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
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
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
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
communalism and terrorism are the same - Orissa CPI(M) leader
Orissa bandh on Christmas Day a 'communal conspiracy': CPI(M) MP
New Delhi (PTI): A CPI(M) member on Wednesday alleged in the Lok Sabha that a "big communal conspiracy" was being hatched against Christians in Orissa with a "communal" organisation giving a call for a 'bandh' on the Christmas Day.
"A big communal conspiracy is being hatched by communal organisations to bring parts of the country into the milieu of communal disturbances," senior CPI(M) leader Hannan Mollah said during the Zero Hour.
A "communal" body had called a bandh in Orissa on December 25, he said adding, "this is a serious matter and the Christians may be attacked again by the VHP-Bajrang Dal elements."
Asking the Centre to take serious note of the developments in the state, the CPI(M) leader said "communalism and terrorism are the same and government should also include communal attacks in the ambit of the new anti-terror laws."
Mollah was supported by Congress member Madhusudan Mistry and RJD's Devendra Prasad Yadav. more: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200812171540.htm
New Delhi (PTI): A CPI(M) member on Wednesday alleged in the Lok Sabha that a "big communal conspiracy" was being hatched against Christians in Orissa with a "communal" organisation giving a call for a 'bandh' on the Christmas Day.
"A big communal conspiracy is being hatched by communal organisations to bring parts of the country into the milieu of communal disturbances," senior CPI(M) leader Hannan Mollah said during the Zero Hour.
A "communal" body had called a bandh in Orissa on December 25, he said adding, "this is a serious matter and the Christians may be attacked again by the VHP-Bajrang Dal elements."
Asking the Centre to take serious note of the developments in the state, the CPI(M) leader said "communalism and terrorism are the same and government should also include communal attacks in the ambit of the new anti-terror laws."
Mollah was supported by Congress member Madhusudan Mistry and RJD's Devendra Prasad Yadav. more: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200812171540.htm
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Chidambaram assures Orissa Christians Safe Christmas
India Leader Assures Christians of Safe Christmas
By Dibin Samuel
Christian Today Reporter
Sat, Dec. 13 2008 09:05 AM EST
- Unlike 2007, Christians in Orissa, India, might be fortunate to celebrate Christmas this year, after Home Minister P. Chidambaram assured them that the Center would ensure their safety.
Chidambaram assured this on Wednesday when a delegation led by Delhi Archbishop Vincent M. Concessao met him to inform him about Christians fearing attacks during Christmas.
"We apprised the Home Minister of our very strong apprehension that the celebrations will be targeted by unruly elements as it happened last time," Babu Joseph, spokesperson for Catholic Bishop Conference of India (CBCI), told Press Trust of India.
Concerns were raised after Hindu extremists called for a statewide bandh, a form of protest or strike that shuts down the entire society, on Dec. 25, which could trigger more attacks against the Christian community.
The Home Minister, according to Joseph, has detailed and ordered the Orissa government to ensure safety to the Christian community. more
http://howrah.org/india_news/36987.html
Campaign for a peaceful Christmas in Orissa
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NEWSX 
Even as Sangh Parivar calls for a bandh in Orissa on December 25, a group of organisations comprising students, farmers, workers, teachers and social activists has initiated 'Christmas for Orissa' campaign for peaceful celebration of the festival.
Over 700 campaigners, representing seven citizens' groups of Orissa-based organisations, are seeking to make "peace and justice" the theme for this Christmas in the state.
"We will organise a special Christmas for Orissa by organising vigils and prayer meets," convener of the Christmas for Orissa Campaign, Joe Athialy, said.
There will also be such programmes outside Indian embassies and VHP offices abroad besides at many places within the country, he said.
Several churches, missionary-run schools, hostels and dispensaries in Kandhamal district were attacked by mobs after the killing of Laxamananda Saraswati.
"We are exploring a legal retaliation to the bandh call as well with a writ petition before the Supreme Court as it had banned bandhs through one of its orders earlier.
"However, if the bandh supporters remain undeterred we will give a call to people in Orissa to come out in its defiance and celebrate Christmas across the state," said M J Vijayan, convener of the Delhi Solidarity Group - a trust formed by some Delhi NGOs.
Activists of the 'Christmas for Orissa' campaign said they intend to send out Christmas cards bearing the social message of Christmas to BJP and BJD leaders in the state.
Heads of different churches and a Central fact-finding team headed by JD (U) chief Sharad Yadav have requested Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to ban the bandh," Archbishop of Orissa, Raphael Cheenath told PTI.
"There is definitely some malicious intention of the Sangh Parivar behind calling the bandh on the day of a national holiday," the Archbishop alleged adding, "We are meeting the Chief Minister and the Governor of the state again on December 17."
Meanwhile, the Catholics Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) had sought arrest of the VHP workers to prevent them from organising the bandh on Christmas day.
Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati Shradhhanjali Samity (SLSSS) had asked the state government to arrest the persons involved in the killing of the VHP functionary by December 15, failing which they would call for the bandh on December 25.
