A survivor recalls Jamshedpur riots of 1979

KASHIF-UL-HUDA
TwoCircles.net

This month in the year 1979, the Hindu-Muslim violence in Jamshedpur took the lives of 108 people. The number of dead could have easily been 114, but as it turned out, my family and I survived the mayhem, to write about it thirty years later.
This unfortunate event occurred when I was at the tender age of five, however the memory of it is etched in my mind and it is one of the clearest early memories that I have. Thirty whole years later, and the images of the violence that occurred are still extremely vivid for me.

Earlier that day on April 11th, the tension in the air was heavy with anticipation of something horrible to come. Somehow my mother was able to sense it and on the morning of Ramnawami she went with her brother and my two little sisters to a nearby Muslim neighbourhood (Golmuri). My father being the idealist was confident that nothing would happen. In case something did happen, he had formed a group of Hindus and Muslims to defend the houses against any mob attacks whether they be Hindus or Muslims.

I and my brother, who was two years older than me, stayed behind though my mother and sisters had left early that morning. As the day went on, the small crowd that was outside on the streets talking amongst themselves began to grow. My brother started getting uncomfortable and by lunch time we convinced our father to take us to Golmuri where my mother had gone earlier. While we were there, eating lunch at Uncle Kamaal's house, we heard shouts that the rioting had started.

We went out quickly to see what was happening and saw smoke rising in the air in the distance. My memories after that are vivid but in pieces. I remember that we were staying in a house full of women and children. I remember not wanting to eat the food as it was only half-cooked. This was my introduction to life as a refugee at a very tender age. I remember going on the roof at night to see what appeared to be the whole city burning up in flames. I also remember someone warning us not to go up there and stand there to avoid the risk of being an easy target for someone to shoot at. I remember that I was not able to see my father much and being very scared the entire time.

Years later I would find out that our house in the Tinplate area of Jamshedpur was a refuge for all the local Muslims after all the Hindus of the joint front slowly left. My father, who was back in Golmuri the next day to drop off some supplies, got stuck there as the curfew was clamped. He couldn't go back and Muslims of Tinplate feeling besieged went to the Tinplate factory to ask for help but instead they were brutally murdered by their own colleagues. My father survived this tragedy by not being able to leave the area.

Our house was looted but we were one of the lucky ones. Others had all their belongings burnt. Months later, we moved to a new area called Agrico colony, across the street from another Muslim neighbourhood of Bhalubasa. These freshly white-washed houses failed to hide the black soot of the fires that was set in them. We didn't know if anyone had died in those houses but signs of loot and plunder were clearly visible.
Over the years, I met many people with their own tales of that horrible time. I will meet a woman with burn marks on her body, a survivor of the ambulance that was doused in flames with the intention to kill all inside. Everyday on our way to school, we will see the charred ambulance parked outside the Police Station.

Of the 108 dead, 79 were Muslims and 25 Hindus. There were many injured and many who lost everything. Jamshedpur is an industrial town dominated by Tata factories where many residents of the town are employed. Most of the city is company property and people of all faiths live together in company quarters.

It is difficult to understand why this tragic event occured in a city so young where and with such a diverse population. Most of the residents are from different parts of undivided Bihar or other parts of India, and all were blue-collar workers trying to make a decent and honest living. Muslims werent the only ones who lost their lives, Hindus did too, so who really benefitted from this tragedy?

The person who single handedly took the entire city hostage that day in Jamshedpur, thirty years ago, was local legislator, Dinanath Pandey. Pandey, the person responsible for the riots, was awarded a seat in the Bihar assembly, twice after the incident. As BJP candidate he won elections as late as 1990. He made his seat a safe BJP seat. In the last two assembly elections, BJP won from there with over 50% of the total votes polled.

India goes to the polls to elect its representatives and decides who will run the country for the next five years. When we complain that the government doesn't do anything for us, or when we complain of goondas and criminals in politics, remember that we as voters put them there in the first place. People like Dinanath Pandey, with blood on their hands, have no place in any legislative body. Congress has done well by taking away party tickets from Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, but it is the same party that ruled Andhra Pradesh when the Muslim youth of Hyderabad were illegally detained and tortured by the state police. They will not take any action until the public shows them how upset they are.

If the parties fail to take any action and continue to field these criminals, we the people have take the stand and refuse to vote in those with hate-filled agendas or a criminal history.

