There is a straw in the wind. What does it tell? A coming wind storm. People in democracy are shrewd to know as soon as such a straw blows to them. National Congress Party of Maratha satrap Sharad Pawar has decided to try a new strategy on the seemingly ‘gullible’ voters of Dalit, Muslim and OBC communities. It has formed a social front organization called “Dalit, Muslim, OBC Ekta Sangh.” The truly benevolent Haji Mastan tried it once. He enjoyed a reputation that others in the underworld could not aspire to. What about Pawar’s credentials?
The overriding concern of DMOES would be to get maximum vote from the target communities cast in the ballot box. The calculation is that as the minorities vote en block their swing in favour of NCP would assure the party absolute majority in Maharashtra. It is no secret that NCP’s grouse is that they have majority in Mahrashtra assembly and yet the chief minister is not from their party. They have to play a second fiddle. To the manipulative turncoat that is the president of the party this is unacceptable. He would even now venture to go into another political wilderness to achieve his aims. NCP cannot aspire to be a broad spectrum national party despite its misnomer.
It is a party of the Marathas is also self evident. Bhujbal’s exception proves the rule as does Arun Gujarati’s. The Marathas themselves vote as a block. Their being divided in different parties produces a chemistry of change. It is this split in votes that NCP is trying tackle.
What are the tempting offers Pawar is holding forth to Dalits and Muslims and the OBCs? One, that the social front would give them a forum to air their views and grievances. Even when the people express them what redress? At the time of the bombing of the mosque in Malegaon Pawar had offered the minority leaders his support for a CBI inquiry. But they had to accept his tutelage. This flies in the face of logic no sooner than it is uttered. The home minister of Maharashtra is from his party. The people know that RR Patil is sitting on the files of the custodial death of Khwaja Yunus. Hence, he is obstructing the speedy investigation that the high court had been reminding the government for. Erstwhile Police Commissioner AN Roy had been lukewarm in dealing with the matter. If the people who are directly connected to Pawar are less than enthusiastic about such sensitive matters to the minority how could the new front on the cusp become trustworthy?
Vigilance is the price of freedom in democracy. People must remain free to choose and this is impossible unless they are well informed. How can the ordinary people be informed as much as the learned. Have we not been cautioned to be wary of the glib-tongued? The grandmother who cautions us to be so is using a layman’s strategy for defence. When the layman’s strategy is framed in words and given a conceptual framework it becomes a model lesson to others. There is an American novel called Losing Absalom (1994) by Alex D Pate. There is an African American family where the parents have brought up their son in the best tradition but his sister falls in love with a druggist. As the boy meets the lover of his sister he tries to find out if there is a critical weakness in him. He believed that all men had an essential critical weakness that other men could identify with swift precision. It could be a core of coldness in a warm peaceful exterior, a fear, a streak of terror carefully woven into the fabric of bravado, or, worst of all, a dark cynicism carefully tucked away in a hopeful body.
It cannot be daunting to look into the past of Pawar because he has enjoyed a public life of long variegated career. He has no Achilles’ heels, or else how could he be there? Yet there are interesting twists and turns in his life. On August 11, 2006 he acknowledged that he had deliberately misrepresented the facts during his stay in Mumbai when the riots were raging in December 1992 and January 1993. “To keep peace, I misled the people in 1993 blasts.” This must set off all alarms.
What can any one make of the report in The Times of India dated February 4, 1993 of how the Chief Minister Sudhakar Naik and other Maharashtrian leaders prevailed upon the police not to fire on rioters in Bombay after January 8 1993? The time is crucially important because it was on 8th and afterward that Shiv Sainiks had started massacring Muslims with the help of the police. Who were the other Maharashtrian leaders? SB Chavan was the Home Minister away in Delhi. The only other Mahrashtrian leader was of course Pawar. A Marathi local newspaper called Lokmat carried a report on February 18, 1993 of a Shiv Sena leader who had blamed the Defence Minister Sharad Pawar for his involvement in the communal riots which cost more than six hundred lives, mostly Muslims. Pawar had allegedly released hoodlums from jail to kill Muslims. Then on February 20, 1993 Chief Minister Sudhakar Naik warned that Congress must expel Pawar if it wanted to survive. The Home Minister was very shrewd and maintained silence until he left the ministry. Then he never kept it a secret that Pawar was directly responsible for the riots. In subsequent election campaign he openly blamed Pawar for the communal carnage. Another Marathi paper Kesari dated July 21, 1994 reported that Bombay Muncipal Deputy Commissioner GR Khairna had remarked that Dawood Ibrahim was responsible for the 1992 riots and Bal Thackeray for the 1993. He also said that Ddawood and Thackeray are special (khas) friends of Pawar. Therefore Pawar was implicated in the riots.
There is at best a Chankya type of situation where a Kautilya or deceitful trickster is maneuvering from behind the scene. His fingerprint is there not on the gun and hatchets but on the events. Shiv Sena leader Madhukar Sropdar was caught by the army in the streets of the city carrying unlicensed weapons. There was a notorious gangster with him. Who let him go? Bombay police had arrested him under National Security Act on February 6, 1993. He was not only released but was allowed to meet the Prime Minister! This could not have been managed either by Bal Thakeray or Sudhakar Naik. Chavan was above board.
In the aftermath of the Municipal election in Malegaon fools rushed to where angels fear to tread and the common man in the street who wanted alliance with the extreme right wing party to form a third front majority had the span of attention reduced to only a week. This smacks of the fact that the seemingly maverick mufti and the people are both uninformed. They should both learn at least the recent history. The forthcoming election in Mahrashtra must not become a chessboard of politics as the art of the possible and no-permanent-alliance in politics. Thackeray chooses to vacillate between regionalism and Hinduism but the fixed element is his extreme hatred of Muslims. He gives himself away as Javed Anand and Teesta Setalvad have noted in their critique of Mani Ratnam film Bombay.
