Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
HINDUTVA’S NEW OUTREACH
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) was born in 1925 on the principle that ‘Hinduism is nationalism’. In the eighty-six years since its founding it has traversed numerous paths – all leading to the fulfillment of this formulation. Read more…
SHRI SRI RAVISHANKAR AND ART OF POLITICS
Ram Puniyani
AS ELECTIONS in Uttar Pradesh are nearing, so is the number of travels by spiritual gurus. These gurus are giving their discourses against corruption. (November 2011). The major ones amongst them are Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Sri Sri). Sri Sri has shared space with Anna and played a considerable role when the government had arrested Anna. Sri Sri came to play the role of an interlocutor between Anna and his followers, during his prison stint. As if by a divine design, yoga guru Ramdev and Sri Sri have suddenly realized this menace of corruption and have plunged themselves head long into the anti-corruption movement. Read more…
MAMATA B’S NAPOLEON COMPLEX–TIME TO BE CONCERNED
Trevor Selvam, Chennai
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress replaced the Left Front government, which had been in power for the last three decades. Her victory was made possible by shortcomings of the Left Front government but more importantly because of large scale opposition of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the leading force behind the Left Front Government by left intellectuals as well as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who are engaged in armed struggle in many Adivasi areas and whose leader Kishenji was recently killed in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee’s government has now, as was to be expected, unleashed a rule of terror. Read more…
RUINING INNOCENT LIVES: GUILT OF INVESTIGATION AGENCIES
Ram Puniyani
Nine youth accused in Malegaon blast case of 2006 have been granted bail by the MCOCA court. (Nov 6 2011). These Muslim youth were arrested after the bomb exploded on the Shab-e-Barat, killing several people. Immediately after that the Anti Terrorist Squad arrested nine Muslim youth, there was really no evidence worth its name against them. Still police which is, motivated more by biases than by professionalism, arrested these Muslims youth. Read more…
FREEDOM OF PRESS AND JUSTICE KATJU
(socialist_pakistan_news@yahoogroups.com)
Justice Markandey Katju is making a very relevant point about the behaviour of media. The media has been taking more interest in trivial issues that entertain the elite like the Formula 1 race or trivia about Bollywood personalities. It has by and large ignored serious issues like conflicts, adverse impact of globalization on the large sections of Indian people, corporate greed and corruption, etc. If Media is non-entertaining, it is covering issues that catch the fancy of Middle-class like the disproportionate coverage given to Anna Hazare Movement for days without end as if there were no other issues concerning the people of India. Read more…
ISHRAT JAHAN: MURDER IN COLD BLOOD
Ram Puniyani
Ishrat Jahan’s murder in Gujarat is yet another instance of death during fake encounters of Muslim youth by Narendra Modi’s government. Read more…
NEPAL: PARTIES CRACK ENDLESS DEADLOCK
In a much awaited breakthrough in the peace process, the political parties in Nepal arrived at a consensus following hectic talks held in Baluwatar Tuesday evening. Read more…
THE RICHNESS OF THE RAMAYANA, THE POVERTY OF A UNIVERSITY
(The Hindu: Opinion October 8, 2011)
‘What people don’t recognize is that the story of Ram, what we call the Ram Katha, extends over a huge historical period.’ – Diana De Selliers Read more…
UNRAVELLING THE TRUTH: BOOK REVIEW
Ram Puniyani
(Book Reviewed: Godse’s Children- Hindutva Terror in India, Pharos Media, Delhi, Pages 400, Rs 360, Pb)
Terrorist violence has been one of the major problems of recent times. This phenomenon came to popular notice more so after the 9/11 attack on WTC, which was followed by, apart from other things, popularization of the terms ‘Islamic Terror’, ‘Jehdi terror’. Read more…
LIBYA RECOLONISED
Aijaz Ahmad
Libya is the first country that the Euro-American consortium has invaded exclusively on the pretext of human rights violations. Read more…
MARCH IN NEW YORK AGAINST MILITARY REPRESSION IN EGYPT
Friday Nov. 25 witnessed a spirited march by some 500 people against military repression in Egypt that has led to at least 40 deaths and 2000 serious injuries in the last week especially in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Read more…
OBITUARY: John McCarthy (1927-2011)
John Markoff (NY Times October 25, 2011)
[We are reproducing this obit not only because John McCarthy was a great scientist but also because of two other reasons: 1. In late 1970’s some of us used to produce a monthly magazine New India Bulletin and one of us (Daya Varma) used to go to Boston to have the material type set by Deepak Kapur using MIT computer with which McCarthy’s name is associated. 2. McCarthy comes from a communist family. Ed.) Read more…
THIS ISSUE OF INSAF BULLETIN IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF COMRADE GURSHARAN SINGH, THE ICON OF REVOLUTIONARY THEATRE IN INDIA
WALL STREET IS OCCUPIED, WHY NOT DALAL STREET?
Vinod Mubayi
As a potent symbol of global capitalism, the one surprising fact about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is that it was so long in coming, a full three years after the excesses of the major investment houses and their high flying tycoons, the so-called Masters of the Universe, caused a severe downturn of the U.S. economy and threw it into a recession from which it is yet to recover. Read more…
GURSHARAN SINGH: THE BERTOLT BRECHT OF INDIA
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
The Communist Party of India (CPI) was at the heart of initiating a revolutionary cultural movement in pre-independence India through IPTA (Indian People’s Theatrical Association) and PWA (Progressive Writers’ Association), which produced such great writers, poets, and artists as Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chugtai, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Balraj Sahani and numerous others. The decline in the communist movement naturally resulted in a dissipation of the revolutionary cultural movement but it never quite ended. Of the ones who carried this torch, the name of Gursharan Singh will always be remembered. Read more…
PAKISTAN: AN INCURABLE DISEASE?
Murtaza Haider
Given the brutal violence against the Shias in Pakistan over the past three decades, Shias have started to wonder if there is a future for them in Pakistan. Read more…
A VISION FOR NEPAL-INDIA RELATIONS
The Hindu (Opinion, October 19, 2011)
From Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, Prime Minister of Nepal
The major thing is to build trust between our two countries, two governments, and two peoples. Read more…
NEPAL DEMANDS COMPLETE DISARMAMENT OF ALL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
(http://nepalnews.com/archive/2011/oct/oct07/news07.php) Supplied by Sukla Sen
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya has said that Nepal consistently advocates for general and complete disarmament of all weapons of mass destruction including biological, chemical, nuclear, radiological weapons in a time bound manner. Read more…
NEPAL: PARTING YOUR WAYS, COMRADES?
[In these comments on the commonly-recognized factional schism within the Nepali Maoist party, UCPN(M), this writer for the Nepali bourgeois newspaper Republica traces the path toward a split–and raises tactics which may prevent or postpone it further. — Frontlines ed.] Read more…
ANNA [HAZARE] IS THE ICON OF BANAL HINDUTVA
Jyotirmaya Sharma (Mail Today, Oct 17, 2011)
The ethical compass of his followers is skewed.
Does Anna Hazare have an ideology? Despite the surfeit of emotion that Hazare generates, this is a legitimate question that ought to be asked, understood and answered. That he is no democrat in the sense the word ‘ democracy’ is normally understood is a foregone conclusion, something that even his most vocal admirers would admit. He brings to debate and discussion the rigour and predictability of a military drill. His model of rule, governance and statecraft is that of undiluted paternalism, something even his secret admirers would admit. Read more…
CASH-FOR-COVERAGE TAKES THE FIZZ OUT OF ADVANI’S YATRA
Mahim Pratap Singh (The Hindu, Bhopal October 14, 2011)
A cash-for-coverage scandal has taken the fizz out of BJP leader L.K.Advani’s ambitious Jan Chetna Yatra (peoples awakening march) against corruption and black money with BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh attempting to bribe journalists for favourable coverage of the yatra. Read more…
HINDU WOMAN ENTITLED TO EQUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: SUPREME COURT
(The Hindu New Delhi, October 13, 2011)
Traditionally girls and women are not entitled to family property, especially non-movable property; it goes to their brothers. The recent judgment by Supreme Court rules against this; if implemented, as it should be, it will have profound impact in the organization of agricultural land since girls move to their husband’s home after marriage. Read more…
MASS OUTRAGE AGAINST SCHOOL FEE HIKE IN INDIA
(Press release by All India Parents Association)
Successive governments have failed to establish sufficient schools across the country to serve the population. As a consequence Private schools have mushroomed all over India; they are money-making factories wanting to make more money and hence the protest. Read more…
PUCL CONDEMNS RAID AT THE HOUSE OF KAVITA SRIVASTAVA AT JAIPUR
(Supplied by Sukla Sen)
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) strongly condemns the outrageous and uncalled for act of raid at the residence of Kavita Srivastava, PUCL national secretary in Jaipur early morning today (3 October 2011). Read more…
THE VINDICTIVE ARREST OF SENIOR POLCE OFFICER SANJEEV BHATT IN GUJARAT
(Citizens for Justice and Peace release, September 30, 2011; supplied by Arun Khote, PMARC)
The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) strongly condemns the vindictive action of the Gujarat government in arresting Sanjeev Bhatt, senior IPS (Indian Police Service) office in an action that is nothing short of an attempt to intimidate an important witness in the Zakia Ahsan Jafri and CJP criminal complaint against chief minister Narendra Modi and 61 others. Read more…
‘NO COMPROMISE WITH GOONS’: GUJARAT’’S BHATT REJECTS TERMS SET FOR BAIL
(Press Trust Of India Ahmedabad, October 04, 2011)
Suspended Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt refused to make any compromise with the Gujarat government after a local court proposed that if he went on police remand for about three hours his bail plea could be heard on Tuesday itself. Read more…
EXCERPT FROM A LETTER BY SANJIV BHATT TO NARENDRA MODI
In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. – Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The spirit of the hapless victims who have been struggling for justice in Gujarat may occasionally flag but it will not be suppressed by any amount of false Goebbelsian propaganda. The struggle for justice is never easy anywhere in the world…it calls for everlasting patience and unfailing perseverance at all times. The spirit of the crusaders for truth and justice in Gujarat is epitomized in this poem by Bhuchung Sonam, an alumnus of M.S. University, Baroda. Read more…
DEBATE ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL AND RECENT RIOTS
Asghar Ali Engineer ((Secular Perspective October 16-31, 2011)
The Communal Violence Bill was the first item on the agenda of National Integration Council meeting held in Delhi on 10th September 2011 and almost all speakers expressed their views on the Bill. As expected the opposition leader Mrs. Sushma Swaraj of BJP led the attack followed by Mr. Arun Jaitly, Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha. Both of them maintained that this bill divides Indian people into majority and minority and this polarization is extremely harmful, in fact disastrous for the country. Read more…
HOW TO PAY MORE TAXES
Arun Kumar
The European rich now wish to pay more taxes. What about the Indian rich?
