Test of honesty for the judiciary or an ode on its demise?

The following is a statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The contempt of court proceedings initiated against Advocate Prashant Bushan in the Supreme Court of India for the allegations he made against some of the former Chief Justices of the country will test the maturity of India's judicial system and that of its democratic framework. Indeed the Court has a statutory right to initiate proceedings against anyone, suo motu or through a petition presented before it. So have Prashant, and every other citizen in the country, a right to express their opinion of what they believe is to be true. Unfortunately, the tainted image of the Indian judiciary is one among them, whether the judges like it or not.

In an interview with Thelka magazine, published on 5 September 2010, Prashant alleged, "… that out of the last 16 to 17 Chief Justices, half have been corrupt". Through an Amicus Curiae petition filed by a lawyer, Mr. Harish Salve, the Supreme Court of India issued notice to Prashant asking him to show cause why his statement and opinion should not be treated as 'contempt of court'.

Prashant's affidavit filed in reply to the contempt proceedings reiterate, explain and further name some of the 'tainted' judges. All of those who have been named, to clear their name if they can, must undergo a thorough investigation and a public trial by an impartial tribunal. Indeed it is to be seen whether the Indian judiciary, or any other democratic institution worthy of its salt and name (as democratic) will be willing to take this 'risk'.

Prashant's original opinion, further reiterated and explained in his affidavit is nothing but a detailed narration of the reasons why the average Indian fear that the country's judiciary, in particular its Apex Court, has become unworthy of the maxim it claims to uphold, 'Yaddo Dharmastho Jayah', the Sanskrit equivalent of fiat justitia ruat caelum. Indeed Prashant being a lawyer, is privileged to possess 'written, documentary and oral' evidence to substantiate his apprehensions than the aam admi (ordinary person), who face the worst brunt, should the judiciary of the country, the working for which his tax money is used is indeed corrupt.

Judiciary's negation of every attempt to bring 'fresh air and light into (its) dark and dusty corridors of power' has become its deplorable character during the past decade. By preventing all attempts to bring transparency in the functioning of the court, ranging from the question of appointment of judges to the applicability of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the Indian judiciary has behaved in such fashion as if it has indeed embarrassing things to hide behind its elevated dais where the most paid and immune jurists in the largest democracy of the world are seated. These attempts have reduced the Indian judiciary into despicable situations where on one occasion it had a serving judge, transferred and later elevated to the Apex Court while unambiguous allegations of material corruption were made against him based on which there was an audit objection and an impeachment proceeding. The Supreme Court also had the unique opportunity to direct its own Registrar to file an ap peal against the order of a subordinate court, the Delhi High Court, in the Supreme Court, so that it could affirm the absoluteness of its impunity against public accountability at the expense of the taxpayer's money.

The Court has also the record of 'legally and fatally injuring' everyone who dared to suggest that the 'king is naked' using its sword of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. This law, based on a medieval mental framework, has no place in a democracy, like a judiciary that despises transparency and decries accountability.

The allegation Prashant has made is just not an Indian issue. For instance a former Chief Justice of India, Mr. A. M. Ahmedi, was nominated to serve in international committees. He was appointed to look into human rights violations in East Timor by the United Nations, to assist the judiciary in Liberia by the International Court of Justice, and has been requested to review the state of relations between the judiciary, the legal profession and the executive and violation of human rights in Zimbabwe by the International Bar Association. Any argument that Ahmedi would do justice to the victims of human rights violations in foreign lands, while he has allegedly robbed the same for sheer self-interest and greed from his countrymen (and women) does not hold water. Ahmedi's case is just one among many that must be investigated.

It is often said that making public statements of the above nature against the judiciary of a country is immature. Some may ask, will such statements help in sorting out the mess that has now surfaced? Is it not amateur and nonprofessional to say these things in such emphatic tone? The Asian Human Rights Commission believes that the professionalism of the civil society is demonstrated in its ability to raise timely questions of rule of law, with an expectation that it would generate a worthy public debate in the country where it is engaged.

Unfortunately, most of India's media are observing their characteristic silence on the issue. They have apparently perfected their art of stirring public opinion for the wrong cause using all the wrong methods, as they demonstrated in dealing with the parliament attack case, where they proved the case against the 'suspects', parroting the confession statement of the accused, extracted by some of the dreaded criminals wearing police uniforms, who practiced some of the most inhuman methods upon the accused, including torture. Indeed the Indian judiciary convicted the accused, despite the prosecution failing to prove their case, an act by which the judiciary too reiterated that pride and speculation rules above justice.

The AHRC supports and congratulates Prashant Bushan for the bold initiative that he has taken by calling for openness and transparency in one of the most immune public institutions of the world. It is now the responsibility of India's civil society to wake up from its slumber and augment this process of fastening public accountability to one of India's oldest constitutional institutions. It is the primary responsibility of the lawyers and judges who believes in the rule of law and democracy to publically support the process Prashant has initiated.

The AHRC requests everyone to sign an online petition created for the purpose.

To say the least, if the allegations made by Prashant do not lead into an impartial, prompt and public investigation, it has to be believed that the democracy is dead in India.

* The affidavit filed by Prashant Bushan is available here.
* The affidavit filed by Santhi Bushan is available here.
* The online petition can be accessed here.

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984

For India no more Business as Usual

GIRISH BHASKAR

India ‘s reputation has suffered a major setback as it prepares for the upcoming Commonwealth Games (CWG) in New Delhi. Allegations of corruption are for now kept on the back burner. Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England have threatened to pull out of the games for lack of adequate sanitary conditions at the athletes village. Only after intense pressure from major participating countries, did the Governement go into frenetic action to salvage further damage to its reputation.

India was awarded the rights to host the CWG seven years ago. The total cost is now estimated to run over $ 6 billion. Some Indians saw a golden opportunity to make a fast buck. Allegations of corruption first appeared in the press about 2 months ago. To save face the Government decided to look into allegations after completion of the games. Will the government be impartial in conducting the enquiry? A parliamentary committee of political parties should go into all aspects of the corruption. The enquiry should be timely and those responsible for blatant corruption should be sent to jail. Will the press pursue the alleged corruption charges with vigor?

The collapse of a foot bridge connecting the parking lot to the Nehru stadium and the damage to the canopy adjoining the stadium have caused injuries to several construction workers and police officers. These two incidents should be seen as symptomatic of what has gone wrong in public sector construction. In its eagerness to make a tidy profit, construction companies cut corners. Behind such shoddy work is rampant corruption that prevails in the industry. Organizers perhaps get 10% of the cut for turning a blind eye. Will criminal charges be brought against the construction company for causing serious injury to the people and giving a bad name to the country? Now why should construction companies employ child labor? Why did Organizing Committeee Chairman, Suresh Kalmadi remain silent when such practices were taking place? Westen countries see child labor with disdain.

Indian authorities had seven years to prepare for the games. When India was awarded the games for 2010, some Indians had warned that the country was not ready to host such a major event. The Government has to take full responsibily for the inordinate delay in completing the infrastructure. If the Prime Minister had chaired a committee to assess the progress of the construction and met every three months things would have been different. Certainly there was a steady lack of Central government leadership even as the Government poured in billions of dollars.

A major issue that upset many participating countries was the lack of proper hygiene in the athletes village. Westerners generally see Indian cities as filty and lacking in basic amenities. These games would have been a golden opportunity for the government to win the hearts and minds of the athletes and the fans from different countries. Basic hygiene is something that the Indians don’t like to talk about. Politicians rarely mention hygiene and population control. Perhaps this a time for Indians to take a pledge to keep their cities, towns and villages clean. This effort should start at the primary school. For this effort to succeed the elected politicians from the Panchayat to Parliament should take the lead.

When fear grips people, reasoning power vanishes rapidly. Fear of a terror attack, fear of dengue fever and fear of substandard living conditions at the Games village quickly spread throughout world like a wild fire. In a country where threat perception remains high, is it prudent to spend large amount of money on security? Many top athletes from different countries have backed out at the last minute for the reasons mentioned above.

When it comes to competitive sporting events India has been a laggard. India needs to invest heavily to detect and groom sport talents. While China has made remarkable progress in all fields, India’s development has been scrappy. China has shown the world that they can build world class roads, bridges, and trains. Chinese oversaw the best summer Olympics ever held. Will India ever be ready for the Olympics in our lifetime?

Girish Bhaskar writes for Bhaskar News Service

British example of treating caste as an aspect of race

AVINASH PANDEY

Britain, in a major victory for the movement against caste based discrimination and atrocities, can soon declare caste prejudice unlawful under laws against racial discrimination becoming the first country of the world to do so. The development was imminent in the wake of the fact that the House of Lords had already passed the Equality Bill empowering the government to treat caste as 'an aspect of race' in March this year leaving just one more step of getting it passed by the House of Commons to be enacted as law.

The victory has come as a result of the valiant struggle of the Dalit groups along with members of the broader civil society against the exploitative and oppressive system of caste, amidst tremendous opposition of the Indian government and the right wing Hindu groups based in Britain.

The significance of the development lies in the fact that it has taken almost a decade to come since 2001 when the Government of India had succeeded in botching up the attempt of the Dalit Rights Group together with the broader civil society to make caste based discrimination an aspect of racial discrimination at the Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The Government of India claimed the caste issues as ‘internal matter of India’ and asserted that they were making all attempts to put an end to caste based discrimination.

What it forgot in doing that was its own, and glorious, role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. If caste issues are an internal matter of India, would not apartheid be an internal issue of the governments of apartheid-era South Africa? So why did India play a crucial role in mobilising the world opinion against apartheid?

The government of India tried to further substantiate its claim by asserting the caste issues as intra-racial and intra-cultural even while conceding the existence of discrimination. Soli Sorabjee, the then Attorney General of India, maintained that the only reason behind India’s attempt to keep caste discrimination off the agenda of Durban Conference was that “it will distract participants from the main topic: racism”. Even while conceding that caste discrimination in India is 'undeniable' he stressed that 'caste and race are entirely different'.