Justice Bakhtawar Lentin described before Prime Minister Narasimha Rao during the latter's visit to the city in 1993:" In the last few days, the streets of Bombay have resembled the streets of Nazi Germany". In his infamous interview “Kick them out” to TIME magazine Thackeray famously said: “Have the Muslims behaved like the Jews of Germany? If so, there is nothing wrong if they are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany". “If even my hair is touched, the entire community of my attacker will be destroyed”. (TIME, April10, 1995). He also demanded “legal Muslims residents to turn in their illegal neighbours or you will have only yourselves to curse for your fate.”
If this is the kind of leaders you have then it is your democratic duty to defeat them at the polls. For they believe in ethnic cleansing otherwise what else is their exclusion of the non-Marathi manoos or the non-kulaks? In this age of population shift and migration they are holding on to the hangovers of colonial mindset. The one who is asking you to turn in your neighbour is as totalitarian a demagogue as the other who favoured his neighbouring kulaks so much that he used up the water resources of the whole state and made others including suicidal farmers of Vidharb suffer. Michael Ignatieff in his The State of Belonging (TIME, February 27, 1995) says of them: “What is wrong with nationalism is not wanting to be master in your house but refusing to share the house with anyone but your own people. It is the idea that every nation must have its own state; it is the fantasy of ethnic purity. Whether we are nationalists or cosmopolitan, we are all mongrels under the skin. Our ancestors slept around, thank God, and there is not much real ethnic purity to be found anywhere in the world. If we cannot learn to share our states with our fellow mongrels, Yugoslavia shows us what fate awaits us.. The future does not belong to either cosmopolitans or nationalists, but to people prepared to a bit of both, willing to fight for the places they love, willing to learn from places they have never been.”
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Onset of Electioneering in Gujarat 2007 Mustafa Khan
Chief Minister Narendra Modi occupies a crucial position in BJP and is in the vanguard of the extremist group hostile to Muslims and other minorities. He would do anything to uphold the ideology of RSS whereby the minorities would be subjugated to a secondary and subordinate position. The genocide of Muslim in Gujarat 2002 was state sponsored. It is also irrefutable fact that the Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister LK Advani protected him knowing fully well that he was violating the rule of law. The President, Mr KR Narayanan, also knew it but Narayanan was conscientious unlike his PM and DPM. He wrote letters to them asking them to stop the pogroms while they connived at the massacres with their sophistry.
As Gujarat is heading to election at the end of the year 2007 it would again witness the flagrant violation of IPC 153. It has already begun. Distorting facts and rewriting history is the hall mark of the hideous ideology. Thus on Sunday June 10, 2007 Modi told a gathering in Ahemdabad that “The Congressmen in Gujarat support those who have been hailing Sohrabuddin’s death.” This is an insidious reference to Muslims who he alleges hail the death of Sohrabuddin. What a sinister way of accusing the victims. Sohrabuddin was murdered by Modi’s handpicked police officers DG Vanzara and Narendra Amin in a fake encounter for what appears to be a paid job by BJP trader in marbles to stop extortion. Modi is using the victim of police atrocity to blame the whole community of the victim ala the game of blaming the whole Muslim community: they plant bombs in mosques, they are killed, and they are caught. The maligning of the Muslims pays off rich dividends in the polls. Once the people are polarized communally the right wing candidates are assured of votes. This is a counter strategy evolved to fight the alleged en mass voting of Muslims and other minorities. Gujarat is notorious for being the laboratory of religious extremists.
Subtly fallacious reasoning is the art of politics of the rightwing. For the discerning it is a telltale and to the masses it is a matter of jubilation. What he said recently was lustily cheered by the jubilant crowd. But there is a catch. Modi said that “Jo log Sohrabuddin ke janaze ko le kar nach rahe hai who jan le ke uska janaza Gandhinager tak nahi le jayega(those who are dancing on the funderal of Sohrabuddinshould know that it would lead them to Gandhinager.) Of course, he should know better such saturnine details for he had personally ordered the dead bodies of those killed at Godhra to be brought to Ahmedabad. Even the macabre humour of the metaphorical funeral of Sohrabuddin is dreadful. Note how he gloats over encounter, surreptitiously replacing fake with ballot encounter thereby justifying the former as well: “The 5.5 crore people of Gujarat will not tolerate this and the Congress will be replied by being silenced in an encounter by people using the ballot papers (in the coming election)” Murder will be out. Sohrabuddin was silenced so will the Congress, one in fake the other in ballot encounter. This brazen justification of his goes into yet another record of items in the “world’s inventory of black deeds.” This needs to be not only recorded but used in prosecuting him for the hate crimes he had let loose on the hapless people of the minority communities. Be it now or later a national tribunal must try his cases lest anyone explore the possibility of the optional protocol of UN General Assembly or even the International Criminal Court.
He has spewed venom against the minorities wherever he goes. The US denied him a diplomatic visa. But more significant was the objection of the police chief of Hyderabad who took exception to his visit to the city amidst the celebration of Ganesh festival in the aftermath of the August 25, 2003 twin bomb blasts in Mumbai. Police Commissioner MV Krishna Rao did not mince words and called a spade a spade. He said that Modi was perceived by people as a fascist and hence should not be allowed to visit the city. History has the record of how Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader in Yugoslavia had spewed venom against the Muslims that started the civil war and genocide there. In the election prior to his becoming Chief Minister, Modi had poisoned the minds of the people against Ehsan Jaffri. The grisly death of the MP also belongs to “world’s inventory of black deeds.”
As Gujarat is heading to election at the end of the year 2007 it would again witness the flagrant violation of IPC 153. It has already begun. Distorting facts and rewriting history is the hall mark of the hideous ideology. Thus on Sunday June 10, 2007 Modi told a gathering in Ahemdabad that “The Congressmen in Gujarat support those who have been hailing Sohrabuddin’s death.” This is an insidious reference to Muslims who he alleges hail the death of Sohrabuddin. What a sinister way of accusing the victims. Sohrabuddin was murdered by Modi’s handpicked police officers DG Vanzara and Narendra Amin in a fake encounter for what appears to be a paid job by BJP trader in marbles to stop extortion. Modi is using the victim of police atrocity to blame the whole community of the victim ala the game of blaming the whole Muslim community: they plant bombs in mosques, they are killed, and they are caught. The maligning of the Muslims pays off rich dividends in the polls. Once the people are polarized communally the right wing candidates are assured of votes. This is a counter strategy evolved to fight the alleged en mass voting of Muslims and other minorities. Gujarat is notorious for being the laboratory of religious extremists.
