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IMC-USA Weekly News Digest - February 1st, 2010

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Communal Harmony

News Headlines

Opinions & Editorials

Communal Harmony

National Communal Harmony Awards announced (Jan 25, 2010, Central Chronicle)

Noted Sanskrit scholar Mohammad Hanif Khan Shastri and
Rajasthan-based Centre for Human Rights Social Welfare have been
selected for the National Communal Harmony Awards for 2009. 58-year-old
Shastri, who has authored eight books, has endeavoured to promote
communal harmony by highlighting similarities between Hindu and Muslim
religions through his unique literary contributions in Hindi and
Sanskrit, the Union Home Ministry said in a statement today.

The
Centre for Human Rights Social Welfare, registered in 1976, is a social
organisation working for communal harmony, human rights, welfare of the
homeless and women, and rehabilitation of the needy and deprived
persons. "Its specific activities include organising inter-faith
dialogue, programmes of 'Milan (gathering)' on the occasions of Eid,
Holi, Diwali and Christmas, communal harmony rally and kavi sammelan
among others to promote communal harmony and national integration," the
Ministry said.

It said the organisation has campaigned against
terrorism and has been organising programmes to sensitise people on the
rights of the homeless. It actively participated in rehabilitation of
the victims of bomb blasts in Jaipur in May 2008. The Awards were
instituted in 1996 by the National Foundation for Communal Harmony, an
autonomous body set up by the Ministry for promoting communal harmony
and national integration. The award carries Rs five lakh cash for the
organisation and Rs two lakh for the individual besides a citation.

http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=25384

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News Headlines

Witnesses call trial judge biased (Jan 26, 2010, Indian Express)

Seven eyewitnesses and victims of the Gulberg Society massacre case
have accused special trial judge B U Joshi of bias. They have now moved
a petition before the Principal Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad Sessions
Court to transfer the trial from his court. Principal Sessions Judge G
B Shah has admitted the petition and issued notice to the Special
Public Prosecutor in the case, R K Shah. … The seven eyewitnesses have
been identified as Imtiaz Pathan, Rupa Modi, Saeedkhan Pathan, Mohammed
Rafique Abubakar Pathan, Firoz Mohammed Pathan, Sayara Sandhi and Salim
Sandhi.

The seven have prayed before the Principal Judge to
transfer the trial proceedings of the case to some other court of the
Additional Sessions Judge. They have also prayed to stay the trial
proceedings in the court of Joshi till the final outcome of their
petition is arrived. They have cited various instances from the trial
proceedings in their allegations against Joshi. They have said that
Joshi has pre-judged the authenticity of their depositions and so they
have no hope of getting any justice from his court. The witnesses have
highlighted a number of statements that Joshi had uttered during the
course of the trial proceedings whereby he questioned authenticity of
the witnesses' depositions.

The witnesses have also said that
Joshi has been treating the witnesses worse than even the accused. In
particular, the witnesses have highlighted the instance when Joshi had
not allowed a prayer to let the witnesses come out of the witness box
towards the enclosure of the accused for identification during their
depositions. The witnesses have also questioned Joshi's decision of
releasing police constable Rajesh Jinger who has been recently
arraigned as accused on bail. Jinger has not spent a single day in
custody.

Advocate S M Vora who moved the petition on behalf of
the witnesses said, "The Principal Judge has admitted the petition and
issued notice to the Special Public Prosecutor. Further hearing has
been kept for January 27." The special trial court for the Gulberg
Society Massacre case, on Monday, framed charges against police
Constable Rajesh Jinger for his alleged role in the case. Jinger was
recently made an accused in the case on the basis of an application by
the victims and the eyewitnesses.

Among other charges, Jinger has
accused of murder, rioting and criminal conspiracy. Earlier, some
victims and witnesses in the case had moved an application before the
trial court to arraign eight more as accused in the case. Jinger was
one of them. The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team
(SIT) had, however, opposed the application. In the case of Jinger, the
SIT had taken the defence of alibi. The court, however, allowed the
application only in the case of Jinger and ordered to arraign him as
accused. He was later released on bail.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/571773/

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MP rewrites history: RSSs Golwalker jailed in 1949 for freedom struggle (Jan 24, 2010, Indian Express)

RSS ideologue M S Golwalkar spent nearly six months in Madhya
Pradesh's Seoni Jail after the organisation was banned following the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. An official publication of the state
government now says he was jailed for being a freedom fighter. An
article in the latest issue of Madhya Pradesh Sandesh has listed
Golwalkar as one of the 41 freedom fighters who were imprisoned in
Seoni Jail, built in 1925-26 in the then Central Provinces and Berar,
by the British. The RSS ideologue is third on the list, behind Subhash
Chandra Bose and Acharya Vinoba Bhave.

The article, however,
does not mention that unlike Bose and Bhave - who were in Seoni Jail
between January 3, 1932 and May 30, 1932 and between April 8, 1944 and
July 9, 1945, respectively - Golwalkar was not imprisoned by the
British but by the government of Independent India. Guruji, as
Golwalkar's followers called him, was in the jail between January 1,
1949 and June 6, 1949. In fact, he is the only prisoner who spent time
in the jail after Independence while the rest - except one whose record
the article said was not received - were there between 1930 and 1945.

The
"distortion of history" has angered many. Congress spokesman K K Mishra
said his party would lodge a case against the writer and the
publication "because history has been tampered with and an attempt made
to mislead the public". "Golwalkar had nothing to do with the freedom
struggle and he was jailed because the RSS was banned," Mishra said.
The author of the article, Ghanashyam Sirsam, has said he only
"faithfully reproduced" the list provided to him by Superintendent of
Special Child Reformatory (the jail was closed in 1956 and Jabalpur's
reformatory was brought here). "I don't know what's wrong with the
article," Sirsam said. It's focus, he said, was on Bose not Golwalkar.
Public Relations Commissioner Manoj Srivastava refused to comment on
the issue.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/571053/

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Two churches attacked in Karnataka (Jan 25, 2010, Indian Express)

Two churches were attacked and the statue of Mother Mary damaged on
Monday in Mysore and in Uttara Kannada District in Karnataka. Culprits
broke the statue of Mother Mary on the compound wall of the Holy Family
Church at Hinkal village in the wee hours in Mysore district, police
said. In the other incident, glass panes covering the statue of Mother
Mary was broken at St. Anthony Church at Pernamakki in Uttara Kannada
District. Police said the statue was not damaged.