It could very well be. After all, no two systems of social stratification in this world are absolutely similar to each other. A lot of factors, from culture to economy, intercede with the systems of stratification to produce the division of power and hierarchy in the society and make the systems, in the process, absolutely distinct from one another in internal structure. The crucial question, however, is not about their distinctiveness but their efficacy in maintaining and safeguarding social hierarchies.

Sadly, Indian caste system has proved itself to be one of the worst, if not the worst, system of social stratification for maintaining and perpetuating social hierarchies. Most probably, humankind has never devised a more comprehensive system of keeping a section of society under perpetual subjugation amidst inhuman conditions. It has never devised a worse way of dehumanising fellow human beings and reducing them to being mere labour force devoid of any dignity leave aside rights. Everything said and done, when it comes to committing atrocities on people, the caste system has proved itself to be far more clinical in brutalising its victims than race and not less.

The argument of the Indian government that caste based discrimination should not be included under the category of racial discrimination because it is making serious progress in the issue by having protective laws and positive discrimination fails miserable in the wake of data produced by its own agencies.

For example, the number of crimes against people belonging to the Scheduled Castes as per records of the National Crime Records Bureau of India, a body of ministry of Home Affairs, went up to 33615, an increase of more than 2 percent from the preceding year. Or the fact that the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act does not get applied even in such ghoulish cases of caste based atrocities as in the killing of a Dalit family in Khairlanji while committing brutal rapes on the women speaks volumes about the seriousness of the efforts of the government.

The second argument of Indian government, unfortunately backed by a few leading sociologists, was that since 'race' is a not a meaningful biological category in India and all attempts of profiling different castes along racial lines have fallen flat. Their claim is that even if caste is based on descent it is entirely different from race.

Even if the discrimination against the Dalits is intra-racial, the consequences for them are no less brutal than that in racism. On a more fundamental level, the lack of 'scientific' evidence may prove the absence of 'race' in India but not the absence of 'racism', an ideological structure based on the belief of superiority of some people because of birth and inferiority of others because of the same! And there is no doubt that this ideology is becoming stronger day by day despite all the attempts of Indian government to put an end to this ‘evil’ practice.

The seriousness of the government on the issue speaks for itself in its acts. After all, the government's dogged opposition to the inclusion of caste based discrimination does not come out of some failure to understand the ground realities out of sheer ignorance. It reflects the mindset and the psyche of the government and the people manning it. The stand of the government emanates from that pre-modern, barbaric and regressive social structure of caste that rules the country under its democratic façade. A facade that gets exposed more often than not by the deeds of all organs of the state, including its judiciary.

It is hard to believe that even judiciary can do that but even a cursory glance on its track records bear out the fact. Be it the highly misogynist and casteist verdict in Mathura rape case ((Tukaram V. State of Maharshtra, AIR 1979 SC 185) when the Supreme Court overruled the decision of the Bombay High Court convicting two policemen for raping Mathura, a 16-year-old girl because of the fact that the girl was an ‘illiterate and orphaned tribal girl’ and was of loose character by implication to the recent verdict of Maharashtra High Court in Khairlanji massacre, the judiciary has proved itself complicit in letting the government off its responsibility of abolishing caste based discrimination.

At times, ubfortunately, it has went all the distance to be part of the perpetuators ad not only accomplices of caste discrimination. Like in the infamous and stinking observation of the trial judge in the Bhanwari Devi rape case in 1995 that because Hindu scriptures do not allow upper caste men to touch a low caste woman, the accused could not have raped the Dalit victim. This case and many others have put our constitution to shame.

And that is why, compartmentalising the issue of caste into the 'scientific' and 'cultural' aspects and then prioritising the scientific ones to assert that caste is not race is not only incorrect but in fact a deceitful attempt to violate the spirit of the constitution of India if not the letters itself, and should be fought against from within and outside.

As a matter of fact, the meaning of the term 'descent' has been expanded to include 'discrimination based on caste' ,by the general recommendation number 29, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1969. Indian government will do well to remember that it is a signatory to that convention along with more than 170 other countries.

It will also do well to take note of the fact that the lives of more than 165 million citizens is not a question of intellectual theorising over whether race is caste or not before putting its act together and cracking down on all forms of caste atrocities decisively. By then, it can begin with accepting that caste is a form of racial discrimination, at least of racism if not of the 'pure' (in the Brahiminical sense) biological category of race!

Meanwhile, lets us all support the British Dalits in safeguarding their hard won victory against the demon of caste, threatened by the right wing Hindu organisation in Britain as well as Indian government which is, reportedly, trying to arm-twist the British government into not intervening in its 'internal' matter. Making that absurd claim amounts to appropriating anything relating to Hindu religion as ‘internal’ and caste serious aspersions on the secular credentials of Indian state. Does Indian government want to claim that all issues concerning Hindus are its ‘internal’ issues, throwing all its secular pretensions away?

After all, caste based atrocities have long ceased to confine themselves in Indian subcontinent. If the gory facts about honour killings taking place in Britain and Canada among other places were not proof enough, the recent killing of a Sikh religious leader belong to the Ravidasi sect (a Dalit sect) in Vienna leaves no scope for doubts about the same.

We can begin by standing by the policy and reminding the Indian government not to meddle in the internal issues of Britain, as it is dealing with an issue concerning its citizens and has nothing to do with a ‘secular’ India. Further, no government can sit idle when caste issues lead to illegal confinements, abductions, forced marriages, and even killings. It is the Indian state which has failed to contain the demon of caste, leave aside killing it, and it has no right to demand the same indifference and disdain for human life from a sovereign state for such a pressing issue.

Avinash Pandey, alias Samar, a research scholar based in New Delhi, is currently in Hong Kong on assignment with the Asian Human Rights Commission, which has distributed this article. He can be contacted at samaranarya@gmail.com

Right to Food Campaign seeks expansion of PDS

The following is a statement issued by the Steering group of the Right to Food Campaign and forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The Right to Food Campaign welcomes the Supreme Court's firm stance on food grains left to rot in godowns and their efforts to force the Government to take action. With a growing food emergency in the country and rampant spiraling prices, this is a step in the right direction. The Court has also suggested that instead of using the 2000 population figures to decide on the number of people under the Below the Poverty Line (BPL), the projected population figures for 2010 should be used for distribution of food grains. This will lead to an expansion of the number of people being covered and we welcome this move.

We would however like to express our apprehensions about the court’s view regarding doing away with Above the Poverty Line (APL). Limiting the percentage of people covered under the BPL to only 36% has meant that huge numbers of the hungry get left out. The Planning Commission has also shown high targetting errors in the BPL list with more than 50 percent of the actual poor BPL families being left out of these lists. With the present situation of runaway prices of food grains, and a nutritional and food emergency in the country, abolishing a system of subsidised food grains for those who are outside the BPL list will result in many going hungry. It is a proven fact that the adoption of universal coverage in distribution of grain is the only measure that will prevent exclusion of the poor. In the present scenario at least those poor who have been excluded from the BPL must have the right to avail of the APL grain, which is at less than half the market price of grain. We endorse the positions by the SC Commissioners and the Government of India on retaining the APL.

It is also our belief that for ensuring food security the Government needs to procure more grain. It needs to double the present procurement, which is only 25 % of the total production. We also believe that local procurement ought to be encouraged. This would not only reduce transport costs but also ensure better management of grain storage. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) needs to improve its storage systems and local bodies (including Panchayat) managed storage systems ought to be put in place. Instead of asking the Government to reduce procurement to present storage capacity, we would instead request the court to ask for an expansion in decentralized storage capacity and procurement so that public provisioning of subsidised food grains is expanded and strengthened.

We are also concerned about the Court’s suggestion to introduce fortified atta instead of wheat. Replacing wheat with atta will lead to more corruption due to central processing of the wheat by private flour mills. Flour, has a shelf life of only a fortnight, as compared to wheat, which can last for upto an year. It is also difficult for consumer to discern the quality of atta as compared to the quality of food.

Regarding the Government’s decision of 2 September 2010 to release 2.5 million excess food stocks for the next six months, we suggest that the grain be distributed in the following manner:

• Expansion of Antyodaya food grain entitlements (35 kilograms at Rs. 3/kg for rice and Rs. 2/kg for wheat) and to all rural households (APL, BPL or Antyodaya) for an initial period of two years in all districts that were declared as drought-affected in 2009 or are so declared in 2010.

• Extension of Antyodaya cards and entitlements forthwith to all the priority groups without any quota/ limit on the number of households living at the risk of hunger as per the order of the Government of India dated 3rd August 2004; Order No. F.13(22)/2001/CFS(D)/Vol.III/1033, which was issued on the basis of the SC order of 2nd May 2004 in the PUCL case 196/2001. This stipulates that, amongst others, all landless agriculture labourers, marginal farmers, rural artisans/craftsmen, slum dwellers, and daily wage earners in rural or urban areas should be given Antodaya cards.

• The Antyodaya category also includes households headed by widows, single women, children or terminally ill persons or disabled persons or persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support, persons living with HIV/AIDS, homeless persons, transgender, and all primitive tribal households. Antyodaya cards and entitlements should be extended to all such people without any quota or limit on the number of people.

We urge the Supreme Court to ensure that all these households receive the full quota of 35 kilograms without any restriction on the numbers of such households so long as they meet the criteria set above by the Government of India order.

We would request the court to maintain the APL quota till such time as the Government expands the Public Food Distribution System (PDS) to cover most people in country.

The Government’s decision to release of 2.5 million tonnes of food grains will result in an expansion of coverage of people who receive subsidized food grains. In view of the persistence of hunger in the country, we request the Court to ensure that this expansion in coverage is not just for a period of six months but is the first step in the long term expansion to universally cover our population.