Subtly fallacious reasoning is the art of politics of the rightwing. For the discerning it is a telltale and to the masses it is a matter of jubilation. What he said recently was lustily cheered by the jubilant crowd. But there is a catch. Modi said that “Jo log Sohrabuddin ke janaze ko le kar nach rahe hai who jan le ke uska janaza Gandhinager tak nahi le jayega(those who are dancing on the funderal of Sohrabuddinshould know that it would lead them to Gandhinager.) Of course, he should know better such saturnine details for he had personally ordered the dead bodies of those killed at Godhra to be brought to Ahmedabad. Even the macabre humour of the metaphorical funeral of Sohrabuddin is dreadful. Note how he gloats over encounter, surreptitiously replacing fake with ballot encounter thereby justifying the former as well: “The 5.5 crore people of Gujarat will not tolerate this and the Congress will be replied by being silenced in an encounter by people using the ballot papers (in the coming election)” Murder will be out. Sohrabuddin was silenced so will the Congress, one in fake the other in ballot encounter. This brazen justification of his goes into yet another record of items in the “world’s inventory of black deeds.” This needs to be not only recorded but used in prosecuting him for the hate crimes he had let loose on the hapless people of the minority communities. Be it now or later a national tribunal must try his cases lest anyone explore the possibility of the optional protocol of UN General Assembly or even the International Criminal Court.
He has spewed venom against the minorities wherever he goes. The US denied him a diplomatic visa. But more significant was the objection of the police chief of Hyderabad who took exception to his visit to the city amidst the celebration of Ganesh festival in the aftermath of the August 25, 2003 twin bomb blasts in Mumbai. Police Commissioner MV Krishna Rao did not mince words and called a spade a spade. He said that Modi was perceived by people as a fascist and hence should not be allowed to visit the city. History has the record of how Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader in Yugoslavia had spewed venom against the Muslims that started the civil war and genocide there. In the election prior to his becoming Chief Minister, Modi had poisoned the minds of the people against Ehsan Jaffri. The grisly death of the MP also belongs to “world’s inventory of black deeds.”
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Hazarkholi of Malegaon by Mustafa Khan
People with a penchant for Urdu poetry often quote the couplet that god has not changed the condition of people of the community because they themselves do not have awareness of the need for it. If there is an easy way to pass the buck to god it is here. Then why did Mohammad Qaiser Abdul Haq change the destiny of his life as well as of his community. He stood thirty second in IAS, second in Maharashtra. His father wished that this Maharashtra cadre young man should be posted in Malegaon which has huge problems facing the community. In other words he must wash the Augean stables as Hercules did. The accumulation of dirt and muck is very thick in that one thousand small unit housing colony known as 1000-closet (kholi) in the vernacular. Qaiser lives there, one of eleven siblings, with his family.
1000-closet was a benign gesture for the poor and underprivileged. There was another Muslim IAS officer with the Maharashtra government who was instrumental in the sanction of land and construction. When the colony came up it had wide roads with self contained toilet rooming rows. Each set consisted of a drawing room and a bed room with kitchen and toilet. There was absolutely no encroachment. Quite cheap installments of payment did not attract people to shift there as it was out of the town proper. Then wisdom dawned upon the professionals, doctors, teachers, engineers that they had the bonanza of housing facility waiting for them, that too within walking distance. So instead the poor and the underprivileged they moved in. The rooms were sublet to them with a price tag. The two MLAs who ‘ruled’ Malegaon for fifty years also moved in and occupied plum space. The lease was for 99 years. Given the clout of such redoubtable opposition and ruling combine this Hong Kong or Macaw would never return to the mainland. The Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata of Malegaon share the same lane.
These worthies were the past presidents and mayors of the municipality/corporation, too. Under their nose and with their connivance and complicity the residents broke all the rules and by rules of the housing colony and the civic administration. They gave flagrant albeit bold examples of encroachment of public land and illegal annexes, vertical as well as horizontal. They had put swabs of cotton into their ears and distributed the swabs to their neighbours to make the passage possible as Ulysses did vis-à-vis the sorceress Siren. If you see the property papers with a view to trace the original rightful underprivileged owner you will need a ladder to climb the hierarchy of sub-let owners and parasites.
The open space is occupied by wood cutters and shopkeepers. Their huge timbers and saw are too daunting to any passer by. The local residents can pick their way but the outsider would stumble and bump. Then what is left over is occupied by truck owners with their vehicles. So what was frontier settlement where women and decent people would fear to tread is the hub of the town where the fools rush.
A very interesting social manifestation of the colony is the slow assimilation of the different social groups and ancestry. People from the old town, Marathwada region, western Maharashtra, khandesh, Eastern UP, and even Tamil Nadu have made it to the colony. Qaiser’s father is from Paithan near Aurangabad while his mother is from Chalisgaon in Jalgaon district. Some speak Urdu at home, some speak bhujpuri of UP, some the local dialect. And when everyone speaks the local dialect you cannot know their background.
However, there is no playground worth name. There is a garden nearby. Shaikh Usman school where Qaiser did matriculation is in the midst of the houses. It must have come up in the open space meant for a play ground as has become standard practice. People can be forced to yield land for school but not play ground. Or else they are every ready to turn it in another slum. The older MLA had specialized in turning open spaces into slums (which ended up in becoming his vote banks). By all standards it is a humdrum school like any other in the town. But then the better off families there send their children across the road from the colony to JAT High School and Junior College and ATT High School and Junior College, both are now coed institutions. In the morning the students going there crowd the road, a familiar sight. It is interesting to note that Qaiser did not go there. But one must not forget that his main subject in MPSC was Urdu and he did MA in Urdu as an external candidate. So formal education cannot claim him entirely of its own though they can share the pride and sense of satisfaction at his achievement—distinguished by all means despite first three attempts in which he failed and then four years of concerted effort which ultimately brought success in the fourth attempt. His untiring and painstaking endeavour is a parable in perseverance.