Startling news: the rich in many European nations have asked their governments to tax them more. This follows the call made by Warren Buffet in the United States that the rich should pay more taxes. The motive is self-interest: to save their economies from sliding further and going into a double-dip recession, and preventing the kind of youth violence that has been witnessed in many countries in Europe. The recession looming on the horizon (if the world is not already in it) will be more difficult to deal with than in the earlier rounds since this time the cause is political rather than financial, as the case was with the global recession that started in late-2007. Read more…
DENIAL OF CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS AND MARGINALIZATION: LINGUISTIC BENGALIS AND MUSLIM MINORITIES IN ASSAM
Shahiuz Zaman Ahmed
This book explores the citizenship issue in Assam where the Muslims and Bengali speaking Hindus are discriminated against by the state by way of the ‘D’ voters list. ‘D’ stands for doubtful voters and this is an insidious way of religious profiling resorted to by the state to marginalize minorities. Read more…
CESAR CHAVEZ AWARD FOR RAJ CHOUHAN
(Supplied by Chin Banerjee, President SANSAD)
Raj Chouhan, a New Democratic Party (NDP) member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly and a former member of the Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA) is the recipient of the 2011 Cesar Chavez Black Eagle Award for his selfless service to the farm workers struggle. Read more…
WALL STREET PROTESTS GO GLOBAL
Oct 15th, 2011 7:19 pm BdST (liberation News Service)
Demonstrators worldwide shouted their rage on Saturday against bankers and politicians they accuse of ruining economies and condemning millions to hardship through greed and bad government. Read more…
THE GADDAFI PARADOX
Surendra Kumar
The murder of Gaddafi on October 20 by NATO-supported mobs has been hailed by Western leaders and press while a substantial section of people have condemned the illegality of this murder and denounced the logic of the invasion of Libya. Gaddafi was a despot but so is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and so are the heads of numerous other countries. It is not the legal right of NATO to go around killing government heads just because they are despots. Undoubtedly there are two sides to Gaddafi and he was killed because of his positive role in the Arab World. In the process, France and UK seem to be replacing US in international lawlessness (Editors). Read more…
MOURNING REVOLUTIONARY WRITER GURSHARAN SINGH
Revolutionary playwright, director, and activist, Gursharan Singh passed away in his home in Chandigarh on September 27, 2011. Read more…
MEMORIAL MEETING FOR BHAJI GURSHARAN SINGH (1929-2011)
A memorial meeting to celebrate the life and work of Gursharan Singh, the legendary Punjabi dramatist, director, and political activist popularly known as “Gursharan Bhaji,” was held in Surrey, BC, on October 10, 2011 at the Bombay Banquet Hall. Read more…
TEARFUL ADIEU TO PLAYWRIGHT GURSHARAN SINGH
SD Sharma
Chandigarh, September 28
Hundreds of litterateurs, farmers, social and political activists paid tributes to Bhisham Pitamah of Punjabi theatre Gursharan Singh at the Sector 25 electric crematorium here today. Read more…
MY THOUGHTS AND SYMPATHIES TO NAVSHARAN AND ATUL AND TO THE FAMILY!
Rahul Varma
Shri Gursharan Singh was a great person who possessed the best qualities humanity had to offer. He was an artist, who inspired other artists and the public alike. Read more…
SOUTH ASIA AND UNLAWFUL GOVERNANCE
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
Arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without trial, torture in custody, murder in fake encounters and indiscriminate firing on legitimate protests are such a common feature in South Asia that often enough reportage of any of these is hardly noticed by the citizenry with any degree of concern. The official responses, especially to some secessionist movements, such as the ones in Sri Lanka, Baluchistan, Punjab, Kashmir or the containment and repression of movements of the minority communities like the Chakmas of Bangladesh or the Adivasis of India were achieved and are being achieved by use of force which is illegal according to the laws of the land. Read more…
IN INDIA, 11-YEAR HUNGER STRIKE OVER MILITARY VIOLENCE IS WAGED IN SHADOWS
Lydia Polgreen
Irom Chanu Sharmila has been on hunger strike for 11 years. Her demands are simple – to get the central government to revoke the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives immunity to soldiers no matter what they do. Read more…
LESSONS FROM MALEGAON: Punish those guilty of misleading probes; Compensate the victims!
(Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, September 13, 2011, Supplied by Manisha Sethi)
The NIA has finally put the official seal on what many activists, the families of the accused and the people of Malegaon had been saying for long: that the arrest of nine Muslim men for the 2008 Malegaon blast was a result of a communal witch-hunt, which passes for investigations into terror charges. As a consequence of the investigating agencies’ hubris and prejudice, nine innocent men had to spend five long years in jail, while their families suffered and they were stigmatized. Read more…
ALL INDIA MUSLIM MAJLIS-E-MUSHAWARAT ON DELHI BLAST
New Delhi, 8 September 2011: Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, Working President of the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations, forcefully condemned the terrorist and criminal attack outside the Delhi High Court on 7 September which resulted in so many innocent casualties. Read more…
JAN LOKPAL: AN ALTERNATE VIEW
K.N.Panikkar
After forty two years of hesitation and uncertainty an institutional mechanism for dealing with the all pervasive incidence of corruption is now within sight. What apparently moved the state machinery was the agitation spearheaded by Anna Hazare, which drew spontaneous support primarily in metropolitan cities. Read more…
THE COMMUNAL CHARACTER OF ANNA HAZARE’S MOVEMENT
Bhanwar Meghwanshi
It has now been confirmed that the Anna Hazare-led so-called ‘second freedom struggle’—as some sections of the media have mistakenly chosen to call it—has close links with the RSS. Read more…
ANNA HAZARE MOVEMENT – A SKEPTIC’S VIEW
Asghar Ali Engineer
Lot has already been written on Anna Hazare’s fast both for and against but more for than against. Why then need for another article? Every article has a perspective and I have mine on and also each article for or against throws light on some new facts not covered by earlier ones. I had written earlier also from Gandhian perspective but more needs to be written. This was, whether one agrees with or not, is a very major movement having lot of implications for our democracy. Read more…
ANNATIONALISM
Shekhar Gupta
“Mahatma Gandhi never used portraits of a tiger-riding Bharat Mata, and Bhagat Singh’s battle-cry was not Vande Mataram.” Read more…
UNRESTRAINED MEDIA, A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
V.K.Tripathi
In the just concluded fast by Anna Hazare, the Indian media went berserk projecting Hazare’s Lokpal Bill as a major tussle between the civil society and the government. Read more…
HAREN PANDYA MURDER JUDGMENT
Yogi Sikand
As you might have heard the Gujarat High Court yesterday acquitted all the 12 accused, including main accused Ashgar Ali, in the Haren Pandya murder case. The high court lambasted the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) saying the agency had botched up the investigations leading to enormous waste of time. Some years ago, I did a detailed interview with Haren Pandya’s father, Vithalbhai Pandya, on Haren Pandya’s murder. I am sending it to you below as it provides important points about this case. Read more…
WEST BENGAL: THE CLASS STRUGGLE IS NOT OVER
Radical Socialist September 10, 2011
For a long time, the CPI(M) had been mistakenly identified with class struggle. As a result, there was much elation on the Right after 13 May 2011, when it was evident that Mamata Banerjee would head a rightwing government in the province of West Bengal, earlier ruled for 34 years by the CPI(M). A totally stunned CPI(M) has been in no position to wage any kind of struggle, since this party and its cadres all the way to the village panchayat level had become accustomed to police protection and government support whenever it wanted to wage a “struggle”. But the working class found new channels to express itself. Read more…
MANMOHAN, MUSHARRAF HAD STRUCK KASHMIR DEAL
New Delhi, Sep 3: A US diplomatic cable, leaked by WikiLeaks, has revealed that India and Pakistan had in 2007 reached a deal on the Kashmir issue when Parvez Musharraf was the President. Read more…
DALIT RIGHTS GROUP SLAMS MODI GOVERNMENT’S STAND ON CHILD RIGHTS
Yoginder Sikand
Gujarat under Narendra Modi is touted about as Hindutva’s most successful laboratory. The corporate world and influential sections of the ‘mainstream’ Indian media never tire of singing paeans to Modi’s ‘developmental model’, which they uphold as eminently worthy of emulation by the rest of the country. Scores of middle-class Hindus passionately advocate Modi as India’s next Prime Minister, who, they fondly hope, will propel the country into the league of the economic and military ‘super-powers’. Read more…
URDU AND I
Noted filmmaker MAHESH BHATT makes an impassioned plea to save Urdu from extinction. Man is memory, and memory is sound. The first sound that resonates in my heart is the Urdu word “Shireen”, meaning sweet; the name of my mother, who was by birth a Shia Muslim and remained one till the end of her days. Read more…
FILM REVIEW: THE LEGEND OF FAT MAMA
“The Legend of Fat Mama” is a bittersweet story of the Chinese community in Kolkata, India, intertwined with the nostalgic journey in search of a woman who once made the most delicious noodles in the city’s Chinatown district. Kolkata once had a thriving community in its Chinatown, engaged in different trades, like medicine shops, food and shoemaking. Read more…
CORRUPTING POLITICS OF THE ANTI-CORRUPTION JAMBOREE
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
Update added on August 27, 2011: As this issue of INSAF Bulletin was about to be circulated, news came that Parliament had caved in to the three main demands made by Anna Hazare’s team and he has now decided to give up his fast putting an end to the tamasha that had gripped urban India for the last month.. These three demands were: 1) Citizens Charter, 2) Lower bureaucracy to be brought under the ambit of the Lokpal, and 3) Establishment of a Lokayukta in the States. Only a few legislators, notably the irrepressible Lalu Yadav, protested this parliamentary maneuver of acceding to demands made by a self-styled “conscience” of the country and his team, who represent, at best, a section of the Indian middle-class. But the majority of the MPs, both in the government and the opposition, had already abdicated their constitutional responsibilities and prerogatives and were looking for any kind of exit from the situation of crisis created by Team Anna and magnified by the media that feeds off the same class that yesterday was proclaiming “mera bharat mahan” and is now clamoring to end corruption. It now remains to be seen how another giant bureaucracy constituting a parallel government armed with powers of investigation, trial, and punishment will somehow be able to curb corruption. Meanwhile, we believe that what we wrote on this issue just a day ago is still relevant to Team Anna’s crusade and the broader issue of corruption. Read more…
THE CHALLENGE OF ANNA HAZARE’S FAST
Vipin Tripathi
Corruption, black money, nepotism, police atrocities – all are bad for any society. They are rampant in India. But Hazare and Baba Ramdev, the self-declared saviors of India, have another agenda. The article by Tripathi suggests that their agenda might as well be to replace Manmohan Singh with Advani or Sushma Swaraj. Read more…
ANNA UPSURGE AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Ram Puniyani
Anna Hazare’s second fast (August 2011) in Delhi, demanding the acceptance of his teams’ draft for Janlokpal bill has raised many different debates about the nature of this upsurge and how the social action groups, engaged in the process of struggle for Human rights of different sections of society, should relate to such movements. Read more…
TIRED OF DEMOCRACY?