This is the
second such attack in Uttara Kannada District after the Mundahalli
church was targetted on January 22. The Holy Family church had come
under attack in 2002 also when some locals vandalised it alleging
forcible conversions were taking place there. Culprits had made a vain
attempt to break the cash chest at the church late last year, Mysore
Police Commissioner Sunil Agarwal told PTI. "We have already started
investigation and are hopeful of booking the culprits soon", Agarwal
said.

In Bangalore, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa directed the
police to investigate and nab the culprits. Police, who pressed sniffer
dogs into service in both the churches, provided security to them. KPCC
President R V Deshpande, who condemned the attacks, alleged such
incidents were on the rise after BJP came to power in the state. "If
the Chief Minister cannot control the attacks and arrest the culprits,
he has no moral right to continue and should better resign", he said.
Global Christian Association and Konkan Christian Association have
condemned the attack.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/571471/

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11 convicted, 17 acquitted in Kandhamal riot case (Jan 30, 2010, Times of India)

A court in Orissa on Saturday convicted 11 people and let off 17
others in a 2008 case of rioting in Kandhamal district. "Eleven people
have been convicted and 17 others have been let off for want of
evidence against them," said P K Patra, the public prosecutor. Fast
track court-I judge Subhendu Das sentenced the 11 convicted to five
years imprisonment and fined them Rs 2,000 each for torching the house
of Gugula Das in Sorangada village Sep 18, 2008.

If the
convicts fail to pay the fine they will have to spend an additional
three months in jail, the court ordered. Kandhamal district, about 200
km from here, witnessed widespread violence after the murder of Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of
his aides at his ashram August 23, 2008.

More than 25,000
Christians were forced to flee their homes after their houses were
attacked by rampaging mobs that held Christians responsible for
Saraswati's killing, although police blamed the Maoists. The government
has set up two fast track courts to try cases related to the communal
violence.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5518157.cms

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Another fake encounter? (Jan 23, 2010, Times of India)

Anil was a vice-principal at an inter college on the outskirts of
the state capital and was slated to get married on February 10, 2010.
His uncle Surendra earned enough to manage two square meals a day. Into
civil construction himself, Sumit Tewari's brothers own a shop in
Faizaullahganj. Sanjeev Misra worked at a medicine store. One thing
which brings these four names on a common platform is the Gaurav Misra
kidnapping case. These were the alleged kidnappers of Gaurav Misra who
fell to police bullets on Thursday morning, following which Gaurav was
rescued from their captivity. Unwilling to believe that the four had
kidnapped Gaurav, their family members on Friday raised questions over
the police's encounter theory, insisting that all the four were
murdered in cold blood by the men-in-khaki.

Family members of
Anil Gautum insist that he was too busy distributing the invitation
cards for his marriage. "The vice-principal of Maharana Pratap Inter
College (in Bakshi-ka-Talab police circle) why would he get involved in
any such crime?" questioned Pramod, Anil's cousin while talking to TOI
on Friday. "Mamaji (Surendra - driver of the Misras) was earning enough
to spare two square meals a day for his family and doing it for the
last four years. He had never been to a police station at all. Why
would he put his job at stake?" Pramod questioned. Sumit Tewari's
brother Amit, maintained that he was picked-up by the police from his
house late on Wednesday night. "When he was with us at that time, how
could he be involved in the kidnapping. How could we believe that he
was when we saw him being taken away by the police," Amit insisted.

Sanjeev's
in-laws claim that Anil arrived at their house in Daulatganj area of
Thakurganj on Wednesday morning and took him away saying that they both
were going to distribute the invitation cards of Anil's marriage. "In
the evening he called up to inform that he would stay back at Anil's
place as they were late due to cards distribution," said Sanjeev's
brother-in-law. While Surendra and Anil do not have a single criminal
case pending against them adding weight to the claims of their family
members that they had been implicated on the crime, the names that may
add some gravity to the police claim are that of Sumit Tewari and
Sanjeev Misra who had a kidnapping case pending against them since
2006.

The case pertains to the kidnapping of one Ajit Kumar
Verma of Attaria police circle in Sitapur. A student of intermediate,
Ajit returned home a few days after his disappearence. Allegations are
that his family paid Rs 5 lakh to secure his release. Investigations
into the kidnapping case had led to the arrest of eight persons as
accused including the duo. A chargesheet in the case was subsequently
submitted by the police and the case was presently in its trial stage.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5490148.cms

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Haryana govt fails to file reply in Ruchika case, HC upset (Jan 27, 2010, Times of India)

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday expressed its
displeasure as the Haryana government failed to file its reply in time
in connection with a public suit filed by a human rights activist in
the molestation case of teenager Ruchika Girhotra. In the public
interest litigation (PIL) filed Dec 29, Ranjan Lakhanpal, who is also a
senior lawyer, had sought that former Haryana police chief S.P.S.
Rathore be charged under Section 305 (abetment of suicide of a minor)
of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) since he allegedly drove teenager
Ruchika to suicide in 1993.

Rathore was convicted Dec 21 by a
CBI special court here for molesting budding tennis player Ruchika Aug
12, 1990, in Haryana's Panchkula town, 10 km from here. He was awarded
a six-month jail term but he was immediately granted bail. During the
last hearing Jan 7, the court had issued notices to the Haryana
government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and told them
to submit their reply on Lakhanpal's petition in 10 days. However, the
Haryana government's lawyer sought two months' time from the court
Wednesday to submit their reply.

On this, the high court bench
consisting of Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Jasbir Singh
pulled up the state government and expressed displeasure. The matter
will be heard by the high court Feb 4. However, the CBI filed its reply
in connection with this PIL. "In our reply we have given a detailed
account of the CBI's investigation so far. Like we said, the CBI
registered the case in 2000 and then we also mentioned about the
court's proceedings and our probe in our reply," Ajay Kaushik, the
CBI's lawyer, told IANS.

