Iran is under the strenuous pressure from the West, especially the US. The US is turning the screw on Iran. So relentless is America that the fear of war seems more likely now that only sixteen months are left for George W Bush in office. The same kind of hype has been prepared as it was done in the days preceding the current war in Iraq. What at stake is not certainly uranium enrichment that Iran is legally entitled to under the non-proliferation treaty.
Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani has made it clear that Iran was readily complying with the inspection and surveillance of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the cameras are in place there. The chief of IAEA Mohammad ElBaradei has proved himself correct what he had said before the Iraq war that there was no weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. The chief inspector of arms Hans Brix too had similar opinion. Bush disregarded both. With hindsight ElBaradei now says ruefully: “I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700, 000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons”
Despite this foreboding the US is adamant on Iran. The stock reaction to President Mehmud Ahmedinejad’s visit to the Columbia University and the General Assembly indicates that war is a foregone conclusion. It is a matter of time. The president of the university took more time to ‘introduce’ his ‘guest’ speaker and gave him less time to reply. Bollinger Lee said of his ‘guest’ that the critical premise of freedom of speech is that “we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices”, it is not the speaker’s right to speak but the audience’s right to listen that is important. They listen that they have “the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament”.
In a real sense of the America absurd drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? of Edward Albee, the host begins humbling the ‘guest.’ “Let's, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.” Taking issue with the ‘guest’ over the denial of the holocaust the host goes a step further: “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” There has been a move in the US to boycott Israeli college and university teachers because of the harsh, inhuman and intolerable treatment of the Palestinians. In order to build pressure on Iran and humble the ‘guest’ Bollinger turns this against Iran, which has no direct link with the issue. He concludes a la Samuel Huntington that he has “the weight of the modern civilized world” to ask him the questions. And thus the host excludes the ‘guest’ from the civilized world. What else is this if not continuing the clash of civilization between Islam and the West? Hence the war must continue.
In his reply to Bollinger, President Ahmedinejad took up the trenchant question of the holocaust and asked rhetorically, “Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?” In his riposte to the introduction of the President of Columbia University he remarked that the introduction was an “insult to the audience” and the university where “people are free to speak their mind.”
Most people believe that the US is not going to leave the Middle East because of its oil reserve. It is also using Israel to this end. The Israelis themselves may not like all that the Americans are doing but they too are hostage to the roguery of the States. Hence the Palestinian problem is kept boiling as well as the non-capture of Osama bin Laden hiding somewhere in the American protégé Pakistan. For the energy profligacy of the people of the United States the world is paying a heavy price.
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency is doing its work but America is peremptory in its insistence that Iran is not complying. Therefore the matter has become political rather than what it is, technical. Thus in the General Assembly Ahmedinejad remarked that Iran would from now on consider the nuclear issue not a “political” one for the Security Council, but a “technical” one to be decided by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Oil has corrupted the whole of the States in the same way as Mark Twain wrote of the man who corrupted the whole Hadleyberg. Bush family has had dealings with the Saudi magnate Osama bin Laden family in the matter of oil. Money has exchanged hands. It is no surprise that after 9/11 bin Laden family was allowed to leave the United States without even interrogating!
Who is who in this mad world? Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter described Bush as the greatest terrorist of the world. Even the US is not safe let alone the world because of him. Seven hundred housand innocent people have died in the Iraq war and two thousand US soldiers who were aggressors and hence not innocent. Will the world wait for seven hundred thousand citizens to die in the coming Iran war so that Bush will be declared good and Ahmedinejad evil?
Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua told the General Assembly that Washington’s actions against Iran were like those of “God telling people what is good and bad”. There might be a misuse of word here as last year the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had addressed the same after Bush, he had remarked that he knew that the devil was there; he could still smell the sulphur there.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Need for Civil Raights Movement in India
Posted on September 22, 2007
The civil rights movement in the United States was a watershed in the relationship between the whites and blacks. It opened up the American society for justice and equality. Much of the ugly racial violence substantially subsided because of it. Equal opportunity took roots in the aftermath of the movement in the 1960s. The result is there for anyone to see. More blacks have got education and jobs and come in the mainstream as one can see them in the armed forces, in the state department or the defence department, in the judiciary as well as in the legislature. The front-runner of Democratic Party for the presidential election Barak Obama, Secretary of States Dr Condoleeza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell are all blacks. The great writers and musicians and sports persons from that community make a much bigger list. The nation enjoys greater sense of togetherness. Civil rights marches in the streets of Washington and elsewhere included whites and blacks alike. Martin Luther King Jr and his fellow workers across the racial divide bridged the gulf that was a cause of disaffection and violence.
India has not seen such civil rights movement although the communal violence has risen in a crescendo and threatens to make haywire of the society if it has not done so already. The bomb blasts in Hyderabad on May 18 and August 25 of this year crystallize how two different sets of reactions were witnessed. This fissiparous attitude calls for the civil rights movement that would bring back sanity to the people as the people themselves suffer irrespective of their religion. Similarly the judgment in the serial bomb blasts of March 1993 is not followed by equally prompt registration of crimes of rioting and fair investigation and conviction. The Chief Minister Mr Deshmuckh and his party succeeded in persuading the Muslim to call off their rally on August 20, 2007. That rally was meant to put pressure for speedy justice to the victims of the communal riots of December 1992 and January 1993. However, what happened after that is not only dragging feet in the matter of inquiry and prosecution but self-justification on the part of the police. Instead of good will there is deepening of the stagnancy of ill will, which does not augur well.
On Thursday September 20, 2007 thousands of blacks and human rights activists descended on the town of Jena in Louisiana to launch a second civil rights movement in America. Exactly a year ago six black boys had attacked a fellow white schoolmate who became unconscious. The victim Justin Barker had his face badly swollen but attended school later that night. The six were arrested and tried for attempted murder. They were released on bail except Michal Bell, 16. He remained in prison for a whole year and could not get $90,000 for bail. The civil rights groups point out that the police have selectively used the criminal laws.
A year ago in September a black boy sat under a tree in the recess. The tree was called “white tree”, not that the bark was white but because it was preserved for the whites. Three white boys hung three nooses from the tree later that day. This was reminiscent of lynching of the blacks in the pre 1960s civil rights time and also a warning to the coloured students to avoid the tree. The three whites were suspended from school but were not prosecuted. The tree was cut down. Racial tension increased and then the six attacked Justin. The police did not register a case of hate crime against the whites but not only arrested the six blacks but booked them for adult crime while they should have been booked under juvenile court laws.
Addressing the rally Rev Al Sharpton remarked that he would work with others and have the district magistrate explain to the American Congress his indiscriminate use of law. Martin Luther King III (son of the legendary father who addressed the famous 1960s’ march and delivered “I have a dream” speech) told the gathering that punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but “the justice system isn’t applied the same to all crimes and all people.”
"It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country," said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP. "Every year at Jena High School there's a black-and-white fight," said Casa Compton, 26, a Jena native, who is African-American. "It's always been tense. There's always been prejudice and bigotry here. Every day they're throwing away a black man's life down here.'' "I think a lot of people recognize that the criminal justice system grinds down people of colour everyday," said J. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group based in Montgomery, Ala. Rev Jesse Jackson said of the district magistrate prosecuting the case and who threatened the blacks that he would "ruin" their lives, "That is persecution, not prosecution. That is prosecutorial misconduct." "Nobody has taken our side. The only white people who have are from out of town," said Tina Jones, the mother of 18-year-old Bryant Purvis, the only defendant still facing attempted-murder charges. "I don't know if it's racism. But blacks and whites are not treated equal. That's what I call it."
With this kind of another civil rights movement underway in the US, the situation in India is far more aggravated but there is no civil rights movement to take up the cause for the greater good of the nation. In the third week of September 2007 the government of Maharashtra submitted two affidavits in Bombay high court regarding the Hari masjid, Sewri, firing case of January 10, 1993, in which six people were killed and among the injured was Farooq Mapkar. Justice Srikrishna had found sub inspector Nikhil Kapse “guilty of unjustified firing and inhuman and brutal behaviour” However, police deputy commissioner Dattatrya Shinde and senior inspector Namdeo Wayal in their affidavits now assert that Kapse did his duty when a mob attacked the police. Farooq Mapkar was one of the 40 arrested. Except him the others cooperated with the police and were released. Mapkar had appealed the court to book Kapse for murder. In response to this the police now charge Mapkar with murder and have produced an “eyewitness”, Arun Ghadge. But the same Arun Ghadge had in his deposition to the court last year said that he was not in the locality at the time of the incident. How differently would have the civil rights movement activists handled this case if it were in America!
