tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20181504044204431022024-02-07T22:21:43.111-08:00Between the lines - seeing News beyond and beneathEditorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-69149138361513984672011-05-09T00:53:00.000-07:002011-05-09T01:05:14.465-07:00Gujarat Riots: Modi, Sanjiv Bhatt and Congress – Who is the real villain?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmTg_Y9ht-bpRtweW6XHL5bjaiR_4cu3FmS1i0th17FLscf6vUJbQ6ae7t4Da7QSka23KIFYI17cwXLqTEefmNF8d7cthlmJcSXC2WZzgmGlsJBSWSArENG6g99XCCRq6Je3OUznmDWUUE/s1600/gr.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmTg_Y9ht-bpRtweW6XHL5bjaiR_4cu3FmS1i0th17FLscf6vUJbQ6ae7t4Da7QSka23KIFYI17cwXLqTEefmNF8d7cthlmJcSXC2WZzgmGlsJBSWSArENG6g99XCCRq6Je3OUznmDWUUE/s320/gr.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604624338805673554" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >By - </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >Abdul Hafiz Lakhani </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" ><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >The murky tussle between Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt is getting more and more attention in the media.Dismissing allegations levelled against him by senior IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt over the Gujarat riots, chief minister Narendra Modi blamed opponents for trying to defame him. Speaking at the culmination of Gujarat’s golden jubilee celebrations in Ahmedabad, Mr Modi, in a veiled reference to the Opposition, said that he would not bow down to forces which were trying to malign him. “Every constitutional authority in this country is being misused to carry out opression on me…let them try to do that. I would budge and not bow down to these forces…You try and target Modi but you have been doing this during the state’s golden jubilee celebrations….in this celebration year, these forces rather than contributing to the development of the state have been working against it.” Mr Modi said. It’s quite amazing and disturbing that till now there were allegations of all sorts on Modi but now even the SIT is under the scanner. It’s difficult to understand, how we can allege someone like Modi, we can mistrust an independent agency of the stature of SIT and give so much weightage to people like Sanjiv Bhatt Sanjiv Bhatt’s character too is unfolding gradually. There are reports that his career and conduct have been questionable since years. There have been many departmental inquiries against him and even a criminal case for beating someone to death!!! And for the so called intelligentsia, many inquiries are before 2002. Too much is being read in to the affidavit and media hype of Sanjiv Bhatt, who has been sleeping all through the last nine years of the incidents of riots. Neither he opted to file any affidavit before the Justice Nanvati Inquiry Commission, nor he provided any such information as being allegedly disclosed now to his superior Officer namely RB Shreekumar Adl. DGP in charge of Intelligence, when he filed affidavit before the Nanvati Inquiry Commission.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >Yet, the controversial officer has now come out with a theory that he had attended the meeting on 27-02-2002 when alleged illegal instructions were given by the Chief Minister. He has cited the support of a driver, who allegedly took him to the CM’s residence where the meeting took place. In fact the driver had been dismissed from the service long back for serious misconduct of forgery of certificates to obtain the driver’s job. It is strange that the statement of the disgruntled officer and the dismissed driver are being given such hype while ignoring the statements of other most senior Police and IAS officers who remained present during the meeting on 27th February 2002. Besides, it is also quite unfortunate that the so called intelligent people, who try to allege the Gujarat government for not divulging records, in their blogs & panel discussion on TV channels, have missed one thing that when a junior officer attends any such high level meeting, as per procedure he is supposed to put up the proceedings/ notes before the superior officer about the deliberations. The Intelligence Manual requires that such things are brought to the notice of senior officer in writing. It is difficult to imagine why Sanjiv Bhatt did not do so at the relevant time. In fact, he was posted as DCI (Security) who is supposed to look after intelligence on VIP security and security to vital installations etc. only. Another DCI was there to look after law& order and communal matters. Sanjiv Bhatt had never been provided “y” category security by the government. There is a procedure to assess threat perception of a person where a committee consisting of the Home Secretary, Additional DGP (Intelligence) and the Joint Director of the Central IB consider the category of the security cover required for a person and on this recommendation such security is provided by the government. No such recommendation has ever been made for Sanjiv Bhatt. Further, on the reference of the SIT appointed by the Supreme Court, the Home Secretary wrote to the DGP to look in to the security cover for Sanjiv Bhatt.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >The DGP provided appropriate security to him.The allegation that the government has withdrawn his security is false and baseless.Sanjiv Bhatt is trying to create false impression deliberately to cover up his misconduct of keeping personnel from Juanagadh at his residence at Ahmedabad. It may be mentioned that Sanjiv Bhatt has been in the habit of keeping more personnel at his residence in excess of the orderlies entitled. There had been such instances when he was posted at Banaskantha and at Rajkot earlier. Show cause notices were also issued at the relevant time. At present he has been posted at Junagadh SRP training School where he has joined and went on leave. Currently he is on sick leave on account of his mother’s alleged ill health. Yet he has been keeping the personnel from Junagadh and the vehicle allotted to him at Ahmedabad on the pretext that the SIT would call him anytime for deposition. Though the SIT has already recorded his statement yet he is claiming this privilege. Besides, an officer can appear in any forum from his place of posting for which one need not to remain present at the location where he chooses to place himself.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >It may be mentioned that Sanjeev Bhatt is an IPS officer of 1988 batch belonging to Gujarat cadre, whose career since the beginning of his service has remained controversial. He is facing several departmental proceedings and criminal cases of serious nature. Often he has been taking undue advantage of the government citing different arguments of his actions of omission and commission as part of his duty. However, many departmental inquiries could not be settled and the criminal cases against him are still pending for which he ahs been trying to get favour from the government. Even he has not been promoted as IGP though his batch mates have been promoted long back. He was posted in as ASP Jamnagar district when there was an agitation at Khamabliya. It was reported that he committed excessive use of power and clamping of draconian provisions of TADA on some of the protestors.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >Police (ASP) in Jamnagar district was marked with an incident of misuse of power resulting to death of a person. There was a private criminal complaint filed at Jamjodhpur Police station against him on 18-11-1990 by one Shri Amrutlal Madhavji Vaishnani. This case is still pending at Sessions Court at Kahambalia. A criminal complaint was filed in 1996 by one Sumer Singh Rajpurohit, an Advocate practicing at Pali, Rajasthan against Sanjiv Bhatt, the then SP, Banaskantha District. A criminal case was registered against Sanjiv Bhatt & others vide FIR No. 403/96 dtd. 18-11-1996 u/s 120B, 195, 196, 342, 347, 357, 365, 388, 458, 482 IPC and Sec. 58 (1) & 58 (2) of NDPS Act. After the investigation, a chargesheet was filed against Sanjiv Bhatt & others u/s 114, 120B, 323, 342, 348, 357, 365, 368, 388, 452, 201 & 482 IPC and Sec. 9, 17, 18, 29, 58 (1) & 58 (2) r/w Sec. 37 of NDPS Act in the Court of Special Judge, NDPS Act, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. It is mentioned that Sumer Singh Rajput was a tenant of sister of R.R. Jain, a sitting Judge of Gujarat High Court. To get the tenant evacuated for the rented premises, Sanjiv Bhatt, the then SP of Banaskanthe and his subordinate police officers planted more than 1kg of Narcotic drug in one room in a hotel at Palanpur, Gujarat, which was shown that the complainant was occupying the same while the complainant was at Pali, Rajasthan. The said complainant Advocate was abducted at midnight from Pali on the instructions of Sanjiv Bhatt by his subordinate police staff and brought him to Palanpur, anaskantha in Gujarat. The said advocate was pressurized by Sanjiv Bhatt and his subordinate police officers to vacate the said rented premises by threatening arrest under offence under NDPSAct. The advocate under pressure vacated the property.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >Physical possession of the property was immediately handed over to sister of R.R. Jain, Judge of Gujarat High Court. Sanjiv Bhatt asked released Sumersingh Rajpurohit on 08-05-1996, after filing a report u/s 169 Cr.P.C., in which it was stated that Sumer Singh could not be identified in the Test Identification Parade. Applications were filed for quashing the criminal complaint filed in Pali at Gujarat and Rajasthan High Court. But the petitions have been dismissed and the criminal case is still pending. Also, the Gujarat Vigilance Commission had recommended twice on 15-07-2002 and 19-10-2006for suspension of Sanjiv Bhatt for his professional misconducts. His stint as Assistant Superintendent of The Secretary, Bar Association, Pali (Rajasthan) made a complaint before the National Human Rights Commission. The Commission considering the serious human right violation by its order dated 15-09-2010 directed the State Govt. of Gujarat to pay a sum of Rs. One lakh as monetary relief to Sumer Singh, advocate, Pali. The Gujarat government issued order dated 23-12-2010 as per the direction of the NHRC to pay the amount. A cheque was issued on 25-01-2011 in favour of S.C. Rajpurohit. Since the criminal proceeding is pending against him and as one charge sheet has been issued to him, he has grievances against the state government. He has been trying to get these issues settled and get his overdue promotion as IGP. It would be amply clear from the above details that the entire service career of Sanjiv Bhatt has remained controversial and wherever he has been posted, controversies have followed him. He has many issues which are to be settled with government like the pending departmental inquiry, criminal cases and the current posting where he has joined and currently on unsanctioned sick leave to settle. The ulterior motive behind his recent demeanor becomes quite clear with these details.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" ><br /></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:8.5pt;color:black;" >[Abdul Hafiz Lakhani is a senior Journalist based at Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He is associated with IndianMuslimObserver.com as Bureau Chief (Gujarat). He can be reached at lakhani63@yahoo.com or on his cell 09228746770]</span></span></span></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-43310584617797551142011-05-06T23:16:00.000-07:002011-05-06T23:23:16.411-07:00Madhya Pradesh: Shadows of Hindu Rashtra<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGONvoYw1pywsCI_g-8MUC89sDYPCSm-PhkvyVCXhPhFbI5bYO3ieWhhTBmgsNt0LKja8fdypYf1V5SmoDl60Lp73sshSNryveQEfPeGOAiPQgLmzk2Hkpnlm4UaJ0S1jfVg4hVBGEUhoz/s1600/mp.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 233px; height: 165px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGONvoYw1pywsCI_g-8MUC89sDYPCSm-PhkvyVCXhPhFbI5bYO3ieWhhTBmgsNt0LKja8fdypYf1V5SmoDl60Lp73sshSNryveQEfPeGOAiPQgLmzk2Hkpnlm4UaJ0S1jfVg4hVBGEUhoz/s320/mp.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603855957358013842" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial">By Ram Puniyani<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">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.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Recently (March 2011) the police stations got a circular from the head office which required them to collect the information about Christian minorities. This information pertained to various facets of social life of the community. The order candidly sought information about Christians of all denominations such as number of priests, bishops, schools, institutions, political patronage, Christians with criminal antecedents, economic sources, among many other things. When one priest refused to divulge the information, meant to profile the community, he was taken to police station.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">When the community leaders took the matter with the top police officers, they expressed their ignorance, and it seemed like the case of ‘No One Killed Jessica Lall’, as if no one has issued the circular, or the one who issued this illegal circular is being shielded. With this the subtle ways of operation by the RSS controlled state mechanism became clear. With BJP government in the seat of power the RSS associates have become much more dominant and there are activities, which begin as ‘religious’ one and end up being hateful to minorities the way the events are tilted and given shape by those controlling these organizations.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">This is one state where the RSS has been very active in the Adivasi areas. Like in case of <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>, on the pretext that ‘Christian missionaries are converting’ many acts of violence have been taking place in these areas. One recalls the rape of nuns in Jhabua, followed by the comment by ‘B.L. Sharma Prem’ from RSS stable, who proudly boasted that the rape of nuns is the act of nationalism. In the same areas the followers of Asaram Bapu have been very active, spreading venom against the minorities.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Pursuing this line of action, they had earlier also organized meetings in Adivasi areas, now this agenda got culminated in the organization of Narmada Samajik Kumbh (Feb 2011), on the lines of Shabri Kumbh in the Dangs of Gujarat. These Kumbhs have been creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity amongst Christians in particular and in these events they undertake the “Ghar Vapasi” (Returning Home), which in real sense means the conversion of Adivasis, to Hinduism under direct or indirect pressure. Now these efforts are totally being backed up by the facilities from the state Government.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">There is a plethora of anti Minority literature which is distributed en masse. Such intervention in Adivasi areas is dampening the educational and health welfare work of Missionaries in the Adivasi areas. With this Government in power, the Muslim minorities were clearly told that MP is not going to implement Sachar Committee report. Rather than seeing it as a necessary affirmative action for the poor Muslims, it is being projected in the divisive communal language. Going against the spirit of Indian Constitution, the MP Chief Minister has given a call to the Government servants to join RSS, while being on the active service.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">One recalls in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> similar call was given by Narendra Modi. At that time Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime minister and he felt so embarrassed by this move that he insisted upon the state Government to withdraw the circular permitting state employees to join the RSS. As such it is RSS trained and coordinated Swayamsevaks, who not only work in BJP, in the important positions of power but they also manipulate politics in more ways than one.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">To argue that RSS is not a political organization is factually wrong as RSS has a political agenda of Hindu Rashtra, which it operates through multiple progeny. So while the Government servants are barred to join politics, MP government is openly flaunting this norm. In <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> one witnessed the advent of Hindu Rashtra through massive anti Muslim violence backed up by cultural manipulation. In MP the cultural instance is more dominant and visible. Hindu terminologies are being picked up for every instance and implemented.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">For School teachers the term coined was Rishi, as in ancient <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, it was Rishis committed to giving knowledge. Interestingly, Rishi is a masculine gender, so the large number of women teachers is out of this ambit. And more interestingly these Rishis were lathicharged when they came together to demand for implementation of better pay scales. M.P. has also been the place where the Hindutva terror groups got a good shelter, safe heaven for them. People like Sunil Joshi, Pragya Singh Thakur, Kalsangra, Devendra Sharma, Sandeep Dange and others could operate comfortably due their saffron association in a BJP ruled state.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">State has been totally insensitive to the feelings of minorities and all its schemes have been named in the Hindu terminology, Girls welfare scheme: Ladli Laxmi, Child Nutrition program: Anna Prashan, Water Harvesting: Jalabhishek are just few of the names of state government schemes currently in operation in the state. Similarly the schools have been made to start Surya Namaskar, (Sun Worship), a sort of exercise-worship routine from the Hindu mythology. The state officials openly participate in Arms Worship (Shastra Puja) a ritual on Dussehra festival. In this worship, the Guns and weapons from police department are freely used. This taking out arms from armed police must be regarded as a serious violation of law.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Yoga too was initially introduced as a compulsory discipline. Now it is optional, but then with majority Hindus opting for it, the minority children do feel left out. State has showered the gift of land to various trusts formed by RSS associates. Recently one donation of large plot of land to Kushabhau Thackeray (the founder of RSS-BJP activities in the state) trust has been quashed by the Court, but such instances abound.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Madhya Pradesh Government is combining subtle and overt intimidation along with cultural manipulation to Hindutvize the state. The minorities are feeling marginalized and insecure due to the atmosphere created by the state machinery and RSS affiliates. After <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>, many a states are vying for emulating its model; Madhya Pradesh already seems to be way ahead!</span></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-30225974110560097562010-12-23T20:43:00.000-08:002010-12-23T20:45:10.677-08:00Ayodhya verdict, temple and Indian nationalism<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCnMwAEFTblZDGyfw1x0X0bJ7CyVe1XfN37VgHaRC28g7V0GVAfxxxfUjAnTQUi64jN7arxCZfqRMh4X-dAGQ7diPSg3h8JVHd4UHsF29ddV3AbVRhqvy-Xrx5BWXFy1SLac0FZqfkcVC/s1600/bm.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCnMwAEFTblZDGyfw1x0X0bJ7CyVe1XfN37VgHaRC28g7V0GVAfxxxfUjAnTQUi64jN7arxCZfqRMh4X-dAGQ7diPSg3h8JVHd4UHsF29ddV3AbVRhqvy-Xrx5BWXFy1SLac0FZqfkcVC/s320/bm.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554105226255132146" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By Ram Puniyani </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">While Ayodhya verdict is under criticism from various quarters for ignoring the basic issue of land dispute, for ignoring the illegal installation of Ram Lalla idols on the night of 23 Dec 1949 and the demolition of the masjid by Sangh Parivar on 6th December 1992, a new dimension has been added to the issue. In the aftermath of the judgment, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat (30th Sept 2010) had welcomed the judgment and stated that this judgment paves the way for grand Ram Temple as court has already allotted 2/3 of land, where the mosque, is located to Hindus.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Now (Dec 12, 2010) he goes further to say that division of land is unwarranted and all land should be given to Hindus as division always creates problems as in the case of <st1:place st="on">Kashmir</st1:place>, and that all the land should be handed over to Hindus. According to him, this will also be in the fitness of nationalism as it will wipe out Babri Masjid, the symbol of foreign rule. The temple will create the ‘Bharat’s self consciousness’. Giving hint of the future plans, the RSS supremo further said that it is time that we re-establish all such symbols that portend Bharat’s self-image and nature that was razed during the foreign rule.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The statement of Mr. Bhagwat is quiet in tune with the politics, ideology and agenda of RSS. Needless to say the comparison with division of <st1:place st="on">Kashmir</st1:place> is totally warped and illogical. Kashmir was an independent state attacked by <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Kashmir acceded to <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> in the face of this aggression and there were clauses of full autonomy of <st1:place st="on">Kashmir</st1:place> barring the matters related to defense, communication, currency and foreign affairs. Indian army entered Kashmir after this accession by which time 1/3 Kashmir was occupied by <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> army. It was not a division by any legal authority. The occupation of Kashmir by <st1:country-region st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> was an act of aggression and United Nations had mandated for plebiscite in <st1:place st="on">Kashmir</st1:place>, which never took place. And Dr. Bhagwat/RSS is worried about the ill effects of division, they can very well leave the ‘manufactured claims’ and restore the masjid pre 6th December 1992 and pre 23 December 1949. That will be an appropriate way to avoid division and solve the issue, releasing us from the vice like grip of identity issues so that nation can focus on infinite ills ailing the country.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In case of Babri masjid, it was a protected monument under the Indian act and on the night of 23 December 1949 some motivated elements, hand in glove with sympathizers of Hindu nationalism installed the idols there. Then, RSS elements (Advani and co.) took over the issue in the decade of 1980 and demolished the masjid, which has been one of the biggest crimes in Independent India. It was also an assault on Indian Constitution. The Court gave the verdict in a Panchayat style ignoring the core elements of the case, also under the dominating influence of communalization of society which has been unleashed by the communal violence and propaganda.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">What is needed is to look at the clauses of Indian Constitution and restore the land to the Sunni Wakf Board, under whose possession that land has been for long enough time to be legally valid. To regard the structures built during medieval period as symbols of foreign rule is contrary to the concept of Indian Nationalism. Indian Nationalism regarded British rule as foreign rule and struggled against it. Still it did not talk of wiping out the structures built by British during their rule. RSS type ideologies never struggled against the foreign rule, British rule, and regard the period of Muslim Kings as the period of foreign rule. This again goes against the understanding of Indian nationalism. Kingdoms are Kingdoms and we can’t equate Kingdoms to nationalism.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Kings of different religions have ruled for power and wealth. They were neither representative of the people nor of their religion. Since RSS ideology emerged from the declining social sectors of Hindu Kings, landlords and clergy they have deliberately accorded to Kings’ rule the status of nationalism. Same applies to the Muslim communal ideology that accords the status of nationalism to the rule of Muslim Kings. There is a deliberate confusion between the concept of Kingdoms and Modern nation states in communal ideology. Communal ideologies imagine that all religious communities were homogenous and fighting against other religious communities. Hindu Kings were exploiting Hindu peasants and Muslim kings were not targeting Hindu peasants just because they were Hindus.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Barring few exceptions religion was not the goal of kings. Also it is interesting that except initial plundering by some Muslim Kings, once they settled here in collaboration and alliance with Hindu Kings, they did not take away the wealth of this land to other places. On contrary British rule was primarily for plunder of resources of the country. The RSS, communal ideologies’ ignoring the British exploitation and harping on Muslim Kings is due to their agenda of religious nationalism, which is away from the values of freedom movement; Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In modern nationalism, Indian nationalism, the past is not looked through religious angle and the main goal is to build the future on the principals enshrined in Indian Constitution. That’s how Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru emphasized on ‘new temple’ of Modern India; Educational institutes and industries. Contrary to this, for RSS the temples of past when Hindu Kings ruled and applied the laws of Manu, birth based hierarchy of caste and gender, is their political and social agenda. British deliberately gave a communal twist to the History by projecting Kings as Hindus or Muslims and sowed the seeds of division between the people. Muslim League on one side and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS on the other played a compliant role to British Policy, accepted their version of History, and spread hatred against the other community.