Anticipating violence against Christians on Christmas, embassy representatives of some European Union countries including Britain, Ireland, Netherland and others held discussion with the Orissa government on Saturday to ensure security in sensitive areas.
Orissa Home Secretary A P Padhi is learnt to have told the group that the state government has formulated extensive security plans for the day to ensure that no violence occurs and Christmas is celebrated in a peaceful manner.
The Orissa crime branch had already arrested three people in connection with the killing of Saraswati and the look out continues for 10 more accused. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had also given his assurance for a peaceful Christmas in Orissa. courtesy
Friday, December 12, 2008
Arundhati Roy on Terrorism in India
If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary people too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness. The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish centre.
We're told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said "Hungry, kya?" (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I'm sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't that war. That one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Lalgarh in West Bengal and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities.
.......................................
Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don't figure in their calculations except as collateral damage. It has always been a part of and often even the aim of terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden faultlines. The blood of "martyrs" irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project. A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theatre, spectacle and symbolism, and today, the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV. Even as the attack was being condemned by TV anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes were being magnified a thousandfold by TV broadcasts.
...........................
We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir, give us his version of George Bush's famous "Why they hate us" speech. His analysis of why religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim hate Mumbai: "Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness." His prescription: "The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever." Didn't George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can't seem to get away from.
...........................
It was after the 2001 parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including SAR Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Showkat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence. The supreme court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgment the court acknowledged there was no proof that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender." Even today we don't really know who the terrorists that attacked the Indian parliament were and who they worked for.
..................
On the November 25 newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high profile VHP Chief Pravin Togadia's possible role in the Malegaon blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai Attacks. The chances are that the new chief whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.
While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to camera: "Arundhati Royand Prashant Bhushan," he said, "I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting." For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today, amounts to incitement as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.
So according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police. This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake "encounters". This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world and yet refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they've escaped being "encountered" by our Encounter Specialists. A country where the line between the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.
.............
Nor for that matter will any other quick fix. Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they're for people that governments don't like. That's why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They're just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go. Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It's what they want.
What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet.
The only way to contain (it would be naïve to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy
Friday, December 5, 2008
LeT stage-managed Mumbai strikes from Karachi, Lahore: NYT
Washington, Dec 5 (IANS) For three months before the terror attackers landed on Mumbai's shores, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative was in Karachi to manage the assault, the New York Times reported, citing a Pakistani official.
The Lashkar commander, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi who is normally based in Kashmir, helped organise the plot from Karachi for the last three months, said a Pakistani official in contact with Lashkar, the influential US daily reported Friday.
Fresh evidence unearthed by investigators in India, the daily said, indicated that the Mumbai attacks were stage-managed from at least two Pakistani cities by top leaders of the Pakistan-based terror group LeT, prime suspect in last week's attacks.
Indian and American intelligence officials have already identified a Lashkar operative, who goes by the name Yusuf Muzammil, as a mastermind of the attacks, it noted. more
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Enough is Enough - Says who to whom? asks Badri Raina
Today, thanks to the exemplary courage and discipline of India's security forces, the Taj may have been disfigured and damaged, however brutally, but not demolished—something that seemed to have been the intent of the terrorist attack.
But, alas, some sixteen years ago a four-hundred year old iconic mosque was axed and hatcheted out of existence while the forces stood and watched, as did the whole nation on television.
Neither that fateful day, nor once in the last sixteen years, has the cry gone up "enough is enough" on behalf of those that are now so outraged. Educated noises have been made, which is not the same thing as saying never again should this country countenance social forces that brought that watershed calamity about.
Only conscientious citizens have struggled since to bring succour and justice to the victims, often suffering opprobrium from elite India that sees them as busybodies.
Indeed, the worthies that were visibly culpable in inflicting that blood-thirsty catastrophe on the nation continue to remain in good favour with influential sections of the corporate media which may have carried on a debate on the issue but never admonished "enough is enough."
Some two hundred lives have been lost to the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Yet when, following the demolition of the Babri mosque, our own people killed a thousand or so of our own people in the very same Mumbai, the debate never ceased, and has not to this day.
Nor has the same terminal urgency that is now in evidence informed elite comment as to why those found guilty in that massacre (1992-93) by a high-powered Commission of Enquiry have not been given their due deserts
And what of the Gujarat massacres of 2002? No terrorists from outside there too, but our own good citizens, secure in the knowledge that they had the blessings of the top man in the job. The very top man who continues to be the darling of many elites who do not fight shy of drooling over what a wonderful chief executive he would make for the whole country, full of "development" and profit maximization.
No wonder that Mr.Modi should have been the first to hold a press briefing outside "ground zero" (am I sick of that copy-cat phrase) even while the bullets were flying, making it an occasion to deride no less than the Prime Minister.
The same Mr.Modi who until the other day publicly vented his strongest barbs at the ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) for daring to enquire into cases of Hindutva terrorism.
