An Appeal to the nation's conscience from the Death Row

Arputham Kuyildasan of Jolarpettai, mother of A. G. Perarivalan (picture on the right), who was convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and has been under the shadow of the gallows for many years, was in Thiruvananthapuram recently to present before the public her son’s case for mercy.

Speaking at the Kesari Memorial Hall, she said the members of her family were followers of EVR’s Dravida Kazhagam. Perarivalan, who had a diploma in Electronics and Communications Engineering, was working with the DK paper Viduthalai when he was arrested on June 11, 1991. He was actually handed over to the CBI investigators by his parents on learning that they were looking for him in connection with the case. That was before his 19th birthday.

In the 20 years he has spent in jail, Perarivalan has acquired new educational qualifications.

Earlier Arputham had called on Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer at Kochi.



Arputham Kuyildasan, mother of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict Perarivalan, with former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer in Kochi. —Photo:Deccan Chronicle

The charge against Perarivalan was that he had made the belt bomb that the LTTE suicide attacker Dhanu wore. In the mercy petition sent to the President, he cites a 2005 interview to the Tamil weekly Kumudam in which Raghothaman, who was the chief investigating officer of the case, said: “We don’t know who made the belt bomb which was worn by the human bomb Dhanu.”

The text of the mercy petition and some other documents relating to the case are included in Perarivalan’s book “An Appeal from The Death Row”, published by Thruvalluvar Periyar Maanuda Ondriyan, Jolarpettai. It is, in fact, an appeal to the nation's conscience.

In a foreword, Justice Krishna Iyer writes, “Perarivalan is now under sentence of death in the Vellore Jail. His soul is precious, his values noble, his jail life has not made him a criminal. Indeed, he redeems his colleagues and his book is evidence of the noble work of the man.”

Arputham’s was the plea of a mother. Many political parties in Tamil Nadu have asked that the lives of the Tamils who have been sentenced to death be spared. They are essentially voicing Tamil sentiments. Similarly, in Kashmir, there are sentiments in favout of Afzal Guru, who has been sentenced to death in the Parliament assault case.

Perarivalan and Afzal Guru were not present at the scenes of the crimes. On the basis of this fact and other circumstances relating to the two cases many have expressed the view that they did not deserve the extreme penalty.

Cases in which persons were wrongly convicted are not unknown. There have been instances in which courts in many lands acknowledged the mistake and reversed their decisions in the light of fresh material which came to light after the conviction. The problem with the death penalty is that it does not leave room for correction if the conviction is subsequently found to have been wrong.

The cases of Perarivalan, Guru and others in the Death Row need to be viewed in the light of widely accepted human rights ideals. Capital punishment is an extension of the primitive concept oi a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is actually not a punishment at all. It is an act of revenge perpetrated by the state in the name of the society. Many countries have abolished capital punishment or at least stopped awarding it. It is time India did the same.

Hurdles to communal harmony

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A Bill drafted by the National Advisory Council headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who is also chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, which rules India, to check communal violence has met with wide opposition.

Called the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, the measure seeks to enhance the state’s accountability and check discriminatory use of its powers in the context of attacks on religious and linguistic minorities and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The Hindu rightwing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has close links with it, are in the forefront of the campaign against it. They view it as one that targets them.

When the Bill was placed by the National Integration Council last month, the BJP leaders were joined by their National Democratic Alliance colleagues, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (Janata Dal–United) and Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal (Akali Dal) and by Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).

Leaders of the Trinamool Congress, which is a UPA constituent, and the Left parties also criticised the Bill. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party) avoided taking a stand, saying the time was not opportune to comment on it.

Harsh Mander, a member of the NAC, later complained that when the Bill came under attack in the NIC, the government failed to defend it.

Few countries have as varied and complex a society as India’s. The Hindus who constitute 80 per cent of the population are divided into numerous caste groups with distinct identities. Hindi, designated as the official language in the Constitution, is spoken by only 41 per cent of the people. About 54 per cent speak a dozen other major languages. The remaining five per cent speak a large number of minor languages, some of which are facing extinction.

Sectarian conflicts, confined to specific areas, are quite common, and occasionally there are big conflagrations like the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat after the burning of RSS-mobilised volunteers in a rail coach at Godhra in 2002.

Those who instigate and perpetrate communal violence almost always go unpunished. This happens not because there is no law to deal with them but because the official agencies are in complicity with them or powerless to act against them as they enjoy political patronage.

Those indicted in the anti-Sikh riots were leaders of the Congress. The prime movers behind the Gujarat riots were RSS and BJP functionaries. An officer who testified that Chief Minister Narendra Modi had asked the police to let the Hindus wreak vengeance is now facing the wrath of the administration.

The law already has provisions to deal with sectarian violence. The Indian Penal Code has a section on “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.” It has proved ineffective for two reasons. One is that the punishment prescribed is only three to five years of imprisonment and fine. The other is that instances of successful prosecution are few.

The proposed law provides for a new category of offence, namely “communal and targeted violence”. It will apply when violence is directed against anyone by virtue of membership of a group.

It seeks to set up a National Authority for Communal Harmony, Justice and Reparation (NACHR) and similar bodies at the state level. Apart from monitoring cases of communal violence and redressing grievances of affected people, it will have power to penalise officials for acts of commission as well as acts of omission.

Critics have raised two serious objections to the Bill. One is that it will undermine the republic’s federal character inasmuch as it will allow the Centre to proclaim ‘internal emergency’ and step in to deal with communal violence in a state. The other is that since the law will apply only to violence committed by a majority group against a minority group, and not to violence committed by a minority group against a majority group, in effect it creates separate laws to deal with similar offences by different groups.

Attempts to check communal violence must begin with meaningful efforts to eliminate communal thinking, which is sustained by cynical exploitation of caste and religious sentiments by political parties.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 24, 2011.

The cost of procrastination

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Mark Twain once said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” The Indian administration has elevated the American humorist’s quip to the level of a principle of governance.

From Kashmir to Koodankulam, the administration has routinely pigeonholed several pressing issues. Some of them are coming back to haunt the nation, demanding a high price for procrastination.

The Manmohan Singh government cannot be apportioned much blame for the Kashmir problem, which is as old as the free nations of India and Pakistan. The problem has internal and external dimensions, and these aspects have been complicated by insurgency and cross-border terrorism.

The government cannot, however, escape blame for failing to douse the flames of discontent in Kashmir. A year ago, in a time-buying effort, it appointed a three-member team of interlocutors to talk to all sections of people and make recommendations. Last week the team submitted its report, which calls for “meaningful autonomy”, speedy development and withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows the army to act with impunity.

The report has not generated much enthusiasm in government circles. Few expect the central administration to push for autonomy as it is sure to invite strong criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, not to mention Hindu extremists who have assaulted several persons for not toeing their hard line on Kashmir.

Kashmir is the oldest and most intractable of the problems before the administration, and Koodankulam the newest. It is also a simple one inasmuch as a decision can be taken without having to look over one’s shoulders constantly.

The Koodankulam issue relates to the future of a nuclear power station, the first phase of which is ready for commissioning. Worried by the Japanese experience at Fukushima, last month residents of villages near Koodankulam launched a mass movement demanding that the project be scrapped. They suspended the agitation after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the Tamil Nadu Assembly endorsed the demand.

Instead of using the time thus gained to remove the people’s apprehensions about their safety, the administration went ahead with preparations to commission the plant. The villagers then returned to the battlefield with renewed determination.

Procrastination on the Telangana issue has created an explosive situation in Andhra Pradesh. In the 2004 election manifesto the Congress party had committed itself to the formation of Telangana state and included it in the common minimum programme of the first United Progressive Alliance government.

An 11-day fast by Telangana leader K Chandrasekhara Reddy forced the second UPA government to announce it would “start the process” of state formation. It then constituted a committee to look into the issue. Early this year the committee submitted its report, which merely listed three possible ways in which Andhra Pradesh can be split.

A mass movement in support of the state demand, which began five weeks ago, has disrupted life in Telangana and hit other areas too. More than 120 passenger trains running through the region are cancelled or diverted each day. Thermal power stations in Telangana on which other states too depend for power are not able to keep up production. Yet there is no sign of a sense of urgency in the way the administration handles the problem.

