (IPS) - The United States and India have taken yet another step towards finalising the nuclear cooperation agreement they signed in July last year and more key lawmakers in Washington have expressed support for the deal. The agreement makes a special, one-time exception in the global nuclear non-proliferation regime for India by acknowledging and legitimising it as a 'responsible' nuclear weapons state.After decades of technology sanctions, civilian nuclear commerce with it will now be resumed. The deal has provoked controversy because of the unique country-specific treatment given to India which is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and 'weaponised' its nuclear programme eight years ago. The deal is part of, and further consolidates, the emerging India-U.S. "strategic partnership" which is designed to contain China. Both governments are making hectic efforts to get the agreement through U.S. Congress before it goes into a recess in August. The Bush administration staunchly defended the deal in Congressional hearings. And India has redoubled its lobbying on Capitol Hill through professional public relation agencies and influential groups of Indians settled in the U.S. Their efforts have borne fruit as increasing numbers of U.S. lawmakers, who were earlier sceptical, have come around to backing the deal. Washington and New Delhi are negotiating the language of what they hope will be the final text of the agreement, under which India must separate its civilian nuclear facilities from military ones, and place the former under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. India has offered to put 14 out of its 22 operating and planned civilian reactors under safeguards. The current negotiations centre on issues other than the civilian-military separation. They also highlight the limits beyond which neither side can press the other. On Friday, India's foreign secretary (chief of the diplomatic cadre) Shyam Saran and U.S. under secretary of state Nicholas Burns concluded two days of talks in London, which the State Department described as "another good step forward". At the talks, the U.S. prodded India on making a legal commitment to abjure further nuclear testing. Saran, however, made it plain that "we are not in a position to deviate from the July 18 joint statement" signed between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in which India only said it would continue with its voluntary moratorium on testing. A voluntary moratorium can be lifted at will. Nuclear hardliners in India do not want to write off the option of further tests to develop a fusion (hydrogen) bomb. India claimed it successfully tested a fusion assembly in 1998, but independent experts say it turned out to be a dud. Nuclear testing is one of the two issues on which the U.S. has been trying to push India, the other being a treaty to ban the production of fissile material, the fuel that goes into nuclear weapons. Last fortnight, the U.S. introduced a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. In the past, India was lukewarm towards the FMCT which it regards as a measure to limit the size of its nuclear arsenal. India, like Pakistan, is still producing and stockpiling fissile material, whereas the major nuclear weapons-states have a surplus of it. But in the nuclear deal, initialled last July, New Delhi had to make a concession on the issue. "This is part of the small price that India paid for the deal," says Achin Vanaik, professor of International Relations and Global Politics at Delhi University. "The U.S. is keen on an FMCT because it wants to freeze nuclear competition among the major states at the present level. China resists this and would like the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to negotiate a treaty to ban an arms race in outer space before it takes up the FMCT." China is especially anxious about Washington's plans for "Star Wars"-style ballistic defence (BMD). Beijing believes the BMD programme is targeted primarily at China. By committing itself to "work with" Washington on getting the FMCT passed, New Delhi has signalled that it stands by the U.S., not with China. India has nevertheless entered a minor caveat by emphasising the issue of verification of the FMCT. The London talks showed that Indian officials are wary of introducing even minor changes in the agreement, which was fleshed out further during President George W. Bush's visit to India during March. The Bush administration finds itself under some pressure to show "flexibility" in "accommodating some of the desires of Congress", Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher told an Indian news agency. "We certainly accept the views of Congress on different issues but we are also going to make clear that we cannot do things --legislations or conditions--at this point that will break the deal". India's lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill received a big boost when it managed to win over a traditionally anti-Indian Republican Congressman, Dan Burton. He joined three members of the Congress' India Caucus to write a letter countering "distortions" and "erroneous" statements made by detractors of the nuclear deal. Describing the deal as 'visionary', the letter said: "We firmly believe that the facts underlying the decision to enter into the agreement