In a town known for its powerloom industry the colony is the only neighbourhood of Malegaon which does not have power looms. Perhaps it was for this reason that the wiseacres moved in there. Among the residents there are many rich power loom owners who escape noise pollution of their own power looms by sleeping there, away from their power loom sheds. Of course, Qaiser’s father also drifted to the colony though he was a power loom worker and not owner. Poor indeed he was that his son had to toil so hard eking out family income selling kerosene on a tricycle tank and selling plates of melon for Rs 5 a plate. Three decades ago the editor of Urdu Blitz Hasan Kamal had graced the social gathering of a college with sizable number of Urdu speaking students. At that time he wondered that the textile town of Manchester had produced Karl Marx. How come the Manchester of India had not produced any? His haunting wish has come home to roost.
1000-closet was a benign gesture for the poor and underprivileged. There was another Muslim IAS officer with the Maharashtra government who was instrumental in the sanction of land and construction. When the colony came up it had wide roads with self contained toilet rooming rows. Each set consisted of a drawing room and a bed room with kitchen and toilet. There was absolutely no encroachment. Quite cheap installments of payment did not attract people to shift there as it was out of the town proper. Then wisdom dawned upon the professionals, doctors, teachers, engineers that they had the bonanza of housing facility waiting for them, that too within walking distance. So instead the poor and the underprivileged they moved in. The rooms were sublet to them with a price tag. The two MLAs who ‘ruled’ Malegaon for fifty years also moved in and occupied plum space. The lease was for 99 years. Given the clout of such redoubtable opposition and ruling combine this Hong Kong or Macaw would never return to the mainland. The Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata of Malegaon share the same lane.
These worthies were the past presidents and mayors of the municipality/corporation, too. Under their nose and with their connivance and complicity the residents broke all the rules and by rules of the housing colony and the civic administration. They gave flagrant albeit bold examples of encroachment of public land and illegal annexes, vertical as well as horizontal. They had put swabs of cotton into their ears and distributed the swabs to their neighbours to make the passage possible as Ulysses did vis-à-vis the sorceress Siren. If you see the property papers with a view to trace the original rightful underprivileged owner you will need a ladder to climb the hierarchy of sub-let owners and parasites.
The open space is occupied by wood cutters and shopkeepers. Their huge timbers and saw are too daunting to any passer by. The local residents can pick their way but the outsider would stumble and bump. Then what is left over is occupied by truck owners with their vehicles. So what was frontier settlement where women and decent people would fear to tread is the hub of the town where the fools rush.
A very interesting social manifestation of the colony is the slow assimilation of the different social groups and ancestry. People from the old town, Marathwada region, western Maharashtra, khandesh, Eastern UP, and even Tamil Nadu have made it to the colony. Qaiser’s father is from Paithan near Aurangabad while his mother is from Chalisgaon in Jalgaon district. Some speak Urdu at home, some speak bhujpuri of UP, some the local dialect. And when everyone speaks the local dialect you cannot know their background.
However, there is no playground worth name. There is a garden nearby. Shaikh Usman school where Qaiser did matriculation is in the midst of the houses. It must have come up in the open space meant for a play ground as has become standard practice. People can be forced to yield land for school but not play ground. Or else they are every ready to turn it in another slum. The older MLA had specialized in turning open spaces into slums (which ended up in becoming his vote banks). By all standards it is a humdrum school like any other in the town. But then the better off families there send their children across the road from the colony to JAT High School and Junior College and ATT High School and Junior College, both are now coed institutions. In the morning the students going there crowd the road, a familiar sight. It is interesting to note that Qaiser did not go there. But one must not forget that his main subject in MPSC was Urdu and he did MA in Urdu as an external candidate. So formal education cannot claim him entirely of its own though they can share the pride and sense of satisfaction at his achievement—distinguished by all means despite first three attempts in which he failed and then four years of concerted effort which ultimately brought success in the fourth attempt. His untiring and painstaking endeavour is a parable in perseverance.
In a town known for its powerloom industry the colony is the only neighbourhood of Malegaon which does not have power looms. Perhaps it was for this reason that the wiseacres moved in there. Among the residents there are many rich power loom owners who escape noise pollution of their own power looms by sleeping there, away from their power loom sheds. Of course, Qaiser’s father also drifted to the colony though he was a power loom worker and not owner. Poor indeed he was that his son had to toil so hard eking out family income selling kerosene on a tricycle tank and selling plates of melon for Rs 5 a plate. Three decades ago the editor of Urdu Blitz Hasan Kamal had graced the social gathering of a college with sizable number of Urdu speaking students. At that time he wondered that the textile town of Manchester had produced Karl Marx. How come the Manchester of India had not produced any? His haunting wish has come home to roost.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Cry, the Beloved Malegaon by Mustafa Khan
Malegaon town of Nashik district was settled in large measure by local workers, soldiers who manned the land fort and the refugees fleeing from persecution of the British in the aftermath of the 1857 struggle for freedom. The former were Arabs and locals. The Arabs left with the advent of the British. The refugees were craftsmen, mostly weavers. They lived in harmony and peace and were industrous. The first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, gave example of Malegaon for harmony and unity of the nascent nation. The partition of India and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi were times of great upheaval. But the easy going town had a Rip Van Winkle sleep through this period.
The forties and fifties saw handlooms giving way to powerlooms. Then the arrival of merchants from outside in sizable numbers. The economy booming saw the flourishing of the powerloom industry. After ten years of the freedom, the town had the foundation stone laid of the first college in the town (thanks to the efforts of Bhausaheb Hiray and Boa Guruji Khare). Another milestone was madrassa Milat. It was alrelady there, a big one among many other small ones attached to mosques. Those were wonderful days when there was no iota of suspicion about the functioning or aim of the madrassa. Maulana Hameed Nomani was founder of Milat and also a news reader on All India Radio. He belonged to the Congress party and was a nationalist.