Sacchar committee report and the follow up recommendations of Mr Antulay to improve the backwardness in Muslim minority should have created some kind of affirmative action acceptable to all. This is what the Americans did Instead we have the signed statement of Bal Thackeray containing ominous warning and repudiation of Muslims. It does not acknowledge the backwardness of the minority rather ascribes to them that they have more landed property than the Hindus of India, and where they are less in number and are considered poor then where they are in larger numbers they must be deemed rich, they enjoy a Haj committee, their literacy rate is higher than that of the Hindus, if the ajlaf in their community are backward the ashraf have shored them up, they have financial corporation of their own (so, the Hindus have none?). In this letter to the Prime Minister he questions the need to appoint Sachar commission, and ironically points out that the dalits have already their quotas and are numerically more than the Muslims. Therefore giving concessions to Muslims will harm their interest. He ends the letter with warning that it is sowing of seed of another partition.
Thus the lot of the Muslims must remain what it is. They must remain where they are and doing anything to them would be paving way for another partition of the country. This trend of thinking shows that the sense of civil society has not taken roots in the country yet. Civil society involves an equal regard for all others who share life and amenities with us. Whereas the need of the hour is to involve all others and reach out to all others within the country in a spirit of affirmative action Thackeray’s line and that of the BJP would create negative action. Deprive more the deprived rather than redress.
The civil rights movement in the United States was a watershed in the relationship between the whites and blacks. It opened up the American society for justice and equality. Much of the ugly racial violence substantially subsided because of it. Equal opportunity took roots in the aftermath of the movement in the 1960s. The result is there for anyone to see. More blacks have got education and jobs and come in the mainstream as one can see them in the armed forces, in the state department or the defence department, in the judiciary as well as in the legislature. The front-runner of Democratic Party for the presidential election Barak Obama, Secretary of States Dr Condoleeza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell are all blacks. The great writers and musicians and sports persons from that community make a much bigger list. The nation enjoys greater sense of togetherness. Civil rights marches in the streets of Washington and elsewhere included whites and blacks alike. Martin Luther King Jr and his fellow workers across the racial divide bridged the gulf that was a cause of disaffection and violence.
India has not seen such civil rights movement although the communal violence has risen in a crescendo and threatens to make haywire of the society if it has not done so already. The bomb blasts in Hyderabad on May 18 and August 25 of this year crystallize how two different sets of reactions were witnessed. This fissiparous attitude calls for the civil rights movement that would bring back sanity to the people as the people themselves suffer irrespective of their religion. Similarly the judgment in the serial bomb blasts of March 1993 is not followed by equally prompt registration of crimes of rioting and fair investigation and conviction. The Chief Minister Mr Deshmuckh and his party succeeded in persuading the Muslim to call off their rally on August 20, 2007. That rally was meant to put pressure for speedy justice to the victims of the communal riots of December 1992 and January 1993. However, what happened after that is not only dragging feet in the matter of inquiry and prosecution but self-justification on the part of the police. Instead of good will there is deepening of the stagnancy of ill will, which does not augur well.
On Thursday September 20, 2007 thousands of blacks and human rights activists descended on the town of Jena in Louisiana to launch a second civil rights movement in America. Exactly a year ago six black boys had attacked a fellow white schoolmate who became unconscious. The victim Justin Barker had his face badly swollen but attended school later that night. The six were arrested and tried for attempted murder. They were released on bail except Michal Bell, 16. He remained in prison for a whole year and could not get $90,000 for bail. The civil rights groups point out that the police have selectively used the criminal laws.
A year ago in September a black boy sat under a tree in the recess. The tree was called “white tree”, not that the bark was white but because it was preserved for the whites. Three white boys hung three nooses from the tree later that day. This was reminiscent of lynching of the blacks in the pre 1960s civil rights time and also a warning to the coloured students to avoid the tree. The three whites were suspended from school but were not prosecuted. The tree was cut down. Racial tension increased and then the six attacked Justin. The police did not register a case of hate crime against the whites but not only arrested the six blacks but booked them for adult crime while they should have been booked under juvenile court laws.
Addressing the rally Rev Al Sharpton remarked that he would work with others and have the district magistrate explain to the American Congress his indiscriminate use of law. Martin Luther King III (son of the legendary father who addressed the famous 1960s’ march and delivered “I have a dream” speech) told the gathering that punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but “the justice system isn’t applied the same to all crimes and all people.”
"It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country," said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP. "Every year at Jena High School there's a black-and-white fight," said Casa Compton, 26, a Jena native, who is African-American. "It's always been tense. There's always been prejudice and bigotry here. Every day they're throwing away a black man's life down here.'' "I think a lot of people recognize that the criminal justice system grinds down people of colour everyday," said J. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group based in Montgomery, Ala. Rev Jesse Jackson said of the district magistrate prosecuting the case and who threatened the blacks that he would "ruin" their lives, "That is persecution, not prosecution. That is prosecutorial misconduct." "Nobody has taken our side. The only white people who have are from out of town," said Tina Jones, the mother of 18-year-old Bryant Purvis, the only defendant still facing attempted-murder charges. "I don't know if it's racism. But blacks and whites are not treated equal. That's what I call it."
With this kind of another civil rights movement underway in the US, the situation in India is far more aggravated but there is no civil rights movement to take up the cause for the greater good of the nation. In the third week of September 2007 the government of Maharashtra submitted two affidavits in Bombay high court regarding the Hari masjid, Sewri, firing case of January 10, 1993, in which six people were killed and among the injured was Farooq Mapkar. Justice Srikrishna had found sub inspector Nikhil Kapse “guilty of unjustified firing and inhuman and brutal behaviour” However, police deputy commissioner Dattatrya Shinde and senior inspector Namdeo Wayal in their affidavits now assert that Kapse did his duty when a mob attacked the police. Farooq Mapkar was one of the 40 arrested. Except him the others cooperated with the police and were released. Mapkar had appealed the court to book Kapse for murder. In response to this the police now charge Mapkar with murder and have produced an “eyewitness”, Arun Ghadge. But the same Arun Ghadge had in his deposition to the court last year said that he was not in the locality at the time of the incident. How differently would have the civil rights movement activists handled this case if it were in America!
Sacchar committee report and the follow up recommendations of Mr Antulay to improve the backwardness in Muslim minority should have created some kind of affirmative action acceptable to all. This is what the Americans did Instead we have the signed statement of Bal Thackeray containing ominous warning and repudiation of Muslims. It does not acknowledge the backwardness of the minority rather ascribes to them that they have more landed property than the Hindus of India, and where they are less in number and are considered poor then where they are in larger numbers they must be deemed rich, they enjoy a Haj committee, their literacy rate is higher than that of the Hindus, if the ajlaf in their community are backward the ashraf have shored them up, they have financial corporation of their own (so, the Hindus have none?). In this letter to the Prime Minister he questions the need to appoint Sachar commission, and ironically points out that the dalits have already their quotas and are numerically more than the Muslims. Therefore giving concessions to Muslims will harm their interest. He ends the letter with warning that it is sowing of seed of another partition.
Thus the lot of the Muslims must remain what it is. They must remain where they are and doing anything to them would be paving way for another partition of the country. This trend of thinking shows that the sense of civil society has not taken roots in the country yet. Civil society involves an equal regard for all others who share life and amenities with us. Whereas the need of the hour is to involve all others and reach out to all others within the country in a spirit of affirmative action Thackeray’s line and that of the BJP would create negative action. Deprive more the deprived rather than redress.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wars of the United States of America
Posted on September 20, 2007
The release of the autobiography of the former Chairman of Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and his contention that the Iraq war “is largely about oil” has brought the war into a new focus this week. The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates as expected rejected the argument. However the book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World is bound to create ripples in the days to come. The debate on war is already becoming poignant after the French Minister Robert Kouchner warned this week that war with Iran is inevitable as Iran persists in the enrichment of uranium that could be used in making bomb. The Iranian Foreign Minister did not mince words when he said that the US forces are themselves encircled and within the striking distance of Iranian missiles. If the continuing war and the likely war to come are about oil then the most tragic mistake would turn out be the way the Arabs allowed themselves to be divided on sectarian lines in Iraq. America has been pitting one sect against the other in a suicidal civil war as a cover up for its hidden end of pumping out oil for a strategic reserve that would last ages and domination of the Middle East. Weapons of Mass Destruction, removing the Iraqi dictator and bringing democracy were used to buy time to achieve a hidden agenda.
Of the greatest ironies of our time has been the United States of America’s stance that democracy prevents war while dictatorship abets it. But the last thirty years pose a serious challenge to this assumption. Who invaded and occupied Grenada, but America. Who invaded and occupied Panama, but America. Who invaded Iraq twice within just over a decade and has occupied it, but America. Who helped the Afghans and Osama bin Laden to fight Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan but has invaded and occupied it in its turn, but America. Yet this so called greatest democratic country preaches what it practically does not do.