Narry an "enough is enough" there; only a shamefaced disapproval barely audible on the channels.
Indeed, should you ask me, I might say that the most heroic vignette during the current imbroglio has been the refusal of the widow of the slain Karkare, erstwhile head of the ATS, to accept Modi's devious offer of money. read it all
Confronting the Terrorist Within -- Chris Hedges to Americans
Confronting the Terrorist Within
Posted on Dec 1, 2008
 |
| AP file photo |
A mother tends to her injured child in a hospital 35 miles northeast of Baghdad after a U.S airstrike that killed three civilians and wounded five others. |
By Chris Hedges
The Hindu-Muslim communal violence that led to the attacks in Mumbai, as well as the warnings that the New York City transit system may have been targeted by al-Qaida, are one form of terrorism. There are other forms.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism. These wars defy every ethical and legal code that seek to determine when a nation can wage war, from Just War Theory to the statutes of international law largely put into place by the United States after World War II. These wars are criminal wars of aggression. They have left hundreds of thousands of people, who never took up arms against us, dead and seen millions driven from their homes. We have no right as a nation to debate the terms of these occupations. And an Afghan villager, burying members of his family’s wedding party after an American airstrike, understands in a way we often do not that terrorist attacks can also be unleashed from the arsenals of an imperial power. more
4100 terror attacks in India since 1970
India has experienced over 4100 terror attacks since 1970
Wed, Dec 3 01:35 PM
Washington, Dec.3 (ANI): A University of Maryland study has claimed that India has experienced over 4100 terror attacks since 1970.
According to the university's Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) maintains, the number of fatalities number in the thousands.
This information is freely available online.
The GTD is the most comprehensive and detailed open-source terrorism database available. Funding comes from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The GTD statistical summary on terrorism in India is as follows:
India has experienced 4,108 terrorist incidents occurring between 1970 and 2004.
During this period, India ranked sixth among all countries in terms of terrorist incidents (behind Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and Spain). more
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Fresh Blood From an Old Wound
Fresh Blood From an Old Wound
MIDWAY through last week’s murderous rampage in Mumbai, one of the suspected gunmen at the besieged Jewish center called a popular Indian TV channel. Speaking in Urdu (the primary language of Pakistan and many Indian Muslims), he ranted against the recent visit of an Israeli general to the Indian-ruled section of the Kashmir Valley. Referring to the Pakistan-backed insurgency in the valley, and the Indian military response to it, he asked, “Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?”
In a separate phone call, another gunman invoked the oppression of Muslims by Hindu nationalists and the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. Such calls were the only occasions on which the militants, whom initial reports have tied to the Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, offered a likely motive for their indiscriminate slaughter. Their rhetoric seems all too familiar. Nevertheless, it shows how older political conflicts in South Asia have been rendered more noxious by the fallout from the “war on terror” and the rise of international jihadism.
Pakistan, a nation-state founded on Islam, has long claimed Muslim-majority Kashmir, and has fought three wars with India over it since 1947. In the early 1990s, as an anti-India insurgency in Kashmir intensified, groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba became the Pakistani government’s proxies in its war of attrition with its neighbor.
American pressure after 9/11 forced Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, to ban Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had developed links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. With General Musharraf’s departure from office in September, it would be no surprise if this turned out to be the Muslim group’s first major atrocity since 2001. more
Friday, November 21, 2008
A terrorist does not belong to any religion: L K Advani
Zeenews Bureau New Delhi, Nov 21: BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Leader of Opposition Lal Krishna Advani on Friday denounced all sorts of terrorism to the core saying that a terrorist has no religion.
Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here, Advani said, “It is wrong to brand a person as a Hindu, Muslim or Sikh terrorist.” On being asked about his comments defending Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Advani said, “I met NSA today and have spoken to PM clarifying my views about the case.” more
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Terrorists do not belong to a particular community: Sonia
The Hindu, Oct 08, 2008
Terrorists do not belong to a particular community: Sonia
Nanded (PTI): Expressing concern over increasing acts of terror in the country, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday called for a united effort to fight the menace and urged the Opposition not to target a particular community for vested interests.
Addressing a public rally in the Guru Gobind Singh stadium here, Sonia said terrorists do not belong to a particular community or religion. "If we unitedly fight against terrorism, it will help in the development of the nation," she said.
Terrorism is a big problem being faced by the country today and everyone should fight it unitedly, Sonia said.
Describing the Indo-US nuclear deal as "historic", Sonia said the agreement will benefit the country.
She also said that the UPA government has given a loan waiver of Rs 76,000 crore for farmers.
About Guru Gobind Singh, she said that the guru sacrificed his life for the well-being of the people.