Communalism raised its ugly head in the 60s. Thereafter no decade passed without scar of bloodshed and trauma the town had to go through. A series of communal flare ups and riots and then October 2001 clashes in which more than a dozen lost their lives opened the chasm of hatred and mistrust. Muslims from scores of village had to flee their heath and hearth for the first time ever in the life of Maharashtra. This was a watershed. The police had all the resources to stop and yet for more than a fortnight there was curfew with sporadic burning and looting and forced migration, searching of incoming buses for Muslim passengers. Two such passengers of Manmad were taken out and killed. History of the town would record first ever refugees. Never before did we ever see people fleeing with children and small bundles of essential things and hiding in farms and river beds to pass night. The terrifying use of gas cylinders to blow up mosques and Muslim property was horrendous but instant. But the demolition of the mosques in villages like Chichgawan was a matter of several days of steady work which went on with impunity.
The climate of suspicion was like the genii let out of the bottle. It began producing effects beyond the control of any community or individuals or even the government. This was the severest blow to the natural and organic life of the town. Time would have healed the wounds but it was not to be. The destiny of the town seemed to have passed into the hands of those who did not like the town to exist. On Friday September 8, 2006 blasts happned in the framework of this sinister design. Now as never before so many would be killed and among them would be the most helpless innocent children and beggars! The police have failed to dispel suspicion. Smruti Koppikar writing in Outlook dated September 13, 2006 says:
“That the investigators should so blatantly rule out involvement of any Hindutva outfit is cause for concern. It’s one thing for people like (Dada) Bhuse and other Hindutva leaders to assert that "no one from this side (Hindu majority area on the west bank of the Mosom ) of the river will go across and dare do something like this" but the fact remains that the cops are not chasing some clues. Take the case of "fake beard" as it has come to be known here. A tailor Aqeel Ahmed Ansari who works near the Bada Kabristan told cops and bystanders that he had picked up a body from near one of the bicycles and handed it over to volunteers in the ambulance, that this body did not have the lower part of the torso and its beard had come off in the ambulance. The suggestion being that it was a fake beard and therefore the body of a perpetrator. Coincidentally, the two hospitals that conducted post-mortems said that they had together handled 30 bodies and none was without the lower half. Besides, this body could not be found in the morgue hours later that very day. The "fake beard" part perhaps reveals something, especially when against the backdrop of several fake beards, typical Muslim and Sikh clothes, and relevant headgear were recovered from the house of a Bajrang Dal activist in the Nanded blast case.”
If there is some truth in this it confirms the widespread suspicion of the natives of the town, Hindus and Muslims alike, that the blasts were handiworks of outsiders. In the larger interest of the nation it is but natural that the investigating agencies and the government must find out who the perpetrators were. Hard solid facts and evidence and not just confession under duress would help.
People react strangely. Some have called the town as a communal pariah. They blame the government for negligence and lack of basic facilities. But conscientious people feel the need to look within and search in our soul. What has gone wrong? Have we really maintained the few facilities that we already have? True, we do not have hospitals and public parks and play grounds. But did we not let our municipal presidents/mayors and members/corporators sleep over such issues. The enormous amount of money that changes hands in election period could have gone to the better arrangements of public places, toilets, hospitals, roads and other civic amenities. Neither the blasts nor the riots have much to do with public or civil amenities. Using existing facilities including schools effectively and efficiently would have gone a long way to prevent the insidious and suspicious atmosphere in the town.
Nationalism/nationality is not the proprietorship of any one section. Nor can it be claimed and used by one section for its own advantage sometime and then by another section. It is a joint inheritance and trust and must be safeguarded by all. It requires mutual trust and belief in the larger good of all the people. This cannot come unless each one gives up a part of himself and his personal prejudices. With this feeling if the people start living together not only the resolution of the blasts conspiracy will be there but the same old life of Malegaon togetherness-and-harmony will come back!
The forties and fifties saw handlooms giving way to powerlooms. Then the arrival of merchants from outside in sizable numbers. The economy booming saw the flourishing of the powerloom industry. After ten years of the freedom, the town had the foundation stone laid of the first college in the town (thanks to the efforts of Bhausaheb Hiray and Boa Guruji Khare). Another milestone was madrassa Milat. It was alrelady there, a big one among many other small ones attached to mosques. Those were wonderful days when there was no iota of suspicion about the functioning or aim of the madrassa. Maulana Hameed Nomani was founder of Milat and also a news reader on All India Radio. He belonged to the Congress party and was a nationalist.
Communalism raised its ugly head in the 60s. Thereafter no decade passed without scar of bloodshed and trauma the town had to go through. A series of communal flare ups and riots and then October 2001 clashes in which more than a dozen lost their lives opened the chasm of hatred and mistrust. Muslims from scores of village had to flee their heath and hearth for the first time ever in the life of Maharashtra. This was a watershed. The police had all the resources to stop and yet for more than a fortnight there was curfew with sporadic burning and looting and forced migration, searching of incoming buses for Muslim passengers. Two such passengers of Manmad were taken out and killed. History of the town would record first ever refugees. Never before did we ever see people fleeing with children and small bundles of essential things and hiding in farms and river beds to pass night. The terrifying use of gas cylinders to blow up mosques and Muslim property was horrendous but instant. But the demolition of the mosques in villages like Chichgawan was a matter of several days of steady work which went on with impunity.
The climate of suspicion was like the genii let out of the bottle. It began producing effects beyond the control of any community or individuals or even the government. This was the severest blow to the natural and organic life of the town. Time would have healed the wounds but it was not to be. The destiny of the town seemed to have passed into the hands of those who did not like the town to exist. On Friday September 8, 2006 blasts happned in the framework of this sinister design. Now as never before so many would be killed and among them would be the most helpless innocent children and beggars! The police have failed to dispel suspicion. Smruti Koppikar writing in Outlook dated September 13, 2006 says:
“That the investigators should so blatantly rule out involvement of any Hindutva outfit is cause for concern. It’s one thing for people like (Dada) Bhuse and other Hindutva leaders to assert that "no one from this side (Hindu majority area on the west bank of the Mosom ) of the river will go across and dare do something like this" but the fact remains that the cops are not chasing some clues. Take the case of "fake beard" as it has come to be known here. A tailor Aqeel Ahmed Ansari who works near the Bada Kabristan told cops and bystanders that he had picked up a body from near one of the bicycles and handed it over to volunteers in the ambulance, that this body did not have the lower part of the torso and its beard had come off in the ambulance. The suggestion being that it was a fake beard and therefore the body of a perpetrator. Coincidentally, the two hospitals that conducted post-mortems said that they had together handled 30 bodies and none was without the lower half. Besides, this body could not be found in the morgue hours later that very day. The "fake beard" part perhaps reveals something, especially when against the backdrop of several fake beards, typical Muslim and Sikh clothes, and relevant headgear were recovered from the house of a Bajrang Dal activist in the Nanded blast case.”