We are,

the Steering group of the Right to Food Campaign

Annie Raja (National Federation for Indian Women),
Anuradha Talwar (New Trade Union Initiative),
Arun Gupta (Breast Feeding Promotion Network of India),
Arundhati Dhuru (National People’s Movement of India),
Ashok Bharti (National Conference of Dalit Organizations),
Anjali Bhardwaj,
Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey (National Campaign for People’s Right to Information),
Asha Mishra and Vinod Raina (Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti),
Colin Gonsalves (Human Rights Law Network),
Kavita Srivastava (People’s Union for Civil Liberties),
Mira Shiva and Vandana Prasad (Jan Swasthya Abhiyan),
Paul Diwakar (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights),
Subhash Bhatnagar (National Campaign Committee for Unorganized Sector workers),
Jean Dreze (Allahabad University) and V.B. Rawat
For more information, please contact:

Kavita Srivastava (0141-2594131 or 09351562965),
Anuradha Talwar (09433002064),
Deepika (9560923178),
Sejal Parikh (09560266167),

Secretariat - Right to Food Campaign. C/o PHRN 5 A, Jungi House,
Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110049. India
Website: www.righttofoodindia.org
Email: righttofood@gmail.com
Phone: + 91 11 2649 9563

Remembering Franz Schurmann

By B.R.P. Bhaskar

Franz Schurmann, who passed away in San Francisco on August 20, was a sociologist, historian, political scientist, journalist and futurologist all rolled into one. He could be all these at the same time because he had a scintillating mind which was constantly reviewing the past, observing the present and looking into the future.

Franz did not rely on secondary sources. His desire to get to primary sources led him to study many languages. He could handle a dozen of them.

I had the privilege of being a house guest of Franz and his partner Sandy Close twice. There was a gap of nearly two decades between my two visits to their home. I was amazed by the breadth of his intellectual vision which enabled him to switch interest from one challenging area to another in that period.

Franz was professor of Sociology and History at the University of California at Berkeley and Sandy was his student. I first met Sandy when she stopped in India in 1965 on her way home from Hong Kong where she had worked with the Far Eastern Economic Review for a year. She wanted to see rural India, and I showed her round a couple of villages in Uttar Pradesh.

I first visited Franz and Sandy in 1969 soon after they had set up home. He was a China expert then. He had studied the Chinese language and personally interviewed many refugees from the mainland living in Hong Kong for his book “Organization and Ideology of Communist China”, published the previous year.

At that time the United States administration, aided by an obliging media, was pretending that Taiwan was China and that a band of exiles holed up in that island constituted the government of China. The Nixon presidency was on but the secret Kissinger mission and US recognition of the Beijing regime were yet to come.

Franz was one of the first Americans to realize the folly of the Vietnam War. He visited Hanoi while US planes were bombing the Communist North. The upsurge of peace sentiment among young Americans and media persons’ exposure of crimes which made the war unpopular were yet to come.

When I visited them again in 1988, I found that his focus had shifted from China to the Arab world. Not only the problems that had been haunting the region since long but also the new ones that had arisen in the wake of the oil boom engaged his attention. He had learnt Arabic. He came home in the evening with bundles of Arab newspapers to pore over at night.

A few years ago Franz was in Kerala to lecture on the New China. He had come at the invitation of a leftist organization, which had arranged the talk for the benefit of state leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Franz and Sandy were co-founders of the Pacific News Service, which began operations in 1970. By delving into areas neglected by mainline American newspapers, it quickly gained acceptance as a reliable alternative source of information. As California’s minority population grew, PNS developed into a broad-based ethnic network named New America Media.

Sandy Close, who is Executive Director of NAM, sums up his role in the building of the organization in these words: “Franz was constantly shifting and expanding his lens, drawing on his readings of foreign-language media. PNS would never have made the breakthrough to NAM had it not been for his example.”

Franz’s weekly PNS column “Predictions” provided rare insights into developments across the world. It testified as much to the brilliance of his mind as to the wide range of his interests.

Friends and admirers have opened a Franz Schurmann Memorial Page on Facebook and announced plans to set up a Franz Schurmann Memorial Fund to support freelance journalists on special travel assignments.

Sandy Close’s write-up on Franz Schurmaann in the Berkeley Daily Planet

NAM Senior Editor Andrew Lam’s tribute: A Curious, Restless American Soul

New York Times obituary: Cold War expert on China dies at 84

More tributes and links to selected writings of Franz Schurmann at newamericamedia.org.

There is no cure for illusions, AHRC reminds India

The following is a statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The expectation of the Union Home Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram that the ordinary citizens will come forward to assist law enforcement officers in combating armed militancy and terrorism is unfortunately an illusion. The minister was reiterating his wish and request to his fellow citizens while addressing the top police officers of the country in a meeting organised by the home ministry in New Delhi, today. The Prime Minister is also expected to address the two-day meeting, convened to discuss about terrorism and armed militancy.

It is true that the Union Home Ministry has been consistent in its position of inviting armed groups operating in the country for discussions with the government to end extremist militancy, particularly of the extreme leftist origin. The approach, in theory, indicates the maturity of a government and underscores the importance of dialogue to resolve issues within a democratic framework. It is unfortunate that the Naxalites operating in the country have refused to accept the call, though they have their own reasons to trash the government's requests for dialogues.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is of the opinion that the Naxalites and other armed militia are merely exploiting democratic failures. Unfortunately in India, the list of issues open for exploitation is quite a few, ranging from poverty and malnutrition to loss of livelihood options and brutal forms of caste based discrimination. For a detailed analysis of the issue please read 'Naxalites and Maoists exploit democratic failures', published on May 19, 2010 and 'Maoists will not save the country's poor' published on April 7, 2010.

While it is the duty of a citizen to assist the government and its various agencies to counter anti-national activities, it is equally a citizen's right to expect that the government execute its democratic mandate as promised by the constitution. The government of India has largely failed thus far in complying with this mandate, and governments' failures consistently exploited by corrupt politicians and law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

For instance, the public perception of a police officer is that of a uniformed criminal, paid by the exchequer. The practice of torture is consistent and widespread in the country. In places like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur, extrajudicial executions - encounter killings as it is referred to in India - is rampant. Witness protection is impossible in India due to the absence of any legal framework to provide protection to persons who are willing to depose in courts against criminals.

Going by the widely accepted definition of terrorism - premeditated use or threat of use of violence to obtain political, religious, or ideological ends - the Chief Minister of Manipur, Mr. Okram Ibobi Singh and his government could be prosecuted for engaging in terror acts. So is the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi, who allegedly masterminded the Gujarat pogrom of 2002.

While in Gujarat, the state police was plentifully used to facilitate what could be defined as genocide of Muslims, in Manipur, the state police have become a synonym of terror. Yet, those responsible for injuring and murdering citizens at the behest of their political masters and for sheer corrupt means have been largely left free and allowed to continue in their service. While some police officers in Gujarat faced investigation and prosecution, in Manipur none has been prosecuted yet, though every day the state police, in what is often claimed as encounter killing, reportedly murder some one or the other.

The very fact that despite the murder of an estimated 700 'suspected terrorists' each year in Manipur by the security agencies, armed militancy in that state has not reduced. Going by the state government's own reports, armed militancy in the state has instead increased over the past two years. In this backdrop there are also serious allegations against Ibobi and his government that the Chief Minister is posing terrorism as a means to extract money from the central government in the pretext of countering it.

The extrajudicial executions carried out by the Manipur state police is suspected to be undertaken at the behest of the Chief Minister and his political allies to prove to the union government that they need money to counter terrorism and the statutory impunity in the form of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 to prevent the security agencies from being investigated or prosecuted for their criminal acts. The union government's financial aid that amounts to several millions of rupees each year to the state governments does not require to be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, leaving it to be spend at the absolute whims of the state government.

While the tax money is spent in such fashion, the law enforcement agencies, particularly the state police, continues to remain one of the worst in the world. True, the Indian police might be better in comparison to some of their counterparts in the region. But Indians definitely disserve better.

Yet, it is no one's concern in India to address deep-rooted organisational and performance issues concerning police. Political parties of all colours continue to meticulously resist any attempt to free the police from political control. The police on the other hand let the politicians exploit them and have unilaterally declared their perpetual servitude to the politicians since they also benefit from the resultant cycle of corruption and nepotism. The furore in the Indian parliament about the nuclear bill was not visible when the Torture Prevention Bill 2010 was discussed. On the contrary legislators of all colours tried to water down the already week law. This important piece of legislation is useless if it is enacted in the current form.

The national media also have ignored the subject. There was literally no discussion at all about the proposed Bill against torture in the national press when the Bill was debated in the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha. Today the Bill is pending consideration of the upper house of the parliament, the Rajya Sabha. Yet, none is interested in raising this issue. Those who lament that democracy warrants public discussions on proposed legislations through media articles have remained silent about the complete lack of discussion about the proposed law against torture.

On the contrary, state legislations like the Kerala Police Bill, 2010 are drafted with utter disregard to human rights and fundamental guarantees provided in the constitution. The Union Home Minister has among his participants, Mr. Jacob Punnoose, the author of this unique law, that if enacted will allow even police constables to breach basic privacy of the citizens guaranteed in the constitution. This proposed law too, has been tabled in the state legislative assembly without any public discussion, and trashing a better law proposed by the Kerala Law Reforms Commission chaired by none other than Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer.

The logical question is why is this law against torture so important and what is its connection to the depleting national security? Rampant use of torture is the singular tool with which the police have generated fear among the citizens, that the average citizen today fears to approach the police even when they are in need. It is the absence of a proper investigating and prosecuting mechanism against torture that lets the police resort to torture even in cases where they can investigate crimes with whatever little training and facilities the police have in India today.

While international condemnation of torture today is as serious as that against genocide and other crimes against humanity, a large section of police officers in India today still believe that torturing a suspect is their right and that torture is a legitimate form of punishment and tool for crime investigation. These officers receive support from legislators with the 18th century mindset like Mr. K. Radhakrishnan, the current Speaker of the Kerala Legislative Assembly, who has repeatedly addressed police officers assuring them that in a country like India, third degree methods are required to police the people and that human rights is an 'occupational hazard' for the police.

While expecting and requesting support from the common citizens, the Union Home Minister must also bear in mind that the people from whom the government expects support are so alienated from their police due to the fear the police have generated among the people. For the citizenry there is hardy any difference between the colonial police and that of independent India. Though 1950 gave Indians a democratic socialist republic, the republic still carries the burden of having to be administered with the police and their political masters who operate with a coloniser's mindset.