The author is the editor of news website www.TwoCircles.net and can be reached at kashif@urdustan.com

Communalism, Minority Identity and Secularism in the 2009 elections

CYNTHIA STEPHEN
Countercurrents.org

“Majorities are of two sorts: (1) communal majority and (2) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to a political majority is open. The door to a communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of communal majority are made by its own members born in it.” – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

These prophetic words are very relevant in today’s India. “The world’s largest democracy” prides itself on the fact that its voters are showing more and more maturity in the results the elections throw up. People-groups which have not hitherto played a major role in electoral alliances are beginning to gain importance and “rainbow coalitions” are the rule rather than the exception. A political majority is sought to be built to fight elections and gain power. But what is happening in the context of the communal majority?

For instance, the results of the recently Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir show up a glaring fault-line, one that Ambedkar refers to in the quotation. Never before had voters in J&K ever returned 10 BJP representatives to the assembly, all from Jammu. The divide between the Kashmir valley and Jammu was thrown into sharp relief. But the emotive issue which ended in such polarization, just before the election, was of the agitation on the issue of the allotment of land for amenities for pilgrims going to Amarnath. While the issue was communalized, the dividends were political. Gujarat is another clear case in point, as is a recent controversy: Varun Gandhi and his rabble-rousing speech which has been exploited both by the media and the BJP to maximum dramatic effect.

The birthing of India took place on the hopeful though tearful dawn of the 15th of August 1947, when British Imperialism conceived and delivered offspring which were almost like conjoined twins: torn apart into two on the basis of religious identity but held together by a shared trauma of birth, history, geography and blood-ties. It was an ominous portent. The two newly-born countries had a ruling class whose class-caste identities were clear and unambiguously elitist, but in India at least, their secular credentials were not under doubt. On 26th January 1950, and the founding dream of India: as a sovereign republican democracy – became a reality, not chiefly by the efforts of the Congressmen who had led the anti-colonial movement for India’s political freedom, but by the tireless efforts of one man, whose numerous contributions to his country was crowned by the singular effort to produce the Constitution of India: Dr. B R Ambedkar, head of the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly. But as he presented to the nation the most important work of his life, he stated: “On the 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of democracy which this Constituent Assembly has so laboriously built up.”

But now, in the India of the third millennium, equality continues to be denied, and contradictions abound. Communalism has taken the centre-stage, leaving its bloody footprints on the sands of the sixty-odd years of time that India has existed.

The Constitutional values of Equality and non-discrimination are the bedrock on which rests the edifice of rights and freedoms of Indian citizens. The Constitution recognizes, even celebrates, the diversity and plurality of the country and its citizens, and guarantees equality before the law to every citizen. But the very idea that our country is universally secular, democratic and plural in experience is problematic. It may be so for the privileged. But women, Dalits, children, Christians and Muslims, especially those belonging to the lower economic and social strata, and rural, forest, hill and desert-dwelling populations experience a different, harsher reality - of unrelenting exclusion, violence and deprivation.

But the spirit of Equality was violated by one of the earliest executive actions performed by the first President of India, Shri Rajendra Prasad. He signed the rank discriminatory Presidential Order 1950 in August that year, in which an apocryphal third paragraph was introduced, which effectively denied the benefits of reservations to members of the Scheduled castes who were Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians (and Muslims). This was modified in 1956 to include Sikhs in reservations and in 1990 to include Buddhists. And despite many assurances, recommendations and protests, the fact is that Christians and Muslims of Dalit origin continue to be denied the very amenities that are theirs by right. Thus the principle of nondiscrimination on the basis of religion which was embedded in the DNA of the Indian state, has been bypassed by this order, even though the order is against the spirit as well as the legal position of the Constitution, and there the matter continues to stand.

Thus, clearly, while the de jure position is that every citizen in the country is equal before law, the reality – the de facto position – is that the religious and other minorities in fact face systemic discrimination. The rule of the dominants, namely those who follow a Brahminical and casteist mode of life, prevails. Ironically, though this category is in a numerical minority, at best about 15% of the country’s population overall, they comprise an overwhelming majority in the government, the academic, the political sphere, the judiciary and the private sector. The very poor implementation of reservations at all levels in jobs and employment, barring the lowest or class D category – is testimony to the discriminatory nature of our society and policy. Thus even if the law provides proactive measures for development of those who are backward or poor, the ‘iron frame’ of privilege will work to exclude those who are eligible for the benefits and try to appropriate them for itself. And if about 40% of our population is below the poverty line, that is, too poor to afford survival-level food consumption – then we need to ask how representative, fair and democratic our political and social structure actually are.