The northeastern state of Manipur is reeling under the impact of a double blockade of national highways, which began in August. The first blockade was imposed by the Kuki tribe to press the demand for carving out a Sadar Hills district by splitting Senapathi. The Nagas, who oppose the Kuki demand, launched a counter-blockade.

The double blockade has affected flow of essential commodities to the region, leading to steep rise in prices. A cylinder of cooking gas now sells at Rs 2,000, which is five times the normal price. Hospitals in the state are not able to undertake surgeries due to shortage of medical supplies.

Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh met the prime minister in New Delhi on Thursday to apprise him of the situation in Manipur. However, so far there has been no central initiative to resolve the issue, which has the potential to precipitate ethnic strife in the entire northeast. The government’s indifferent approach has led some observers to speculate that it may be cynically looking for some political dividend from the worsening situation. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, Octoner 17, 2011.

Soni Sori tortured in custody, admitted to hospital in Chhattisgarh

Soni Sori photographed in police custody in Delhi

Soni Sori, a tribal woman from Chhattisgarh, who was arrested in New Delhi last Wednesday, could not be produced in the Dantewada court as she was admitted to hospital with grievous injuries after torture in police custody, according to reports reaching Human Rights Movement network (humanrights-movement@googlegroups.com.

Kavita Srivastava, General Secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, writes:
On Wednesday 5th October 2011, Soni Sori was arrested from Delhi in a joint operation by the Crime Branch and the Chhattisgarh Police. Fearing for her life, she was hiding from the Chhattisgarh police who has labelled her as a ‘maoist on the run’ and had mounted this huge search operation. After her arrest, when she was produced before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) at a district court in Delhi, she and her lawyers requested the court to give her bail. She pleaded that she should not be sent back as she fears that the Chattisgarh police will kill her. Her plea was rejected and on Friday she wash handed over to the Chattiagarh police.

Today, on the 10th of October, 2011, we have learnt that Soni Sori could not be produced in the court in Chattisgarh as she was admitted with injuries in the District Hospital at Dantewada.

See Video which shows her groaning in pain in the hospital X-Ray room.

We have been informed that she has injuries on the head and on the back.

The police claim that ‘she slipped in the bathroom and has hurt her head’.

It is clear that the rights of the accused enshrined in the Constituoin and Delhi High Court orders of the 7th of October for protection and safety of Soni Sori all have been openly and blatantly violated by the Chhattisgarh police.

We pray that she be rescued from the hands of the Chhattisgarh polie, that Soni Sori be immediately examined by a doctor and provided medical help and that the report of her injuries is made public.

We also demand

- that she is immediately transferred to Delhi, and

- that the police personnel who tortured Soni Sori be immediately suspended and a high level enquiry ordered.


See also the Tehelka story Inconvenient Truth Of Soni Sori By Shoma Chaudhury

Game-changer in IT sector

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The significant presence of India’s software companies in the global market, particularly in the United States and Europe, has often tended to cloud the digital divide that the country faces. The digital divide poses a twin challenge to India. On the one hand, it has to catch up with the other emerging economies in web connectivity. On the other it has to cope with the wide gulf that separates sections within its own borders.

The International Telecommunications Union, in its report “Measuring the Information Society”, places India in the 116th place among 157 countries. China is in the 80th place. ITU puts the number of Internet users in India at 100 million, representing a penetration of 8.5 per cent. The corresponding figures for China are 485 million and 36.3 per cent.

The bulk of the Indian software industry’s earnings of $76 billion last year came from services provided to overseas clients. With the advanced nations badly hit by the global slowdown, the leading software companies could make only small additions to their clientele in the recent past.

However, the companies are expected to produce satisfactory results this year as they stand to gain from the fall of the rupee against the dollar. The rupee lost about nine per cent in the last three months. The companies’ hopes for the immediate future rest on inroads into new markets – China is among them – and acceptance of new technologies by clients.

Last week the Indian government took two new initiatives which, analysts believe, may turn out to be game-changers. The first of these was the unveiling of Aakash, a tablet computer to be supplied to secondary school students at a subsidised price of about $35. Currently the basic iPad tablet is priced at $499 and the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is to come into the market shortly, is expected to be priced at $199.

Aakash, developed by DataWind, a UK-based company owned by a Canadian of Indian descent, in co-operation with the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, runs on Google’s Android platform. It is preloaded with an Office Productivity suite and comes with a 2GB memory card on a slot that can support up to 32GB. It cannot download apps from Android Marketplace and the rated battery life is only three hours.

DataWind puts the basic cost of the device, assembled at Hyderabad, at $38. Its 800 components include US processors, Chinese memory and Korean touch-screens. The government has offered to buy 100,000 units initially at $50. The company plans to make available a new version with 3G access to the public at a price of about $60.

Notwithstanding Aakash’s limited capabilities, the government expects it to contribute significantly to the effort to bridge the digital divide. Its introduction is part of a wider plan to promote e-learning at 400 universities and more than 18,000 colleges across the country.

The second important initiative of the week was the release of the draft of a new information technology policy, which aims at boosting revenue from IT and IT enabled services from $88 billion to $300 billion and export earnings from $59 billion to $200 billion by 2020.

Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said the new policy, to be finalised in the light of responses received from concerned interests over the next month, would help India remain a global IT player on a long-term basis. It was expected to create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in the IT and communication sectors.

With China and India split along hardware/software lines, tech-watchers have long been aware of the complementary nature of their IT sectors. However, the two countries are yet to make a serious effort to adjust their policies so as to benefit from each other’s strength.

Indian advance in IT was the result of the initiative of private software developers, especially those who foresaw the opportunity presented by fears engendered at the turn of the century by what was known as the Y2K problem.

Credit for the growth of China’s IT sector belongs entirely to former Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, who, as Minister of Electronics in the early 1980s, identified it as ‘the strategic high ground in international competition’ and set the goal of making the country a global IT leader. Two years ago China, for the first time, published more research papers in IT than the US. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 10, 2011.

AHRC condemns intimidation of human rights defenders

The Asian Human Rights Commission, Hing Kong, says in a statement:

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) condemns the intimidation by the state police/government of Ms Kavita Srivastava, General Secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) by undertaking a raid at her residence on Monday.

The PUCL is a social action group based in India. It is reported that at about 6.30 am (on 3 October) a large armed contingent of the Special Task Force, led by Superintendent of Police Mr Ranjendra Singh Shekhwat came to Kavita's house located in Jaipur, Rajasthan state, claiming that they had a search warrant obtained from the court authorizing the officers to conduct a search at Kavita's house. The officers reportedly claimed that they were looking for a dangerous Naxalite, allegedly harboured at Kavita's residence. The search reportedly revealed nothing and none were arrested. A search warrant, reportedly produced by the police merely mentions Kavita's name as the 'accused' and mentions her residential address.

Kavita was not present at the house at the time of the search. Kavita and her associates allege that the raid is an act of vengeance by the government against her since Kavita has been speaking up against the atrocities committed by the government against poor villagers in the name of combating Naxalite activities. It is further alleged that the house search, with show of force, is the direct consequence of the PUCL challenging the government concerning the controversial poverty line. Kavita is the Convener of the Steering Committee of the Right to Food Campaign and the PUCL is the petitioner in the Supreme Court case against the government on the question of right to food.

The police and the law enforcing agencies have every right to undertake the search of a house, provided they reasonably suspect that either a crime is committed or the preparations to commit a crime is made in the property, or persons or materials related to a crime is likely to be recovered from the property. This means that as such a search conducted in a house, irrespective of its ownership, does not constitute any breach of law. In this case, the search party reportedly had a 'search warrant' issued from a court. Sections 47, 93 and 94 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 cover these aspects. This line of legality in the process makes the raising of any objection about the incident legally non-tenable. However the fact that the police, in this case arriving in large numbers, at Kavita's house is indeed an intimidating factor, given the brute force the Indian police is notorious for. It is also reported that the police have allegedly misbehaved with the housemaids as well as with Kavita's 87-year-old father.

While more details, concerning the incident is yet to be obtained, it has to be assumed that the very reason for the search is to intimidate Kavita and her colleagues. It is only from the court records the grounds upon which the police have sought for and obtained a search warrant could be ascertained. Should the grounds mentioned in the petition appear false or concocted, it will not only reaffirm the perception that the search is an act of vendetta by the police/government, but will also expose the callousness with which the court issued such an order. It has to be borne in mind that Kaivta is a person known through out the country for her commendable work on human rights and fundamental freedoms in the country.

