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IAMC Weekly News Roundup – November 14th, 2011

by newsdigest on November 14, 2011

In this issue of IAMC News Roundup

News Headlines

Opinions & Editorials

Book Review

31 Indians Convicted in Violence That Killed Muslims in 2002 (Nov 9, 2011, New York Times)

An Indian court found 31 people guilty on Wednesday of killing 33 Muslims in Gujarat State in 2002 during sectarian riots that left more than 1,000 dead. Convicted of murder, arson, rioting and criminal conspiracy, they were sentenced to life in prison and fined. Forty-two other defendants were acquitted. The verdicts were a milepost in a case whose savagery stunned many Indians. The riots broke out after a train carrying mostly Hindus was set on fire at the station in Godhra, a predominantly Muslim area, killing 59 people. Blaming Muslims, mobs of Hindus rampaged, raping, looting and killing in a spasm of violence that raged for days and persisted for weeks.

Gujarat’s Hindu nationalist government and its police were widely condemned for ineffectiveness in halting the rioting or prosecuting anyone promptly, and the National Human Rights Commission filed a petition with the Supreme Court to press for justice. Five years later, in 2008, the court ordered special investigations into the train fire along with a number of attacks on Muslims. The case that ended with Wednesday’s verdicts was a particularly gruesome one. On that evening, March 1, 2002, two days after the train burning, a mob of Hindu rioters surrounded houses belonging to Muslims in Sardarpura village in the district of Mehsana and set them on fire. Dozens of people inside were burned alive.

Killings, arson and looting continued throughout the night, aimed at Muslims. Most of the village’s Muslim families moved away after the episode. Ghulam Ali, 31, a house painter, lost 13 extended family members, including a brother, a sister-in-law, an uncle and an aunt. He survived by sheltering with others in a half-burned house, and now lives 20 miles away. “Allah saved us on that day,” Mr. Ali said after the verdict. “Now there is a ray of hope in Gujarat. It gives us confidence that justice will prevail in other cases as well.” He said he and other relatives of victims were considering whether to appeal the acquittals, a step that Indian law allows. The special investigation into the train attack led to the trial of 94 people; 31 were convicted. Twenty were given life sentences, and 11 were sentenced to death.

A handful of other group trials have focused on rioters, yielding a few dozen convictions and, in one case, 11 life sentences. Left unresolved by the trial was the widespread belief in Gujarat that the violence against Muslims in Sardarpura and other villages was deliberately orchestrated. “The special investigation team did not go into the issue of wider conspiracy of riots,” Teesta Setalvad, an activist who represents riot victims and their families, said after Wednesday’s judgment. “Some of the witnesses testified and hinted about the wider conspiracy, but that was overlooked.” Ms. Setalvad said the victims were pleased with the life sentences in the case. “We are not in favor of death sentence,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/world/asia/indian-court-convicts-31-over-muslim-deaths-in-2002.html

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Riot cop who battled state vendetta: Witness lost constable job (Nov 11, 2011, The Telegraph)

The Gujarat government had sacked an employee in connection with the riot case that led to 31 life terms yesterday – not the three among the accused but one who became a key prosecution witness. It was police constable Munsaf Khan, who had not only identified several key accused in the Sardarpura massacre of 33 Muslims but exposed the rioter-police collusion. Khan’s victimisation partly mirrors that of another whistleblower policeman, IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was suspended and arrested after spilling chief minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the Supreme Court.

Khan was dismissed in 2007 after he had filed an affidavit in the apex court describing how the local police had left the village, giving the killers a free hand. He was sacked for going on “unauthorised leave”, the same charge on which Bhatt was later suspended. The constable, however, again moved the top court, on whose orders the government had to reinstate him six months later and provide him with police protection. Khan, 61, retired as a constable in 2009 and lives with his family in Sardarpura, his home village, with a single constable guarding his house. Khan says he had been home in Sardarpura on medical leave on the night of the carnage – March 1, 2002 – and saw the mob torch the house, 300 metres from his own, where the victims were hiding.

He says the previous day, February 28, police had come to the village after 20 shops owned by Muslims were torched, but had done nothing to protect the community. Being a policeman himself, Khan, who was then posted in Kallol near Gandhinagar, tried to restore peace. “I wanted to set up a peace committee on February 28 but neither the sarpanch nor others from the Patel community responded. Perhaps they had made up their mind to attack us,” Khan said. He later told the apex court-appointed special investigation team how then sarpanch Kanubhai Patel, 46, and his successor Kachara Patel, 58, led the rioters. Both were convicted yesterday, as were three government employees – electricity board staffers Mathur Patel, 49, Jayanti Patel, 46, and Ganesh Prajapati, 54 – who had all these years not faced even a departmental inquiry.

Khan says he saw Kanubhai help Mathur fix a searchlight before the house that was torched. He saw Kachara on the rooftop while a mob surrounded the house and shouted: “Kill them all. Not one should live.” After Kanubhai’s term as sarpanch ended four months later, Kachara, a Congress member, was elected unopposed. Kanubhai remained influential in the area as a BJP leader. The local police had not informed their higher-ups about the attack, which lasted from 9pm till 2.30am. It was Khan who called up a relative in Ahmedabad and got him to somehow contact district police chief Anupam Gehlot, who rushed in from Mehsana town, 50km away. “The entire Muslim population of the village would have been wiped out if Gehlot had not arrived,” a villager said. Of the 76 Muslim families that lived in Sardarpura, over 40 have left for good, selling their shops to the Patels. Only a few landowning Pathan families have stayed back.

Khan himself moved to Sanvala village, 30km away, for the next six months. “We have relatives there and Sanvala has a sizeable Muslim population. We felt safe,” he said. He added that after he rejoined work, he was harassed because he had identified the riot leaders and exposed the police collusion. So, he filed the apex court affidavit a few years later. Of the dozen-odd accused he had identified, seven have been convicted. One of the accused, Ambalal Patel, 57, sounded remorseful in court yesterday. “We faced a social boycott after the killings. Even our relatives avoided us,” he told reporters. In some cases, whole families – fathers, sons, brothers and uncles – have been found guilty. Sardarpura, however, observed a bandh against the convictions today.

http://telegraphindia.com/1111111/jsp/nation/story_14735821.jsp

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A lead the SIT ignored on Gujarat riots (Nov 12, 2011, The Hindu)

Telephone records accessed by The Hindu lend credence to a crucial affidavit filed by a journalist backing senior police officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s claim to have attended the controversial 2002 meeting at Narendra Modi’s residence where the Gujarat Chief Minister allegedly said Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger against Muslims in the wake of the Godhra carnage. The records show Mr. Bhatt and the journalist, former BBC correspondent Shubhranshu Chaudhary, were at roughly the same location and talking to each other before the February 27, 2002 meeting between Mr. Modi and the State’s top cops.

Mr. Bhatt has claimed – in depositions before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team and in an affidavit – that he was present at the meeting and had heard the Gujarat Chief Minister instruct his officials to allow “revenge” attacks against Muslims. However, the SIT dismissed Mr. Bhatt as an unreliable witness and said none of the officials present at the meeting confirmed having seen him there. With Mr. Bhatt’s presence itself in dispute, no credence could be attached to his account of what happened at the meeting, the SIT concluded. The SIT, however, never examined Mr. Chaudhary, whose affidavit says Mr. Bhatt left an interview with him to go to Mr. Modi’s residence that night.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Chaudhary recalled his own meeting with Mr. Bhatt at his home late in the evening on February 27, 2002. His version of events – portions of which are contained in an affidavit he has filed in the Supreme Court – is that he reached Ahmedabad that evening. He immediately fixed up to meet Mr. Bhatt, and after finding out the location of his house on phone, reached there around 9 p.m. At 9.30 p.m., Mr. Bhatt hurried out saying he had been summoned to attend a meeting at the Chief Minister’s residence.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2619426.ece

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Nadeem Saiyed murdered to scare other Gujarat riot case witnesses? (Nov 7, 2011, DNA India)

Soon after RTI activist Nadeem Saiyed was stabbed to death in broad daylight on Saturday morning, the immediate theory that came floating was that he could have been killed by those whose illegal cow slaughter business Nadeem had exposed. But at the same time, it was not ruled out that he could have paid the price with his life as he was a key witness in the 2002 Naroda-Patiya riot case. People associated with the riot cases suspect that Nadeem was eliminated to send out a warning message to other riot witnesses. In his own case, Nadeem had been threatened in July this year by Kalupur don Mehboob Senior to withdraw himself from Naroda-Patiya case. The slain activist had even filed a complaint at Gujarat University police station.

Imtiyaz Kureshi, a witness in Naroda Gam case, was once threatened by one Dr Prahlad Parmar, who had claimed that he was the right-hand man of suspended and jailed IPS officer DG Vanzara. “Parmarhad approached me as I ran a printing business. When he called me to his clinic for paying me the bill for the work I had done for him, he first tried to lure me with money for not giving deposition in the court. When I refused to do so, he threatened me and said that he managed all money of DG Vanzara and if I did not obey his words, I will have to face dire consequences,” Kureshi said. Kureshi had also filed a police complaint on September 26, 2009 against the doctor for threatening him. But according to him, there was no significant development in the case. Similarly, Salim Sheikh, a witness in Naroda-Patiya case, had to face harassment. Sheikh had filed anapplication in the SIT.”Relatives of the accused had filed a wrong police complaint against me and put pressure on my brother Sattar, also a witness. However, in the court proceedings, I was proven innocent,” he said.

Sheikh has been provided police protection, but only for 10 hours.”As per the Supreme Court order, the witnesses should be given 24-hour police protection, but my family has been given police protection only for 10 hours. If Nadeembhai had policemen with him, he wouldn’t have been killed. I am also facing threat to life. One day, a policeman who was deployed for my security said that enmity with police would prove costly for me, as SIT would not last long. I filed a police complaint against that constable,” he said. Jan Sangharsh Manch founder and advocate Mukul Sinha, who is representing the riot victims in court,said the manner in which Nadeem was killed sent out a message to other witnesses. “He was killeddespite having police protection. This gives out a message that if Nadeem can meet with this fate, others too can be treated like this,” said Sinha.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1608799

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Bhatt demands security against ‘Modi supporters, Hindu fanatics’ (Nov 7, 2011, Rediff)

Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who deposed against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the post Godhra riots, on Sunday made fresh demands for a bullet-proof car and the appointment of a nodal officer to look after his security, citing ‘ever increasing’ threat to his life.

“In the wake of the ever increasing threat to me and my family from (Narendra) Modi supporters and Hindu fanatics, I request you to designate a nodal officer for my security arrangements while travelling outside Ahmedabad,” he said in a letter to the state home ministry.

Bhatt has deposed against the Gujarat chief minister and his accomplices before various forums, including the Special Investigation Team probing the 2002 Godhra riots in Gujarat.

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-bhatt-demands-security-against-modi-supporters-hindu-fanatics/20111107.htm

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Abhay Chudasama may have hand in Tulsi case too: CBI (Nov 12, 2011, DNA India)

The central bureau of investigation (CBI) has claimed that it had gathered evidence that seemed to indicate that suspended IPS officer Abhay Chaudasama was also involved in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter. The probe agency has made this allegation in the affidavit that it filed in the Gujarat high court on Friday opposing Chudasama’s bail plea in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. This is the first time that Chudasama’s name has figured as a possible accused in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case. He is currently in judicial custody as an accused in the Sohrabuddin case.

Opposing Chudasama’s bail plea, the probe agency stated that the IPS officer had played a key role in threatening and influencing witnesses of Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. If he was let out on bail, he could intimidate witnesses and tamper with evidence in the case, the CBI stated. The CBI has further said that it had got evidence that Chudasama had threatened Dashrath Patel and his brother, Raman Patel, both key witnesses in the Sohrabuddin case case. The Patel brothers are owners of Popular Builders, a construction company. The IPS officer was involved in the extortion racket run by Sohrabuddin, the probe agency said.