America was born in war. The Revolutionary War spread over eight years: April 19, 1775- September 3, 1783. The thirteen colonies of Great Britain rebelled and fought this protracted war against the mother country and declared themselves independent under the stars and stripes and metamorphosed into the United States of America. Since then America has fought the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846-48, the Civil War 1861-65, the Spanish-American War 1898, World War I, World War II, the Korean War of 1950-53, the Vietnam War of 1960’s-1975. The Wars in the Caribbean have given America a bad name throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and they include: the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, Invasion and Occupation of the Dominique Republic in 1965, the Invasion and Occupation of Grenada 1983, the Invasion and Occupation of Panama in 1989. Equally long is the list of wars of America even after the cold war with communism ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union: the Gulf War of 1991, the Invasion and Occupation of Somalia 1992, the Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan 2001, the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq 2003.
As the war in Iraq continues and protests against the war take place in America it is time to take account of the wars that America has fought till today. The latest protests took place on September 15, 2007 in which protesters also called for impeachment of the American President. However it may look strange for a democracy, wars of recent years were grounded in the personal motivations of the man in the White House. The current war in Iraq had the personal hubris of President George W Bush who had grudges against President Saddam Hussein. He harboured revengeful feelings against the Iraqi leader ever since a failed attempt was made on the life of his father. Senior George Bush had ordered invasion of Iraq when it had occupied Kuwait. This first war on Iraq is known as the Gulf War February 16-28, 1991. After the war Senior Bush went on an inspection of the American troops there when a plot to assassinate him was uncovered. President Bush lost reelection and President Bill Clinton succeeded him. George W Bush was the governor of Texas at that time and felt angry for the defeat of his father. When he won election after the judgment of Supreme Court of the US went in his favour and against Gore, the newly elected younger Bush felt arrogance that Saddam Hussein was still there even after the war while his father lost the election because of the war. The two Bushes also had a chequered family history of having suffered misfortune in oil trade in their home state of Texas which is rich in oil. These are subterranean issues and irritants which contributed to the aggravation of the political and strategic situations on the ground like the occupation of Kuwait, Iraq’s alleged making of Weapons of Mass Destruction, removal of Iraqi leader, democracy, and now, terrorism. Some critics have called war on Iraq as family wars.
America started the Gulf War to protect Saudi Arabia from being over run and occupied by invading Iraqi army which had occupied Kuwait. Saudi Arabia was and is the greatest oil supplier of the US and its major ally in the region, next only to Israel. The US army called it Operation Desert Shield. During the Gulf War first 37 days saw exclusive air bombardment. This was named Operation Desert Storm. On February 23 1991 American and allied forces made ground invasion which lasted four days. They called it Operation Desert Saber. Needless to say that oil is at stake and nothing else, not even WMD or democracy. Oil for which the family business declined and it is again oil which threatens American economy. Similarly the American economy will be threatened as Iran is now accepting payment for oil in other currencies and not the American dollar. Hence, this is the reason for war like move against Iran, another axis of evil after Iraq. The family economy depends on national economy.
But the most ludicrous was Bill Clinton’s impeachment situation. He was accused of having had oral sex with a Polish intern Monica Lewinsky working in his office. Even his pants were being inspected in the American Congressional hearings. A day before impeachment vote against him he ordered bombings of radar sites in Iraq on December 16, 1998. Two hundred Tomahawk missiles were fired into Iraq from the US war ships in the Gulf. The Operation Desert Fox was carried out to move the main heading of the news about impeachment from the front page of the American newspaper.
In these wars the Vietnamese have come out with brilliance of achievement. They were the most determined as they were the most disciplined. The Arabs have not come out of the wars yet but they are not as disciplined in confrontation with the “great Satan”. Foremost is their proverbial disunity born out of the multiple tribal loyalties –a pre Islamic trait. Then their backwardness in science and technology makes them dependent on the West which exploits them for its own interest. They have also put all their money in the western banks which freeze their assets when things go wrong and cripple them. Oil and deposit asset are what the US cannot survive without.
Grenada and Panama like many other countries are too small and weak to look eye to eye with the Americans. Except the hostage siege at the American embassy in Tehran at the start of the Islamic revolution in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranians have not tested either there own mettle or that of the American’s. But signs are there that the next arena the current Bush administration has earmarked is Iran. Why is Iran an inevitability but not North Korea which is one of the two other axes of evil? The answer is oil and petrodollars: their provenance in the Middle East. As Robert Frisk has observed: “It’s always been my view that the people of this part of the Earth want freedom. But they want another kind of freedom—freedom from us. And this we do not intend to give them. Which is why our Middle East presence is heading into further darkness. Which is why I sit on my balcony and wonder where the next explosion is going to be. For, to be sure, it will happen. Bin Laden doesn’t matter any more, alive or dead. Because like nuclear scientists, he has invented the ‘bomb’. You can arrest all of the world’s nuclear scientists but the bomb has been made. Bin Laden created al-Qaeda amid the matchwood of the Middle East. It exists. His presence is no longer necessary.”
May be another snag will develop like the sand storm that jammed the war machinery when President Jimmy Carter tried but failed and honestly accepted failure, and desisted from launching anymore attack on Iran when he tried to save the American hostages.
The release of the autobiography of the former Chairman of Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and his contention that the Iraq war “is largely about oil” has brought the war into a new focus this week. The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates as expected rejected the argument. However the book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World is bound to create ripples in the days to come. The debate on war is already becoming poignant after the French Minister Robert Kouchner warned this week that war with Iran is inevitable as Iran persists in the enrichment of uranium that could be used in making bomb. The Iranian Foreign Minister did not mince words when he said that the US forces are themselves encircled and within the striking distance of Iranian missiles. If the continuing war and the likely war to come are about oil then the most tragic mistake would turn out be the way the Arabs allowed themselves to be divided on sectarian lines in Iraq. America has been pitting one sect against the other in a suicidal civil war as a cover up for its hidden end of pumping out oil for a strategic reserve that would last ages and domination of the Middle East. Weapons of Mass Destruction, removing the Iraqi dictator and bringing democracy were used to buy time to achieve a hidden agenda.
Of the greatest ironies of our time has been the United States of America’s stance that democracy prevents war while dictatorship abets it. But the last thirty years pose a serious challenge to this assumption. Who invaded and occupied Grenada, but America. Who invaded and occupied Panama, but America. Who invaded Iraq twice within just over a decade and has occupied it, but America. Who helped the Afghans and Osama bin Laden to fight Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan but has invaded and occupied it in its turn, but America. Yet this so called greatest democratic country preaches what it practically does not do.
America was born in war. The Revolutionary War spread over eight years: April 19, 1775- September 3, 1783. The thirteen colonies of Great Britain rebelled and fought this protracted war against the mother country and declared themselves independent under the stars and stripes and metamorphosed into the United States of America. Since then America has fought the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846-48, the Civil War 1861-65, the Spanish-American War 1898, World War I, World War II, the Korean War of 1950-53, the Vietnam War of 1960’s-1975. The Wars in the Caribbean have given America a bad name throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and they include: the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, Invasion and Occupation of the Dominique Republic in 1965, the Invasion and Occupation of Grenada 1983, the Invasion and Occupation of Panama in 1989. Equally long is the list of wars of America even after the cold war with communism ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union: the Gulf War of 1991, the Invasion and Occupation of Somalia 1992, the Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan 2001, the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq 2003.
As the war in Iraq continues and protests against the war take place in America it is time to take account of the wars that America has fought till today. The latest protests took place on September 15, 2007 in which protesters also called for impeachment of the American President. However it may look strange for a democracy, wars of recent years were grounded in the personal motivations of the man in the White House. The current war in Iraq had the personal hubris of President George W Bush who had grudges against President Saddam Hussein. He harboured revengeful feelings against the Iraqi leader ever since a failed attempt was made on the life of his father. Senior George Bush had ordered invasion of Iraq when it had occupied Kuwait. This first war on Iraq is known as the Gulf War February 16-28, 1991. After the war Senior Bush went on an inspection of the American troops there when a plot to assassinate him was uncovered. President Bush lost reelection and President Bill Clinton succeeded him. George W Bush was the governor of Texas at that time and felt angry for the defeat of his father. When he won election after the judgment of Supreme Court of the US went in his favour and against Gore, the newly elected younger Bush felt arrogance that Saddam Hussein was still there even after the war while his father lost the election because of the war. The two Bushes also had a chequered family history of having suffered misfortune in oil trade in their home state of Texas which is rich in oil. These are subterranean issues and irritants which contributed to the aggravation of the political and strategic situations on the ground like the occupation of Kuwait, Iraq’s alleged making of Weapons of Mass Destruction, removal of Iraqi leader, democracy, and now, terrorism. Some critics have called war on Iraq as family wars.