Calling for people's participation without clearly articulated and enforced police reforms will only result in retarded response from the citizenry. Unless affirmative and visible steps are taken to change the unacceptable status quo, expecting the citizens to perform their duty while the state agencies engage in brutal crimes is sheer illusion.

Researcher who questioned EVM reliability is arrested

Photo: Courtesy www.topnews.in

Hari K. Prasad, Managing Director of Netindia, a research and development firm, has been arrested following his refusal to disclose the source that provided an electronic voting machine to a team of security researchers, according to a report at the SiliconIndia website.

He and other researchers have long questioned the security of India's paperless electronic voting machines.

The Election Commission of India insists that the machines are tamper-proof.

As per the reports Prasad was questioned Saturday morning at his home in Hyderabad by authorities who wanted to know the identity of the source who gave the voting machine to the research team. Prasad was ultimately arrested and taken to Mumbai, though reportedly hadn't been charged with a crime.

In 2009, the commission publicly challenged Prasad to show that India's voting machines could be compromised, but refused to give him access to the machines to perform a review. Earlier this year, an anonymous source provided a machine to a research team led by him. The team exposed security flaws that could allow an attacker to change election results and compromise ballot secrecy. They published a paper detailing their findings.

Human Rights groups point out that the Election Commission should have given researchers access to the voting machines in the first place. Prasad is a respected researcher who helped to discover a critical flaw in India's voting system. He and his fellow researchers would never have been able to document the weaknesses in the voting machines without the help of the anonymous source. This is precisely why anonymity is important: it allows people to make important contributions to the public dialogue without fear of retribution.

Netindia describes itself as an “IP Surveillance & Streaming Systems & Solutions company. The company, based in Hyderabad, was incorporated in February 2000.

Stop communal violence: Nationwide protest on August 25

Jagadish Chandra, Peoples' Solidarity Concerns, Bangalore, writes:

Dear friends,

Perhaps you are aware that the survivors of Kandhamal communal violence are completing two years of misery from the main attacks on August 25, 2010. As per official figures, 38 persons were murdered, more than 600 villages were ransacked, 5,600 houses were looted and burnt and 54,000 people were left homeless. Human rights groups estimate that over 100 people were killed, including women, disabled people, children, Adivasis and Dalits. Three women were gang-raped and many were injured. 295 churches were destroyed. Schools, colleges and even medical institutions were not spared. Thousands of people cannot go back to their villages even now. Many are still living in tents in Kandhamal. Almost all those who are responsible for the violence are either freely moving around or getting acquitted.

Peoples'Solidarity Concerns, a coalition of many groups in Bangalore. believes that it is a shame that even after two years of agony no justice has been delivered to the survivors of Kandhamal communal massacre. Almost all the affected victims are Adivasis and Dalit Christians. The National Solidarity Forum, of which we are also part, has called for a nationwide protest on August 25 to demand justice for the survivors of Kandhamal. In support of this call, Peoples' Solidarity Concerns is calling for a protest in front of the Town Hall in Bangalore at 4.30 pm on August 25. An art exhibition undertaken by two Dalit artists who travelled around in Kandhamal is ready. Those who can organize the exhibition, please contact us. It can be downloaded from the net in A/3 size.

We request all secular friends to actively mobilize and participate in the protest. We request all civil society groups outside Bangalore also to do similar actions in their own respective area since Kandhamal is only a symbol and attacks on the Christians have taken place in over 10 states including Karnataka.

We appeal to all of you to actively isolate the communal and fascistic forces so that no more Kandhamals are repeated anywhere in future.

Jagadish Chandra,
Peoples' Solidarity Concerns, Bangalore.
Ph: 09448394365
email:peoplesconcerns@gmail.com

Have I joined the Popular Front?

J. Devika

In the past few weeks, I have been asked over and over again, not always in jest, if I had joined the Popular Front. I am not surprised. The police investigation around the violence against the college teacher at Muvattupuzha has broken all previous records in not only the violation of human and civil rights, but also in the silence of Kerala’s enlightened intellectuals. If I recall right, only Nandigram evoked such a dense and deliberate silence from them. No wonder, anyone who speaks up against the manner in which the police is being armed and authorized against ‘bad muslims’ is immediately dubbed a supporter of the Popular Front. But I am intrigued by this simple question, by which the entire history of that person’s engagement with discussions around religion and the state is erased.

For the rest of the article, please go to Kafila

Is Justice K.G. Balakrishnan holding a devil's brief, asks ALRC

The following is a statement issued by the Asian Legal Resources Centre (ALRC), Hong Kong:

The opinion expressed by Justice K. G. Balakrishnan on encounter killings - a euphemism for extrajudicial executions in India - that 'encounter killings' are sometimes unavoidable is condemnable. That the former Chief Justice of India, now heads the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), paints a depressing picture for the victims of extrajudicial executions since the Chairperson has spoken his mind.

Addressing the press earlier this week, Justice Balakrishnan said that "... encounters are unavoidable sometimes ... the law and order problem is increasing. Criminals are taking law into their hands, attacking even the police. Police have to take control of the situation." Indeed he offered a concession by adding that there must be checks and balances to ensure that fake encounters do not take place.

To justify his position and elaborating his argument that extrajudicial executions could solve law and order issues, the Chairperson cited examples of the extrajudicial executions of persons suspected to be involved with the Mumbai underworld gangs and those alleged as Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh. Least to say, these comments are irresponsible and unbecoming of a judicial officer and public servant mandated to chair the NHRC, an institution that hundreds of victims approach seeking redress in cases of extrajudicial executions.

Certainly, the Chairperson of the NHRC is oblivious about the global condemnation of the summary execution policies followed by the US and the UK - two countries he quoted as having successfully implemented similar policies - and the draconian laws these countries have legislated to justify the killing of foreigners in alien soil in their fight against terrorism. Justice Balakrishnan is certainly unaware that states like Manipur and Kashmir have nothing in common with the UK or the US. Nor has he cared to understand the universal jurisprudence behind the strong views taken by the House of Lords in R v. Magee against draconian legislations and arbitrary methods that deny fair trail even against the most dreaded suspect. For sure, Justice Balakrishnan has not come across the words of US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who served as chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, convincing President Harry Truman that '(w)e could execute or otherwise punish (the Nazi leaders) without a hearing. But undiscriminating executions or punishments without definite findings of guilt, fairly arrived at, would ... not set easily on the American conscience or be remembered by children with pride." What justifies Justice Balakrishnan's departure from this universal norm of justice and fairness or is he proposing that Indians disserve a lower standard of justice than the Europeans and the Americans or suggesting India to follow the so-called Sri Lankan model?

The comment by Justice Balakrishnan, condoning extrajudicial execution makes a travesty of the country's justice framework. It is a challenge and insult upon the intellect of the average Indians who are apparently more informed about the country's police and the manner in which they operate than their former Chief Justice. The country's media is filled with news of the arrest and questioning of the former home minister of Gujarat state who is accused to have ordered extrajudicial executions of his former partner in an extortion syndicate and his wife. If it is for the country's police to decide who is a convict, who must be punished and by what means, then the institution Justice Balakrishnan led prior to assuming office at the NHRC, the Supreme Court of India and its subordinate courts, and the NHRC itself must be closed down.

Justice Balakrishnan's understanding about the Mumbai killings and the Andhra Pradesh Naxalite killings is seriously flawed. Extrajudicial executions are not a solution to law and order issues. Had it been so, Mumbai must have been free from criminal gangs and Naxalism should be history. States like Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir where extrajudicial executions happen routinely should have been a safe place to live in.

It is important for Justice Balakrishnan to introspect about how much does he know regarding the extent of extrajudicial executions happening in the country each year; as a former judge, the current Chairperson of the NHRC and above all as an Indian who is offered information through various means concerning what is daily happening in the country. Can Justice Balakrishnan guarantee that the government will follow the instructions issued by the Supreme Court of India and the NHRC concerning arrest, detention and extrajudicial executions?

Forget about extrajudicial executions. While Justice Balakrishnan was the Chief Justice of India in how many cases did he initiate suo motu actions against the police officers who were reportedly engaged in open violation of the directives issued by the Court in the D. K. Basu case? In how many cases did the NHRC demand from the government the report the governments are mandated to file in each case of extrajudicial execution? The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) is aware that the NHRC has done so only in a very few instances.

What proof does the Chairperson have to form an opinion that in 'those cases that he considers are unavoidable' the victims were shot dead as an absolute necessity? In how many cases did the Chairperson have the opportunity to adduce evidence and adjudicate as a judge concerning the 'essentiality of a murder committed by a police officer to maintain control' and in how many of these cases did the Chairperson find that the officer was discharging his lawful duty by killing a suspect? To say the least, based on what statistics, study or information does the Chairperson advocate that extrajudicial execution is sometimes necessary?

The comment demonstrates a way of thinking. It is the mindset prevalent among the country's ruling and the educated classes. They think of serious abuses of human rights like extrajudicial executions, disappearances and torture as unavoidable. This mentality allows the police and other law enforcement agencies to engage in these acts with the excuse that these are unavoidable evils. This outlook demonstrates the lack of appreciation and the understanding of law, the inability to grasp the requirements of a strategy that is required to create a framework of rule of law and constitutionality; and also the absence of the commonsense to realize that to say something is unavoidable is to make it permissible.

That it should come from the former Chief Justice and the present Chairperson of the NHRC explains the reasons for India's failure to eradicate the deep evils that obstructs its constitutional system. Replacement of persons who possess this kind of mindset with a new leadership that is suitable for the challenges faced by India is a requirement for the very survival of the country as a law-abiding nation.

Justice Balakrishnan owes an apology to the country. His statement condoning extrajudicial execution negates the premises of the constitution that he has sworn allegiance to protect and fulfil. Through the statement he has proved that his legal intellect is unfit of leading a national institution that is mandated to protect, promote and fulfil human rights.

The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organization of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at the local and national levels throughout Asia.

Because Khairlanji is not just another murder story!