Gail Omvedt
Why are such masses of people (apparently: in our village some came out for a morcha organized by the Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti) following Anna Hazare, when it is now clear that his Lokpal is an authoritarian, centralized and undemocratically pushed proposal? Read more…
ANNAJI, PLEASE ASK YOUR SUPPORTERS TO NOT INTIMIDATE US
New Delhi: An Open Letter from law student Shehzad Poonawalla to anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare. The 24-year-old law student has urged Hazare to appeal to his supporters to not intimidate those whose views are different from him on Lokpal bill. He also urged him to break his fast as his supporters are fast turning into violent mobs. Read more…
DR. SWAMY, FRIENDS AND LIMITS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Ram Puniyani
It is not a very easy task to decide as to where the freedom of expression ends and Hate speech begins. A lot of perception about this depends on one’s convictions about the underlying ideologies which are being talked about. At another level how democratic space is subverted for anti democratic agenda is a serious issue. The challenge is to combat Hate ideologies and Hate Speech within the democratic system, to protect it from being subverted by sectarian ideologies in the name of democratic freedom. Read more…
LONDON RIOTS – IS MULTI-CULTURALISM DOOMED?
Asghar Ali Engineer
The riots in London and other cities of U.K. like Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool indicate end of multi-culturalism in the West. The horrible massacre in Norway last month also a pointer in that direction? We need to seriously analyze these events. When Asians and Africans from former colonies began to migrate to western countries the Europe began to be multi-racial and multi-cultural which was a new experience for people of the West. In other words they were now paying the price for their colonial policies the brunt of which so far was borne by colonized countries only. Read more…
UK IN DENIAL ON WHAT LED TO RIOTS, BUT IS INDIA LEARNING A LESSON?
John Dayal
Has India learnt any lessons from the recent riots that savaged the United Kingdom early in August? The British Government and its police seem to be in a state of denial of the root causes that led to the violence, but there are lessons in it for India, and for that matter, for its neighbours in south Asia which are, or will soon be, forced to think about the after-affects of an entirely unregulated march of global capital under the guise of liberal economic policies, and the refusal of the government to play its role as a nurturer and protector in a welfare state. With six thousand communal riots, and hundreds of other incidents of mass violence, India must do some thinking. It is important to look at the British riots. Read more…
SLAVERY IN THE ‘LAND OF THE PURE’: PAKISTAN’S TWO MILLION DALITS (Part Two)
Yoginder Sikand
In the previous part of this article I had summarized some of the findings of probably the first-ever in-depth study about Pakistan’s Dalits, the country’s most dispossessed and vulnerable religious minority. Zulfiqar Shah’s alarming report, titled ‘Long Behind Schedule: A Study on the Plight of Scheduled Caste Hindus in Pakistan’, strikingly summarizes the harrowing conditions of Hindu Dalits in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. If caste and religious prejudice account in large measure for their harrowing plight, Shah argues that the attitude of the Pakistani state towards the Dalits is no less responsible. Read more…
BHATTARAI ELECTED NEW NEPAL PM
(The Hindu, August 28, 2011)
Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai was on Sunday (August 28, 2011) elected Nepal’s new Prime Minister defeating his Nepali Congress rival R.C. Poudyal, with the Terai-based Madhesi alliance extending crucial support to the former rebel leader. Read more…
INDO-BANGLA JOINT RIVERS PANEL SET TO FIRM UP WATER-SHARING DEAL
(ACHA August 20, 2011)
The ministerial level Bangladesh-India Joint Rivers Commission is to meet in Dhaka on September 5 a day ahead of Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s trip to accord ‘political nod’ for signing agreements for sharing the waters of two rivers. Read more…
COVER- UP RENEWS CALL FOR CBI PROBE IN RIOTS CASES
Poornima Joshi (New Delhi)
The clandestine operation to use evidence in the Gujarat riot cases not to book the guilty but to help them frame their defence once again highlights the need for the appointment of an independent prosecuting agency such as the CBI. As IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s affidavit the Supreme court shows, the advocate general of Gujarat — Tushar Mehta — sent reports of the Special Investigation Team ( SIT) in the nine Gujarat riot cases to RSS ideologue S. Gurumurthy. Gurumurthy was, in turn, framing the BJP’s political strategy to counter public opinion against chief minister Narendra Modi and the state government. He was also helping the accused frame their defence. Read more…
PEOPLES’ HEALTH MOVEMENT IN INDIA: Looking Back at Dalli Rajahara – Achievements and Problems
Dr. Punyabrata Gun
Dr. Gun runs an exemplary clinic on the outskirts of Kolkata, accessible, modern and cheap. He represents one of the thousand of dedicated Indians who give hope for a bright future for the country. Here is a report of what happened to efforts of another dedicated Indian, Shankar Guha Niyogi, who was murdered in 1991. Read more…
INDIA’S POPULATION TO OVERTAKE CHINA BY 2020
Daya Varma
The July 29 issue of the journal Science produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science features various aspects of the world population. It contains a chapter “India’s demographic change: opportunities and challenges” by K.S. James of the Population Research Centre, Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. This article is primarily based on the five-page article (576-580) by James although it also contains some information from other articles in the same issue of Science. Read more…
INDIAN ARTISTS BOYCOTT SHOW AT TEL AVIV ART MUSEUM
Submitted by Nora (August 1,2011)
Indian artists, invited by the curators of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to participate in an exhibition of work from India next Spring, have signed a public statement refusing the invitation in solidarity with the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: CAPITALISM, DEMOCRACY AND MEDICINE
Mridula Ramanna
(Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLVI No.31 July 30, 2011)
The Art and Science of Healing since Antiquity by Daya Ram Varma (USA: Xlibris Corporation), 2011; pp 413 (price not stated). [inserted: $23 paper back; $33 hard cover) Read more…
OBITUARY: THE HONOURABLE JOHN GILBERT “JACK” LAYTON (1950-2011)
Daya Varma
Jack Layton was the Leader of the Official Opposition in the current Canadian Parliament comprising of 308 members. He represented a Toronto constituency. In the May 2, 2011 parliamentary elections, Layton lead the New Democratic Party (NDP) to all time high 103 seats pushing the Canadian Liberal Party to third place and decimating Bloc Québécois, which won only four seats instead of the majority of seats in Quebec, as was the case in the past. Read more…
OBITUARY: R.S. RAO (1937-2011)
Gilbert Sebastian
Prof. R S Rao (74), retired professor from Sambalpur University, a long time intellectual of radical politics in India passed away on 17 June 2011 in New Delhi. He had suffered a stroke and was in the ventilator for around twenty days. The inevitability of death takes away from us his lively and jovial company and the sharp intellect combined with unswerving commitment to the cause of the common people. Read more…
OBITUARY: Dr. SHAKUNTALA NOWRY
Dolores Chew
We learned with sadness of the passing away of DR. Shakuntala Nowry on Thursday 29 July, 2011. Dr. Nowry was a founding member of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC) and our first president. Read more…
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA – DRIFTING, LISTLESS
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
The UPA government is drifting, unable to exert power or carry out the program it was elected to accomplish. The only thing keeping it going is that the alternatives are far worse. Read more…
TERRORISM, COUNTER TERRORISM AND RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGY
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
The terror attacks in Mumbai and Oslo have provoked different responses but have brought out the urgency of combating hate speech and right-wing ideology. Read more…
NORWEGIAN MASS KILLER’S MANIFESTO HAILS HINDUTVA
Praveen Swami
Those killed in Norway by the sole assassin Anders Breivik were not only innocent but also symbol of a progressive Norway. The killer, though alone, must represent a social base for ultra reactionary politics. What relevance does it have for South AsiaÉ Praveen Swami’s article gives a glimpse of the possible dark future. Read more…
TERROR VISITS MUMBAI YET AGAIN
Ram Puniyani
The three blasts in Mumbai on 13th July 2011 not only killed nearly 20 innocent people but shook the city yet again. The previous attack on Mumbai 26/11 2008 was horrific enough to have killed over 200 people. The tragedy was followed by the great resilience of Mumbai citizens to rehabilitate the victims to line up for blood donations and help in many more ways, the efforts which make us salute Mumbai citizens yet again. Read more…
SLAVERY IN THE ‘LAND OF THE PURE’: PAKISTAN’S TWO MILLION DALITS
Yoginder Sikand
Although we hear and read a lot about US-Pakistan relations, Pakistan’s Jihadi groups, and victims of Blasphemy laws, this report by Yogi Sikand exposes a less well recognized but an important problem affecting Pakistan’s population, the Dalits, mostly Hindus. Too poor and with too little resources to migrate to India in the post-partition days, the condition of Dalits seems the worst of all in Pakistan. Read more…
TREASURE OF FAITH: HOARDS OF WEALTH IN PADMNABH TEMPLE
Ram Puniyani
In the book “The Art and Science of Healing Since Antiquity”, Daya Varma wrote: “Fueling the popular and erroneous perception that the West in materialistic and the East, particularly India, is spiritualistic, most god men and women happen to be of Indian origin. But for whatever reason these spiritualists prefer to operate in the United States of America. In this article Ram Puniyani shows how the wealth of these god men is far beyond what one could imagine. Read more…
ARMING TRIBALS AGAINST NAXALS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Text of the Supreme Court Order of 5 July 2011 in the Salwa Judum (in Chhattisgarh) Case Writ Petition (Civil) No(S). 250 Of 2007 | Nandini Sundar & Ors. Versus State Of Chhattisgarh. Read more…
BANGLADESH: AWAMI LEAGUE CHOOSES TO BE A SLAVE, NOT MASTER, OF HISTORY
(Editorial: New Age, 30 June 2011: source South Asia Citizens Wire – 4 July 2011 – No. 2719)
The passage of the 15th amendment to the constitution in parliament on Thursday marks a sad episode in the political history of Bangladesh. By pushing the amendment through, the ruling Awami League officially completed its deviation from the spirit of the liberation war and bracketed itself with all those that it has consistently castigated as forces opposed to the spirit of liberation. Read more…
MAKE HEALTHCARE A LEGAL ENTITLEMENT, SAYS BINAYAK SEN
(The Hindu, June 23, 2011)
New Delhi: Human rights activist Binayak Sen called for making healthcare a legal entitlement for all. Read more…
ALMOST 70 % INDIANS LIVE IN RURAL AREAS
PTI
Nearly 70 per cent of the country’s population lives in rural areas where, for the first time since independence, the overall growth rate of population has sharply declined, according to the latest Census. Read more…
SANSAD NEWS RELEASE JULY 25, 2011
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) held its Annual General Meeting in Vancouver, BC, on July 17, 2011, elected a board with representation from the entire South Asian region and adopted resolutions pertaining to people’s struggles and human rights on the subcontinent and Canada. Read more…