America started the Gulf War to protect Saudi Arabia from being over run and occupied by invading Iraqi army which had occupied Kuwait. Saudi Arabia was and is the greatest oil supplier of the US and its major ally in the region, next only to Israel. The US army called it Operation Desert Shield. During the Gulf War first 37 days saw exclusive air bombardment. This was named Operation Desert Storm. On February 23 1991 American and allied forces made ground invasion which lasted four days. They called it Operation Desert Saber. Needless to say that oil is at stake and nothing else, not even WMD or democracy. Oil for which the family business declined and it is again oil which threatens American economy. Similarly the American economy will be threatened as Iran is now accepting payment for oil in other currencies and not the American dollar. Hence, this is the reason for war like move against Iran, another axis of evil after Iraq. The family economy depends on national economy.
But the most ludicrous was Bill Clinton’s impeachment situation. He was accused of having had oral sex with a Polish intern Monica Lewinsky working in his office. Even his pants were being inspected in the American Congressional hearings. A day before impeachment vote against him he ordered bombings of radar sites in Iraq on December 16, 1998. Two hundred Tomahawk missiles were fired into Iraq from the US war ships in the Gulf. The Operation Desert Fox was carried out to move the main heading of the news about impeachment from the front page of the American newspaper.
In these wars the Vietnamese have come out with brilliance of achievement. They were the most determined as they were the most disciplined. The Arabs have not come out of the wars yet but they are not as disciplined in confrontation with the “great Satan”. Foremost is their proverbial disunity born out of the multiple tribal loyalties –a pre Islamic trait. Then their backwardness in science and technology makes them dependent on the West which exploits them for its own interest. They have also put all their money in the western banks which freeze their assets when things go wrong and cripple them. Oil and deposit asset are what the US cannot survive without.
Grenada and Panama like many other countries are too small and weak to look eye to eye with the Americans. Except the hostage siege at the American embassy in Tehran at the start of the Islamic revolution in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranians have not tested either there own mettle or that of the American’s. But signs are there that the next arena the current Bush administration has earmarked is Iran. Why is Iran an inevitability but not North Korea which is one of the two other axes of evil? The answer is oil and petrodollars: their provenance in the Middle East. As Robert Frisk has observed: “It’s always been my view that the people of this part of the Earth want freedom. But they want another kind of freedom—freedom from us. And this we do not intend to give them. Which is why our Middle East presence is heading into further darkness. Which is why I sit on my balcony and wonder where the next explosion is going to be. For, to be sure, it will happen. Bin Laden doesn’t matter any more, alive or dead. Because like nuclear scientists, he has invented the ‘bomb’. You can arrest all of the world’s nuclear scientists but the bomb has been made. Bin Laden created al-Qaeda amid the matchwood of the Middle East. It exists. His presence is no longer necessary.”
May be another snag will develop like the sand storm that jammed the war machinery when President Jimmy Carter tried but failed and honestly accepted failure, and desisted from launching anymore attack on Iran when he tried to save the American hostages.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Ram Sethu vs Sethu Samudram:Another Ayodhya
Posted on September 12, 2007
The bridge near Pimpalgaon in Nasik District on National High Way Number 8 also known as Agra Road was blocked along with hundred others including the ones in Delhi: Nizamuddin birdge, ITO, Yamuna birdge, Akshardham temple, Vikas Marg, Connaught Place, Dwarka flyover, Lajpat Nagar and South-Extension, National Highway 8. You have here Delhi directly linked to Pimpalgaon: in protest and devotion if nothing else. People had harrowing time reaching office and work places in Delhi or long distance destinations on the Agra Road passing through Nasik and Pimpalgaon as well. Thorium deposit between India and Sri Lanka is the remains of the bridge that Hanuman used in building the bridge to cross into Sri Lanka in an attempt to fight Ravana and free Seeta. Today it looks as if the political parties are building up their own bridges to fight the coming elections across the country. Once Avodhya yielded rich dividends at polls and this is the next round in the same fight. Some leaders have quite a good turn of this kind of politics.
Ram Sethu or Adam’s bridge is the limestone shoals 48 km long stretching between Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and Mannar in Sri Lanka. Legend has it that the two towns were connected by a bridge that Hanuman and his followers had constructed. Sethus Samudram is a project of the shipping department of government of India by which the lime formation would be dredged out to make the distance shorter as well as reduce time of navigation from780 km of sailing distance to 400 km and 30 hours of sailing to just few hours.
This would boost trade in the Palk Strait almost like the construction of Suez Canal of 1857 or the Panama Canal. When the President of Egypt Nasser nationalized it Britain and France declared war on Egypt. When President Manuel Noriega of Panama made such a move for the Panama canal President George Bush ordered the US army to invade and occupy Panama on December 20 1989 Now another war is in the making of a different sort not in the Palk Strait or the Gulf of Mannar but on the roads and bridges across India!. The rampant VHP is taking on the UPA for a cause that NDA had initiated. (Does it remind you how PM Rajiv Gandhi of Congress had opened the Babri doors for Shila Niyas pooja by which the BJP had ultimately won the election?) It had served an ultimatum on the central government on April 19, 2007 to scrap the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project by May 13. Ashok Singhal had hinted ominously: "Like we have vowed to construct a temple at the Rama Janma Bhoomi we vow to protect the Ram Sethu," He also sounded panicked by the NASA disclaimer and to ward it off he said that it was an American conspiracy that the 3.50 lakhh tones of thorium in the Palk strait could be used to make electricity for 100 years for the whole of India. He also blamed America for being jealous that India was monopolizing the strait and that the US wanted it opened for world navigation to end the monopoly. On 31 August 2007 the Supreme Court restrained the government from touching the thorium formation. Emboldened by this the VHP called for a chakka jam on September 12, 2007.
The Sangh privar falsely quoted NASA that the National Aeronautical and Space Agency of the United States had declared that Adam’s Bridge/ Ram Sethu was not a natural formation but man / monkey made. When NASA came to know the falsehood it disclaimed the theory.
It came out recently that the RSS had planted a mole ( Dr Puneesh Taneja)in the Prime Minister’s Office. The mole claimed that he was a space scientist working with the ISRO, Indian Space Research Organization. That so called scientist had a flat gifted to him by the RSS in a posh Delhi colony and he had printed visitor’s card with the bogus information. It so happened that a high official of ISRO found that the mole was a fake scientist. A leading national newspaper printed the story on the front page. Thereafter the RSS removed him from the hotspot but did not demote him. He remains a pracharak. In the eyes of the ordinary Indian this mole must have betrayed confidential information is not in doubt. One can bug the PMO even in the name of an ideology and yet have the cheek to remain in the position of the Sangh privar is not a matter of surprise now. Ashok Singhal of VHP appeared with the so called scientist before the glare of camera of media in a press conference in support of the ram sethu. But that scientist was given a brief. He was flaunted as an expert in ocean sedimentation and he floated the idea that the rock formation was human and not evolutionary. Tectonic formation of rocks when collide produce seismic changes that Samuel Huntington has called clash of civilization. We feel the tremors now from Delhi to Pimpalgaon and during the three hours of chakka jam that has also affected Western Expressway in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Haryana's Karnal district, Agra, Chandigarh, Jammu, Indore, Patna and at 20 flyovers in the Capital, Delhi. Trucks and other vehicles are burning on the roads here and there. The Gujjars did it for one reason and now the VHP is doing it for another. All are sailing in the same boat.
There appears to be a design. As the Congress is focusing on the Sachar report and the slew of measures to improve the condition of the Muslims as a leeward move against the onslaught of the Left on the ABC nuclear deal, the Sangh parivar has kept the bridge issue up its sleeves to offset the Congress in the coming election. Whether the BJP would rise to the bait of the VHP is what the pundits are waiting and watching. Once the BJP somersaulted over the secular credentials of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and then on the ABC nuclear deal and now…
The bridge near Pimpalgaon in Nasik District on National High Way Number 8 also known as Agra Road was blocked along with hundred others including the ones in Delhi: Nizamuddin birdge, ITO, Yamuna birdge, Akshardham temple, Vikas Marg, Connaught Place, Dwarka flyover, Lajpat Nagar and South-Extension, National Highway 8. You have here Delhi directly linked to Pimpalgaon: in protest and devotion if nothing else. People had harrowing time reaching office and work places in Delhi or long distance destinations on the Agra Road passing through Nasik and Pimpalgaon as well. Thorium deposit between India and Sri Lanka is the remains of the bridge that Hanuman used in building the bridge to cross into Sri Lanka in an attempt to fight Ravana and free Seeta. Today it looks as if the political parties are building up their own bridges to fight the coming elections across the country. Once Avodhya yielded rich dividends at polls and this is the next round in the same fight. Some leaders have quite a good turn of this kind of politics.
Ram Sethu or Adam’s bridge is the limestone shoals 48 km long stretching between Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and Mannar in Sri Lanka. Legend has it that the two towns were connected by a bridge that Hanuman and his followers had constructed. Sethus Samudram is a project of the shipping department of government of India by which the lime formation would be dredged out to make the distance shorter as well as reduce time of navigation from780 km of sailing distance to 400 km and 30 hours of sailing to just few hours.