The silver lining to this cloud is the consolidation of the lower castes, both in the political and educational spheres. This has brought fresh thinking and new talent to the fore, even if the persons concerned are inexperienced and less exposed to the nature of the establishment, and for that reason are better able to bring about much-needed changes in it. The impetus given by the Mandal Commission report to this process - and the backlash in the form of the “Kamandal” – the consolidation and mobilization of the saffron forces to counter this – has yet to be fully understood. The Mandal Commission evolved an index based on 11 indicators, subdivided into three categories – social, educational and economic – for the definition of the OBCs, and caste was not the sole criterion. Three of the indicators concerned caste, while the others referred to other impediments to the progress of the people group including early marriage – a barrier to education – and other criteria such as percentage of the caste who owned at least kuccha housing.

Christophe Jaffrelot, in his “India’s Silent Revolution: The rise of the low castes in North Indian politics” points out that the entire purpose of the exercise of the Commission was to give the OBCs access to power, not jobs. He quotes from the report – “ It is not at all our contention that by offering a few thousands jobs to OBC candidates we shall be able to make 52% of the Indian population as forward”. The report goes on to say that “an essential part of the battle against social backwardness is to be fought in the minds of the backward people. In India government service has always been looked upon as a symbol of prestige and power. By increasing the representation of OBCs in government services, we give them an immediate feeling of participation in the governance of this country. When a backward class candidate becomes a Collector or a Superintendent of Police, the material benefits accruing from his position are limited to the members of his family.. [B]ut the psychological spin off of this phenomenon is tremendous; the entire community of that backward class feels socially elevated. Even when no tangible benefits flow to the community at large the feeling that it now has its ‘own man’ in the ‘corridors of power’ acts as a morale booster.” The report further says “reservation will certainly erode the hold of the higher castes on the services.”

How is this relevant to the discourse on communalism? It has a very important bearing on the discourse, because before Mandal, conversion to “other” religions was an important, and often the only option for upward social mobility of disadvantaged groups. Thus India saw large-scale conversions at various times in the past to Islam, at a time in its history where Muslims were the ruling class, for example in Gujarat, Central India and in Bengal. Similarly the latter part of British rule in India, after the East India Company lost its hold on the affairs of the colonial project, and the Crown took over, saw a surge in the numbers of people from the untouchable and lower castes who became Christians because of a similar process – from being excluded from access to the corridors of power, they saw the virtues of becoming co-religionists of the ruling class so as to feel a sense of belonging and identity with the powers-that-be. Thus the conversion process, at least in the past, had a lot to do with the contemporary political processes.

In the present day, the rise in saffron assertion has closely paralleled the growth of the political aspirations of the lower castes following the Mandal Commission. The Sangh Parivar also kicked in around the same time with a thrust into the communities of the subalterns with their Vanvasi Kalyan, Ekal Vidyalayas, and the Bajrang Dal. Thus the threat perception of the ruling classes – that the processes unleashed by the Mandal Commission would succeed in subverting their hold on power – caused them to, on the one hand, reach out to the subaltern classes to build a constituency among them, and on the other, drive a wedge between the so-called “Hindus” and the Minorities by demonising them by harping “differences” between the minorities and the “Hindus”. The organizations using the name of Ram such as the Ram Sena are usually composed of the more dominant caste, thereby underscoring the inherent caste-class divide and power relations implied in the relationships (Hanuman – Bajrang Bali – the devotee of Lord Shri Ram).