Abha Rathore, counsel and wife of the
former Haryana police chief, also filed an application in the same
court Wednesday, appealing to settle this PIL before Feb 8 as the
hearing challenging Rathore's six-month punishment is scheduled in a
local court here on the same day.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5505790.cms

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Kodas wealth worth Rs 1.40 crore, says chargesheet (Jan 29, 2010, Times of India)

Former chief minister Madhu Koda has amassed wealth 400 times his
known sources of income, said the chargesheet filed by the vigilance
bureau in the court. The vigilance bureau has submitted a chargesheet,
running into 55 pages, against Koda and his former Cabinet colleague
Kamlesh Singh for amassing wealth disproportionate to their known
sources of income, while holding office. Both Koda and Singh, lodged in
the Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar, were arrested by the vigilance
bureau on November 30 last year in connection with the disproportionate
assets case.

According to the chargesheet, Koda has amassed
wealth, worth Rs 1.40 crore, which is disproportionate to his known
sources of income. Also, while his income from various sources from
2005-10 was around Rs 35.56 lakh, his known expenditure came to Rs 64
lakh. The chargesheet said Koda had acquired immovable assets in
Chaibasa, Jamshedpur, West Bengal and other states of the country
during the said period. It also mentioned that documents seized during
the search and seizure operations carried out by the vigilance bureau
on July 24, 2009, revealed a large amount of investments made by Koda
in and outside the country.

The vigilance bureau has also filed
a chargesheet against Kamlesh Singh, stating that the latter had
amassed wealth, which was 130 times more than his known sources of
income and acquired disproportionate assets worth Rs 1.75 crore. In the
past five years, Singh's income from various sources was Rs 1.40 crore
and his known expenditure Rs 35 lakh. According to the chargesheet,
Singh acquired a large number of immovable properties in Palamu,
Ranchi, Kolkata, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other states during his
ministership.

The chargesheet further stated that investigation
was on and over 300 witnesses were being examined. Sources in the
vigilance bureau said a secondary chargesheet, mentioning elaborate
details of assets acquired by Koda and others accused in the case, will
be filed soon. The vigilance bureau has filed the chargesheet in a case
registered on the basis of a complaint petition filed by Rajeev Sharma
on July 2, 2009. The case was lodged against Koda, Singh and two other
former ministers, Bandhu Tirkey and Bhanu Pratap Sahi, named as prime
accused in the case and booked under sections 409, 420, 423, 424, 465,
120(B) of IPC and 7, 10, 11, 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5513983.cms

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Hyderabad archives finds no expert to decipher Moghul documents (Jan 27, 2010, Times of India)

The Hyderabad-based Archives and Research Institute, arguably the
biggest repository of mediaeval and near-modern India documents, is
facing a peculiar problem. The APSARI would like to decipher the
documents which are mostly written in shikasta or cursive Persian and
make them available to researchers. But there are no Persian (Farsi)
language experts who could read the shikasta form of the language. Over
the decades the experts in shikasta Persian or Farsi have become rare.
There could be only a few in the entire state and they too could be in
their advanced age. "If there are no experts to read the document what
would you make of them," asks APSARI director Zarina Parveen in an
exasperated tone.

The 1.5 lakh papers that belong to the era of
Moghal times of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb have been sorted out and put
in especially made boxes. These boxes could be opened for experts and
researcher for serious study. The experts believe that the Shahi
Firmans or the royal decrees of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb could shed
light on the military, political, agriculture and administrative
policies of those times. "There can be no better primary source for
researchers of medieval India than these documents," claims Parveen.
The bulk of the records at the institute date back to 15th century and
records relate to the periods of the Bahmanis, the Qutub Shahs, the
Adil Shahs, Mughals and the Asaf Jahs and run into millions of folios.

Parveen,
talking to TOI, said that the institute has a collection of 1.5 lakh
documents relating to reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb cover the
period between 1628 and 1707. The records are in perfect chronological
order. "The preparation of the reference media to these records in
English language is an essential requirement both for preservation and
use by research scholars," she says.

The director says only
35,000 Mughal records were catalogued and there are many more to be
documented. The documentation process was started in 1975, in 1980-82
first publication was brought out and till now only 10 volumes have
come out. The director said that she has written to the government for
sanctioning six posts of which two are shikasta Persian experts. There
are also many documents ready for publication but there are no funds.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5502987.cms

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Raped by cop 13 years ago, victim awaits justice (Jan 30, 2010, IBN)

Rajasthan Police have declared a cash reward of Rs 50,000 for any
information about former DIG Madhukar Tandon who has been absconding
for 13 years after being accused of raping and kidnapping a tribal
woman. The victim, Sheela Devi, has threatened to commit suicide if
Tandon is not brought to justice. "I'll also do what Ruchika did if I
do not get justice," Sheela said. The justice for Ruchika campaign had
given hope to Sheela 13 years after was allegedly raped by her
husband's boss.

After CNN-IBN took up her case, the police had
said they have renewed the hunt for her alleged rapist. But little has
moved on the ground. In fact, a cash reward of Rs 50,000 for
information on Tandon has been announced only now. "We have constituted
a special team and now we have also declared this reward on him," says
ADG (Crime), Jaipur, KL Bairwa. But nine years after Madhukar Tandon
was declared a proclaimed offender declaring a cash reward on him now
comes as too little too late.