This would boost trade in the Palk Strait almost like the construction of Suez Canal of 1857 or the Panama Canal. When the President of Egypt Nasser nationalized it Britain and France declared war on Egypt. When President Manuel Noriega of Panama made such a move for the Panama canal President George Bush ordered the US army to invade and occupy Panama on December 20 1989 Now another war is in the making of a different sort not in the Palk Strait or the Gulf of Mannar but on the roads and bridges across India!. The rampant VHP is taking on the UPA for a cause that NDA had initiated. (Does it remind you how PM Rajiv Gandhi of Congress had opened the Babri doors for Shila Niyas pooja by which the BJP had ultimately won the election?) It had served an ultimatum on the central government on April 19, 2007 to scrap the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project by May 13. Ashok Singhal had hinted ominously: "Like we have vowed to construct a temple at the Rama Janma Bhoomi we vow to protect the Ram Sethu," He also sounded panicked by the NASA disclaimer and to ward it off he said that it was an American conspiracy that the 3.50 lakhh tones of thorium in the Palk strait could be used to make electricity for 100 years for the whole of India. He also blamed America for being jealous that India was monopolizing the strait and that the US wanted it opened for world navigation to end the monopoly. On 31 August 2007 the Supreme Court restrained the government from touching the thorium formation. Emboldened by this the VHP called for a chakka jam on September 12, 2007.
The Sangh privar falsely quoted NASA that the National Aeronautical and Space Agency of the United States had declared that Adam’s Bridge/ Ram Sethu was not a natural formation but man / monkey made. When NASA came to know the falsehood it disclaimed the theory.
It came out recently that the RSS had planted a mole ( Dr Puneesh Taneja)in the Prime Minister’s Office. The mole claimed that he was a space scientist working with the ISRO, Indian Space Research Organization. That so called scientist had a flat gifted to him by the RSS in a posh Delhi colony and he had printed visitor’s card with the bogus information. It so happened that a high official of ISRO found that the mole was a fake scientist. A leading national newspaper printed the story on the front page. Thereafter the RSS removed him from the hotspot but did not demote him. He remains a pracharak. In the eyes of the ordinary Indian this mole must have betrayed confidential information is not in doubt. One can bug the PMO even in the name of an ideology and yet have the cheek to remain in the position of the Sangh privar is not a matter of surprise now. Ashok Singhal of VHP appeared with the so called scientist before the glare of camera of media in a press conference in support of the ram sethu. But that scientist was given a brief. He was flaunted as an expert in ocean sedimentation and he floated the idea that the rock formation was human and not evolutionary. Tectonic formation of rocks when collide produce seismic changes that Samuel Huntington has called clash of civilization. We feel the tremors now from Delhi to Pimpalgaon and during the three hours of chakka jam that has also affected Western Expressway in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Haryana's Karnal district, Agra, Chandigarh, Jammu, Indore, Patna and at 20 flyovers in the Capital, Delhi. Trucks and other vehicles are burning on the roads here and there. The Gujjars did it for one reason and now the VHP is doing it for another. All are sailing in the same boat.
There appears to be a design. As the Congress is focusing on the Sachar report and the slew of measures to improve the condition of the Muslims as a leeward move against the onslaught of the Left on the ABC nuclear deal, the Sangh parivar has kept the bridge issue up its sleeves to offset the Congress in the coming election. Whether the BJP would rise to the bait of the VHP is what the pundits are waiting and watching. Once the BJP somersaulted over the secular credentials of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and then on the ABC nuclear deal and now…
Polls on the crutches of ABC and backwardness
Posted on September 8, 2007
Within hours of former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratapsingh’s announcement of acceptance of Mandal recommendations, LK Advani trumpeted his plan for rathyatra for the temple at Ayodhya. Another tragedy is in the making since AR Antulay announced the 15 point guidelines for rectifying the backwardness among the Muslims. No sooner did he go public than the baying started. Shiv sena Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut says that Uddhav Thackeray would lead a delegation to the Prime Minister to demand scraping of reservation or concessions to Muslims. This is a clear foreboding that the coming times would be fraught with dangers for the minority for it just cannot escape the wrath of those who grudge every move to even the scale of justice. The track record is proof. The sena supremo had vehemently albeit menacingly opposed the survey of the armed forces to find out how many Muslims are there in the services. Manohar Joshi issued a veiled threat in the aftermath of the judgment of the serial bomb blasts of 1993 when the demand grew for justice for the victims of the communal riots that preceded the blasts. Any individual person threatening another is one thing. A political party known for communal violence issuing threat to a minority community is quite different.
Even before the ink dries on the paper promising economic and political uplift of the downtrodden Muslims the atmosphere is sullied. The tiger upstream is threatening the lamb downstream for muddying the water. If that is not enough then the ancestry of Babur is to blame. In other words we are back to square one in politics. The civic sense that economic growth and material development has grossly bypassed a section of the society and it is needed to correct the imbalance is thrown to the wind. Without this civic sense we would rather fight our own battle on terrorism and other nemeses besieging us is the new mantra of the neoconservatives amongst us paralleling the distant American cousins.
That different political parties have fought their own wars in the name of fighting terrorism does not require any rephrasing of the fact. Chief Minister Narender Modi of Gujarat even did away the fig leaf of what Muslims leaders in 1980s described the political parties vis-à-vis Muslims: running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Since the 1980s the lot of the Muslims has plummeted even further. Democracy has inbuilt mechanism to correct the imbalance. But those who come to occupy the house want to leave out those who helped in securing the house. This is the underlying stratagem of Modi’s electoral campaign. “Tribals should oppose religion based representations for Muslims. By extending reservations to converts, the central government wants to encourage conversions and harm the constitutional rights of tribals and dalits. The centre is playing a dangerous game by providing religion-based reservations to the minority community.” So the tribals and dalits can have constitutional rights and Muslims cannot. This insidious way of campaigning has paid him rich dividends in the past. But the first time when he did it in December 2002 he had hijacked the state of Gujarat after the state sponsored pogroms. During that period the funds raised in the United States for relief and development went to organizing of the carnage, recall the pouches of liquor and food distributed to the marauders, who were substantially tribals and dalits.
In such a campaign the greatest victim is not the Muslim community but democracy. The fascists have always lauded the Nazis and Adolph Hitler and want to emulate them in dealing with the minorities. Modi’s speech is the first shot in his attempt in taking on the Congress for the forthcoming election in the state on the issue of the minority. He is making it out that Congress is taking the morsel from the mouth of the tribals and dalits and giving it to the Muslim. Here is the Slobodan Milosevic in another version.
Election round the corner, each political party begins to put its acts together. The Congress being the oldest knows the art very well. It has done and will do much to woo the minorities. Because it also conveniently neglects its promises once the polls are over. However having set up a commission to ascertain the backwardness of Muslims it is caught in a cleft. The proposal for another commission for equal opportunity is touted. It is too early to dismiss it as eyewash. But much would depend how the minority becomes alert and well informed and organized in its endeavour to achieve what are long over due demands.
The Gujarat Chief Minister calls himself brother of the tribals and has a Van Bandhu package worth Rs 15, 000 crore. Mark it, it is ready cash to be spent on the instant. As compared to jingle sound of the money is the hollow sound of the promises and guidelines of the minister who did not have a seating arrangement for himself. Muslims never had 1000 crore sanctioned to them since India won freedom. However 15 point package is there for them from Antulay. The gerrymandering he has advocated for Muslims is nothing new. The scheduled castes and tribes have enjoyed it for long. The rearrangement of a constituency to favour the dalits and tribals has been an anomaly in a place like Malegaon. The Muslims constitute majority but for 60 years they could not elect any member of their own community to voice their concern in parliament. Other such pockets are also there. Antulay has recommended removing the anomaly through nomination. Modi has cash in his pocket. Three types of scholarships and remedial coaching and tuition are bureaucratic hurdles which would go to some extent in improvement if really implemented. Modernizing madrasa is reigning passion of Musharraf and Mohan Singh alike. Wakf property can be sold for a bribe: the Muslim minister in charge of the department is only obligingly waiting for the highest bidder. These are the fifteen points of janab Antulay and every cat has nine lives.
Within hours of former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratapsingh’s announcement of acceptance of Mandal recommendations, LK Advani trumpeted his plan for rathyatra for the temple at Ayodhya. Another tragedy is in the making since AR Antulay announced the 15 point guidelines for rectifying the backwardness among the Muslims. No sooner did he go public than the baying started. Shiv sena Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut says that Uddhav Thackeray would lead a delegation to the Prime Minister to demand scraping of reservation or concessions to Muslims. This is a clear foreboding that the coming times would be fraught with dangers for the minority for it just cannot escape the wrath of those who grudge every move to even the scale of justice. The track record is proof. The sena supremo had vehemently albeit menacingly opposed the survey of the armed forces to find out how many Muslims are there in the services. Manohar Joshi issued a veiled threat in the aftermath of the judgment of the serial bomb blasts of 1993 when the demand grew for justice for the victims of the communal riots that preceded the blasts. Any individual person threatening another is one thing. A political party known for communal violence issuing threat to a minority community is quite different.
