The Hindu 16 Jan 2009
Vigilantism of Salwa Judum has divided and very nearly destroyed tribal society.
All sensible humans—not just Indians—agree that there is no place for violence in the settlement of political disputes. If a particular group feels victimised or discriminated against, it has all kinds of democratic means of redress open to it—the circulation of its grievances by the means of speech or print; the canvassing of politicians, political parties, and public officials; and petitions in court. If (and only if) all these means fail, the group may yet take recourse to non-violent protest or satyagraha. But they have no business to use weapons, whether they are AK-47s or trishuls.
Like Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad (‘Where Democracy Shines Through,’ The Hindu, 14th January 2009), I salute the high voter turnout in the recent state elections across the country. Like him, I do not think the Kashmiri separatists or the naxalites have any legitimacy to make out their case through violence. Where I depart is in my assessment of the methods used by the state to contain or tame this violence. For Mr. Prasad, while the rebels must be bound by the norms of democracy and non-violence, in the case of the state the end, of restoring law and order, can apparently justify the most egregious and violent means. Hence his defence of the support given by the Government of Chhattisgarh to the vigilante group that goes by the name of Salwa Judum.naxalism,
Like Mr. Prasad, I have travelled through the naxalite-affected areas of Chhattisgarh; unlike him, I went not as a prominent politician but as an ordinary citizen. I was thus able to see things that very clearly escaped his attention. He is right to speak of “the overpowering and looming fear” felt by a section of the tribals with regard to the naxalites; but wrong to overlook the overpowering fear felt by another section of the tribals with regard to Salwa Judum. I myself saw homes and villages burnt and destroyed by Salwa Judum; met men beaten by Salwa Judum activists; spoke to women who had been humiliated by them. My findings have been corroborated by dozens of other independent writers and scholars who have studied, at first hand, the depredations of Salwa Judum.
Like Mr. Prasad, I regard naxalites as a menace. Unlike him, I believe that they can be tackled only through effective police action and by ending the social and economic marginalisation of the tribals. However, by promoting Salwa Judum, the State government has outsourced law and order, escalated violence, and divided and very nearly destroyed tribal society. Family has been set against family; village against village; clan against clan.
The vigilantism of the Salwa Judum kind has been criticised by no less a person than the Chief Justice of India. As he remarked last April, by distributing “arms to some people,” the state could be “abetting in a crime if these private persons kill others.” (As indeed, they have.) Even the founder of Salwa Judum, the Congress leader Mahendra Karma, has had second thoughts about his creation. Interviewed by a television channel, Mr Karma admitted that the movement had “spiralled out of control.” He went on to observe: “In a revolution, the mass is difficult to control. They will even turn against me. A violent mob does not have direction or conscience.” more
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Indian Or Israeli? Analysis of Responses by NAMRATA GOSWAMI
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090107&fname=namrata&sid=1
How does Israel's "military" offensive against Hamas and India's "diplomatic" offensive against Pakistan measure up to the laws of war? What are the consequences of the two approaches? Which one is better?
.............
Unlike Israel however, the Indian government has resisted a "knee jerk" reaction to externally exported terror and by far has shown better judgement with Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister stating that a military strike on Pakistan is at this juncture "off" the table. Instead, he stated that certain elements within official agencies in Pakistan support terror activities and must be brought to book by the international community. A diplomatic effort in this direction is underway with the Indian government sharing evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in the Mumbai attacks with other nations in order to isolate it for supporting terror as an instrument of foreign policy. more
How does Israel's "military" offensive against Hamas and India's "diplomatic" offensive against Pakistan measure up to the laws of war? What are the consequences of the two approaches? Which one is better?
.............
Unlike Israel however, the Indian government has resisted a "knee jerk" reaction to externally exported terror and by far has shown better judgement with Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister stating that a military strike on Pakistan is at this juncture "off" the table. Instead, he stated that certain elements within official agencies in Pakistan support terror activities and must be brought to book by the international community. A diplomatic effort in this direction is underway with the Indian government sharing evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in the Mumbai attacks with other nations in order to isolate it for supporting terror as an instrument of foreign policy. more
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Hunt for Maoists in Orissa
Patrolling intensified on Orissa-Jharkhand border
By our Correspondent
Last updated: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 07:16:13 GMT
Bhubaneswar (Orissa): Special Operation Group Jawans and CRPF men have jointly launched a massive search operation along the Orissa- Jharkhand border areas near Biramitrapur in Sundergarh district following reports of movement of Maoists.