The failure of the police to
forfeit Tandon's Noida and Jaipur properties also questions the
seriousness of the police to act against him. Tandon even managed to
sell them. "They (Rajasthan Police) only want to show they are doing
something," said Prem Kishan Sharma, President, Rajasthan PUCL. After
the media attention on the Tandon case last month Rajasthan Police had
set up a special team under the ATS to step up efforts to look for
Tandon but contrary to the victim's hopes there's been little progress
either on that front or on the demand of handing over the case to the
CBI.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/raped-by-cop-13-years-ago-victim-awaits-justice/109425-3.html

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Untouchablity still practiced across Gujarat: Study (Jan 29, 2010, Rediff)

The largest-ever study on caste-based discrimination and segregation
against Dalits has found that untouchability is still practiced widely
across Gujarat, despite the practice being abolished by the
Constitution, according to the Robert K Kennedy Centre for Justice and
Human Rights based in Washington, DC. The 56-page study, titled
'Understanding Untouchability: A Comprehensive Study of Practices and
Conditions and released in Washington on Wednesday,' was conducted by
the RFK Center along with the NavSarjan Trust. It is the largest data
gathering effort to date on the topic and had been conducted in 1,589
villages with 5,462 respondents and collected by 106 Navsarjan members
in Gujarat.

The report said it addressed almost all known
untouchability practices, including the segregation of housing,
drinking-water wells, places of religious worship, and separate sitting
arrangements in schools and public events between "touchable and
untouchable castes, which continue to be nearly universally practiced
across villages in Gujarat, despite national laws banning such
actions." It outlined a pattern of persistent discrimination not only
against Dalits by members of non-Dalit castes, which it described as
'vertical discrimination', but even between sub-castes of Dalits, which
it called 'horizontal discrimination.' The report said it was the
outcome of three years of intensive research, and noted that the
methodology was to outline a framework for "quantifying a diverse range
of human rights abuses against Dalits, collecting data and producing
analysis that surpasses all previous examinations of this issue."

Monika
Kalra Varma, director of the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights,
said, "Caste-based discrimination is the most complex human rights
issue facing India today." She said, "It is our hope that these
findings will provide critical information for the Dalit movement to
shape its interventions, for the government of India to seriously and
systematically examine, as well as address, its own gaps in ending
discrimination, and for the international community to apply similar
approaches to ending discrimination globally." Manjula Pradeep,
executive director of Navsarjan Trust, said, "This study provides
advocates with the information they need to see strengths and
weaknesses in the current laws protecting the human rights of Dalits."
"The continued prevalence of these demeaning and hateful practices
across all communities shows that the legal system is failing to
address untouchability, including between the Dalit sub-castes, and the
time for action is now," she said.

The report, according to
Varma, was envisioned by the founder of the Navsarjan Trust and 2000
RFK Human Rights Laureate Martin Macwan and RFK Global Advocacy Team
members, including Dr Christian Davenport, professor of Peace Studies,
Political Science and Sociology at the Kroc Institute of the University
of Notre Dame, Allan Stam at the University of Michigan and David
Armstrong at the University of Wisconsin. Macwan said that the report
was "crucial to ending untouchability," and claimed that "Dalits face
discrimination and violence in every aspect of their lives." "By
lifting the veil of ignorance, we have no excuse not to end it," he
added.

Davenport, a co-author of the study, said it "provides not
only new data but a framework for the unpacking of the complexities of
untouchability in particular but discrimination in general." "We hope
that this new approach will help bring the development of solutions
within the grasp of government officials, activists, religious
institutions, and all of society," he said. The Navsarjan Trust is the
largest state-level organisation that works for Dalits, and covers more
than 3,100 villages in Gujarat. Since 2000, the RFK Center, a nonprofit
organisation "dedicated to advancing the human rights movement through
long-term partnerships with courageous human rights defenders around
the world," has worked with the Navsarjan Trust, beginning a long-term
partnership to address the issue of untouchability.

http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/jan/27/untouchablity-still-practiced-across-gujarat-says-study.htm

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Opinions and Editorials

Modi doesnt deserve support: Save Indias plural ethos - By Kuldip Nayar (Jan 26, 2010, The Tribune)

It is hard to understand why actor Amitabh Bachchan and top
industrialists are bent upon giving credibility to Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi when the Supreme Court is doing its best to
expose his misdeeds. He is said to have planned and executed the
killing of more than 2000 Muslims in his state in 2002. Only a few days
back the Supreme Court ordered reopening of the case of false encounter
in which Sohrabuddin and his wife were killed. The apex court has been
so horrified over the intentional closure of riot cases by the state
machinery that it has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to
probe the cases of ethnic cleansing which Mr Modi's plotters had
covered up. When Mr Modi knows that the state's involvement is an open
secret, why does he not cooperate with the SIT and give the information
sought? The SIT had to seek the Supreme Court's intervention to get
even a copy of his speech made soon after the carnage. His lawyer's
plea that the speech is not relevant to the investigation is a
hindrance to the process of probe. The text of the speech is required
because Mrs Zakia Jafri has complained that her husband Ahsan Jafri, a
former Congress MP, was killed by a mob in the Gulbarg Society complex.
Her allegation is that the communal riot was allowed to go on in the
state with the Chief Minister, Cabinet ministers, the police and the
bureaucracy abdicating their constitutional duty to protect the lives
of citizens irrespective of their caste and religion.

That Mr
Modi is doing everything possible to block the probe or to prove that
the business is as usual is understandable, but why those who enjoy
clean reputation should associate themselves with him? One is at a loss
to understand why Amitabh Bachchan undertook the journey to Ahmedabad
to call on Mr Modi. The apparent reason of the actor's visit was to
screen his movie, Paa, for the Chief Minister. There must be something
more than what meets the eye. Amitabh's visit gave credibility to a
person whose hands are stained with blood. Mr Modi is shunned by the
liberals and human right activists because he wears communalism on his
sleeves. Amitabh is not so naïve that he does not know the crimes
committed by Mr Modi and the furore his doings have created not only in
India but also around the world. Amitabh's own credentials on
secularism are not in doubt. But when he meets Mr Modi for the sake of
a film, if that is all, the actor spoils his good name and he will have
to live down with that image for the rest of his life. He has tried to
condone the murders committed by the Gujarat state led by Mr Modi, and
Amitabh should realise it.