The guru was born in Bihar, served in Punjab, wrote the Granth in Himachal Pradesh and came to Nanded via Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Sonia said. The UPA government has given Rs 2,000 crores for 'gur-ta-gaddi' celebrations, she said. more
Monday, October 6, 2008
Terror rationale
The Hindu October 7, 2008 open page
The many faces and mutations of terror
T. S. JAISOORYA| The psychological and sociological dynamics of terrorist groups and individuals |
Even while there is an increasing attempt to fund and focus research on terror networks, terrorism has mutated indescribably so often that experts are often bewildered at the speed, dexterity and innovativeness that characterise many of their actions. The most striking is the changed global profile of a terrorist who is more likely to be the highly skilled technocratic-happy, well-adjusted, productive, successful and contented looking boy or girl next door rather than angr y, cantankerous, poorly educated poverty stricken man on the street.
This integration of terror networks into our neighbouring streets has often left the security apparatus with very little avenue to either identify or discern their intentions. This has led to increasing concern about the emergence of amorphous and largely unknown terrorist individuals and groups operating independently with many of them actively recruiting suicide bombers, female and child terrorists.
Terror rationaleThe lack of any concrete finding on known psychological tests could also indicate that we have possibly not been able to determine any difference with our current psychological measures. Terrorists thus as per our current understanding do not demonstrate any unique set of qualities, and are not discernibly different, in psychological terms, or in terms of unique biographical histories, from those who reject terrorism. more
Terrrorism: RAMAN'S STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
11. There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism and what is a terrorist organization, but most definitions in common currency accept that there are some important components of terrorism--- repeated attacks of a pre-meditated nature on innocent civilians and their property to achieve an objective, which may be political, economic, social or religious. Spontaneous and isolated attacks in the heat of the moment, which are not repeated in an orchestrated manner, are crimes not amounting to terrorism.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
BJP's Equation of Terrorism with Muslims
Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 13 :: Jun. 21-Jul. 04, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
ESSAY
Merchants of hate
A.G. NOORANI
The BJP’s equation of Muslims with terrorists is part of a wider Hindutva agenda.
KRISHNENDU HALDER/REUTERS
BJP activists in Hyderabad burning the effigy of a "terrorist" after the Jaipur explosions, on May 14. The party seems determined not only to politicise the mayhem caused by terrorists but also to communalise it.
IT is woefully clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is out to play the Hindutva card with great fervour in the next Lok Sabha elections. It has decided not only to politicise the mayhem that terrorists cause but to communalise it as well. It will target the Muslim community as a culprit to be denounced and a perpetrator to be punished. The cry for the re-enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was revived after the Jaipur blasts on May 13. But the terms in which the plea is couched have escaped notice.
Let me quote from an authentic report in the Organiser of May 25 of BJP leader L.K. Advani’s considered statement on the blasts. His attack on the United Progressive Allliance (UPA) government is well known, but not so well known is his attack on Muslims. The government is “unwilling to summon the requisite political will to mount a comprehensive attack on terrorism for fear of losing its vote bank”. Read: for fear of alienating Muslims. The innuendo is not veiled. The expression he used – “vote bank” – is Advani’s notorious shorthand for Muslims. He added: “Evidently, terrorist outfits have come to believe that they have nothing to fear so long as the UPA government is in office at the Centre. Guided by the same vote bank considerations the UPA government repealed POTA soon after assuming office in May 2004.”
He suppressed the facts that POTA had nothing to show by way of results, that its application was communally selective, especially in Gujarat, and that it had incurred censures of respected international human rights bodies.
BJP president Rajnath Singh sang the same tune, as Organiser quoted him: “Any strong action against terrorism will weaken its vote bank politics.” On June 1, he referred to the fatwa of the respected seminary Darul Uloom in Deoband on May 31 denouncing terrorism and said: “Darul Uloom is seeking to dissociate Muslims from terrorism when the Congress-led government wishes to equate Muslims with terrorism and, on this basis, rejects the demand for enactment of an anti-terror law.”
This is Orwell’s double-speak. The “basis” – equating Muslims with terrorism – is entirely a BJP creation, as his and Advani’s statements earlier establish. Rajnath Singh made it plain that the BJP’s equation of Muslims with terrorists would be an integral part of a wider Hindutva agenda.
“Along with cultural nationalism [read: Hindutva], Article 370, uniform civil code and true [sic.] secularism, we are committed to preserve the national unity and integrity” (Hindustan Times, June 2, 2008).
In its Annual Report of 2008, Amnesty International noted the cries for reviving POTA. “Demands for new domestic anti-terror legislation continued. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 was not repealed despite protests” (page 153).
POTA’s predecessor, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), had proved worthless and 72,000 of the 77,000 people arrested under it were released without charge. Only 1.8 per cent of those prosecuted were convicted.