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">This ‘Hate other’ laid the foundation of communal violence and Partition of India, which was the highest index of success of British policy of divide and rule, in which communalists came in handy to execute the British designs of splitting the communities along religious lines. Muslim League-RSS were ideal puppets in the hands of British. Today in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> the divisive politics is again being deliberately promoted to sidetrack the core issues related to bread, butter, employment and shelter, to undermine the concept of rights and dignity of average people. RSS Chief’s call to re-establish all such symbols is fraught with danger.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Where will one stop? With rule of Hindu Kings?; some may like to go further back to the demolition of Buddha Vihars by Hindu rulers? And then what will one do with the Aryans coming to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> and their dominating the native Adivasi and others? The whole country did accept 15th August as the starting point of our nation, and made it a point of departure from the past to initiate the future building of peace and progress. The ideologies and calls being given by RSS family are something alien to Indian nationalism and they need to be combated against to preserve and protect the very idea of <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> as it emerged during national movement and as it was nurtured by the founding fathers of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Ayodhya judgment also needs a relook from the same barometer of Indian legality and not RSS agenda of dividing people along religious lines. It is needed that all those committed to the values of amity of communities, and Indian Constitution, all those valuing the concept of Human rights come forward and spread the awareness about the Indian nationalism and build the bridges amongst religious communities to focus on progress of the nation in the field of education and industrialization on the basis of Human rights of all Indians, leaving the mosques and temples in peace, as they are; where they are.</p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-20632584027835111142010-11-25T21:19:00.000-08:002010-11-25T21:22:54.772-08:002 Jews > than 257-300 and 700 Indians dead and injured in 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitzAUF14LSbQPn2fNan_eLj7Rs0W_wrz-KEofHC0SaIWAqVQ-biQ41zQpNseqXAovpEklnRt9xoBkTAY85htytYTVlrw-NhICkk1SDHLs_gDQ5ry7V_q30HcYN_XL9PUpWbTES8SwbxMoA/s1600/B_Id_122697_Mumbai_attack.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 235px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitzAUF14LSbQPn2fNan_eLj7Rs0W_wrz-KEofHC0SaIWAqVQ-biQ41zQpNseqXAovpEklnRt9xoBkTAY85htytYTVlrw-NhICkk1SDHLs_gDQ5ry7V_q30HcYN_XL9PUpWbTES8SwbxMoA/s320/B_Id_122697_Mumbai_attack.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543724596788231026" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black">By G M Siddiqui, Mumbai <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">In the wake of the anniversary of 26/11, India’s English ‘paid media’ gives more front page and column space to the 2 Jews rather than to the 257-300<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>dead</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and 700 injured in 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, as if the Indian and other foreigner dead have not of equal status to the 2 Jewish dead, whose relations are now moving heaven and earth back in the Jewish city of New York and creating more international media drumbeats than Indian Government could, over the entire period the tragedy has been hanging on India’s security concerns. </span>While the grandfather of the saved child harangues from TV screens that we will fight the terror with goodness and peace, his clenched fist that attacks the air again and again gives lies to his any announced peace moves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The tradition of Jewish victim-hood to thrive on claimed reparations and compensation over tragedies visiting the community through ages, has come out in the open when even though the grandfather categorically states that he is not after the money, his moves are all paved with dreams of compensation and donation money that is to make mockery of the poor dead and injured Indians that have suffered the same or even worst fate as they are yet to be either compensated and/or rehabilitated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is a shame that media that is the pulse of the people in any nation, in India should be do sold out to Mammon, that it has completely lost touch with the feelings and sentiments of the fellow citizens and is more concerned with foreigners, whose presence on their sacred soil is still to be explained if it was not being used for improper information gathering and anti-Indian activities. Chabad House has yet to be cleared for its real antecedents. Let Indian authorities be aware of the consequences of any moves in haste to become unintended victims of international terrorism by joining the fight with those that have their own agenda, not necessarily in the best interest of the people of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-62342449218595526772010-11-25T21:15:00.000-08:002010-11-25T21:19:37.561-08:00Anguish of Kashmiri people<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90ZPVGfWQfG8HArELPioJQLVDn_lAqA1XOHD_bdJdhNAvNUmUsVOOTueqQcN6878UbuGrr8DuifDvGzuEZ_Idctu9kKSz8nmszqp4R7vTwGwLPuttGH2kxnvh6nEtUvgrz2XbZ8mvbitP/s1600/ar.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 224px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90ZPVGfWQfG8HArELPioJQLVDn_lAqA1XOHD_bdJdhNAvNUmUsVOOTueqQcN6878UbuGrr8DuifDvGzuEZ_Idctu9kKSz8nmszqp4R7vTwGwLPuttGH2kxnvh6nEtUvgrz2XbZ8mvbitP/s320/ar.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543723403252473794" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By Ram Puniyani</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Statement of Arundhati Roy (Nov 2010), that Kashmir is not a part of India, did raise more than storm in a tea cup. The BJP demanded that court case should be initiated against her, BJP affiliate Mahila Morcha vandalized her house in Delhi and BJP’s storm troopers, Bajarang Dal, threatened her in various ways. This statement came as a shock to many and talk of arresting her under the charge of sedition was in the air for some time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One knows that Kashmir has become a raw nerve in the emotional make up of a large section of people for various reasons. There may be lot of differences with Roy on the solution of Kashmir problem, but two points need to be noted and conceded. Number one, Kashmir never merged with India as it only ‘acceded’ with the proviso of total autonomy except in the matters of defense, communication, currency and external affairs. And two that the statement of Roy and her other writings and speeches on the issue of Kashmir show the pain and anguish of Kashmiri people as a whole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The attacks and criticism of Roy are based on the ignorance about the history of accession of Kashmir to India. The ultra nationalists groups, especially the ones who are followers of the ideology of Religion based nationalism, and a thinking of a section of people is guided by a sort of patriotism, blinded by emotion. This patriotism wants to put the problems of people under the carpet. How did Kashmir accede to India? One does remember that there were many princely states at the time of Independence. Most of these states were merged into India barring the ones of Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir. The mandate to princes was that they are free to merge with either India or Pakistan but while taking such a decision they should keep the feelings of there subjects and consider their geographical location. The princes of these three states had their own calculations in not merging in to India.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Junagadh Nawab wanted to merge with Pakistan. Nizam Hyderabad wanted to remain independent or at worse merge with Pakistan. Pakistan offered more powers to the princes. Geographically also merger of Junagadh and Hyderabad was a bit out of the place their borders were not contiguous with border of Pakistan, and the composition of population of the percentage of Hindu population in these states was overwhelming. India closed the chapter in these states by military means. Kashmir was uniquely located in an area which had proximity to Pakistan and India both, it had large communication with Pakistan and 80% of its population was Muslim, fitting well into the scheme of ‘Two nation theory’ of communalists. Maharaja Harisingh refused to merge with either country. Pakistani army disguised as tribal invaded Kashmir.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The difference in Kashmir was the presence of movement of National Conference which was very secular and its leader Sheikh Abdullah recognized the comparatively stronger presence of feudal sections in Pakistan ruling classes. Maharaja Harisingh when faced with the aggression left for Jammu for his safety and sent his emissary to Delhi to request India to send army to dispel the aggression from Pakistan soil. Indian Government wanted to have an agreement before sending the army.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s here that treaty of accession (not merger) was devised giving full autonomy to Kashmir except in the matters of defense, communication, currency and external affairs. By the time Indian army began its work, 1/3rd Kashmir was already occupied by the Pakistan army. Ceasefire followed and later Indian part of Kashmir went on to have elections, Sheikh Abdullah becoming its first Prime Minister (not Chief Minister). To understand the plight of Kashmiris, Pundits included, the issues one needs to focus are, as to how the US had designs to dominate this area through the proxy of Pakistan, were operating all through.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This was the major determining factor for things which happened in this region. Kashmir was Central to US anti Communist strategies- Russia on one side China on the other. US kept supporting Pakistan through and through to keep its presence in the area and to keep the issue on the boil. On this side of the border the communal elements were assertive and demanded for full merger of Kashmir into India. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Bhartiya Jansangh, the previous avatar of BJP was very vociferous in demanding this total merger. Shiekh Abdullah’s trust in Indian republic’s secular values was shaken with the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Sheikh had great faith in the secularism of India, in Gandhi and Nehru. After Gandhi murder and the pressure built by communalists to forcibly merge Kashmir into India further disturbed Sheikh Abdullah. He started introspecting whether it was a mistake to accede to India. Nehru at this point of time was saying that what is important is to win over the hearts of Kashmiris, while ultra nationalists, pseudo nationalists, wanted to forcible merge Kashmir into India.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sheikh Abdullah started talking to US ambassador and also with China on the other. Under pressure of Nehru got Sheikh Abdullah arrested and put him behind bars, starting the process of alienation of Kashmiri people at large. Later Pakistan backed by US played its own role in encouraging the dissident sections and by helping them in all the ways. The problem really got worse due to the entry of Al Qaeda in the decades of 1980s. With their warped training of distorted version of Jihad and Kafir, in the Madrassas set up by US, to train Al Qaeda, the situation got communalized. It worsened the situation by communalizing the issue and by playing politics in the name of Islam. Indian army did the rest. Starting from trying to curb militancy, it entrenched itself in to the civilian life of Kashmir. So many incidents of killings of innocents at the hands of army have taken place. Brutality of army is disguised as defense of Nation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Army lives with the dictum that power flows through the barrel of the gun. This dictum is glaringly obvious when army stays there for long enough time in a civilian area. This army occupation acts as a trigger to further alienate the people of the region. Victims of army’s highhandedness are the innocents of the region, women and children suffering the worst ignominies. The process of violation of civic norms and disruption of civic life has led to a situation where the average helpless person vents his anger by throwing the stones.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kashmir is a vexed issue defying easy solution due multiple interested parties. US backed Pakistan army, the intense pain and suffering of people of Kashmir at the hands of militants and army, both. There is a need to respect the expression of pain and anguish of Kashmiri people. Dialogue within and outside, reduction of army’s presence, deepening democracy and understanding the complex logic of the area is what could sooth the wounded psyche of Kashmir. The aggressive reaction of the type manifested by politics wearing the clothes of religion will add salt to the wounds and worsen the problem rather than contributing anything to its resolution. Layers of democracy, within the state need to be strived for and people’s voices of dissent need to be listened carefully rather than insulted and blindly opposed without understanding the logic of their statements and suffering of the people of Kashmir.</div>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-48615339745343961902010-10-03T22:28:00.000-07:002010-10-03T22:31:40.457-07:00Commit The Crime And Be Rewarded: Ayodhya Dispute Verdict<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1-r7fCWYOy4Zjqn5Df-kpxqBGrchLp7JrRfkGjpeuVMwRlBreWH4sycwTSnfqBVhTexE9htljCYdpytFBoBGR8vUfE5vASB7iiFLGe8Q_Sl1uSJCjCtqQTCxwZIFn4qncrkUoj-4pSKi/s1600/babrisaffron.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 209px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1-r7fCWYOy4Zjqn5Df-kpxqBGrchLp7JrRfkGjpeuVMwRlBreWH4sycwTSnfqBVhTexE9htljCYdpytFBoBGR8vUfE5vASB7iiFLGe8Q_Sl1uSJCjCtqQTCxwZIFn4qncrkUoj-4pSKi/s320/babrisaffron.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524058836627167698" /></a><br /><br />By Ram Puniyani<br /><br />Nation heaved a sigh of relief following the three judges delivering the verdict on Ayodhya case (30th Sptember 2010). There was no violence anywhere, something which was feared very much. The day passed off peacefully and the fear that violence will engulf parts of the country proved to be wrong, thanks to the maturity shown by large sections of population. As such the judgment was an exercise of sorts trying to do a balancing act, between all the parties involved, Ram Lalla Virajman, Nirmohi Akhada and Sunni wakf board. The title of the land has been divided into three each sharing one part. Also court has declared since Hindus believe the ‘birth place’ of Lord Ram to be below the place where the central dome of the mosque stood, that place should be allotted to Hindus. In response RSS chief in a jubilant mood proclaimed that now the path for a grand Ram temple has been opened at the site and all the parties should cooperate in this “national” work.<br /><br />As Mulayam Singh Yadav has correctly put it, the Muslim community is feeling betrayed. First their mosque is entered into by miscreants who install the Ram Lalla idols there. Then in a well orchestrated assault RSS combine demolishes the Mosque and now the court operates on the RSS theory that Lord Ram was born at that spot. It seems if matters go the way they are going there is no need for scientific disciplines of History, Archeology and others as a section of political force can gradually build up the faith, act upon that and then the court will legitimize the criminal acts in the name of faith of a section of society. The law of the land will come to such a pass is beyond the imagination of those who wish to adhere to the values of freedom movement and the Constitution of India.<br /><br />Just to recall RSS combine, more popularly known as Sangh Parivar, picked up the issue of Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the decade of 1980s and later orchestrated the faith of section of Hindus that Lord Ram was born precisely at the spot where the mosque is located. Interestingly the trend of Lord Ram being regarded as the core deity of Hindu religion came up in the medieval times, more particularly after Goswami Tulsi Das wrote the story of Lord Ram in the popular Awadhi language. Till that time Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana was the major one prevalent in the society and being the language of elite, worship of Lord Ram was restricted to a section of Hindus. Tulsidas was pulled up by the Brahmins for his writing the story of Ram in Lok Bhasha, Avadhi, as Brahmins were supposed to be using Dev Bhasha; Sanskrit only. Tulsi Das was around thirty years old when it is claimed that the Ram Temple was demolished. The demolition claim is unlikely to be true as had such a demolition taken place Tulsidas must have mentioned this in his writings. As such the later interpretations of Ram have been so different for different people.<br /><br />One understands that Kings had been ruling for the sake of power and wealth and victor kings many a times destroyed the defeated king’s holy place to humiliate the defeated king. The British introduced communal historiography aiming to pursue the policy of ‘divide and rule’ propagated that Muslim Kings destroyed Hindu temples to insult Hindu religion. This type of Historiography spread hatred amongst communities and became the foundation on which the communal violence started taking place in due course. As such Babri Mosque was a protected monument, under the custody of Government of India. Government failed to get the illegally installed Ram Lalla idols removed from the site and also failed to protect the mosque form the onslaught of RSS combines’ attack on the mosque in 1992. So de facto, with this judgment the RSS agenda of dividing the nation along communal lines is being legitimized by ignoring the fact of installation of idols and by turning a blind eye to the Babri demolition, coordinated by different wings of RSS combine. The crimes done by this stream have been richly rewarded by this verdict!<br /><br />Now RSS and its progeny is taking the line that Muslims should hand over the land of their share to RSS front, to see that the aspirations of ‘Nation’ are fulfilled and a grand Ram Temple is built there. It is not only Hindus who constitute the nation. All the Hindus of the nation do not hold any such belief about the birth place of Lord Ram. All the Hindus do not want a Ram Temple there. As such majority of Hindus have kept aloof from this issue, many of them have looked with horror and disbelief the way the faith of people has been manipulated to catapult BJP to the seat of political power. Since the issue was highlighted and brought to the electoral arena; Hindu majority have never voted for the agenda of Ram temple. No doubt a section of Hindus has been won over to the Ram temple agenda; the majority of Hindus have not approved it as the results of elections show. The latest surveys also confirm that it is not an issue for most of the Hindus, but is an issue only for a handful of Hindus. Moreover the younger generation does not have anything to do with these types of identity related issues and that too imposed upon the nation through criminal means, the crime of installing Ram Lalla idols and the crime of demolishing the Babri Mosque.<br /><br />Congress is calling for a negotiated settlement. What can be a negotiated settlement? One; it has to be based on justice, recognizing the due rights of each party involved and there has to a spirit of give and take. Do those calling for compromise will promise that the matters related to equity and security of Muslim community be granted? The Muslim community has been sliding down on the scales of social and economic indices. Will Sachar Committee- Rangnath Misra Committee reports be implemented in right earnest? Will RSS support such a ‘give’? Will Muslim community be able to live in security hereafter? India has 13.4% of Muslms in the population. In the communal violence, more than 80% of victims are Muslims! Will RSS withdraw the ‘Hate spreading books’ from its Shishu Mandirs? Will its Shakhas stop doing the ‘Hate Propaganda’ against the minorities?<br /><br />For a moment one feels like supporting a compromise formula. Sure and that’s a good thing. One may be willing to talk of give and take, negotiation if the battered Muslim minority and also Christians are promised equal status as citizens, the baseless propaganda against them is held back, and the Congress takes it upon itself to fulfill the promise of Manmohan Singh that Muslim minorities have the first right to development resources as they have been left behind due to the social-economic discrimination and due to the politically motivated violence against them. Will all the guilty of communal violence be punished? Those behind Delhi anti Sikh massacre, Mumbai violence and Gujarat violence are roaming with their bloated chests; can they be brought to book before a negotiated settlement is talked about? In a way can we trust the state for abiding by the rule of law to protect its citizens before demands of sacrifice from them are articulated?<br /><br />One can very well say that the very politics of Communalism is using Ram Temple issue to violate the Indian Constitution and the amity amongst the communities. One can appeal to the minority communities to make some sacrifices but one knows that they will get nothing in return. The way communalism has seeped into the very vitals of our society and polity it has created situations where minorities are being treated as ‘second class citizens’. The dominating ‘Religion based nationalism’, the politics of Hindutva with the agenda of Hindu Rashtra, will not let them live in peace and dignity. For RSS combine the matters of bread butter and shelter are secondary and imaginary constructs culled out from mythology form the base of their identity politics, the politics of Ram Temple, Ram Setu, Cow slaughter ban and what have you. We are in a catch 22 situation. The communalization of polity and society is so much that now faith, systematically constructed by a section of political stream is becoming the basis of law. As noted Film maker Anand Patwardhan pointed out on the day of Ayodhya verdict, it is ‘Victory of Hindu Sharia: A sad day for India’. One hopes the younger generation, and all those believing in the Indian constitution will try to move on from the identity politics, politics which abuses faith for short cuts to power and paves the way for a sane society concerned about the human justice, and affirmative action for weaker sections of society.Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-30090146427605161882010-09-30T23:23:00.000-07:002010-09-30T23:27:41.431-07:00Ayodhaya Verdict: Indian Voodoo Justice<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdpaW2A8cqsxd1a196R4SqGvT6VUdkIFMdgUrKGSMJLA-yoSZIq8QnZUcT12YhxUbvOsBU1U8ogbzMkRQcBCG-ePbGx0V0k5fi8r8pMVFCriMLTGw6yS-uBxWFmxm8V7Kb7yi4yDtNMyz8/s1600/bm.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdpaW2A8cqsxd1a196R4SqGvT6VUdkIFMdgUrKGSMJLA-yoSZIq8QnZUcT12YhxUbvOsBU1U8ogbzMkRQcBCG-ePbGx0V0k5fi8r8pMVFCriMLTGw6yS-uBxWFmxm8V7Kb7yi4yDtNMyz8/s320/bm.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522960472541255042" /></a>
<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 27px;">