Police said on Friday that some armed men on motorcycles, suspected to be Maoists were sighted in the border areas creating panic among the villagers in Orissa and Jharkhand.
The movement of ultras on the eve of the New Year bash brought back memories of the Maoist attempt to blow up Banajore police outpost in Jharkhand barely two kilometers away from Biramitrapur town.
Similarly security arrangements had also been beefed up in almost all the police stations in the district as a precautionary measure to avoid any Maoist related incident, the sources said. source
By our Correspondent
Last updated: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 07:16:13 GMT
Bhubaneswar (Orissa): Special Operation Group Jawans and CRPF men have jointly launched a massive search operation along the Orissa- Jharkhand border areas near Biramitrapur in Sundergarh district following reports of movement of Maoists.
Police said on Friday that some armed men on motorcycles, suspected to be Maoists were sighted in the border areas creating panic among the villagers in Orissa and Jharkhand.
The movement of ultras on the eve of the New Year bash brought back memories of the Maoist attempt to blow up Banajore police outpost in Jharkhand barely two kilometers away from Biramitrapur town.
Similarly security arrangements had also been beefed up in almost all the police stations in the district as a precautionary measure to avoid any Maoist related incident, the sources said. source
Orissa bandh: Maoists say a ploy by Sangh Parivar
Bandh hits three Orissa districts
Berhampur, Orissa (PTI): Normal life was paralysed in riot-hit Kandhamal due to a 12-hour bandh called by a new outfit, claiming to be a splinter group of Maoists, in three south Orissa districts on Saturday.
While Gajapati district was partially affected, the bandh had little effect in Ganjam, official sources said.
A new organisation 'M', a splinter group of CPI (Maoist), was formally launched with the bandh to maintain the ideology of Maoists and to fight corruption, leaflets circulated in the districts claimed.
However, none of the organisers appeared in public to enforce the bandh.
Vehicular traffic in Kandhamal was disrupted and business establishments remained closed, but educational institutions and government offices were open, official sources said.
Kandhamal Superintendent of Police Praveen Kumar said no road blockade was reported from anywhere but vehicles remained off the roads as the owners did not want to take a risk.
While vehicles remained off roads at several places in Gajapati district, the effect of the bandh was felt at Mohana, R Udayagiri, Gumma and Raigada blocks of the district, officials said, adding it had no impact in the Ganjam district.
Meanwhile, police and intelligence officials said they were unaware of the outfit. "We are trying to ascertain their leaders and their activities," a senior police officer said.
Denying any split in cadre, a senior Maoist leader told a private Oriya news channel that it was part of a ploy by Sangh Parivar leaders to mislead people after their failure to enforce a bandh on December 25. source
Berhampur, Orissa (PTI): Normal life was paralysed in riot-hit Kandhamal due to a 12-hour bandh called by a new outfit, claiming to be a splinter group of Maoists, in three south Orissa districts on Saturday.
While Gajapati district was partially affected, the bandh had little effect in Ganjam, official sources said.
A new organisation 'M', a splinter group of CPI (Maoist), was formally launched with the bandh to maintain the ideology of Maoists and to fight corruption, leaflets circulated in the districts claimed.
However, none of the organisers appeared in public to enforce the bandh.
Vehicular traffic in Kandhamal was disrupted and business establishments remained closed, but educational institutions and government offices were open, official sources said.
Kandhamal Superintendent of Police Praveen Kumar said no road blockade was reported from anywhere but vehicles remained off the roads as the owners did not want to take a risk.
While vehicles remained off roads at several places in Gajapati district, the effect of the bandh was felt at Mohana, R Udayagiri, Gumma and Raigada blocks of the district, officials said, adding it had no impact in the Ganjam district.
Meanwhile, police and intelligence officials said they were unaware of the outfit. "We are trying to ascertain their leaders and their activities," a senior police officer said.
Denying any split in cadre, a senior Maoist leader told a private Oriya news channel that it was part of a ploy by Sangh Parivar leaders to mislead people after their failure to enforce a bandh on December 25. source
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
India's govt turns blind eye to domestic Hindu terrorism
India's 'Other' Terrorism
by Chad Hazlett, director of protection at the Genocide Intervention Network
Posted December 23, 2008
The terror attacks on Mumbai made headlines around the world. When the dust settled, we found ourselves asking the same questions, "How did this happen?" and "What could we have done to prevent this?" But while India and the world contemplates the causes and consequences of these attacks, we ignore India's "other" terrorism: From late August through October, organized Hindu extremist groups committed systematic attacks killing more than 100 people, mostly Christians, in the eastern India state of Orissa. Most worrying, the terrorists responsible for Orissa's violence remain at-large and have explicitly threatened to repeat their attacks on Dec. 25.