Arresting human rights defenders on false charges or otherwise interfering with force in their activities, like raiding their residences or offices on false pretences is a typical manner in which the country's police have responded to human rights activists or to the media, should their independent work annoy the government. It is a practice that has been used widely in states like Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, a factor that is reflected in the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders vide report A/HRC/16/44/Add.1. This is a reiteration of the report, of formerly, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, in the report vide number E/CN.4/2006/95 and Add.5. Similar concerns were expressed by the Rapporteur on Torture during India's Universal Periodic Review on 10 April 2008 vide document number A/HRC/WG.6/1/IND/2. Kavita had met the Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights defenders during the Rapporteur's visit to India in January this year.

The AHRC condemns the act of the state government and views the incident as nothing but intimidating a human rights defender to deter her from work. The AHRC calls upon the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India to immediately take notice of the incident and undertake a suo motu investigation into the incident. The AHRC is of the opinion that it is in times like this when a human rights defender is threatened the NHRC must step forward and offer moral and physical support to the defender in threat.

The AHRC joins hands with the protest meeting organised by concerned individuals and organisations in India concerning the incident. The protest letter issued by the gathering is reproduced below.

RIGHT TO FOOD CAMPAIGN
October 3rd, 2011

Arbitrary Raid on Kavita Srivastava’s house:
Latest act of harassment of human rights workers

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the arbitrary raid this morning (3 October), in Jaipur, on the house of Kavita Srivastava, General Secretary of PUCL and convenor of the Right to Food Campaign’s steering group. This is yet another instance of harassment of human rights workers under the cover of fighting Naxalism. Kavita Srivastava is the convenor of the Steering Committee of the Right to Food Campaign and PUCL is the petitioner in the Supreme Court case on the Right to Food which has recently challenged the Government on the issue of the poverty line.

Around 6.30 am a large contingent of armed Special Task Force Police, led by Deputy SP Rajendra Singh Shekhwat, descended on Kavita’s house claiming to be looking for a “khatarnak Naxalite”. In Kavita’s absence, the police harassed her 82-year old father and two domestic helpers. The raid was apparently conducted at the behest of the Chhattisgarh police, with the help of a “warrant” that merely carried Kavita’s address and the word “abhiyukt” (accused).

Kavita Srivastava has been a tireless defender of human rights for many years and has already been harassed earlier for her fearless opposition to the criminal activities of the Chhattisgarh government (arbitrary detentions, encounter killings, false cases, and such) under the garb of fighting Naxalism.

This is a wholly reprehensible act of targeting of human rights activists as well as a totally unacceptable attack on civil liberties in general. We condemn it and demand an unconditional apology from the Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh police on this reprehensible action. We would like to remind the Government that such undemocratic and arbitrary actions will not silence human rights defenders and instead amplify their voices against injustice and state repression.

The Steering group of the Right to Food Campaign:

Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Rajasthan), Annie Raja (National Federation for Indian Women), Anuradha Talwar, Gautam Modi and Madhuri Krishnaswamy (New Trade Union Initiative), Arun Gupta and Radha Holla (Breast Feeding Promotion Network of India), Arundhati Dhuru and Ulka Mahajan (National Alliance of People’s Movements), Asha Mishra and Vinod Raina (Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti), Ashok Bharti (National Conference of Dalit Organizations), Colin Gonsalves (Human Rights Law Network), G V Ramanjaneyulu (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture), Binayak Sen (People’s Union for Civil Liberties), Lali Dhakar, Sarawasti Singh, Shilpa Dey and Radha Raghwal (National Forum for Single Women’s Rights), Mira Shiva and Vandana Prasad (Jan Swasthya Abhiyan), Paul Divakar and Asha Kotwal (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights), Prahlad Ray and Anand Malakar (Rashtriya Viklang Manch), Subhash Bhatnagar (National Campaign Committee for Unorganized Sector workers), Anjali Bharadwaj (SNS), Jean Drèze and V.B Rawat (Former Support group to the Campaign), Harsh Mander, Ritu Priya (JNU), Dipa Sinha, Biraj Patnaik

Representatives of Right to Food (State campaigns):

Veena Shatrugna, M Kodandram and Rama Melkote (Andhra Pradesh), Saito Basumaatary and Sunil Kaul (Assam), Rupesh (Bihar), Gangabhai and Samir Garg (Chhattisgarh), Sejal Dand and Sumitra Thakkar (Gujarat), Abhay Kumar and Clifton (Karnataka), Balram, Gurjeet Singh and James Herenj (Jharkhand), Sachin Jain (Madhya Pradesh), Mukta Srivastava and Suresh Sawant (Maharashtra), Tarun Bharatiya (Meghalaya), Chingmak Chang (Nagaland) Bidyut Mohanty and Raj Kishore Mishra, Vidhya Das, Manas Ranjan (Orissa), Ashok Khandelwal, Bhanwar Singh and Vijay Lakshmi (Rajasthan), V Suresh (Tamil Nadu), Bindu Singh (Uttar Pradesh).

Ganging up against pro-poor law

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India Inc has started flexing its muscles in a bid to force the Central government to back away from its plan to make the poor people living in the mineral-rich backward areas of the country, most of them members of dispossessed tribal communities, stakeholders in the development process.

On Friday, the Cabinet approved a Bill which will require mining companies other than those in the coal sector to deposit 26 per cent of their net profits in a fund which will be used to help project-affected people in the tribal areas. Coal firms will pay what they already pay as royalty.

The Bill is expected to come before Parliament during the winter session. In all likelihood, it will be referred to a committee, and at that stage those concerned will have the opportunity to state their objections. But corporate India’s powerful instruments like the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries have already come out against it.

They term the proposed measure unviable and say it will make mining unattractive to domestic and foreign investors. They argue it will also create difficulties for existing mines.

The stock market echoed the corporate sector’s sentiments. The public sector Coal India Limited’s shares fell by 5.11 per cent, and private companies registered declines ranging from 1.09 per cent to 4.61 per cent.

Currently the mining sector is governed by a weak law enacted 54 years ago. The new law provides for the creation of a regulatory authority, charged with tackling illegal mining.

As many as 20,000 cases of illegal mining have been reported from the different states during the past few months. One of the worst-affected is Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Karnataka, where the Lokayukta (ombudsman) estimated that illegal mining had cost the state more than Rs160 billion. Following his indictment, the then chief minister and two of his cabinet colleagues, both of whom had risen in politics using illegal gains from mining business, had to bow out of office.

Much of the country’s mineral wealth lies in inhospitable terrain where hapless tribal communities ended up as they retreated from the plains under pressure from later waves of migrants. Mining and other developmental activities are now threatening to force them out from there too.

India’s tribal population, estimated at eight per cent of the total, is spread unevenly across the country. In Kerala, it constitutes only one per cent but in the Lakshadweep group of islands, off the Kerala coast, it forms the overwhelming majority.

Several northeastern states have more than 90 per cent tribal population. In the heartland states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand tribesmen constitute about one-third of the population.

The Centre has been earmarking funds for the welfare of the tribal population separately in the annual plans but middlemen often gobble up the money.

Social and economic backwardness render the tribesmen easy prey to forest encroachers and business interests.

The threat posed by mining to the environment and to the people assumed diabolic proportions as the governments issued a large number of licences to domestic and foreign companies in the wake of economic liberalisation. From Goa on the west coast to Meghalaya in the eastern hills, in almost all states where mining is going on tribesmen have been fighting corporate intruders.

In Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district, villagers are up against the South Korean giant POSCO which has a contract to build an integrated steel plant at a cost of $12 billion. Even children are participating in the struggle, leading to accusations that the POSCO Prathirodh Sangram Samiti, which spearheads the agitation, is using them as a shield against possible police action.

The PPSS says children have joined the agitation as they realise their future is at stake. An 11-year-old schoolboy asked a reporter, “If our parents lose their livelihood, who will protect us?”

The London-based Vedanta Resources is another big corporation that is facing the fury of Orissa’s tribesmen. The Church of England, which had a stake of 3.8 million pounds in the company, sold its shares apparently to distance itself from the company’s depredations in the tribal belt.