AVINASH PANDEY

The recent verdict of the Bombay High Court in the Khairlanji massacre case convicting all the accused to life imprisonment could have been a welcome one and gone a long way in restoring ordinary people's faith in the country's justice system and its rule of law framework. It could have marked a historic juncture in the life of the nation announcing that the rule of law has firmly established itself despite all the inadequacies the country's justice system demonstrates both in crime investigation and in trial. It could have ensured that Dalits and the other underprivileged groups will face no discrimination at least within the judicial system.

For these reasons, the verdict was long awaited. And in its final coming, it proved highly inadequate and farcical, rightfully outraging the civil society. The outrage, though, is highly misplaced. The failure of justice is not rooted in the commuting of the death sentence of six convicts into life terms for 25 years, as capital punishment is unacceptable in any civilized society. It is indeed painful to see some of the most genuine civil society members decrying the commuting and demanding death sentence for the accused.

Retributive justice is no justice and no studies have confirmed any 'deterrence effect' of capital punishment. Rather any statics bears out the fact that it is used mostly against the poorest and the weakest sections of the society. In that it emerges as an official version of mob-lynching with the poorest of the Indian society often being the worst victims.

For the same reason, the death sentence announced by the session's court in this case was no victory for social justice. The judge has held the case as 'revenge murder' and citing the same, had refused to invoke the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The judge, seemingly, was convinced by the prosecution's poor case augmented by shoddy investigation with arguments to pass off the case as one of mere revenge killing.

The travesty of justice lies here. The 2006 massacre was not just another among 32481 reported cases of murder tucked in the pages of the statistical records of the National Crime Records Bureau. Nor was it just one of 19348 reported cases of rape (though the charges of rape were not invoked by the court). The gravity of the case did not lie in its being a gory instance of a mob bludgeoning a full family to death while also raping women and mutilating their bodies.

It was a massacre to uphold the feudal values in a modern, democratic India. The perpetrators had not massacred the family in a fit of rage. Their anger was not momentary. It did not emanate from any personal enmity. The family had not done anything to provoke or to tick them off. The only 'crime' the Bhotmanges had committed was making efforts to escape the low social status ascribed to their earlier untouchable caste. The fact that they were trying to come out of the dehumanised existence Dalits have been condemned to for centuries was a provocation enough for the killers belonging to the dominant castes.

That the prosecution tried its best to destroy the evidences concerning caste based atrocities and did not press the PoA Act shows the systematic and institutionalised nature of casteism. Further, the fact that the massacre took place in full public view and yet there was no opposition to the killings shows how deeply ingrained the ideology of caste is.

Further not bringing these spectators, complicit in the crime by acts of omission at least if not commission, to books show how state institutions tolerate caste-based atrocities or actually are conduit with them. The case proves that it is in fact the pre-modern, barbaric and regressive social structure of caste that rules under the democratic facade of the Indian nation and that the idea of modernity is a mere superimposition upon this primitive mode of social organisation. It reminds us that Indians are decades, if not centuries, away from achieving the goals we had set for ourselves on the night we made a tryst with destiny, the goal of becoming a sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic republic.

In this sense, Khairlanji is a negation of the very idea of India and its democracy. It is an assault on the basic principles the country is based upon. It shows what kind of a decayed and deficient democracy we have evolved into.

Unfortunately, Khairlanji is no isolated case of some rogue elements in Indian society going insane. Rather it is just one among many like Jhajjar, Haryana where five Dalits were lynched on the suspicion of trading in cows to Patan, Gujrat where a Dalit girl was gang raped and put into submission in the teacher's training school.

But then, till now the response of the Indian state and its civil society too has remained the same. Of getting outraged, making lot of noises and then forgetting the issue till another such gory incident occurs. And precisely because of that, Khairlanji should shake us out of the deep slumber and make us introspect, and act, to put an immediate end to caste based atrocities. By dealing not only with the perpetrators, but also silent spectators approving the incident, cracking down on illegal institutions like Khap panchayats legitimising caste. That would serve as a bigger deterrence than death sentence, as the caste communities will get to know that all of them would be punished and not only the 'heroes' carrying out their dictats!

Killing the demon of caste was the primary wish and clarion call of Dr BabaSaheb Ambedkar, the father of our Constitution, lest we forget.

Avinash Pandey alias Samar is a research scholar from India, currently stationed in Hong Kong at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He can be contacted at samaranarya@gmail.com

This article has been distributed by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Assault on Professor Joseph: an ode to Indian democracy

AVINASH PANDEY

Rarely do individual tragedies reflect all that is wrong in a society. Even rare are occasions where their implications go beyond the lives of the individual, his family, or the neighborhood. But, when they do, they assume a significance that has bearings on the history of the community and the society.

The recent attack on a college professor in Kerala comes under the category. The attack is no doubt tragic. The fact that it happened in front of his family is worse. The brutality of chopping the palm off the teacher has scarred the psyche of the family, scars that will probably never be erased. The significance of the event, however, does not lie in the personal tragedy inflicted upon the family by a gang of criminals. It goes much beyond the family, the town where they live, and the state of Kerala.

The attack, rather, is a marker of the times to come in India. Times when freedoms guaranteed by the constitution will cease to be guarantees and convert into empty words devoid of any meaning, buried deep down the pages of a book no one uses anymore.

Or these dark undemocratic times have already descended and the attack is just a grim reminder of that?

The details of the case point to nothing if not this. The attack did not emanate from any personal enmity. The intent was not only to hurt, or to kill, but also to terrorize everyone. That is why the assailants decided to attack him in full public view. The most bizarre thing about the attack, however, is the motive and not any of the above. The assailants allegedly belonged to the Popular Front of India, a fundamentalist Islamic political organization. They were incensed at a paper allegedly having a blasphemous conversation between God and Muhammad, set by the professor for the examinations of the private missionary run college.

Just that nothing in the conversation pointed to the Muhammad being referred to as the Prophet Muhammad. Yet, there was a boycott of the papers and protest rallies were promptly organized. Realizing the electoral ramifications of the controversy, the state government sprung into action and directed the college administration to suspend him. It goes without saying that the government did it without any proper inquiry. Yet the real question is a little more startling, that in what capacity a secular and socialist (literally as Kerala is ruled by an alliance led by the Communist Party of India Marxist) state directed a private institution to suspend a professor in absence of any enquiry, internal or by the state agencies.

The travesty of the justice and abuse of state institutions did not stop at that. The suspension of the professor was followed by a police case against him for 'hurting religious sentiments' and death threats issued by fundamentalist Islamic groups. Further, the police issued 'wanted' posters against the professor who had gone into hiding precisely because of the reluctance of the police to provide him with security in the face of death threats. But maybe we are just cribbing too much. Maybe it is the discretion of the police whether to provide security to a person or not, especially if the person is accused irrespective of the facts of the case.

Just when we might think that things could not go worse than this, they went. As if failing to provide security to professor and bringing the culprits to books was not enough, the police did go all the way wrong, post attack as well. The first thing the police did, as per media reports was convincing the Church leaders about their earnest pursuit of the attackers. The Hindu, one of the most respected news papers of India quoted T. Vikram, the Superintendent of Police, Ernakulam Rural, saying: "We have talked to church leaders to convince them that an all-out effort is being made to nab the culprits."

A person like me with limited understanding of democracy may wonder how the Church leaders enter the scene and why exactly a senior ranking police officer was trying to convince 'them' about the 'all-out efforts' the police was making to nab the culprits. This was a criminal assault after all and the police are required to do their job. To gather the evidence and produce the suspects for trial is in essence what policing is. Further, they should investigate the attack in all details, including the role of instigators and not only the perpetrators. They should have done all this, further, without even thinking of the identity of the victims and that of the perpetrators.

Is not the political identity of being a 'citizen' the crucial and decisive one in a democracy? Does not the Indian constitution guarantees the same while criminalizing any kind of discrimination based on any of the exclusive innate identities attached to a person, like those of caste, religion or ethnicity? And does not the very act of convincing church leaders in this case prove that the trail must have been going cold more often than not in cases where neither the victim nor the case has high profile.

The question what the police will do after nabbing the suspects and getting them convicted comes up here. Will the police apologize to the leaders of Muslim community in case all the accused happen to be Muslims, as is most likely? This sounds absurd but then this very absurdity is the hallmark of the Indian criminal justice system. Where a criminal is not just a criminal, but has an identity to invoke and dodge the law.

The legal course-of-action should be very clear. Anyone, and just about anyone, violating the law of the land should be dealt with firmly. Further, citizenship should be the only identity recognized by the law, accepting none other barring those of deprived sections constitutionally mandated for positive discrimination.

The case, therefore, should have been treated as an outright case of criminal and murderous assault and investigated like that only. Further, the investigation should have tried investigating the roles of instigators as well and to bring the whole ring of such exclusivist and fundamentalist religious fanatics to books as they pose a grave threat to the very ethos of the country.

All this discussion makes it very clear that the police had no business of convincing the religious leaders. But they did it. So, the question arises whether they are, in fact, responsible or at least answerable to religious leaders? De facto if not de jure. And if they are, leaders of which religion are they answerable to? Or, are they answerable to leaders of all religion? They are, or at least seem to be. In that case what will be the line of action in cases of communal/ religious riots?
There was nothing new in the Kerala police's action. Police forces across the country have done the same. Right from being biased in favour of one particular religion, they have presided over the genocidal attacks of one religion on another. The way Delhi police acted in 1984 when murderous Hindu crowds butchered Sikhs, in the name of taking revenge for the killing of Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, by her Sikh bodyguards. The government in charge of Delhi police was led by Indian National Congress, the party the slain prime minister belonged to.

Disgusting it may sound, but that was still better than what Gujarat police did in 2002 pogrom of Muslims by murderous Hindu crowds belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh(RSS) and its affiliates. This time they did not assist the pogrom just by looking away. Rather, they actually supported it by stopping the Muslims from trying to escape the attacks. They did this by firing, actually firing, at Muslim victims running for their lives. Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of the RSS, was in the government.

The Orissa police did this in 2008. Christians were the target this time though the perpetrators remained the same. The riots took place apparently for revenging the killing of a Hindu sadhu belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, another RSS affiliate, allegedly by the Maoists. The police looked the other way again. Rather as per several victims, the police were quite friendly with them. The province was being ruled by an alliance of BJP and Biju Janata Dal, a regional political party.