Three Hindu extremist groups—the RSS, VHP, and the Bajrang Dal—are responsible for this autumn's violence, destroying some 4500 homes and burning 147 churches. The dead are mostly Christians and some moderate Hindus. Father Akbar Digal, a Christian, was beheaded after three times refusing to convert to Hinduism. Gayadhar Digal, a Hindu, was hacked to death and his wife and son nearly killed for appearing sympathetic to Christianity. Others have been burned alive and beaten then buried alive. Some 40,000-60,000 sought refuge in the forests where they were further hunted. Hundreds remain missing. Over 11,000 remain displaced, and the attackers have threatened to kill them upon returning if they do not convert to Hinduism.
The attacks have been alarmingly systematic. Repeating tactics used by these groups in similar attacks last year, the August attacks began with cutting down trees to block the roads and cutting phone lines to block communications. Mobs led by these extremist groups were armed with guns and machetes, shouting slogans such as "Christians must become Hindu or die. Kill Them. Kill Them. Kill Them." The same groups have organized related attacks across the country, the best known being in Gujarat in 2002 where some 2,000 Muslims were killed.
In each of these cases, violence continued for weeks without intervention by the state, and the perpetrators have enjoyed impunity thereafter. Six years after the Gujarat killings, there has been only one conviction. There were no convictions after the December 2007 violence. Without any punishment, we can expect these extremist groups to continue terrorizing civilians as a tactic to impose their will on the state and drive out minority religious communities.
In fact, threats of renewed violence in the coming weeks are so clear that if we ignore them and violence escalates, nobody can say we "didn't know." The extremists remain at-large and have demanded that the Orissa government pass several laws to further suppress Christianity. Failure to impose these laws, they threaten, will result in more violence through a ban on all public activity on Dec. 25—enforced by club-toting members of these groups—effectively prohibiting Christmas festivities.
Responsibility for preventing further violence lies with the Indian government. The attacks in Mumbai have shown that when terrorists strike at Westerners and expensive hotels, Indian security forces can react and kill or arrest the terrorists within days. In Orissa, by contrast, two months into the violence, victims were still being burned alive.
Orissa's chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, does not appear to be a Hindu nationalist zealot. But he is politically beholden to parties that use this violence to rally votes. At the national level, federal security forces finally came to stop the violence—after two months. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not banned the parties responsible despite calls from advisers to do so, perhaps because doing so could be bad for politics in this Spring's election. This element of government sympathy and political hedging make international condemnation all the more important. The international community should do its part to ensure that banning violent extremists and ending impunity for them is to India's political and economic advantage. However, if the West is to speak more loudly on this issue, it must do so in the name of counterterrorism, religious freedom, and the fundamental human right, not because it is Christians who were attacked this time.
The U.S. public response has been almost entirely the result of mobilization by Christian groups with close ties to churches in Orissa. But the public coalition that can and should unite behind this is much larger. Darfur's atrocities provoked an unprecedented American constituency for stopping genocide. While this constituency continues pressing for peace and protection in Darfur, situations like Orissa that are more tractable and still in their formative stages offer an opportunity to achieve the most important goal of fighting genocide and atrocity: prevention. more
by Chad Hazlett, director of protection at the Genocide Intervention Network
Posted December 23, 2008
The terror attacks on Mumbai made headlines around the world. When the dust settled, we found ourselves asking the same questions, "How did this happen?" and "What could we have done to prevent this?" But while India and the world contemplates the causes and consequences of these attacks, we ignore India's "other" terrorism: From late August through October, organized Hindu extremist groups committed systematic attacks killing more than 100 people, mostly Christians, in the eastern India state of Orissa. Most worrying, the terrorists responsible for Orissa's violence remain at-large and have explicitly threatened to repeat their attacks on Dec. 25.