Justice KM Thaker, who is hearing the case, asked Chudasama’s lawyers to file a reply to the CBI’s affidavit by November 24. Earlier, on August 16, 2011, special CBI judge RM Parmar had rejected Chudasama’s bail plea, observing that the officer was an accused in a heinous crime and was allegedly a key conspirator in the case.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1611486

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Malegaon blast case: HC rejects bail of Lt Col Purohit (Nov 9, 2011, Indian Express)

The Bombay High Court today rejected the bail plea of 2008 Malegaon blast accused Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit but allowed liberty to co-accused Ajay Rahirkar on certain conditions. “Lt Colonel Purohit was not just involved in talking about Hindu rashtra, but is alleged to have been instrumental in making RDX available,” the judge observed while rejecting his bail. “Reliability of evidence about his bragging to a witness that he had RDX in his possession and the evidence about finding of RDX on a cotton swab would have to be decided at trial. Therefore, he would not be entitled to bail,” observed Justice R C Chavan. “As far as Ajay Rahirkar is concerned, firstly, there is nothing in the conversation to show his involvement.

Secondly, all that he could be said to have done is financing purchase of some arms and not any material used in the blasts at the instance of Purohit from the funds of a trust. Hence, Rahirkar would be entitled to bail,” the judge held. Rahirkar was ordered to be released on bail on his furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh with one or more solvent sureties in the same amount. The judge asked Rahirkar to scrupulously keep himself away from all witnesses and report at the office of National Investigating Agency or its representative in Mumbai once a month on a convenient date to be fixed by the trial court till the case is over. Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayed Bilal, a Malegaon resident, had intervened in the matter and opposed the bail plea of both the accused. Defence lawyer Srikant Shivade argued that there was no direct evidence against the accused, and hence, they were entitled to bail.

Prosecutor Rohini Salian argued that since conspiracy was hatched in secrecy, such titbits of information as could be gathered from deliberations at meetings of conspirators, evidence about their movement and association with material or articles used in the blast, traced backwards from seizure of two wheeler which was found to have been used, could lead to the inference of applicants involvement in conspiracy. However, the judge felt that this would have to be tested at trial. Purohit’s counsel submitted that the accused was an army officer involved in anti-terror operations and was working for Military Intelligence. He produced some material to support such a contention. Relying on a Supreme Court judgement, the defence counsel argued that it would not be proper to implicate a person merely because of his communication with a person involved in the offence. He urged the court to consider that Purohit was a serving army officer with a good record in jail for the last three years. Hence, he should be given bail.

Purohit and Rahirkar were arrested and issued charge sheet in connection with the Malegaon bomb blast that occurred on September 29, 2008 and in which seven persons were killed. Co-accused include Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Sudhakar Dhar Dwivedi alias Shankaracharya and Rakesh Dhawade. According to prosecution, the accused had formed an organisation known as Abhinav Bharat Trust at Pune in 2006 with headquarters at the address of Rahirkar. It was registered on February 9, 2007. They allegedly took an oath to strive to turn India into a Hindu rashtra called Aryawart. It was alleged that the members met from time to time to discuss various aspects for achieving their goal. Accused Shankaracharya is stated to have recorded conversations at the meetings and these recordings are the foundation of the case built up against the two applicants.

Approval for applying provisions of MCOCA in this case was granted on November 20, 2008, and the applicants were booked for offences under this stringent act. Purohit and Rahirkar along with others were issued charge sheet for offences under various enactments including MCOCA. Both the applicants applied for bail before the special judge. On July 31, 2009, the judge held that charges against them under MCOCA did not survive and discharged them. He directed that the case be placed before regular sessions court to try them for other offences, and therefore, rejected their applications for bail. The state challenged the order discharging the accused from offences under MCOCA before the high court. A division bench partly allowed the applications on July 19, 2010 and directed the special judge to decide the bail application expeditiously.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/873540/

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Six Hindu Vahini activists arrested in Hyderabad (Nov 14, 2011, Hindustan Times)

With the arrest of six activists of the Hindu Vahini, Hyderabad police claim to have solved the mystery behind last week’s attacks on eight people belonging to the minority community. Police said the accused attacked people of the other community on the pretext that they had slaughtered cows during Eid-ul-Zuha on Nov 7.

According to Police Commissioner AK Khan, the sleuths of the Commissioner’s Task Force solved the mystery behind the attacks that occurred on the night of Nov 8-9 at five different places in the city.”Police seized three motorcycles, three rods, one knife and six cell phones used in attacks,” said a statement from the police commissioner’s office on Sunday night.

The accused, all of them in their 20s, include one K Unni Krishna, who is a cinema artist from Kerala and one Surya Vanshi Santosh, a student of fashion technology and native of Adilabad district. Police said the accused assembled in Baghlingampally Park Nov 8 and conspired to attack people of the other community. The same night they attacked eight people with iron rods and a knife at five different places. The victims going on two-wheelers sustained serious head injuries.

The series of attacks crated panic among people. Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) leader and MP from Hyderabad Asaduddin Owaisi had urged police to immediately bring the culprits to book. MIM has demanded stern action against those involved in the attacks. MIM leaders voiced concern over deliberate attempts being made to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the city.

A delegation of MIM legislators met the police commissioner and lodged their protest over the permission given to Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia to visit the city. They demanded that a case be booked against Togadia for delivering a “provocative” speech during his visit last week.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/768853.aspx

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Togadia delivers hate-filled speech in a lackluster VHP program in Pirana (Nov 8, 2011, Twocircles.net)

Giving full credit to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) for working for the cause of Hindus and Hindutva in the country, the VHP General Secretary Dr. Praveen Togadia chose the venue of Pirana near the Imam Shah Bava Dargah, some 25 kms away from Ahmedabad. The three days’ National Convention of the VHP incidentally coincided with the Bakrid and the thrust of the convention kept moving from Conversion to Cow slaughter and attack on minorities specially Muslims. Earlier the citizens from cross-section of the society from Gujarat and the rest of India had demanded Governor of Gujarat, Dr. Kamla’s intervention in alerting the State Police Administration to withdraw the permission to the VHP’s 3- Day Conference ‘Dharm Prasar Akhil Bharatiya Karyakarta Sammelan’ which ran from 5th to 7th November. There was tension in the air of Pirana as a result of this conference. In his typical style Dr. Praveen Togadia attacked the Muslims of the country. Dr. Togadia in his address opined that the history of Hindus and the Hindu culture can be traced back to 6000 crores years. He questioned the past of Muslims and Christians saying that who were they before 1400 and 2000 years respectively. He gave a call to Hindus to capture the Islamic holy places in Arab and Vatican of Europe.

He laughed at the logic of ‘Momin’ and ‘Believer’ words used by the Muslims and Christians. He gave a strong worded call to all Hidnus to unite without any caste or creed’s differences and fight for the security and protection of Hindu values and Hindutva. Togadia said it was enough now and if need arises it is time to show the world the strength and power of Hindus he cited the example of Godhra and said that it united the Hindus and gave a feeling of oneness to the Hindus of the State. Attacking the UPA’s government at the Centre Togadia urged that the UPA was all set to lend a license to the Muslims of India to carry out atrocities on Hindus and remain scott free through its draft Bill of Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011. This he said was not issued by ‘even Aurangzeb’. He said that it was getting too much now; jihadis are spread in all corners of ‘Bharat’. He said it looks as if the Centre has kneeled down before the Muslims and Christians and that it is time that Hindus will have to come on roads once again to demonstrate their strength. Inciting and igniting the flame of hatred Togadia further kept the attack on Muslims. Without chewing any words, he said the price-rise and the suffering of the common man in India is mainly due to the large population. It is, according to Togadia, high time to bring in force the Common Civil Code and govern the Muslims under it. He said unless and until the Muslims are stopped from keeping five wives and producing 25 children it cannot be solved. He also suggested the idea of kicking out several lakhs of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants living in India. He said the government had kept the Bangladeshis as their son in laws.

There were three types of ‘jihads’ that were in force and were orchestrated by the Muslims, he felt naming them he said one is mehngai jihad, Love jihad and Petrol jihad . He said just 12 percent of total Indian population is Muslims and two and half percent of it is Christians yet Hindus are being compelled to live as second class citizens, this they will not tolerate any more, he said Hindus were being humiliated and tormented at the hands of Muslim terrorism. He criticized at the idea of the scholarships and awards to Muslims and subsidy to Hajj pilgrims being given to Muslims. Togadia crossed all limits when he spread his hate speech to a level when he said kaafir ka gala kaat do aisa Quran me likha hai and he further added in context of Christians that according to them the non-believers will go to hell. Togadia also opined that if Muslims do not mend their ways their Right to Vote must be ceased from them. He said as long as Muslims were there in the country, the holy cows were not protected in India. He and many others on the dais demanded that the cow should be granted the status of ‘Gau Mata’ in India and should be protected to the fullest. In a cursory mention Togadia said that the gauchar (grazing land) land was being used away otherwise by some elements which was not practiced even by the British who invaded and misruled in our country and even Aurangzeb. He questioned that when the grazing land (gauchar) is not there how will the cows survive.

Without naming Narendra Modi, his reported arch-rival in BJP wing of the Sangh ideology, he stated that ‘these days fashion of topi was also in place’. However, soon after the second days’ speeches were over, media tried to speak to him but Togadia smartly avoided all questions pertaining to Modi, Advani’s visit to Gujarat and the rule of BJP in Gujarat. He skipped the questions saying that he wanted to focus on ‘dharm prachar and prasar’ and on no other topic. There was mention and an all out verbal attack and inflammatory words used by him to carry out a verbal attack on UPA, Muslims and Christians of the country in particular and the world in general. Throughout his speech Togadia maintained that the Hindu religion was supreme and the land chosen for it was ‘Bharat’ as he questioned that why was Arabistan not chosen for the Hindu dharam by the Gods. The VHP leaders took all precaution to use ‘Karnavati’ (Amdavad) for Ahmedabad but they forgot that the banner on the stage itself carried the word Ahmedabad and not Karnavati! The tone and tenor of Dr. Pravin Togadia and selected words used by him in his hate speech were typical of him to degrade and attack the minorities and the misdeeds of the UPA. But on the whole the programme was lackluster and the leader looked quite demoralized. Booklets like ‘Vijay-Path’ and ‘Soniya ki barbarta va saazish’ was being freely distributed by the VHP workers at the venue.

Delegates from other States who attended the Sammelan from Chhatisgarh and elsewhere remained present at the VHP’s national Sammelan at Pirana but many of them chose to leave the place at the end of the second day for other places of Gujarat. When media persons tried to speak to some of them they showed their unhappiness over the fact that the Chief Minister of Gujarat had kept himself away from this sammelan and did not attend it. No state government minister attended the event. VHP sammelan was in progress and some inflammatory words and speeches were heard by entire area on loud speakers in the quiet Pirana area. Policemen were guarding the shrine. Many attendants of the Sammelan were also seen visiting the Imam Shah Baba’s Shrine. There were not many takers to Togadia’s call hardly few claps followed the dramatic delivery of speech.

http://twocircles.net/2011nov08/togadia_delivers_hatefilled_speech_lackluster_vhp_program_pirana.html

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Democracy should not be hijacked by Military: Anti-AFSPA activist (Nov 11, 2011, Twocircles.net)

Anti-AFSPA [Armed Forces Special Provisions Act] leader from Manipur, Bablu Loi Thongbam demanded adequate steps to prevent the Military from hijacking the democratic system of the country. The North East states require political solutions to bring back peace rather than repressive measures, he said.

He was talking in a programme organised by Hind Swaraj Forum to mark the 12th year of Irom Sharmila’s hunger strike against AFSPA. In spite of the widespread protests the Military is still against the repeal of AFSPA, he said that the root cause of frequent riots in the recent times in India is the neo-liberal economic system.

“Unless AFSPA is repealed at the earliest, it could very well steal away the left over Democratic spaces as well,” he said.He warned that it won’t take too long for AFSPA to be enforced in states like Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and even states like Kerala.

http://twocircles.net/2011nov11/democracy_should_not_be_hijacked_military_anti_afspa_activist.html

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Opinions and Editorials

Path to justice – Editorial (Nov 11, 2011, Indian Express)

Almost a decade after the Gujarat riots of 2002, the first verdict in the nine post-Godhra cases monitored by the Supreme Court has been pronounced, and 31 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court for the deaths of 33 Muslims at Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. Among the victims were 17 women and 11 children. When the court lifted the stay on the trials of these nine major cases in May 2009, it had underscored the delay already caused and the need for early completion of sensitive cases.