These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. The gross ones. In all of these cases, the riots were led by the ruling party itself, which controls the police. Apparently, the police cannot go against their political bosses. For every riot this huge, there are hundreds if not thousands of small localized attacks on minorities.

Most of these attacks are supported, if not organized, by the local government and the police. And that is done for a simple reason, for democracy. This may sound weird to untrained ears but then this is it. These riots are organized to mobilize communal passions. The communal passion in turn animates communities herding together. And that translates into votes for the leadership of 'democratic' parties.

The governments, therefore, need the religious leaders, especially of the highly sectarian nature as mobilizing communal passion will be very difficult without them. And the numbers would follow the age-old dictum, the more the merrier, as there would be as many fault lines to play with as there are religions/sects/denominations. What else can explain the best political scientists of the country explain every election in the biggest democracy of the world, right from the village council to the parliamentary ones, in terms of caste, sect and religious and ethnic breakups of the constituencies. Forget that these were precisely the identities that should play no role in any democratic process, leave aside elections.

But then, India is a democracy more than half of whose parliamentarians have serious criminal charges against them. Where a chief minister of a rich state organizes and presides over a pogrom of Muslims to win an election and retains his chair. It is a democracy where the same chief minister mocks the commission appointed by the Supreme Court of the country for looking into the pogrom. It is a democracy where half of the top leadership of the main opposition party would have been behind the bars for inciting communal frenzy and destabilizing peace.

The systemic and systematic cultivation of mechanisms to find loopholes in the legal system and exploit them to escape punishment for one's crimes makes the flawed democracy India has evolved into. The failure of the system has resulted in the police evolving as the extra arm of the ruling parties which is often used to terrorize the opposition. The injustices committed by the police lead to the alienation of whole communities from the system, leading to their taking recourse to extremism. Can one forget incidents like the Mumbai police lining up more than a thousand Muslim youth immediately after the blasts that rocked the city? Or the fact that there had been no action or even an inquiry against officers of the Uttar Pradesh state police who killed the alleged masterminds of the bomb blasts in Varanasi almost a year before the Delhi police killed a completely different set of people for being the masterminds of the same blast?

This is what leads to a situation where extremist groups belonging to all religions play victims and emerge as the saviours of their communities. The clash of these fundamentalist groups with the state placating the needed one on that hour becomes the inevitable consequence of such an unjust system. A system where murderers of Muslims and Christians take oath in the name of the Indian constitution and run governments, and where no action is taken against Muslim legislators even when they assault and incite their supporters to kill Taslima Nasreen.

Evidently, cracking down on the religious fanatics does not make sense in a democracy of the Indian kind. Neither does secularism. Rather, it does. Not in the Nehuruvian sense though which defined secularism as 'equal state protection to all religions'. It makes sense in its current form, equal state protection and immunity to the highly organized and institutionalized, rogue fundamentalist fanatics of all religions. The fanatics then, of course, can protect the followers of their religion.

Avinash Pandey alias Samar is a research scholar based in New Delhi. Currently Samar is in Hong Kong on an assignment with the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Rev. M. J. Joseph, social activist, passes away

Rev. M.J. Joseph passed away early hours of July 12, after a brief hosipitalization for respiratory ailments, in Thirualla, Kerala, according to a message from the Centre for Social Studies and Culture (CSSC), Kottayam. He was 78. He leaves behind his wife Annamma Joseph, and children Asha, Shobha and Vijayan.

Funeral will take place on July 14.

The following is an obituary prepared by ‘Friends of MJ’

The Rev. M. J. Joseph (“MJ”) was one of those rare individuals who combined deep spirituality with radical social and political action. In the current Indian context, the combination of religion and politics has often deadly consequences. MJ, however, believed and practiced a brand of spirituality that was self-critical of the institutionalization and hypocrisy of his religion and by extension, other religions as well. He also believed that the primary purpose of religion is to strive for a better world where justice and peace would prevail. He advocated a form of spirituality, not transcendental, but that transcends religion and acquires a secular character deeply rooted in the struggles of the people for justice, peace and a meaningful life. He found this spirituality in the struggles of the dalits, adivasis, women, fisherpeople and in the art forms and songs of the oppressed. He advocated “peoples’ theology” as an empowering and liberating tool for action and reflection.

In the idealism that prevailed in the post-independence period of the 1960s, MJ as a young man chose the vocation of a Christian priest. At a time when the response of not only the Church but also the State to social problems was “developmental work”, MJ and others raised fundamental questions. They argued that such acts would make the people more dependent on the benevolence and goodwill of others and instead, what was needed was radical social action where the people are not mere recipients of charity but define their own destinies. As the Development Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the 1970s, MJ put his vision into practice even as the traditional leadership of the Church frowned upon these “radical” ideas.

The National Emergency (1975-’77) was a turning point in the lives of MJ and several others of the period. They felt that democracy and civil liberties cannot be taken for granted - even in India - and that there is the need to be eternally vigilant against all threats to basic human and political rights. MJ, however, went beyond most others and argued that the denial of basic necessities - such as food, decent habitat and employment - to a vast section of the people too is a scandal to democracy. As such, political action cannot be separated from radical social action. He also believed that what the poor need are not charities bestowed on them by the State or the rich but rights to be wrestled by prolonged struggles. The Dynamic Action, Programme for Social Action and several other organizations MJ spearheaded bear witness to his passionate commitment to such the vision of a new social order. He was among the founder editors of “Dynamic Action”, a Malayalam monthly, which developed into a medium that debated issues of political economy and politics of development from the perspectives of the poor and the oppressed. While “Programme for Social Action” promoted and knit together faith inspired radical voices in different parts of India, “Navchethna” became the abode of experimentations in cultural and artistic articulations of resistances.

Another defining moment in his life has been in his active involvement in the mobilization of dalits in a high caste dominated Church. The formation, in the late 80’s and early 90’s , of “People’s Movement of Faith for Liberation” and representative democracy in the Central Kerala Diocese of Church of South India brought him into direct confrontation with the vested interests, which eventually led to he being ostracized by the Church.

As a Christian priest and as a fellow-traveller of the Left, MJ repeatedly challenged both the Church and the political apparatus to keep in focus the struggles of the people. He often paid a heavy price for his uncompromising positions. As a priest ostracized by the Church for his radical views and as a leftist who was suspect in the eyes of the party leadership, MJ was permanently in the opposition. Through the long decades of his life and service he, however, was consistent in arguing that the primary task of religion and politics is to strive for a world of justice and peace.

MJ is last to leave among trio visionaries – Dr. M. M. Thomas and Bishop Paulose Mar Paulose being the others - who worked together and challenged and influenced the thinking processes of generations of youth.

An avid reader of books, MJ authored many books, articles and songs, and in the last few years, took up painting and held exhibitions in many places. Friends from different walks of life, civil society organizations and people’s movements in different parts of the country would miss his compassion, camaraderie, counsel, and gentleness.

Contact address:
Centre for Social Studies and Culture (CSSC)
Thaiparambil
Sachivothamapuram PO
Kottayam- 686532
Ph. 0481 2430597
Mob. 9446201659, 8089520220
Email- indiacssc@gmail.com

Plea to end Kashmir killings and order impartial probe

Over 100 concerned citizens have appealed to the Chief Justice of India, the National Human Rights Commission and the National commission for Protection of Children to ensure that the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government take immediate action to prevent further loss of life and property in Jammu and Kashmir. They have also sought an impartial inquiry into the recent killings in the region.

Copies of the appeal have been sent to the Union Home Ministry, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the Planning Commission.

The following is the text of the appeal:

Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, as a vigilant group of citizens submit our concerns regarding the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir and urge your immediate assistance in ensuring that the Government of India and the state government takes immediate action to prevent further loss of life and property and initiate an impartial investigation into the recent killings in the region.

The political situation in Jammu and Kashmir has worsened over the last few weeks, which has in turn strengthened the existing culture of impunity in the region. The current crisis also has serious humanitarian consequences.

On June 29, 2010 at least three persons were killed in indiscriminate firing and excessive use of force by the police in Anantnag district of the Kashmir Valley. Four persons were killed in firing on 5-6 July, 2010. It is estimated that more than 15 civilians have been killed and several others injured in the unprecedented use of force by the J & K police and paramilitary, especially the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in a span of two-three weeks. Several of those killed were children: Tufail Matoo (17), Javid Ahmad Malla (18), Shakeel Ahmad Ganai (14), Firdous Ahmed Kakroo (17), Asif Hasan Rather (9), Ishtiyaq Ahmad Khanday (15 from Anantnag), Imtiyaz Ahmad Itoo (17, from Anantnag), Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat (17), and Abrar Ahmad (17). Several protest marches organized across the Valley in response to the killings were met with indiscriminate firing by the security forces deployed in the region. We condemn the recent killings of children in Kashmir.

Over the past few days, the response by the security forces has been such that, on available accounts, even ambulances have not been spared. Media reports state that at three places, including at Safakadal and at Sangam on the Srinagar- Jammu highway, the CRPF fired on ambulances. Moreover, due to the imposition of curfew in the Valley, paramedics have been unable to reach hospitals as a result of which the existing hospital staff have been working over 36 hour shifts to tend to the injured. Even journalists with valid curfew passes have also been attacked. On June 28, 2010 a group of journalists belonging to local and national media organizations were attacked by the CRPF in the Qamarwari area of Srinagar.

Yet again, the recent events highlight the impunity with which the security forces in the region continue to operate. One of the emblematic cases that highlight the legal impunity is that of the enforced disappearance and murder of noted human rights activist, Jalil Andrabi by the Rashtriya Rifle, an army unit deployed in the Valley. In March 1996, Andrabi was illegally detained by security force personnel while returning from work. Three weeks later his mutilated body was found on the banks of the River Jhelum. International and national pressure culminated in the filing of a charge sheet by the police against the five accused in the Sessions Court, Budgam. However, the main accused in the Andrabi murder, Major Avatar Singh remains free to this day. The case of Jalil Andrabi is merely one example of the ongoing human rights violations. Many local and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights have documented the systematic violations of human rights by state and non-state actors and the entrenched culture of impunity.