fully warrant the conclusion that its implementation is in the best interest of both the U.S. and India.'' The letter commends India's record on nuclear non-proliferation to reassure Congress that legitimising India's nuclear weapons would not lead to their further spread. The letter said: "For 30 years, India has protected its nuclear programmes. It has not engaged in or allowed proliferation of its nuclear technology. Simply put, India is treated uniquely because of its history of maintaining a successful nuclear non-proliferation regime". New Delhi is anxious to have the agreement ratified along with the necessary legislation during the term of the present (109th) Congress. Elections to the 110th Congress are due in November. It is possible that it will be controlled by the Democrats, who are less amenable than the Republicans to persuasion to ratify it. Both governments are testing the waters to see how far they can go to meet domestic concerns and head off accusations that they are compromising their respective national interests. In the U.S., much of the opposition to the deal in the Senate has been softened. But in the House of Representatives, it still faces significant opposition, in particular from a group of Democrats led by Ed Markey. In India, the deal faces opposition from the right-wing, especially the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which accuses the Manmohan Singh government of having sold India's interests short. It was a BJP government that, in 1998 ran a series of tests and declared India a nuclear weapons state. Domestic pressure will limit the extent to which India can be flexible. Having tabled the main contents of the deal in Parliament, the government cannot ask for amendments without inviting the charge that it succumbed to U.S. pressure. (END/2006) ____ [3] AND PROMISES TO KEEP . . . TWO YEARS OF UPA AND COMMUNAL AMITY Ram Puniyani (May 21, 2006) United Progressive Alliance came to power in the backdrop of the massive Gujarat carnage and a worsening communalization of society. Efforts to bring in harmony and integration were incorporated in the common minimum program. This CMP did promise to work for controlling the rising communalization. It promised to promote amity in the society, it aimed at winning over the confidence of minorities and to improve their lot. Where do matters stand two years down the line as the Govt. is completing its two years in the office? POTA had become synonymous with the imprisoning a section of Muslim youth and putting them behind the bars in the aftermath of one or the act of terror. The arbitrary nature of this law was a major source of torment for a section of community. While UPA did withdraw it, it failed to do so from the retrospective effect with the result that a large section of people which was in the jails continues to be there. The communal violence bill which was brought in was drafted on the assumption that police and administration do not have enough powers during the violence. So with more powers under their belt they will be able to control the riot, that's what the bill provided for. As such the matters are the other way around. It is the complicity of these sections with rioters, it is their proactive role in the violence that carnage begins and continues. After the protests by human rights groups the bill was taken back for reworking and despite a lapse of a long time one is not hearing much about it. The need is to bring in a bill, which can punish those in the seats of powers and not doing their assigned duty to control the violence. The bill failed to provide suitable clauses against gendered violence and provisions for the adequate relief and rehabilitation of the victims of the violence. On the positive side, the UPA did take up the issue of communalized text books and after the gap of two years, better books are coming out from the NCERT stable, only pity is that while they cater to a small section of students a large number of students have to follow the books by state education boards, many of which are very communal in nature and leave a lot to be desired as for as the suitability for the growing children is concerned. The role of this government in the potentially dangerous Baroda riots needs to be given half a clap. The state administration and the complicit communal organizations like VHP, RSS and Bajrang dal etc are having a field day in this Hindu Rashtra of Gujarat. The pressure put by the human rights groups was well received and the central intervention brought a halt to the carnage unleashed by the Sangh combine and state and municipal administrations, which in Gujarat, have become part of the Sangh combine. While most of the things are not taken serious note of as many of these issues come under the purview of state Govt., time has come to see that if these have deeper repercussions on the national unity they should be taken up by center in all sincerity. The aim of winning over the confidence of minorities is no where in sight, currently the minorities have to hide in their cocoons for security. The Rajinder Sacchar Committee report is keenly awaited but the glimpses of it as coming through some section of media show that the social and human development indices of Muslims have slid in the downward direction. One awaits the Govt response on the plans to