It was always clear that only a fully secure and committed legal process could bring closure for the victims of Gujarat 2002. Time and again, that process had been revealed to be vulnerable. In March 2008, the Supreme Court, fed up with the probes, had ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) be set up to investigate 10 cases, including the Godhra deaths.

While the sentenced retain their right to appeal, due legal process is what has found its way through the trial. The single case of Sardarpura is a symbol and demonstration of how the state had failed its citizens in Gujarat by not providing them the security it is meant to and by not coming to their rescue as soon as it perhaps could have. The victims were mostly farm labourers while the convicted were the landowners, the former having reposed their trust in the latter should the violence spread to their Shaikh Vaas area. They were murdered, brutally, by these self-same employers and neighbours.

Beyond the carnage of a riot, this was a case of betrayal. The story of the victims of Gujarat 2002 is a tale of betrayal at every level. It is this narrative that the legal process has to end. For his part, Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, has never expressed remorse for the riots. And too often, the horrors are reduced to rhetoric – inflated unnecessarily by some and defiantly ignored by others. For closure, Gujarat needs the legal process to work out an end and stick to the reality of what happened.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/874043/

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Gujarat riots: Narendra Modi’s role is the larger issue – By Seema Mustafa (Nov 11, 2011, DNA India)

Internal security is all about justice. Justice in food distribution, justice in poverty alleviation, justice in the observation of rights, justice in law implementation are just some aspects that make citizens secure, and nations vibrant and healthy. Governance to be effective has to be just, without prejudice and discrimination. Following the conviction of 31 people, the families of the 33 people who were burnt alive in the Sardarpura massacre in Gujarat in 2002 must be feeling a little more confident that justice is not dead in India. Despite the political system being compromised, they know that individuals and civil society are prepared to stand by them and knock at all available doors for justice. The tenacity of many of those working in Gujarat and outside in pursuing the cases of murder and rape is commendable and admirable, and as activist Teesta Setalvad said, the verdict has restored the faith of people in the judicial system. Though 31 were convicted, 42 have been acquitted. Even so the number of convicted is unprecedented.

Several cases are to come up before the courts, with the Supreme Court having monitored the process in part. It remains to be seen whether the Special Investigations Team will place before the courts evidence of political conspiracy at the highest level in Gujarat. But this is a good beginning, and optimism has returned to some extent among those who have been fighting not just the cases, but also powerful political leaders in their nearly decade-long struggle for justice. Many battles would have been won, and major problems and issues averted, had the political class been sensitive to the need for dispensing justice. The alienation among Sikhs reached new levels after the 1984 massacre in Delhi when Congress leaders led the mobs that killed over 2,500 Sikhs. The subsequent years saw a running battle between the people and the Congress that kept trying to reinstate the tainted leaders, even as it denied justice to the victims. Similarly, Gujarat was a blow to secularism across India, with Muslims still not having reconciled to the open murder and rape of thousands in Gujarat by motivated mobs during BJP chief minister Narendra Modi’s rule. The state law and order forces disappeared from view and allowed the carnage to continue unabated.

In fact, the history of Independent India has been dotted with communal violence – Meerut, Malliana, Kanpur, Aligarh, Bhagalpur, Hubli, Bhopal – with the recommendations of enquiry committees/commissions remaining buried in the corridors of power. The reluctance of the political parties in power to dispense justice in such cases is amazing, more so as the wounds continue to fester in the absence of justice. Hundreds of thousands of families affected by communal and caste violence have given up hope, carrying anger and insecurity as part of their baggage. Some are able to manage, but for many the injustice generates deep helplessness that is the root cause of many of the problems affecting states and communities. Significantly a direct Hindu-Muslim clash does not generate the same trauma if the state administration is perceived to be taking just and effective action. The problem really arises when the state joins the perpetrators, either during the attack by directing its police machinery to stay away, or after by blocking the wheels of justice through deliberately shoddy investigation. This generates deep insecurity that ghettoises castes and communities, and creates fissures that are not easily bridged.

Thus the special court verdict while welcome is clearly not enough. Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modvadiya has said that the ‘crocodiles’ had been acquitted and clearly not investigated. If he truly believes this, then the Congress should play a major role in exposing the facts and ensuring all comprehensive justice. There has been too much of rhetoric and little action, with the real work of approaching the courtsand fighting individual cases being left to civil society. The larger issue remains Modi’s involvement in the 2002 violence. The SIT reportedly has found no involvement of Modi’s complicity in the violence, (there is no official word on this, only media leaks) although the chief minister has been named in the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of the slain Congress leader Ahsan Jafri. A report has also been filed by senior advocate Raju Ramachandran authorised to tour Gujarat as an amicus curiae (friend of the court). However, the court has left it to the SIT to decide whether or not to take Ramachandran’s report on board. Again leaks suggest this report admits to grounds for further inquiry into Modi’s role during the violence. But again there is no official confirmation.

Senior police officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who is facing the state administration’s wrath for some frank talking, had filed an affidavit raising serious questions about the SIT’s probe. Privy to considerable information as a senior officer, he has deposed before various commissions of inquiry about Modi’s role in the violence. While he has just got bail after being arrested, his family remains fearful for his life. Important witnesses have died mysterious deaths in Gujarat, with no arrests of even possible assailants. Courageous officers like Bhatt need to be protected, and perhaps the UPA government at the Centre that does not hesitate to impose its writ on states in financial matters should ensure the security of Bhatt and all those seeking justice in Gujarat. If the courts and the people succeed in ensuring justice it will go a long way in preventing such massacres in the future, and strengthen the foundation of secularism and democracy in India.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1610749

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The Yatra Mantra – By Rana Ayyub (Nov 19, 2011, Tehelka)

AS HE bites into the last morsel of his roti-dal meal at a local eatery in the interiors of Maharashtra, he looks at me and says he misses his wife’s Sindhi curry. Then he adds, glint in his eye, “Benazir Bhutto used to love it too.” The reference to the other Sindhi who became prime minister is perhaps pregnant with meaning, but our man is already on to other things. “That’s not to say I’m complaining about the local food I eat on the yatra,” he says, calling for a glass of buttermilk. Perhaps mindful of another PM-in-waiting, who savours the fare in Dalit households. An aide reminds him he had stopped at the very eatery on his previous yatra. He nods: “That is why it all looks so familiar.” Then he trails off again, “This is what yatras give us: contact with people on the ground, I have been able to reach out to people …” He should know. The patriarch of the fragmented BJP parivar is on his sixth yatra in 20 years, still searching for that elusive goal.

It is the 26th day of Lal Krishna Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra, a journey monitored more closely and more critically by his party colleagues than by the rival Congress. Yet for all the disdain with which the 84-year-old Advani’s unquenched prime ministerial ambitions are treated, there is a degree of admiration. Even his detractors concede that traversing the country and being on the road for 44 days requires stamina. “Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj had to leave the yatra right after day one,” says a senior party functionary, “as they complained of nausea and exhaustion.” TEHELKA began tracking Advani from the coast of Mangalore, Karnataka, travelling with him to Goa and Maharashtra, and leaving the trail in Gujarat. There were many interactions with Advani, many questions, many thoughtful pauses — reminiscent of a former prime minister — as he reflected on the years gone by, and the fate of his party.

To his adherents and close associates, Advani remains as charismatic as when he began his first (Ram Rath) yatra on 25 September 1990. To others, it is a different story. To Advani himself, there is recognition that he will never be able to fill the void left by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Nevertheless he remains a crowd-puller. Thousands come out to hear him speak, undeterred by heavy rains or the scorching sun. “You keep asking me about this being my attempt to repackage myself as the prime minister of the country,” he says, “but I will still tell you this is what matters, what these people have shown me time and again, whenever I have gone on a yatra, be it on Ayodhya or on corruption. Why then do I need to clarify? Why should I make statements?” His tone changes every time a journalist asks him about his prime ministerial ambitions or his troubled relationship with BS Yeddyurappa, former chief minister of Karnataka. He ignores these questions at media conferences, choosing to answer them instead from the dais: “They ask me if this is an attempt to repackage myself, so I have stopped giving them the answer. This rally is not about me or about the BJP. It’s about you. It’s about the crores stashed away in foreign accounts.” Predictably, the crowd rises in applause.

So is he blaming the media for what seems to be the obvious? He laughs it off, “No, no… I understand their compulsions.” It’s a much toned down response compared to the one he had given TEHELKA just a day earlier, as his cavalcade left Goa and he sipped coffee with his daughter Pratibha and protégé M Venkaiah Naidu, former BJP president. “I have been a journalist myself,” he had said then, “and am appalled to see the media reducing everything in the BJP to just a fight for power. Whereas the Congress is being treated as a holy cow… Why not question the dynastic rule in that party?” As if on cue, his yatra aide-de-camp, a man he refers to as the “Little Master”, Ravi Shankar Prasad, comes to his defence. “There is a lot more to LK Advani,” he argues, “than what has been projected. Why not talk of other things? Why not talk of the 2G scam?”

As Advani drives from one state to the next, his message is the same. He gives gathered crowds facts on the stash of black money lying in overseas accounts. These are facts he claims to have got from a Washington, DC, based think-tank. He urges the throng to take a vow to eschew black money and bring home that is lying abroad. The template messaging is not without its surprises. As he enters Goa, a Congressruled state, where a former BJP man is chief minister, and faces charges of corruption and of facilitating illegal iron-ore mining, he resorts to copybook cricket. In a move that surprises the BJP unit in Goa, Advani does not take on the Congress government there. He reads out earnest statistics on black money, but chooses to call mining a larger malaise. “We were expecting him to take on the Congress government in Goa head-on,” mutters a BJP functionary in Goa, but all one gets to hear is a statement that goes, ‘Legal mining too is suffering from illegal mining’.” Prasad calls it deliberate action, so as not to pre-empt the report on illegal mining in Goa, which is yet to be submitted. …

http://tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ne191111YATRA.asp

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Manipur blockade must end – Editorial (Nov 9, 2011, The Hindu)

It is inconceivable that agitationists can ever succeed in blocking the main highways leading into, say, a State such as Madhya Pradesh for more than a few hours. Yet they get away with blockading Manipur for months on end, again and again, simply because disruptions in that farthest corner of the Northeast do not cause a ripple in the rest of India. So it is hardly surprising that people in Manipur think the country does not care for them. The latest blockade, which started on August 1, has led to an acute shortage of essential commodities, with the prices of food, medicines, and fuel shooting up sky high. Ordinary people have borne the brunt of the agitation, black marketeers and hoarders are having a field day, and the central government has been a bystander to the less-than-competent handling of the situation by the Ibobi Singh government in the hapless State. The siege began when the Kukis affiliated to the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee blocked National Highways 53 and 39 to press their demand for a Kuki majority district to be carved out of portions of a larger district claimed by the Naga people as part of the ‘greater Nagalim.’

The Nagas responded to the SHDDC blockade with one of their own. Instead of handling both firmly, the State government appears to have only worsened ethnic tensions by getting the SHDDC to withdraw its blockade with a written assurance that the demand for a separate Kuki district would be met. The United Naga Council and the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur have since intensified their blockade.

The Centre’s apathy aside, the inflexible positions taken by the protesters, and their political vision stretching no further than the narrow confines of their ethno-nationalism, are the main reason for the mess in Manipur, and in some other parts of the Northeast as well. The Meities, who form the majority ethnic group, are not blameless in this saga of exclusivist politics; the tussle between the Kukis and the Nagas cannot be separated from the larger confrontation between the nationalisms of the Meitei and the Naga.