The promulgation of special laws in the state of Jammu and Kashmir provides legal immunity to the armed forces. Under the Armed Forces Special (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990, armed forces personnel of the rank of a commissioned officer, warrant officer, non commissioned officer or of an equivalent rank have been granted extraordinary powers such as the authority to shoot and kill suspected lawbreakers. Further, the Act in requiring prior sanction for prosecution acts as shield for impunity for the non-prosecution of security force personnel involved in egregious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and torture. Thus far, sanction for prosecution has been granted only in a handful of cases, and perpetrators remain free. Therefore, in the least the procedure for granting sanction for prosecution should be at least be made more expeditious, effective, and equitable.

In this context it is even more necessary to seek accountability of the actions of the security forces in the region. Under applicable national and international law, the killing of children and attacks against hospital and medical infrastructure is strictly prohibited.

In fact, in its Eleventh Plan, the Planning Commission of India outlined special measures for women in from conflict zones within India, which would imply that there are conflict zones within India. The ongoing situation so far mentioned is in contravention of International law, humanitarian law as well as fundamental guarantees provided by the Indian Constitution, including the right to life (Article 21). As concerns the former, we seek to bring to you attention principles enshrined in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; the International Covenants for Civil and Political Rights, 1976, and the Additional Protocols thereto; the Convention of the Rights of the Child, 1990 and its Optional Protocol; and the UN Security Council Resolution 1882 (2009) on the protection of children.

Regarding constitutional and national laws and adjudicatory policies, we may here refer to the following:
* The guidelines prescribed by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on police action (of 12 May 2010) and in the police manual should be respected
* The Supreme Court decisions in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (AIR 1997 SC 610) and Rajesh Gulate v. Government of Delhi (SCC 7 2002 129)
*The Supreme Court of India guidelines to check arbitrary police action and ensure punishment of perpetrators.
Given the use of unprecedented force, we urge that the security forces exercise restraint and refrain from firing at unarmed protestors. The Central and state governments must ensure that arbitrary and disproportionate use of force against civilians ends immediately and an impartial investigation is initiated into the killing of civilians. We urge the Government of India and the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Shri Omar Abdullah to take immediate steps to:
• Put an immediate end to the violence perpetrated by the security forces
• Prevent attacks against civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and ambulances
• Ensure that the security forces respect the principle of proportionality while responding to civilian protests
• Initiate an independent and impartial investigation into the killings of peaceful protestors, several of whom were children
• Initiate an inquiry into instances of attacks on ambulance services
• Ensure that inquiries are conducted in a time bound manner and the report is made public
• Initiate legal and punitive action against persons who are found responsible for the killings of civilians
• Establish an independent inquiry commission to investigate the allegations of serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, killings, torture, rape and sexual violence in the region
• Invite and permit the relevant UN Rapporteurs, UN Special Representatives and members of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearance to investigate the allegations of human rights abuses in the region
• Initiate a general debate involving members of the Kashmiri civil society and others on impunity and AFSPA, and possible mechanisms to respond to the prevailing impunity

Constitutionally Yours,

List of signatories
1. Professor Upendra Baxi, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Delhi
2. Dr Mallika V. Sarabhhai
3. Mrinalini V. Sarabhai
4. Navsharan Singh
5. Bhagat Oinam, Jawahar Lal Nehru University
6. Alternative Law Forum
7. The Patna Collective
8. Uma Chakravarti, Historian
9. Anuradha Bhasin, Kashmir Times
10. Prabodh Jamwal, Kashmir Times
11. Laxmi Murthy, Consulting Editor, Himal SouthAsia
12. Sahba Hussain
13. Shahrukh Alam
14. Trideep Pais, Advocate
15. Tenzing Choesang, Advocate
16. Tahseen Alam
17. Anouhita Majumdar, Senior Journalist
18. Anant Nath, The Caravan
19. Vasuman Khandelwal, Advocate
20. Bipin Aspatwar, Advocate
21. Shabnam Hashmi, Anhad
22. Ashok Agrwaal, Advocate
23. Prof. Sitaram Kakarala, CSCS
24. Ved Bhasin, Chairman Kashmir Times group of publications
25. Rajeev Dhavan
26. Kanak Mani Dixit, Himal South Asia
27. Professor Sushil Khanna, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata
28. Rajashri Dasgupta, Journalist
29. Ram Puniyani, All India Secular Forum
30. Jashodhara Dasgupta, SAHAYOG, Lucknow
31. Warisha Farasat, Advocate
32. Jyoti Punwani, Journalist, Mumbai
33. K. Lalitha, Researcher, Hyderabad
34. Nitya Vasudevan, Research Scholar
35. Randhir Singh, Professor (retd.), Delhi University
36. Priyaleen Singh
37. Abid Mir
38. Areet Kaur
39. Anand Bala
40. Shahla Raza
41. Hafeez Khan
42. Paray Hilal
43. Dr. Pritam Singh
44. Dr. Meena Dhandha, Philospher
45. Dinesh Sharma, Bangalore
46. Dr Atul Sood, Jawaharlal University
47. Gursharan Singh, Convenor against Democratic Front Against Operation Green Hunt
48. Chakraverti Mahajan, Doctoral Student, Punjab University
49. Kavita Pai
50. Sheba George, Sahrwaru
51. Prof. Ranabir Samaddar, Director, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group
52. .Rita Manchanda, Safhr
53. Zakia Jowher, Action Aid
54. Roop Rekha Verma
55. Pushkar Raj, General Secretary PUCL
56. Binu Mathews,Editor, Counter Currents
57. Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF)
58. Dr. Kaveri Rajaraman
59. Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati
60. Pyare Shivpuri
61. Humra Quraishi, Freelance columnist
62. Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University
63. Sahana Basavapatna, Advocate
64. Sukla Sen, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai
65. Zainab Bawa, Ph.D. student and independent researcher
66. Chetna Kaul, filmmaker
67. Manish Kumar Tipu, music composer
68. Javed Naqi, Senior Research Fellow, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
69. PUCL (Andhra Pradesh)
70. Harsh Kapoor, South Asia Citizens Web
71. Naga People's Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR)
72. Badri Raina
73. Manasi Pingle, Filmmaker
74. Pushpa Achanta (Independent writer, Bangalore)
75. Navaid Hamid, Member National Integration Council
76. Aamir Bashir, Actor and film-maker
77. Dipti Gupta, Professor, Media Studies.
78. Santanu Chakraborty (Student - Christ University)
79. Madhuri, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, Madhya Pradesh
80. Rosemary Dzuvichu, Nagaland University,Kohima
81. Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha
82. Uma V Chandru, Peace and Human Rights Activist, Bangalore
83. Advocate Narjees, Human Rights Law Network, Kashmir unit
84. AIPWA
85. Shoma, CAVOW
86. Geeta Charusivam, Social Activist Tamil Nadu
87. Arati Chokshi, Member – PUCL (Bangalore- Karnataka)
88. Dr Ritu Dewan, Professor, University of Mumbai
89. Dr Lena Ganesh, Mumbai
90. Pooja Sharma, cinematographer
91. Sajid Iqbal Khandey
92. Vrijendra
93. Sundera Babu
94. Aamer Trambu, Reporter, Press TV Iran
95. Saamer Mansoor, Student, University of Texas, Dallas
96. Nashwa Mansoor, Student of Medicine, Sangli
97. Dr Ben Rogaly, University Lecturer, UK
98. Meher Engineer, Teachers & Scientists Against Maldevelopment
99. Asish Gupta, Journalist, New Delhi
100 Ashok Choudhary, National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW)
101 dhu Bhaduri, Ambassador of India (Retd)
102 pin Kumar, AHUTTI, Patna
103 Women Against Militarization and State Violence
104 The Other Media
105 Subir Banerjee, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota
106 Ram Bhat, Maraa, Bangalore
107 J. Devika, Associate Professor, CDS, Trivandrum, Kerala
108 Priya Jain
109 Jawed Naqvi, journalist

EKTA demands inquiry into killing of Azad and journalist

The following is a statement issued by Sukla Sen for EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai:

EKTA hereby gravely notes that the killing of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, who reportedly stood at no. 3 in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy, along with a freelance journalist Hemchandra Pandey, at Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh on July 2 – coming on top of a series of killings involving civilians, security personnel and Maoist insurgents – has further vitiated the ambience. If one goes by the statement issued by the CPI (Maoist) on July 3, the prospects of peace talks, which Swami Agnivesh for a while is making serious bid to make happen, has suffered a serious jolt.

EKTA expresses its serious concern over such development, the government’s utter lack of concern in this regard and the mainstream media presenting the deaths as some sort of trophy won.

Even more disturbing is the fact that serious and credible allegations have been levelled that those two slain had actually been murdered by the AP Police and was subsequently packaged as “encounter death”. It has also been alleged that this has been done deliberately to torpedo the peace efforts.

Under the circumstances, EKTA demands that given the seriousness of the case an open judicial enquiry headed by at least a sitting High Court judge be instituted to unearth the truth without any further delay.

People’s Tribunal report on military governance in Kashmir

The following is a statement from the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir, forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir (IPTK) feels morally obligated to make this statement today. Sustained alliances between local communities and IPTK have enabled us to bear witness to the escalating conditions induced by militarized governance, and the severity of psychosocial dimensions of oppression in Indian-administered Kashmir. From our work since being instituted in April 2008, from the reports and briefs we have authored, investigations we have undertaken and are in the process of completing, we find it ethically imperative to comment on the direction in which the Governments of India and Jammu and Kashmir, and the Indian Armed Forces, appear to be headed, and the consequences they will likely effect.

Conflict Resolution?

The Government of India has recently called for "creative solutions" to resolve the "Kashmir problem." If we map the events of the past six months inside Indian-administered Kashmir, the approach of the Indian state is aggressively militaristic. While commitments to political diplomacy frame relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, in Indian-administered Kashmir, there are no such engagements with civil society or with the pro-freedom leadership. There is no acknowledgement of civil society's insistent demand for the right to self-determination.