It must be admitted that Amitabh's
visit came at a time when people like me had not regained their
composure after the concerted support given by the captains of
industry, including Ratan Tata and Sunil Bharti Mittal. They specially
gathered at Ahmedabad to pronounce their judgment that he should be
India's Prime Minister. With their vision limited to making money, they
have no idea of the country's ethos. Pluralism is not a matter of
policy but of faith with us. We would not be able to develop ourselves
as a powerful nation if we do not ensure that the minorities in the
country have the same status and the opportunities that the majority
enjoys. The constitution has consecrated the ideas and the
industrialists should have faith in secularism. Incidentally, Wipro
chief Azim Premji, a Muslim, correctly stayed away from the gathering.
The industry captains argue that Mr Modi's state was the best
administered. One fails to understand how Gujarat comes under that
category when Muslims do not feel safe. The government has not yet
rehabilitated thousands of Muslims who were looted and uprooted during
the riots. When the minorities do not feel protected and when there is
no law and order for them, how can the state be classified as a
well-administrated state?

In fact, the industrialists' support
for Mr Modi makes them ungrateful since the billions they have made is
due to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's economic reforms. His policy of
globalisation has benefited them, although he has conveniently
forgotten the word "socialist" included in the preamble to our
Constitution. The industrialists never had so good, and despite Dr
Manmohan Singh's repeated assurance of an inclusive economy, the
development by and large is exclusive. And it goes without saying that
the industrialists who gathered at Ahmedabad that day were conscious of
the credibility which they were giving to Mr Modi. Their unthinking act
has not only sullied their image but has also given justification to Mr
Modi's pogrom. One wishes one had faith in the Nanawati Commission
looking into the Gujarat riots. Whatever it has said on the killings so
far has not touched the core problem of Mr Modi's involvement. Justice
Nanawati was evasive in his report even on the 1984 Sikh riots and felt
shy of naming the person who inspired the riots. However, Justice
Nanawati admitted that the Sikh riots were planned and executed with
the help of the state machinery.

The only hope is the Supreme
Court, which has reopened many cases. Its observations are an
eye-opener. In a recent case, it has said: "We cannot shut our eyes and
allow the state police to continue with the case." The court further
said that Gujarat police probe "was not impartial." This is the
severest indictment of any government. It appears as if many more
skeletons will tumble out of Mr Modi's closet. No doubt, he wants to
establish that the state is normal. In a way, it is. But normalcy does
not mean that the minorities should live in fear. For that, the
government of India is responsible. It has not lifted even a finger to
arraign Mr Modi for his complicity in the Gujarat riots. The inaction
by the BJP government was understandable, but not that of the Congress.
Politics of vote banks has disfigured the country's ethos of pluralism.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100126/edit.htm#4

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How Free Are We? - By Jakob De Roover (Jan 28, 2010, Outlook)

… The rise of Hindutva produced a backlash against the academic
allergy to Hinduism. When the BJP came to power in the late 1990s,
Hindu nationalism tried to displace secularism by attempting to take
over the institutional hegemony and modes of censorship that the
secularists had created. Now, Hindu nationalists took it upon
themselves to write the textbooks and control the universities and the
relevant government bodies. However, these people had neither the
education nor the sophistication to do so in the (relatively) subtle
ways of the secularists. The crudeness led to outcries in India and the
West about 'rewriting history', 'the end of academic freedom' and 'the
return of censorship'. The message to the Hindu nationalists must be
clear: learn from the secularists how to practice the art of censorship
in more implicit and subtle ways. Whatever the future may bring, the
humanities in India have now been hijacked by this struggle between
secularism and Hindutva.

The rise of Hindutva has also determined
the current state of affairs in the American study of India and
Hinduism. Here, the implicit censorship takes the form of a climate of
fear: the fear to be branded 'Hindutva'. There are three central
factors in US society that have contributed to this pernicious climate.
One is the large-scale migration of highly-educated Indians into the US
over the last few decades. Affluent Hindu-Americans have been shocked
by what the American schools teach their children about 'Hinduism' and
India. Turning to the universities, they discovered that these often
tell the same story, albeit with more theoretical sophistication. Many
Hindu-Americans are highly successful in engineering, business or other
professions; many also sympathize at some level with Hindu nationalism.
Shocked by the western representation of 'Hinduism', they think they
can now replace this with a 'Hindu' representation. They do not realise
that it takes more than intelligence and professional success to
develop an alternative to five centuries of Orientalism. After
retirement, some of these professionals take up the hobby of writing
stories about India that no intellectual will ever take seriously.

The
second factor lies in the many forms of Protestant Christianity that
dominate American society. The theological framework shared by these
denominations inevitably transforms the Hindu traditions into a species
of false religion. Naturally, political correctness no longer allows
scholars and educators to speak of 'heathen idolatry' or the 'cruelty'
and 'tyranny' of 'false religion'. Therefore, they have turned to
seemingly 'secular' depictions of caste, inequality, patriarchy and
poverty in India to show that Hinduism is a pale and erring religion,
opposed to liberal values. The earlier religious condemnation has
become a social critique. Often, both go hand in hand. For instance,
American evangelical organisations join forces with scholarly critics
of caste to promote the idea that India should become 'post-Hindu', as
in the case of Kancha Ilaiah and the Dalit Freedom Network. …

There
is a cold war going on between the 'Hindu-Americans' (and a few
academic sympathisers) and the mainstream scholars of Hinduism.
Academics no longer fear being called 'commies', 'reds' or even
'heathens', but now 'Hindutva' has taken the place of such labels in
the study of India. If one makes positive noises about the
contributions of Indian culture to humanity, one runs the risk of being
associated with 'Hindu nationalism' or with the NRI professionals who
aggressively challenge the doyens of Hinduism studies. The popular
media like to represent these doyens as valiant warriors for academic
freedom, much as Tripathi does in his essay. This is far removed from
reality. The dominant scholars too impose dogmatic limits that one
cannot cross without provoking their ire. Because of the significance
of letters of recommendation, peer pressure and plain gossip in
American academic circles, their forms of implicit censorship are
highly effective in making or breaking careers. This has created a
widespread fear of saying 'the wrong thing', which paralyses the study
of Indian culture.