Reconciling these competing visions is not an easy task; there are no quick answers. It calls for a leadership that is prepared to think big and re-imagine the State, and the region, in progressive inclusivist fashion. More immediately, the blockades on the highways must end. They have caused immense suffering to the poorest of Manipur’s 2.7 million people who cannot afford to pay black market rates for their daily essentials. The blockaders must realise that they cannot use blackmail to gain their political ends.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2609723.ece

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Gallows for infanticide: Welcome deterrent for heinous act – Editorial (Nov 12, 2011, The Tribune)

Sangrur District and Sessions Judge MS Chauhan’s order of capital punishment against a father who snuffed life out of his four-day-old daughter is rough but apt. Indeed, what can be more barbaric than a father killing his own child? That this happened in Sangrur district of Punjab which has one of the worst child sex ratios in the state only proves that the son preference continues to have psychotic dimensions in the region. In fact, so strong are the societal pressures to have a male heir that not too long ago in the neighbouring state of Haryana a woman was killed for not bearing a baby boy. While the heartless act of the father in the Sangrur case can never be condoned, equally abominable are the crimes of those who flout the PNDT law, go in for sex determination and abort the foetus if it turns out to be a female.

That the practice of female foeticide is rampant in relatively developed states like Punjab and Haryana, both of which have dismal sex ratios, speaks volumes about the patriarchal mindset that has deep roots in the feudal society. Perhaps the sociological reasons behind the obsessive son preference may lie in social practices like dowry. However, the real culprit is a bigoted mindset that prevails not only among middle and lower middle classes but also upper classes which are as guilty of killing unborn daughters. While the recent data may have proved that the middle class’s attitude towards girls is changing, clearly much more needs to be done.

Unfortunately, not only has the fear of law not worked, even positive incentive schemes of the government have not yielded the desired results in dissuading parents from eliminating daughters. Perhaps, a mass movement alone can be the answer to this widely prevalent social evil. Punitive judgements, like the one delivered by judge Chauhan, too will be able to make a difference only if these are followed by equally deterrent action not only in cases of female infanticide but also foeticide. Let it not be forgotten that in 2010 only 13 convictions took place under the PNDT Act.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111112/edit.htm#3

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Accord in Uthapuram – By S. Dorairaj (Nov 5, 2011, Frontline)

At last, the residents of Uthapuram, a small village in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, which came into the news when a portion of the huge “wall of untouchability” dividing the habitations of Dalits and caste Hindus was demolished three years ago, have begun to see light at the end of the tunnel. On the initiative of the police and the district administration, an agreement was reached between the Pallar (Dalit) and Pillai (caste Hindu) residents on October 20, which emphasises a new, positive direction in their coexistence besides enabling them to shed their six-decade-old acrimony. Asra Garg, Superintendent of Police, Madurai district, the architect of the agreement, told Frontline that it was the outcome of teamwork and was hammered out after several rounds of talks with representatives of the two communities. It has been clearly laid down in the accord that caste Hindus should allow Dalits to worship at the Muthalamman-Mariamman temple in the village although its administration and maintenance will remain under their control.

The issue of the construction of a common bus shelter, which was also contentious, has been settled. The caste Hindus have agreed to clear the encroachments along the new pathway created after the removal of a portion of the wall. They will also withdraw the case filed in this connection. Both communities will make efforts with the help of the Superintendent of Police to withdraw cases registered against each other. They will extend their cooperation in maintaining law and order by approaching the police and the district administration to resolve amicably any problem arising in the village. Both sides have agreed to promote cooperation and unity. Uthapuram had been a hotbed of caste tension and witnessed violent clashes in 1948, 1964 and 1989. However, the village earned notoriety in 2008 when the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) focussed on the “wall of untouchability” raised by caste Hindus close on the heels of the caste riots in 1989 ( Frontline, June 6, 2008).

The TNUEF and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with some Dalit organisations, staged protests all over the State demanding the demolition of the caste wall. The issue was raised in the State Assembly too. Intensifying the struggle for the removal of the wall, the State CPI(M) leadership made it clear on April 29, 2008, that the party would pull it down if the then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government failed to do so. Denying that the wall had been constructed to perpetuate untouchability, caste Hindus had been claiming that it was needed to protect their kin. It had been built according to an agreement signed by the two communities, they said. They took a tough stand on the issue and resorted to different forms of protests to stall the demolition. However, much to the relief of Dalits, a portion of the wall was removed by the district administration on May 6, 2008.

But subsequent developments proved that the animosity of the caste-Hindu residents towards Dalits had not died down. They left the village on May 6 in protest against the government’s action and returned only after a week. Stalemate continued with regard to the construction of a common bus shelter, and Dalits were denied access to the temple and the common pathway. This sorry state of affairs resulted in further efforts last year by the CPI(M) and the TNUEF to bring the two communities to an agreement. However, much water has flowed under the bridge since then. Sustained struggles launched by the Dalits, sincere efforts made by the police and the district administration, and the realisation of the need for peace on the part of caste Hindus have resulted in the agreement, according to P. Sampath, the leader of the TNUEF. “The agreement has thrown up an opportunity for greater class unity between the two communities as the vast majority of them are small and marginal farmers,” he said.

http://flonnet.com/fl2823/stories/20111118282312100.htm

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Book Review

Gujarat Beyond Gandhi: Identity, Society and Conflict

Author: Ed. Nalin Mehta and Mona Mehta
Reviewed by: V. Venkatesan
Available at: Routledge, 8th Floor, 711 3rd Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA. http://www.routledge.com/
Review:
Enigma of Gujarat (Nov 5, 2011, Frontline)

For observers from outside Gujarat, the State has always remained an enigma wrapped in profound paradoxes. Looking at it from the prism of contemporary history and politics, analysts have not been able to comprehend why the State, despite being a part of the erstwhile Bombay State until 1960, finds itself an exception to the dominant political culture of India. What are the unique events that have shaped the character of the State and its rulers and people, making them different not only from their own glorious past but also from the rest of India? The book under review answers the question insightfully and comprehensively through eight distinct articles on different aspects of the State. Edited by Nalin Mehta, Honorary Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and Mona G. Mehta, who teaches politics of South Asia at Scripps College in Claremont, California, United States, the book seeks to focus on the change and continuity in the State. Apart from the editors, six inquisitive scholars of history, political science, anthropology, sociology and media studies explore key trends and events with fresh eyes, to “shed new light on hidden corners and to discern new meanings”. The editors introduce the subject aptly in the introduction: “The region now known as Gujarat has always been a crucible for ideas of India. Gujarat, in many ways, is a land of firsts. It is the land where the British encounter first began in 1608 when William Hawkins docked his ship in Surat. It is the land of Somnath, of the invasions from Ghazni which, seen through the jaundiced lenses of colonial-era history, turned into a defining leitmotif in the hagiography of 20th century Hindu revivalism.” They point to the other firsts. It was on the Sabarmati river that Mahatma Gandhi first set up home when he returned from South Africa and began transforming Indian nationalism from an elite debating club to a mass movement, his creative methods of passive protest arguably drawing as much from the colonial experience as from indigenous Kathiawadi and Vaniya traditions.

The iconic Sardar Patel first mastered the mechanics of creating a party machinery on his home turf. Gujarat’s soil gave Indian nationalism some of its earliest torchbearers: Dadabhai Naoroji, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Dinshaw Wacha, Rahimtulla Sayani – all of whom presided over the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress in its early decades. It also produced Mohammad Ali Jinnah, “Westernised no doubt, but also a Gujarati Khoja who would change the subcontinent’s destiny”. The editors quote Romesh Thapar, who had presciently noted in the pages of Economic and Political Weekly in 1975 that the turmoil of Gujarat may well be a precursor of larger things to come, including the political drift that led to the upheavals of the Emergency period and the subsequent formation of the first Janata Party government in 1977 at the Centre. Gujarat saw independent India’s first police action in Junagarh in 1949; the movement against corruption in public life launched by the Navnirman Samiti in 1974, which arguably produced India’s largest public protest since the anti-British agitations; the State also produced the most ubiquitous acronym in Indian politics: KHAM, or the Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim coalition. The editors suggest that the cynical pursuit of this caste arithmetic kept the Congress firmly in power until the mid-1980s, and in 1985, it led to the first large-scale anti-reservation violence. The Navnirman (social reconstruction) movement began as students’ protests against rising food prices and the poor quality of food available in hostels in Ahmedabad. This soon won support from all sections of society and became a mass movement against the corruption-tainted Chimanbhai Patel government. The Chief Minister was forced to resign and the Centre imposed President’s Rule in the State. The movement inspired Jayaprakash Narayan to give a call for a “total revolution”. The Navnirman movement caused a serious setback to the Congress. The party devised the KHAM strategy to return to power in 1980, but it alienated the upper castes, who first organised an agitation against reservation for backward classes in 1981. This agitation turned into communal riots in 1985, and was a precursor to the upper-caste protests across northern India when Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations in 1990. The editors believe that the anti-reservation violence became an important factor in the gradual saffronisation of the State.

The political scientist Nagindas Sanghavi explains this transition with clarity in his essay. He argues that although the legacies of Navnirman fizzled out, the 1985 riots and the fallout of KHAM politics greatly eroded the Congress’ base. The commercial culture of Gujarati society precludes the growth of ideologies, organisations or parties that are inclined towards radical or revolutionary transformations. The anti-reservation riots alerted the higher castes about the possibility of losing government jobs and educational facilities and made them more assertive and aggressive in their political activism. They began to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which opposed KHAM and led the anti-quota agitation. The bureaucracy lost its image of impartiality and let its anti-Muslim prejudices exacerbate. Ornit Shani, an academic in Israel, cites independent evidence to suggest that State authorities and government officials aided the systematic persecution of Muslims in Ahmedabad and in large parts of Gujarat during the post-Godhra violence in 2002. In her essay, she probes how the system of corruption around illicit alcohol permeated socio-political arenas, compromising the law enforcement agencies in ordinary times. She suggests that this had an unexpected impact in 2002, when vested interests harnessed the bureaucratic inclination to toe the line of the political masters during communal violence. She observes that once a governance system is compromised in everyday life, it becomes subservient; it cannot be expected to function impartially in times of strife and as such can be misdirected for any purpose. Citing the Sachar Committee report on Muslims, she gives an instance of how the State government reversed a long-standing policy of reservation for two backward Muslim communities. In 1978, the Baxi Backward Classes Commission in Gujarat recognised and included in the list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) a few Muslim groups, among them Muslim Julaya and Muslim Ghanchi. In 2003, the State Welfare Department rejected their caste certificates, asking the candidates belonging to these groups to produce records for the period prior to 1978. As the Baxi Commission recognised these groups only in 1978, documents prior to this period were unavailable. In her essay “A river of no dissent: Narmada movement and coercive Gujarati nativism”, Mona G. Mehta shows that the political dominance of Hindutva stands on the strength of coercive nativism forged during the Narmada movement. A manifestation of this is available when the critics of the Sardar Sarovar Project are dubbed as opponents of Gujarat’s development. She sees this more as a failure of alternative voices to effect sustained political change than as an electoral success of the BJP.

She also draws our attention to an important conundrum of democracy in the State: a popular consensus garnered through the instruments of democracy, such as free media, public debates and the rights of assembly and protest, to produce exclusion, ultimately undermining the substantive ideals of democracy. She argues that democratic institutions and a vibrant civil society have not only failed to protect the rights of minority citizens and viewpoints but have become unwitting conduits for their marginalisation in the State. Democracy, she says, is profoundly vulnerable to popular support for exclusionary politics. Ironically, she concedes that the same democracy offers the most compelling possibility for an inclusive political future. In his essay on spatial segregation and the infrastructure of violence in Ahmedabad, Arvind Rajagopal suggests that violence created an alibi for enhanced ghettoisation. Successive communal riots in Ahmedabad, he says, both consolidated and accelerated what urban planning accomplished in ordinary conditions – spatially separating Hindus and Muslims from each other and further clustering the members of each community. In some areas, this led to the shrinkage of Muslim-occupied territory. Rajagopal argues that Gujarat’s exceptional ‘success’ as the poster child of neoliberal development was complemented by the manner in which it had normalised an exceptional social order predicated on accelerated practices of social segregation, which in turn enabled anti-Muslim violence (and its rhetorical justification). Parvis Ghassem-Fachandy, an anthropologist, adopts an ethnographic approach in his essay. He argues that the Gujarati disgust for meat became an important cultural relay for the vegetarian politics in the State. He then shows how the insistence on an identity formulated in the language of non-violence renders a permissive identification with violence. This, according to him, explains the utter lack of reflection in Gujarat about 2002, despite its strong Jain and Bhakti traditions, and the paucity of an internal public debate beyond the usual binaries of us versus them. No wonder then that when Chief Minister Narendra Modi undertook a three-day “sadbhavna” fast in October, ostensibly to promote communal harmony, there was no sense of remorse expressed either by him or his supporters for the 2002 carnage.