Kashmir is not a "problem" but a conflict zone

India's militarization is aimed at territorial control of Kashmir, and control over key economic and environmental resources in the region, including those of the Siachen glacier. The Government of Kashmir is unable to prevail politically or exercise control over the Indian Armed Forces. India's political dominance hinges on its ability to possess Kashmir. Institutions of democracy -- the judiciary, educational institutions, media -- are neutralized by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Armed Forces as they function in tandem, continuing "military governance." State violence seeks to undermine people's capacity to resist and solicits collaborators.

Predominant reality is militarized governance

The pervasive presence is that of the military and paramilitary, whose xenophobic and forceful infiltration into every aspect of economic and civic life is palpable. Armed forces are present at educational institutions, hospitals, shopping complexes, cafes and hotels, sporting events, playgrounds, and bazaars. They monitor people as they enter mosques and shrines. They also collaborate with Hindu nationalists in instituting "self-defence" campaigns and militias, such as forming the 100 Village Defence Committees announced in May 2010, promoting militarized Hindu nationalism.

Zero Tolerance?

Human rights violations in Kashmir are a means of maintaining military governance. The Omar Abdullah Government has repeatedly promised "zero tolerance" for human rights violations. Zero tolerance? What we have witnessed is "zero tolerance" for nonviolent civil society dissent, as security forces brutalize people on the streets chanting "Go India, Go back," chanting "India, Quit Kashmir."

On June 24, 2010, Chief Minister Abdullah stated that separatist/pro-freedom leaders were instigating youth to violence, following which security forces ensued repression on political leaders calling for peaceful protests. Crowds marching to Sopore on June 28 to protest and mourn the death of three youth killed by the paramilitary were met with force. Police used tear gas and opened fire on the protesters and journalists, killing one person. In Delina, a nine-year boy was killed by security forces.

Condoning and rationalizing the deplorable actions of the CRPF and police, the Home Secretary of India, G. K. Pillai, characterized civilians fired upon by security personnel as people who were culpable as they violated curfew and attacked police posts. This further evidences the patronage that the security forces enjoy from highly placed government officials, and emphasizes the state's view that civil society resistance to militaristic governance is criminal behaviour.

From the actions and statements of security forces and politicians in power, it appears that all civil disobedience is being defined as anti-national, as equivalent to "terrorism." Peaceable protests are fired upon, as security personnel repress women and men participating in them. Stone pelting, a means of dissent in Kashmir, is termed violent. Stone pelting, Kashmir youth states, is an expression of rage by a subjugated people whose political means of expression and demands are systematically limited. Stone pelting, Kashmir youth say, cannot be compared to the brutish techniques of domination used by the state.

Leaders under house arrest

Even elected officials are prevented from staging public protests, such as an MLA and his with approximately 100 co-workers, who were stopped from protesting during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Srinagar. In 2008, the Prime Minister had stated that elections in Kashmir would render separatist leaders irrelevant, as elected officials would speak for the people. Ironic.

There appears to be no governmental interest in acknowledging and responding to the actions of the military and paramilitary. People, including minors, and political leaders that participate in resistance are booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA). Undeclared curfews permit security forces to operate without noting cause or prior warning. In November 2009, Lt. General, B.S. Jaswal, characterized civil disobedience in response to calls given by dissenting political leaders as "agitational terrorism" prompted by "terrorists." During the pacific resistance of 2008 and 2009, protests had also turned lethal as security personnel fired into crowds. Cyber resistance then was termed "cyber terrorism," and monitored.

Real violence in the present -- bullets, torture, landmines, injuries, arrests, human shields, molestations, sexualized violence, forced labour, detentions, disappearances, murder -- is virtually monopolized by the military and paramilitary in Kashmir. The list of perpetrators is long.

Killings Without Accountability?

Between January-June 2010, reportedly 40 civilians have been killed (25 of whom were killed by security forces), 107 persons identified as militants have been killed, and 57 soldiers have been killed (of the 57, 28 soldiers were killed by militants, 14 committed suicide, 2 died in fratricidal killings, 7 died in grenade/mine explosions, and 6 were killed by unidentified gunmen). Those killed by the Central Reserve Police Force and police were all young men, all Muslim.

Over 20 persons have been killed in "encounters" in just April and May 2010; each reported as "infiltrating" militants. Only four deaths have been investigated, all found to be fake encounter killings.

Reportedly, 335 militants were killed in 2008 and 236 militants were killed in 2009. There are no systematic investigations into alleged "encounter" killings. Promises made about inquiries and commissions are not honoured, as, for example, in Machil, where, after the three fake encounter killings, a Divisional Inquiry was promised but not authorized. In 2008, 367 Habeas Corpus Petitions were filed in the High Court at Srinagar, 272 petitions filed in 2009, and 159 petitions filed between January and mid-May 2010. International human rights law argues that a state must respect the right to life. The Indian Armed Forces repeatedly break this covenant in Kashmir.

Some fake encounter and other killings have taken place around high-profile talks. Military and state discourse use these killings to hype fear of armed militancy and infiltration, stating that militants, scattered all over, seek to target Hindus, requiring hyper-vigilance on the part of security forces. The actions of the state and the military and paramilitary are calculated to provoke and inflame. The armed struggle in Kashmir of the 1990s abated, again becoming nonviolent resistance between 2004-2007; even as cross-Line of Control (between India and Pakistan) movements, infiltrations, and insurgency into Indian-administered Kashmir are significant issues. The Indian state, however, exaggerates these realities by linking Kashmiri civilian resistance to "foreign terror," to enable Indian's administration of Kashmir to proceed with impunity.

The Government of India has stated that Pakistan does not want peace, and might encourage militant attacks. Does India want peace in Kashmir? Is India willing to recognize what "peace" will require, and take those steps?

Military Governance?

The Indian state does not define the present as a time of conflict inside Kashmir. Yet, the Armed Forces have become increasingly more powerful and entrenched in Indian-administered Kashmir. Both New Delhi and the Omar Abdullah Government appear unwilling, or unable, to control the military and paramilitary. Is the military more powerful in Kashmir than the civil administration?

Military-talk and dominant political speech state that the Indian Armed Forces are in Kashmir to protect citizens, and justify civilian suffering and killings as collateral damage in a war on terror. Akin to the George W. Bush era in the United States, this war of "good" against "evil" makes critique or dissent impossible without disagreement becoming affiliated with what is "evil," "dangerous," and "anti-national." There is no way out of the contradiction that India's military is the protector of Kashmiris who are also potential enemies, as long as military suppression of Kashmiris is understood as crucial to defending India.

Questions regarding the Indian armed forces in Kashmir, with fifty-six soldiers committing suicide in Kashmir in 2008-2009, and fifteen instances of fratricidal killing, are muffled.

The PSA, the Disturbed Areas Act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are security related legislation in contravention of international humanitarian laws that guarantee immunity to army and paramilitary forces. On February 26, 2009, soon after assuming office, Chief Minister Abdullah stated that AFSPA should be revoked. The armed forces challenged his authority, declaring such intent as "regressive," stating "any move to revoke AFSPA in Jammu and Kashmir would be detrimental to the security of the Valley and would provide a boost to the terrorists." Dialogue with the Indian state and Kashmiri pro-freedom leaders regarding autonomy and the revocation of AFSPA were electoral promises made by the current Chief Minister. To revoke AFSPA would be to interrupt not only legal, but political, impunity.

Kashmiris are now being told that it is better for their security to amend, not revoke, AFSPA.

International Community

Kashmir is a laboratory of violent experiments conducted by Indian military and state institutions. The sustained militarization in Kashmir is not called "military rule" by the Indian state and international community. Civil society in Indian-administered Kashmir remains "under the authority of the hostile army," whose reach and power "has been established and can be exercised," (Hague Convention, Laws and Customs of War on Land Article 42, 1907).

India's militarization is portrayed as an "internal" matter, refusing transparency, international scrutiny, and adherence to international humanitarian law of conflict and war. In the face of the Indian state's violations of international humanitarian law, of protocols and conventions, and perpetration of crimes against humanity, there is a deafening silence on the part of the international community. The Kashmir conflict, like other international conflicts, requires urgent attention and resolution. There is, at present, no monitoring, no sustained visibility, no engagement that can produce ethical and viable results.

That Kashmiris must be an integral part of any resolution repeatedly escapes the international community, and India and Pakistan. If the current situation continues, and nonviolent dissent is systemically brutalized, might the Government of India force Kashmiri civilians to perhaps take up armed militancy once again, continuing the cycle of violence? Is the international community not accountable for averting this?

The United States, the European Union, and other nations must recognize that the resolution of the Kashmir issue is directly significant to peace and security in South Asia. Institutions and states participating in military collaborations and exercises on Kashmir must yield to transparent dialogue, and address the difficult questions of conflict resolution.

Recently, the Government of India took issue with the Canadian Government's scrutiny of Indian visa applicants with military backgrounds. In the past, among such applicants, some, for example, have been perpetrators in Kashmir that have sought residency aboard. A scrutiny of certain categories of military personnel travelling aboard is perhaps necessitated by India's apathy in prosecuting perpetrators.

The Global North's desire to benefit from India as a vast/potential economic market must not continuously sideline egregious human rights violations.

Concerns

We wish to enter into public record that following the Majils-e-Mashawarat of Shopian's request that IPTK inquire into the death of Ms. Asiya Jan and Mrs. Neelofar Jan in May 2009, to deliver an accurate understanding of the matter and define a mechanism for justice, we wrote Chief Minister Abdullah in January 2010, requesting cooperation and access, which have been denied us to date.

As well, we wish to enter into public record that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Government of India have not undertaken investigations into the findings of BURIED EVIDENCE, IPTK's report on unknown, unmarked, and mass graves in Indian-administered Kashmir, or acted on its recommendations. Such action may have generated constructive interventions into the continuing chain of extrajudicial executions by the Indian military and paramilitary.

Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener, IPTK and Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies,

Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener, IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society,

Gautam Navlakha, Convener, IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly,

Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener, IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society,

Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel, IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India,
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

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