develop education and employment schemes for minorities. The much promised commission for minority education is nowhere in sight. The attempts to curtail the acts of terror have been restricted to the Muslims names alone. In a major blast which occurred in Nanded on 6 th April in the house of RSS sympathizers, the people who got accidentally killed while making the bomb belonged to Bajrang Dal. Proper investigation of this blast is nowhere in sight. The creeping fascism through the change in attitudes of the Administration and Police is slowly strangulating the society. These are the visible parts of communalization of society due to the deeper processes at work. The intense propaganda and word of mouth campaign by the communal forces has vitiated the social thinking to the hilt and the emotional divide between religious communities is increasing, with the possibility of the divide being bridged appears to be a very difficult prospect. If this is not addressed through the awareness programs of communal harmony we cannot hope for the prospering of the Indian identity. The sectarian identities around religion are already flourishing. UPA governments' promises will remain totally unfulfilled if the riots are not controlled. During last few years the faith based obscurantist trends as manifested in Babas, Acharyas and Bapus is on the rise. Criticsing them has become hazardous and some of them are now adorning the status of brand ambassadors of states, with all the state functionaries attending and bowing to them. The constitution tells us to uphold the rational though and spirit, now and open embrace with blind faith is shamelessly visible. In adivasi areas the development funds are being channeled to promote religiosity as witnessed in the Shabri Kumbh festival in Dangs. The places of religious worship of the minority community are being taken over or demolished with the full cooperation from local authorities. The civil society is becoming more and more apathetic to the plight of minorities. This in turn is resulting in the development of sectarian thinking amongst minorities themselves who have started feeling that they are outcastes by the national community. The ghettotisation, the division between minority majority, is sowing the seeds which can take the form of violence on the pretext of even a small incident. UPA is acting in a sluggish manner to this serious threat to the body politic of our society and nation. A mere patch work will not do, mere running to control the Barodas won't do, what we need is a far sighted approach to weed out the communal thought process and associated activities of communal nature. ____ [4] Outlookindia.com May 26, 2007 THE ASSAULT ON THE POOR When the history of the country's descent towards violence and chaos is written, the judiciary of the country can claim pride of place among those who speeded up this process. Prashant Bhushan There was a time, not so long ago, when the Supreme Court of India waxed eloquent about the Fundamental right to life and liberty guaranteed by Article 21. It held that the right to life includes the right to food, the right to employment and the right to shelter: in other words, the right to lead a decent and dignified life. That was in the roaring 80s when the Court gave a series of path-breaking judgements; Olga Tellis (where it held that even pavement dwellers have the right to resettlement and a right of hearing before they are evicted); the Asiad Workers case (where it held that non payment of minimum wages to the workers violated their right to life); the Bandhua Mukti Morcha case (where it was held that workers cannot be kept in bondage because of loans they or their ancestors had taken from their employers); in Vishaka (where while giving a liberal interpretation to sexual harassment of women in the workplace, it held that international covenants signed by India can be read into domestic law). A new tool of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was fashioned where anyone could invoke the jurisdiction of the Courts even by writing a post card on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. It seemed that a new era was dawning and that the courts were emerging as a new liberal instrument within the state to provide the poor some respite from the various excesses and assaults of the executive. Alas, all that seems a distant dream now, given the recent role of the courts in not just failing to protect the rights of the poor that they had themselves declared not long ago, but in fact spearheading the massive assault on the poor, particularly since the era of economic liberalization. This is happening in case after case, whether they are of the tribal oustees of the Narmada Dam, or the urban slum dwellers whose homes are being ruthlessly bulldozed without notice and without rehabilitation, on the orders of the court, or the urban hawkers and rickshaw pullers of Delhi and Mumbai who have been ordered to be removed from the streets by the courts. Public Interest Litigation has been turned on its head. Instead of being used to protect the rights of the poor, it is now being used by commercial interests and the upper middle classes to launch a massive assault on the poor, in the drive to take over urban spaces and even rural land occupied by the poor, for commercial development. While the