In his essay, Nalin Mehta cites the legal battle between the eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy and the Government of Gujarat over a newspaper article written by Nandy decrying the communalisation of Gujarati middle classes. The Supreme Court dismissed the government’s plea that Nandy’s article was communal and struck down its prosecution of Nandy. Mehta argues that the Nandy case shows that Moditva and its brand of authoritarian development offer little scope for dissent. Anindita Chakrabarti, an academic with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur specialising in social movements, discusses the trajectory of two social movements in Gujarat – one Hindu and the other Muslim. Her study of Tablighi Jamaat’s (TJ) role in the rehabilitation work following the 2002 riots has shown that despite being apolitical, it came under state surveillance. According to her, the concept of secularism, as perceived through the eyes of the religious actors, is a covenant between the state and the religious groups. Despite its reticence, the TJ is perceived as political by others. Similarly, she found the Hindu religious movement, Svadhyaya, to be in close contact with the state machinery through a series of legal cases relating to the unresolved question of succession within the movement. She finds it too simplistic to suggest that both these movements erode the secular fabric of the State by virtue of their interface with politics. The year 2010 marked not only the 50th year of the institution of the linguistic State of Gujarat, but also the 150th year since the first indentured Indians set foot in Natal (South Africa). Goolam Vahed, Associate Professor of History at the University of KwaZulu Natal, and a Gujarati South African himself, highlights the distinct migratory history of Gujarati South Africans and the importance of these histories in the perceptions of community identity. He points out that despite the growing sense of being Hindu or Muslim, Gujarati Hindus and Muslims in South Africa are not antagonistic to each other, at least not openly. Developments in India, by and large, have not sparked tensions between the two communities in South Africa, he observes. In their introduction, the editors recall the poet Sundaram’s tribute on the occasion of Gujarat’s founding day, when he lauded its role as the traditional entry point to India and as a melting pot of cultures. They point out that Gujarat’s reputation as a tolerant society and its mercantile ethos have been cardinal pillars of its self-image over the centuries. Even as it remains an industrial powerhouse, they ask: “The important question is, can it produce a novel and inclusive politics in the present era to recover this glorious image?” In a sense, Narendra Modi symbolises the enigma of Gujarat. He represents the serious divide between Gujarat and the rest of India because of his perceived role in the 2002 pogrom. In recent days, he has only reinforced this perception by seeking to victimise police officers who have sought to present evidence against him. The book helps us to understand this divide better by dissecting the various dimensions of contemporary Gujarat, which continues to be Hindutva’s least-explored laboratory.

http://flonnet.com/fl2823/stories/20111118282307500.htm

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IAMC Weekly News Roundup – October 17th, 2011

by newsdigest on October 17, 2011

In this issue of IAMC News Roundup

Communal Harmony

News Headlines

Opinions & Editorials

Communal Harmony

Communal harmony docu bags international award (Oct 14, 2011, Indian Express)

A short documentary film on friendship between Muslim and Hindu shopkeepers in Ahmedabad’s walled city area has won an award for promoting “human unity” at an international film festival held in Auroville (near Puducherry) early this month. Filmed by city-based chartered accountancy students Aayush Patel (21), Mit Jani and Prateek Gupta (both 20), the 18-minute Mia-Mahadev is a tale of tailor, Bharat Makani, and jewellery tools trader, Hassan Saiyed from Pankor Naka.

The jury at the Auroville Film Festival 2011 said the film was chosen because it delivers a “convincing message of bridging the gap between Muslims and Hindus. As an initiative to reconcile Hindu-Muslim conflict, it is very relevant for today’s time”. Makani and Saiyed are so well-known there that the errand boys merely have to tell the paanwala “Mia-Mahadev” when they go to order paan and masala for them.

Their friendship began during the anti-reservation riots of 1985 when a mob tried to burn down Hassan’s small shop – the lone Muslim-owned shop in the area – but Bharat and a few neighbors had stopped them. After several years, the duo set up a free information centre, Miya Mahadev Pooch Parach Kendra (Miya Mahadev information kiosk), because “people kept getting lost here and we had to point them in the right direction many times”, Bharat had told The Indian Express in an earlier interview. As many as 131 films were screened at the festival.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/859732/

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Hindus, Muslims to rule Ambur Municipality (Oct 12, 2011, IBN)

The leather town of Ambur has been maintaining communal amity in the civic elections for over 60 years. There is an unwritten agreement between the Hindu and the Muslim communities that is being meticulously followed. Accordingly, when a Muslim candidate gets elected for one term, the next term will be held by a Hindu candidate. The Vice-Chairperson would be a Hindu if the chairperson is a Muslim and vice versa.

During the last civic polls, the municipality had to elect a candidate from the general (men) category and it was the turn of the Muslims, wherein DMK candidate Nazir Ahmed was elected, defeating his rival from the AIADMK. In this poll, the municipality has to elect a woman candidate from general category and it is now the turn of the Hindus to field their candidates. Accordingly, various political parties have fielded women candidates in a seven-cornered battle for the plum post of Chairperson.

While the AIADMK has fielded Sangeetha Balasubramanian, a novice, the DMK has fielded Shanthi Raj, a second-time contestant. The Congress suffered a setback as two of its candidates Shakila Theerthagiri and Roselin Sampath withdrew their nominations. They have become independent candidates now. The DMDK, PMK and VCK have also fielded their candidates, bringing in more competition. As things stand, there is going to be a tough battle ahead for both, the AIADMK and DMK candidates. This is mainly because of the changing political and communal equations that are likely to impact these parties.

Meanwhile, the Indian Union Muslim League, which was in alliance with the DMK so far, has switched sides and announced its support to an independent candidate Shakila Theerthagiri, while the AIADMK’s ally Manithaneya Makkal Katchi has fielded its own candidates in four wards. This is certainly a setback for the AIADMK. DMK candidate, Shanthi Raj and the Congress candidate, Shakila Theerthagiri contested in the 2001 polls but lost to the AIADMK candidate, Latha Udhakumar, who won hands down in the elections that year.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/hindus-muslims-to-rule-ambur-municipality/192279-60-118.html

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Prashant Bhushan bashed up, attacker held (Oct 12, 2011, New Kerala)

Senior lawyer and Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan was bashed up by some youths at his Supreme Court chamber here Wednesday. He blamed the attack, captured by a TV crew, on the rightwing Sri Ram Sene.

The youths barged into his chamber and started beating him up, before being overpowered by lawyers and others present in the room, TV visuals showed. The youths objected to his comments on Kashmir, Bhushan said.

“They were Sri Ram Sene activists. They are intolerant,” Bhushan told IANS. He has lodged a first information report with police in the incident. While one attacker was held, two others are said to have escaped.

Two weeks back, Bhushan had gone to Varanasi where during a press conference he was asked if he would favour a referendum in Kashmir. To this, he replied there could be a referendum, he said. It is this comment that angered the group, Bhushan said.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2011/worldnews-85911.html

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SC rejects Gujarat govt. petition, will continue monitoring riot cases (Oct 11, 2011, Twocircles.net)

Rejecting a petition of Gujarat government on Tuesday, the Supreme Court of India said it will continue monitoring the riot cases of 2002. The BJP government of chief minister Narendra Modi, an accused in the Gulberg Society massacre case, had filed a petition urging the apex court not to monitor the 2002.

Encouraged with the September 13 verdict of the Supreme Court whereby it sent back Zakia Jafri’s case to trial court in the state and said it will not monitor the case, the Gujarat government had moved the petition urging the apex court to stop monitoring the 2002 riots cases as chargesheet has been filed and trial has begun. An apex court bench headed by Justice D.K Jain was told by senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi that according to the rules, monitoring should come to an end after the chargesheet has been filed.

However, the court told the Gujarat government today that the trial was being monitored by the Special Investigation Team for the last two years and there was no change in circumstances to go back on that decision. The apex court said it will continue monitoring the riots cases of 2002 and will pass necessary direction later if needed.

http://twocircles.net/2011oct11/sc_rejects_gujarat_govt_petition_will_continue_monitoring_riot_cases.html

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Move against Bhatt smacks of vendetta: former Gujarat DGP (Oct 11, 2011, The Hindu)

The former Gujarat Director-General of Police and ex-Special Rapporteur to the National Human Rights Commission, P.G.J. Nampoothiri, has said the moves of the Narendra Modi government against IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt smacked of vendetta. Mr. Bhatt had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging that Mr. Modi had, in a meeting on February 27, 2002, asked officials not to act against rioters during the Godhra carnage. The IPS officer was arrested after a constable, who had worked under him during the riots, filed an FIR for allegedly threatening him and making him sign a false affidavit.

“This is a clear case of harassing Bhatt. Even according to the FIR, it is a minor case and he, especially being a senior officer, should not be detained for so many days. Things are being done the wrong way. There is no justification for harassing Bhatt’s family,” the former DGP said. He welcomed disclosures about the riots by the likes of Mr. Bhatt. “It will help us understand what really happened during the riots.” He criticised the Modi government for reportedly not having implemented the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission that studied the post-riot conditions in Gujarat.

“Had the recommendations been implemented, the quest of the victims for justice would have gathered force. The NHRC had recommended that five cases [Godhra, Best Bakery, Sardarpura, Naroda Patiya and Gulberg Society] be investigated by the CBI. The other 4,252 cases too required meticulous investigation,” he said. Mr. Nampoothiri worked for the Gujarat Police for 34 years. He settled in Thrissur after his retirement in 1998.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2526457.ece

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Sanjiv Bhatt case: Cops quiz lawyer; seize computer, Sim card (Oct 15, 2011, DNA India)

A police team led by assistant commissioner of police, NC Patel, went to the office of the lawyer, VH Kanara, on Thursday and questioned him for around 2 hours. The police also seized the lawyer’s Sim card, phone and a computer in connection with the case filed by police constable KD Panth against IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt. Bhatt was arrested on the basis of Panth’s complaint and is currently in judicial custody.

Panth has accused Bhatt of forcing him to file a false affidavit. Sources in the police said that the Kanara’s computer was seized because it was allegedly used to prepare the affidavit which Panth now says he had filed under duress. In his FIR, Panth had alleged that he was taken to Kanara’s office after midnight on June 16, 2011, where he was allegedly forced to sign the affidavit. NC Patel is the investigating officer of the Sanjiv Bhatt case. When contacted, Patel said he cannot reveal anything in this connection. He also refused to say anything about Kanara’s statement or about the materials seized from him.

Talking to DNA, Ahmedabad police commissioner Sudhir Sinha said that Kanara’s statement had been recorded. He, however, added that he was not aware of anything being seized from his office. Sources said that the police were trying to strengthen the case against Bhatt by recoding the statement of the advocate and also getting details from the computer which allegedly was used to prepare Panth’s affidavit.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1599185

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‘LK Advani’s rath yatra an attempt to disturb communal harmony’ (Oct 9, 2011, DNA India)

The NCP and the RJD Sunday alleged that BJP leader LK Advani’s rath yatra on the corruption issue was an attempt to disturb communal harmony and peace in the country. “The BJP is out to vitiate peace and communal amity in the country through Advani’s rath yatra with electoral benefits in the next parliamentary polls,” NCP national general secretary Tariq Anwar told reporters here.