If there is some truth in this it confirms the widespread suspicion of the natives of the town, Hindus and Muslims alike, that the blasts were handiworks of outsiders. In the larger interest of the nation it is but natural that the investigating agencies and the government must find out who the perpetrators were. Hard solid facts and evidence and not just confession under duress would help.
People react strangely. Some have called the town as a communal pariah. They blame the government for negligence and lack of basic facilities. But conscientious people feel the need to look within and search in our soul. What has gone wrong? Have we really maintained the few facilities that we already have? True, we do not have hospitals and public parks and play grounds. But did we not let our municipal presidents/mayors and members/corporators sleep over such issues. The enormous amount of money that changes hands in election period could have gone to the better arrangements of public places, toilets, hospitals, roads and other civic amenities. Neither the blasts nor the riots have much to do with public or civil amenities. Using existing facilities including schools effectively and efficiently would have gone a long way to prevent the insidious and suspicious atmosphere in the town.
Nationalism/nationality is not the proprietorship of any one section. Nor can it be claimed and used by one section for its own advantage sometime and then by another section. It is a joint inheritance and trust and must be safeguarded by all. It requires mutual trust and belief in the larger good of all the people. This cannot come unless each one gives up a part of himself and his personal prejudices. With this feeling if the people start living together not only the resolution of the blasts conspiracy will be there but the same old life of Malegaon togetherness-and-harmony will come back!
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Warmongering by Mustafa Khan
Concerns for war and its ravages is an abiding interest of people everywhere. There were war protests at the time of the anniversary of Iraq war. Some six elderly people held placards against the war in a town in the United States. One placard asked —"Four Years of War, What For?"—a car stopped and the driver shouted at them "For your freedom, you fucking assholes!" That response is not infrequent there because of the enormous profits and kickbacks as well as the oil of Iraq. Another enduring interest is weapons sale. The Jews have been trading in weapons sale. They have sold weapons to even those countries against which the US had imposed arms sanction. Most of the arms were manufactured in America. Perhaps it was this that prompted the Oscar award winning Hollywood actor Neil Gibson say that the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the word. If the war against Iran takes place it will not be for non proliferation of nuclear weapons policy of the US per se. It would be because of what Israeli minister Shaul Mofaz says: Israel will not accept Iranian nuclear capability. America will fight but the Jews would sell weapons, if not directly it would be through open market. Thus the enormous clout of the arms lobby (controlled by Jews) in America would ultimately benefit. Iranian nuclear capability would cut back into the profits. The Israelis again cashed in on India’s heightened concern for security in the aftermath of terrorism. Look at the various security tie ups between the two. In the summer war of 2006 in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah Israel used indiscriminately cluster bombs not allowed by the US laws. The Jewish lobby sold the arms irrespective of American laws
In 1986 America sold weapons to Iran despite its declared policy against it. The reason was that Hezbollah had captured 30 people, some were citizens of the US and most likely some were Jews. The Americans wanted to get the hostages released by selling arms to Iran which was in the midst of a war with Iraq. The American defence secretary asked Israel to transfer the arms to Iran. In this transaction many officials in Washington were involved. Even the vice president H.W.Bush knew it. But President Ronald Reagan denied that he had any knowledge until a Lebanese newspaper disclosed the details. After a week he acknowledged that the sale did take place. The proceeds from the sale went to the Contras in Nicaragua who were fighting the rightful government there and the Sandinista guerillas. American army and politicians were not only involved in it but they were also connected with the drug sale. Even Col Oliver North was neck deep in it. Again the Israelis played a leading role. They favoured the sale of weapons to Iran because they wanted to get back a foothold in the Iranian army. During the regime of the Shah, Jewish arms sellers had heyday and the Shah had close relations with the Israelis. Iran was the greatest buyer of American arms in the West Asia and the Jewish lobby felt the loss when the revolutionary government under the leadership the spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeni cancelled the contracts. They controlled the American presidents and the Congress through their strangle hold.
This realization dawned upon Cindy Lee Sheehan very late. Her son was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. In March 2005 she wrote a letter in which she remarked that “Casey Sheehan was killed for lies and for a PANAC Neo Conservative agenda to benefit Israel.” When the Jewish lobby increased pressure on her she said “I do believe that the Palestinean issue is a hot issue, that needs to be sorted, and it needs to be fair and be more equitable.” She took part in protest meet in many other countries of the world. But she was disturbed by the right and left members of her own party. The lefts were the liberals who wanted her to oppose Bush vehemently rather than the war. The Israelis want that the US should stay course in Iraq although Iran is much greater threat than Iraq. The US started the war but it is unable to stop it.
But Cindy fell victim to the system in America, the system which is controlled by the Jews. At the beginning of June 2007 she decided to quit her protest campaign just outside the ranch of Bush family. She said in her “resignation” letter, “Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too...which makes the property even more valuable.” The wry humour of her tone is reminiscent of what Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had said when Bush had addressed the General Assembly sometimes before him. Chavez said that the devil was there because he could still smell the sulfur.
The evangelists had egged Bush on to attack Iraq because the people there did not have religious freedom. Pat Robertson the founder of Christian Coalition in the US was in the forefront. He had also opined in 2005 that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated. He is a staunch capitalist and in sympathy with the Jews and against those like Chavez who oppose capitalism. Cindy Sheehan felt that she was a helpless sufferer in this. What hurt her was that the war was made out to be a matter of right and left when it was actually a matter of right and wrong.
“I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.
“Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want.”