Tribes everywhere have been victims of ‘development’ in all history. The new law aims at making them beneficiaries of development. But business interests are determined not to make its passage easy. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 3, 2011.

Ayodhya: Partisan Historiography

Dalit writer Vidyabhushan Rawat () has produced a documentary titled “Ayodhya or Saket: The Politics of Ram Temple”. Reproduced below is a review of the documentary by Ram Puniyani, an indefatigable campaigner against communalism.

By Ram Puniyani

Ayodhya, Ram temple, dispute has been one of the major turning points in the recent times. It has changed the political dynamics of our country. The claim of Hindutva forces that there was a Ram Temple there, which was demolished by Mughal Emperor Babar to build a mosque has been refuted by many a scholars and film makers. Many a valuable documentaries have also weighed the claims of RSS family about the Ram Temple being there at the Babri mosque and that it was the birthplace of Ram. This film on the topic not only demolishes the claims of Ram Temple and birthplace of Ram but also brings to our attention, in a serious way, the claims of Buddhists that the whole of Ayodhya was the cenre of Buddhists and that many Buddha places were destroyed by king Pushyamitra Sunga and others who undertook to wipe away Buddhism form India.

The claim of Buddhists has not been taken seriously while the whole debate so far has been revolving around the Temple-Mosque alternatives. This film through series of interviews and research in the archeological terrain shows that it was primarily Saket, as mentioned by the travelers like Fa Hian and Huan Tsang. Even now most of the places are presented as Hindu temples, while their Buddhist lineage is clear from their architecture and history.

In addition the film also delves into the whole Ram Temple movement as an attempt by Hindu right to usurp the rights of dalits and enhance the hegemony of upper caste. The relationship between the implementation of Mandal Commission and the consequent Rath Yatra to demolish masjid by Lal Krishna Advani, backed up by different components of Sangh Parivar clearly shows the agenda of RSS, in diverting the national attention from the fall out of Mandal Commission, the empowerment of dalit OBC, by creating the mass hysteria around the issue of faith, around identity based politics of Advani and Company. The plight of dalits, their poverty, deprivation and humiliation is well brought out in this documentary. In a way the film not only brings forth the Saket-Buddhist aspect of Ayodhya but also clearly establishes the communal nature of the campaign around Ram Temple. This campaign on one hand has undermined the Buddhist history of Ayodhya and on the other it undermines the human rights of dalits and OBCs.

In a more profound way the film establishes the symbolism of demolishing Babri Masjid, not just being anti-Muslim, but also anti-Dalit. The viewer cannot miss out on the deeper connection of the superficial symbolism of Babri demolition and the deeper political agenda of abolishing the rights of minorities and dalits. The film maker could have also linked this up with choosing the 6th December, the day of Mahaparinirvan of Ambedkar, as the day for demolition. RSS which calls for Hindu Rashtra will not only be state where religious minorities will have second class status, but it will also subjugate the dalits (and women) to secondary place in the society.

The film is well made and is a must for all those struggling for rights of dalits and minorities.

People’s power vs Nuclear power

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Few in India had heard of Idinthakarai in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu until it hit the headlines a few days ago with about 20,000 people staging a peaceful protest there against the nuclear plant at nearby Koodankulam, which is awaiting commissioning.

At Idinthakarai (the name means broken bank or shore), people’s power was pitted not only against state power, as in Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement which had shaken the government earlier, but also against nuclear power..

The Koodankulam project grew out of an agreement Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had signed with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. The Soviet Union’s collapse and US opposition stalled work on it until 2001 when the Indian and Russian governments signed a fresh agreement to set up a nuclear power complex with a total capacity of 9,200MW at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion.

When plans to commission the first two units of the plant in December became known, there was a groundswell of protest, spearheaded by the People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), an umbrella organisation comprising village panchayats, churches, religious bodies, NGOs, academics and activists. As many as 127 villagers joined an indefinite fast that began on Sept.11.

The mass upsurge took the authorities by surprise. They had not realised that after the Fukushima disaster in Japan the people were quite receptive to activists’ arguments about the threat posed by nuclear projects.

Initially the state sought to contain the movement by resorting to preventive arrests. It pulled back when it found there were too many determined protesters. Since elected representatives of the region supported the protesters the government reworked its strategy. Chief Minister J Jayalalitha asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to allay the people’s fears before proceeding further.

Manmohan Singh sent a minister, V Narayanasamy, to talk to the protesters but they refused to hear him. Jayalalitha saved the situation by persuading the PMANE to suspend the agitation for three months to give the Centre time to address the people’s concerns.

Like Hazare’s agitation, the PMANE campaign was non-violent and ended without a final resolution of the basic issues. The settlement terms gave the authorities time to consider the issues, and the protesters were free to resume the agitation if their expectations were not fulfilled.

The Hazare movement has been discussed widely during the past month. While supporters have projected its outcome as a triumph of people’s power, critics have attributed its apparent success to the build-up of favourable middle class opinion by the national media, particularly the television channels.

There has been no detailed analysis of the Idinthakarai agitation which breached the banks of the channels through which power flows. The experience of the Hazare campaign appears to have influenced the approach of the authorities and the media to this agitation.

According to a study, the national television channels devoted 91.1% of prime time to Hazare while he was on fast. On some days they did not take up any other topic during prime time. Critics, however, contrasted their obsessive coverage of Hazare with their blackout of Irom Sharmila, who has been fasting for more than 10 years and is kept alive through forced feeding in a Manipur hospital. The channels sent camera teams to Idinthakarai within days of the start of the agitation and provided moderate coverage of developments there.

When Hazare was on fast, his team had resorted to full-scale mobilisation using all available resources. If he is forced to resume the agitation, he cannot hope to do better than last time. The PMANE, on the other hand, has the potential to mount a bigger campaign since its mobilisation this time was limited to the three southernmost districts of Tamil Nadu.

Having sunk billions of rupees in the Koodankulam project, the Indian government finds it difficult to accept the demand that it be scrapped. It seems to be working on a strategy to keep alive the nuclear programme, which envisages raising production from 5,000MW to 20,000MW by 2020, by offering to work for total elimination of nuclear power within 50 years.

At current costs, generation of additional 15,000MW of nuclear power will involve an investment of no less than Rs3,000 billion. It makes no sense to make an investment of that order on plants that are to be abandoned after three decades. It will be prudent to divert the money for development of alternative energy sources straightaway. -- Gulf Today, September 26, 2011.

Peaceful agitation against Koodankulam nuclear plant

Mass fast in protest against Koodankulam nuclear plant


A view of protesters gathered at the venue of the agitation

A peaceful agitation is going on at a village near Koodankulam where a nuclear power project is being builr. Several persons have been on fast for nine days.

When the Government of India drew up an ambitious nuclear power project Kerala’s politicians were inclined to agree to the setting up of a plant in the state. Environmental groups in the state vigorously opposed the proposal and the Government of India had the good sense not to pursue the idea. However, the two sites in the South that it chose for locating nuclear stations are both close to Kerala – Koodankulam in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu and Kaiga in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka.

The main argument advanced against the setting up of a nuclear project in Kerala was that an atomic plant should not be located in a heavily populated state. As it happens the Koodankulam and Kaiga plants are so close to Kerala’s border that in the event of an accident this state may suffer heavily.

India is the only country which has refused to reassess its nuclear power programme in the light of the Fukushima disaster.

Reproduced below is a report received from K. Sahadevan, an anti-nuclear campaigner who is at the venue of the agitation:

The hunger-strike at Idinthakarai, near Koodankulam, has entered the nith day but the state and central governments have turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the demands of the people. The condition of many of the hunger-strikers has deteriorate to an alarming level.

More than 15,000 people have been gathering every day for the past 8 days from 30 odd villages and towns around Koodankulam from three districts, viz. Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli. The protest has spread to many parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala with southern Tamil Nadu turning out to be the epicenter of protests. For the eighth day in succession, fishermen, farmers, manual laborers and merchants of the area did not go to work while students have boycotted educational institutions. Shops remain closed in many places around Idinthakarai.

The men and women who gather everyday to participate in the protest also fast throughout the day. People of Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths and of all major caste groups are involved in the hunger-strike and the relay fast by tens of thousands of people. Leaders of most of the major political parties have come and expressed their support to the protest and a few of them have also announced specific protest programmes.