lands of the rural poor are being compulsorily taken over for commercial real estate development for the wealthy, the urban poor are being evicted from the public land that they have been occupying for decades for shopping malls and housing for the rich. Roadside hawkers are being evicted on the orders of the Courts (which will ensure that people will shop only in these shopping malls). All this is being done, not only in violation of the rights of the poor declared by the Courts, but also in violation of government's policies. Sometimes these actions of the Court seem to have the tacit and covert approval of the government (and the court is being used to do what a democratically accountable government cannot or dare not do), but occasionally they are against the will of the government. Let us examine a few of these cases. When the Narmada oustees approached the courts against the Narmada Control Authority's decision to raise the height of the dam to 122 metres in March this year, the Supreme Court, which was originally due to hear the matter on the 3rd April, postponed it to the 17th, citing non availability of the bench. This, despite being told that the ongoing construction would submerge an additional 150 families by every day of construction. On the 17th April, the report of the Group of Ministers (GoM) which had reported the gross and total failure of rehabilitation, was placed before the Court. The Court again adjourned the case by 2 weeks, giving the States more time to reply. Meanwhile the construction was allowed to go on, though the court stated that they would be forced to stop the construction if it was found that rehabilitation had not been completed in letter and spirit of the Tribunal's award which mandated rehabilitation of the oustees a year before submergence. On the 1st May, the Court heard detailed arguments after the counter affidavits of the states had been filed. On behalf of the oustees, it was pointed out that it was the admitted position that virtually no oustee had been provided land for land. More than 90%of those entitled for land had been given only cash compensation. And more than 90% of these had been so far given only half of their cash entitlement with which they could not even buy half hectare of land despite being entitled for 2 hectares. It was also admitted by Madhya Pradesh (MP) in its affidavit that many rehabilitation sites were incomplete and lacked basic infrastructure. It was also pointed, that Gujarat's claim that the additional height of the dam would provide additional water to Gujarat was bogus, since Gujarat was being able to use only 10% of the Narmada waters already available, on account of the hopelessly incomplete canals and water pipelines. The court first adjourned the case further to May 8, and on that day observed that since facts were disputed, they would like to have the report of the Shunglu committee which is supposed to report on the state of resettlement of the oustees to the PM by the end of June. The court therefore adjourned the matter to the 10th of July. Meanwhile the construction would continue and be completed by the end of June. In other words, after the dam was completed and the oustees submerged, the court would decide whether the construction was legal or not! This, after the admission by MP that many of their rehabilitation sites were not ready, and after the scathing report of the Group of Ministers. The court's repeated adjournments of the hearing, and then allowing the construction to be completed for getting the Shunglu Committee's report, clearly demonstrated a total lack of sensitivity to the oustees and the complete subordination of their rights to the commercial interests of those industrialists led by Narendra Modi who are eyeing the Narmada waters for their industries, water parks and golf courses. The gap between the rhetoric and the actions of the Court could not be more yawning. Meanwhile, as the Narmada oustees were being submerged without rehabilitation, a massive programme of urban displacement of slum dwellers without rehabilitation was being carried out in Delhi and Bombay, also on the orders of the High Courts. Sometimes on the applications of upper middle class colonies, sometimes on their own, the Courts have been issuing a spate of orders for clearing slums by bulldozing the jhuggis on public land. Some of this is being done with the tacit approval of the government, such as the slums on the banks of the Yamuna which are being cleared for making way for the constructions for the Commonwealth games. But elsewhere the demolitions are being ordered despite the government saying that the slum dwellers are entitled for rehabilitation on the governments own policy and that right now they do not have the land to rehabilitate them. Instead of stopping the demolitions in such circumstances, the Delhi High Court has ordered the demolitions to continue regardless. And all this, without even issuing notices to the slum dwellers, in violation of the principles of natural justice. The matter was taken to the Supreme Court, where it was pointed out that the High Court's orders were in violation of at least two rights of the slum dwellers: that poor persons occupying public spaces had a right to be heard before eviction, and if they had been there for a considerable time, they had a right