FIRST BILINGUAL LITERARY (URDU-HINDI) POETRY RECITATION AT EMBASSY OF INDIA IN WASHINGTON
Zafar Iqbal (Washington, DC)
Zafar Iqbal and his associates have been organizing programs symbolizing the historic cultural links between Hindus and Muslims in India for quite some time. Here he provides some details of a successful Urdu-Hindi poetry recital in America’s capital city, Washington. Read more…
CHINA IS BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL
Wen Jiabao (Speech of China’s Prime Minister in London; 27 Jun 2011)
Wen Jiabao: “Since the process of reform and opening-up began in China, people outside the country have seen the development and changes there in different ways. There is also an intense interest in our future path. On my visit to London, I wish to take the opportunity to address this subject.“ Read more…
60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF TIBET
William Dere
Tibet is the stick with which China is hammered again and again not only by allies of Dalai Lama but by all human rights activists why are dying to see Tibetans revive their feudal culture as they wish. India facilitated the exodus of Tibetans as can be seen in Dharamsala. But there is another reality to Tibet and in the life of Tibetans in the words of the Chinese Vice-President. What is it? Read more…
KARNATAKA FARCE: BJP’S COMPLICITY IN CORRUPTION AND CORPORATE PLUNDER
ML Update
Even as the BJP’s Karnataka Government completed three years, and the Centre once again rejected the Karnataka Governor’s recommendation for imposition of Central rule in the state, a new act in BJP’s Karnataka drama is unfolding once more. The BJP’s topmost leadership is in the middle of a public spat over which of them is responsible for patronizing the powerful Karnataka Ministers and notorious mining mafia: the ‘Bellary brothers’. Read more…
CANADA MUST STOP PROTECTING ASBESTOS INDUSTRY
Kathleen Ruff
Canada is planning to export asbestos to India despite overwhelming evidence about its debilitating effects on health. As to be expected the buyers (India) and sellers (Canada) can always find some experts who would vouch for the safety of this dangerous chemical. Read more…
TOWARDS A RIOT FREE INDIA
Ram Puniyani
India is planning to introduce a bill to end communal violence. It is a good development. However the proposed draft is weak in some aspects. Here is an outline of the nature of the debate. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: THE FAKIR
Author Sunil Gangopadhyay (Translated from Bengali by Monabi Mitra) [New Delhi: Harper Perennial, 2010]
Reviewed by Yoginder Sikand
Indian history is replete with stories of fiercely iconoclastic rebels who, refusing to be bound by the strictures and prejudices of religious orthodoxy, bravely denounced social convention in their quest for spiritual transcendence and social equality. One such figure was the late nineteenth century Bengali poet-rebel Lalan Fakir. Defying the logic of the conservative society in which he was born by insisting that he was neither Hindu nor Muslim and announcing that he cared nothing whatsoever for hierarchies of caste and class, Lalan Fakir was, by all counts, an amazingly charismatic revolutionary who sought to preach a human-centric understanding of the transcendent, one that was rooted in the struggles of the poor and oppressed for their true humanization. Read more…
BOOK REVIEW: THE RED MARKET
Michiko Kakutani
Whereas black markets trade in illegal goods like guns and drugs, the “red market,” the journalist Scott Carney says in his revealing if somewhat scattershot new book, trades in human flesh — in kidneys and other organs, in human corneas, blood, bones and eggs. Many of the real-life examples he cites in this chilling volume cannot help but remind the reader of a horror movie, or of Kazuo Ishiguro’s devastating dystopian novel “Never Let Me Go” (2005), in which we learn that a group of children are clones who have been raised to “donate” replacement body parts. Read more…
MEXICO-US BORDER- BUILDING A CULTURE OF CROSS-BORDER SOLIDARITY
David Bacon
Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a series on border solidarity by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. This article and subsequent installments were originally published in the Institute for Transnational Social Change’s report Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity. Read more…
UPA’S MISPLACED PRIORITIES
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
The performance of the UPA in its second term of government seems to be far worse than in the first term. Although the leadership has not talked much lately about the Maoist “threat”, which is any case more a symptom than a cause, the government has not taken any steps to address the plight of Adivasis, tribals and forest dwellers, whose only friends seem to be the Maoists. BJP-led governments in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and their allied regimes in Orissa and even Bihar are doing whatever they want to, while the Congress leaders are indulging in paying homage to obscurantist, fundamentalist and religious bigots. Read more…
BABA RAMDEV’S ANTI CORRUPTION FAST: NEW FACE OF COMMUNAL POLITICS
Ram Puniyani
Since this article was written, Baba Ramdev has given up his fast. He promised to fast until death if his demands are not met, but being too coward to die, found some alibi. From time to time India produces great men and women but also from time to time it produces great crooks. Baba Ramdev is the latest fraud who combines everything despicable into one person. People who assembled around Ramdev in the anticorruption fast are like people who assembled in Ayodhya to demolish the Babri Masjid. In both cases the bone-less government allowed the assembly but used its baton in the wrong one. Read more…
PAKISTAN AFTER OSAMA
Pervez Hoodbhoy
The killing of Osama bin Laden could provide Pakistan an opportunity to reverse its downward slide, though changing course will not be easy. The country must decide whether to decisively confront Islamist violence, or continue with the military’s current policy of supporting jihadi militants with one hand even as it slaps them with the other. Read more…
NEPAL’S BALANCE OF FORCES AND THE FUTURE OF PEOPLES LIBERATION ARMY
Peter Tobin
Democracy and Class Struggle published this report from Peter Tobin, a correspondent who is currently in Nepal. It offers background and analysis of extremely important controversies that have sharpened within Nepal, and within that country’s revolutionary Maoist forces, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The original piece assumes a great deal of knowledge about Nepal (and its political acronyms), so we have inserted brief explanations [in brackets] at appropriate places. Read more…
RAMDEV’S NON-PROFIT OUTFITS FACE PROBE IN THE US
Iftikhar Gilani
From the view point of medical ethics, every single concoction that Ramdev’s pharmacy makes and sells is a fraud and in many countries would be treated as an unethical, if not a criminal act. Because many others do things like what Baba Ramdev does, it is ignored on technical grounds. But for a person who makes false threats of fast unto death against some kind of corruption, his shady charity but otherwise a business has come to light as this article in Tehelka shows. Read more…
FORBESGANJ FIRING: POLICE KILLED WOMEN, INFANT FROM POINTBLANK
Mumtaz Alam Falahi
In December 2010 Samata Party, a traditional ally of Bhartiya Janata Party, came to power in Bihar with overwhelming majority. Installing its leader Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister and ending the long rule of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Yadav. Whatever other mistakes Lalu Yadav might have committed, he ensured the safety of Muslims. This is not so under Nitish Kumar as apparent from the brutality against a group of Muslims. Read more…
2002 RIOTS IN GUAJARAT: ANOTHER POLICE OFFICER BLAMES MODI
Meghdoot Sharon, Gaurav Shah, CNN-IBN
Yet another top police officer in Gujarat has gone public, raising questions over the conduct of the Gujarat police force in controlling the communal riots in 2002. Retired Gujarat Director General of Police RN Bhattacharya has said that there was a feeling among officers that the lower rank officials had failed to safeguard the rights of the citizens. Read more…
OBITUARY: M.F. HUSAIN: VICTIM OF INTOLERANCE
Ram Puniyani
On 9th June 2011, M.F. Husain breathed his last in a London Hospital, and was later buried in the cemetery in London as per his wish that he should be buried at a place of his death. The most celebrated painter of India, more Indian than any of his detractors died, away from his home, due to self imposed exile. This self imposed exile was due to the threats of Hindu fundamentalists. The renowned painter called by many as Picasso of India, had the fate similar to that of Picasso, who also went into self exile in the regime of Fascist Franco of Spain. Read more…
M F HUSAIN: WHEN THE NATION LOSES ITS OWN NARRATIVE
Sadanand Menon
The moment of M F Husain’s death is sombre and we could do with a serious self-evaluation of where we stand with respect to our arts. The hounding out of a 90-year-old painter who was constantly striving to make us look at ourselves from a multi-cultural, secular, syncretic perspective, and our failure to ensure his return before he passed away five years later, should worry us about where we are heading as a nation. The fact that India could not see itself through the eyes of Husain and, instead, interpreted his epiphanic invocation and celebration of our civilisational diversity as something narrow and divisive, points to the rapid thickening and blocking of our national arteries, constricting the openness we so hypocritically assume as our cultural credo and hastening the spread of iron in the soul. Read more…
M.F. HUSAIN 95 ARTIST: India’s Most Prominent Painter Was Hounded by Hindu Fundamentalist
Muneeza Naqvi
Excerpts
“Husain had lived in Dubai since 2006 after receiving death threats from Hindu hard-liners in India for a nude painting of a woman shaped like India’s map, often described as Mother India in popular arts…” Read more…
CPI(ML) MOURNS THE PASSING OF M F HUSAIN
(Liberation News Service June 10, 2011)
MF Husain’s death at the age of 96 has robbed the world and India of a towering artist. All his life, he never stopped painting, and he acquired international renown as a modern painter with a distinctive style. Read more…
OBITUARY: ROSALYN S. YALOW (Nobel Medical Physicist, Dies at 89)
Denise Gellene
Rosalyn S. Yalow, a medical physicist who persisted in entering a field largely reserved for men to become only the second woman to earn a Nobel Prize in Medicine, died on Monday in the Bronx, where she had lived most of her life. She was 89. Read more…
WEST BENGAL ELECTIONS: ANOTHER SETBACK FOR INDIAN COMMUNIST MOVEMENT
Daya Varma
After over 30 years of continuous rule in West Bengal, the Left Front (LF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM was defeated in the May 2011 Assembly elections; it had 235 seats in 2006 and won only 62 in 2011. As expected, the victor Mamata Banerjee is jubilant. But others, especially independent leftists and Naxalite parties are jubilant too and that reveals the state of the left in India more than the jubilation in the ranks of Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee. This is because a setback in any communist formation can never be a harbinger of the blossoming of another.
ANNIVERSARY: WHAT IF PAKISTAN DID NOT HAVE THE BOMB?
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now? Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has spent the last few years confined by the Pakistan Army to one of his palatial Islamabad residences where he whiles away his days writing weekly columns in newspapers. This venerable metallurgist, who claims paternity rights over Pakistan’s bomb, says it alone saves Pakistan. In a recent article, he wistfully wrote: “If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country – present-day Bangladesh – after disgraceful defeat.”