The authorities have foisted false cases on 500 odd people and a few have been put in jail. A huge police battalion has been posted near Idinthakarai and neighboring villages. Road blocks have been created and public transport has been suspended by authorities who are preventing people from coming to the protest venue.

With the swiftly deteriorating health condition of the fasters and lack of any serious or official initiative on the part of the governments to talk, some people are losing their patience. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer has issued a call to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to intervene immediately and has also asked the movement to continue the protesters without putting the lives of the people in danger or resorting to violence. Medha Patkar is joining the protest today. The protest needs intervention from eminent and respected personalities like you and solidarity and support from groups across the country to force the governments to act and save the lives of fasters and to maintain a peaceful atmosphere.

On a fast track to power

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Parliamentary elections are not due in India until May 2014 but the race for the prime minister’s post is already on. Two prime ministerial aspirants belonging to the opposition — Bharatiya Janata Party, former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi — have started running, presumably envisaging the possibility of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, battered by corruption charges, collapsing before its five-year term ends.

It is widely believed that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s son, Rahul, who is a Member of Parliament and general secretary of the Congress, will be that party’s prime ministerial candidate. Given the Nehru-Gandhi family’s sway over the party, he is unlikely to encounter any opposition from within.

The BJP had headed the National Democratic Alliance government that ruled for six years. It sought a fresh mandate for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2004 with the slogan “India Shining” but was turned down. After Vajpayee stepped down, the party made another bid for power in 2009 projecting Advani as its prime ministerial candidate. It was again turned down.

Lately the party has been preparing for life beyond Advani, who will be 84 in November. It picked Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, both in their late 50s, to lead the party in the two houses of Parliament and the Hindu rightwing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fountainhead of its political ideology, pitchforked Nitin Gadkari, 54, into the party president’s chair.

A few days ago Advani announced he would go on a Rath Yatra (chariot ride) shortly to highlight the issue of corruption. Political observers viewed it as an indication that age has not withered his prime ministerial ambition.

Narendra Modi began a three-day fast “to promote communal harmony, peace and unity”on Saturday, his 61st birthday. Critics saw it as an attempt to live down the ignominy of having presided over the communal riots of 2002 and improve his image in preparation for a bid for the prime minister’s post.

Two senior police officers of Gujarat had stated that when riots broke out following the burning of a rail coach carrying RSS volunteers at Godhra station, which resulted in 59 deaths, Modi had asked the force to give Hindus time to vent their anger against Muslims. A special investigation team set up by the Supreme Court to look into the riot cases reportedly found no evidence to prosecute him but a court-appointed lawyer differed with it.

Last week the apex court left it to the trial court to examine the report and decide whether or not to register a case against Modi. He and the rest of the BJP leadership claimed this amounted to rejection of the allegations against him.

Both Advani and Modi are close to the RSS and if called upon to choose between them it may pick the younger one for the prime minister’s post. Advani was present when Modi began his fast and, in a speech that was high on rhetoric and low on fact, said, “All NDA ruled states are examples of good governance and Gujarat was showing the results of being a corruption-free state.”

Modi’s quest for a fast track to New Delhi comes in the wake of reports that US analysts believe there has been a precipitous decline in the Congress party’s fortunes following corruption scandals and the BJP may come to power with Modi as the prime minister.

In 2009, the Congress had emerged as the largest party in the 543-member Lok Sabha winning 206 seats with 28.55% of the votes polled. The BJP secured 116 seats with 18.80% of the votes. It is reasonable to assume that the Congress party’s fortunes have declined since then but there is nothing to indicate that the BJP’s support base has grown.

If the next election is fought on the issue of corruption, the BJP will be at as much disadvantage as the Congress. Modi had fought shy of appointing a Lokayukta to deal with corruption charges. Last month (Gujarat) Governor Kamla Beniwal made an appointment without waiting for advice from the Cabinet. Recently the party’s national leadership had replaced its Chief Ministers in Karnataka and Uttarakhand who faced serious allegations.

The lesson that the emergence of a civil society group headed by Anna Hazare as the central government’s chief adversary holds is that the people are disillusioned with the ruling dispensation as well as the opposition. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 19, 2011

Demoralized police force is a security threat, says AHRC

The recent bomb blast near the Delhi High Court has once again revived the debate regarding crime control and law and order in India. Acts of violence in all forms must be condemned. In that, the very reason why the ordinary people in India refuse to cooperate with their local police is due to the same nature of violence that has become synonymous with policing in India. Without drastic changes brought in, to 'humanize' the police, as required to meet the policing standards of a modern democracy, the security scenario in India would remain the same and probably go from bad to worse. The police without the cooperation of the local population could maintain neither law nor order.

It is indeed just not that the local police resort to violence always at their own volition. The police officers in India lack everything they require to discharge duty, according to the standards expected from a state agency working in a democratic framework. From recruitment to retirement the police in the country are expected to discharge duties for which they are thoroughly ill equipped. It is a sad daily reality that every average Indian might have witnessed on the country's streets had they observed the working conditions of a police officer.

In most cases the officers are expected to discharge a job that no one in the world could ever do. For instance, what could a police officer responsible for traffic control do if the roads are filled with persons driving vehicles who obtained their licences by merely paying bribes?; what could a traffic police officer do if the junction at which the officer is posted has no traffic lights and the road conditions are terrible due to corruption in road construction?; how can a police officer investigate a crime other than by torturing a suspect and obtaining a confession when the officer is not trained in scientific crime investigation?; what else could a police officer do other than demanding and accepting bribes when the officer is not provided a house in the city where the officer is posted and forced to rent a house that would almost cost half of the officer's salary?; how can police stations function when the telephones and vehicles at the station do not work?; what morality will such a force have when they are expected to protect political masters who enjoy fruits of corruption?

If anyone of the above conditions is true - in fact all of them are - every Indian police officer has a right to remain demoralized and be what she/he is today. Expecting them to be the guardians of the life and security of the people is the worst that an administration could demand and a population to expect.

When was the last time the working conditions - including recruitment, training and deployment - of the police officers in the country was made the subject of a serious debate in the country's legislative houses? Since independence, the country's government, state or central, have not spent enough time to improve the state of policing in India.

Police is probably one of the most important state agencies of the country that still do not have a sensible national policy for improvement. Indeed, policing is a state subject in India. This means it would require considerable effort by the Union Government to encourage the state governments to have a look at their police force to find means to realign it to fit the requirements of a democracy.

Of equal importance is the role of the Indian civil society, including the country's media, to keep a focus upon the conditions of the police and to hear their concerns. In that there is no sense for the civil society to push the government to ratify the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which the government for understandable reasons is delaying to undertake. The ratification of CAT without having a comprehensive national policing policy to improve the state of policing makes no sense. In fact in the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, which have all ratified the CAT without a sensible policy to improve the state of policing in these jurisdictions are examples from which both the government, and the civil society in India can draw learning.

India today is facing serious threats to its internal security. A considerable proportion of it stems out from threats posed by armed militant, secessionist or terrorist groups. What these groups have is an ideology, destructive it may be, which probably draws unconditional cooperation from their cadres operating within and outside the country. Pitched in a battle with such a force are the unfortunate and thoroughly demoralised police in the country, which receives support neither from the government nor from the public. Expecting this force to meet the threat and to become the guarantee for the life and security of the people is like forcing the dragonfly to lift boulders.

Living with terror

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A global survey of terrorist threat in 2003, two years after the demolition of New York’s World Trade Center, placed India in the ninth position. Ahead of it were Colombia, Israel, Pakistan, the United States, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Iraq, in that order.

A recent study puts India at the very top, along with nine other countries, including Afghanistan and Indonesia. Pakistan, with 13 others, is one rung below. The United States is in the third rung, with a dozen others.

India’s current high rank is the result of a series of terrorist strikes that have taken a heavy toll, mainly in New Delhi and Mumbai. The most daring of them was the 2008 assault on selected targets in Mumbai by a sea-borne gang from Pakistan, which left 172 dead.

Actually India has been living with terror for long. Low-intensity terror has been part of the war disaffected tribesmen in the northeast have been waging against central authority since the colonial period. Left extremists working among tribesmen in several states, too, have been employing terror. Both these groups generally target security personnel.