POTA not the same as TADA
But there is a sharp difference between the two laws, as the noted scholar Ujjwal Kumar Singh points out in his outstandingly able work The State, Democracy and Anti-Terror Laws in India (Sage, pages 244). He writes: “A significant distinction between TADA and POTO/POTA, indicative of the political context within which POTA has been brought, is that while TADA did not carry a central image of the nation or national security, the latter carries an image that is part of the Hindutva agenda of the nation and national security…. Moreover, while identifying ‘terrorist activities’, TADA specifically mentioned ‘threatening harmony between communities’ as an act of terror. Following widespread allegations of its targeted use against religious minorities, POTA removed ‘threatening harmony between communities’ from the ambit of ‘terrorist activities’, purportedly as ‘a safeguard’. Far from being a safeguard, the removal translated in practice into a deflection of attention from the communal activities of Hindu fundamentalist organisations, while the Act continued to be used selectively against the Muslim community.
“Perhaps the most prominent selective use of POTA is in Gujarat where out of 250 persons against whom POTA has been imposed, 249 are Muslims. The majority of POTA cases in Gujarat have resulted from its application in the Sabarmati train burning case in Godhra. Curiously while the circumstances of the tragic train burning incident were and still continue to be pieced together, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, declared it a ‘terrorist act’ immediately after it occurred. In the midst of the unbridled brutalities unleashed against Muslims in different parts of Gujarat, on 2 March, 2002, Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) was applied in the train burning case. Contrary to popular perception, POTO was not subsequently ‘withdrawn’. It was only kept in abeyance, that is, deferred, till more suitable circumstances presented themselves. The fact that POTO, still an ordinance, was to come up before the Parliament for approval before it became an Act, was perhaps an important consideration. POTA got enacted in an extraordinary joint session of Parliament on 26 March 2003, and almost simultaneously, the Act was re-invoked in the train burning case. The entire pattern of invocation, abeyance and deferral, followed by its re-invocation later, shows the exclusionary nature of the politics extraordinary laws represent and thrive on” (pages 62-63). POTA was not applied to the perpetrators of the pogrom in Gujarat.
The author cites facts and figures to establish the selective application of POTA. It was promulgated as an ordinance (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance) on October 24, 2001, soon after 9/11. On November 2, 2001, Advani said: “If the Opposition opposes the ordinance they will be wittingly or unwittingly helping terrorists.” It became an Act of Parliament in March 2002. It was “more draconian than TADA in many respects” as the Report of the People’s Tribunal established (The Terror of POTA and Other Security Legislation edited by Preeti Verma; Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi; pages 445).
The National Common Minimum Programme of the Government of India, May 2004, pledged its repeal. On September 21, 2004, the President promulgated two ordinances, simultaneously repealing POTA and amending the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. In its winter session, both Houses of Parliament gave the ordinances their approval, confirming the removal of POTA from the statute books and replacement of the UAPA, 1967 by the UAPA, 2004. Civil libertarians are rightly critical of those amendments. The BJP never mentions them. POTA’s repeal signified its electoral defeat, which continues to rankle in the Sangh Parivar’s mind.
India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and is obliged to file periodically reports on its observance of the Covenant. They are examined by the Human Rights Committee set up by the Covenant. It comprises experts who judge independently. Successive Attorneys-General of India have been grilled by the Committee on the country’s security legislation, particularly TADA and the National Security Act, and preventive detention in general. Its proceedings are poorly reported in India. Hearings were held on March 26, 27, 28 and 30 in 1984, March 27, 1991, and on July 24-25, 1997. They welcomed the non-renewal of TADA and expressed fears of its replacement by another draconian law.
Rosalyn Higgins, who became a Judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, pointed out, on March 27, 1991, that TADA had provisions “which were clearly incompatible with certain provisions of the Covenant”. This view was widely shared.
A member of the Human Rights Committee, El-Shafei, “asked what protection there was against arbitrary detention and the violation of other protected rights, in view of the overly broad language of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, Article 4(2) of which defined disruption activity as any action which questioned, disrupted or was intended to disrupt, either directly or indirectly, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. Also, what procedures were available to detainees for complaints against abuses while in detention? Had any such cases been brought, and what had been the outcome?”
TADA’s non-renewal was small comfort. On July 30, 1997, the Human Rights Committee adopted a series of comments on India’s report: “The Committee regrets that the use of special powers of detention remains widespread. While noting the State party’s [India’s] reservation to Article 9 of the Covenant, the Committee considers that this reservation does not exclude, inter alia, the obligation to comply with the requirement to inform promptly the person concerned of the reasons for his or her arrest. The Committee is also of the view that preventive detention is a restriction on liberty imposed as a response to the conduct of the individual concerned, that the decision as to continued detention must be considered as a determination falling within the meaning of Article 14, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant, and that proceedings to decide the continuation of detention must, therefore, comply with that provision…. The question of continued detention should be determined by an independent and impartial tribunal constituted and operating in accordance with Article 14, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant. It further recommends, at the very least, that a central register of detainees under the preventive detention laws be maintained and that the State party accept the admission of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to all types of detention facilities, particularly in areas of conflict.”
The Committee’s “Comments” constitute case law and are compiled in a book (The Human Rights Committee by Dominic McGoldrick; Oxford University Press). There are no Muslim vote banks on that Committee. POTA escaped censure because it lasted for three years, from 2001 to 2004.