In one sense, then, the picture for students
of India is even grimmer than the one Tripathi sketches. In another
sense, there is hope, because times of turbulence also hold the
potential for intellectual change. As students of India, we will have
to take seriously the growing discontent among Hindus about the ways in
which their traditions have been depicted. Some of this is inspired by
an attempt to sanitise the Hindu traditions according to the model of
Islam and Christianity and the prudishness of middle-class morality.
However, other strands express a deep sense of grievance towards the
secularist hegemony and the academic allergy to Hinduism. As long as
reasonable and well-educated minds do not address these grievances,
Hindu nationalism will be able to tap into the growing anger among
Hindus and manipulate this to its own benefit. To address such
problems, one needs to work towards a climate of intellectual freedom
that has too long been absent from the study of India.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264014

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The Claws Of The State - By Jyoti Punwani (Feb 8, 2010, Outlook)

There are things I haven't forgotten about that October night 30
years ago, like the shock of discovering that my knees were shaking as
the banging on the door grew louder. The voices, coarse and angry, were
asking for P.V. Bhaktavatsalam, the lawyer who had dared to defend
those charged with being Naxalites in a state obsessed with eliminating
them. The parallels with modern-day Chhattisgarh couldn't be greater.
Back then, between August and October 1980, ten young men had been
killed in police encounters in the North Arcot and Dharmapuri
districts. Their crime? Organising peasants in that backward region,
where the Naxalites had a base. M.G. Ramachandran, then chief minister,
had given the police, headed by the megalomaniacal Walter Dawaram, a
carte blanche to crush the peasant movement. The police went about
their task in the only manner they know: eliminating the leaders and
arresting those protesting these murders for sedition.

In those
post-Emergency days, when human rights was a cause that attracted
celebrities, an all-India fact-finding team set out to investigate
these 'encounters'. Headed by Cho Ramaswamy, editor of the Tamil
magazine Thuglak, it included environmentalist Claude Alvares and
senior journalist Mohan Ram. None of these names mattered. We had
barely checked into our lodge when a mob of plainclothesmen and
"victims of Naxalites" started stoning our lodge. After what seemed an
eternity, uniformed police escorted us out of the lodge and the town
"for our own safety". I remember the cringing gratitude I felt towards
these "saviours" as they drove away their own drunken colleagues, but
not before Claude's glasses were broken and Mohan was given a black eye.

Over
the last few weeks, I've thought about that night often. Nothing seems
to have changed, except the ruling parties. The Naxalites are active
again in our most backward areas, and the police have again been given
a free hand. Once again, anyone exposing the illegal actions of the
police—the rapes and killings of adivasis over the last five years—has
been targeted. Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian, has been evicted from the
area; Dr Binayak Sen was jailed. Over the last two months, fact-finding
teams trying to enter the forests of Chhattisgarh and Orissa, where
tribal resistance to land being acquired for private industry is being
brutally suppressed, have been attacked or turned back. In
Narayanpatna, Orissa, an all-women's team out to investigate last
November's killing of two adivasi leaders in police firing was first
attacked inside a police station and then on the road. The attackers
were plainclothesmen and civilians who were later "dispersed" by
policemen.

In Chhattisgarh, the police have set up an obstacle
course for teams trying to reach the Maoist heartland of Bastar. On
December 14, they seized the vehicles of an all-women team, citing
irregularities in the drivers' documents. When the women tried to go
ahead by bus, the police warned the bus drivers not to carry them. All
this was to "save" them, the women were told. The police let them have
a taste though—a mob punctured the tyres of the bus in which the team
was returning. Prof Nandini Sundar of Delhi, a petitioner in the
Supreme Court against the government-backed Salwa Judum, was stalked by
the police, turned away by hotels and hounded by Bastar's unique tribal
Special Police Officers in the hostel she stayed the night. She, too,
had to return without reaching her destination. Only Medha Patkar
managed to breach, briefly, the police's 'No Entry' sign, but not
before her team was attacked with eggs by Salwa Judum tribals on
Dantewada's main road as police stood by, watching.

But 30 years
on, three developments have changed the situation radically. One, the
Centre has openly entered the fray, sending its forces to crush the
Maoists, making the adivasi areas a war zone. Two, the police have
raised anti-Maoist groups: Salwa Judum in Bastar and Shanti Samitis in
Orissa, which can tackle human rights busybodies too. Finally, "human
rights" has lost the halo that propelled celebrities into action. Two
years after DIG Mohandas sent us packing from Tamil Nadu, declaring, "I
can tell you for sure that no fact-finding committee will be allowed to
come here", another team did just that. (By then, the encounter toll
had risen to 21.) Heading the second team were socialist MPs Surendra
Mohan and Mrinal Gore, and Swami Agnivesh. Today, human rights groups
wonder who can break into Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwaranjan's protected
zone, where tribal eye-witnesses to "encounters" are so well protected
against "outsiders" that, despite Supreme Court orders, their own
lawyers are denied access.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264001

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Making Intelligence Agencies Accountable - By B. Raman (Jan 20, 2010, Outlook)

In his R.N.Kao Memorial lecture delivered at the headquarters of the
Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) on January 19,2010,
Vice-President Hamid Ansari has done well in raising in public issues
such as accountability and parliamentary oversight to which the Indian
intelligence community is still a stranger. The concept of an
accountable and competent intelligence community, which uses the need
for secrecy only for protecting its operations and not for covering up
its inadequacies and irregularities, has been accepted and implemented
by the intelligence agencies of many democracies-parliamentary as well
as Presidential types - of the world during the last three decades.
Nobody in those countries has since argued that these concepts have
come in the way of the effectiveness of the intelligence process and
hence should be re-considered. The overall consensus is that these
changes have proved beneficial and hence should be continued and, if
necessary, further refined. In India too, these issues have been raised
from time to time since the State of Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi
in 1975-77, but follow-up action has been avoided either because of
resistance from sections of the intelligence community or because of
the reluctance of the political leadership to introduce any changes
which might dilute the scope for political misuse of the intelligence
machinery for partisan purposes or both. Accountability of intelligence
agencies demands, firstly, that they should have a legal existence and,
secondly, that they should have a formal charter of their functions and
responsibilities. Forty-two years after its formation in 1968, the
R&AW still does not have a legal existence. It was set up by a
brief executive order issued on behalf of Indira Gandhi in September
1968.