High-intensity terrorism directed against civilians is a comparatively new phenomenon. More than 250 persons were killed in serial blasts in Mumbai on March 12, 1993. It was an act of reprisal for the demolition of the disputed 450-year-old Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh by Vishwa Hindu Parishad volunteers in the presence of top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party three months earlier. Over 200 persons died in another serial blast in that city five years ago.

Last week’s explosion near the Delhi high court, which resulted in 12 deaths, has set off a debate on the nature of the terror threat and the inability of the official machinery to deal with it effectively.

As sensation-mongering news channels built up the blast into a strike of WTC proportions, the government, embarrassed by a row of failures, went into defensive mode and the BJP, hoping to cash in on the ruling coalition’s discomfiture, launched an offensive.

The public’s disillusionment manifested itself in the heckling of Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and media persons by grieving relatives of blast victims outside a hospital.

Critics often contrast the peace that has prevailed in the US after it set up a new inland security set-up following the WTC attack with the continuing terrorist strikes in India.

The BJP attributes the failure of the official machinery to the Congress-led government’s softness, dictated by electoral considerations.

It argues the government made a grave mistake in abandoning the tough Terrorism and Destructive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorist Act (POTA).

The argument is fallacious. The scourge of terrorism was there even when these two measures, dubbed “lawless laws” because of their total disregard for human rights, were in force.

Congressmen lose no opportunity to point out that the BJP was heading the government when Pakistan-based terrorists hijacked an Indian passenger aircraft in 1999 to force the release of their colleagues who were in jail.

A senior BJP minister had escorted the freed terrorists to Kandahar in Afghanistan to ensure the safe return of the passengers.

India operates in circumstances vastly different from those of the US. It has to contend with a neighbourhood that is unstable and harbours hostile elements. Terrorists targeting the country from outside can hope to muster some support from disaffected sections within.

The upsurge of communal sentiments complicates the situation. Some terrorist activities which were first attributed to Muslim groups were later found to be the work of a Hindu gang.

The public generally view Hindu extremism and Muslim extremism as sworn enemies but the fact is that each helps the other to grow.

The authorities are clueless about the perpetrators of several attacks. Clearly they face two major handicaps: absence of actionable intelligence required to prevent attacks and lack of reliable information needed to track down the culprits and bring them to book The remedy lies in strengthening people’s co-operation.

There has been speculation that the latest attack was the work of elements seeking the release of Afzal Guru, who is awaiting execution in connection with the 2001 attack on the Parliament House. His early execution will no doubt please the BJP which has been demanding it.

Ironically, it may not displease Muslim fundamentalists altogether since they will have gained a martyr. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 12, 2011

Afzal Guru condemns Delhi High Court blast

Afzal Guru, convicted and sentenced to death in the Parliament House attack case, has condemned the bomb blast at the Delhi High Court and deplored attempts to drag his name into the matter.

The following is the text of the statement:

Date. 8.9.2011

From Tihar jail No.3

It is a serious matter of concern that some criminal elements and anti-social persons committed that heinous and barbarous crime of bomb blast in Delhi High Court. It is a cowardly act and must be condemned by all. No religion permits killing of innocent persons.

I am disturbed that my name has been unnecessarily dragged in this connection. Some agencies/groups are playing dirty game by falsely involving my name. This is not for the first time that my name has been dragged by some mischievous persons /groups for such
heinous crimes. It has become a routine that whenever such blasts take place my
name is sought to be dragged in in order to de-characterize and malign me to cultivate public opinion against me.
I am sending this statement through Shri N.D.Pancholi, my advocate, and request the
press to publish this statement.

Sd/- Afzal Guru
s/o Habibullah
W. No. 8 (H.S.W.)
Jail No.3. Tihar.


Statement by Afzal Guru’s lawyer

The following is a communication from Mr Pancholi, forwarding Afzal Guru’s statement:

In my capacity of Mohammad Afzal Guru’s lawyer and as a member of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, I am enclosing the statement of Afzal Guru.

There is no doubt that the attack on the Parliament was to be condemned as totally unjustifiable on several basic grounds. But there were several questions about the way the entire investigation into the crime was carried out and how the accused were sought to be demonized via the electronic media even before the trial was started.

And once again within hours of the horrific bomb blast outside the Delhi High Court on 7th September,2011 in which so many lives were blown up, the name of Afzal Guru has been dragged in. The media, quoting an e mail whose veracity has not even been established, are broadcasting on prime time that the blast was motivated by a group supporting Afzal Guru.

The corporate media is not accountable to anyone, and there is no effective authority to monitor the functioning of the 24 hour TV channels and protect victims of violations of basic journalistic ethics. All the discussions on the talk shows are heavily loaded against anyone trying to put forward any view that the anchor does not support. Though electronic media talk loudly against corruption, yet it does not realize its own corruption of having power without any responsibility.

The media portrays anyone talking on behalf of Afzal Guru as anti-Indian as if
patriotism is the monopoly of the national security experts, anchors of the corporate media and the Hindu Right alone.

Our Save Afzal Guru Campaign brought into focus the following aspects of Indian democracy:

1. The corruption of the investigating agencies and the lack of professionalism in their work was exposed. The Investigating Officer in the Parliament attack case was many times decorated but later he was shot dead because of his involvement in shady real estate dealings involving crores of rupees. By hanging Afzal we will take away attention
from the corruption of the policemen of the Special cell.

2. The fact that the judiciary was more influenced by the media campaign rather than
constitutional and legal principles with the result that the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence only to “satisfy the national conscience of the country”. This is not a legal ground for sentencing anyone to death. By hanging Afzal it would mean Indian citizens can be hanged to satisfy Indian right-wing and corporate interests.

3. The chargesheet in the Parliament attack case accused three Pakistanies i.e. Maulana Masood Azhar, Ghazi Baba and Tariq Ahmed as masterminds of the attack. The said masterminds were not caught. Those who were involved in the actual killing were
dead. And so even if Afzal was a part of the conspiracy he could not be given a death sentence because he neither masterminded the attack nor participated in it. By hanging Afzal the responsibility of finding the real culprits and dealing with real causes of
terrorism would be put aside.

4. The human rights campaigners proved that two persons arrested were innocent. This included a pregnant Sikh woman who gave birth to her baby in the jail. Her life has been completely wrecked. We never saw her on the TV channels and the terrible tragedy of her life. It showed how dispensable some citizens are.

5. The people of Kashmir saw that there were people in Delhi and other parts of the country who genuinely showed solidarity with them and campaigned for justice in the
case. Hanging Afzal will breach such delicate bridges built between the people of Kashmir and the people in rest of India. .

6. Afzal Guru was never given a fair trial and he was not represented by any lawyer of his choice because lawyers were not willing to take up his case. Even the most important witnesses were not crossexamined. By hanging Afzal we will undermine the right to fair trial which is guaranteed to every person under the Indian Constitution.

The whole experience of the Parliament attack case exposed the weakness of our democratic institutions but it also showed that if a small group of committed activists and lawyers choose to fight for democratic space it was possible. If Afzal Guru is hanged that space would be jeopardized. The Hindu right-wing can celebrate with fireworks; the corporate media may get something dramatic to report on for a few days but Indian democracy would suffer a body blow. That is why Afzal Guru must not be hanged.

I enclose his statement for publication as requested by him so that people may hear the voice of a man who has been wronged.

Asian Alliance Against Torture and Ill-treatment

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Hong Kong, and the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT), Denmark have together launched a forum named the Asian Alliance Against Torture and Ill-Treatment (AAATI).

The decision to form AAATI was taken in August at a a five-day regional conclave in Hong Kong which was attended by 26 human rights defenders and organizations.
AAATI is a unique regional initiative. It is in fact the first group of its kind in Asia.

Torture in Asia is a problem of the poor. This is not to say that people from affluent classes do not also get tortured. Indeed, there are many of such social backgrounds subjected to torture in almost every country. However, it is still valid to say that torture is a poor person’s problem, because it is the poor that are subjected to torture on such a large scale in almost every less developed country. The reason is that torture and ill-treatment are forms of social control of the poor. Torture and ill-treatment are among the basic strategies used to prevent the poor from coming into common association to fight against the forces that keep them poor. This may be a reason as to why often the more affluent social classes in less developed countries show little interest in dealing with the problem of torture and ill-treatment in their societies.