In 1986 America sold weapons to Iran despite its declared policy against it. The reason was that Hezbollah had captured 30 people, some were citizens of the US and most likely some were Jews. The Americans wanted to get the hostages released by selling arms to Iran which was in the midst of a war with Iraq. The American defence secretary asked Israel to transfer the arms to Iran. In this transaction many officials in Washington were involved. Even the vice president H.W.Bush knew it. But President Ronald Reagan denied that he had any knowledge until a Lebanese newspaper disclosed the details. After a week he acknowledged that the sale did take place. The proceeds from the sale went to the Contras in Nicaragua who were fighting the rightful government there and the Sandinista guerillas. American army and politicians were not only involved in it but they were also connected with the drug sale. Even Col Oliver North was neck deep in it. Again the Israelis played a leading role. They favoured the sale of weapons to Iran because they wanted to get back a foothold in the Iranian army. During the regime of the Shah, Jewish arms sellers had heyday and the Shah had close relations with the Israelis. Iran was the greatest buyer of American arms in the West Asia and the Jewish lobby felt the loss when the revolutionary government under the leadership the spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeni cancelled the contracts. They controlled the American presidents and the Congress through their strangle hold.
This realization dawned upon Cindy Lee Sheehan very late. Her son was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. In March 2005 she wrote a letter in which she remarked that “Casey Sheehan was killed for lies and for a PANAC Neo Conservative agenda to benefit Israel.” When the Jewish lobby increased pressure on her she said “I do believe that the Palestinean issue is a hot issue, that needs to be sorted, and it needs to be fair and be more equitable.” She took part in protest meet in many other countries of the world. But she was disturbed by the right and left members of her own party. The lefts were the liberals who wanted her to oppose Bush vehemently rather than the war. The Israelis want that the US should stay course in Iraq although Iran is much greater threat than Iraq. The US started the war but it is unable to stop it.
But Cindy fell victim to the system in America, the system which is controlled by the Jews. At the beginning of June 2007 she decided to quit her protest campaign just outside the ranch of Bush family. She said in her “resignation” letter, “Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too...which makes the property even more valuable.” The wry humour of her tone is reminiscent of what Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had said when Bush had addressed the General Assembly sometimes before him. Chavez said that the devil was there because he could still smell the sulfur.
The evangelists had egged Bush on to attack Iraq because the people there did not have religious freedom. Pat Robertson the founder of Christian Coalition in the US was in the forefront. He had also opined in 2005 that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated. He is a staunch capitalist and in sympathy with the Jews and against those like Chavez who oppose capitalism. Cindy Sheehan felt that she was a helpless sufferer in this. What hurt her was that the war was made out to be a matter of right and left when it was actually a matter of right and wrong.
“I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.
“Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want.”
It is not in our stars that we are underlings by Mustafa Khan
There is not much that is new in reports on the backwardness of the Muslims in India. To carry any weight fact-finding must be matched by political will and social acceptability. As the two have been and are in short supply we must explore other avenues to be of some use to the downtrodden. The social upheaval we are passing through is a ripple of the much larger cataclysmic changes unleashed by market based economy and other factors. If Muslims are backward it may be because they have been denied jobs. Who denies jobs to whom is not as important as a vibrant section of society growing leaps and bound is disabled from performing useful productive work for the welfare of the nation. The ubiquitous complain that honest and dedicated people are not available for defence services and the police force and the intelligence agencies is because we have not gone out much into the open sea and thrown out nets much wider or else we could not have missed Humayun Kabir’s progeny and his ilk in the intelligence gathering that is so vital for security of the country.
The much touted need to include Muslim and Christian dalits in reservation of jobs and education is a matter of belated self correction of the democratic process. It was incorrect to keep reservation on the basis of religion and if the state realizes that it made a historic mistake and the move to accommodate Muslim and Christian dalits, now, is the imperative on the state. No one should make reductio ad absurdum argument of reservation for its own sake. The Sachar report has made some ripples on the surface indicative of how deep does the standing water of apathy and unconcern run. The growing sense of the polity that political correctness can be rewarding at hustings must at least impinge on the consciousness that what is passing phase must be a turning point for a substantial minority to look within and achieve the real improvement.
Inbuilt inhibition in the form of interest money involving credit may preclude Muslims from loans and therefore they must evolve or adopt strategies which are open to all. The four basic principles of Narayana Murthy are the sauce which are good for the goose and must be good for the gander. We must strictly adhere to meritocracy, be willing to work hard, adopt global best practices in training and follow absolute discipline. No one in his most deranged condition would call this as appeasement. But these would surely make a chemical change in the public relationship field and would be salubrious in the interest of the nation.
Systemic failure is the cause of the present furor over the backwardness of Muslims. If it were not so the latest National Sample Survey would have
presented a different scenario. The NSS shows that between 1999-00 and 2004-05 there was nearly 45% drop of Muslim males in the category of regular employees’ in the urban areas. This is quite grave a concern because bulk of the Muslim population is in urban areas only. However sharp rise in female Muslim in employment is quite welcome change due to increased attention paid to their education or due to the overall India-level increase in female literacy.
Enlightened citizenry engaged in useful work not only can create wealth for itself but can create surplus for the nation. Reservation or no reservation but the self-enforced working ethics will automatically make a sea change. Try it on all and those who do not fit into it must gracefully leave or be chucked out. At least there cannot be any quota on whom to chuck out. No supreme court should have any qualms over throwing out those who do not abide by the work-discipline. The Sachar committee report emphasizes the need for informed public debate. Into that debate we must admit the need to overhaul the bureaucracy from the point of view of identifying those who get into service but fail any benchmarking of efficiency and usefulness. This would remove complacency and proprietorship of those who come to believe that they have a right to jobs permanently irrespective of how they perform. Anyone having such undesirable qualities deserves demotion or the axe and his reserve category loss of next turn in recruitment Unless some such process is evolved we cannot “ensure inclusiveness through embracing diversity.”
In a globalized world based on market economy no section can afford to lag behind. Muslims are no exception. Their present plight is temporary. Their slumber resembles that of Philoctetes in Sophocles’ play of that name. The Greeks cannot win Troy without his charmed archery, a gift of Hercules. Ulysses who had himself abandoned him on the island of Lemnos must take him with the rest. Philoctetes is bitten by a snake and cries in pain which others cannot bear. Achilles’ son Neoptolemus looks at him and remarks:
Sleep hath overtaken him. See, his head is lain
On the cold earth; the balmy sweat thick drops
From every limb, and from the broken vein
Flows the warm blood; let us indulge his slumber.