Three Hindu extremist groups—the RSS, VHP, and the Bajrang Dal—are responsible for this autumn's violence, destroying some 4500 homes and burning 147 churches. The dead are mostly Christians and some moderate Hindus. Father Akbar Digal, a Christian, was beheaded after three times refusing to convert to Hinduism. Gayadhar Digal, a Hindu, was hacked to death and his wife and son nearly killed for appearing sympathetic to Christianity. Others have been burned alive and beaten then buried alive. Some 40,000-60,000 sought refuge in the forests where they were further hunted. Hundreds remain missing. Over 11,000 remain displaced, and the attackers have threatened to kill them upon returning if they do not convert to Hinduism.
The attacks have been alarmingly systematic. Repeating tactics used by these groups in similar attacks last year, the August attacks began with cutting down trees to block the roads and cutting phone lines to block communications. Mobs led by these extremist groups were armed with guns and machetes, shouting slogans such as "Christians must become Hindu or die. Kill Them. Kill Them. Kill Them." The same groups have organized related attacks across the country, the best known being in Gujarat in 2002 where some 2,000 Muslims were killed.
In each of these cases, violence continued for weeks without intervention by the state, and the perpetrators have enjoyed impunity thereafter. Six years after the Gujarat killings, there has been only one conviction. There were no convictions after the December 2007 violence. Without any punishment, we can expect these extremist groups to continue terrorizing civilians as a tactic to impose their will on the state and drive out minority religious communities.
In fact, threats of renewed violence in the coming weeks are so clear that if we ignore them and violence escalates, nobody can say we "didn't know." The extremists remain at-large and have demanded that the Orissa government pass several laws to further suppress Christianity. Failure to impose these laws, they threaten, will result in more violence through a ban on all public activity on Dec. 25—enforced by club-toting members of these groups—effectively prohibiting Christmas festivities.
Responsibility for preventing further violence lies with the Indian government. The attacks in Mumbai have shown that when terrorists strike at Westerners and expensive hotels, Indian security forces can react and kill or arrest the terrorists within days. In Orissa, by contrast, two months into the violence, victims were still being burned alive.
Orissa's chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, does not appear to be a Hindu nationalist zealot. But he is politically beholden to parties that use this violence to rally votes. At the national level, federal security forces finally came to stop the violence—after two months. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not banned the parties responsible despite calls from advisers to do so, perhaps because doing so could be bad for politics in this Spring's election. This element of government sympathy and political hedging make international condemnation all the more important. The international community should do its part to ensure that banning violent extremists and ending impunity for them is to India's political and economic advantage. However, if the West is to speak more loudly on this issue, it must do so in the name of counterterrorism, religious freedom, and the fundamental human right, not because it is Christians who were attacked this time.
The U.S. public response has been almost entirely the result of mobilization by Christian groups with close ties to churches in Orissa. But the public coalition that can and should unite behind this is much larger. Darfur's atrocities provoked an unprecedented American constituency for stopping genocide. While this constituency continues pressing for peace and protection in Darfur, situations like Orissa that are more tractable and still in their formative stages offer an opportunity to achieve the most important goal of fighting genocide and atrocity: prevention. more
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Now, 'Chilli smoke' grenades to dig out holed up terrorists
Swapna Tarafdar New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI) Next time terrorists plan to take hostages, they may have to think twice as the security personnel could be armed with hand grenades laced with chilli powder drawn straight from hills of Northeast. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed this "chilli smoke" grenades which may become useful for bringing out the holed up terrorists.
The grenade, yet to be put to use, has been christened as Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) in which the DRDO has used extract of dried capsicums and a complex mixture of essential oils, waxes, coloured materials, and several 'capsaicinoids' which give burning sensation in the eyes. "The chemical grenade like the tear gas will only irritate eyes, respiratory tracts and skin.
"OC, is an inflammatory agent and causes an almost immediate swelling of the eyes and breathing passages," W Selvamurty chief controller, Life Sciences and Human Resources, DRDO, told PTI. "There is an intense burning sensation in the eyes, throat and the skin happens when the agent is inhaled. more
The grenade, yet to be put to use, has been christened as Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) in which the DRDO has used extract of dried capsicums and a complex mixture of essential oils, waxes, coloured materials, and several 'capsaicinoids' which give burning sensation in the eyes. "The chemical grenade like the tear gas will only irritate eyes, respiratory tracts and skin.
"OC, is an inflammatory agent and causes an almost immediate swelling of the eyes and breathing passages," W Selvamurty chief controller, Life Sciences and Human Resources, DRDO, told PTI. "There is an intense burning sensation in the eyes, throat and the skin happens when the agent is inhaled. more
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