Here is a video report on the launch of AAATI, filmed and edited by Sofie Rordam

AHRC condemns Delhi blast

The Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, says in a press statement:

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) condemns the irresponsible and criminal act of exploding a bomb near gate number five of the Delhi High Court. It is reported that the explosion occurred around 10.30 today morning. At least nine persons are feared to have lost their lives and an estimated 24 persons injured at the time of releasing this statement. The injured has been reportedly taken to nearby hospitals for medical treatment.

Given that the explosion has occurred near one of the crowded entrances of the High Court compound, it has to be assumed that the criminal intent of the entities behind the explosion is to strike fear at the heart of the country's justice institutions and to prevent the people from accessing it. That the incident has happened within the national capital, that too just outside the High Court, must not be reason for ill-founded and freewheeling speculations. The media reporting live from the scene of crime should express adequate caution, not to make speculative and emotion-driven assumptions and should operate professionally, respecting also the privacy of the unfortunate individuals injured in the incident.

In challenging times like this it would take extra efforts by the country's leadership and the administration to function in unison to fight the evil that has befallen upon this great nation. The AHRC is confident that the country's leadership and its administration are capable of working with the professionalism fitting a democracy. The AHRC is certain that the country's leadership and the political parties would ensure that the minorities in India would not be made to face antagonistic emotional outpours and misplaced nationalistic sentiments that may stem out of this event.

The AHRC wishes to express its deep condemnation against this cowardly and gruesome act and those who are responsible for it. The AHRC hope that the country will recover from the shock and joins the bereaved families who have lost their relatives today in the explosion. The AHRC wishes all those who are injured a fast recovery and calls upon Indians to cooperate with their government in the investigation of the case.

Ray of hope in death row

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With the rejection of some mercy petitions lying undecided in the Presidential mansion for years, India faces the prospect of a season of executions. This has led to renewed debate on the merits of capital punishment.

According to Amnesty International, which has been campaigning globally against capital punishment, 96 countries have either scrapped it or stopped resorting to it. Last year executions were reported only from 23 of the 58 countries which are holding on to capital punishment.

Among the countries which are keen to retain the death penalty are the United States, China, India and Pakistan. About 300 persons in India, 3,220 in the United States and more than 7,000 in Pakistan were reported to be under death sentence in 2009. According to Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney, 60 to 65 per cent of the death row prisoners in that country are innocent or victims of a faulty justice system.

The President of India has the power to grant a convict clemency, which can take the form of commutation of sentence or even pardon, after the judicial process is exhausted. The Supreme Court has held that the exercise of this power does not involve modification or supersession of the judicial verdict.

Under the established procedure, the convict or his relatives can file a mercy petition before the President. It is sent to the Home Ministry which conveys to the President the advice of the Council of Ministers.

Mercy petitions began piling up as the government took its own time to tender advice to the President or the President did not issue orders based on the Cabinet’s advice.

President KR Narayanan (1997-20020) did not clear any mercy petition. President APJ Abdul Kalam (2002-07) decided just two. He rejected the petition of Dhananjoy Chatterjee of Kolkata, who was convicted of raping and murdering a school girl, and commuted the death sentence on Kheraj Ram, a Rajasthani villager, who had killed his wife, two children and brother-in-law, to life term.

Pratibha Patil, who began her term as president with a backlog of mercy petitions, had to take up the pending cases as the Supreme Court, in a judgment in 2009, said the condemned prisoner and his suffering relatives had a right to demand early decision on their pleas. If a decision was not taken within a reasonable period, the death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment, it added.

In July Devinderpal Singh Bhullat, who was convicted in a case of terrorism in Punjab filed a petition in the Supreme Court complaining there had been inordinate delay in the disposal of his mercy petition. Within days, the government advised the President to reject it.

At that time the president also had before her the Cabinet’s advice to reject the petitions of Afzal Guru, who was convicted in connection with the terrorist attack on the Parliament House in 2001 and of Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan, who were convicted in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 on the orders of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran.

Last week the Madras High Court took up for consideration petitions filed by the Rajiv Gandhi case convicts asking that they be spared the gallows as they had spent many years under the shadow of death. This offers a slender ray of hope for 18 men who have already spent many years in prison waiting for the government and the President to take a decision on their fate.

Sectarian factors often cloud dispassionate consideration of the issue of death penalty.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has criticised the Central government repeatedly for not hanging Afzal Guru. It has not evinced the same interest in the cases of others in the death row, some of whom got there earlier than him.

Human rights organisations sought to raise the death penalty issue when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was facing the gallows. Middle class groups in West Bengal, including affiliates of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, argued that a rapist deserved no mercy.

The Akali Dal-led government in Punjab has appealed for mercy for Bhullar. After the High Court admitted the petitions of the Rajiv Gandhi case convicts, the Tamil Nadu Assembly, taking note of the sympathy in the state for the Sri Lankan Tamils, passed a resolution seeking mercy for the LTTE men.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah raised the BJP’s hackles by tweeting what would be the response if the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly similarly sought mercy for Afzal Guru. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 5, 2011.

News channels' prime time coverage of Anna Hazare's fast: study report

Reproduced below is a report from CMS Media Lab on how much prime time selected English and Hindi news channels devoted to coverage of Anna Hazare’s Fast and how much rime was devoted to commercials:

Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption received blanket coverage on the prime time of television news channels, according to a study of CMS Media Lab.

To understand the coverage of Anna’s movement on television news channels, CMS Media Lab tracked and analyzed the prime time content (7PM to 11PM) of leading two Hindi (Star News & Aaj Tak) and two English (NDTV24x7 & CNN IBN) news channels from 16th to 28th August 2011.

News channels had a combined coverage of 8047 minutes (91.1%) of prime time news coverage on Anna Hazare’s movement. Hindi news channels devoted 10% more news time to Anna’s movement compared to English news channels. Hindi news channels devoted 97% of news time whereas English news channels devoted 87% of their prime time news space. During these 13 days, on nine days in the case of Hindi channels and four days in the case of English channels, other news was completely blacked out.

Interestingly, Television news channels covered Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 with least advertisements. However, in Anna’s movement television news channels not only spiked in viewership but also a good share of commercial time during prime time. Approximately news channels devoted 27% of their prime time on advertisements. 23 to 31% of prime time of news channels – around a quarter in the case of English channels and one-third in the case of Hindi channels- were allotted for commercials.

On four days (24th to 27th) NDTV 24x7 fully filled up their prime time news time with Anna’s movement. CNN IBN also had four days (16th, 24th, 25th, and 27th) of 100% coverage on Anna. Star News and Aaj Tak blacked out all news other than “Anna’s revolution” for nine days.

Among news channels Star News devoted 97.8% of its news time followed by Aaj Tak with 94.6%. NDTV 24x7 and CNN IBN devoted 88.7 and 84.5% of news time respectively on Anna’s protest.

Note: CMS Media Lab analyses the content and market trends of news media

For more information contact
Abison Paul
CMS Media Lab
RESEARCH HOUSE
Saket Community Centre, New Delhi 110 017
M: 09911768356;
Email: abison@cmsindia.org

Source: CMS Media Lab

Rights bodies’ response to SHRC report on unmarked graves of Kashmir

The following is a joint statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir and The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons:

We welcome the report of the State Human Rights Commission of Jammu and Kashmir (SHRC) on unmarked graves in the north of the Indian-administered Kashmir (dated July 2011 and recently released), taking suo moto cognizance of the matter, and appreciate the courage and labour that this work signifies.

SHRC's report acknowledges and corroborates the research documented in the report, BURIED EVIDENCE, released by the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPTK) in December 2009.

SHRC investigated unmarked graves in Bandipora, Baramulla, Kupwara, and Handwara districts across 38 graveyards and verified 2156 unidentified bodies in unidentified graves.

Based on investigative research conducted between November 2006-November 2009, BURIED EVIDENCE had documented 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2943+ bodies, across 55 villages (in 62 sites within these villages) in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts of Kashmir. Of these, 2373 were unidentified and unnamed graves. See www.kashmirprocess.org/reports/graves/toc.html


To respond to the egregious violations of the past and secure justice requires that we acknowledge atrocities that have been committed and address their effects. In the matter of unknown, unmarked, and unidentified graves in Kashmir, we call for a three-tier process: Investigation, Prosecution, and Reparation.