<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">India has long been known in the West as home of the snake charmers and rope tricksters. Now it will be more famous for one of its most modern and much admired modern institutions turning out Voodoo justice – an amalgam of law and faith impacting the judgments given out by the 3 judge bench of a High Court, all with their version of how Indian law should be interpreted. The Ayodhaya Verdict will go down in history as one of the finest example of an old tradition-steeped country trying to wear the garb of a new nation without realizing its slip is showing. In fact, the Emperor wears no clothes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">For one of contestant of the title suit of the Babri Masjid property, the Muslims, it is a mockery of justice as per the long traditions of legal and judiciary system introduced by Colonial British in India two hundred years back and now very much entrenched in its polity. The Hindutva version of justice takes Indian justice to another two thousand back, even prior to any sharia laws of Muslim era, and the verdict seems to be forerunner of how ‘Vedic’ ( term used for lack of any other suitable Hindu term: with apologies), in contrast to Islamic Sharia, laws may be changing the entire ethos of Indian polity.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">While Pandit Nehru, a high-caste Kashmiri Brahmin, thanks to his exposure to Fabian culture that was in fashion when he studied in Great Britain, tried to position the newly independent India into a gradual slide into the modern world, by introducing ‘secularism’ as India’s constitutional creed, he was so overwhelmingly and suffocatingly surrounded by hard-line Brahmins, even in his own Congress Party, that it is a miracle that the façade of secularism is still in vogue in India and the Hindutva hardliners too have eventually found shelter in secularism’s benign shadows. <span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The shameless display of triumphalism shown by Saffron Brahmins, while spewing high moral slogans of unity and integrity in Indian society, is ample example of how the fascists have completely taken over the entire country, lock, stock and court hammer. The only alternative for the rest of the people, who are decidedly non-Brahmins, is to size up the danger of Brahmin conspiracies and boycott all Brahmin political groupings, including Congress and BJP. Muslims should vote even for a ‘<i>kala chor’</i> (black thief in local parlance) rather than vote for Congress. They can hardly ignore how the earliest comments by a Congress leader, Chaturvedi, (a Brahmin), on a TV channel, came out applauding the verdict as facilitating a new phase of unity and integration among communities; apparently on Brahmin terms.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">150 million Indian Muslims (15% of Indian population) should realize that India is as much their country, as it is of 30 million (3% Indian population) Brahmins and if they want to regain their stakes in their own country, they will have to reorganize and play the game by the rules of the game that is now being promulgated by the Brahmins, till the time the Brahmins are sidelined. And decidedly that is not a tall order, as far as US is posing as friend of India.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: Arial; "><a href="mailto:ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 84, 136); ">ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: Arial; "><<a href="http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 84, 136); ">http://www.ghulammuhammed.<wbr>blogspot.com</a>></span></p></span>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-65552265448587515882010-09-23T21:57:00.000-07:002010-09-23T21:59:47.166-07:00Ayodhya: Waiting for the Verdict<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjac07L-OWGClvZZv1AD3Ff0lOKyFzUEPF3C5I4wHy_jFo3zNX6J6YITXnritSg2j3uS0ot5UeP5EPVPOQ7FvpgG8c1XbJZy6CWHL5FVq5MwOAg387GZO1CMoVLa9qvJ8EGbWtdKSCo0px0/s1600/ac.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjac07L-OWGClvZZv1AD3Ff0lOKyFzUEPF3C5I4wHy_jFo3zNX6J6YITXnritSg2j3uS0ot5UeP5EPVPOQ7FvpgG8c1XbJZy6CWHL5FVq5MwOAg387GZO1CMoVLa9qvJ8EGbWtdKSCo0px0/s320/ac.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520340235282019266" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By Ram Puniyani</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Allahabad High Court is to give its verdict on the Ayodhya issue on 24th September 2010. The case has been in court for long years. The court is essentially going to touch upon three major issues. Whether there was a temple at the disputed site before 1538, whether the suit filed by the Babri Committee in 1961 is barred by limitation and whether Muslims perfected their title through adverse possession.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">While the judgment is awaited there is a lot of tension in the air about the same. The whole issue has been deeply linked to the faith and has been used to whip up communal hysteria. As such Muslim minority has been the major victim of the violence due to communal issue which has used the emotive appeal around Lord Ram. Just to recall, the matter came to surface when some Hindutva forces forcibly entered the Babri mosque on the night of 22 December 1949 and installed the Ram Lalla idols in the mosque. Despite the repeated messages of the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the local administration let the matter drag.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Incidentally, the local District Magistrate K.K. Nayyar who let the issue sow the seeds of discord in times to come joined Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the previous avatar of BJP, after his retirement. He became the Member of Parliament from the area. During the decade of 1980s, BJP took Babri issue as its main plank. The pressure of VHP and others on political scenario went up and the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in a thoughtless move got the locks of Masjid opened and Shilanyas for the temple was perfumed. Advani’s Rath Yatras stepped up the temperature; violence followed and prepared the ground for the final assault on the Mosque, the Kar Seva of 6th December 1992. This demolition was coordinated by BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal under the supervision of their father organization, RSS. The demolition of the mosque was followed by ghastly violence, in Mumbai, <st1:city st="on">Surat</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> in particular. This also led to the strengthening of BJP, whose number of MPs went on increasing and it could come to power at the center.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Despite its communal rhetoric BJP had to bite the dust during last two general elections, 2004 and 2009. BJP has been trying to experiment with different emotive issues through its sister organizations but no other issue has been as powerful as to bring it to center of political power again. And now with this forthcoming verdict in offing its sister organizations have stepped up the campaign to demand the building of Ram temple irrespective of the judgment. In anticipation of the judgment, there are various types of efforts which are on in the society. The local peace groups in Ayodhya, which have played a significant part in maintaining peace in the aftermath of the demolition, are trying to appeal that whatever be the court verdict it should be accepted by both the parties, and that will be a fair way for the social harmony.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Government is trying to put forward a legalistic view and is appealing for calm in the society. Most of the Muslim groups have requested for maintaining law and order. They are also committing to accept the court verdict. The RSS affiliates on the other hand, claiming to represent ‘all’ the Hindus, are on a different trip. For them the court verdict is immaterial and irrespective of the court verdict they are asserting that Ram temple has to be built at the site as that is the ‘wish ‘ of Hindus. The RSS chief has repeatedly said that Ram Temple has not only to be built but also that Muslims themselves should accept the Ram Temple coming up there to prove that they are’ patriots!<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In RSS camp, BJP at the moment seems to have taken a back seat as it feels that the verdict of last two elections has amply proved that people of India are not in favor such issues coming to political arena. But even if BJP is on the back foot, RSS has no problems as it has its other wings which are doing that job. VHP has launched a multi-pronged effort through meetings, leaflets, booklets and SMS campaigns, exhorting Hindus to call for <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ram</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Temple</st1:placetype></st1:place> at the site. Its message is laced in the emotive language aimed to rouse passions. It is also planning to bring in the ‘sadhus’ to restart the campaign and has called a ‘Dharam Sansad’ (Religious Parliament) to react to the court verdict, i.e. to ask for temple irrespective of the judgment.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In this context there is a section amongst thinkers who are calling for establishment of permanent ‘History and Truth Commission’ to investigate and authenticate historical claims of ‘rights and wrongs’. It just shows how much history has been ‘used’ for current political goals. It was British who had introduced ‘communal historiography’ to pursue the policy of ‘divide and rule’. While Muslim League and Hindu Mahsabha-RSS picked up the communal view of History, the National movement led by Gandhi took a different view, which was more in tune with uniting all the people. The likes of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar saw the history as the history of either class or caste oppression irrespective of the rule of the Kings of one or the other religion. At one level the formation of such a commission is welcome since so much muck has been left behind by the British policy, which continues to shape the ‘social common sense’ even today.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">History cannot be looked at as just the history of rulers and that too seen through the prism of religion. Other components of society, workers, women, dalits and adivasis also must be given the Historical space, which is due to them. Today we are at a crucial juncture. The core issues of society, bread, shelter, employment and Human Rights need to be brought to the front stage and the Temple-Masque disputes can be left to the rational historians and the law of the land. All of us need to adopt this attitude and accept the process of law and the values of Indian Constitution.</p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-27395858293577629082010-09-20T22:21:00.000-07:002010-09-20T22:25:37.329-07:00Hunger Proliferates In A Democracy; India Tops The Chart<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoWhnRfIYr487DNE3AC8fKpw6tgf5v3HvirLq9BqCTB69ND2FiyisPAZ-psm83DYUJCrSjX19Vtq45eLkpA76mK_oTXGzVmJFbPQzEGnCSCSZEvxobpMe9P4r8yH1LV6KSXkIZKxSs9rwy/s1600/hunger.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoWhnRfIYr487DNE3AC8fKpw6tgf5v3HvirLq9BqCTB69ND2FiyisPAZ-psm83DYUJCrSjX19Vtq45eLkpA76mK_oTXGzVmJFbPQzEGnCSCSZEvxobpMe9P4r8yH1LV6KSXkIZKxSs9rwy/s320/hunger.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519232984069807314" /></a><br /><div>By</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 28px; "><strong>By Devinder Sharma</strong></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 28px; "><strong><br /></strong></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 28px; "><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">This is a chart that should put every Indian into shame. Not only an Indian, but also those who swear in the name of democracy. How can people's representatives remain immune to the growing scourge of hunger? Shouldn't this provoke you to ask the basic: why should hunger exist in a democracy?</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The illustration above [released ahead of the Sept 20-22 </span><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Summit</span></st1:place></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)] reflects the monumental failure of the global leadership to address the worst tragedy that a democracy can inflict. Amartya Sen had said that famine does not happen in a democracy, but let me add: hunger perpetuates in a democracy.</span></p></strong></strong></span><strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The hunger map above is also a reflection of the dishonesty shown by the international leadership to fight hunger. Hunger is the biggest scandal, a crime against humanity that goes unpunished. At the 1996 World Food Summit, political leaders had pledged to pull out half the world's hungry (at that time the figure was somewhere around 840 million) by the years 2015. This commitment was applauded by one and all, including the academicians, policy makers, development agencies and charities, and you name it.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">This commitment alone demonstrated the political indifference to mankind's worst crime. Considering FAO's own projections of the number of people succumbing to hunger and malnutrition at around 24,000 a day, I had then said that by the year 2015, the 20 years time limit they had decided to work on, 172 million people would die of hunger. And when the world meets for the MDG Summit in a few days from now, almost 15 years since the WFS 1996, close to 128 million people have already died from hunger.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And you call this an urgency?</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">No one across the world stood up to call the bluff.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Hunger has instead grown. By 2010, the world should have removed at least 300 million people from the hunger list. It has however added another 85 million to raise the tally to 925 million. In my understanding, this too is a gross understatement. The horrendous face of hunger is being kept deliberately hidden by lowering the figures. In </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, for instance, the map shows 238 million people living in hunger. This is certainly incorrect. A new government estimate points to 37.2 per cent of the population living in poverty, which means the hunger tally in </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> is officially at 450 million. Even this is an understatement. The poverty line is kept so stringent in </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> (at Rs 17 per person per day) that in the same amount you cannot even think of feeding a pet dog. I wonder how can the poor manage two-square meals a day under this classification.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Hunger is also growing in major democracies. In the </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, it has broken a 14-year record, and one in every ten Americans lives in hunger. In Europe, 40 million people are hungry, almost equivalent to the population of </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Spain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. Interestingly, most of the countries in the hunger chart are following democratic forms of governance. And yet, the only country which has made a sizable difference to global hunger is </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">China</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, which as we all know is not a democracy.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Is it so difficult to remove hunger? The answer is No.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">While there is no political will to fight hunger, the business of hunger is growing at a phenomenal rate. The economic growth paradigm that the world is increasingly following in principle aims at minimising hunger, poverty and inequality. But in reality acerbates hunger and inequality. Economists have programmed the mindset of generations in such a manner that everyone genuinely believes that the roadmap to remove hunger passes through GDP. The more the GDP the more will be the opportunities for the poor to move out of the poverty trap. Nothing could be further away from this faulty economic thinking. This is the biggest economic folly that a flawed education system has inflicted.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And it is primarily for this reason that after the 2008 economic meltdown, the international leadership pumped in more than $ 20 trillion to bail out the rich and crooked. On the other hand, removing hunger and poverty from the face of the Earth would cost the world only $ 1 trillion at the most, for which the resources are unavailable. But there is all the money in the world to fill the pockets of the rich, hoping that it would one day trickle down to the poor. Privatising the profits, and socialising the costs. Isn't this political and economic dishonesty?</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Hungry stomach offers tremendous business opportunities. Rich economies are buttressed by speculation and free trade in food and agriculture. Opening up of the developing economies provides them opportunities to sell unwanted technologies/goods in the name of development. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector sees the poor as a business opportunity to bail out the companies from sluggish growth. Micro-finance steps in to empty the pockets of the poor, again in the name of development. So much so that even Climate Change provides tremendous scope to milk the poor.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong></strong></span></p><strong><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">All this is happening in a democratic world.</span></p></strong><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> Courtesy: </span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; "><a href="http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/">http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com</a></span></p></strong></div>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-45040531762456808212010-09-01T04:00:00.000-07:002010-09-01T04:03:47.137-07:00Colors of terror: Saffron, green or Black?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICnm0KItQR1CZOhhdxnuIIbOIpe9-AWeGFajVSSJILqiby51VUumPbDYxRnoZtIAJoXCVOzhL4s-VDUnjcTchkK6nXMhjbx4FhmxFqN3eui0mKpGEKwqQfKGd6iQU2YI0EDg2nvXMUlOP/s1600/st.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 277px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICnm0KItQR1CZOhhdxnuIIbOIpe9-AWeGFajVSSJILqiby51VUumPbDYxRnoZtIAJoXCVOzhL4s-VDUnjcTchkK6nXMhjbx4FhmxFqN3eui0mKpGEKwqQfKGd6iQU2YI0EDg2nvXMUlOP/s320/st.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511899100291990050" /></a><br />By Ram Puniyani <div><br /></div><div>Can terrorism be labelled or given the prefix of a holy color associated with religious sentiments? This debate came to the surface with P. Chidmbaram stating, "There has been a recent uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts in the past. My advice to you is that we must remain ever vigilant and continue to build, at both Central and state level, our capacities in counter-terrorism," to the top policemen (August 25, 2010).</div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">There was a strong reaction to this from the Hindutva parties, parties working for the goal of Hindu Nation, BJP and Shiv Sena. The Congress spokespersons were also in a quandary, one of them supported the statement and the other one disowned it, saying that terrorism has just one color- black. BJP spokesperson demanded apology. Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray demanded resignation of Mr. Chidambaram, while his father, the supreme dictator of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, demanded to know the color of bloodshed in Kashmir and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> anti Sikh violence.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Chidambaram’s statement has a background of multiple acts of terror coming to light since the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast of Sept 2008, when role of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pandey, and Swami Aseemanand came to surface. It was Hemant Karkare, Chief of Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad, who successfully unearthed the whole conspiracy by these saffron clad people. They had other associates in Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, retired Major Upadhayay and many others, who are working for the goal of Hindu Rashtra. This blast was preceded by many similar one’s in which associates of Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Prabhat and Bajrang Dal were suspected.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Just to recall, when this conspiracy by all those inspired by the ideology of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ came to surface, there was a great discomfort in BJP-Shiv Sena RSS quarters. Shiv Sena mouth piece Samana stated ‘we spit on Karkare who is investigating this case’. On the other hand a major BJP leader stated that Karkare is anti national (Deshdrohi). Same Karkare was killed when the terror attack took place in Mumbai on 26/11, 2008. The real undercurrent of this complex story is yet to be unravelled and recognized fully, still the situation leading to the death of Karkare led the then minority affairs Minister A R Antulay to say that there might have been terrorism plus something, which led to the killing of Karkare, the man investigating these terror blasts.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is after this event that the word Saffron Terror, Hindu terror came into being and got wide currency. This prefixing of religion and a holy color of a religion came in the backdrop of wide usage of another word Islamic terrorism, Jihadi terrorism, the words coined by American media and picked up world over. Surely these terminologies, Islamic terrorism and Hindu terrorism are misnomers. The word Jihadi Terrorism and Saffron terrorism have been used to describe a pattern in these acts of terror. Jihadi word was a deliberate concoction as Jihad does not mean killing, it stands for striving for betterment etc.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">What about Saffron Terrorism, the term used by Chidambaram and many other scholars-activists-journalists? It can be explained in the context of this word, saffron, being high jacked by the believers of ‘Hindu Nation’, the believers of Hindutva, a political ideology using the identity of Hindu religion. One knows that to use the word Hindutva is fraught with dangers. It is a politics but gives the impression of being a religion. This word was coined by Savarkar, the ideologue of Hindu Mahasabha. As per him, it means whole of Hinduness, race (Aryan) geographical area between Sindhu to Seas and Culture (Vedic). This was a word parallel to political Islam, which was made the base of politics of Muslim League. Muslim League used a green flag, Hindu Mahsabha used saffron flag.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Later RSS from 1925 picked up the ideology of Hindutva to attain Hindu Rashtra. In contrast to Indian tricolor, RSS insisted on using saffron flag. Saffron color which stands for renunciation and devotion in Hindu tradition was usurped for political goals, the goals which were opposed to the goals of Indian National Movement. Indian National Movement was struggling for plural, secular democratic India, while the bearers of green flag, Muslim league wanted and Islamic Nation and those waving saffron flag wanted Hindu Nation, both these political currents were a throw back to times when the concept of democracy, human rights was absent and the status of dalits and women was subordinate to men of high social status.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">During the decade of 1980, RSS, VHP and associates launched their campaign for <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ram</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Temple</st1:placetype></st1:place> and there was a blatant use of religious imagery and symbols for political goals. As such the political goals of RSS progeny, the agenda of Hindu nation harps to the values of Manu Smiriti in modern form. Surely this politics asserts the supremacy of social system prevalent in ancient times. No wonder, Ambedkar burnt the Manusmirti and later drafted the Indian Constitution to project the values of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Liberty</st1:place></st1:city>, Equality and Fraternity.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">RSS and company used the symbols of saffron flag in its mobilization campaigns all through 1980s and 1990s. There was extensive use of saffron stickers for political propaganda for <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ram</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Temple</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Hindu Rashtra. RSS has a whole wing of assorted saffron clad sadhus, asserting that Hindu holy books have a primacy over Indian legal system; Indian Constitution. VHP, to which these sadhus belong is the other major RSS associate. VHP stated that decision of the holy, saffron clad sadhus is more important than that of Indian courts. In a nutshell, saffron color, the color associated with religious sentiments came to be abused by this political outfit for its political goals. No wonder its politics came to be associated with saffron color.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">During NDA regime when BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi was communalizing the school text books and education system, it came to be labelled as saffronization of education. It is pity that a holy color of renunciation has been associated with a political ideology. The present statement by Chidambaram is just a continuation of the popular association of the word saffron with Hindutva-RSS politics in the political arena. In the present era of monopolar World, dictated by the ambitions of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> greed for oil and plunder of the global resources, politics has been given the veneer of religion. That’s why they use the word ‘Clash of Civilizations’ for their political goals.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">That’s why so far Islam and Muslims have been demonized. US and large section of globe, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> in particular, are in the grip of Islamophobia. It is time we see the sanctity of religions and oppose the use of religious symbols, colors and terminologies for political goals.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-4061697456546405372010-08-01T21:56:00.000-07:002010-08-01T21:58:31.649-07:00Who pulled the trigger on Hemant Karkare?