to be given alternative spaces, prior to their eviction. However, ignoring the jurisprudence developed over two decades by it, the Court dismissed the petitions and orally observed that nobody asked these persons to come to Delhi, if they could not afford housing here, and that they have no right to occupy public land. This was not all. The Court's relentless assaults on the poor continued with the Supreme Court ordering the eviction of Hawkers from the streets of Bombay and Delhi. Again, turning their backs on Constitution bench judgements of the Court that Hawkers have a fundamental right to hawk on the streets, which could however be regulated, the Court now observed that streets exist primarily for traffic. They thus ordered the Municipality and the police to remove "unlicenced hawkers" from the streets of Delhi. All this again without any notice or hearing to the hawkers. This effectively meant that almost all the more than 1.5 lakh hawkers would be placed at the mercy of the authorities, since less than 3 percent had been given licences. More recently, the Delhi High Court has ordered the removal of rickshaws from the Chandni Chowk area, ostensibly to pave the way for CNG buses. This order will not only deprive tens of thousands of rickshaw pullers of a harmless and environmentally friendly source of livelihood, it will also cause enormous inconvenience to tens of thousands of commuters who use that mode of transport. Interestingly, witness in this context, the alacrity and speed with which the hon'ble Parliamentarians moved to pass and notify the The Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act-2006 seeking immediate halt to the demolition and sealing drive against illegal structures in the capital under court orders for a period of one year, showing once again how electoral considerations unite the politicians of all hues, and contrast this with the stance of the government in the NBA case. The country today is living through a phase where the country's billionaires are growing as rapidly as farmers suicides in the countryside; where opulent shopping malls, commercial complexes and futuristic IT cities are coming up on land which the poor are being forced to vacate. Thus the poor are being deprived of the only real resources that they have, land, and are being made homeless and destitute in order to feed the greed of the wealthy. All this is being accomplished with the help of the courts, with the courts often leading the assault. This is breeding enormous resentment among the poor and the destitute. Feeling helpless and abandoned, nay violated, by every organ of the state, particularly the judiciary, many are committing suicides, but some are taking to violence. That explains the growing cadres of the Maoists who now control many districts and even states like Chhatisgarh. The government and the ruling establishment thinks that they can deal with this menace by stongarm military methods. That explains why the government relies more and more on the advice of former policemen and why there is talk of using the Army and Air Force against the Maoists. Tribals in Chhattisgarh are being forced to join a mercenary army funded by the state by the name of Salva Judum to fight the Maoists. But all this will breed more Maoists. No insurrection bred out of desperation can be quelled by strong-arm tactics. The very tactics breed more misery and desperation and will push more people to the Maoists. Unless urgent steps are taken to correct the course that the elite establishment of this country is embarked upon, we will soon have an insurgency on our hands which will be impossible to control. Then, when the history of the country's descent towards violence and chaos is written, the judiciary of the country can claim pride of place among those who speeded up this process. Prashant Bhushan is a noted Supreme Court lawyer and rights activist. ____ [5] Letter to the Editor D-504 Purvasha Mayur Vihar 1 Delhi 110091 28 May 2006 Editor, "Where does the Q'uran sanction the use of violence against innocent and defenceless people?" These words are mandatory in every Bombay film which has anything to do with terrorism, that is, with Pakistan, that is, with Islam, that is, with Ultimate Evil. A great many such films have been made, being an eminently saleable product line in the industry. It will not surprise me if they are made to order, so to speak. This denial of any connection between Islam and violence comes, most often, from young, female, Muslim characters. Sometimes it may come from white-bearded and white-capped peaceniks. Either way, it shows that among Muslims too, there are sensible people. It shows that these few sensible people are ranged against an enormous mass of Muslims of the common kind, blood- thirsty hyaenas with fangs always bared. I do not recall seeing, ever, a character wearing a mangalasutra or sporting white lines on the forehead or holding little balls of rudraksha, saying similar words, mutatis mutandis, to hyaenas dressed in khaki shorts or with saffron bandannas wrapped around their empty heads. Why preach to the converted? Peace is in their blood, after all, and the blood they spill is necessary for building the road to peace. Mukul Dube _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ 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