Describing Advani’s crusade against corruption as ‘uncalled for’ and ‘ill timed’, the NCP leader said the former should have waited for the outcome of the proposed Lokpal bill being drafted by a parliamentary committee on the basis of several proposals submitted by the civil society. He also rapped the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for giving his consent to flag off Advani’s rath yatra from Sitab diara on October 11 next and regretted that Kumar has agreed to do so despite his open disagreement with the BJP’s ideology.

“It (Advani’s rath yatra) is an attempt to incite communal disharmony to which the RJD is opposed to,” RJD Bihar unit president Ramchandra Purve told reporters here. The RJD has decided to oppose Advani’s rath yatra by taking out a protest march on October 11 under party national president Lalu Prasad, he said.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1596845

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HC judge recuses from Chudasama bail hearing (Oct 15, 2011, Indian Express)

A single-judge bench of the Gujarat High Court on Friday recused itself from hearing the regular bail petition of suspended IPS officer Abhay Chudasama in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. After recusal of Justice Z K Saiyed, the petition is now likely to appear before some other bench of the court. Chudasama, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), had moved the HC after a Sessions Court rejected his bail petition in August.

In the petition, he has accused CBI of miserably failing in its duty to reveal the truth in the dark areas of the case and had deliberately implicated him to use it as a ‘ladder’ to arrest former Minister of State (Home) Amit Shah. Chudasama has also negated the entire evidence against him saying it had appeared only subsequently and that most of the witnesses are not reliable.

On August 16, the special CBI court had dismissed his bail petition saying he has been cited as the linchpin in the case by the CBI. During the said hearing, the probe agency had told the court that it was investigating the Tulsiram Prajapati encounter case and Chudasama could tamper with evidence, if granted bail.

Challenging the order, Chudasama has explained that he was out on interim bail for nearly four months for undergoing hip surgery and even the CBI had no complaints of any tampering with evidence by him during that period. He has shown readiness to abide by all the conditions imposed by the court, including that of staying away not only from Gujarat but from those states where the witnesses reside.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/860245/

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Medha Patkar begins Kashmir to Manipur march against AFSPA (Oct 17, 2011, Times of India)

Around two dozen human rights activists from across the country started their march on Sunday from Srinagar to Manipur demanding revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The ten day long march has been named after 53 year old Irom Sharmila, a Manipuri human rights activist who launched her crusade against the act when Assam Rifles personnel killed ten civilians in Imphal on November 2, 2000. Sharmila has been on an indefinite fast for almost eleven years, demanding the repeal of AFSPA that gives unbridled powers to the armed forces.

The march led by social activist and Team Anna member Medha Patkar would pass through different states to generate awareness among the people about the act and the need for its revocation. After visiting Hazratbal shrine in Downtown on Sunday evening, the marching activists started their rally from Lal Chowk in Uptown. Patkar said that the AFSPA was an inhuman law that had no place in a civilized society. “There have been unlawful killings and disappearance cases in the places where this law is operational. We denounce all kinds of violence including the kind committed by army in Kashmir and other parts of the country,” she added.

Medha said that the official interlocutors on Kashmir had also recommended revocation of AFSPA but the government had nothing so far to repeal it. Human rights activist and Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey said that the activists were ready to face the attacks for demanding revocation of the armed forces law. “We are ready to face the people like those who attacked Prashat Bhushan in New Delhi,” Pandey told the gathering before leaving with the march. Pandey advocated that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should be given the right to decide their political fate.

However, Medha Patkar differed from this point of view. She said that the state should initiate a meaningful dialogue with the Kashmiri people to resolving Kashmir issue. The caravan which would end its journey on October 27, 2011 after passing through ten states was joined by several Kashmiri human rights activists including chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), Parveena Ahangar and Hurriyat separatist leader Zamrud Habib.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/10389357.cms

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Communal violence a cause of concern; 427 deaths in 3 years (Oct 16, 2011, Times of India)

Communal violence has become a major cause of concern for the government with as many as 2,420 such incidents reported from across the country in past three years that resulted in the death of at least 427 people.

According to home ministry statistics, 53 people were killed and 1,059 injured in 338 incidents of communal violence this year till August. Of these incidents, 10 people were killed on September 14 in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district while four persons lost their lives in Rudrapur town in Uttarakhand’s Udhamsingh Nagar district on October 2.

“Communal violence has become a major cause of concern for the Centre. We have advised the state governments concerned to deal with such incidents firmly as communal disturbance could have far reaching consequences in the society,” a home ministry official said.

In 2010, 114 people were killed and 2,115 injured in 651 incidents of communal violence in the country. In 2009, 123 people died and 2,417 were injured in 773 incidents of communal clashes while another 123 lives were lost in 656 incidents of communal violence in 2008. More than 2,270 people were also injured in those clashes in that year.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/10374261.cms

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Samjhauta case: Defence wants NIA to put ‘all facts’ on record (Oct 10, 2011, Indian Express)

A special court here today adjourned the Samjhauta train blast case till November 2 after the defence plea that NIA should put “all facts” pertaining to the case on record. “Arguments on framing of charges were to be taken up today, but the case was adjourned after the defence plea. In the next hearing, we have been asked to file our reply,” NIA Special Prosecutor R K Handa said later. National Investigation Agency’s Special Judge Subhash Mehla adjourned the case. Handa said right wing Hindu group member Aseemanand’s counsel submitted a plea before the court that NIA be directed to produce documents that claim to have revelations of 26/11 terror accused David Coleman Headley’s wife and that of Students Islamic Movement of India “showing Headley and SIMI’s hand in the cross-border train’s bombings.”

“The defence pleaded that NIA be directed to produce the documents of the US agency FBI with regards to Headley’s investigation and another report where SIMI is claimed to have confessed responsibility in the (train) bombings,” he said. After the court proceedings, Aseemanand’s counsel said, “All these documents were necessary to be brought on record. We have sought these documents under the provisions of the Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code.”

As the proceedings in the case are held in-camera, Handa said outside the court, “We submitted that the defence was only adopting delaying tactics. Their averments are totally vague and hearsay. At the time of framing of charges, the accused has no right to summon any document.” “We also submitted that this (Special) Court would not have jurisdiction to summon some of the records from the US,” he said. On September 28, the date of last hearing in the case, the special court had allowed NIA, probing Samjhauta train blast case, to send the material evidence collected for examination to Hyderabad-based Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory.

The NIA had sought permission to allow CFSL experts to take material evidence of the Samjhauta Express case to Hyderabad facility for comparison with other samples collected in Malegaon, Hyderabad and Ajmer bomb blasts cases, in which the role of a right-wing activist is suspected. After a four-year probe, the NIA had on June 20, charged Aseemanand, Sunil Joshi (now dead), Lokesh Sharma, Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalasangra alias Ramji with triggering explosions in the cross-border Samjhauta Express that left 68 people dead, mostly Pakistanis.

In the chargesheet filed in June before the vacation court of additional district and sessions judge here, Kanchan Mahi, the NIA had accused the five of hatching a criminal conspiracy which resulted in bomb blasts in the train. Aseemanand and Sharma are already in judicial custody in Ambala jail. Apart from Ajmer Dargah blast, which claimed three lives and left 15 others injured, Aseemanand and Sharma are accused in several other blast cases across the country, including those at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid and Malegaon.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/858079/

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Terror suspect Afroz Shaikh flying high 10 years later (Oct 11, 2011, Times of India)

Afroz Shaikh was arrested by the city crime branch in October 2001 for planning to hijack an airliner in the UK and crashing it into the House of Commons on 9/11. A free man now, he says the police’s attempts to “malign” him failed. The father of two had to give up his career as a pilot and now help his family in the garment business. He offers namaz five times a day now and spends most of his time with his family. “It was a horrible experience with the city police. I was termed an al Qaida associate in India and arrested on terror charges. But where is the evidence? The entire case was fabricated and the police’s cooked up story fell through in court,” says Afroz.

“I was framed in eight cases. Just to keep me in custody, the cops booked me in cases of theft, robbery and forgery,” he laughs. He says his family and the media stood by him in the “most difficult time of his life”. Soon after the court acquitted him, he decided to marry a Pune-based HR executive, now a housewife. “My two sons go to reputed schools. I don’t want to mix my present with the past but I remember the methods and tactics the police used to harass and malign me. My passport is still with the court so I can’t take up the job of a pilot. What have they achieved by doing this?” Afroz wonders.

His training certificates obtained from Australian, American and British flying clubs are with the court too. “I want to expand my business and go abroad but my passport is with the court,” says Afroz , trying to recollect the date his papers expired a few years ago. How did he spend six months in jail? “Excellent,” he laughs, “I was not a culprit but framed in the case. My father had arranged homemade food and other stuff in jail. Other inmates would clean my clothes and my family would pay them. Even I would get a massage service in jail.” He also contested the 2004 assembly elections as an independent but lost.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/10308449.cms

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Opinions and Editorials

A Few Good Men Wearing Khaki – And Modi’s Handcuffs – By Julio Ribeiro (Oct 24, 2011, Outlook)

Sanjiv Bhatt, an IPS officer of Gujarat who is now under arrest, insists he was present at a February 27, 2002, meeting during which chief minister Narendra Modi instructed senior police officers not to check Hindu mobs thirsting for revenge for the previous day’s Godhra train carnage. Bhatt’s official driver had supported that statement, saying he had driven his boss to the meeting, but he retracted later and lodged a complaint that Bhatt had forced him to say that. Without bothering to establish the truth, the state arrested Bhatt. There is no denying that an urgently summoned meeting was held at the chief minister’s office or residence on the evening of February 27. Under the circumstances obtaining from the train carnage, such a meeting was a must. And even if Bhatt was not invited into the room when Modi addressed the chief secretary, the home secretary, the DGP and the police commissioner of Ahmedabad, I’m sure that, in his capacity as a senior intelligence officer, he would have accompanied the DGP to the venue in the absence of the intelligence chief, who happened to be on leave then. On conclusion of the meeting, the DGP would have briefed Bhatt on the chief minister’s instructions. Intelligence officers are always kept in the loop. That Modi did give those directions and sent two ministers to ensure compliance by positioning themselves in the police commissioner’s and the DGP’s control rooms is common knowledge in the Gujarat police force. I visited Ahmedabad in April 2002 and talked to many officers and men as well as citizens of Ahmedabad. Not one of my interlocutors denied that the police had failed in its legally mandated duty because of instructions from political masters. There’s no better example than this of politics superceding the law; if a cautionary instance for the urgency to depoliticise the police were needed, there could be none as egregious.

But there were indeed some officers in Gujarat who did not carry out the illegal and unconstitutional instructions. They deployed their men, giving strict instructions that any reprisal attacks against Muslims must be countered. Negligible violence was reported from the districts under these vigilant and conscientious officers. Rahul Sharma headed one such district, Bhavnagar, and Vinod Mal another, Surendranagar. Surat, too, was comparatively quiet. The government certainly did not appreciate such dutifulness and adherence to the Constitution; very soon, these officers found themselves being shunted about. The whole thrust of police reforms advocated by the Dharma Vira commission has been on depoliticising the force by taking away the power of appointment and transfer from politicians and instead vesting it with a security commission specifically entrusted with picking competent officers of undoubted integrity and giving them the freedom to enforce the law without having to look over their shoulder at the chief minister or home minister. I’d like to quote the 1968 ruling of Lord Denning, a celebrated judge, in the Rex vs Metropolitian Police Commissioner of London, ex parte Blackburn: I have no hesitation in holding that, like every constable in the land, the commissioner should be, and is, independent of the executive…. No Minister of the Crown can tell him that he must, or must not, keep observation on this place or that; or that he must, or must not, prosecute this man or that one…. The responsibility for law enforcement lies on him.” A police force untrammelled by political control would have ensured that even the spontaneous anger of the majority against innocent members of the minority was monitored and kept in check. The enormity of the pogrom in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat, which continued unchecked for a week or more, would not have happened. Jayanti Ravi, an IAS officer, was the district magistrate of Godhra when the kar sevaks were burnt to death in the ill-fated Sabarmati Express. She phoned me a day after the incident, requesting me to come to Godhra immediately. I pointed out that, being no longer in the service, there was nothing I could do. In the course of our phone conversation, she told me the train had been held up in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, because of some mechanical defect, and had rolled into Godhra station seven hours late. This puts to rest any theory that the attack had been planned.