BHAGWAN SATYA SAI: FAITH MARGINALIZES REASON
Ram Puniyani
India is the richest source of god men and women. Although most of them bless America, Satya Sai Baba controlled the world from his Indian base. His following was so huge that Indian Prime Minister and the Congress leader Sonia Gandhi made a trip to pay their last respects. Here Ram Puniyani examines this phenomenon.
MADHYA PRADESH: SHADOWS OF HINDU RASHTRA
Ram Puniyani
Madhya Pradesh is being ruled by the BJP Government from last several years. This is one state where BJP and its erstwhile avatar, Bharatiya Jansangh had a good deal of following in the past also. During last few years one has seen with the BJP Government in the saddle, the state is imposing the norms which are intimidating to minorities, the BJP associates have become more assertive, state is promoting the outright Hindu culture, and it is also the place where the terror component of RSS affiliates has been having its dens at various places in the state.
NEPAL: NEED FOR WORKABLE COMPROMISE
Prashant Jha
The next few days will offer an opportunity to Nepal’s political class to re-engineer the political consensus that has been missing since the 2008 elections. The latest news is that a compromise has been reached that will allow the current Constituent Assembly to complete the task of writing the Constitution.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Osama bin Laden, the figurehead king of al Qaeda, is gone. His hosts are still rubbing their eyes and wondering how it all happened. Although scooped up from Pakistani soil, shot in the head and then buried at sea, the event was not announced by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani or by President Asif Ali Zardari. Instead, it was the president of the United States of America who told the world that bin Laden’s body was in the custody of US forces.
OSMA bin LADEN
Javed Anand
Behind the ugly reality there’s poetic justice. Osama bin Laden was finally bearded in the world’s most happening terror den: Pakistan. Osama is no more but who does not know that the cult of violence that he practiced and preached in Islam’s name is alive and kicking in Pakistan like nowhere else. This column, however, is about Osama’s unintended gift to post-9/11 Islam.
TROUBLE BREWS AT EFLU OVER BEEF IN MENU
(TNN | May 3, 2011)
Hyderabad: The beef row on English and Foreign Languages University (Eflu) campus intensified on Monday. While Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists maintained that they would attack anyone who cooks beef on campus, a large group of students lead by Dalit Adivasi Bahujan Minority Students’ Association (DABMSA) and Telangana Students’ Association, said that they will continue the agitation till beef gets accepted in the hostel food guide.
A CASE FOR BEEF EATING
Sadanand
Beef was on the menu of Vedic Savarnas (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya). They even ate venison, horse (Ashwamedh Yagna), fowls, and other animals, which were first offered as sacrifice (Naivedya) to Vedic deities.
A LIST OF DALIT STUDENTS COMMITTING SUICIDE IN LAST FOUR YEARS IN INDIA’S PREMIER INSTITUTIONS
Anoop Kumar
Here is the list of the Dalit students who have committed suicide in last four years.
VETERAN INDO-CANADIAN MPS DEFEATED IN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Daya Varma
The parliamentary elections in Canada were held on May 2, 2011. The incumbent conservative Prime Minister who had been leading a minority government for seven years finally won a majority. More South Asian candidates contested this election than ever before. In general candidates of the New Democratic Party (NDP) have left orientation; candidates of the other two parties, Conservatives and Liberal, have no defined politics.
WE DEMAND A PERMANENT BAN ON ENDOSULFAN IN INDIA
(Press release: 27 April 2011)
Many pesticides are dangerous and Endosulfan tops the list. Why is it allowed in India when it has been banned in many countries?
IS THE REPORT OF THE UNSG’S PANEL OF EXPERTS A CONSPIRACY AND OBSTACLE TO RECONCILIATION?
Statement by concerned Christians on UN panel on accountability in Sri Lanka
Monday 25 April 2011 (South Asia Citizens Web)
In the past weeks, we as Christians have been reflecting on the torture, killing of Jesus by the rulers of that time, with complicity of high priests of the time, due to Jesus’s efforts to stand by the poor and oppressed and bring them good news of liberation. Our reflections had been taking into account the situation in our country today and we had noted the controversy surrounding the report of the panel of experts of the UN Secretary General related to the war in Sri Lanka.
INDIAN JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI FINALLY DISCARDS ITS LONGSTANDING PRETENCE OF BEING A BENIGN RELIGIO-CULTURAL ORGANISATION
Sahil Khan
Late last week, amidst much fanfare, a new political party, styling itself the ‘Welfare Party of India’, was launched in New Delhi. It is the brainchild of India’s foremost Islamist outfit, the Jamaat-e Islami Hind, and most of its top office-bearers are senior Jamaat leaders. Politics is, however, not new to the Jamaat at all, for the Jamaat’s ideology is itself based on a distinctly political interpretation of Islam. It is premised on the centrality of the notion of the ‘Islamic state’, without which, it insists, Islam is ‘incomplete’. Bringing the whole world under the rule of such a state or states, styled as the Caliphate, is central to the Jamaat’s vision of Islam.
INVITATION TO A CONSULTATION ON THE PREVENTION OF COMMUNAL AND TARGETTED VIOLENCE BILL
(30 May, Monday, J.P.Naik Bhavan, Kalina Campus, 3-6.30 p.m.)
BOOK REVIEW: PEOPLE WITHOUT HISTORY: INDIA’S MUSLIM GHETTOS
Authors: Jeremy Seabrook & Imran Ahmed Siddiqui
Published by: Navayana Publishing, New Delhi, 2011 (Pages: 257; Price: Rs. 295
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com
BOOK REVIEW: GOLDHAGEN’S INSINCERE ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN ELIMINATIONIST POLICY
Dr. Habib Siddiqui (26 April, 2011; Countercurrents.org)
Book Review: Worse Than War by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Public Affairs, New York (2009), First edition, 658 pages.
HISTORY AND HEARTBREAK: THE LETTERS OF ROSA LUXEMBURG
Vivian Gornick
Rosa Luxemburg was an exemplary revolutionary. Many feel if her ways were followed the atrocities committed by Stalin would not have happened. Lenin disagreed with almost everything Rosa Luxemburg said and yet in defending her he invoked the Russian Fable “Eagles may at times fly lower than hens, but hens can never rise to the height of eagles.” This note by Gornick on Luxemburg is not only historically important, but relevant now in the present political context.
PUBLIC MEETING ON KASHMIR
June 3, 2011 (15.00-19.00 h) at Dy Speaker Hall (Constitution Club) Rafi Marg, New Delhi.
An attempt to understand and share the grief
INSAF BULLETIN SALUTES MAY DAY 20011!
It is125th Anniversary of the International Workers’ Day.
Into the streets May First!
Alfred Hayes
IS LOKPAL THE ANSWER TO CORRUPTION?
Vinod Mubayi
The issue of corruption has caused an unprecedented upheaval among the middle classes in India. Is an unelected all-powerful Lokpal the answer?
AT THE RISK OF HERESY: WHY I AM NOT CELEBRATING WITH ANNA HAZARE
Sidhabrata Sengupta
The Jan Lokpal Bill engineered by Anna Hazare, a former army man turned Gandhian, ostensibly to put an end to corruption in India has generated enough euphoria in India to draw such comments as second struggle for independence. The author of this article is sceptical about this bill and its impact.
GANDHI, HAZARE AND FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION
Asghar Ali Engineer
Anna Hazare is emerging as another Gandhi and he is not only in every newspaper but also on almost every page of every newspaper for making UPA Government to accept his demand to draft Lok Pal Bill with real teeth eighth members of civil society on the drafting panel. The UPA Government had no other course but to accept Hazare’s demand after having been exposed in several matters of corruption.
ASSAM: ALIENATING THE NATIVES
Ram Puniyani
In the recently concluded assembly elections in Assam (March-April 2011), one of the issues which was whipped up by BJP was about the Bengali speaking people especially the Muslims of Assam. Most of the Bengali speaking Muslims are projected to be from Bangladesh, and the communal parties and groups are using this myth to enhance their political capital, which is mostly based on spreading hate against minorities and bringing to fore the issues related to identity. In different parts of India also, the issue of Bengali Muslims has been raised too often. The Bengali speaking Muslims, Bangladeshis and also those from West Bengal, are projected to be Bangladeshis, and are presented to be threat to security. This point was raised time and over again in the acts of terror committed in recent years by the gang of Sadhvi Prgaya Singh Thakur to Aseemanand types belonging to Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Sansthan etc. Many a time Bangladeshi groups were named in these acts of terror done by Hindutva groups and their connection with local Bangladeshis was propagated to the hilt. In Assam the issue of Bengali speaking Muslims has been brought up time and over again and this point has also been used at the time of elections to polarize the communities along religious lines.
MADHYA PRADESH: SHADOWS OF HINDU RASHTRA
Ram Puniyani
Madhya Pradesh is being ruled by the BJP Government from last several years. This is one state where BJP and its erstwhile avatar, Bhartiya Jansangh had a good deal of following in the past also. During last few years one has seen with the BJP Government in the saddle, the state is imposing the norms which are intimidating to minorities, the BJP associates have become more assertive, state is promoting the outright Hindu culture, and it is also the place where the terror component of RSS affiliates has been having its dens at various places in the state.
MOHALI MAGIC SHOULD BE SUSTAINED TILL ALL ISSUES [BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN] ARE RESOLVED
(Press release)
We, the peace activists and citizens of Pakistan and India welcome the very positive statements of the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan issued from Mohali on the side lines of the Cricket World Cup Semi Final played on 30th March 2011.
NEPAL MAOIST AND INDIA BHAI-BHAI, SAYS SHARMA
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2011/apr/apr19/news16.php
United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN-M] spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma has said his party is in favor of further improving the already ‘cordial ties’ with India.
NEPAL MAOIST LEADER DAHAL SWINGS BACK TO PEACE, CONSTITUTION
Supplied Professor Sam Noumoff and Sam Boskey
Kathmandu, April 20: Ditching the official party line of revolt, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has swung back to the line of peace and constitution floated by Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai.
THE CONTINUED SHOCKING SAGA OF INDIA’S MISSING GIRLS
Shree Mulay
The census data from India released on March 31, 2011 show that the sex ratio amongst 0-6 year-olds has steadily declined to the lowest level since independence, standing at an average of 917 females per 1000 males, a shameful record for a country that claims to be the new emerging powerhouse amongst nations.
ON THE CONCATENATION IN THE ARAB WORLD
Perry Anderson
The Arab revolt of 2011 belongs to a rare class of historical events: a concatenation of political upheavals, one detonating the other, across an entire region of the world. There have been only three prior instances—the Hispanic American Wars of Liberation that began in 1810 and ended in 1825; the European revolutions of 1848–49; and the fall of the regimes in the Soviet bloc, 1989–91. Each of these was historically specific to its time and place, as the chain of explosions in the Arab world will be. None lasted less than two years. Since the match was first lit in Tunisia this December, with the flames spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Syria, no more than three months have passed; any prediction of its outcomes would be premature. The most radical of the trio of earlier upheavals ended in complete defeat by 1852. The other two triumphed, though the fruits of victory were often bitter: certainly, far from the hopes of a Bolívar or a Bohley. The ultimate fate of the Arab revolt could resemble either pattern. But it is just as likely to be sui generis.