Even before the ink dries on the paper promising economic and political uplift of the downtrodden Muslims the atmosphere is sullied. The tiger upstream is threatening the lamb downstream for muddying the water. If that is not enough then the ancestry of Babur is to blame. In other words we are back to square one in politics. The civic sense that economic growth and material development has grossly bypassed a section of the society and it is needed to correct the imbalance is thrown to the wind. Without this civic sense we would rather fight our own battle on terrorism and other nemeses besieging us is the new mantra of the neoconservatives amongst us paralleling the distant American cousins.
That different political parties have fought their own wars in the name of fighting terrorism does not require any rephrasing of the fact. Chief Minister Narender Modi of Gujarat even did away the fig leaf of what Muslims leaders in 1980s described the political parties vis-à-vis Muslims: running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Since the 1980s the lot of the Muslims has plummeted even further. Democracy has inbuilt mechanism to correct the imbalance. But those who come to occupy the house want to leave out those who helped in securing the house. This is the underlying stratagem of Modi’s electoral campaign. “Tribals should oppose religion based representations for Muslims. By extending reservations to converts, the central government wants to encourage conversions and harm the constitutional rights of tribals and dalits. The centre is playing a dangerous game by providing religion-based reservations to the minority community.” So the tribals and dalits can have constitutional rights and Muslims cannot. This insidious way of campaigning has paid him rich dividends in the past. But the first time when he did it in December 2002 he had hijacked the state of Gujarat after the state sponsored pogroms. During that period the funds raised in the United States for relief and development went to organizing of the carnage, recall the pouches of liquor and food distributed to the marauders, who were substantially tribals and dalits.
In such a campaign the greatest victim is not the Muslim community but democracy. The fascists have always lauded the Nazis and Adolph Hitler and want to emulate them in dealing with the minorities. Modi’s speech is the first shot in his attempt in taking on the Congress for the forthcoming election in the state on the issue of the minority. He is making it out that Congress is taking the morsel from the mouth of the tribals and dalits and giving it to the Muslim. Here is the Slobodan Milosevic in another version.
Election round the corner, each political party begins to put its acts together. The Congress being the oldest knows the art very well. It has done and will do much to woo the minorities. Because it also conveniently neglects its promises once the polls are over. However having set up a commission to ascertain the backwardness of Muslims it is caught in a cleft. The proposal for another commission for equal opportunity is touted. It is too early to dismiss it as eyewash. But much would depend how the minority becomes alert and well informed and organized in its endeavour to achieve what are long over due demands.
The Gujarat Chief Minister calls himself brother of the tribals and has a Van Bandhu package worth Rs 15, 000 crore. Mark it, it is ready cash to be spent on the instant. As compared to jingle sound of the money is the hollow sound of the promises and guidelines of the minister who did not have a seating arrangement for himself. Muslims never had 1000 crore sanctioned to them since India won freedom. However 15 point package is there for them from Antulay. The gerrymandering he has advocated for Muslims is nothing new. The scheduled castes and tribes have enjoyed it for long. The rearrangement of a constituency to favour the dalits and tribals has been an anomaly in a place like Malegaon. The Muslims constitute majority but for 60 years they could not elect any member of their own community to voice their concern in parliament. Other such pockets are also there. Antulay has recommended removing the anomaly through nomination. Modi has cash in his pocket. Three types of scholarships and remedial coaching and tuition are bureaucratic hurdles which would go to some extent in improvement if really implemented. Modernizing madrasa is reigning passion of Musharraf and Mohan Singh alike. Wakf property can be sold for a bribe: the Muslim minister in charge of the department is only obligingly waiting for the highest bidder. These are the fifteen points of janab Antulay and every cat has nine lives.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Muslim Uneasiness over Investigation into Terrorism
Posted on September 2, 2007
There has been talk of Islam and terrorism making rounds in the world since even before 9/11. However the frequency of allegation has registered
sharp increase in recent years. Paralleling this is the unbelievably strong resistance of Muslims in India that the investigative agencies have not professionally done anything that is cogent(except, of course, Bombay serial bomb blasts 1993). As a result the sense of being suspected and targeted is excruciating. Come September 8, it would be one full year for the shabe ba rat explosions in Malegaon which killed more than 40 people and injured around three hundred mostly children, beggars and elderly.
Why is there reluctance among the members of the Muslim community to have any faith in the police and crime detection agencies of the government? Soon after bomb explosions in Malegaon the people roughed up a senior police officer, unturned a police jeep, had a running battle with the police around an adjoining police station, familiar site for other such confrontation in the past. This was going on within minutes of the blasts almost like what the square and streets around Mecca mosque and Charminar witnessed on May 18, 2007. Is it only emotional outburst and unwieldy nature or anything else that irks the people?
Blaming the terrorists or agents provocateur from across the border has become part of the regimen. But there was a startlingly new element injected in the scene. Muslims were told that it could be a section of their own people responsible behind the blasts in the old cemetery and Mushawart chowk. That too the sections were named: wahabis, tablighi jamat and other purists who did not countenance the age old vigil and visit to the graves. This strange thought spread from the columns in the newspapers from outside even before all the killed were properly buried. Till that day no one in the town had even thought in the wildest fancy that it would be so. The angst that the grieved feel is this ascribing to the closely knit community what they refuse to believe. There has never been any acrimony between the sunnis, wahabis or the tablighi jamat. Perplexed by the design which others have discovered there, the people felt betrayed and insulted after being injured in their sensibility. Till today Shafiq Ahmed (father of a-would-be-doctor young son on the way to China but killed in the blasts) has not wavered in his disbelief in the alleged culprits caught by the police. “I told Sonia Gandhi and (Chief Minister) Deshmukh that I was ready to give the government Rs 10 lakh if they caught the real culprits,” he asseverates on the eve of the shabe ba rat that would complete one year of suffering. “The government promised to nab the real culprits in 24 hours. But it has been 12 months and I am still waiting to see the real bombers behind bars.”
A contributing factor is that the police are constructing their charges drawing upon confessions of the police informers or drug addicts. The local people know all too well what figure these shady characters cut in the town. Their condition is so desperate that they would do anything to eke out existence. Informing police is an easy source of ready money. They would stick to the police and felons alike like the leech. The entire case is being built up on the testimony of Abrar Ahmed who has denounced the people of Malegaon publicly through Urdu newspapers. He was reported in the newspapers to have disappeared and then his lawyer brother filed for habeas corpus and that is how this closely ensconced person surfaced. He has also expressed fear of police who hold him. Unless the police give a detailed statement regarding these, the misgivings of the general public would stick. The first person arrested was Nurul Hooda who had already been in police custody around the time of the explosions and was under close police surveillance.
To complicate the already murky atmosphere there appeared on the scene another police informer Sajid Sheikh. He had been working with the Anti Terrorist Squad since September 8,2006. He went on to meet home minister RRPatil and the State Minority Commission Chairperson Naseem Siddiqui. According to Sajid the conspirators had already visited and surveyed the town under the ruse of looking for a girl for marriage. He says that he was forced to tell about the conspiracy when he found that the police were not taking the correct line of investigation. The chief of Mahrashtra ATS Krish Pal Raghuvanshi does not trust him but Chairperson Minority Commission does. The deputy police commissioner of CBI Raman Tyagi is unaware of Sajid.
The police sketches of the two alleged bombers who bought bicycles from Pangrapol shopping complex haunt the people in their sleep. The two did not ride the cycles but walked and pulled them and according to report were in a hurry to reach the destined spot. The police have simply made no headway on this. So the discontent of the local people increases as the plot thickens.
The angst of the grieved father Abdul Waheed(a retired school teacher) in Hyderabad is a counterpoint to Shafiq Ahmed’s. His son Mohammad Shahid saw his younger brother Zahid picked up from their house by police in the case of murder of a BJP leader. He simply walked out on the family and according to his father has never had any contact with the family. The police have given him a new name in addition, Bilal. His mother Hafeeza is hysterical in her insistence that he is Shahid and not Bilal. Waheed feels very deeply about how things are turning out. The move to make terror as treason belies what he says. What if his son is proved a terrorist? "Then don't spare him. We are born here. We are happy to be Indian. We live in this land and we don't want anything done to this land. If he is a terrorist kill him."