Investigation and Prosecution: We request that SHRC extend its investigation to include each site documented by IPTK in north Kashmir, and beyond, to all twenty districts in Jammu and Kashmir. In particular, we ask that investigations take place in Anantnag, Budgam, Ganderbal, Kulgam, Pulwama, Shopian, and Srinagar districts in Kashmir province and in Doda, Poonch, Rajouri, and Reasi districts in Jammu province.

We ask that DNA-based profiles of those buried in the unmarked and unidentified graves be cross-tabulated with those that have been involuntarily disappeared in Kashmir. Further, in addition to the identification of the dead, we ask that comprehensive forensic examinations be conducted to determine the circumstances of death, including incidences of torture.

The Kashmir Police have stated that they have records of 464 unidentified graves. However, it appears that, even in these cases, the Kashmir Police have not maintained photographic, DNA, and other evidence. All unidentified graves that have been listed as holding the bodies of "foreign militants" must be investigated. The police have filed First Information Reports stating these persons as dead from encounter killings. However, these bodies have not been identified based on records or other verifiable evidence. Neither has conclusive evidence been offered to prove that the bodies are of Kashmir's disappeared.

SHRC has stated that 574 bodies have been identified as locals following their burial. However, the Kashmir Police and Indian Armed Forces had previously claimed these 574 bodies as those of "foreign militants." This indicts the government's negligence in identifying unclaimed bodies. Based on the above, the SHRC report evidences that there is every possibility that the 2156 unmarked graves hold the bodies of persons that were involuntarily disappeared. The cases of the 574 bodies also intimate that numerous persons have been killed in fake encounters and secretly buried in unmarked graves to conceal their identity. IPTK's 2009 report too had documented a list of 49 bodies, all designated by the state as "foreign militants," 47 of whom, on investigation, proved to have been killed in fake encounters, and none were identified as foreign insurgents.

If, in the course of future investigations, it is proven that disappeared persons were killed in fake encounters and buried in unmarked graves, exemplary punishments should be pronounced against those accused to deter future and repeated crimes of the same nature. In instances where non-local persons are killed in alleged "encounter" killings, relevant international human rights and humanitarian law must be applied in matters of redress.

SHRC has relied on statements from persons who, fearful of reprisal, wish for their testimonies to be placed on record anonymously. Given the nature of the issue, and the heightened risks involved in offering testimony, utmost care and caution should be exercised in securing witness protection, following international protocols and standards.

We ask that the matter of unknown, unmarked, and mass graves be subjected to a rigorous, independent, and impartial investigation. We ask that the story of these graves be investigated in their entirety: What are the particular legal and institutional histories of the graveyards? How did they come into existence? Per whose order? Did District Magistrates requisition the construction of graveyards, burials, and record keeping? Such historiography would permit holding actionable particular officers and offices that acted in violation of the law, with arrogance and indifference, and failed to follow the law in burying unidentified bodies. This would disaggregate the amorphous state and enable holding accountable particular institutions of state.

Reparation: The issue of unknown and unmarked graves involves the living as much as the dead. Reparation must both be individualized and collectivized, so that communities, neighbourhoods, and villages can heal and break their isolation. SHRC's either/or proposal of offering a relief of Rupees 700,000 to the next of kin or undertaking DNA testing-based investigation should be amended, and both the investigation and provision of relief be made mandatory. Monetary compensation to the next of kin should not be calculated as ex gratia relief, but should be particularized according to the individual circumstances of death, and the affect the death has had on the family, and relief should be calculated based on the complex task of quantifying loss of life and providing psychosocial and economic rehabilitation to family members.

We ask that all special laws and provisions of immunity that authorize the military and paramilitary forces to act with impunity in Kashmir be revoked unconditionally. We ask that the Government of India ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which it has been a signatory since February 2007, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which it has been a signatory since October 1997. We ask that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir institute a comprehensive ban on practises of torture as defined by international law and humanitarian ethics.

In Kashmir, between 1989-2011, the actions of the military and paramilitary have resulted in over 8,000 enforced disappearances and 70,000 deaths. We ask that human rights violations in Kashmir be recognized as resulting from, and concomitant to, the impunity of militarization and state violence, and the dangers militarism imposes on civil society. We caution that, without addressing these structural and prevalent conditions, justice and peace will remain elusive.

In calling for conflict resolution in South Asia's nuclear zone, we recognize the precarious cross-border conditions between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and condemn the violent actions of misogynist state and non-state groups operating in the region.


The above statement is co-authored by (1) Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies; (2) Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society; (3) Gautam Navlakha, Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly; (4) Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society; (5) Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India; (6) Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society and (7) he Executive Council, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons

Queries may be directed to:
Khurram Parvez
E-mail: kparvez@kashmirprocess.org
Phone: +91.194.2482820
Mobile: +91.9419013553

Scoring a half-victory

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As Anna Hazare ended his 13-day fast in New Delhi on Sunday and his supporters, many of them urban youth not affiliated to established parties, vociferously celebrated their half-victory, the political class that wields power at the Centre and in the states was quietly savouring its half-victory.

Although the media hailed the outcome of the clash of wills between Team Anna and the Central government as a victory of people’s power the 74-year-old social activist from Maharashtra, who had staked his life for the second time in five months in a Gandhian campaign, modestly described Parliament’s purported acceptance of his framework for a tough anti-corruption law as a half-victory.

The Congress, which heads the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, said it was a “win-win situation” for all stakeholders.

The formula which ended the confrontation was thrashed out by Congress leaders in a series of discussions held with members of Team Anna and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition.

The fast Hazare undertook in April demanding a strong anti-corruption law was directed against Executive. When he broke the fast, Baba Ramdev, a yogi, tried to continue the agitation. The government sent the police to arrest and bundle him out of the capital. On Hazare’s return to fast again, it decided to handle the Gandhian in the same way as it had dealt with the yogi. It was a costly mistake.

Team Anna activated the support base that it had built up among the urban youth during the first fast using social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It also launched an SMS campaign. A huge crowd gathered outside the Tihar jail in support of Hazare who began fast in custody, ahead of schedule. Live television coverage boosted the team’s efforts and there were solidarity demonstrations and sympathetic fasts in several cities.

The authorities quickly released Hazare but he did not leave the prison until they granted permission to fast at the Ramlila grounds for two weeks. It was a compromise reached after negotiations. The government had asked him to limit the fast to a three-day period.

The second fast began after Parliament had taken up for consideration a government bill to establish the long-discussed anti-corruption machinery, named Lokpal. Hazare asked the government to withdraw its bill, which was before Parliament’s standing committee, and place before it the Jan Lokpal Bill he and his friends had drafted. It was a demand the government could not accept without loss of face.

Since Parliament was seized of the matter, the agitation should have assumed the character of a confrontation with that body. But the executive remained Team Anna’s main adversary as the opposition joined it in directing all ire at the government and the Congress party.

To begin with, the Congress picked its best legal brains to negotiate with Team Anna. They failed to recognise that the movement and its demands were essentially political and that public opinion was generally in agreement with Hazare’s stand that the government bill is weak.

As the legal experts failed to deliver the Congress brought in experienced political hands. They reached across to the parliamentary opposition and to Team Anna and brought about the happy win-win end.

On Saturday the two houses of Parliament discussed the Lokpal issue in terms of the compromise formula and adopted by acclaim a sense-of-the-house statement which conveyed agreement in principle with three points on which Hazare had sought assurances. This will now go to the standing committee which will look at draft prepared by various civil society groups besides the government bill.

Credit is due to the government, the BJP and Team Anna for resolving the conflict without damage to the constitutional provisions. However, there will be a lot of arguments in the coming days over the nature of the commitment Parliament has made.

Anna Hazare declared after breaking the fast that he would not rest until all the changes he was looking for were achieved. This leaves open the possibility of his returning to haunt the political class. He also indicated that he would now take up the issue of electoral reform, which, like the Lokpal legislation, has been talked about for decades with little action.

It may not be necessary for India’s political class to worry about a Twitter-driven revolution but it certainly will face new challenges if it does not refine its ability to feel the pulse of the people and fulfil their aspirations.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 29, 2011