WHO OWNS THE WORLD?
Noam Chomsky
The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces – coinciding, fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other US cities. If the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.
BINAYAK SEN RELEASED ON BAIL
Aman Sethi
“I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country”
EX-GUJARAT POLICE CHIEF COMMENDS BHATT’S AFFIDAVIT AGAINST MODI
Indian Express.com: Posted online: Fri Apr 22 2011, 17:33 hrs
Ahmedabad: Former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar on Thursday commended fellow police officer Sanjiv Bhatt for implicating Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Godhra riots.
DISMAYED AT HAZARE’S PRAISE FOR NARENDRA MODI
Dear Annaji
We are deeply shocked by your endorsement of Narendra Modi’s rural development. There has been little or no rural development in ths state.
DALIT LEADER UDIT RAJ FORMS ANTI-MAYAWATI PLATFORM IN UP
Vikas Pathak
With Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections approaching, there are distinct signs of an attempt from within Dalits to break Mayawati’s vote bank. Earlier this week, Dalit activist Udit Raj floated a platform, Upekshit Dalit Mahapanchayat, in the state to mobilise support from Scheduled Castes other than Mayawati’s caste of Jatavs, adding he was open to the idea of the platform developing into a political party.
SUPREME COURT ASKS TAMIL NADU TO GET RID OF TWO-TUMBLER SYSTEM
Rakesh Bhatnagar
An archaic social malpractice by adhering to the two tumblers system to discriminate between people from the “upper” and “lower caste” may be on its way out if Tamil Nadu government abide by the Supreme Court’s latest verdict.
CITIZEN’S INITIATIVE FOR PEACE (CIP) PROTESTS BANNING OF GANDHI BOOK
(Press Release: Supplied by Sukla Sen)
The Citizens’ Initiative for Peace (CIP), Mumbai is quite dismayed at the reported moves of the Maharashtra government to ban the book ‘Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India’ authored by Joseph Lelyveld, apparently based on secondhand sources viz. reviews of the same carried by some newspapers.
KANNADA VERSION OF THE BOOK ‘WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND COMMUNIST PARTY’
The Kanaada version of the English booklet ‘Women’s Movement and Communist Party’ titled as ‘Mahila Chaluvali Mattu Communist Paksha’ was released at a study camp organized by the Communist Party of India (ML)-Liberation on April 9 and 10. The booklet was translated by N Divakar, PUCL, with a remarks from Professor Laxminarayana and was released on 10 by E Rati Rao, Vice-President of AIPWA (All India Progressive Women’s Association).
(ML Update, 19-25 April, 2011).
IRAN IS TOP OF THE WORLD IN SCIENCE GROWTH
Andy Coghlan
Which country’s scientific output rose 18-fold between 1996 and 2008, from 736 published papers to 13,238? The answer – Iran – might surprise many people, especially in the western nations used to leading science. Iran has the fastest rate of increase in scientific publication in the world.
“BULLAH”
Written by: ‘Shahid Nadeem’
Directed by: ‘Madeeha Gauhar’
Presented by: Ajoka Theatre in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism – Khyber Pakhtonkhawa presents
On 1st May 2011 at 5:30pm at Nishtar Hall, Peshawar:
OBITUARY: MANNING MARABLE (1950-2011)
Sekhar Ramakrishnan
Manning Marable, a Marxist scholar, who recently completed a new biography of Malcolm X that is said to challenge popular images of Malcolm, died yesterday, apparently from complications related to his longstanding battle with sarcoidosis and perhaps with the lung transplant he got last year. As an aside, something for Amal and Karunakaran to think about as they evolve guidelines for organ transplantation in Tamil Nadu – even though Marable lived for less than a year after receiving his double-lung transplant, the world is a much better place for his having had the few months to complete his book, which is likely to be very influential.
MALCOLM X SCHOLAR MANNING MARABLE DIES AT 60
Cristian Salazar (Guardian April 2, 2011)
New York (AP) – Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming Malcolm X biography could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, died Friday, just days before the book described as his life’s work was to be released. He was 60.
JAPAN UPDATE MARCH 30, 2011
Editors
As INSAF Bulletin goes to distribution, the nuclear plant crisis at Fukushima in Japan, precipitated by the massive earthquake followed by a huge tsunami, is still unfolding; reactor cores at two units in the six-unit facility and some of the pools in which the spent fuel rods are held, have not completely stabilized to a point where the emergency can be declared at an end.
WHAT CAN SOUTH ASIA LEARN FROM JAPAN’S BEST-CASE RESPONSE TO A WORST-CASE DISASTER?
Sekhar Ramakrishnan
The uncertain situation with Fukushima nuclear plant precipitated by a big earthquake and Tsunami is of concern to humanity. What happened, what has been done and what are the lessons of this disaster? Here is one view on the subject.
INDIAN UNION BUDGET 2011-12: MISSING BIG OPPORTUNITIES WHILE FAVOURING BUSINESS
Arun Kumar
The Indian Union budget presented by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on February 27, 2011 has not received as much attention as it deserves. Does the budget address the question of poverty? Economist Arun Kumar provides a detailed analysis.
ADVANI AND MODI – THE REAL CULPRITS ESCAPING THE LAW
Asghar Ali Engineer
More than 100 innocent persons were arrested after burning of S-6 in Godhra on 27th February 2002 which in turn followed demolition of Babri Masjid on 6th December 1992. The man mainly responsible for the former was Mr. L.K.Advani who, to fulfill his ambition for power raised the slogan ‘mandir wahin banayenge’ and played with the religious sentiments of common Hindus and our secular state looked the other way. The man responsible for the later was Narendra Modi, who exploited burning of S-6 in Godhra to retain his power which otherwise he was sure to loose. And both these worthies of BJP brought utter shame to our secular tradition and secular philosophy.
GODHRA VERDICT: WHITHER JUSTICE? Need for a CBI Investigation
Ram Puniyani
Contrary to the overwhelming evidence against a Muslim conspiracy to set afire the S-6 railway Coach at Godra, the Session’s court accepts the theory advocated by the Gujarat government. Naturally there is a demand for enquiry into the episode. On the other hand, regardless of who set the coach afire, the government of Narendra Modi must be treated as guilty in the indiscriminate massacre of innocent Muslims.
MYTH OF VIBRANT GUJARAT
Ram Puniyani
Nearly nine years after the carnage of Gujarat (Feb 2011), a perception has been created that Gujarat is developing with rapid strides, there is all peace and harmony and minorities are happy. Like ‘Shining India’ a word has been coined, ‘Vibrant Gujarat’.
SANGH PARIVAR AND NEW CONTRADICTIONS
Vikhar Ahmed Syeed
Interview with French social scientist Christophe Jafferlot (Frontline March 12-25, 2011)
BABA RAMDEV: YOGI OR COMMISSAR?
Ram Puniyani
God men like Baba Ramdev reflect the degeneration of Indian society and perhaps other societies. In his book “The Art and Science of Healing Since Antiquity (Xilbris: Bloomington, IN, USA), the author Daya Varma deals with the booming industry of providing health and wealth by men like Baba Ramdev and others. Here Ram Puniyani presents a timely exposure of nefarious and yet popular characters like Baba Ram Dev.
MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN DALITS: Victims of Religious Apartheid Sanctioned by the State
Yoginder Sikand
While many traditionally deprived sections of Indian people have been given certain privileges in independent India, Christian and Muslim Dalits have been denied the provision of reservations. Who is behind this injustice to a select section of the population? Yoginder Sikand, an authority on the problems faced by Muslims in India and elsewhere analyzes the background to discrimination against this section.
SUCCESSFUL VISIT OF INDIAN PEACE DELEGATION TO PAKISTAN
A report on the visit of an Indian peace delegation to Pakistan and the warm welcome it received.
CONSENSUS AMONG THE THREE MAIN PARTIES IN NEPAL
Nepal news: March 10, 2011
The three major parties – UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) – have agreed to prepare the modality of the integration of Maoist combatants within five days and complete the integration process before the promulgation of the new constitution.
VIEW FROM THE UK (GOING CRITICAL): how the Fukushima disaster taught me to stop worrying and embrace nuclear power
George Monbiot
You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.
FROM THE ARAB WORLD TO LATIN AMERICA
Santiago Alba Rico Alma Allende
We have the impression that a great worldwide liberation process may be aborted by the unappeasable ferocity of Gaddafi, U.S. interventionism, and a lack of foresight in Latin America.
WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP: The plan to steal everything and sell the people into slavery
Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
The Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker is at war against the workers and ordinary citizens aside being outrageously anti-democratic. Here two eminent political economists analyze the latest development.
TRIBUTE TO KARL MARX
Daya Varma
Faced with recurrent economic crises, characteristic of capitalist economy but certainly not the crisis of capitalism as Sami Amin puts it, eminent economists and the so-called bourgeois press has discovered the relevance of Marxism in understanding why things are as they are. Paradoxically they are more truthful in their analysis of Marx than many Marxist political parties.
Obituary:Alberto Granado Jiménez (1923-2011)
Javier Galeano (Associated Press)
HAVANA — Alberto Granado Jiménez, the Argentine biochemist who accompanied the young Che Guevara on his formative odyssey across South America, died here on Saturday. He was 88. This journey is portrayed in the beautiful movie “Motorcycle Diary”.
THE ARAB UPRISINGS: A SINGLE SPARK CAN LIGHT A PRAIRIE FIRE
Vinod Mubayi
When Mao Zedong invoked the ancient Chinese saying to describe the situation prevailing in rural China in 1930, no one would or could have predicted then how aptly it would apply to the events unfolding across the Arab world over 80 years later. Today, February 25, 2011, as these lines are being written, the Libyan dictator Qaddafi appears to be about to become the third “Supreme Leader” to be ousted, following the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt.
THE PERPLEXING CASE OF RAYMOND DAVIS – THE GREAT GAME REVISITED?
Kiran Omar
A perplexing and puzzling drama is being played out in the Pakistani and international media, the stakes of which are high – US/Pakistan bilateral relationship. At the heart of this puzzle is one Raymond Davis, a “consultant/contractor” attached or contracted to the US diplomatic mission in Pakistan. To date his exact official designation at said mission is unclear and his job description and area of operation/expertise ambiguous.
HONESTY IS INDIVISIBLE
Arun Kumar
Illegality in India touches every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached a mind-boggling level of 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, that is, it annually generates Rs.33 lakh crore [1 lakh=100,000; 1 crore= 10 million; US$1= approx 50 IRs] in black income. While the 1980s saw eight major scams, in the period between 1991 and 1996 there were 26 and during 2005-08, there were around 150.