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBISvrq0MHDxP3VrGi-DnaSf4r1b9k97HiiZTJnjQ7_9ueLOLj7XMZg8dXZShCE5TZ7oM69XHnBN-qlKVZCPST32Pc2E5Rz1ghe2BnbdRtVaHrwLbOoSzduFUjfQro2RiAALI-L7QSAB4m/s1600/hk.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBISvrq0MHDxP3VrGi-DnaSf4r1b9k97HiiZTJnjQ7_9ueLOLj7XMZg8dXZShCE5TZ7oM69XHnBN-qlKVZCPST32Pc2E5Rz1ghe2BnbdRtVaHrwLbOoSzduFUjfQro2RiAALI-L7QSAB4m/s320/hk.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500672347785774674" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Whose bullets killed the Maharashtra ATS chief and Inspector Vijay Salaskar, if they were not that of Kasab and Ismail? Was there some other sinister force out to eliminate Karkare and stop him at all costs? And how come Karkare's line of investigations has finally opened up the terrorist can of Hindutva outfits that triggered bomb blasts across the country? <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Hardnews Bureau <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">ML Tahaliyani is one old-fashioned judge. Refusing to get swayed by endless rants on hysterical news channels to hang all the accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror atrocities, Tahaliyani not only confined himself to the evidence presented by the Mumbai Police during the trial of Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor of the attack, but also revived the unsolved mystery of the killings of Hemant Karkare - and, also, ACP Ashok Kamte.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">So who killed the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) chief of <st1:place st="on">Maharashtra</st1:place>, Hemant Karkare, on that bloody night of carnage unleashed by Pakistani terrorists in Mumbai, November26, 2008?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Indeed, two others accused of complicity and for being local handlers behind the Mumbai attacks were acquitted by the judge for lack of evidence against them. The evidence against Faheem Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed seemed planted - especially the maps found on them did not look 'soiled' despite their alleged overuse. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The judge's queries and certain incomplete answers lead to a complex and uncanny zone of mysteries: Ballistic experts could not clarify the most crucial dimension of these killings: whose bullets killed Karkare and others? <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">There is absence of authentic information. Why could no reliable police explanation be provided on whether Ansari handed over a map to Sabahuddin in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region>?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Why was the police unable to produce even one of their witnesses to depose against Faheem and Sabahuddin? <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">How did a hand-drawn map on a paper remain unsoiled and unstained even though it was recovered from the bloodstained pocket of dead terrorist Abu Ismail, where it was supposed to have been for four days?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The outcome of Tahaliyani's informed scepticism has revived all the conspiracy theories about the motive behind the ATS chief's killing. Karkare, who exposed the involvement of Hindu terror organisations in the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blasts in 2008, was threatened with death via anonymous phone calls if he did not relent in his tireless efforts to unearth the vast network of Hindu terror cells that were involved in similar incidents of blasts and killings all over the country. Intriguingly, he had got a call two days before he was killed. Karkare had to be stopped - at all costs.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Many of Karkare's leads have now been decisively corroborated from investigations undertaken by police in different states. So if there is merit in what Karkare and his team ferreted out during the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast probe and if he was not killed by the terrorist's bullet - then it is possible to surmise (or speculate) that there were others who took advantage of the chaos of that neurotic terror-filled night to stalk him and stop him in his heels.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Hardnews understands that these are extremely serious allegations that could give a different spin to 26/11, but there have been a series of unfortunate events like the disappearance of his bullet-proof jacket and the initial reluctance of the police to give his autopsy report that further deepens this mystery. The autopsy report suggests that Karkare was shot from shoulder down by someone who was inside the vehicle.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If it had not been for the perseverance of Karkare's wife, Kavita, and Kamte's wife, Vinita, who doggedly used every possible means to get to the bottom of the happenings on that night, far less would have been known. (Kamte was killed along with Karkare and Inspector Vijay Salaskar).<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Home Minister P Chidambaram's detailed reply in Parliament in response to the doubts raised by the former minority affairs minister, AR Antulay, would need more investigations now. Antulay had raised a storm by asking for an inquiry into the killings of the ATS chief and other officers. He had said, "There must have been some reason why Karkare went to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Cama</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place> instead of Taj and Oberoi hotels." Also, he had raised doubts over why three officers were travelling in the same car, which is against the norms. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Antulay was reported to have said that "someone" could have told Karkare and other officers with him to go to <st1:placename st="on">Cama</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype>, suggesting that the ATS chief fell victim to a 'set-up' as he was probing cases which involved fanatic Hindu terrorists in the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> bomb blast case, with strong and powerful linkages. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The comments were showcased on television. It created an uproar in the Lok Sabha where BJP and Shiv Sena MPs were up in arms, castigating Antulay, who insisted that directions issued to the officer must be probed. BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> could now quote Antulay to contest the account of the lone surviving Mumbai terrorist, Ajmal Kasab. "Having made such a preposterous statement, Antulay cannot be allowed to remain in government even for a day," he had said.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">But the uncanny questions remained, even while there have been efforts to connect the dots between the various bomb blasts and Hindutva terror links. Indeed, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was recently on record alleging that the previous BJP-led state government in Jaipur had tried to go slow and fudge the investigations linking the Hindutva terror outfits. That some of those involved had old fraternal links with RSS has also been established. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">There have been nagging questions in the public domain as to why Hemant Karkare chose to go to this particular spot. In which security force does the chief of the force rush to the spot of violence, along with other top cops, and that too in one vehicle, wearing an outdated helmet and bullet-proof jacket? And then gets shot, as if almost in close range.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">As per the PIL filed in the case, according to specifications laid down for bullet-proof vests, the body should be covered from the neck till the waist. But the jacket worn by Karkare had only his chest covered while the neck portion was open. The post-mortem report stated that Karkare received a "total of five wounds on the shoulder blade, top region between neck and right shoulder, four entry wounds in one line." The post-mortem report further revealed that he received one bullet in the neck and the other four were in a line entering the shoulder and exiting from the armpit.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Curiously, there were reports about two bullets being found in his body during autopsy. What happened to those two bullets? Whatever happened to the bullets that passed through his body? Were they found in the vehicle, in his bullet-proof jacket, around his body, or somewhere else? Has the gun been identified, the gun(s) which killed Karkare and others? If not, why? If he was shot at close range, was the shot fired from inside the vehicle, and if so, who fired it and why?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">While the entire media attention was directed at Judge Tahaliyani's judgement that declared Kasab guilty of the killings at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal (CST - old name Victoria Terminus, VT), it made light of the revelation made by the judge when he questioned the Mumbai Police about the ballistics experts having failed to prove whose bullets killed Hemant Karkare and Salaskar on that fateful night. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The implications of his questions are very serious. For reasons of reiteration, it can also be implied that the two police officers did not die from the bullets of either of the Pakistani terrorists, Kasab or Ismail, but from someone else's gun. Whose gun? Whose guns? <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The reason why the media and the police has been reluctant to dwell on this aspect is because truth, unfortunately, has acquired a nationality, and any departure from the officially accepted narrative, it is asserted, would be anti-national and thereby dilute the gravitas of the government of India's chargesheet against Pakistan's involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Although there is little disagreement among sceptics about the quality of evidence against Kasab, the terrorists' journey from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Karachi</st1:place></st1:city> and the involvement of their handlers in unleashing such an organised and planned carnage in Mumbai, what is disputed are the circumstances in which Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar were killed. The allegation that they were driven to their death by an invisible hand that brought all of them together to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Cama</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place> from different parts of Mumbai has not been adequately refuted.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Tahaliyani's monumental question further befuddles when it gets known that there was no one inside the police Qualis except the driver and Constable Jadhav. Perhaps there were some unknown people outside - who are not accounted for. Ashok Kamte's autopsy shows that he was killed by Ismail, the terrorist accompanying Kasab. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"As the bullets had passed through the bodies of both Karkare and Salaskar, the court cannot come to a conclusion on who shot them. However, it is proven that Ismail shot Kamte," the court was reported to have said. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Tahaliyani also criticised Constable Jadhav, the sole eyewitness and survivor of the killings of Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar, for changing his statement a few times. Although the testimony of the accused, in this case Ajmal Kasab, can never be taken seriously, but he called Jadhav a "liar" and claimed that his version of what happened at <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Cama</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place>, where all the three Mumbai Police officers were killed, was wrong. Interestingly, Kasab's cross-examination on the happenings around <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Cama</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place> and its periphery was conducted in camera. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Jadhav had also expressed outrage when defence lawyer Abbas Kazmi had asked him why he didn't use his carbine at the Pakistani terrorists when they were driving around in the Qualis. He had claimed that he was shot on his hands and could not lift his carbine. It was clear that Kazmi was making a loaded suggestion, but he did not follow up on his query. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The scepticism displayed by Tahaliyani towards Jadhav's version of events as well as the fact that the Pakistani terrorists did not shoot Karkare - if ballistics experts are to be believed - once again resurrects a question that has never been settled: Was Karkare's death an accident or was it an outcome of a conspiracy as many have been hinting, including the former minority affairs minister, AR Antulay. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">This question gets revived, ironically, at a time when police in different states are giving credence to the path-breaking findings by Hemant Karkare where he was able to establish the presence of a radical Hindu outfit, Abhinav Bharat, as responsible for the blasts in Malegaon, and later on stitching it with a larger conspiracy of these extremists to use elements in the Indian army to organise a coup. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Karkare had then said in an interview to a weekly: "We are not looking at seers or saints in relation to the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blasts. We are not looking at people from a particular community when we question them. We are just detaining people on the basis of evidence... There are a lot of people going around claiming to be saints."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">He had also said: "There are agencies that have been looking at the various links, namely the CBI, which has been looking at the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blasts of 2006. The link we found is that of Rakesh Dhawre. He is a Pune-based counterfeit arms dealer who was involved in the training that took place for the blasts of 2006. He is the common link between the 2006 blasts including the ones in Purna and Parbhani, and the 2008 <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blasts. Investigating agencies are working on it... We look at individuals and not organisations when we carry out our investigations. We are not looking at Abhinav Bharat, we are looking at the individuals involved..."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">On being asked if the army was cooperating on the involvement of ex-army officer Shrikant Purohit and his leave records, Karkare had clearly stated: "I would like to clear this. The army has given cooperation to the ATS right from day one on every aspect of the interrogation. There have been reports that the army has not been cooperating with the ATS and that's absolutely untrue. The army gave us his leave records and other documents, which we needed."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The ATS probe had revealed a vast network that seamlessly linked Hindu extremists with some indoctrinated members of the Indian army and some shady Jewish organisations abroad. All of them seemed to have been consumed by their hatred for Islam and their desire to coalesce a muscular Hindu Rashtra to take on Wahabi radicalism. Abhinav Bharat had also displayed impatience with some elements of the RSS and their status quoist minimalism. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In many ways, what Karkare and his team scooped out from the interrogation of extremists like Pragya Thakur, Dayanand Pande, Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, and others, make for serious allegations that give a different spin to the bomb blasts that had been taking place in the country over the last few years. In fact, just a day before Karkare was killed, there were media reports whereby he sought permission from the defence ministry to follow up on some of the leads that he had collected during his investigations. He was apparently keen to check the extent of infiltration of this subversive ideology in the defence forces, but his efforts proved stillborn. These leads went cold after his death.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">His successor, KP Raghuvanshi, who had reportedly intersected with Lt Col Purohit on some occasion, did not show similar enthusiasm in taking the case to its logical conclusion. In fact, during his tenure, the courts had worryingly refused to book the culprits under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Karkare's investigation began after the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast in September 2008, but they took the lid off what had been happening in the country since 2002 when the BJP-led NDA government was in power. Under his leadership, the Maharashtra ATS managed to establish links between elements within Hindutva terrorists, Sangh Parivar and the BJP governments that were in power in states like Rajasthan, <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> and Madhya Pradesh. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Initial investigations had quickly linked these incidents to Muslim terror organisations like SIMI and Hizbul. Even some Congress-ruled states like Andhra Pradesh were not immune to this prejudiced mindset to blame innocent Muslims who were arrested, tortured and hounded in places like <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hyderabad</st1:place></st1:city>. After the harrowing process of torture and jail, and public condemnation as terrorists, scores were released for lack of evidence. The tragedy and the scars have still not healed, and there has been no justice; even as the Batla House encounter in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> is widely perceived to be fake and the subsequent arrests unfair, the government's refusal to order a judicial enquiry only strengthens this public perception.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Significantly, some of these blasts took place in BJP-controlled states like Rajasthan, where the police ignored the leads, like what happened after the blast in Modasa in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>. (In the 'Hindtuva republic of Gujarat', meanwhile, a fake encounter regime was being widely legitimised - witness the encounter killings of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausar Bi, eyewitness Tushar Prajapati, and even the dubious murders of Ishrat Jahan and others, apparently by top cops of Narendra Modi).<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In the Ajmer Dargah, where the blast triggered by a cell phone took place in October 2007, the arrests were mostly of some Muslims. Two years later in 2009, Rajasthan ATS has arrested one Devendra Gupta from Bihariganj in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ajmer</st1:place></st1:city>. These arrests became possible due to the change in regime in Jaipur and de-legitimisation of the line of investigation pursued by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the state intelligence that mindlessly arrested Muslims without bothering about evidence. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The ATS of Rajasthan, which was working in consonance with the IB, found that the SIM cards used for the blasts in <st1:city st="on">Hyderabad</st1:city>, <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> were procured from the same source. The links are becoming irrefutable.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">What is worrisome about the vast extent of this Hindu network is its agenda: to demonise and push for ethnic cleansing of the minorities (as in the Gujarat genocide of 2002), sow greater divide between the two communities, and provoke a war between <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. This nefarious game was being played out before the 2004 elections and subsequently in 2008 - a year before the 2009 general elections. There is a body of circumstantial evidence to show that the activities and networks of these fanatics would have tangentially helped in building a climate of opinion in favour of Hindutva forces, which would help bring the BJP back to power. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The chargesheet put together by the Maharashtra ATS had also shown Abhinav Bharat's links with Jewish chauvinistic elements in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and how it was seeking endorsement for its actions from them. Unrelated to Abhinav Bharat's activities, Israeli covert outfits have been accused even by Americans for triggering off blasts in <st1:country-region st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. These allegations found expression even in one of the big Israeli newspapers, Ha'aretz.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The purpose and intent of these blasts, as perfected by agent provocateurs in different theatres of violence, is to deepen the divide between communities, create a sense of anarchy and revenge, and provoke retaliation. Hindu terror groups since 2002 have also followed the same model. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The first attempt was made in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> where an improvised explosive device was found that seemed to have been placed to target Muslims who were coming to attend a Tablighi Jamaat meeting. In 2003, there was a blast in the Mohammadiya Mosque in Parbhani in <st1:place st="on">Maharashtra</st1:place>. Jalna and Purna, again in <st1:place st="on">Maharashtra</st1:place>, were targeted in 2004 and, later, Nanded in 2006. Police found that Bajrang Dal activists were involved in that incident. In 2006, the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> mosque was devastated by a blast that killed 38 people. The police quickly arrested many Muslims. However, the worst was yet to come. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">On February 18, 68 people were killed and scores injured when two suitcase bombs exploded in the Indo-Pakistan Samjhauta Express. Among the dead were 42 Pakistani nationals. Expectedly, Indian investigators blamed Paksitani jehadi elements for trying to disrupt ties between the two countries. If it hadn't been for Karkare, this line of enquiry would have prevailed, even while one community in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> would have suffered terrible injustices. Now, the Samjhauta Express blasts are also under the scanner, with Hindutva links being exposed. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Again, in May 2007, the bomb blast in the historic Mecca Masjid in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hyderabad</st1:place></st1:city> killed nine and injured more than 50 people. More than 200 Muslim youths were arrested and many of them tortured. Several of them, after torture and condemnation, had to be released later due to lack of evidence.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The all-India network of these Hindutva subversives can be gauged by the fact that in August 2007, two Bajrang Dal activists were killed in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kanpur</st1:place></st1:city> while assembling bombs. There were more incidents in <st1:city st="on">Hyderabad</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ajmer</st1:place></st1:city>. Needless to say, Bajrang Dal-VHP-BJP-RSS are integral to one joint family - the Sangh Parivar - often operating in tandem, their jarring notes in symphony.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">However, the blasts in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> on September 29, 2008, changed the blinkered view of the investigative agencies and the police. After the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> violence came a phase of increasing corroboration and endorsement of the presence of the Hindutva hand in these terror happenings. The <st1:place st="on">Goa</st1:place> blasts in 2009 were again another manifestation of how different Hindu organisations were intrinsically linked with the same agenda, using almost the same methodology. They are like the hundred heads of Ravana that have a common heart and mind - and goal. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">After Karkare's investigations, subsequently followed up by other state police, there has been a fall in the number of such incidents. During the last general elections, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar made an interesting observation: there has been no bomb blast after the hand of Hindu terror outfits has been exposed.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">More recently, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh and the Left parties asked the Union home ministry to bring in more energy into this concerted fight against Hindutva terrorism and its sinister and entrenched front organisations' networks. Singh wants a special cell to be created in the home ministry to monitor these cases.However, the truth is, all the pieces will fall in place once there is a sharp clarity about the killing of Karkare on that night of the dead when the terrorists went berserk. And that is the question Hardnews is asking: Who pulled the trigger on Hemant Karkare?