We must examine the roots of terror and while combating it also redress the wrongs on which terror feeds. On May 28, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil proposed that rural job, housing and road-construction schemes be intensified in naxalite-affected areas to counter the influence of the Left extremists.
The Darul Uloom’s fatwa, the second after the one on February 25, challenges the preaching of hate and revenge by some Muslim groups. They responded with abusive e-mails (Seema Chishti; The Indian Express, May 23). The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) could sponsor and organise the Mumbai blasts in March 1993 only by drawing on the spirit of revenge created by the riots of December 1992 and January 1993, the massive arrests of Muslims and the impunity with which the Shiv Sena and the Sangh Parivar operated. The Srikrishna Commission noted that.
A.S. Dulat, former Director of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is no ordinary intelligence veteran. He has operated actively in Kashmir affairs, especially with the Hurriyat leaders, and understands political realities. His article in The Pioneer of May 24 comes as a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere fouled by the McCarthyite fulminations of Advani & Co. and ignorant and simplistic critiques by very many in the media. It bears quotation in extenso: “We have to recognise that terrorism has its origins and society is made up of people and people have minds. Now that we have finally admitted that Pakistani criminals alone don’t fill the ranks of terrorists and that they also include our own people, many of whom, like the SIMI activists, are quite educated and defy the jihadi stereotype, let’s make a sincere, well-thought-out plan to address the Islamic mind. In the 21st Century, despite all the importance claimed by Tech-Int people, the overwhelming importance of Hum-Int cannot be overstated.
“In short, there is a certain ideology that has gained currency in the post-Babri era. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Dawood Ibrahim and all others are fishing in the same pool. Counter-intelligence must focus on the cultural and economic compulsions that are driving Muslim youth into terrorist cells. The British government is doing a good job by encouraging the mainstreaming of Islamic societies in that country. The West has realised the limitations of a purely military solution. There will be nothing gained without seeking to remove the factors that agitate the mind of the Muslim. We must attempt this in a big way in India. One hears of the Justice Sachar Committee report’s recommendations, but what prevents the government from implementing them? Whenever one goes in the U.K., from the moment of landing in Heathrow to the shops of London, one cannot help noticing the proliferation of Muslim youth employed in servicing customers. They have name tags like ‘Abdul’, ‘Razia’ and many of the women even wear hijabs. Therefore, let’s not get fixated by anti-terror laws and federal agencies. Nothing will change unless we change our attitude.”
This is precisely what the BJP refuses to do. It stokes the fires of hate, presides over pogroms and sees POTA as a weapon for crushing the predictable and foolish reaction. That reaction, in turn, provides grist to the BJP’s antiquated mill. Deoband’s challenge and the realism shown by officials like Dulat provide hope that before long sanity in the country will drown the merchants of hate of all hues.
On June 2, 2008, the BJP started violent breast-beating at Nepal’s decision to establish a secular republic in the erstwhile Hindu kingdom. Jaswant Singh cried: “As an Indian and a believer in ‘sanatan dharma’ [Hinduism], I feel diminished… there is nothing more secular than sanatan dharma.” Forget the double-talk in the assertion that a state based on one religion is secular. The lament reveals the BJP’s real goal – the establishment of a Hindu state in India.
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
without the written consent of Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 13 :: Jun. 21-Jul. 04, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
ESSAY
Merchants of hate
A.G. NOORANI
The BJP’s equation of Muslims with terrorists is part of a wider Hindutva agenda.
KRISHNENDU HALDER/REUTERS
BJP activists in Hyderabad burning the effigy of a "terrorist" after the Jaipur explosions, on May 14. The party seems determined not only to politicise the mayhem caused by terrorists but also to communalise it.
IT is woefully clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is out to play the Hindutva card with great fervour in the next Lok Sabha elections. It has decided not only to politicise the mayhem that terrorists cause but to communalise it as well. It will target the Muslim community as a culprit to be denounced and a perpetrator to be punished. The cry for the re-enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was revived after the Jaipur blasts on May 13. But the terms in which the plea is couched have escaped notice.
Let me quote from an authentic report in the Organiser of May 25 of BJP leader L.K. Advani’s considered statement on the blasts. His attack on the United Progressive Allliance (UPA) government is well known, but not so well known is his attack on Muslims. The government is “unwilling to summon the requisite political will to mount a comprehensive attack on terrorism for fear of losing its vote bank”. Read: for fear of alienating Muslims. The innuendo is not veiled. The expression he used – “vote bank” – is Advani’s notorious shorthand for Muslims. He added: “Evidently, terrorist outfits have come to believe that they have nothing to fear so long as the UPA government is in office at the Centre. Guided by the same vote bank considerations the UPA government repealed POTA soon after assuming office in May 2004.”
He suppressed the facts that POTA had nothing to show by way of results, that its application was communally selective, especially in Gujarat, and that it had incurred censures of respected international human rights bodies.