Such strong reaction is matched by his wife. Both of them are in agony over the repercussions. The members of the community have had faith in them and so the thought that a son of theirs would cause murder and mayhem has not crossed their path. If their son were otherwise so they would be tragically betraying their own people and what would they account for when they face god on the day of reckoning. That momentous thought is very disturbing to them. Blowing up people at prayer in a mosque as well as in cemetery is unthinkable for a Muslim. Of all the places Mecca mosque is the most cherished and revered spots in the old city of Hyderabad and even in the erstwhile Nizam state territory. The same is true of the cemetery and the mosque in Malegaon. Of all the times the shab be barat is the occasion of piety and prayer which involves each and every Muslim. There is no exemption to anyone on the basis of group identity. Every one is deeply concerned because the future course is shaped by the almighty on that night. The forgiveness of the sins of the dead also can be lessened by prayer and repentance. So the dead and the living are both joined in a union of prayer and forgiveness and hope of a better future for all the members of family and community. Into such piety and sanctity the very thought of terror is out of place.
mustafakhan1948@gmail.com
There has been talk of Islam and terrorism making rounds in the world since even before 9/11. However the frequency of allegation has registered
sharp increase in recent years. Paralleling this is the unbelievably strong resistance of Muslims in India that the investigative agencies have not professionally done anything that is cogent(except, of course, Bombay serial bomb blasts 1993). As a result the sense of being suspected and targeted is excruciating. Come September 8, it would be one full year for the shabe ba rat explosions in Malegaon which killed more than 40 people and injured around three hundred mostly children, beggars and elderly.
Why is there reluctance among the members of the Muslim community to have any faith in the police and crime detection agencies of the government? Soon after bomb explosions in Malegaon the people roughed up a senior police officer, unturned a police jeep, had a running battle with the police around an adjoining police station, familiar site for other such confrontation in the past. This was going on within minutes of the blasts almost like what the square and streets around Mecca mosque and Charminar witnessed on May 18, 2007. Is it only emotional outburst and unwieldy nature or anything else that irks the people?
Blaming the terrorists or agents provocateur from across the border has become part of the regimen. But there was a startlingly new element injected in the scene. Muslims were told that it could be a section of their own people responsible behind the blasts in the old cemetery and Mushawart chowk. That too the sections were named: wahabis, tablighi jamat and other purists who did not countenance the age old vigil and visit to the graves. This strange thought spread from the columns in the newspapers from outside even before all the killed were properly buried. Till that day no one in the town had even thought in the wildest fancy that it would be so. The angst that the grieved feel is this ascribing to the closely knit community what they refuse to believe. There has never been any acrimony between the sunnis, wahabis or the tablighi jamat. Perplexed by the design which others have discovered there, the people felt betrayed and insulted after being injured in their sensibility. Till today Shafiq Ahmed (father of a-would-be-doctor young son on the way to China but killed in the blasts) has not wavered in his disbelief in the alleged culprits caught by the police. “I told Sonia Gandhi and (Chief Minister) Deshmukh that I was ready to give the government Rs 10 lakh if they caught the real culprits,” he asseverates on the eve of the shabe ba rat that would complete one year of suffering. “The government promised to nab the real culprits in 24 hours. But it has been 12 months and I am still waiting to see the real bombers behind bars.”
A contributing factor is that the police are constructing their charges drawing upon confessions of the police informers or drug addicts. The local people know all too well what figure these shady characters cut in the town. Their condition is so desperate that they would do anything to eke out existence. Informing police is an easy source of ready money. They would stick to the police and felons alike like the leech. The entire case is being built up on the testimony of Abrar Ahmed who has denounced the people of Malegaon publicly through Urdu newspapers. He was reported in the newspapers to have disappeared and then his lawyer brother filed for habeas corpus and that is how this closely ensconced person surfaced. He has also expressed fear of police who hold him. Unless the police give a detailed statement regarding these, the misgivings of the general public would stick. The first person arrested was Nurul Hooda who had already been in police custody around the time of the explosions and was under close police surveillance.
To complicate the already murky atmosphere there appeared on the scene another police informer Sajid Sheikh. He had been working with the Anti Terrorist Squad since September 8,2006. He went on to meet home minister RRPatil and the State Minority Commission Chairperson Naseem Siddiqui. According to Sajid the conspirators had already visited and surveyed the town under the ruse of looking for a girl for marriage. He says that he was forced to tell about the conspiracy when he found that the police were not taking the correct line of investigation. The chief of Mahrashtra ATS Krish Pal Raghuvanshi does not trust him but Chairperson Minority Commission does. The deputy police commissioner of CBI Raman Tyagi is unaware of Sajid.
The police sketches of the two alleged bombers who bought bicycles from Pangrapol shopping complex haunt the people in their sleep. The two did not ride the cycles but walked and pulled them and according to report were in a hurry to reach the destined spot. The police have simply made no headway on this. So the discontent of the local people increases as the plot thickens.
The angst of the grieved father Abdul Waheed(a retired school teacher) in Hyderabad is a counterpoint to Shafiq Ahmed’s. His son Mohammad Shahid saw his younger brother Zahid picked up from their house by police in the case of murder of a BJP leader. He simply walked out on the family and according to his father has never had any contact with the family. The police have given him a new name in addition, Bilal. His mother Hafeeza is hysterical in her insistence that he is Shahid and not Bilal. Waheed feels very deeply about how things are turning out. The move to make terror as treason belies what he says. What if his son is proved a terrorist? "Then don't spare him. We are born here. We are happy to be Indian. We live in this land and we don't want anything done to this land. If he is a terrorist kill him."
Such strong reaction is matched by his wife. Both of them are in agony over the repercussions. The members of the community have had faith in them and so the thought that a son of theirs would cause murder and mayhem has not crossed their path. If their son were otherwise so they would be tragically betraying their own people and what would they account for when they face god on the day of reckoning. That momentous thought is very disturbing to them. Blowing up people at prayer in a mosque as well as in cemetery is unthinkable for a Muslim. Of all the places Mecca mosque is the most cherished and revered spots in the old city of Hyderabad and even in the erstwhile Nizam state territory. The same is true of the cemetery and the mosque in Malegaon. Of all the times the shab be barat is the occasion of piety and prayer which involves each and every Muslim. There is no exemption to anyone on the basis of group identity. Every one is deeply concerned because the future course is shaped by the almighty on that night. The forgiveness of the sins of the dead also can be lessened by prayer and repentance. So the dead and the living are both joined in a union of prayer and forgiveness and hope of a better future for all the members of family and community. Into such piety and sanctity the very thought of terror is out of place.
mustafakhan1948@gmail.com
Hyderbad bombings:a national tragedy
The two bombing incidents of May 18, 2007 and August 25, 2007 in Hyderabad show the fury with which the city has been subjected to suffering. In the case of the Mecca mosque the young boy lying on his side with left hand folded under head seems to be sleeping innocently except the gory hole in the head and pool of blood under head instead of a pillow. The young well dressed gentleman lying between the rows of plastic chairs in Lumbini amusement park is seemingly oversleeping after having slid from the chair when everyone left the stadium except the blood soaked debris. Death and destruction is common to both. What is not common is the violent protest against the police of the first incident leading to police firing and more casualties. Moreover the first attack was specifically clear in targeting a community exclusively on the basis of religion. Friday mid day prayer was more tempting time than other times of prayer on the same or other days of the week. But in the second the target is obviously not of the same clear focus. A chat bhandar or eatery and an amusement park are familiar places for all communities. This is all the more convincing since that Saturday was not a religious festival day. Saturday evening and night are also more relaxed times for educated and employed to go out and eat and enjoy with family. The weekend and Friday midday prayer are occasions of crowding and rush time.
However a look at the dead reveals that the recent bombing is sweeping in target. It is more or less all-India in its comprehension. Could that be a signal? From Saki Naka Mumbai to Tamil Nadu in the south, Haryana in the north and Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand in the east, to Rajkot in the north west, you have the whole country metaphorically bombed. This must lead to a resurgence of nationalist feeling of the pre independent India of Gandhi, Nehru and Azad rather than of today that is exclusionary, polarizing, and self seeking. There is a cacophony and chorus of responses and analyses that hardly contribute to strength and unity.
The suffering of the mother of Baja Srilekha (18) for the death of her daughter or grief etched contours of the face of the father of Irshad Ahmed Abdul Gani (19) is Indian. This calls for a nationalist response that among other things sets the house in order first and then helps us to know where we have come and why and the remedy.
Given this commonality as well as disparity of situation what could be the common or otherwise motive, hidden agenda and who the perpetrators of the heinous crime?
There is hardly any terror strike in India which does not come with the immediate blame on the ISI in tandem. It is has become so quotidian that the foreign spokesperson of a neighbouring country has acquired the chic in asking us to investigate and not speculate! And another neighbour has the cheek to show boredom of denying over and over again the same accusation from our side. Such denials of every accusation have changed into standard formal automatic responses. Of course, on both the sides.