Apparently, some VHP workers accompanying the kar sevaks used to pull the beards of Muslim tea vendors on the platform, refuse to pay and even destroy their property. It is said that, in retaliation, people living in the Signal Falia slums adjoining the railway line, many of whom are Ghanchis (a Muslim community of oil-millers) and earn a living by vending peanuts, snacks, tea and the like on trains, attacked one batch of kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya. The state and its police should have done their duty by arresting the petty criminals living in Signal Falia who are alleged to have gathered the mob and carried out the attack on the train. Instead, revenge was incited and violence was allowed; hundreds of innocent Muslims in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat were made to suffer barbarity of the worst kind. The ordinary Gujarati is non-violent. He is more interested in business and trade. But he has a deep sense of grievance against Muslims for historical reasons, dating back to Mahmud of Ghazni’s attacks on Somnath. In the 1970-80s, Congress leaders in Gujarat flirted with bootleggers and smugglers, whose money helped them in their elections. They’d also get gangsters to start a riot or two in the pols of Ahmedabad when disruption was required. As a result, over the decades, the Gujarati middle class’s distrust of Muslims grew. Modi played on this to consolidate his political hold on Gujarat and enhance his personal appeal as a ‘Hindu’ leader. Now, he has his eyes set on the prime minister’s gaddi.

But vindictive and unjustified harassment of officers opposed to him will only cut into Modi’s support base. I know one good IPS officer whom Modi has victimised for reasons known only to him. Kuldeep Sharma is a really outstanding IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre. In 1985, when I served briefly as DGP of that state, Sharma was the superintendent of police in charge of the Kutch district. He was very popular and competent, and I noticed the implicit faith people of the district placed in him. Later, when I was in Punjab, Sharma volunteered to come and fight terrorists there at a time when most IPS officers were reluctant to do so. I had him transferred to Punjab, but my batchmate, Anant Kumar Verma, who was then Sharma’s boss as the RAW chief, approached prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and got the transfer reversed. Verma told Rajiv that Sharma was too precious an asset to let go of and that RAW’s operations would suffer considerably if that were to happen. I mention this only to point out how competent and indispensable Sharma was. So I was quite surprised to learn Modi was after Sharma and had even got his brother, an IAS officer, arrested on corruption charges. Sharma himself was given the post of commissioner for sheep and goats, a job usually entrusted to an IAS officer incapable of tackling anything more challenging. I had to write to the Union home minister to intervene, since a very competent IPS officer was being sidelined and wasted to satisfy the chief minister’s ego.

And now we have the case of Bhatt, who along with four or five other IPS officers is being targeted and harassed by Modi in order to send a message to others. I agree that Bhatt does not enjoy a reputation for justice or impeccable integrity; nor is he believed to be as competent as Sharma. But arresting a senior IPS officer without cause is completely unacceptable. I did not have a visceral dislike for Modi, like many do. In fact, I admired the successes he had achieved on the economic front, and even more, I admired the fact that the bureaucracy in Gujarat, unlike in most other states, had been kept on a tight leash. But Modi’s use of revenge and dominance against his own senior officers and his use of violence in pursuit of ideology has obliterated any semblance of morality or reason that he possesses. Hence I have since revised my views about the man. He is obviously very ambitious, and ambitions of the overriding variety can bring out the worst in any human being. That he is very vindictive can be gauged by his totally warped action against Bhatt. Modi does not seem to realise that the consequences of this action would be the opposite of what he had intended. I am happy that IPSs officers of Gujarat have got together to condemn his petulance.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278636

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A fight for truth amid web of lies – By Shweta (Oct 16, 2011, Deccan Chronicle)

IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt had moved the supreme court accusing narendra modi of complicity in the post-godhra riots, and was arrested following a complaint by a police constable. his wife shweta talks about her husband’s lone battle. My whole world came crashing down the moment Sanjiv was taken into custody. It came like a bolt from the blue. We had no idea that he was going to be arrested. In fact, the whole operation reeked of lies and deceit. The officers who came home told him that they were taking him for interrogation regarding the complaint filed by police constable K.D. Pant. It was only later that fateful night that we came to know that he had been arrested by the Ghatolia police, and then taken to the Ahmedabad crime branch in a clandestine operation orchestrated by the most powerful man in the state.

We call ourselves a democracy. But it is shameful that in a country like ours, this is the treatment meted out to an honest, upright officer. His only fault was that he chose to stand up for what he believes in. He made the mistake of speaking out against the government and the system, and was punished for it. What was more shocking was how even people he called his friends completely let him down. Officers who worked with Sanjiv came to my house and raided the premises ruthlessly, without showing any consideration to me or even my father-in-law. On the night of the arrest our house was raided thrice by the Gujarat police. Over 35 to 40 policemen searched our home for more than two hours without any intimation. These are the same policemen who have at sometime or the other worked under Sanjiv. They ill-treated our family. Suddenly all of Sanjiv’s colleagues started disassociating themselves from us. Even junior level officers didn’t take my calls on the night when Sanjiv was taken to the Ahmedabad crime branch. A man who was so popular among his peers was suddenly left with very few friends.

My two children too have not been spared the trauma. The children of an honest IPS officer are now being labelled as children of some criminal. My teenage daughter, who is studying in Mumbai, had to rush to Ahmedabad after learning about her father’s arrest. I feel so guilty about the fact that I haven’t even been able to provide any emotional support to my in-laws, who are heartbroken. What parent can survive the humiliation and pain of knowing their innocent son is languishing in jail and being treated like a criminal? The way the government has treated Sanjiv clearly shows that he is being framed for speaking against the Narendra Modi government. Tell me, where was Pant (a constable with Sanjiv in 2002 at the time of the Godhra carnage) for nine years? Why didn’t he file a complaint at that time? Sanjiv was arrested after Mr Modi got relief from the Supreme Court.

This clearly shows the arrest was a planned move by the government. Moreover, Sanjiv is also a witness in three critical cases, and despite Mr Modi being the main accused in one of them, we never got any protection. In fact after he was suspended, Sanjiv’s security too was withdrawn. Is there any justice in any of this? I am very worried about Sanjiv’s situation while in custody. I spend sleepless nights thinking about how he is being treated. Even when I wrote to senior officials like director-general of police Chitranjan Singh and Ahmedabad police commissioner Sudhir Sinha, they gave me no assurance regarding Sanjiv’s safety in jail. I really thought officers of that stature would be more understanding towards their colleague and fellow IPS officer. Till date I have got no reassurance that nothing untoward will happen to him while he is in custody.

It was only because I feared for Sanjiv’s life that I was compelled to write to Union home minister P. Chidambaram requesting him to provide adequate security to Sanjiv in jail. I never wanted to become part of the political game between the BJP and Congress. And my fears were clearly not unfounded. Now there are rumours of Sanjiv being tagged as a Congress agent. It’s just been over a week since this whole nightmare started and I already feel tired and hopeless. I am almost certain that there is no redemption. I know we will never get justice here. It is a quagmire here in Gujarat. No one will ever have the courage to speak up or take a stand against the Modi government. My husband was an exception and the state has made an example of him. It is the government’s warning. They have proved that this is the consequence of talking against the man who is poised to become the prime minister of the country that claims to be world’s largest democracy. There is no starker irony than this.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/sunday-chronicle/heartitude/fight-truth-amid-web-lies-955

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Rattling along – Editorial (Oct 13, 2011, Times of India)

The political symbolism defining L K Advani’s latest project, the Jan Chetna Yatra, is drearily predictable. That the veteran BJP leader has embarked on yet another yatra and that too from Sitab Diara in Bihar, the birthplace of Jayaprakash Narayan, on the latter’s birth anniversary, is hardly ingenious. True, the yatra was originally planned for launch from Gujarat. By flagging off from Nitish Kumar’s Bihar, Advani could well be trying to kill two birds with the same stone – undercut Narendra Modi’s popularity within the BJP as well as project himself as the NDA’s consensus PM candidate. Having said that, neither the symbol of the rath nor the allusion to the JP movement denotes a modern, contemporary idiom. Instead, it confirms that Advani and the BJP continue to be stuck in old-school politics.

While the anti-corruption/anti-black money theme of Advani’s yatra reflects the public mood of the times, it highlights a poverty of new symbols in politics. If anything, Advani’s Ram rath yatra in 1990, the original political experiment that led to the BJP’s rise on the national stage, was highly regressive. The subsequent demolition of the Babri masjid, sparking off communal riots, is a dark chapter in Indian politics. That two decades later Advani’s rath continues to chug along, albeit under the new slogan of fighting corruption, is disappointing.

Just like Anna Hazare’s crusade today, the Bihar movement in 1974 was also born out of popular frustration against endemic corruption. At that time too, the Indian economy was caught in a pincer between low growth and high inflation, leading to mass disaffection with a Congress-led government. While too much shouldn’t be made of this, some of the UPA government’s authoritarian reflexes today – such as arresting Anna Hazare, or proposals to roll back some RTI provisions and clamp down on media freedom – are also reminiscent of the 1970s. That stakeholders in the system would find it expedient to hark back to earlier times represents a huge disconnect between the polity and the aspirations of 21st century India.

India has come a long way since JP and Advani’s Ram rath. It’s a youthful country that wants better governance and immediate action on pressing problems. Instead of grasping at straws from the past, we need creative solutions for the future. Advani’s anti-corruption plank won’t sound convincing, for example, unless it includes a clarion call against the Reddy brothers who carry considerable clout with the BJP-run government in Karnataka. There’s little point invoking symbols and slogans from the JP or Anna movements, the BJP needs to come up with some fresh ideas of its own.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/10330925.cms

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Targeted attack – By T.K Rajalakshmi (Oct 8, 2011, Frontline)

The Kasbah, or the old part, of Gopalgarh town in the Assembly segment of Kaman in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district is nondescript save for its undulating roads and crowded marketplace. Nine members of the Meo Muslim community were killed here on September 14 when the police fired at their mosque while rioters belonging to another community attacked them. Of the 23 people injured in the violence, 19 were Meos. According to the post-mortem reports, three people were killed by police bullets, one person died of burns, another died when hit by shrapnel, while the rest of the deaths were caused by sharp weapons. On September 26, Shabbir, 40, of Pathravli village in Gopalgarh, succumbed to injuries at Sawai Man Singh hospital, Jaipur, bringing up the death toll to 10. This part of Rajasthan is contiguous with the Meo Muslim-dominated areas of Haryana. The Meos of Bharatpur share many cultural traits with other communities living in the region, and such violence in the area had not been reported in the past. The dispute that triggered the violence was over a few bighas of land behind the mosque, which also included a “pokhar”, or waterhole. The violence seems to have been one-sided because all the dead and most of the injured belonged to one community. Meos of the area allege that the police colluded with the rioters. That State Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal defended the firing by the police has not helped matters.

The mosque in question was used, along with another one in Gopalgarh, by people from the surrounding 38 villages. Members of the Gujjar community asserted their claim to the waterhole, which they used for their livestock. In response to a case filed by Meo Muslims in the Pahadi district court, the tehsildar of Pahadi issued on September 13 an order under Section 30 of the Land Revenue Act asking the Gujjars to vacate the land. The agitated Gujjars allegedly beat up the imam, Abdul Rashid, who lived in the Kasbah near the mosque after news of the order spread. Tempers rose, and soon agitated groups of the two communities got together to debate further action. The next day, leaders of the two communities met to try and resolve the matter. However, rumours seemed to fly thick and fast, and members of both communities reportedly gathered near the mosque. It is not known what provoked the police action, though the police version is that they fired to prevent an armed confrontation between the two groups. The mosque, built about a decade ago, is constructed on a mound. It is flanked by an idgah, a burial ground and a smaller mosque in the rear. Most versions suggest there were no deaths before the police arrived on the scene and started firing at the mosque. Besides, most of the victims were Meos, a fact that seems to suggest a deliberate attack on the community rather than a skirmish between the two communities. It is not clear why the Meos, who form the majority in the area and were, by some reports, heavily armed, could not defend themselves or inflict significant harm on their attackers. There are other disturbing suggestions left by the violence. Frontline, which was granted permission to visit the mosque briefly, found it badly vandalised. Most of the victims were apparently killed inside the mosque, and there were bloodstains on the floor. An iron door had deep serrations on it, indicating that an attempt had been made to hack it open. A metal trunk lay unlocked; its contents had been looted and the lid had deep marks on it, suggesting that an axe or some sharp tool had been used to prise it open. Two bodies, burnt beyond recognition, were found in a well in the idgah compound; ropes and an empty fuel canister were found nearby. Footage of the burnt corpses, taken by an organisation called Anhad much before the police spotted them, were given to the media.