Till today, this order has not been accorded
parliamentary sanctity by having necessary legislation authorising its
creation passed by the Parliament. No government, which has held office
since 1968, has considered it necessary to have an Act passed by the
Parliament providing legal legitimacy to the R&AW. No one has
raised the question as to how the various governments have been
incurring expenditure on the R&AW year after year without having
its creation approved by the Parliament. In the 1980s, when Indira
Gandhi was the Prime Minister, a law was enacted by the Parliament
banning strikes in the intelligence agencies. To my knowledge, that is
the only Act of the Indian Parliament in which there is a reference to
the R&AW by name. When that law was passed, nobody in the
Parliament thought it fit to ask: What is this R&AW about? When was
it created? Who created it? Has its creation been approved by the
Parliament? It goes to the credit of A.K.Verma, who headed the R&AW
from 1987 to 90. that he took the initiative in drawing the attention
of the governments of Rajiv Gandhi and V.P.Singh to the fact that the
R&AW had been functioning without a legal cover and a formal
charter. He wanted the government of the day to do something about it,
but nothing was done. The fact that the Intelligence Bureau , which was
created by the British before 1947, and the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI), which came into existence after 1947, had been
functioning without formal charters of their functions and
responsibilities, was highlighted by the L.P.Singh Committee, which was
set up by the Morarji Desai government to enquire into the functioning
of these two organisations during the State of Emergency. It not only
stressed the need for formal charters to prevent their future misuse,
but also prepared for the consideration of the government detailed
model charters for adoption. No action was taken on its recommendations
by the Indira Gandhi government which came back to power in 1980 or its
successors. The report was consigned to the Archives - seen, but not
read and implemented.

Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee and Shri Lal
Krishna Advani were among those who were in the forefront of those who
criticised - during the election campaign of 1977 - the alleged misuse
of the intelligence agencies by the Indira Gandhi government during the
Emergency. When Shri Vajpayee became the Prime Minister and Shri Advani
the home minister in 1998, one naturally expected them to take the
initiative in taking the L.P.Singh Committee report out of the Archives
and implement it. The expectations were belied. The Task Force for the
revamping of the intelligence apparatus set up by the Vajpayee
government in 2000, which was headed by Shri G.C. Saxena, former head
of the R&AW, recommended the acceptance by the government of the
principle of formal charters for the intelligence agencies. To give
greater meat to its recommendations, it wanted to have a look at the
detailed charters for the IB and the CBI proposed by the L.P.Singh
Committee. The home ministry, then headed by Shri Advani, avoided
making available to the Task Force the entire report of the L.P.Singh
Committee. However, the Task Force's recommendation for formal charters
was accepted and implemented by the Vajpayee government. One does not
know whether the recommendations of the L.P.Singh Committee were taken
into consideration while drafting the charters.

The credit for
first raising the idea of a parliamentary oversight on the intelligence
community should go to Shri Jaswant Singh, who was the Chairman of the
Estimates Committee of the Rajya Sabha when Shri V.P.Singh was the
Prime Minister. Shri V.P.Singh saw merit in the idea and wanted it to
be examined. There was no opposition to the idea from the intelligence
professionals then in service including this writer, but when Shri
V.P.Singh developed differences with the BJP, he did not pursue it.
Since then, none of the political parties has shown interest in making
the intelligence agencies accountable for their performance and
integrity and in making their professional performance subject to an
independent assessment. Secrecy is an important operational principle
for an intelligence agency. Unless an intelligence agency is able to
ensure the secrecy of its operations, no source or agent will stick his
neck out to work for it. Its capability for collecting technical
intelligence will also be affected. But secrecy should not be allowed
to be used as an excuse for covering inefficiencies in performance and
irregularities in functioning and financial management. Irregularities
do occur in matters such as the personnel policy and diversion of the
resources sanctioned by the government for operational objectives for
non-operational purposes. The public and the Parliament have a right to
know to what extent the agencies have been producing results and what
are the areas of their non-performance. The Parliament has a right to
know what kind of financial controls are in place, who exercises those
controls and to what extent they are effective. The Parliament has
similarly a right to check whether the principle of secrecy in
recruitment is being misused to pack the organisations with unsuitable
persons, taken not for their qualifications, but for their connections.

It
is possible to introduce some of these checks and balances in the
functioning of our intelligence community without damaging their
operational secrecy. There is reluctance from the political class
because it sees the agencies as instruments for partisan exploitation
and not for defending national interests. There is reluctance from
sections of the intelligence officers themselves because they think
that unchecked secrecy gives them an aura of power and influence which
they do not want to lose. Ansaris may come and Ansaris may go, but the
intelligence agencies will go on functioning in the same manner with
the complicity of the political class unless there is sustained public
pressure on the political class and the agencies to change the culture
of our agencies. I am not very optimistic because I do not see on the
horizon any political leader who is genuinely convinced of the need for
a change. Every country gets the intelligence community it deserves. We
will continue to have the community which we have deserved unless Shri
Ansari's call is followed up.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?263866

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Trying times - By V. Venkatesan (Jan 30, 2010, Frontline)

Chief Justice of India (CJI) K.G. Balakrishnan completed three years
in office on January 13 and will retire on May 11. In the last four
months of his term he will face perhaps the most daunting challenge of
his career: that of restoring the people's faith in the Supreme Court,
which has been dented by several developments in the recent past. The
first major challenge will be a response of the Supreme Court, which
completes 60 years of its existence on January 26, to the Delhi High
Court's judgment saying that the CJI's office was covered by the Right
to Information Act (RTIA). The CJI had openly disagreed with such an
interpretation. The verdict was delivered on January 12 by a
three-judge Bench of Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justices Vikramajit
Sen and S. Muralidhar. It came on an appeal by the Secretary General of
the Supreme Court against a judgment delivered by Justice Ravindra Bhat
of the Delhi High Court on September 2 last year. Justice Bhat had
directed the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the Supreme
Court to provide the information sought by an applicant under the RTIA,
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, about the declaration of assets by judges of
the Supreme Court.