As the wheels of Advani’s Rath rolled over the Indian landscape in the 1990s and subsequently, the power surge - Orissa, Chhatisgarh, MP, Bihar, Delhi - suggests a seemingly broad-based support for the RSS- sponsored communal agenda. But straws in the wind suggest that we have not yet seen the real face of Fascism. Bangar Laxman, Uma Bharathi and Kalyan Singh were all elevated to positions of power and later discarded, after their communities appeared to buy into the Parivar’s agenda. All of them were Dalits or BCs. Narendra Modi, though no one thinks of his caste, is also said to belong to a BC community – the Teli caste. He too has been used to do some major dirty work for the Parivar. Soon the time will come when he too will be dispensed with. Even Advani – with his Sindhi origin and his householder status – too does not fit into the Fascist scheme of the RSS. Soon, he too will bite the dust and a quintessential RSS man – single, Brahmin or upper-caste will either be projected for leadership. Alternatively, the BJP itself will be eclipsed and become a footnote in Indian politics, while an upper-caste preferably Brahmin “Brahmachari” from the RSS will wrest control of the political space presently occupied by the BJP. Hardline Brahminism, Patriarchy, and Fascism will combine to try and occupy democratic spaces and take over the governance. The situation of the Dalits, religious minorities and women will see a rapid decline.

With this end in mind, the ruling class have set into motion a series of processes aimed at exploiting the existing fault-lines in Indian society and channeling the desire of the subaltern classes to be close to the seat of power by enabling formations such as the Dharm Raksha Sena, the Bajrang Dal, etc. They also appropriate local linguistic sensibilities by infiltrating or taking them over – such as happened in Karnataka with the Kannada Rakshana Vedike. It is ironical that one section of Kannada “Abhimanis” bought into the saffron agenda because even a cursory glance will reveal the non-Brahmin provenance of the linguistic and cultural heritage of the Kannada people – Basava, Akkammahadevi, Kanakadasa and other luminaries who have enriched the literature and philosophy of this ancient land and language can hardly be termed Brahminical.

But the sad irony is that the true inheritors of the legacy of social struggle, progressive and subaltern assertion appear to have lost the capacity to counter the communal agenda. Instead they have become pawns in the hands of those who propagate the Fascistic saffron communal agenda. Most in India are aware that the Sangh Parivar, and chiefly the RSS, its intellectual fountainhead – is actually a vehicle for Fascism. In the south, the vibrant non-Brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu has kept the Parivar at bay in Tamil Nadu. The Left and the relatively larger percentage of Islamic-Christian populations has to some extent retarded their progress in Kerala. But while Karnataka appears to have been won over, the first real support for the Parivar in the South was actually in Andhra Pradesh, because the first ally of the BJP was the TDP which enabled the NDA to rule in Delhi for a whole term for the very first time. But Karnataka’s social realities are very different from AP, where the minorities rallied together to send the TDP packing in the state elections, to punish it for its dalliance with the BJP. Even in Karnataka, the pockets of support for the BJP are not widespread, but only in parts of the state – the coastal and North-western areas. The South and most of the North-eastern part of Karnataka do not seem to be much enamoured of the Parivar. But the secular political forces have failed to see the writing on the wall and come together to counter its agenda. This has caused the BJP to come to power in the state on a negative vote. Will our politically savvy voters now save the day for our state, even though the leaders seem to betray them time after time?

All is not lost - thinkers and scholars, writers and grassroots political activists, and newer political formulations are waking up to the realities. People in Karnataka were shocked to see the ugly face of the Parivar in their own backyard or rather in their own drawing rooms, as TV channels gave blanket coverage to footage of the public beating of women in a restaurant in Mangalore, and some footage emerged of unprecedented attacks on churches in the town too. In the same region, for the past two years there were communal incidents involving the sale of beef – mainly against Muslims. As one astute grassroots political activist in Bangalore pointed out, the violence against minorities is carefully orchestrated. They target Muslim for their Beef-eating and selling, Christians for conversions, and Dalits are targeted for casteist atrocities if they become assertive. It is not as if Dalits or Christians don’t eat or trade in beef; or that Muslims or Christians are not asserting. And conversions happen both among Dalits and Muslims, but they are not targeted on this issue. They target these three groups on three different issues so that they cannot come together to oppose the Parivar’s agenda. In fact, on some issues there are bound to be differences between the three subaltern groups. And the Parivar is fishing in these waters to gain political mileage.