Though Meos form the numerical majority in Gopalgarh, Gujjars and other caste Hindus have a sizable presence and many of them live in the Kasbah and the adjoining area. There are also a few Meo families in the Kasbah, mostly of the butcher (kasai) caste, including that of the assaulted imam. The mosque, which is among the more imposing structures in Gopalgarh, is less than 700 metres from the local police station. Questions are being raised on how matters could reach such a stage with the police station so close, and why the police action had such a tragic consequence. Local Meos who witnessed the violence are unhappy with the police action and the administration’s role. Yakub, who saw the firing, said people had assembled at the mosque for evening prayers when a police vehicle driving down the Sikri road began firing towards the mosque. He said, “We saw armed Gujjars descending from the end where we wash ourselves.” Some makeshift shops owned by Meos in the Kasbah were also vandalised. Yunus Saleem, a middle-aged Meo whom Frontline met at the Dar-ul-uloom Mohammadiya madrassa at Mil Khelda, said: “There is a feeling among ordinary citizens that the administration is always partial. Why is it that in every such incident, only our people get killed?” Indeed, about half of the 19 policemen at the local police station are Gujjars. Meos, therefore seldom approach the police station for help. Zahida Khan, the Congress legislator from Kaman Assembly segment, was present at the meeting where the two communities were trying to come to a settlement on September 14 before matters went out of hand. Zahida, daughter of the late Choudhary Tayyab Hussain, a well-known Meo leader and two-time Lok Sabha member, told Frontline that there were communal elements present at the Gopalgarh police station who were trying to incite people against her. “There was a threat to my life, too,” she said. Anita Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Nagar Assembly segment, was also present at that meeting. So was, according to local people, Gyan Chand Ahuja, the BJP MLA from Ramgarh in Alwar district. He reportedly played a role in stoking the fire. There were also others who wanted a flare-up, according to local Meos, and they included advocates and teachers owing allegiance to right-wing Hindutva groups. Ramzan Choudhary, an advocate, said: “At 1-45 p.m. on September 14, I spoke to the personal assistant of the State Home Minister, informing him that the situation had become volatile. He assured me that things were under control.”

Samaideen, a young Meo from Andhwadi, said that like him, most of the Meo youth did odd jobs such as repairing, building, painting and lifting loads. In all the seven villages from where those who died in the violence hailed, there was not a single Meo who held a government job. Two of the deceased were from Andhwadi. Maulana Khursheed, a father of two children, was one of them. His father, Abdul Rehman, said, “He was good in studies, so he was called Maulana. He studied at Deoband. He was the only earning member.” He said no one from the administration had met him or the family of the other deceased boy from the village. The State government has ordered a judicial inquiry. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been asked to investigate the incident. Sunil Dutt, Inspector General of Police, Bharatpur Range, told Frontline that a first information report registered by the station house officer at Gopalgarh named 23 Gujjars and 21 Meos. He said that a team led by a Deputy Superintendent of Police was conducting a primary investigation. He claimed that “radical speeches” had been made from the mosque. When asked how it came about that all the victims were from one community, he did not have an answer. “What do you think the police should have done?” he asked. When Frontline visited the area, curfew had been relaxed in the daylight hours from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., but the Kasbah was largely desolate. A barber shop was open and a few youngsters strutted around aggressively. Frontline met Samandar Singh, a Gujjar who was very reluctant to speak. His father, an elderly man, was rather aggressive: “We do not know how this happened. Ask them [the Meos]. We were not there. Why are you asking all these questions?”

However, Samandar Singh opened up eventually and said that what had happened was unfortunate. “The fight was over the waterhole. They wanted to make a graveyard there. They spread rumours that the imam had been beaten up. They announced that they would finish us off,” he said, corroborating the police version. The Meos have not denied that some foolhardy youngsters might have made some inflammatory statements. But they point out that had the police fired on Meos in areas where Gujjars lived in order to save them, some among the latter would also have been injured. The Meos have traditionally voted for the Congress. But members of the community Frontline spoke to expressed unhappiness that a Congress delegation comprising Members of Parliament Rashid Alvi, Viplove Thakur, Deependra Hooda and Vijay Bahaguna spent very little time interacting with witnesses and families of the victims. The delegation blamed the police for the excesses and was also critical of the State Home Minister. A BJP delegation visited the area, too. A Communist Party of India (Marxist) delegation led by State secretary Basudev and Rajya Sabha member Tapan Sen was told that after a compromise was arrived at between the two communities, some “anti-social elements” spread rumours and the police, instead of verifying them, fired indiscriminately at the mosque. The delegation felt that unless the issues of political, social and economic backwardness of the area were not addressed, vested interests would utilise the situation. Kirori Lal Meena, the independent Member of Parliament from Dausa, who has aspirations to form a third front along with former Congress and BJP leaders, has been actively taking up cause of the Meos. The competition unleashed by political parties over this issue has also unfortunately driven wedges among the Meos. Frontline spoke to Sher Mohammad, an aide of K.L. Meena, regarding raising other issues of development that concerned the community. He answered that at present, the only thing relevant was the death of the 10 persons. …

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2821/stories/20111021282103700.htm

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Show The Right Cheek – By Saba Naqvi (Oct 24, 2011, Outlook)

In the twisted mind of Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, it was some sort of glorious act. “God give us the power to complete our mission,” he tweeted before it. The mission: a coward’s attack on eminent lawyer and human rights activist Prashant Bhushan by Bagga and two of his friends, Inder Verma and Vishnu Gupta. On October 13, the three men walked into the lawyer’s Delhi office and thrashed him, an act that acquired spectacular dimensions because it was captured live by a TV channel that happened to be there to interview Bhushan. The next day, when the three were remanded to judicial custody in a Delhi court, their supporters viciously attacked some citizens who had come out in support of Bhushan�”which was also captured on live TV. A little-known outfit, the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena, has hence come into the limelight. Inder Verma, one of the men who assaulted Bhushan, also claims to be president, Sri Rama Sene, Delhi unit. The men say they attacked Bhushan because he had supported the idea of a plebiscite in J&K and asked for a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. On their Facebook page, they wrote: “If someone breaks my country I will break their head.”

There was a somewhat cruel irony in the fact that Bhushan was physically attacked by right-wing hooligans at a time when the Anna Hazare movement�”of which he is a crucial part�”is being accused of getting its organisational muscle from the RSS. Which is precisely why several conspiracy theories are doing the rounds about the Bhushan attack. And true or false, such speculation does reveal the confusion that still prevails about the Jan Lokpal movement, particularly now that it has taken on a political dimension with the campaign against the Congress in the Hisar bypolls. First is the theory that the Sangh parivar sees Prashant Bhushan as the awkward member of Team Anna, the man hardest to manage when said investments have to be encashed. Bhushan has been associated with too many human rights causes, counts too many “comrades” among his friends and is the one Team Anna member unrestrained in his critique of the parivar and Narendra Modi. As far as the right-wing brigade goes, he is the “unpatriotic anti-nationalist” inside Team Anna. The traitor within. Hence goons were sent after him.

Theory number two is that perhaps the powers that be had a hand in instigating the attack as Bhushan has become a real headache, both for members in the ruling dispensation and the corporate sector. Indeed, when news of the attack was first flashed, there was apprehension that some Congress worker angry with the political actions of Team Anna had gone nuts and slapped him around. There are also murmurs that given the Sangh taint is an embarrassment for Team Anna, an attack by extremists pledging allegiance to an ultra-right ideology can be a face-saver, “evidence” that the movement is not being carried on the shoulders of the RSS. India Against Corruption (which manages the Anna movement) writes on its website: “It is a peoples’ movement and every Indian ought to and is welcome to participate in it. The movement consists of people from all shades of political opinion, including the Left, Right and Centre. But the RSS is not part of the leadership…not connected in any way in running the movement.” But as the RSS sees it, after years of failure, the Anna initiative is something worth backing. It’s good strategy to prop up something that has already knocked the wind out of the Congress sails. In internal meetings, the assessment is that the BJP is in a position now to take advantage of the disarray in UPA-II. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was only being honest when he declared, as part of his Vijayadashami address, that the cadre was told to join the Anna movement. But such proclamations are certainly embarrassing for some individuals in Team Anna.

Meanwhile, one of Bhushan’s assailants has also been linked to the Sri Rama Sene that has in the past vandalised M.F. Husain exhibitions and repeatedly attacked Valentine’s Day celebrations. Leaders of the group have also defended saffron terror planners like Colonel Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya. The three men who attacked Bhushan last week have also in the past disrupted public engagements of Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The RSS, of course, denies any overt association with anyone who goes over the edge, although the kind of hatred such individuals harbour continue to be fed by the Sangh ideology. But to plan conspiracies, one needs to think, plot and trigger actions. It is unlikely that these individuals who attacked Bhushan could really fathom all the dots being connected here. It probably happened just the way they said it did�”‘he needed to be bashed on the head for he was speaking against the nation’. They too saw themselves as self-appointed guardians of the public good.

http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278641

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Don’t dilute RTI – Editorial (Oct 13, 2011, Deccan Herald)

The highest achievement of the UPA-I government was perhaps the enactment in 2005 of the right to information law which redefined the relationship between citizens and government. After six years, the government seems to be developing second thoughts on the legislation, judging from the comments being made on it by ministers. Corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily has found that it transgresses into the independent functioning of the government.

Law minister Salman Khurshid thinks that misuse of the act has adversely affected the “institutional efficacy and efficiency” of the government. There are demands from some ministries to keep the Prime Minister’s Office outside the purview of the law, obviously as a result of the inconvenience caused by the recent disclosure of a finance ministry note. There seems to be a design behind the demands.

The very fact that the government is now troubled by the citizen’s enhanced right is reason for continuance of the law and even strengthening it. For the first time citizens can demand information, scrutinise decisions and interrogate the government on their basis. Many of details of the recent scams relating to the Commonwealth Games, Adarsh housing society and the 2G spectrum allotment came to light because of the use of the right to information. It is not just the big scams that were unravelled.

Thousands of public spirited persons were able to find out how their small neighbourhood government offices worked. Some of them even had to pay with their lives for using their right. It is wrong to claim that the prospect of disclosure of information in future delays decision-making and forces officials to be overcautious. They will in fact be forced to take the right decisions and own responsibility for them. This is what good governance needs. There are enough safeguards in the law against frivolous demands and disclosure of information which is not in public interest.

The government seems to have been unnerved by the genie of citizens’ power which was bottled up for decades. Those who say that the law is obstructionist and hampers the functioning of government should correct their notions about governance, shaped by entrenched practices of secrecy and confidentiality. Greater transparency will ensure greater accountability of the government and expand the democratic space. The government should desist from any attempt to amend the act and to dilute and weaken its provisions. The need is actually to strengthen it in areas like increased protection for RTI activists.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/197440/dont-dilute-rti.html

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IAMC Weekly News Roundup – September 19th, 2011

September 20, 2011

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IAMC Weekly News Roundup – September 12th, 2011

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IAMC Weekly News Roundup – August 29th, 2011

August 30, 2011

In this issue of IAMC News Roundup News Headlines 17 ‘scams’ that Narendra Modi doesn’t want Lok Ayukta to probe Gujarat minister murder: All accused acquitted Sohrab case: ‘Narendra Modi’s babus, cops tried to help accused minister’ Ahmedabad blasts: A horrific story about manufacturing an accused Communal violence erupts in Bahraich of UP Top cop [...]

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