BJP president Rajnath Singh sang the same tune, as Organiser quoted him: “Any strong action against terrorism will weaken its vote bank politics.” On June 1, he referred to the fatwa of the respected seminary Darul Uloom in Deoband on May 31 denouncing terrorism and said: “Darul Uloom is seeking to dissociate Muslims from terrorism when the Congress-led government wishes to equate Muslims with terrorism and, on this basis, rejects the demand for enactment of an anti-terror law.”
This is Orwell’s double-speak. The “basis” – equating Muslims with terrorism – is entirely a BJP creation, as his and Advani’s statements earlier establish. Rajnath Singh made it plain that the BJP’s equation of Muslims with terrorists would be an integral part of a wider Hindutva agenda.
“Along with cultural nationalism [read: Hindutva], Article 370, uniform civil code and true [sic.] secularism, we are committed to preserve the national unity and integrity” (Hindustan Times, June 2, 2008).
In its Annual Report of 2008, Amnesty International noted the cries for reviving POTA. “Demands for new domestic anti-terror legislation continued. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 was not repealed despite protests” (page 153).
POTA’s predecessor, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), had proved worthless and 72,000 of the 77,000 people arrested under it were released without charge. Only 1.8 per cent of those prosecuted were convicted.
POTA not the same as TADA
But there is a sharp difference between the two laws, as the noted scholar Ujjwal Kumar Singh points out in his outstandingly able work The State, Democracy and Anti-Terror Laws in India (Sage, pages 244). He writes: “A significant distinction between TADA and POTO/POTA, indicative of the political context within which POTA has been brought, is that while TADA did not carry a central image of the nation or national security, the latter carries an image that is part of the Hindutva agenda of the nation and national security…. Moreover, while identifying ‘terrorist activities’, TADA specifically mentioned ‘threatening harmony between communities’ as an act of terror. Following widespread allegations of its targeted use against religious minorities, POTA removed ‘threatening harmony between communities’ from the ambit of ‘terrorist activities’, purportedly as ‘a safeguard’. Far from being a safeguard, the removal translated in practice into a deflection of attention from the communal activities of Hindu fundamentalist organisations, while the Act continued to be used selectively against the Muslim community.
“Perhaps the most prominent selective use of POTA is in Gujarat where out of 250 persons against whom POTA has been imposed, 249 are Muslims. The majority of POTA cases in Gujarat have resulted from its application in the Sabarmati train burning case in Godhra. Curiously while the circumstances of the tragic train burning incident were and still continue to be pieced together, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, declared it a ‘terrorist act’ immediately after it occurred. In the midst of the unbridled brutalities unleashed against Muslims in different parts of Gujarat, on 2 March, 2002, Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) was applied in the train burning case. Contrary to popular perception, POTO was not subsequently ‘withdrawn’. It was only kept in abeyance, that is, deferred, till more suitable circumstances presented themselves. The fact that POTO, still an ordinance, was to come up before the Parliament for approval before it became an Act, was perhaps an important consideration. POTA got enacted in an extraordinary joint session of Parliament on 26 March 2003, and almost simultaneously, the Act was re-invoked in the train burning case. The entire pattern of invocation, abeyance and deferral, followed by its re-invocation later, shows the exclusionary nature of the politics extraordinary laws represent and thrive on” (pages 62-63). POTA was not applied to the perpetrators of the pogrom in Gujarat.
The author cites facts and figures to establish the selective application of POTA. It was promulgated as an ordinance (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance) on October 24, 2001, soon after 9/11. On November 2, 2001, Advani said: “If the Opposition opposes the ordinance they will be wittingly or unwittingly helping terrorists.” It became an Act of Parliament in March 2002. It was “more draconian than TADA in many respects” as the Report of the People’s Tribunal established (The Terror of POTA and Other Security Legislation edited by Preeti Verma; Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi; pages 445).
The National Common Minimum Programme of the Government of India, May 2004, pledged its repeal. On September 21, 2004, the President promulgated two ordinances, simultaneously repealing POTA and amending the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. In its winter session, both Houses of Parliament gave the ordinances their approval, confirming the removal of POTA from the statute books and replacement of the UAPA, 1967 by the UAPA, 2004. Civil libertarians are rightly critical of those amendments. The BJP never mentions them. POTA’s repeal signified its electoral defeat, which continues to rankle in the Sangh Parivar’s mind.
India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and is obliged to file periodically reports on its observance of the Covenant. They are examined by the Human Rights Committee set up by the Covenant. It comprises experts who judge independently. Successive Attorneys-General of India have been grilled by the Committee on the country’s security legislation, particularly TADA and the National Security Act, and preventive detention in general. Its proceedings are poorly reported in India. Hearings were held on March 26, 27, 28 and 30 in 1984, March 27, 1991, and on July 24-25, 1997. They welcomed the non-renewal of TADA and expressed fears of its replacement by another draconian law.