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: Hardnews: <a href="http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2010/06/3562">http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2010/06/3562</a></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-3414216026264537462010-07-31T01:21:00.001-07:002010-07-31T01:24:08.229-07:00Together, they ran the Home Ministry. If Amit Shah is in the dock, Modi cannot remain unscathed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFPPrZKqfw3w2OubzhJCXAO9hUQ_9W4TdME9-A_4nL4nsJe6PujqrW9TCVJYZB9WfQcSU0mLckAIx-yF6PQUgx1xWUsN-WDpoWJWjBMjnEALKfRA2S6B_vGyDAwmlaJ-H2Di0B5pSlR4T/s1600/1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 316px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFPPrZKqfw3w2OubzhJCXAO9hUQ_9W4TdME9-A_4nL4nsJe6PujqrW9TCVJYZB9WfQcSU0mLckAIx-yF6PQUgx1xWUsN-WDpoWJWjBMjnEALKfRA2S6B_vGyDAwmlaJ-H2Di0B5pSlR4T/s320/1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499983064658999618" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By Rana Ayyub- Tehelka.com </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">SINCE THE sensational arrest of <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> junior Home Minister Amit Shah last week, the BJP has been crying hoarse about a Congress conspiracy; about the CBI being a “Congress bureau of investigation”; and of how the case against Shah is built on legally flimsy grounds. There are grains of truth in all of this. Shah’s arrest measures very high on <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s political Richter scale. It is not just that he is the first serving minister in the history of independent <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> to be arrested on charges as serious as murder, extortion, suppression of evidence and conspiracy, among other things. What makes his arrest even more explosive is the fact that a political hyphen joins him to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Not only did Shah hold an astonishing 10 ministries in the Modi dispensation, he was the Minister of State for Home, which was helmed by Modi himself. There is very little Shah could have been doing without Modi’s knowledge: there is very little mud one can throw on Shah which would not stick to his mentor.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">So, yes, it would be difficult to deny the ambiguous roles the CBI has played recently in cases involving Quattrocchi, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Congress certainly has a lot to gain from trumping Narendra Modi, and through him, the BJP. And it is true some aspects of the evidence against Shah would probably look thin in court. But unfortunately for the party, the scales weigh heavily in favour of Shah’s complicity and direct involvement in a vast spectrum of crimes. TEHELKA has been tracking the Sohrabuddin ‘encounter’ story since 2007 and was the first to publish the call records that proved to be Shah’s undoing (Gujarat Home Minister called cops arrested for killing Tulsi Prajapati, 3 July). Now, it has fresh information that proves Shah will find it extremely difficult to subvert the wheels of justice that have begun to grind around him.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">“There is no doubt this arrest is a big challenge, but we will fight it legally. How can you call this evidence?” says a senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity. “What value do the stings have? Will they stand in court?”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">To counter these questions, the story so far in a nutshell. Sohrabuddin, an extortionist, was killed by <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> police on 26 November 2005. His wife Kauser Bi was raped, sedated with chemicals and burnt. Sohrabuddin was declared an LeT terrorist on a mission to kill Modi, the ‘encounter’ touted as a badge of Gujarati pride. A year after the first ‘encounters’, in December 2006, Tulsi Prajapati, the only eyewitness and a Sohrabuddin accomplice, was also shot dead.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Soon after the murders, the cover-ups began. The case was handed over to the CID, which functions directly under the Home Ministry — Shah and Modi — and was batted to several police officers, who either diluted the evidence under political pressure or were transferred if they failed to comply. And so the case straggled on. Finally, dismayed by the obfuscations, Sohrabbudin’s brother Rubabuddin petitioned the Supreme Court, which handed the case over to the CBI in January 2010, with a directive to uncover the “possibility of a larger conspiracy”.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Since then, the skeletons have been tumbling out. On 29 April, the CBI arrested Ajay Chudasama, DCP (Crime) and Joint Commissioner of Police, who has 197 complaints of extortion and harassment against him. Chudasama features in another TEHELKA story, in which a Muslim boy who admits to being part of a terror conspiracy speaks of the officer forcing him to implicate innocents (8 August 2009). Alarmed by Chudasama’s arrest, the state CID arrested several other officers to prevent the CBI from taking them into custody. But the truth had begun to spill.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">So no matter how much the BJP tries to blunt the issue, Shah and Modi face a minefield of evidence and uncomfortable questions. And there are many new developments they need to fear. First of all, there is a battery of disgruntled and complicit police officers now willing to turn approver or prosecution witness. IGP Geeta Johri is one of them. Handed the case twice, she is an example of the complex ways in which Modi and Shah seem to have weighed in on officers handling the case. Johri was forced to go along when ex-CID chief OP Mathur allegedly tampered with Shah’s call records. She filed a secret note to the Supreme Court complaining of “political pressure.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Despite this, Johri changed course and was later chastised by the Supreme Court for “not conducting the investigation in a fair manner”. Now the CBI is set to make her a witness when she returns from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city> on August 8. Johri should have much to reveal. For instance, when she and fellow officer VL Solanki asked GC Raigar, ADGP CID, for permission to interrogate Tulsi Prajapati, they were fobbed off till Prajapati was shot a week later.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Another officer thwarted in the line of duty was DGP CID Rajnish Rai, who arrested killer cops DG Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandyan and <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Dinesh</st1:city> <st1:state st="on">MN</st1:state></st1:place> in 2007. When he sought to put them through narco analysis, he was swiftly sidelined. He is now on study leave.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Damagingly, a CID note to the CBI talks of “uncalled for restrictions on the movement of officers” and of how “progress in the investigations was communicated to the accused persons allowing them the opportunity to influence witnesses”. It also speaks of how Rai’s arrests were frowned upon by the “political dispensation”. As a “consequence”, it says, the government issued an order dated 27 March 2007 stating that Raigar would henceforth oversee the case.</p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-37922627355576397312010-07-23T23:09:00.000-07:002010-07-23T23:11:58.381-07:00Amit Shah: Who’s this ??<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcIE4kLxMvIJ1C6F0g46yFF9xc1TxGtzMDaq3OKGNPGXrbiIYaDI7g149fE4PtyClHJuQRy1FoWX5AB5BPkI249whUyvOUMRVsJQwQVC51XNDWKWPKfwIz_8M01eaLxvArHPmL8jWDr7V/s1600/1"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 77px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcIE4kLxMvIJ1C6F0g46yFF9xc1TxGtzMDaq3OKGNPGXrbiIYaDI7g149fE4PtyClHJuQRy1FoWX5AB5BPkI249whUyvOUMRVsJQwQVC51XNDWKWPKfwIz_8M01eaLxvArHPmL8jWDr7V/s320/1" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497351474706263890" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Amit Shah's fall has dented his boss Narendra Modi's eligibility to some day lead non-Congress centrist parties at the Centre. The Ahmedabad based leader has been handling senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani's elections year after year in Gandhinagar constituency. He is an important member of Chief Minister Narendra Modi's core group. He is one of the important people who helped Narendra Modi build his image as a strong politician after he became chief minister in 2001. He has been given credit for the prevention of any major bomb blasts in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>. He is, obviously, a shrewd politician. But his ability to read the intractable Indian voter's mind successfully is what has made the difference for his and his party's political fortunes in Ahmedabad. He is a 24/7 politician. Other than talking for ten minutes or so everyday to his recently deceased mother whom he revered passionately, he played politics -- sometimes dangerously -- round the clock. Grassroots politician and ace manipulator of people and events, Shah, 46, is now disgraced. With the Central Bureau of Investigation filing a chargesheet against him, he will now have to defend himself for a lifetime, both inside and outside the court.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">There is not an iota of doubt in the minds of political observers that the Congress party has orchestrated the event from behind the scenes. No doubt the CBI is under the shadow of the central government. Despite this, Shah and the BJP do not have any convincing argument to claim that the case, now known as the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, is a political humbug. But, the most shocking thing for his supporters is that today it is not Hindutva or his so-called communal action that is under the scanner. Shah is branded as a murderer and extortionist today. There are some 20 evidences against him in the chargesheet and some are likely to stand in a court of law. There are some businessmen who have given evidence that Shah demanded money from them after the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin. Some businessmen have alleged that Shah told them that during the police inquiry into Sohrabuddin's activities, their names were linked with his operations. They allege that they paid Shah to remain out of the investigation. Also, how the police murdered Sohrabuddin's wife Kausarbi with the help of poisonous injection is shocking, if true. Details ranging from the medical shop where the poison was bought to how her body was disposed is now documented in the chargesheet. The weakest link in the BJP's arguments is that a large part of the investigation of the Sohrabuddin case was conducted by <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> cadre police officer Geeta Johari, who was sidelined by Shah. Shah had been accused of transferring police officers who were not conducive to him. He was also micro-managing the ministry. People have often seen him talking to junior police officers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In 2006, Johri, on the instructions of the then director general of police P C Pande, formed a team and sent it to <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Hyderabad</st1:city></st1:place> and other places to investigate how Sohrabuddin was killed. The Supreme Court had ordered the DGP to conduct an inquiry. She build the case and before Shah could influence the probe she sent it directly to Supreme Court. Till then, Shah was not within the ambit of the investigation. Later, activists alleged that Shah favoured Johri and she allegedly tried to change the track of the investigation. Only then was the case given to the CBI. Johri was made the commissioner of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Rajkot</st1:city></st1:place>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The turning point came for Shah when, under legal advice from senior lawyers, the <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> government accepted before the Supreme Court that the Sohrabuddin encounter was fake. It was unprecedented. From that day, none of Modi's and Shah's political strategy seems to work. Some believe that Shah and Modi might have thought that the matter would end with the acceptance of 'guilt' and the Sohrabuddin chapter would be closed after the arrest of few officers. Shah's calculation must have been that he had absolute power under Modi's rule. He found all the organs of democracy in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">New Delhi</st1:city></st1:place> biased and anti-Modi. His arrogance due to political success and his miscalculation about the functioning of bureaucracy and the police force during a crisis has proved to be wrong.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">He underestimated the power of men and women in khaki and his total lack of judgment about the Supreme Court's influence over the cases before it has led him to his fall. Unfortunately, this case will neither deter the men in khaki from misbehaving nor make people like Shah understand that there is nothing above upholding constitutional propriety in independent <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>. This case doesn't seem to send a correct signal because today's <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> is divided. There are a large number of Indians today who oppose the cruel and totally unacceptable murders of Sohrabuddin, Kausarbi and Tulsi Prajapati but don't want to question the killing of Maoists in a suspicious manner by the security forces.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In the end, the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case has turned into an ugly war between the Congress and the BJP. At the end of the day, with Shah's fall, his boss Modi's eligibility to some day lead non-Congress centrist parties at the Centre has shrunk. Here lies the real win for the Congress, as this will play as an advantage for its future leadership. It is the saddest moment for the country that the proven fake encounter case will remain more political and less about the principles of upholding the ethos of the Indian Constitution, which doesn't give men in khaki any power to kidnap and kill a good, bad or ugly Indian. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: Rediff.com </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-75382795129080311872010-07-19T22:06:00.000-07:002010-07-19T22:08:20.768-07:00Gujarat: Making of a Fascist state<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVOj0nbWZ2K1gAMeJIN12jpSpTvavAE6yAu1R5HDK7_jyIz9GYvs6cFwJggq_876OHPX-So20WVfmjIlDYZVhqegYvNhsYe30oqKJS1R0nWv1NsU-m0WYviEczHjtknDmp44gJA1rVNnc/s1600/1"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 131px; height: 88px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVOj0nbWZ2K1gAMeJIN12jpSpTvavAE6yAu1R5HDK7_jyIz9GYvs6cFwJggq_876OHPX-So20WVfmjIlDYZVhqegYvNhsYe30oqKJS1R0nWv1NsU-m0WYviEczHjtknDmp44gJA1rVNnc/s320/1" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495850817999558178" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By: Ram Puniyani</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Abdul Shakeel Basha, known popularly as Shakeel to his friends, has been arrested on 17th June 2010, on various charges. The major charge is that he along with his other friends was planning to start a Maoist revolution in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>. Shakeel is 13th amongst the activists who have been arrested on similar charges. Activists who have been arrested on the charge of being Naxalites are Avinash Kulkarni, Bharat Pawar, Makabhai Chowdhary, Jayaram Goswami and others who have been working in different parts of Gujarat, particularly amongst the tribal and workers for their economic rights. There has been no news of any violence in the areas where they have been working. One knows Shakeel has a long record of working for communal harmony, justice for <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> violence victims, and housing for street children amongst other issues. ‘Peace issues’ has been his concern during last few years.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Apart from Shakeel the work of most of these activists, arrested by <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> police, has been within the confines of Indian Constitution, struggles based on the ‘rights as citizens’, as weaker sections of society. The major violence witnessed by <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> has been the one of sectarian type, the one directed first against Muslim minorities and then Christian minorities. On the contrary, the work of some of these activists has been to promote communal harmony, which has been a hindrance to spread of divisiveness being promoted by the likes of Swami Aseemanand of VHP, an RSS affiliate, who is currently absconding for his linkages with the perpetrators of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ajmer</st1:place></st1:city> terror attack.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">With the nationwide beginning of operation ‘green hunt’, the targeting of Naxalites/Maoists, the <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> police, not to be left behind has targeted the activists working within the confines of constitutional limits. <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> has never been known to be the work area of Naxalites/Maoists anyway. This has been an area where the followers of RSS have been calling shots from last two decades in particular and trying to convert it into ‘ideal Hindu state’. <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> has also been boasted as the ideal Hindu state, particularly since the violence against minorities became intense. The anti Muslim offensive culminated in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> carnage of 2002. After 2002, there was a sustained attack on Christians. This is the violence which is the marker of <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">One never heard of any Naxalite violence and there are no criminal cases against most of the activists who have been arrested. As such through the intense media propaganda, social activists have been defamed to the extent that Medha Patkar was attacked physically for her campaigns to protect the rights of tribal. Strong propaganda against ‘activists’ in general is part of the norms prevalent in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The sequence of the political events in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> is very revealing. First the sectarianism comes up; various factors promote this communal divide. This leads to the massive anti Muslim pogrom on the pretext of Godhra train burning. Then on the plea that Christian missionaries are converting the gullible Adivasis, anti Christian violence is unleashed. This runs parallel with the aggressive conversion of Adivasis into Hinduism under the garb of ‘Ghar vapasi’. Through Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, through swamis and associates identity issues are projected in the Adivasi areas. The result of all this is the overall suspension of the concept of Human rights and demonization of social activists. As such whatever little is there in the name of social activism has been dwarfed under the shadow of communalization of social space and communal violence.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Due to these anti minority attacks, minorities have been relegated to second class citizens. The culmination of this is the formation of Muslim ghettoes in urban areas and intimidation of Christians in Adivasi areas. Along with this, the concept of ‘Swarnim Gujarat’ (Golden Gujarat), a heaven for investors is advertised through media. In tandem with this the rights of workers and tribal are being suppressed to ensure that the industrialists can have their sway to make big money. As Ratan Tata put it, industrialists have to be in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>. And so Anil Ambani and others of their ilk project Narendra Modi as the ideal Chief Minister, the future Prime Minister of India. The inference is emerging that anti minority pogrom has effectively been undertaken to create a ‘smooth’ atmosphere for the industrialists. After subjugating minorities and the democratic values the illusion of ‘development’ has been manufactured.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Narnedra Modi has been compared to Hitler times and over again. Through his anti Jew, anti Communist tirades Hitler created the ‘ideal’ atmosphere for the big industrialists. It seems Modi has taken <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> on the same path. First he has ensured the suspension of human rights through anti-minority pogroms, then demonized the social activists and now whatever little activity prevailed for democratic rights of the marginalized, is being done away with. The human rights workers, working in the Constitutional framework are being dubbed as Naxalites and are being put behind the bars. The idea is to smoothen the path for big industrialists. The arrest of workers for human rights issues is like laying the red carpet for the reckless growth of industries, trampling on the interests of the deprived sections of society. What is hidden below the red carpet is the very concept of a welfare state, a secular state, a state with the concept of human rights of all. One is also reminded of the RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar writing in his book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ that Muslims, Christians and Communists are the internal threat to Hindu nation. It seems following his advice first the Muslims, then the Christians and now the social activists (communist substitutes) are being targeted as Naxalites. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The happenings in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> show us the deeper designs of the political class of the country, who are executing industrialization without a human face, industrialization on the bodies of the marginalized sections. Hitler did precisely the same. In the short term it seems very rewarding but surely one knows from History that once the violation of the concepts of democracy goes too far, the results are not very pleasing. Hitler refused to learn it in his life, that’s why he had to put a bullet in his head. <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> kept toeing his line, that’s why it faced the ruin after the temporary graphs showing economic prosperity!<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">One reaffirms that those believing in ‘violence as a means for social change’ have no place in the democratic system. In turn, one must learn that democracy is doomed in a state which does not let the peaceful social movements to exist!<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-79212201884650146052010-07-16T21:49:00.000-07:002010-07-16T21:53:32.529-07:00Sangh Parivar's Terror Plot Exposed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1abDlW9okXQzAo1ud0EBcl1Fqwa2mjd_LGihxWp5yLSUXmoOOs58rUWlkWu0ehgAohyphenhyphenvQHZ6OeL5KnQAIzCEvP6AtH73dB9GhhKdshQNbDzhyphenhyphenIK081dWsikCLIQHIT1fMXHSIJ3ENF2YJ/s1600/rs.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 114px; height: 92px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1abDlW9okXQzAo1ud0EBcl1Fqwa2mjd_LGihxWp5yLSUXmoOOs58rUWlkWu0ehgAohyphenhyphenvQHZ6OeL5KnQAIzCEvP6AtH73dB9GhhKdshQNbDzhyphenhyphenIK081dWsikCLIQHIT1fMXHSIJ3ENF2YJ/s320/rs.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494733558438990450" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 28px; font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;"><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify; font-family:Georgia;"><span class="style3" style=" ;font-size:medium;">W</span>ith all the startling <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/105546/120/saffron-brigades-terror-plots-exposed.html" style="text-decoration: none; "><strong>revelations </strong></a>coming out as a cascade, it will be strange if for the larger interest of the security of India Indresh Kumar and other high ranking RSS chiefs are not put behind prison bars for the sole reason that RSS never stops its execution of its closely guarded plans which can potentially change Indian polity. Such is its cultural nationalism nurtured over the years that it does not want the Muslim minority, perhaps also other minorities, to exist in the country.</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Indresh Kumar is a member of the central committee of the RSS in charge of the Muslim minority affairs. The RSS cannot allow Muslim to exist as they want, equal to their fellow compatriots. Make no bones about it with the RSS because they are so cussed that they would continue their sophistry believing that you can fool all the people all the time, at least in India.</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Serving Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit wanted to kill Indresh Kumar and according to his Abhinav Bharat constitution decimate Muslims because they would not be eligible for the Hindu Rashtra he had visualized. Purohit and Indresh Kumar have the same goal. Telling more than this according to the formula of truth of Albert Camus is a lie. To be precise, intended killing of Indresh Kumar is a lie, a white lie, planted to mislead. For, their aim is not mutual destruction. Both have the Hindu Rashtra in their hearts.</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Even if it is believed for an argument that Purohit and Shyam Apte of Pune had given a gun to one Alok and the Kolkata Hindutva activist Tapan Ghosh on April 11 or 12, 2008, to kill Indresh Kumar; their desire to purge India of Muslims and other minorities does not change. Nor does their capability to wreck havoc in altering the political map of the subcontinent, change.