NEW DEAL, NEW PRIME MINISTER AND OLD PROBLEMS IN NEPAL
Daya Varma
Jhalanath Khanal, the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) [CPN-UML] became the new Prime Minister of Nepal after receiving support from the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPNM]. The deal between the leaders of the two communist parties was okayed by Deuba, the leader of the Nepal Congress. Indeed Deuba urged the two parties to settle their disputes and provide formal shape to the government and start drafting the constitution drafting and expediting peace processes.
GUJARAT CARNAGE; MODI AND SPECIAL INVESTIGATION TEAM (SIT)
Ram Puniyani
There was a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time. Yet there are agencies in India which find that Modi is not responsible for open brutality against the citizens of a minority community in his state.
BACK HOME IN GODHRA AFTER NINE YEARS OF TORMENT
Basant Rawat
Over time many accused of setting the railway coach afire in Gujarat have been found innocent; this shows the arbitrariness of Gujarat authorities against Muslims.
THE SUPREME COURT ON CONFESSION DURING POLICE CUSTODY: The case of ARUPBHUYAN and the State of Assam
(Courtesy, Kavita Srivatava of PUCL, supplied by Sandeep)
According to the judgment by the Supreme Court of India, all confessions during police custody are obtained through torture and hence invalid.
THE BULLET AND THE ELEPHANT EXPRESS
Raja Murthy
While China has begun to earn billions of dollars exporting high-speed bullet train technology to the United States and Europe, the struggle of Indian Railways to manage its financial woes and modernization delays serves as a stark contrast between the operators of the world’s two largest railway networks.
THE FIRST LESSON FROM THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION
Salwa Ismail
It remains too early to draw out all of the lessons of the Egyptian revolution. However, given what has been achieved so far, Egyptians can offer the world a first lesson from their revolution. Undoubtedly, there will be other lessons to be learned especially as the process of revolutionary change continues.
NEW CHALLENGES FOR CHINA
(China Daily 15 February 2011)
The article reflects on scenario when China’s development plants are unable to have cheap labor, as will also happen in India if addresses the question of rural development and mass poverty.
BOOK REVIEW: JIMMY THE TERRORIST
Sensitively crafted and deeply evocative, Jimmy the Terrorist is about the best novel I have read on the unenviable predicament of Muslims in current times. It describes remarkably realistically, and without being preachy, sensationalist or apologetic, the painful dilemmas that vast numbers of Muslims are today faced with in the wake of mounting Islamophobia and increasing anti-Muslim prejudice, on the one hand, and radicalism and hatred in the name of Islam, on the other.
FORTY NOBEL LAUREATES APPEAL FOR THE RELEASE OF DR. BINAYAK SEN
It must be a great solace to Dr. Sen that forty of world’s top scientists are on his side while uneducated government and judges are bent upon keeping him in jail.
FAIZ ON GANDHI
(Faiz A. Faiz’ editorial of the Pakistan Times dated Feb 2, 1948. Original title was: Long Live Gandhiji. Faiz’z birth centenary is being observed this year in both Pakistan and India; supplied by Anand Patwardhan.)
MD. SALMAN DISCHARGED FROM THE 2008 DELHI BLASTS CASE!
Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (5th February 2011)
Show me the evidence, says Judge: The Prosecution is able to produce none!
WORKERS DRAW THE LINE IN WISCONSIN
Aongus Ó Murchadha
Wisconsin saw its biggest labor rally in memory Tuesday as an angry crowd estimated at as many as 20,000 turned out to oppose Republican Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to gut public-sector unions of their bargaining power, break them financially and force workers to pay for the state budget deficit.
IMF on the Middle East
(The New York Times, February 23, 2011)
“Less than 2 weeks ago the IMF’s executive board, its highest body, assessed a North African country’s economy and commended its government for its “ambitious reform agenda.”
THE DANGER OF FUNDAMENTALISM TO SOUTH ASIA
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
The murder of Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab province of Pakistan, by his bodyguard is generally seen as a Pakistani phenomenon. Because the killer was the bodyguard of the Governor, some commentators have likened it to the assassination of Indira Gandhi because in her case also the assassin was her bodyguard. But that similarity is superficial. In political terms, the murder of Salman Taseer is more like the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by the Hindu zealot Nathuram Godse. In both cases, religious extremists were the murderers.
THE PROBLEM WITH PAKISTAN
Vaqar Ahmed
The problems that Pakistan faces today are a direct and logical consequence of the basis of the creation of the country.
PAKISTAN: THE MURDER OF LIBERAL THOUGHT AND TOLERANCE
Kiran Omar
The barrage of bullets that fatally ripped through the body of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer murdered more than a political and public figure. They rent apart the lingering myth that space still existed in Pakistan for liberal thought, religious tolerance and inclusive politics.
HOW CAN THE PAKISTANI LEFT BECOME RELEVANT?
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Pakistani society owes much to numerous progressive left-wing individuals, as well as small groups. They unionized industrial and railway workers, helped peasants organize against powerful landlords, inspired Pakistan’s minority provinces to demand their rights, set standards of writing and journalism, and raised voices for peace and against militarism. Often this was at enormous personal cost. Leaders and workers belonging to worker and student groups have been targeted, victimized, beaten, and sometimes killed.
But the truth must be the told secular, liberal, and left groupings has never had a national presence in Pakistan and, even at their peak during the 1970’s, could not muster even a fraction of the street power of the Islamic or mainstream parties.
ARE ZIA’S MONSTERS DEVOURING PAKISTAN?
Kaleem Kawaja
General Zia ul Haq was one of the presidents of Pakistan in the mid 1970s to mid 1980s. That was also the Ronald Regan era in US and the era of the soviet occupation and war in Afghanistan. Zia collaborated fully with Regan and the US military machine to use the Pakistani soil to bring in huge supplies of arms to help Afghans fight the soviets. Together Regan and Zia encouraged religious militancy in NWFP and in Afghanistan, using and exploiting Islam to fight the soviet war machine. Many a Muslims in Pakistan were radicalized using Islam for this purpose. After the soviets left Afghanistan, US also pulled out of the war ravaged Afghanistan and left it to internal civil wars among Afghan factions that lasted over a decade, literally destroying Afghanistan.
LOOK AT PAKISTAN AND BE HAPPY
Dipankar Gupta
Our grief at Salman Taseer’s assassination has a schadenfreude aspect to it. We are sad that a brave man died unjustly, but we are happy this happened to our neighbor next door. True, Taseer was part of the establishment, but he had a change of heart when it came to the blasphemy law.
DEMOCRATS TO THE RESCUE
Dipankar Gupta
When Binayak Sen was arrested it gave a much-needed boost to the Maoists. As they advocate violence to achieve their ends, it is like oxygen for them every time the state commits a travesty of justice. It is worth remembering that armed movements, of whatever variety, have succeeded only in autocratic, dictatorial and monarchical states, but never in democratic ones.
SWAMI, SANGH AND TERROR LINKS
Ram Puniyani
Investigating acts of terrorism have multiple complex issues as things are mired in secrecy. To add to the problem is the mindset of investigating authorities and those in power. The acts of terror, which have been inflicted on the country, have been mainly attributed to the Jehadi Terror and mostly the theory which has been guiding the police authorities has been to work on this understanding.
NEPAL: IDENTITY POLITICS AND FEDERALISM
Federal restructuring of the state has emerged as a major demand of ethnic and regional activists in Nepal. The debate about it is extremely politicized. Federalism is not simply the decentralization of political power; it has become a powerful symbol for a wider agenda of inclusion, which encompasses other institutional reforms to guarantee ethnic proportional representation and a redefinition of Nepali nationalism to recognize the country’s ethnic and cultural diversity.
MAOISTS IN NEPAL: THE DIFFERENCES WITHIN
Prashant Jha
At a recent meeting, the Maoists expressed their commitment to peace and the constitutional process but also decided to prepare for a revolt.
UNEQUAL INDIA-NEPAL ACCORDS NEED TO BE RENEGOTIATED
Shirish B Pradhan
Nepal Maoist chief Prachanda sought to allay India’s concerns that his party was strongly anti-Indian, but underlined that the two countries need to redefine the ‘unequal’ accords of the past given the dramatic changes of the past few years.
SHARING SHOULDERS
(Daya Varma, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Vinod Mubayi)
CORRESPONDENCE
PEOPLE’S SAARC CONFERENCE CONDEMNS MURDER OF SALMAN TASSER
A resolution condemning murder of Salman Taseer Shaheed by a religious extremist was unanimously adopted during Peoples SAARC meeting/conference in Dhaka on January 18-19, 2011.
SUPREME COURT FOR RELIEF OF VICTIMS OF SALWA JUDUM, SECURITY FORCES OR NAXALITES
(Source: SACW January 18, 20111; abridged)
Justices Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar responded to the petition by Senior Counsel, Mr. Ashok Desai, and ordered the Chhattisgarh government to vacate security forces from all educational institutions, disband Salwa Judum camps and offer relief to all victims of the violence regardless of perpetrator.
GET RID OF ILLEGAL SHRINES: SUPREME COURT TO STATES
Bhadra Sinha
Taking exception to states’ dilly-dallying on the removal of illegal religious structures, the Supreme Court threatened to summon the respective chief secretaries if they failed to comply with directions to remove or relocate places of worship built on public land.
HUMAN RIGHTS HELP FROM UNLIKELY SOURCES
According to a news item in the Times of India (Jan 23, 2011), a seven-member delegation of the European Union has requested permission to watch the trial of Binayak Sen at the Chhatisgarh High Court. The decision of the High Court to allow these observers is yet not known. BJP MP Ram Jethmelani is appearing on behalf of Binayak Sen.
CHRISTIAN COUNCIL SATISFIED WITH VERDICT FOR KILLERS OF GRAHAM STAINES
The decision of the Supreme Court of India on January 22, 2011 to uphold the life imprisonment of Dara Singh and his accomplice Mahendra Hembram convicted of killing Graham Staines and his two young sons in January 1999 has been welcomed by the All India Christian Council.
(Based on an item by John Dayal)
PROTEST DEMANDING RELEASE OF MUSLIMS HELD IN MALEGOUN JAIL
More than 40 Muslim organization held a protest meeting at Azad Maidan, Mumbai demanding release of all Muslim youth held in Malegoun jail on charges of bomb blasts in the wake of confession by Swamy Asmanad in front of Delhi judge.Speakers included Abu Asim Azmi (MLA) Samajwadi Party, Amjed Ullah Khan Corporator MBT party, Sheik Abdul Kaleem (who was arrested in Mecca Masjid Blast), Moulana Syed Khaled Ashrafi, Moulana Mastakim Ahsan Azmi (Jamat Ulema,Maharastra), Nazir Md Madoo (Amir Jamaat E Islami,Maharastra)and Moulana Syed Ather Ali
IN DEFENCE OF ARUNDHATI ROY: DEMAND TO UPHOLD FREE SPEECH AND EXPRESSION
Statement by Academics and Activists from India and Abroad
We condemn the demand of the BJP to take the strongest possible action against Arundhati Roy for her seditious comments at the seminar, Azadi: The only way held in New Delhi, October 21, 2010.