The RSS has shown ingenuity in enlisting youths from subaltern groups and co-opting them into their agenda, at a time when secular and even progressive democratic forces have ceded their spaces. Where are the active students’ movements of the 70s and 80s? Have the educational institutions and universities actively discouraged the activity of these groups? Or did changed social expectations de-politicise our youth so that they can no longer distinguish between fascism and democracy? How can we educate young people about the dangers of fascism? Even the strong trade union movements of the 80s have been weakened by internal contradictions, by attrition in policies and by sheer economic compulsions. Thus the existing political awareness in society has been

To go back to the quotation cited at the beginning of this paper, has our inaction succeeded in making what was surely only a communal majority into a political majority? Is it too late already? A peep into the future suggest that there may still be time. There is still space for sections of society who have so far been marginalized from these processes to come to the fore, such as women, youth and the professional class, at least those from the newly upwardly mobile classes. Their involvement and fresh thinking, their identification of issues and location of solutions will bring in a new vibrance to our maturing democratic system.

Cynthia Stephen is an independent researcher based in Bangalore. She can be contacted at cynstepin@yahoo.com

Report on Batla House encounter rips apart police stories

MUMTAZ ALAM FALAHI
TwoCircles.net

New Delhi: Full five months since the globally much publicized Batla House encounter, the mystery over it still remains as the police just confused the public and contradicted their old versions whenever they came up to explain what happened on that day. The much-awaited report on the shootout, rigorously prepared by a dedicated team of Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group in the inspiring leadership of Manisha Sethi, just rips apart all police stories about the encounter.

The report, based on police statements, press reports, testimonies of families and friends of the accused, both dead and detained, and other documentary evidence, highlights the numerous contradictions in the police version(s) about the encounter and the accusations.

The 65-page report, published in a book form, was made public today in a program at Jamia Millia Islamia, attended by novelist and writer Arundhati Roy, Supreme Court lawyer Collin Gonzalves, JMI V-C Prof Mushirul Hasan, Ansal Plaza encounter witness Dr Hari Kishan and ex-RSS pracharak and now full time human rights activist Jugal Kishore Shastri from Ayodhya.

In her opening remark Manisha Sethi, leading soul of the teachers' group, lambasted the government for not ordering judicial probe into the encounter even when there are deep holes in the police version of the shootout. Since September 19, 2008 – the day when the encounter took place at House No. L-18 in Batla House area in New Delhi's Jamia Nagar, killing two suspected terrorists Atif Amin and Muhammad Sajid, both from Azamgarh, Sethi's team has held various meetings, rallies, dharnas and public hearings on the encounter to highlight the discrepancies in the police theory and press the government for enquiry.

Noted writer Arundhati Roy said police atrocities, custodial killings and tortures and encounters seem to be result of a sort of collusion between police, media and judiciary. She also blamed the Bollywood – referring to films like Mukhbir and A Wednesday – for making publicly acceptable custodial atrocities and killings and encoutners. "That is the reason when I and other people questioned the Batla House encounter, we were called anti-national and gaddar," she said while reiterating her demand for judicial probe into the shootout.

Eminent Supreme Court lawyer Collin Gonzalves criticized the so-called secular government of UPA at the centre for rewarding Delhi Police Inspector M C Sharma with Ashok Chakra, as grave charges have been leveled against him in several earlier cases including Ansal Plaza encounter. While demanding judicial probe into the Batla shootout he said encounter killing is a murder which is an unnatural death, and for every such death, according to the law, an FIR has to be filed against those involved in the killing. He also said that anyone could be behind the terror attacks in the country – Muslims, Hindus or even police.

While recounting the police atrocities he had to face as he, being a witness to the Ansal Plaza encounter, stood up to say a spade a spade, Dr Hari Krishna compared today's police with Ravana who had become so notorious that he did not spare even Lord Rama's wife. He urged JMI V-C, being like father of the students, file a murder case under Article 302 against the policemen involved in the killing of the two youths, who were Jamia students.

Ex-RSS pracharak and Ayodhya ki Awaz chief Jugal Kishore Shastri said there seems to be a conspiracy behind implicating Muslim youths in all terror attacks in the country. "Following the Sachar Committee report which exposed real backwardness of the Muslim community, there was a sympathy wave for the community, but all of a sudden terror blasts began to take place and Muslims were accused from here and there," he said adding that this all was to keep the community backward and deprive them of their rights.

The report by Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group has profile of those killed and arrested in the Batla House operation, contradictions in police version regarding the encounter operation, information about dreaded terrorists, bullet proof jacket, injuries and bullets to the suspected terrorists, evidences, escape routes and fired rounds, besides contradictions in the mastermind theory and instances of violations of NHRC guidelines for an encounter.