</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Truth also is the revelation that the medical doctor did want to kill the vice president Hamid Ansari at Jamia Millia in 2007. Creating anarchy is the hidden agenda of the RSS because it is the most secretive and hence most dangerous organization existing in India. Anarchy would lead to the kind of Hindu Rashtra Purohit and RSS envisage. What is the proof that they submit themselves to the Constitution of the Republic of India? When Allan Octavius Hume founded the Indian National Congress in 1885, the viceroy Lord Duffin called it seditious. Indresh Kumar’s secret meeting and conversation with all those involved in Malegaon, Ajmer, Mecca masjid and Samjhauta express blasts constitutes just that. It is matched by Purohit’s parleying with the Israeli officers seeking recognition and help and diplomatic immunity once the Hindu Rashtra comes into existence. Purohit was busy in recruiting youths into his organization Abhinav Bharat when he was posted at Deolali camp of Nasik, February to September 2005. Does this not constitute sedition, he a serving officer of the Indian army with a hidden Constitution to replace the Constitution of the Republic of India!!</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Abhinav Bharat had 5000 members across the country then. What has the military thought of the 5000 that the lieutenant colonel had taught and trained? What has the Maharashtra government done about KP Raghuvanshi inviting Purohit to teach and train the Anti Terrorism Squad officers? What has the government of India thought of Praveen Togadia who according to Purhot was actively engaged in the founding and financing of Abhinav Bharat? Why did Togadia want to know from Purohit as to who was investigating the Nanded blast of 2006? What have the investigating agencies done to know why the VHP chief of Maharashtra, one Prashant Hartalkar, was prying into this matter and under whose instruction? Does the Constitution of India allow all such anti-constitutional goings on?</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">The government of India has shown no interest in the only Hindu majority country in the world after India, Nepal. Is this also pseudo secularism for it has not shown any awareness let alone publishing any white paper on the matter recorded by Sudhakar Pandey regarding how Pandey also instructed Purohit to contact Dr R P Singh over the telephone in August 2007. Dr Singh had told “Purohit that Indresh had “sold off Hindus in Nepal”. This had fetched Indresh Kumar Rs 3 crore rupees. The money was floated by the ISI. When Purohit conveyed this to Togadia that doughty heart specialist from Gujarat acknowledged that he already knew about it.</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">So the question, whether the government of India knew it?</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">The most wonderful thing for the government of India to know is: how come the RSS and Abhinav Bharat slept over the fact that Malegaon was a rich mine for communal violence till SIMI and the Muslims blew themselves up on September 8, 2006 and only then Abhinav Bharat followed suit on September 29, 2008. (But the itinerary of Togadia shows another direction. He met Purohit in the house of a Nasik VHP leader Vinayak in February 2006, just months before first terrorist attacks in Malegaon. In December 2006 Purohit called upon Togadia in a Mumbai hotel and told him about the details of Abhinav Bharat. Togadia had informed Purohit in March April 2007 of the people who had given funds for Abhinav Bharat. In August-September 2007 Togadia gave Purohit 2 lakh rupees donation for Abhinav Bharat. Then on August 2, 2008 again shortly before the second terrorist attack in Malegaon Togadia and Purhit met. This time Togadia was not happy with Purohit for breaking up the Madhya Pradesh unit of VHP. Thus Togadia and Purohit acted in tandem around the time of both the bomb attacks in Malegaon.)</p><p class="style1" style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; ">Courtesy: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><strong>By Mustafa Khan- </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><strong>Countercurrents.org</strong></span></p></span>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-34908639221512167092010-07-12T22:07:00.000-07:002010-07-12T22:09:02.560-07:00Hindu terror: The Malwa Connection<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjmM51LBr6GgO1VfmmlqJ8b-pX4phzKBi2_vC0u945QkxwOI24IxqXmqxBsrf_b8kOH39566SJgbt1nH2f3AozkbOyKJ6Dmw5E_K2ShMxj7HOEfEHJVNXxWBOuty8NzUjMoDowE9O5IALY/s1600/1.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 117px; height: 87px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjmM51LBr6GgO1VfmmlqJ8b-pX4phzKBi2_vC0u945QkxwOI24IxqXmqxBsrf_b8kOH39566SJgbt1nH2f3AozkbOyKJ6Dmw5E_K2ShMxj7HOEfEHJVNXxWBOuty8NzUjMoDowE9O5IALY/s320/1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493253290224847762" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: Rediff.com </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Most names figuring in the investigations of the 2007 bomb blasts in <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city>, at <st1:city st="on">Hyderabad</st1:city>'s Mecca Masjid, and in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Malegaon</st1:city></st1:place> hail from Madhya Pradesh's Malwa region. Rediff.com's Krishnakumar Padmanabhan traces the common thread that could have brought these men together.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">What started as minor skirmishes between two groups vying for power seven years ago in a small Madhya Pradesh cantonment town was the beginning of the phenomenon that is now spoken about as Hindu terrorism.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Recently, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Rajasthan <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Anti-Terror Squad made a string of arrests from in and around Indore and established that the 2007 bomb blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid were the handiwork of the same group of people.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">At least three of the accused in the bomb blast case were charged with the murder of a tribal leader from the Congress party in 2003.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">As like-minded men began coming together and plotting heinous attacks, the Madhya Pradesh establishment turned a blind eye. Investigators now say the perpetrators found haven in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, as they wreaked havoc in other parts of the country.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In 2003, towards the end of Digvijay Singh's <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>tenure as chief minister in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress party had strengthened its hold in its traditional areas the party base, the minorities, and the Adivasis.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In Malwa's tribal belt, Pyar Singh Ninama, a local tribal strongman, was the party's face among the Adivasi population. Around that time, accusations began to trickle that Christian missionaries were stepping up efforts to get more Adivasis into their fold. Around that time a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sunil Joshi, was 'sent' as the Mhow pracharak from <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>, where it was said the heat was on him following the 2002 riots.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In Mhow -- an acronym for Military Headquarters of War -- the Sangh Parivar was virtually a family. The most active among them were Lokesh Sharma, his cousin Jitender Sharma -- from the RSS and Bajrang Dal respectively -- and Devendra Pandya, who were working to spread Hinduism in adjoining tribal areas.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">On the other hand, Ninama, a converted Christian, was seen as nudging his fellow tribals towards Christianity. The two groups were soon at loggerheads and in one of the ensuing clashes, Pandey's choti (tuft) was allegedly cut off. In apparent revenge, three people including Ninama and his son, were brutally killed.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Cases were filed against Lokesh Sharma, Sunil Joshi, Ramesh Sharma, a businessman from neighbouring Pithampur, and 10 others. While most of them are still in jail and the case is before the court, Lokesh Sharma and Joshi were never caught.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Here is where the seeds of what is now seen as Hindu terror were sown.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terror Squads of Rajasthan and <st1:place st="on">Maharashtra</st1:place> <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>have revealed that the lynchpin was Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in December 2007.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">That case is still unsolved. While initially, the Students Islamic Movement of India <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>was suspected, later, there were murmurs that his Hindu rivals could have murdered him.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Lokesh Sharma is accused of planting the bomb in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ajmer</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Locals say soon after the Ninama murder case, Joshi's stock rose among hotheaded youngsters.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In the assembly election that followed a couple of months after Ninama's murder, the Congress party was voted out, and the Bharatiya Janata Party <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>came to power.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Around this time, some local residents claim Joshi and Lokesh Sharma began to be seen in public quite often.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Digvijay Singh had often spoken about how the violent activities of the Hindu groups was fast turning to 'terrorism'. He said he had evidence that they were gaining bomb-making capabilities. But then he was voted out at a crucial juncture," says Manohar Limbodia, a veteran journalist.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">With what was seen as a friendly BJP government, Joshi began to operate quite openly, mobilising support.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Joshiji was someone who would say one death from our side should be avenged with five from the other side. The youngsters liked him and his approach a lot," a Bajrang Dal activist in Mhow recalls, speaking on condition that he would not be identified for this report.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">As it was becoming evident that Joshi was going down an aggressive path, the RSS publicly distanced itself from him.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Though the RSS distanced itself from the likes of Joshi, we could see that he had the support from within the organisation and also local BJP leaders. Joshi and his group could not have operated without strong support," a businessman, familiar with the Sangh Parivar in Dewas, where Joshi was murdered, says, again speaking on condition that he would not be identified for this report.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Soon after the Ninama murder case, the police defused a bomb at the venue of a Muslim congregation in Ghansipura, <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city>, which they now allege was planted by the same group behind the terror attacks.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It was an improvised device with explosive material stuffed in metal pipes, connected to a mobile phone. The bomb was set to explode when the mobile rang, but the police defused it in time.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Had that bomb exploded it would have been the first attack of Hindu terror in the country.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">How did those who came together in Mhow establish contact with foot soldiers like Ramji Kalasangra (who allegedly made the bombs used in the Ajmer and Mecca Masjid attacks) and Sandeep Dange (who is alleged to have 'facilitated' the others in executing the blasts) on the one hand and alleged masterminds like Colonel Prasad Purohit and sadhvi Pragya Thakur on the other hand?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"The RSS has many organisations," says Deepak Joshi, son of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kailash Joshi and the BJP legislator from Hatpipliya, Dewas. "There are also different kinds of people. First, there are the RSS members. Then there are people who might be involved in the RSS's activities without being members. Then, there are people from sister organisations like the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), Bajrang Dal, etc. Finally, there are people who believe in the ideology but are not associated in any way with any organisation. There are about five or six RSS events in a year where all the four kinds of people come together. Since they are all from the region and had extremist leanings, that is how these people must have met."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Explaining how various people could have gotten to know each other, he says he had met Pragya Thakur about 10 times. "She has sat in the exact place where you are sitting. The connection between her and me is that we are both from the ABVP. She was very aggressive from those days, and I did not make any efforts to know her better," he adds.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">But he shies away from dubbing the phenomenon as Hindu terrorism.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"It is not organised to begin with," he says, "And it does not have the sanction or approval of an organisation like the RSS."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">He accepts that the likes of Sunil Joshi did have support at the local level.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"When the police said Sunil Joshi was in hiding, I had met him at an event. He told me he was being framed," says the BJP MLA. "In small places, it is not difficult to meet and get to know people. In Madhya Pradesh, a lot of BJP politicians owe their career to the RSS. And some of them may have shared beliefs with people like Sunil Joshi. In the end, such politicians end up using these people for their personal gains."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">How did the Malwa region become the hotbed for Hindu terror?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Malwa region is predominantly tribal. <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Indore</st1:place></st1:city>, which is the biggest city in the region, does not have much of an Adivasi presence. But Dhar is 75 percent Adivasi, Jhabua is nearly 100 percent Adivasi. Balwani, Khargon and Khandwa are 50 percent Adivasi.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Hindus form the second biggest community. They comprise <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malis</st1:place></st1:country-region> from Rajasthan, Jats, Thakurs, Baniyas and Brahmins.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"More than the composition, the reason the region has been the hotbed of radical Hinduism is because of the leaders," says Limbodia. "<st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Nagpur</st1:place></st1:city> may be the seat of power for the RSS, but Malwa is the front. RSS stalwarts like Khushabhau Thakre, Pyarelal Khandelwal and Suresh Soni hailed from the Malwa region and shaped the RSS philosophy. That way, this region is the cradle of the RSS."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"It is not just Hindu terror," says Kamil Seher, a hotel owner in Pithampur, an industrial area. "The Pithampur-Dhar region was the base for SIMI. They used to train there. Before that, the Dawood Ibrahim <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>gang used to be active here. Now the Maoists are also entering this region. Why, some time ago, even an LTTE <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) soldier was arrested from a Pithampur factory, where he was working as a gunman for the owner."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"If you are working in a factory, and you bring in someone from your village to stay with you, how would we know if he is a criminal or not?" asks Seher.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">He alleges that though the likes of SIMI leader Safdar Nagori were arrested, those who were pumping money and were the brains of the outlawed organisation got away.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"If with an organisation like SIMI, money power and clout could work, how will anyone be able to get close to the top of the Hindu terror hierarchy, if it exists?" he asks. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">While the official RSS line is that those arrested are not part of the organisation, it is reported to be helping the accused's families and has arranged for lawyers to fight their cases.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"The RSS arranged for lawyers in <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hyderabad</st1:place></st1:city> to take up my brother's case," confirms Jitender Sharma, Lokesh Sharma's cousin. "I am thankful to the organisation. But at the same time I understand why they want to distance themselves in public. There is a Congress government at the Centre, and all the three states where the terror charges have been filed are also ruled by the Congress, which wants to link the RSS with terrorism. For the Congress, the RSS is the biggest enemy, not the BJP. They want to finish off the RSS."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Jitender's version of what happened is different.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"I was with the Bajrang Dal and Lokesh was with the RSS. Under Digvijay Singh, Hinduism was under attack. So we tried to get a case filed against him. But it is not easy to get the police to file a first information report against the state's chief minister. So we indulged in chakka jams (blockades), and jail bharo protests on a small scale. The state police had marked us from that time. There were a lot of small cases (filed) against us. But we are not people who will get into hardcore criminal activities. At the most we would have stoned a few shops during bandhs," he says.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though he does not criticise the RSS, Jitender does not have the same feelings about the BJP and its local leaders.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is the BJP MLA for Mhow, has done nothing. He used Lokesh during elections and after that has turned a blind eye," he alleges.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Jitender is now fighting a lone battle to save his cousin.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"First he was implicated in the Ninama murder case. He lost five years of his life hiding from the police. Only last year he got married and his son was born this year. But he hasn't been able to see his son. We are poor people and now his family is struggling to make ends meet and also spend on the legal proceedings."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though others do not buy the witch hunt theory, they agreed that the Congress party being in power at the Centre and the three states involved is the prime reason the case is moving at this pace.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"These people first surfaced in 2003," says journalist Manohar Limbodia. "After a few failed attempts, they executed their first attack in 2007. Wasn't four years enough for the state police to act? In fact, had any party but the BJP been in power in Madhya Pradesh, you might not be talking about a phenomenon called Hindu terror today."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Even before the <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city> blasts, they all met in a temple in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city>. What did the police do? After the blasts too, the Vasundhara Raje government (in Rajasthan) did not do anything," says Naveen <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mali</st1:place></st1:country-region>, a businessman and community leader in Mhow. "Only after (Congress Chief Minister) Ashok Gehlot <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>took over did things start moving. True, it smacks of politics, but then something happened and something had to be done."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Dewas-Indore belt was home for those accused in the terror cases.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"They thought they would be safe as long as they could strike in other states and hide here. They thought they were untouchable. They never expected the police from other states to come looking for them," says Limbodia.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>blew the lid off the Hindu terror phenomenon when he cracked the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast case, it is the Rajasthan ATS, with its sweeps into border towns and midnight arrests, that has struck terror in the hearts of those hiding in the region.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"The Rajasthan ATS comes and picks up people for questioning and drops them back whenever it wants to. The local police is clueless. They come to know only when the Rajasthan ATS informs them as a formality about who they are taking away with them. Sometimes they don't even do that," says Seher about the arrests that the neighboring state's police have made in Pithampur.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"The Shivraj Singh Chauhan government (in Madhya Pradesh) is not very strong," says Jitender Sharma. "In <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>, (Chief Minister) Narendra Modi <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>doesn't allow the ATS to touch anyone. But here, the ATS from other states walk in freely and pick up whoever they want to whenever they want."</p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-28062604351385579812010-07-08T22:03:00.000-07:002010-07-08T22:06:27.113-07:00Cow on contemporary political chessboard<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-OxLx9CwC7zMkZZ44dE0U9RzmUV3G8-Za64RUDvtgnzOlp_vmAE7Ej_7CdghK5vxEua69-M4cAtGAxhdXNCWqFndOPuykB3Vi-xdTVKxysXofhG-iyIfjrG4tlX518oeypgQy5PvgWHTI/s1600/c.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 79px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-OxLx9CwC7zMkZZ44dE0U9RzmUV3G8-Za64RUDvtgnzOlp_vmAE7Ej_7CdghK5vxEua69-M4cAtGAxhdXNCWqFndOPuykB3Vi-xdTVKxysXofhG-iyIfjrG4tlX518oeypgQy5PvgWHTI/s320/c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491768254418487138" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By Ram Puniyani</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Karnataka BJP Government has passed “Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill 2010” (June 2010). There has been a strong opposition to this move from the civil society. Some of social activists point out that this piece of legislation is “communal in intent and anti-farmer in consequence”. There have been series of meetings to express the concern of people, especially those of dalits and farmers to this legislation. Some of them said that implementation of the bill in its present form will deprive citizens the freedom to choose their food. Mr. Girish Karnad the noted film personality asked “As long as their choice of food is not affecting others, why its consumption should be<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>prohibited?” Others pointed out that the bill is trying to polarize the majority and minority communities through this bill. It was also pointed out that <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>, where such a law already exists, was a leading beef exporter in the country. The points made also indicated that the controversial anti-cow slaughter Bill, if implemented, would discourage farmers from rearing cattle and will lead to a shortage of milk.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is not the first time that the debate around Cow slaughter bills, beef eating is taking place. When BJP led NDA was in power it went to the extent of appointing a committee to go into the matter and the committee concluded that cow protection should be made fundamental right and there is a need to constitute Central Rapid Protection Force to prevent cow slaughter, and also to invoke POTA to detain those smuggling cows! The cow obsession of BJP is a part of deeper agenda of targeting Muslim minorities as they want to Brahminize the society by creating situations where beef eating becomes a taboo for large sections of society.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Needless to say beef is amongst the cheapest sources of proteins for the poor, especially dalits and adivasis. Till just a couple of decades ago there were many communities who were preferring beef to other expensive protein rich food. At the same time the minorities, Muslims and Christians, for whom, beef is neither a taboo nor a compulsion, are being looked down on this pretext. Large propaganda campaigns are on through which minorities are being demonized around the issue of beef eating and cow slaughter. One recalls the incident of Jhajjer where 5 dalits were done to death on the suspicion of killing a cow and VHP’s Acharya Giriraj Kishore justified the event as saying that cow is so sacred for Hindus that killing of dalits does not matter. Similarly, Sheikh Rahman a cattle trader was killed in Orissa on the cooked up charge of selling cows for slaughter.