BANGLADESH: THE ILLEGAL ARREST OF LABOR RIGHTS ACTIVIST
William Gomes
Dhaka: Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the Bangladesh’s Military Intelligence is behind the arrest of labor rights activist Moshrefa Mishu, a leftist political activist and President of the Garment Workers Unity Forum (GWUF), a labor rights organization of the readymade garment factories of the country. Confined in Dhaka Medical Hospital (DHMC) by highly armed police officials Moshrefa Mishu exposed the horrific torture description the in several undercover interviews to Srilanka guardian.
FIRST MUSLIM ARRESTED AFTER MECCA MASJID BLAST RELEASED ON BAIL
Abdul Kareem released on bail in crime No: 658 of 2010 of Kushaiguda Police Station. He furnished sureties of Twenty thousand rupees. He was earlier arrested after Mecca Masjid blast and tortured in private farm house.
GUJARAT GOVERNMENT AFTER HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) strongly condemns Gujarat Government’s campaign of calumny against and attempt to frame under false charges human rights defender Teesta Setlavad, of Citizens of Justice and Peace, lawyer M.M. Tirmizi, victims survivors of Lunwada massacre and media person Rahul Singh for exposing Gujarat Police’s callousness and cruelty in the Lunwada massacre and mass burial case.
KABIR FESTIVAL HELD IN MUMBAI
To honour the great medieval poet and saint Kabir, a nine day long festival from January 14 to 23 was organized in Mumbai.
INDIAN PRIME MINISTER SLEEPS WHILE THE COUNTRY DRFITS INTO ANARCHY
Daya Varma
According to news reports (January 24, 2011), Maharashtra police arrested hotel managers who did not inform the police about hosting foreign delegates attending a Women’s Conference organized by Illina Sen, wife of Dr. Binayak Sen at the Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University at Wardha. The police used an archaic law, the Foreigners Act of 1946, to harass Illina Sen as well.
TOTAL CAPITULATION
Tariq Ali
The ‘Palestine Papers’ being published this week by al-Jazeera confirm in every detail what many Palestinians have suspected for a long time: their leaders have been collaborating in the most shameful fashion with Israel and the United States. Their grovelling is described in grim detail. The process, though few accepted it at the time, began with the much-trumpeted Oslo Accords, described by Edward Said in the LRB at the time as a ‘Palestinian Versailles’. Even he would have been taken aback by the sheer scale of what the PLO leadership agreed to surrender: virtually everything except their own salaries. Their weaknesses, inadequacies and cravenness are now in the public domain.
SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY OF THE ASIA TO GAZA SOLIDARITY CARAVAN
From Rajghat in Delhi, through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. The caravan, in its journey of over 7000 km, collected $1 million worth of aid supplies including four ambulances, medical supplies and essential food supplies.
CHINA BRICS UP AFRICA
(Abridged from an article by M K Bhadrakumar, a career diplomat and supplied by Prof Sam Noumoff)
There can be no two opinions that Beijing made a smart move. Its decision to anoint South Africa as a new member of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will be projected as based on economic grounds, but there are any number of other dimensions.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG or the Calcutta Research Group) in collaboration with various other institutions has held in the in the last six years three critical studies conferences. The first conference held in 2005 was on What is Autonomy? The second conference held in 2007 was on Spheres of Justice . The third conference held in 2009 was on Empires, States, and Migration . The aim of these exchanges of ideas and scholarly works has been to promote critical thinking on issues affecting our lives. These exchanges have been inter-disciplinary, intense, and directed towards new thinking and ideas.
OBITUARY: KANDALA GOPALSWAMY KANNABIRAN (1929-2010)
Personal memories of the man by Vithal Rajan
An obit that would do justice to this Just Man would occupy a fair-sized book. I am sure a compilation in memoriam’ will be attempted soon by learned people, who worked for him, and alongside him. I was a bystander most of the time, and I can offer only a few personal glimpses of a man, whose name and fame and work filled over three decades of India’s human rights struggle. He was lean, taut, and spry, and his commitment to universal justice blazed forth as from a pulsar. But at other moments he was a genial companion, learned and impish in turns, with an ineradicable sense of humour even about what he held sacred his work and an ever-green childlike romantic ideal till the very end of days.
K.G. KANNABIRAN, INDIA’S “LEADING CIVIL LIBERTIES LAWYER FOR THE LAST FOUR DECADES”
Many of Kannabiran’s writings are collected in a 2004 book, The Wages of Impunity: Power, Justice and Human Rights. His funeral was conducted quietly soon after he passed away, as his wife, Vasanth Kannabiran, explained in a guest post on Kafila:
Hopefully the New Year would be better than the last one!
A LAND OF POVERTY GOVERNED BY POLICE AND JUDGES
Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi
India impresses visitors and its residents differently. Despite evidence of modern development, what is still unique about India is the pervasiveness of corruption, poverty, police atrocities, a reliance on judges for exercising executive functions, as well as a steady march of majority religious symbols into what were hitherto secular spaces.
BINAYAK SEN, THE STATE AND THE COURTS
Dr. Binayak Sen is a devoted paediatrician and human rights activist. He was particularly concerned with the health and social status of Adivasis in Chhattisgarh, the Indian state ruled by the Hindu chauvinist party Bhartiya Janata Dal (BJP); the area is also a hotbed of Maoist activity. He was unjustly arrested a few years ago for allegedly supporting Maoists; after incarceration he was released on bail. His case came up for trial and the court found him guilty of sedition. He has now been sentenced to life imprisonment. There is an outcry against this unjust sentencing of Sen. Read the following articles – Editors
FINAL STATEMENT OF BINAYAK SEN
I am a trained medical doctor with a specialization in child health. I completed my MBBS from the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1972, and completed studies leading to the award of the degree of MD (Pediatrics) of the Madras University, from the same institution in 1976. After this, I joined the faculty of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and worked there for two years, before leaving to join a field based health program at the Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia in Hoshangabad, MP. During the two years I worked there, I worked intensively in the diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis and understood many of the social and economic causes of disease. I was also strongly influenced by the work of Marjorie Sykes, the biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, who lived at the Rasulia centre at that time.
BINAYAK CONVICTED – SENTENCE STILL TO BE PRONOUNCED
Kavita Srivastava
By now you all must have got to know about the conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen u/s of 120(B), 124(A) of the IPC and 1,2,3,5, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Sec 39 (2) of the UAPA (2004 amended).
SEDITION DECISION ‘MISUSE’ OF LAWS
Amartya Sen
I am very upset about the court decision in Chhattisgarh about Binayak Sen. It is a huge perversion of our system of justice, and particularly of the laws concerning sedition. It’s not at all clear, to start with, that the thing he has been exactly accused of — of passing letters — has been really proved beyond doubt.
PRESS RELEASE BY PUCL ON DR. BINAYAK SEN’S CONVICTION
Delhi/ Raipur (24th December, 2010)
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties is deeply disappointed at the miscarriage of justice reflected in the judgement of Raipur Additional District and Sessions Judge B. P Verma sentencing our National Vice President Dr. Binayak Sen to life imprisonment under charges of sedition 124 (A) of the IPC read with conspiracy (120-B IPC) along with convicting him concurrently u/s 8-(1), (2), (3) and (5) of the Chhattisgarh Vishesh Jan Suraksha Adhiniyam,2005 (Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act, 2005) and u/sec 39 (2) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004 (amended).
INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND COMMUNALISM
Ram Puniyani
Although Indian National Congress which led the struggle for India’s independence is a secular party, it has failed to live up to its ideals more than once. The article below gives a good account of failings and accomplishments of Congress as far as communalism is concerned.
REPORT OF A SYMPOSIUM ON AYODHYA JUDGMENT
Teesta Setalvad
The September 30 2010 verdict in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi case, that began as a dispute over a title suit but escalated into a full blown politico-religious conflict— one that legitimized the criminal assault on a 450 plus year old mosque as also targeted minority life and property— has raised serious issues for the future of Indian democracy given the fact that the verdict was disproportionately based on issues of contested faith and disputed histories.
FOR A PROGRESSIVE PAKISTAN, AGAINST THEOCRACY, FOR PLURALISM, FOR EQUALITY & JUSTICE
(Source: Association for Communal Harmony in Asia, December 25, 2010)
AKA & LEGAL FRATERNITIES OF INDIA, PAKISTAN JOIN HANDS FOR PEACE
Aman Ki Asha
(Source: Association for Communal Harmony in Asia, December 25, 2010)
SOLIDARITY CARAVAN FROM INDIA TO PALESTINE
Gautam Mody
A solidarity Caravan composed of delegates from several Asian countries left New Delhi on 2 December and is expected to reaching Gaza on December 27, 2010. While so far the Caravan has received rousing reception from India to Syria, the clash point near Gaza still has to come.
DO SUPPORTERS OF NOBEL WINNER LIU XIAOBO REALLY KNOW WHAT HE STANDS FOR?
Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong
While opposing jailing of 2010 Peace Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo by the Chinese authorities, the author of the article castigates both the Nobel Committee for its arbitrariness and the recipient of the Prize for his war-mongering and anti-China position.
RUSSIA HAILS U.S. SENATE’S RATIFICATION OF NEW START
(Circulated by Sukla Sen)
Moscow, December 23, 2010 (Xinhua) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed
the ratification of the new Russia-U.S. strategic arms reduction treaty (START) by the U.S. Senate, said the Russian presidential press secretary.
DEMOCRACY WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
Sam Noumoff
China is at a critical stage with respect to democracy and human rights. We are producing this article by a well-known China observer because of the importance of this question, the outcome of which is bound to have significant effect not only in China but in the entire Asia and the world.
OBITUARY: BHAGWAN DAS: 1927-2010
Vijay Prashad
Bhagwan Das (The historian of ‘his people’). His life was given over to the fight against caste and untouchability, and towards the promotion of Buddhism.
OBITUARY: CATHERINE POTTER: 1957-2010
The accomplished Montreal-based Basuri player Catherine Potter, a student of Hariprashad Chaurasia, was a part of CERAS and Kabir Cultural Center and a friend of South Asia. She used to participate in activities of these organization and had volunteered for fund raising to help Pakistan flood victims. In her death, the South Asian community lost a friend and supporter. We produce an Obit written for the local news paper Gazette. Another lengthier Obit written by Philip Fine of Montreal was published in the Canadian national newspaper Globe and Mail of December 23, 2010. Ed.
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