Rosalyn Higgins, who became a Judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, pointed out, on March 27, 1991, that TADA had provisions “which were clearly incompatible with certain provisions of the Covenant”. This view was widely shared.
A member of the Human Rights Committee, El-Shafei, “asked what protection there was against arbitrary detention and the violation of other protected rights, in view of the overly broad language of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, Article 4(2) of which defined disruption activity as any action which questioned, disrupted or was intended to disrupt, either directly or indirectly, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. Also, what procedures were available to detainees for complaints against abuses while in detention? Had any such cases been brought, and what had been the outcome?”
TADA’s non-renewal was small comfort. On July 30, 1997, the Human Rights Committee adopted a series of comments on India’s report: “The Committee regrets that the use of special powers of detention remains widespread. While noting the State party’s [India’s] reservation to Article 9 of the Covenant, the Committee considers that this reservation does not exclude, inter alia, the obligation to comply with the requirement to inform promptly the person concerned of the reasons for his or her arrest. The Committee is also of the view that preventive detention is a restriction on liberty imposed as a response to the conduct of the individual concerned, that the decision as to continued detention must be considered as a determination falling within the meaning of Article 14, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant, and that proceedings to decide the continuation of detention must, therefore, comply with that provision…. The question of continued detention should be determined by an independent and impartial tribunal constituted and operating in accordance with Article 14, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant. It further recommends, at the very least, that a central register of detainees under the preventive detention laws be maintained and that the State party accept the admission of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to all types of detention facilities, particularly in areas of conflict.”
The Committee’s “Comments” constitute case law and are compiled in a book (The Human Rights Committee by Dominic McGoldrick; Oxford University Press). There are no Muslim vote banks on that Committee. POTA escaped censure because it lasted for three years, from 2001 to 2004.
We must examine the roots of terror and while combating it also redress the wrongs on which terror feeds. On May 28, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil proposed that rural job, housing and road-construction schemes be intensified in naxalite-affected areas to counter the influence of the Left extremists.
The Darul Uloom’s fatwa, the second after the one on February 25, challenges the preaching of hate and revenge by some Muslim groups. They responded with abusive e-mails (Seema Chishti; The Indian Express, May 23). The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) could sponsor and organise the Mumbai blasts in March 1993 only by drawing on the spirit of revenge created by the riots of December 1992 and January 1993, the massive arrests of Muslims and the impunity with which the Shiv Sena and the Sangh Parivar operated. The Srikrishna Commission noted that.
A.S. Dulat, former Director of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is no ordinary intelligence veteran. He has operated actively in Kashmir affairs, especially with the Hurriyat leaders, and understands political realities. His article in The Pioneer of May 24 comes as a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere fouled by the McCarthyite fulminations of Advani & Co. and ignorant and simplistic critiques by very many in the media. It bears quotation in extenso: “We have to recognise that terrorism has its origins and society is made up of people and people have minds. Now that we have finally admitted that Pakistani criminals alone don’t fill the ranks of terrorists and that they also include our own people, many of whom, like the SIMI activists, are quite educated and defy the jihadi stereotype, let’s make a sincere, well-thought-out plan to address the Islamic mind. In the 21st Century, despite all the importance claimed by Tech-Int people, the overwhelming importance of Hum-Int cannot be overstated.
“In short, there is a certain ideology that has gained currency in the post-Babri era. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Dawood Ibrahim and all others are fishing in the same pool. Counter-intelligence must focus on the cultural and economic compulsions that are driving Muslim youth into terrorist cells. The British government is doing a good job by encouraging the mainstreaming of Islamic societies in that country. The West has realised the limitations of a purely military solution. There will be nothing gained without seeking to remove the factors that agitate the mind of the Muslim. We must attempt this in a big way in India. One hears of the Justice Sachar Committee report’s recommendations, but what prevents the government from implementing them? Whenever one goes in the U.K., from the moment of landing in Heathrow to the shops of London, one cannot help noticing the proliferation of Muslim youth employed in servicing customers. They have name tags like ‘Abdul’, ‘Razia’ and many of the women even wear hijabs. Therefore, let’s not get fixated by anti-terror laws and federal agencies. Nothing will change unless we change our attitude.”
This is precisely what the BJP refuses to do. It stokes the fires of hate, presides over pogroms and sees POTA as a weapon for crushing the predictable and foolish reaction. That reaction, in turn, provides grist to the BJP’s antiquated mill. Deoband’s challenge and the realism shown by officials like Dulat provide hope that before long sanity in the country will drown the merchants of hate of all hues.
On June 2, 2008, the BJP started violent breast-beating at Nepal’s decision to establish a secular republic in the erstwhile Hindu kingdom. Jaswant Singh cried: “As an Indian and a believer in ‘sanatan dharma’ [Hinduism], I feel diminished… there is nothing more secular than sanatan dharma.” Forget the double-talk in the assertion that a state based on one religion is secular. The lament reveals the BJP’s real goal – the establishment of a Hindu state in India.
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
without the written consent of Frontline
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