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">When Uma Bharati became the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister she converted her official residence into a sort of Goshala, (Cow Shed). Currently the products from cow dung and cow urine are being promoted as divine medicines to cure many ailments. Even patents have been obtained for drinks based on Cow urine. The practitioners of scientific medicine have all the doubts about efficacy of these, beyond placeboes, as no scientific study and trial of these has taken place. The procedures laid down to introduce a new drug in the market are not followed and through mushrooming chains, the cow products as medicine are proliferating in number day by day.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The ‘Cow’ seems to be the next emotive chariot which probably is being projected after the decline in the fervour for <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ram</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Temple</st1:placetype></st1:place> issue. One has no problems in respecting animals of one’s choice, but the fear is this is/will be further used as the issue to divide the communities. In our plural democratic society how can faith of section of one religious community dictate the policies of the state?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">As such most of the propaganda that beef eating was brought to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> by Muslims is a mere hog wash. Most of the serious researches into the sacred Hindu book, Vedas, show that Beef eating was a norm in Vedic times. Researches and studies by Mahmahopadhya Bharat Ratna Pandurang Waman Kane’s ‘Bhartiya Dharmgrantho Ka Itihas’ (History of Hindu Holy books), Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, “Did The Hindus Never Eat Beef?” in “The Untouchables Who were they and Why they became Untouchables (Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches vol.l7 (Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai 1990, first edition 1948 pp 323-328) and the contemporary Historian, D.N. Jha, The Myth of Holy Cow, all point out that beef was popular food in Vedic times. Swami Viveknand emphasizes the same point in a different way. While addressing a meeting at Shakespeare club, Pasedena, Californian, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> (Feb 2, 1900) he declared, “You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu, who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it. (Vivekanand, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekanand, Vol 3, Calcutta, Advait Ashram, 1997)<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Similarly the major ideologue of Hindutva, Savarkar said that there is nothing sacred about cow, it is a useful animal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">After the advent of agricultural society, rise of Jainism and Buddhism the concept of non-violence came up in different forms and later after 8th century Brahmanism projected Cow as its icon. Since then Cow is the projected as sacred, as ‘mother’ and gradually large sections of Hindus started regarding her so. In deference to the sentiments of Hindus, most Muslims Kings prohibited cow slaughter. Babur in his will to Humayun writes, “Son, this Nation Hindusthan has different Religions. Thank Allah for giving us this Kingdom. We should remove all the differences from our heart and do justice to each community according to its customs. Avoid cow-slaughter to win over the hearts of the people of this land and to incorporate the people in the matters of administration. Don’t damage the places of worship and temples, which fall in the boundaries of our rule.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Since the rise of communal streams during freedom movement the communalists have been resorting to all the tricks to rouse emotions around matters of faith. So killing pig and putting it in the mosque & cow slaughter issue have been resorted to times and over again. It was during freedom movement itself that we see that the apostle of peace and non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, a total vegetarian offering beef to his Muslim guest. A story goes that when one of his Muslim friends’ son from South Africa visited him in Sevagram Ashram, it happened to be the festive day of Bakr Id. Gandhi offered beef to the boy, the boy in turn refused to eat beef saying that he will not have any non vegetarian food in the Ashram as the Ashram practices non violence. What a touching sentiment on both the sides. Respect others’ practices!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Today with the rise of communalism we need to recount the examples set by Gandhi in matters pertaining to community relations and the efforts to demonize and communalize by resorting to such symbolisms of cow or <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ram</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Temple</st1:placetype></st1:place> should be put aside to focus on the issues of living in peace and harmony in a plural society.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-60274462566100882162010-06-20T22:03:00.000-07:002010-06-20T22:06:43.370-07:00National Integration: The way forward<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1Y4Dxi0MOGEkCdCIDfkV2rU8cNNiYHwH4c0-T1DicOGxs6cn4cP9xs4xIobWnFjsrxe1Clk7MCqHjR9yG-Uxd5iT60ev-kQYwBI5xwx17Jlu3HrVjTIWT5z0OfYEPbJEi7uhFZ0LeaEX/s1600/h.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 124px; height: 82px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1Y4Dxi0MOGEkCdCIDfkV2rU8cNNiYHwH4c0-T1DicOGxs6cn4cP9xs4xIobWnFjsrxe1Clk7MCqHjR9yG-Uxd5iT60ev-kQYwBI5xwx17Jlu3HrVjTIWT5z0OfYEPbJEi7uhFZ0LeaEX/s320/h.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485088954010303730" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Ram Puniyani</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">National Integration Council (NIC) is the apex body deliberating on the issues pertaining to overcoming the divisive tendencies in the nation. The divisive tendencies prevail on the basis of language, region and religion. NIC has recently been in the news as one of its members, Shabnam Hashmi resigned from the council. Hashmi is one of the foremost activists engaged in fighting the evil of communalism; she also is the secretary of ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy). This NGO has been active from last several years undertaking campaigns to fight divisive politics, it also organizes cultural programs and political training camps for promoting the values of secularism and diversity.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Hashmi resigned in the aftermath of appointment of Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray on the council. Thackeray has been appointed as the leader of a regional party. Hashmi states that, “The news of Mr. Uddhav Thakre being included in the National Integration Council today has left me quite shocked. Mr. Udhav Thakre's whole political life is based on divisive and hate politics. His entry into NIC is a cruel oxymoron. His brand of communal politics is against the secular and plural value system that the Council upholds. It was bad enough to have highly communal people on the NIC by virtue of being Chief Ministers. Udhav Thakre's entry into the Council will further derogate the high credentials and stature of the body forever.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">There are multiple issues involved in this. To begin with the NIC was formed in 1961, in the aftermath of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Jabalpur</st1:place></st1:city> violence. Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of the country was very shaken by the communal violence in Jabalpur and decided to form this council to combat the evils of Communalism, casteism and regionalism. It was meant to be a broad forum with representation from political parties, Chief Ministers, Central Cabinet ministers and representatives from the civil society. It was not much in news most of the times. Two major points one remembers regarding the council are, one when Kalyan Singh the UP Chief Minister, then belonging to BJP, promised to the Council that the Babri Masjid will be protected at all the cost. Same Kalyan Singh later took pride in being part of the process of demolition of the mosque.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Later, when BJP led NDA came to power and ruled the country for six years the NIC was not constituted at all. The signal was that the BJP does not care for national integration as it believes in the Hindu Rashtra. That apart even in the present scheme of things NIC has a very limited advisory role to play. During the previous UPA I regime, the NIC met only twice. The UPA II is in power from last one year but not a single meeting of the body has taken place. All said and done it is a national forum which can give vent to the voice of those who are victims of communalism in one form or the other.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By its very nature the council has to have all the Chief ministers as the member of NIC. So naturally, Narendra Modi, the one who presided over <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> carnage, is also the member of the same. One recalls that during UPA I, in the first meeting of NIC, he was probably the only one who managed to make his presence felt in the media, with his claim that minorities are safe in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>! One is sure that members of NIC like Shabnam Hashmi, Swami Agnivesh and Asghar Ali Engineer, amongst others, have been articulating the pain and anguish of the victims of communal violence and communal politics in this forum. One also guesses that they must have been countering the falsities propagated by the likes of Modi.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The questions Hashmi’s resignation raises are what should be the composition and functioning of such bodies. The question is being asked that while people like Narendra Modi and many of his ilk are already the members of this august body, in what way will Uddhav Thackeray being there make it worse?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">One recalls that Shiv Sena has been the major party accused by Srikrishna Commission report for its role in Mumbai violence. It is precisely because of this that Shiv Sena first discontinued the commission when it came to power, then it sat on the report on the ground that it will reopen the wounds of Mumbai violence. Lately Shiv Sena has been playing the divisive politics in the name of language and region. In the competitive divisiveness with MNS, it is devising new ways to put the wedge between Marathi speaking and non Marathi speaking people. So surely people like Thackeray will add to the communal elements in the council.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">BJP-Shiv Sena are communal by their very goals and agenda. While theoretically Hashmi has raised very important question, what a sorry state of thngs we have come to, that people like Thackeray, and Narendra Modi, who are blatantly communal are the members of this council meant to combat communalism! The other point is, can things be better by keeping these communal elements out from the Council?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">One concedes the point that some political streams have communal agenda deep in their core, and one cannot expect non-sectarian policies from them. Still there are some questions and dilemmas associated with this too. One is that if the likes of Modi-Thackeray are part of the ‘formal’ democratic process, how can you keep them out? And secondly by leaving such platform, NIC, one is losing the little, whatever limited opportunity it gives, to intervene for plural ethos, against the divisive politics. Boycott versus dialogue is the question. Her move as a protest is worth registering and appreciating but the need of the hour is to use every available millimeter of space to propagate democratic views, to seize every single opportunity to strive for the goals of plural <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, as already the democratic space has shrunk very badly.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is a message to the authorities that they should keep Thackeray type elements to the minimum obligatory level. At the same time they can make this council more active and dynamic and ensure that the voice of victims of divisive politics is heard more often than at present and that remedial measures are implemented in all seriousness.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-24487234303082989912010-06-15T21:59:00.000-07:002010-06-15T22:01:55.031-07:00Operation Green Hunt's Urban Avatar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfJKnyPBzAQ74Ae7Xq43y8kA4w8wDe_VzlWIgE3YjSpNcHBtdv3VP8hmvMWVQwAa6QCTWEtoGRoCOr8ncEaNm20D1dzotPBtjED6ZXg_7dmx7FzFIwHwjlBchEK3_m9UZmel7miJ9qvWD/s1600/2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 104px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfJKnyPBzAQ74Ae7Xq43y8kA4w8wDe_VzlWIgE3YjSpNcHBtdv3VP8hmvMWVQwAa6QCTWEtoGRoCOr8ncEaNm20D1dzotPBtjED6ZXg_7dmx7FzFIwHwjlBchEK3_m9UZmel7miJ9qvWD/s320/2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483232305028358466" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">By Arundhati Roy<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">14 June, 2010<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The Dawn<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">While the Indian Government considers deploying the army and air force to quell the rebellion in the countryside, strange things are happening in the cities.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">On the 2nd of June the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) held a public meeting in Mumbai. The main speakers were Gautam Navlakha, editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly and myself. The press was there in strength. The meeting lasted for more than three hours. It was widely covered by the print media and TV. On June 3rd, several newspapers, TV channels and online news portals like Rediff.com, covered the event quite accurately. The Times of India (Mumbai edition), had an article headlined "We need an idea that is neither Left nor Right", and the Hindu's article was headlined "Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?" The recording of the meeting is up on YouTube.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The day after the meeting, the Press Trust of India (PTI) put out a brazenly concocted account of what I had said.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The PTI report was first posted by the Indian Express online on June 3rd 2010 at 13.35 pm. The headline said: "Arundhati backs Maoists, dares authorities to arrest her." Here are some excerpts:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"Author Arundhati Roy has justified the armed resistance by Maoists and dared the authorities to arrest her for supporting their cause."</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence. But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis." (?)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle," Roy, who had saluted the "people of Dantewada" after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Maoists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces. "'I am on this side of line. I do not care...pick me up put me in jail,' she asserted."</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Let me begin with the end of the report. The suggestion that I saluted "the people of Dantewada" after the Maoists killed 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a piece of criminal defamation. I have made it quite clear in an interview on CNN-IBN that I viewed the death of the CRPF men as tragic, and that I thought they were pawns in a war of the rich against the poor. What I said at the meeting in Mumbai was that I was contemptuous of the hollow condemnation industry the media has created and that as the war went on and the violence spiraled, it was becoming impossible to extract any kind of morality from the atrocities committed by both sides, so an atrocity-based analysis was a meaningless exercise. I said that I was not there to defend the killing of ordinary people by anybody, neither the Maoists nor the government, and that it was important to ask what the CRPF was doing with 27 AK-47s, 38 INSAS, 7 SLRs, 6 light machine guns, one stengun and a two-inch mortar in tribal villages. If they were there to wage war, then being railroaded into condemning the killing of the CRPF men by the Maoists meant being railroaded into coming down on the side of the Government in a war that many of us disagreed with.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The rest of the PTI report was a malicious, moronic mish-mash of what transpired at the meeting. My views on the Maoists are clear. I have written at length about them. At the meeting I said that the people's resistance against the corporate land grab consisted of a bandwidth of movements with different ideologies, of which the Maoists were the most militant end. I said the government was labeling every resistance movement, every activist, 'Maoist' in order to justify dealing with them in repressive, military fashion. I said the government had expanded the meaning of the word 'Maoist' to include everybody who disagreed with it, anybody who dared to talk about justice. I drew attention to the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur who were waging peaceful protests but were living under siege, surrounded by hundreds of armed police, were being lathi-charged and fired at. I said that local people thought long and hard before deciding what strategy of resistance to adopt. I spoke of how people who lived deep inside forest villages could not resort to Gandhian forms of protest because peaceful satyagraha was a form of political theatre that in order to be effective, needed a sympathetic audience, which they did not have. I asked how people who were already starving could go on hunger strikes. I certainly never said anything like "it ought to be an armed movement." (I'm not sure what on earth that means.)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I went on to say that all the various resistance movements today, regardless of their differences, understood that they were fighting a common enemy, so they were all on one side of the line, and that I stood with them. But from this side of the line, instead of only asking the government questions, we should ask ourselves some questions. Here are my exact words:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">"I think it is much more interesting to interrogate the resistance to which we belong, I am on this side of the line. I am very clear about that. I don't care, pick me up, put me in jail. I am on this side of the line. But on this side of the line, we must turn around and ask our comrades questions."</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I then said that while Gandhian methods of resistance were not proving to be effective, Gandhian movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan had a radical and revolutionary vision of "development" and while the Maoists methods of resistance were effective, I wondered whether they had thought through the kind of "development" they wanted. Apart from the fact that they were against the Government selling out to private corporations, was their mining policy very different from state policy? Would they leave the bauxite in the mountain - which is what the people who make up their cadre want, or would they mine it when they came to power?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I read out Pablo Neruda's "Standard Oil Company" that tells us what an old battle this one is.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The PTI reporter who had made it a point to take permission from the organizers to record cannot claim his or her version to be a matter of 'interpretation'. It is blatant falsification. Surprisingly the one-day-old report was published by several newspapers in several languages and broadcast by TV channels on June 4th, many of whose own reporters had covered the event accurately the previous day and obviously knew the report to be false. The Economic Times said: "Publicity seeking Arundhati Roy wants to be Aung San Su Kyi". I'm curious - why would newspapers and TV channels want to publish the same news twice, once truthfully and then falsely?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">That same evening (June 4th), at about seven O'clock, two men on a motorcycle drove up to my home in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> and began hurling stones at the window. One stone nearly hit a small child playing on the street. Angry people gathered and the men fled. Within minutes, a Tata Indica arrived with a man who claimed to be a reporter from Zee TV, asking if this was "Arundhati Roy's house" and whether there had been trouble. Clearly this was a set up, a staged display of 'popular anger' to be fed to our barracuda-like TV channels. Fortunately for me, that evening their script went wrong. But there was more to come. On June 5th the Dainik Bhaskar in Raipur carried a news item "Himmat ho to AC kamra chhod kar jungle aaye Arundhati" (If she has the guts Arundhati should leave her airconditioned room and come to the jungle) in which Vishwaranjan, the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh challenged me to face the police by joining the Maoists in the forest. Imagine that- the police DGP and me, Man to Man. Not to be outdone, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Chhattisgarh, Ms Poonam Chaturvedi announced to the press that I should be shot down at a public crossroad, and that other traitors like me should be given the death sentence. (Perhaps someone should tell her that this sort of direct incitement to violence is an offense under the Indian Penal Code.) Mahendra Karma, Chief of the murderous 'peoples' militia the Salwa Judum which is guilty of innumerable acts of rape and murder, asked for legal action to be taken against me. On Tuesday June 8th the Hindi daily Nayi Duniya reported that complaints have been filed against me in two separate police stations in Chhattisgarh, Bhata Pada and Teli Bandha, by private individuals objecting to my "open support for the Maoists.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Is this what Military Intelligence calls psyops (psychological operations)? Or is it the urban avatar of Operation Green Hunt? In which a government news agency helps the home-ministry to build up a file on those it wants to put away, inventing evidence when it can't find any? Or is PTI trying to deliver the more well-known among us to the lynch mob so that the government does not have to risk its international reputation by arresting or eliminating us? Or is it just a way of forcing a crude polarization, a ridiculous dumbing down of the debate-if you're not with "us" you are a Maoist? Not just a Maoist, but a stupid, arrogant, loudmouthed Maoist. Whatever it is, it's dangerous, and shameless, but it isn't new. Ask any Kashmiri, or any young Muslim being held as a "terrorist" without any evidence except baseless media reports. Ask Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death to "satisfy the collective conscience of society."</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Now that Operation Green Hunt has begun to knock on the doors of people like myself, imagine what's happening to activists and political workers who are not well known. To the hundreds that are being jailed, tortured and eliminated. June 26th is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Emergency. Perhaps the Indian people should declare (because the government certainly won't) that this country is in a state of Emergency. (On second thoughts, did it ever go away?) This time censorship is not the only problem. The manufacture of news is an even more serious one.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-52817662966848401832010-06-14T22:12:00.000-07:002010-06-14T22:14:11.853-07:00UP girls become Gujaratis: Symbolic or Zionist mindset at work?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM2cCaK8dV3vd_qF5Cg3Gnv4MRgyDO0RM4aShDIbxCC9-adRyHfjSMexr2E5ElzTtJ7n8dqf3tbKEqIliC2p95Ln4s3pXpV5hKWzVwqRpla3BHhfoUXdYPwLIdaNnVkJj2R-8lqeeJxaC/s1600/a.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM2cCaK8dV3vd_qF5Cg3Gnv4MRgyDO0RM4aShDIbxCC9-adRyHfjSMexr2E5ElzTtJ7n8dqf3tbKEqIliC2p95Ln4s3pXpV5hKWzVwqRpla3BHhfoUXdYPwLIdaNnVkJj2R-8lqeeJxaC/s320/a.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482864374775266722" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">No, not Amitabh Bacchan or Sanjay Datt. These are three Muslim girls operating computers who all of a sudden became 'Brand Ambassadors of Gujarat' and found themselves to be symbol of ‘Muslim Prosperity’ in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place>. They appeared in the full page advertisements in Bihar dailies reportedly released by the <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> government ahead of Modi’s visit to the state. But in a sudden reversal of event, it was revealed that the girls do not represent the Muslims in the ‘<st1:placename st="on">Modi</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Land</st1:placetype>’ but they are from <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Shibli</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place>, Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Yes, the same Azamgarh that is regarded as ‘Atank-garh’ by the likes of people who are in power in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> today.