The three-judge Bench agreed with Justice
Bhat that the expression "public authority" as used in the RTI Act had
wide amplitude and included an authority created by or under the
Constitution, which included the office of the CJI. The Supreme Court,
in its appeal, contended that Agrawal had no right to information
regarding declarations made by judges of the Supreme Court pursuant to
a 1997 resolution, passed by a Full Court meeting, requiring the judges
to declare their assets to the CJI. Specifically, Attorney General G.E.
Vahanvati, who was the Supreme Court's counsel before the High Court,
argued that to exercise the right to information there should be a
legal sanction to hold or control such information. He argued that the
1997 resolution and the resolution adopted at the 1999 Conference of
Chief Justices of High Courts and Judges of the Supreme Court on the
Restatement of Values of Judicial Life had no force of law and that
there was no legal or constitutional requirement to file the assets
declaration. The Attorney General disagreed with Justice Ravindra
Bhat's contention that the two resolutions were binding because they
were passed at a conference of Chief Justices. He pointed out that the
1997 resolution did not contemplate any sanction or in-house procedure
in the event of non-filing of an asset declaration.

These
arguments failed to convince the High Court's three-judge Bench. It
considered the RTI Act as a beneficial piece of legislation as its
overarching purpose was to facilitate democracy by helping to ensure
that citizens had the information required to participate meaningfully
in the democratic process and to help make the governing authority
accountable to the people. In construing such a statute, the court
ought to give to it the widest operation its language will permit, the
Bench held. The Bench rejected the AG's contention that the 1997 and
1999 resolutions were not binding instruments. The resolutions, it
pointed out, emphasised that any code of conduct or like expression of
principles for the judiciary must be formulated by the judiciary
itself. That would be consistent with the principles of judicial
independence and separation of powers, it said. The Bench said
subordinate judges, under the rules governing their conditions of
service, were under an obligation to declare their assets. Therefore,
the degree of accountability and answerability of a High Court judge or
a Supreme Court judge could be no different from that of a magistrate,
it said. All judges, functioning at various levels in the judicial
hierarchy, form part of the same institution and are independent of
undue interference by the executive or the legislature, the Bench
pointed out. It said the Supreme Court was undermining its own
independence, which had been asserted in the Second Judges case (1993),
by questioning the binding nature of the 1997 and 1999 resolutions and
by contending that there had to be a law to compel judges to disclose
their assets.

The Bench also dismissed the AG's contention that
unless questions about how the resolutions were to be implemented, by
whom, to what extent and in what manner were answered, the resolutions
would not have a binding effect. It said the disclosure of assets by
judges and their spouses and dependants on the websites of the Supreme
Court, the Kerala High Court and the Madras High Court showed how the
resolutions could be implemented. The consequence of not complying with
the resolutions was linked to the faith in the system, the Bench
suggested. Dismissing the Supreme Court's appeal, the High Court Bench
said democracy expected openness, and openness was a concomitant of
free society. On the contention that the Supreme Court should not hear
the appeal against the High Court judgment because it was the litigant,
the AG disagreed and said there was a distinction between the
administrative and judicial sides of the Supreme Court. He suggested
that it was the Supreme Court's administrative wing that was the
litigant, and, therefore, there could be no bar on the court's judicial
side hearing the matter. But such subtle distinction within the Supreme
Court is hardly convincing. …

The CJI claimed that the CBI had
not sought sanction for prosecuting Justice Nirmal Yadav in the case.
The CBI, however, sought the sanction of the Union Law Ministry to
register a case against Justice Nirmal Yadav and some others, including
her relatives, in connection with a land deal in Solan, Himachal
Pradesh. The CBI found that 18 people, including Nirmal Yadav, had
purchased land at Rihun village in Solan. The Himachal Pradesh Revenue
Department, thereafter, ordered an inquiry to find out whether the land
deal was in violation of the Himachal Pradesh Land Reforms and Tenancy
Act, 1972. The CJI denied sanction in this case because, as he claimed
to The Hindu, no offence was made out. "How can I allow a sitting judge
of the High Court to stand before a magistrate in a criminal case?" he
asked. The collegium's recommendation to transfer Justice Nirmal Yadav
to the Uttarakhand High Court is pending with the President. If,
indeed, the Supreme Court's collegium has given Justice Nirmal Yadav a
clean chit while recommending her transfer, it could have made public
the reasons for rejecting the Gokhale Committee report and the CBI's
plea to prosecute her.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2703/stories/20100212270304300.htm

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Bias against girl child must end - Editorial (Jan 26, 2010, The Tribune)

India celebrated National Girl Child Day on January 24. Still, the
girl child remains as uncherished as ever, more so in Punjab which has
one of the worst sex ratios in the country. Discrimination against the
girl child is so widespread in the state that even her health is not a
priority. According to the information gathered under the RTI Act, the
number of girl children taken for treatment to hospitals in Punjab is
at least 25 per cent lower than boys. In some districts the situation
is more dismal, revealing deep-rooted bias against daughters. It is
shocking that even in the 21st century girls are not treated on a par
with boys and denied basic needs such as proper healthcare.

The
government and society have been trying to fight gender bias through
various schemes and campaigns. In Punjab, initiatives like the SGPC's
Nanhi Chhaon and government schemes like Balri Rakshak Yojna, a welfare
scheme for the cause of the girl child, may have made some headway in
denting prejudices. Still, by and large, the obsession for the male
child shows little signs of abating. While the abominable practice of
female foeticide is still rampant, bias against the female child
persists in many other ways and has affected the nutritional status of
the girl child.

It is imperative that policies lay greater
emphasis on the girl child's healthcare. Indeed, there is need to go
beyond tokenism. Observing National Girl Child Day may seem significant
but will not be able to transform patriarchal mindsets that continue to
value sons over daughters. What is needed is a movement against female
foeticide. While society has to wake up to the menace of female
foeticide and redress the gender imbalance, parents too must learn to
cherish and value their daughters as much as sons. Daughters must not
only be given the right to live but also must have equal rights,
including the right to a healthy life. Punjab, where nearly 65 per cent
women are anaemic, cannot take chances with the health of its girls who
are the key to its future.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100126/edit.htm#3

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