The teachers' group has demanded a judicial probe headed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, transfer of investigations from the Delhi Police to CBI, exemplary punishment to police officers guilty of implicating innocent Muslim youth in false cases of terrorism and adequate compensation and jobs to those acquitted in the terror-related cases.

Some of the questions raised in the report are as follows:

1) Did the police have prior information about the presence of dreaded 'terrorists' in L-18 when they raided the flat? So far, conflicting versions have been provided by the police. In one version, they claim ignorance of such confirmed information, pleading that they went in only for a routine recee and were ambushed (then how did the Police Commissioner within hours declare Atif and Sajid to be the mastermind behind all blasts since 2005, when Sajid would have been 14-years-old); and in another, they claim to have put Atif under surveillance since 26th July 2008 (so how did these boys manage to plant bombs all over the city right under the Delhi Police's nose?)

2) Were the Police men wearing Bullet proof vests (BPV) or not? In some statements, the Delhi Police said that they avoided wearing the BPVs in order not to alert the 'terrorists'; in yet other statement they claim that their officer escaped all injury while firing upon an armed Sajid because he was wearing a BPV.

3) What explains the injury marks on the bodies of the deceased boys? Atif's back was sloughed off and Sajid had bullet wounds on his head as though bullets had been pumped into his head while he was made to kneel―all of which raises doubts about the genuineness of the 'shootout'.

4) The Police claim that Sajid was an expert bomb maker who used quartz clocks, detonators, ammonium nitrate, yet none of the 'recoveries' which even the police have purportedly made, comprise any of the above material that could be used for making Sajid's 'signature' bombs. So what made Dadwal and his force conclude that Sajid was the one behind the blasts in Delhi and elsewhere?

5) Why is there such rigid resistance to any independent probe on the part of the government and the Delhi Police? So much so that the Lieutenant Governor has even rejected a magisterial enquiry, which is mandatory as per NHRC guidelines on encounter killings.

6) Why are post-mortem reports of all the three killed not being made public? Is there something to hide?

The report also carries brief profiles of the accused in the case, including the two students killed. The fact that most of them were students enrolled in educational institutions, whether Jamia or elsewhere, or working gives the impression that they were regular young men in search of better opportunities in life. None of their actions puts them under suspicion: they enrolled as students, bought SIM cards in their name, signed a rent lease deed, duly verified by the police (copy in report), provided genuine address details etc. Moreover, the day after the blasts in Delhi, there were several arrests and detentions in the Jamia Nagar area, which was common knowledge. It is highly unlikely that actual terrorists would make no attempt to move away from a neighborhood which was obviously under the police scanner to a safer hideout.

Testimonies of eyewitnesses at the Jan Sunwai (12 Oct 2008, Batla House) have also been included in the report. Neighbours testified that they found nothing strange or suspicious about the boys and resented the fact that no senior local resident was taken into confidence or to crosscheck any information about suspected terrorists. The manner in which the police operated raised suspicions about their real motives. Further, they also said that while the operation was on, the policemen could be seen throwing pots etc on to the 4th floor flat of L-18, and that they heard gun shots of only one kind. This naturally raises the misgiving that the police was trying to create an impression of cross fire and struggle, where none existed.

The report is available with the following members of Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group:
Dr. Ghazi Shahnawaz (Dept. of Psychology), Adil Mehdi (Dept. of English) and Ahmed Sohaib (Centre for the Study of Comparative Religions, Noam Chomsky Complex).

And Now Hindu Terrorists?

By ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
www.countercurrents.org

The civil society should become vigilant against all terrorists of whatever religion or group. As communal riots were major danger in twentieth century, terrorist attacks are for 21st century.

Text of the article at the countercurrents.org site

Two Conventions against Communalism and Fascism

Plans for two conventions to be held in New Delhi in October have been announced. One is a Convention against Communalism and Assault on Democracy. The other is a National Convention against Fascism.

The CONVENTION AGAINST COMMUNALISM AND ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY is to be held on OCTOBER 18, 2008 from 3.30 PM TO 7PM at MAVLANKAR AUDITORIUM RAFI MARG, NEW DELHI-110001.

The following is a note circulated by the organizers:

It is clear today that our secular and democratic republic faces a challenge regarding its very character. The Bajrang Dal and the VHP, with the open support of the BJP -- and in the states it is ruling with the help of the state machinery -- have mounted a savage attack on the Christians and Muslims. Tens of thousands are in refugee camps
in Orissa and Assam. Churches are being attacked in Karnataka. Communal violence, clashes and hatred between communities are now a preparation for the elections.