Next we need to introspect about formulating what could be the aim of the perpetrators. Equally true is ubiquity of the same aim of explosion: dividing the people on communal lines. However we have reached a point when religion must cease to make us look at the ghastly tragedy taking place around us from this angle. If at all there are religious factors we must take them purely in terms of rationality and humanity. If it is political Islam it is just realpolitik and not Islam. If it is Hindutuva then it is not Hinduism. In the tragedy of Hyderabad as well as around the country there have been practically no communal riots as an outcome of the explosions. Sometimes protesters have damaged shops and suspected people of a community. But by and large there has been no communal riot or carnage following on the heels of terror strikes. Therefore there is need to not upfront the communal divide as the primary motivating factor. Other reasons must be probed. India has 10 % growth rate and the US is wooing it for reasons not fully spelled including as a checkmate against China. An unknown factor can come up.
Terror itself does not discriminate its victims, between Irshad Ahmed Abdul Gani from Saki naka of Mumbai or Sachin Dattatrya Bhinor from Ahmednager.
The victims were from diverse fields of disciplines with which their youthful hearts were filled to make a name in the world and serve the country. Among them were the seven students from Mahrashtra, several of them from Nashik itself and three professors. A boy called Milind Mandage was the son of a school teacher from Pimpri Gawali village in Parner in Maharashtra and wanted to sail in the world on ambition powered by mathematics in which he excelled. Sujeet Kumar Jha (19) from Laheriasarai in Bihar’s Darbhanga was pursuing his ambition in electronics which his father supported from a loan. There were 18 engineers from Jabalpur, Kota and Bhopal sent to Hyderabad. From this group M K Jain and Ibrahim Khan died in the park. Both were under training in driving train engines using microprocessor-based speedometers for diesel locomotives. Another victim was from Orissa’s Berhampur Dr K V Ananda Rao who was pursuing super-specialisation in medical oncology at the NIMS in Hyderabad. Irshad was a student of engineering and was hopeful of doing MBA to rise in the world. Kiran Choudhary is of course the young gentleman man we have pictured in the first paragraph as oversleeping. He was also an engineer; a Maharashtrian from Kalyan. Saurabh Kumar of Samsatipur in Bihar was studying computer science in Symbiosis of Poona. Vallabh Fefar was a dealer in mattresses and was prospering in business when the mattress company sent him on Hyderbad tour as incentive. He took his family with him. He died and his son seriously injured. He was from Rajkot, Gujarat. Terrorism could not have been so selective in its target!
While the victims were from all the corners of the country, the perpetrators though not identified as yet remain a miniscule non representative entity. Even so the make of the bombs of May and August show clear differences. That may even help in identification, mode of assembly, motive and the brain behind. At the face of it we may think of
Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) or the JeM but the difficulty is to prove that Abdul Sahil Mohammad based in Karachi or Hamza could use RDX in the mosque and then shift to ordinary Neogel 90 and ammonium nitrate manufactured in Nagpur. Such far fetched argument that the people hang posters of Musharraf and Osama bin Laden in their houses in Hyderbad therefore they are suspect is ridiculous. Because between these two men stands the Lal masjid. Or should we do Sherlock Holmes detection of the portrait of martyred imam of the red mosque taking the place of Musharraf? (Don’t be surprised by the syllogism, it is from an additional secretary of the central government who was also with the RAW, the Kaoboy.) Howsoever ridiculous any argument, it must also be examined. Even the vicinity of Hyderabad to Nanded where crackers exploded worse than bombs should not be far fetched.
Events have a strange way of unfolding and much stranger way of being reported. On February 27, 1933 the German paratroopers under Nazi leader Herman Goring had helped a man from Holland Marinus van der Lubbe burn the Reichstag (the German parliament). Adolf Hitler became angry and went to the office of the newspaper Volkischer Beobachter and worked the whole night with editor Goebbels They concocted a story blaming the communists. As a result 4000 communists lost their lives. What followed was the very holocaust. We in India have had enough of our own and must establish the truth to save the nation.
However a look at the dead reveals that the recent bombing is sweeping in target. It is more or less all-India in its comprehension. Could that be a signal? From Saki Naka Mumbai to Tamil Nadu in the south, Haryana in the north and Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand in the east, to Rajkot in the north west, you have the whole country metaphorically bombed. This must lead to a resurgence of nationalist feeling of the pre independent India of Gandhi, Nehru and Azad rather than of today that is exclusionary, polarizing, and self seeking. There is a cacophony and chorus of responses and analyses that hardly contribute to strength and unity.
The suffering of the mother of Baja Srilekha (18) for the death of her daughter or grief etched contours of the face of the father of Irshad Ahmed Abdul Gani (19) is Indian. This calls for a nationalist response that among other things sets the house in order first and then helps us to know where we have come and why and the remedy.
Given this commonality as well as disparity of situation what could be the common or otherwise motive, hidden agenda and who the perpetrators of the heinous crime?
There is hardly any terror strike in India which does not come with the immediate blame on the ISI in tandem. It is has become so quotidian that the foreign spokesperson of a neighbouring country has acquired the chic in asking us to investigate and not speculate! And another neighbour has the cheek to show boredom of denying over and over again the same accusation from our side. Such denials of every accusation have changed into standard formal automatic responses. Of course, on both the sides.
Next we need to introspect about formulating what could be the aim of the perpetrators. Equally true is ubiquity of the same aim of explosion: dividing the people on communal lines. However we have reached a point when religion must cease to make us look at the ghastly tragedy taking place around us from this angle. If at all there are religious factors we must take them purely in terms of rationality and humanity. If it is political Islam it is just realpolitik and not Islam. If it is Hindutuva then it is not Hinduism. In the tragedy of Hyderabad as well as around the country there have been practically no communal riots as an outcome of the explosions. Sometimes protesters have damaged shops and suspected people of a community. But by and large there has been no communal riot or carnage following on the heels of terror strikes. Therefore there is need to not upfront the communal divide as the primary motivating factor. Other reasons must be probed. India has 10 % growth rate and the US is wooing it for reasons not fully spelled including as a checkmate against China. An unknown factor can come up.
Terror itself does not discriminate its victims, between Irshad Ahmed Abdul Gani from Saki naka of Mumbai or Sachin Dattatrya Bhinor from Ahmednager.
The victims were from diverse fields of disciplines with which their youthful hearts were filled to make a name in the world and serve the country. Among them were the seven students from Mahrashtra, several of them from Nashik itself and three professors. A boy called Milind Mandage was the son of a school teacher from Pimpri Gawali village in Parner in Maharashtra and wanted to sail in the world on ambition powered by mathematics in which he excelled. Sujeet Kumar Jha (19) from Laheriasarai in Bihar’s Darbhanga was pursuing his ambition in electronics which his father supported from a loan. There were 18 engineers from Jabalpur, Kota and Bhopal sent to Hyderabad. From this group M K Jain and Ibrahim Khan died in the park. Both were under training in driving train engines using microprocessor-based speedometers for diesel locomotives. Another victim was from Orissa’s Berhampur Dr K V Ananda Rao who was pursuing super-specialisation in medical oncology at the NIMS in Hyderabad. Irshad was a student of engineering and was hopeful of doing MBA to rise in the world. Kiran Choudhary is of course the young gentleman man we have pictured in the first paragraph as oversleeping. He was also an engineer; a Maharashtrian from Kalyan. Saurabh Kumar of Samsatipur in Bihar was studying computer science in Symbiosis of Poona. Vallabh Fefar was a dealer in mattresses and was prospering in business when the mattress company sent him on Hyderbad tour as incentive. He took his family with him. He died and his son seriously injured. He was from Rajkot, Gujarat. Terrorism could not have been so selective in its target!
While the victims were from all the corners of the country, the perpetrators though not identified as yet remain a miniscule non representative entity. Even so the make of the bombs of May and August show clear differences. That may even help in identification, mode of assembly, motive and the brain behind. At the face of it we may think of
Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) or the JeM but the difficulty is to prove that Abdul Sahil Mohammad based in Karachi or Hamza could use RDX in the mosque and then shift to ordinary Neogel 90 and ammonium nitrate manufactured in Nagpur. Such far fetched argument that the people hang posters of Musharraf and Osama bin Laden in their houses in Hyderbad therefore they are suspect is ridiculous. Because between these two men stands the Lal masjid. Or should we do Sherlock Holmes detection of the portrait of martyred imam of the red mosque taking the place of Musharraf? (Don’t be surprised by the syllogism, it is from an additional secretary of the central government who was also with the RAW, the Kaoboy.) Howsoever ridiculous any argument, it must also be examined. Even the vicinity of Hyderabad to Nanded where crackers exploded worse than bombs should not be far fetched.
Events have a strange way of unfolding and much stranger way of being reported. On February 27, 1933 the German paratroopers under Nazi leader Herman Goring had helped a man from Holland Marinus van der Lubbe burn the Reichstag (the German parliament). Adolf Hitler became angry and went to the office of the newspaper Volkischer Beobachter and worked the whole night with editor Goebbels They concocted a story blaming the communists. As a result 4000 communists lost their lives. What followed was the very holocaust. We in India have had enough of our own and must establish the truth to save the nation.
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