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is a clear case of distortion of the facts if the website that claims ownership of one of the photos is to be believed. The Editor of the website claims, not only is the photo used in the advertisements far from representing Muslims in Gujarat, the statistics mentioned to justify the progress of Muslims in Gujarat are not current but are of 2001. The advertisement controversy is a major blow to Narendra Modi - who in an attempt to change his anti-Muslim image tried to project himself ‘Pro Muslims’ but landed in a controversy.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The entire ad controversy, reminds the famous broadcast made immediately after 9/11 terrorist attack on <st1:placename st="on">Twin</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Towers</st1:placetype> in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>. The broadcast was reportedly made by the ‘Pro-Zionist Media’ that showed Palestinians celebrating after the tragic event. It was only later that the world came to know the video was file footage of earlier date and had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. But, the advantage that the Zionists wanted to gain was accomplished and the propaganda that the Palestinians are TERRORISTS was well placed in the minds of the people already saddened and shocked by the attack. Later on it became easier to ignite the already palpitating anger against the Muslims world over.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Though unlike the Zionists, Narendra Modi could not succeed in achieving the goal he might have desired to, looking at the alleged misuse of the photograph and the video broadcast showing the celebrating Palestinians, it is not difficult to find the affinity between the two. This is perhaps to hide this affinity that BJP top brass is trying to brush aside the controversy by terming the use of photographs as ‘symbolic’ and a small incident of little importance.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">However, the incident has once again exposed the fact that there exist in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> the people who have the same Zionist ideology and follow the same mindset that is normally witnessed against the Palestinians. Though, this was never a mystery that those in power in Gujarat today are the front leaders of the strong lobby in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> that takes pride in taking sides with the Zionists. They are in <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> not only their staunch supporters, but there are incidents to suggest that they try to emulate against the Muslims and other downtrodden people in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> the inhuman Zionist tactics used against the Palestinians in their homeland.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The revelations of the slain ATS Chief Hemant Karkare showing how the Zionists were partners in the evil designs of Colonel Prohit and his team notwithstanding, the entire history of these people are full of such acts. The way they used the Godhra train accident to justify the genocide of Muslims in <st1:place st="on">Gujarat</st1:place> is one recent example. Also, there are no dearth of people in the country who believe that the bomb blasts occurring with regular intervals in India had their roots in the same Zionist mindset – blast the bombs any where at will, put the blame on existent or non-existent organisations with Muslim sounding names, pave the way for arrest of educated Muslim youths and then corner the entire Muslim community. The tactic was used successfully for years till Hemant Karkare exposed it, though it was not the first time that their dirty game-plan was revealed to the general public.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">It is here that the problem lies with these people. Even though they are exposed with regular intervals, they are neither ashamed of what they do nor are ready to change their mindset. Instead, they insist on changing forms to achieve their selfish goals. Don’t know when it would become evident to them that if they really want to change their image, they need to shun their Zionist mentality. Once they do this, they would not need any Brand Ambassador - FAKE or REAL - to demonstrate to the world what they are.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: Ummid.com </p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-84419978315762774702010-06-09T22:59:00.000-07:002010-06-09T23:02:48.611-07:00The clumsy teeth of Hindutva terrorism<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAZjA5KOJa5DdVrww4APej9BPVtaMmDq8DzqWAnTlXOQnLWR0AXYketepzdoXqc9qB5nIH873h_Z28ipVayMp5JeaTmF2u9ojAThOfaVXJdQ4-cEPALWJ7wNBeT9nfSHKCGjY4YVGXNqa/s1600/h.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 98px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCAZjA5KOJa5DdVrww4APej9BPVtaMmDq8DzqWAnTlXOQnLWR0AXYketepzdoXqc9qB5nIH873h_Z28ipVayMp5JeaTmF2u9ojAThOfaVXJdQ4-cEPALWJ7wNBeT9nfSHKCGjY4YVGXNqa/s320/h.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481021474322211474" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The inglorious Nazi strategy carried out to wipe out democracy and replace it with fascism does have a less-discussed affinity with the Hindutva strategy chalked out to convert <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> into a ‘Hindu Nation’. From Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, to Abhinav Bharath-RSS members arrested in connection with Ajmer Darga blast early this month, have chosen the way shown by Hitler and Mussolini to accomplish their goals. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's closest aide and the Minister of Propaganda, has inspired Brahmin-dominated media which shamelessly lip-synch the police rant against Muslims. More than 15 prominent bomb blasts carried out by ultra right wing Hindutva outfits across the country from the 2003 blast in Muhammadiya Masjid, Marathwada, Maharashtra to the 2009 blast in Margao, Goa acknowledge the threat of Hindutva terrorism pose to the nation. The media and investigative agencies have long hushed up the truth and accused Muslim terrorists for the various blasts taken place across the country at different times. However, the arrest of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast perpetrators, Col. Purohit and Pragya sadhvi, paved the way for a turnaround. Now, the latest developments in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ajmer</st1:place></st1:city> blast investigation expose the knotty web of Hindu terror organizations which have spread across the country and are alleged to have connections with some naxal groups.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In both cases, all the governments need to do was to come up with a theory that would justify the arrests of innocent Muslims. Unsurprisingly, the media came to its help with an incredible enthusiasm. Blatant lies and cooked theories, especially those by the Hindus ‘in house terror pundit’ Praveen Swami, were dished out, to suit the government’s claims. Swami wrote fabulous fables dotted with his own clichés ‘revealing’ that this is the war against popular Islam and tolerant Sufi traditions. In his article turned up in the Hindu on Oct 12, 2007, he says “But the bombings also reflect less-understood project: the war of Islamist neoconservatives against the syncretic traditions and beliefs that characterise popular Islam in <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bangladesh</st1:place></st1:country-region>”. The new breakthrough made by the ATS and CBI in both cases with the arrest of RSS-Abinav Bharath members has broken the back born of this theory and, now, Praveen swami is dodging by doling out some idiotic justifications.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The arrests of Devendra Gupta, an RSS pracharak, from Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Chandrasekhar, a key member of Abhinav Bharath, from Shajupur, Madhya Pradesh, underscores the truth that the Hindu terrorists operate in the country with lethal plans and sophisticated weapons. And they are so powerful that they managed to elude from glare of media and law-enforcement agencies so far. The Rajasthan ATS, now, suspects the brain behind three blasts- <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city>, <st1:city st="on">Malegaon</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hyderabad-</st1:place></st1:city> is same. The ATS’ discovery of the connection between recently arrested <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city> blast suspects and Col. Purohit, who allegedly masterminded the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Malegaon</st1:place></st1:city> blast, reveals the complex terror network prevalent in the country. One of the alarming factors ATS investigates now is their alleged link with some of the Maoist outfits working in the country.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">One cannot help asking some serious questions regarding the credibility of the system which blatantly did what it did so far. Do the state and investigative agencies deliberately attempt to frame Muslim community for the crime they didn’t commit? How did these Hindu terror outfits manage to evade from the watchful eyes of law so far, and with whose help? Another stark truth came out later is that the arrested Muslim youths for Mecca Masjid blast were really rounded up before the blast and the cases were slapped on them later. Many of them were kept in jail for seven months and allegedly tortured, even, without filing any chargesheet. Later on, one senior police officer revealed that the list of suspects was given by Central Intelligence Bureau.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The big question that has been cleverly edged out of the ongoing debates is that why do Intelligence Bureau and other agencies come up with a ‘Muslims-behind-Blast’ theory whenever any bomb explodes in the country? The allegation of former Maharshtra senior police officer, SM Mushrif, who was instrumental in exposing the multi crore stamp paper scam, that ‘Brahminisist lobby’ has overpowered all the establishments in Intelligence Bureau seems true. That the infiltration of Hindutva power into these agencies undermines the very nature and the foundation of them is quite unequivocal now.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Both the <st1:city st="on">Ajmer</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hyderabad</st1:place></st1:city> blasts have striking similarities in the modus of operandi, nature of explosion and the kind of bomb used. It was the seizure of these SIM cards that demystified both the blasts and established the complicity of saffron forces in them. However, at that time neither IB nor the state police could came out with clues which could have solved the mystery. On the contrary, their stories were, served as the evidence against Muslim, played up by the media. The questions about the extent of Hindutva influence in media and bureaucracy are to be raised and need to be addressed with due importance.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">With several terror strikes being planned and carried out by extremist Hindu groups having allegiance to their parent organization RSS, how long can the government turn a deaf ear to this ‘harmless’ cultural organization? No doubt, it is futile to expect a nation to remain immune from the malice of terrorism if the government and investigative agencies fix their attention at one particular community letting the real perpetrators get away. At any cost, RSS and other hard core Hindutva organizations should be banned; otherwise gravest security threats to our nation may persist.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: AbdulRahoof kk </p><p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-19374870571993918002010-06-08T22:32:00.001-07:002010-06-08T22:34:39.261-07:00Drive safe while you are on Social networking<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-hurDp1u7QIXLAhyphenhyphenpn0wS3G5c7ny7PqT2fnl4ST7yG9CswEhOk4fo_KT3EWokYO2vJX2_MdLv6Ah4mdailB-P_T8OtJ50pDp8xco5PcZhi5uMRHN6yoDdSGPvqoRUN4akgJEr-nuZv-b/s1600/sn.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-hurDp1u7QIXLAhyphenhyphenpn0wS3G5c7ny7PqT2fnl4ST7yG9CswEhOk4fo_KT3EWokYO2vJX2_MdLv6Ah4mdailB-P_T8OtJ50pDp8xco5PcZhi5uMRHN6yoDdSGPvqoRUN4akgJEr-nuZv-b/s320/sn.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480642787672463842" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Are you a fan of networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc.? While you enjoy interacting and sharing information with people across the world, make sure you are safe in the virtual world.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Here's how you can protect your personal information as well as privacy of your family and friends when you are hooked to these 'social' sites.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Set your privacy controls to restrict public access<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Make sure your privacy levels are set so that only your friends and family can see anything that is private. Some sites let you segment your contacts or friends list so you can control what co-workers, family, or your buddies are allowed to see.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Don't include identifying information<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Keep personal details private, such as your phone number, address, place of work, or your birthday. Don't even share the state where you born since this can be used to obtain your social security number. Even with your privacy controls set, err on the safe side and don't post information that could enable someone to steal your identity or stalk you.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Respect the privacy of friends and family<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Avoid identifying people by name in public profiles and pictures. And ask your friends not to identify you in their photos or post pictures of you that are available to the public.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Be wary of phishing attempts<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Sophisticated cyber criminals are taking advantage of the popularity of social networking sites. It can be hard to tell if an e-mail supposedly from a social networking site you belong to is an attempt to steal your login information. So to be safe, never click on a link from an e-mail that looks like it came from a social networking site- type in the site's URL manually.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Don't put your entire work history online<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">A full history of everywhere you've ever worked can help an identity thief fill out a loan application. So on sites like LinkedIn, limit your work history details and/or restrict access to your information to just those in your network.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Beware of scams<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Scammers can gain access to one of your friend's accounts (through a phishing attempt for instance) and then solicit all the friends linked to the account for money. Never respond with a credit card number or online payment, even if it looks like it is from a friend. Call your friend and ask if it's a legitimate request.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Be careful about giving about your location<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">With Twitter and similar tools, you may be broadcasting to lurkers, stalkers, and thieves where you are and how long you'll be there. Just as you wouldn't put a note on your door saying you're out of town, be mindful of disclosing similar information online.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Choose your password carefully<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Make it at least eight characters and include a number and a symbol in it. This way it's very difficult for someone to guess your password and hijack your account.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Courtesy: Rediff.com </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-4188859513261717042010-06-07T22:14:00.000-07:002010-06-08T22:51:24.203-07:00The scars of Bhopal Gas Genocide shall remain for ages ...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aQsUqI5uzBX-NssMb1XUCdxtV4hXnwwL9sVNlp_oisaz3UNT4Rie8Lre0xJZ1SKpKNUb77YyDu61fLgwtaaFPpQTiOhMRHXJhHyCFNU7zEogh1dzUY7Qjtih16cSHeqEUvGo1iKWGt1c/s1600/bg.jpg"><img style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 101px; height: 96px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aQsUqI5uzBX-NssMb1XUCdxtV4hXnwwL9sVNlp_oisaz3UNT4Rie8Lre0xJZ1SKpKNUb77YyDu61fLgwtaaFPpQTiOhMRHXJhHyCFNU7zEogh1dzUY7Qjtih16cSHeqEUvGo1iKWGt1c/s320/bg.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480267577901099874" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> court judgment on 7th June 2010 is the Second Judicial Disaster in the issue of the Union Carbide genocide of December 1984. This judgment excluded the CEO of Union Carbide Corp. Warren Anderson from the list of guilty and allowed the rest of the guilty (including Keshub Mahindra, the then CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. which controlled the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corp.) to go Scot free of the charges of genocide in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> more than 25 years ago. Looking back, the First Judicial Disaster took place on 14-15 February 1989 when the Supreme Court of India put its stamp of approval on the shameless agreement reached between Union Carbide, on the one hand, and the Union of India and the M.P. Government, on the other. The Supreme Court, through its 1989 judgment, freed Union Carbide of all Civil Liabilities and negated both compensatory and punitive damages and thus rolled red carpet for the neo-liberal capital to begin its plunder and loot in India from 1991 onwards. The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> court’s judgment today freed Union Carbide of all Criminal Liabilities and enabled the neo-liberal capital to put the last nail in the coffin of the Indian judicial system. The Indian scientific establishment, too, played a disastrous role in this tragic drama, amounting to the Third Bhopal Disaster. With frequent disaster, the ray of hope for justice seems diminishing.</div>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-21553556836247281412010-06-06T23:19:00.000-07:002010-06-06T23:22:22.997-07:00Quality & Development at Stake with New RTE bylaws<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyP78cmorAowKsuj7NGBYNeq7NPtNmfp1LZ0A2g-BcHqVlgP2vykDABDsfW3IuLrQSnd5y2llu9ZKBqNxisKrt0-ENfLNiT1l68ZRwVXvDcU6Erhlfotz5Gu5BtwPcr4pFpNW7ptpevGDH/s1600/2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 145px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyP78cmorAowKsuj7NGBYNeq7NPtNmfp1LZ0A2g-BcHqVlgP2vykDABDsfW3IuLrQSnd5y2llu9ZKBqNxisKrt0-ENfLNiT1l68ZRwVXvDcU6Erhlfotz5Gu5BtwPcr4pFpNW7ptpevGDH/s320/2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479913051087631106" /></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The circular on Right to Education released by Education Department last month might have relieved parents, teachers, students, academicians and experts following increasing number of suicide cases among students. However, it will leave more ‘negative’ than ‘positive’ impression on students! According to this circular under section 16 of the RTE Act, no student of standard 1st to 8th can be failed, detained or even rusticated for any reason. This means that students are now free to do what they want and study as per their whims and fancies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Consequently, demeaning the quality of education and so the development of students who pass through a crucial age of learning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Though this decision might help decrease or reduce the number of suicide cases among students who fails every year and will definitely save their one important academic year. But certainly we are getting at the cost of quality and development of students.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Secondly, today all that matters for teachers is marks and percentage. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The teaching method adopted by most of the schools urge students to score good marks and equip them with techniques to scoring good marks. Even parents insist their children on getting good marks or percentage. But does education means only numbers? The way teachers and parents are pressurizing students on scoring good marks makes clear that getting marks is more important than gaining knowledge. It is this extra pressure on scoring which is the only reason of increasing number of suicides among students. The only solution lies in changing the method of teaching and conducting seminars for parents regarding how to create hassle free environment for students so that they won’t take studies as burden because change is the only thing that has brought progress in this world.</p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018150404420443102.post-50494672601611580732010-06-04T21:56:00.000-07:002010-06-04T21:57:44.078-07:00Tight your lace … as this WED have loads of stuff to do<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTfiCg5zhiDzT9s6lvoC5jWr5rzFctOvLPiU-DFckfxk9IU0Hi9MwmuvnM-1DMv-zSWw99fWDzUHXryMYQ71UxQt66eibuJ_ERS_OoG8YjG440OBYKPHuc3fFwXq_nm3KtriJ3WNtQuaxT/s1600/wed.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 109px; height: 121px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTfiCg5zhiDzT9s6lvoC5jWr5rzFctOvLPiU-DFckfxk9IU0Hi9MwmuvnM-1DMv-zSWw99fWDzUHXryMYQ71UxQt66eibuJ_ERS_OoG8YjG440OBYKPHuc3fFwXq_nm3KtriJ3WNtQuaxT/s320/wed.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479149264687983618" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black;">With this World Environment day coming at our doorstep, we need to make our minds to contribute in the betterment of our planet Earth. Amidst dwelling in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, where environmental issues are becoming our prime concerns, we are left with no choice but to redefine the values and principles that underlie our relationship with the Earth. Clearly, a new approach is required. The industrial civilization has brought about an abundance of goods and services to humankind, at the same time, this come with an obsession for materialism and a distortion of human values. Science and technology have played a critical role in the development of human history and will be one of the key determining factors in shaping a sustainable future. However, the impacts of technological development and their applications have also become so serious that they threaten the stability of the ecosystem and human society. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black;">The planet Earth is the common home for all of us. We must all strive to share equitably the benefits and burdens resulting from the use of the environment. All members of human society are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the environment as a Whole-Life-System. Individual efforts can be enhanced through building networks within and among all levels of civil society and government, industry and business, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Education, especially at an early age, has a significant effect on how people form attitudes toward the environment, and is thus crucial. Educational programmes designed to enhance awareness of environmental issues and ethics must be developed and applied at all levels of society through all available and practical means. Lets pledge on this Environment Day that we cultivate a lifestyle that accepts and is consistent with sufficiency rather than greed and excess. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="color:black;">Bearing in mind that Earth's resources are limited, each person must avoid a culture of extravagant material consumption and pursue ways to preserve the planet by improving consumption patterns. </span>A good time to start would be now! We can make. You being a responsible citizen certainly feel concerned about the environment, then can think of trying the following things while we have World Environment Day 2010 and make a difference:<span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Live Green<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Want to put more “green” in your life by saving money and reducing waste? Here is practical information about environmentally friendly food, drink, fashions, cars and cleaning products, to name a few. Make eco-friendly lifestyle choices and buying decisions that will help sustain the environment rather than deplete it.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Reduce Global Warming<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Reducing global warming may seem like a daunting task, but if each of us makes a commitment to taking steps now, we can make a difference. For example, if every family in the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> replaced one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent, 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases would be eliminated. Look here for more steps, big and small, that will help to reduce global warming.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Conserve Energy<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One way to do your part to protect the environment is to make choices every day that enable you to use less energy.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04795121460212847998noreply@blogger.com0