The secular forces and the civil society need to intervene if we are to resist these attacks. Towards building a broad initiative on this issue, we are calling for a convention. Convention against Communalism and Assault On Democracy.

The following are listed to speak at the convention:
Shri Prakash Karat, General Secretary, CPI(M)
Shri A.B. Bardhan, General Secretary, CPI
Shri Tahir Mehmood, Former Chairman, Minority Commission
Archbishop Vincent Concecao
Shri Mushirul Hasan, Vice Chancellor Jamia Millia Islamia University
Shri H.D. Deve Gowda, President Janata Dal(S)
Shri Yerran Naidu, Telegu Desam
Shri Kuldip Nayyar, Eminent Journalist
Shri S.P. Shukla, Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance.

Kumari Mayavati, Leader of the BSP and Chief Minister of UP is also
being requested to speak. The organizers are awaiting her confirmation.

The following are the organizers:

Seema Mustafa, Anu Chenoy, Kamal Chenoy, SP Shukla, Zafrul Islam Khan, Shahid Siddiqui, John Dayal, Zafar Agha, P.M.S. Grewal, Amarjit Kaur, Valson Thampu, Zakia Jowher, Kamala Bhasin, Asghar Wajahat, Vivan Sundaram, Danish Ali ,Vijender Sharma, Bijulal MV, Benny K, Vimalbhai, Dinesh Varsheny, Sagari Chabra, Vincent Manoharan, Sudhir Kumar, SQ Ilyas, MJ Vijayan Sehba Farooqui, Albeena Shakil, Sidheshwar Shukla, Ravindranathan, Rohit, Ginu Zacharia, Shaswati Mazumdar, Kewal Goswami, Rachpal Kaur, Dheerendra
Sharma, Arjumand Ara, Ramanand, S.S.. Sisodia, Mahesh Rathi, Jaishree, Prabir Purkayastha and others.

The NATIONAL CONVENTION AGAINST FASCISM is to be held on OCTOBER 25-26, 2008 in NEW DELHI

The following is a communication from ANHAD, which is organizing this convention:

The urgency to intervene in defense of democracy, secularism and justice has never been more pressing than in the conditions prevailing in the country today. There is a recognizable change in the general tenor of public discourse; unlike in the past, it is informed more by the communal than by secular ethos. Concerted attacks have been mounted across India by communal fascist organizations by invoking religious symbols and sentiments. There is total apathy and indecisiveness towards confronting this challenge by those in power.

RSS and organizations under its umbrella have mounted a vicious campaign against the Christian community across India. Over 10 states have seen violent attacks on the Christian community , their institutions, religious places, property and businesses during the past one month. The culprits behind the communal violence against Christians in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other states are being allowed to go scot-free.
The recent attacks on Christian religious institutions are in fact openly claimed by Hindutva terrorist groups, like the Bajrang Dal, in front of television news cameras and yet no action is taken against them.

Throughout the country Muslim youth are being targeted, without any or little evidence, as responsible for terrorist attacks. There is a concerted attempt by the Indian police, sections of the media and certain political parties to portray all members of the Muslim community as 'terrorists and extremists' - to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured and killed in fake encounters.

On the other hand hard evidence available against Bajrang Dal and other Sangh outfits about their direct involvement in terror attacks is not only being ignored but actively being pushed under the carpet by the state.

The spaces uncolonized by the RSS network are decreasing by the day. The threat from the fascist forces is not only to the survival and dignity of India but to the very idea of India.
We feel that there is urgent need to call for a national convention to challenge the forces of fascism. We had sent out sms messages to about 40 organisations to get a response from them about the possibility of organizing a national convention on 25 and 26 October, 2008 in New Delhi.

All those who responded felt the need for this convention.

Please respond urgently to this mail:
1. By endorsing the convention- send the name of your organization/ individual
2. By supporting your own travel and if your organization can support the travel of 5-10 people from your state who are working on these issues.
3. Wherever possible arrange for your own stay in Delhi. Those who can't inform us in advance.
4. Groups in Delhi- Help in sponsoring the breakfast/ lunch and dinner for the convention and stay for the outstation participants.
5. Please inform us how many people from your group will participate and whether any/ all of them will require stay arrangements in Delhi.
The program for the two days is being finalized . Please send suggestions . We will also inform the venue and the final schedule for the convention as soon as it is finalised after hearing from more groups/ individuals.

Shabnam Hashmi
ANHAD
Tel- 23070740/ 23070722
e-mail: anhad.delhi@gmail.com

The following groups have responded to the sms message and already endorsed Anhad's call for the convention:

All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch
All India Quami Mahaz
Aman Samudaya
ANHAD
Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti
ASHA Pariwar
Awaz e- Niswana
Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
CSSS
Darpana Academy
EKTA
ICHRO
Insaf
ISD
Janvikas
Mahatma Gandhi Foundation
National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights
Peace
People's Research Society
Roshan Vikas
Sahrwaru
Sajhi Duniya
Samarpan
Sanchetana
Sandarbh
Urja Ghar
Yuv Shakti

Communalism is at centrestage

By Shabnam Hashmi
01 October, 2008
Tehelka

Life and liberty are not the gift of society, state or Constitution but inalienable rights of every individual. The flame of liberty will glow so long as there are persons who have guts, grit, and vision to expose and disprove those nibbling away liberty in the name of expedients.

A journalist of a well-known television channel recently asked me why the community to which I belong (of human rights activists) always takes stands which are opposed to the stand of the whole nation. Can the shrill voices of the electronic media replace our whole being? Can they replace the Indian Constitution and the rule of law? The strong judgements passed by the media after every terror attack, every encounter and every arrest of a ‘mastermind’, can sway the middle classes and the executives working in the multinational companies. But can they stop a nation from questioning? Even at the height of Hitler’s rule in Germany, when benches on the roadside had signs saying, ‘Not for Jews’, someone had the guts to put a black cross on them, establishing that such politics of genocide was not acceptable.

Though India is being transformed at a fast pace where all minorities are being forced to realise that they are second-class citizens, the difference is that there are many more people in India who are challenging the fascist agenda of those who are in power and others, who are desperately trying to capture power in the coming election.
The ascent of these forces has been systematic and well planned. Twenty years ago, most of the secular forces believed that the communal fascist forces were on the fringe of society and laughed at the possibility of their ever moving centerstage. Today the situation has reversed — the communal forces are so centrestage, it is difficult to differentiate between what is right and what is centre. They have invaded all spaces and areas including the minds of our secular politicians.

Among the plenty of weapons that they have used in this journey — from the peripheral to the Centre — fake encounters occupy a fairly important position. They have cleverly used different weapons at different stages. Beginning from ordinary bhajan mandalis, they moved to more organised kathas, to new age gurus. Working at different levels over 15 years — shishu mandirs, shakhas, ekal vidyalayas, sant samagams, television serials, the rath yatras, leaflets, videos, CDs — they have slowly entered the consciousness of an entire society with targeted messages against minorities. Only those sections of society who strongly and consciously contested this ideology could retain their sanity. After the seeds of hatred were sowed successfully and the harvest was being reaped, started the more decisive phase — the physical attacks and largescale genocide. Most of the experiments were done in Gujarat and the remote areas of other states. For example, the experiment within the tribal belts started in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Almost simultaneously, the VHP swamis then moved into these areas.

Today, we have reached a stage when an innocent person can be killed in a fake encounter, and declared a terrorist. A large number of innocent young Muslim boys are being victimised by the police on charges of terrorism. In most cases, they are not shown to be arrested by the police until many days after their arrest in gross violation of the law. Their families are also not informed about their arrest and while in police custody, they are made to ‘confess’ and sign blank papers. The courts routinely deny them bail. When the police chargesheet them, the trials go on almost endlessly during which the poor victims are virtually defenceless. GUJCOC, MCOCA, POTA and many other such draconian laws are required only so that the statements which the police force out of the victims can be considered as evidence.

After years of torture and confinement, when the case against the victims is found to be baseless, no action is taken to hold police officials accountable. The young patriotic journalists, of course, are then not around to report the horrors of all those years lost in the dark cells of a jail. Stopping the victimisation of the innocents will be the first step towards finding a solution against terrorism.
Shabnam Hashmi is a social activist with Anhad. This article, which appears in Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 39, dated Oct 04, 2008, has been distributed by Countercurrents.org