To win the globalized world we need all sections to work hard. As for the present festering wounds of Philoctetes, the sons of Aesculapius would restore him to health. All the Greeks must work together. Justice S.N.Srivastava of Allahabad court my rule that the Muslims are not minority in UP or the Supreme Court may overturn the ruling but what cannot be ruled out is that the Muslims must have or create the opportunity to work for themselves and thereby for their country of birth, India.
In the charged and thwarting atmosphere in the country, can they afford to run berserk like the Gujars and the Meenas?
The much touted need to include Muslim and Christian dalits in reservation of jobs and education is a matter of belated self correction of the democratic process. It was incorrect to keep reservation on the basis of religion and if the state realizes that it made a historic mistake and the move to accommodate Muslim and Christian dalits, now, is the imperative on the state. No one should make reductio ad absurdum argument of reservation for its own sake. The Sachar report has made some ripples on the surface indicative of how deep does the standing water of apathy and unconcern run. The growing sense of the polity that political correctness can be rewarding at hustings must at least impinge on the consciousness that what is passing phase must be a turning point for a substantial minority to look within and achieve the real improvement.
Inbuilt inhibition in the form of interest money involving credit may preclude Muslims from loans and therefore they must evolve or adopt strategies which are open to all. The four basic principles of Narayana Murthy are the sauce which are good for the goose and must be good for the gander. We must strictly adhere to meritocracy, be willing to work hard, adopt global best practices in training and follow absolute discipline. No one in his most deranged condition would call this as appeasement. But these would surely make a chemical change in the public relationship field and would be salubrious in the interest of the nation.
Systemic failure is the cause of the present furor over the backwardness of Muslims. If it were not so the latest National Sample Survey would have
presented a different scenario. The NSS shows that between 1999-00 and 2004-05 there was nearly 45% drop of Muslim males in the category of regular employees’ in the urban areas. This is quite grave a concern because bulk of the Muslim population is in urban areas only. However sharp rise in female Muslim in employment is quite welcome change due to increased attention paid to their education or due to the overall India-level increase in female literacy.
Enlightened citizenry engaged in useful work not only can create wealth for itself but can create surplus for the nation. Reservation or no reservation but the self-enforced working ethics will automatically make a sea change. Try it on all and those who do not fit into it must gracefully leave or be chucked out. At least there cannot be any quota on whom to chuck out. No supreme court should have any qualms over throwing out those who do not abide by the work-discipline. The Sachar committee report emphasizes the need for informed public debate. Into that debate we must admit the need to overhaul the bureaucracy from the point of view of identifying those who get into service but fail any benchmarking of efficiency and usefulness. This would remove complacency and proprietorship of those who come to believe that they have a right to jobs permanently irrespective of how they perform. Anyone having such undesirable qualities deserves demotion or the axe and his reserve category loss of next turn in recruitment Unless some such process is evolved we cannot “ensure inclusiveness through embracing diversity.”
In a globalized world based on market economy no section can afford to lag behind. Muslims are no exception. Their present plight is temporary. Their slumber resembles that of Philoctetes in Sophocles’ play of that name. The Greeks cannot win Troy without his charmed archery, a gift of Hercules. Ulysses who had himself abandoned him on the island of Lemnos must take him with the rest. Philoctetes is bitten by a snake and cries in pain which others cannot bear. Achilles’ son Neoptolemus looks at him and remarks:
Sleep hath overtaken him. See, his head is lain
On the cold earth; the balmy sweat thick drops
From every limb, and from the broken vein
Flows the warm blood; let us indulge his slumber.
To win the globalized world we need all sections to work hard. As for the present festering wounds of Philoctetes, the sons of Aesculapius would restore him to health. All the Greeks must work together. Justice S.N.Srivastava of Allahabad court my rule that the Muslims are not minority in UP or the Supreme Court may overturn the ruling but what cannot be ruled out is that the Muslims must have or create the opportunity to work for themselves and thereby for their country of birth, India.
In the charged and thwarting atmosphere in the country, can they afford to run berserk like the Gujars and the Meenas?
Shame in Gujarat and India's Honour by Mustafa Khan
Filled with pride Narendra Modi’s much vaunted five crore people of Gujarat and like minded elsewhere did not experience painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour during the pogroms of 2002. Or else, the then Prime Minister of India AB Vajpayee did not use that dictionary meaning of shame is also not clear because neither his Chief Minister in Gujarat nor did his own Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, LK Advani, feel any such thing. Nor do they seem to feel today, either. Even today the latter glorifies the former as the best chief minister that Gujarat got.
To uphold India’s honour is to appeal to its high principled commitments in the Constitution, a monumental document worthy of bowing to it in reverence and, more, observing its articles in letter and spirit in practical administration of the country. Concerned Citizens Tribunal in its report on the carnage in Gujarat called Crime Against Humanity did just that. Prepared by Justice V R Krishna Iyer, Justice P.B.Samant, Justice Hosbet Suresh, Advocate K.G.Kannabiran, Ms Aruna Roy, Dr K.S. Subramanian, Prof Ghanshyam Shah and Prof Tanika Sarkar it strove in the spirit of right to information which is a fundamental human freedom, to put the finger on the pulse that the health of any society lies not in denials and half-truths when grave injustices have occurred, but in courageously admitting to them, righting those wrongs with justice and then reconciliation. Most of what the PM said about Gujarat was half truth and what CM and Deputy PM said was outright denial of truth. The tight control of reign ruled out admission of what happened there, and then the question of righting of wrong did not arise. The disclosure in Soharabuddin murder case is proving the point.
Ehsan Jaffri was an eyesore to Narendra Modi. He often denigrated the MP and wanted him out of his way when he toured for electioneering. That was before 2002, since then Mian Musharraf replaced the MP and our shame went right to the podium of General Assembly in the UNO. How could we stop it when the marauding crowd, despite commissioner of police Ahemdabad PC Pande’s presence in the vicinity, was playing cricket with the skulls of the hapless victims of the Gulberg society in the evening of the fateful day?
Since then Pande has been elevated as DGP of Gujarat and the Gulberg has given way to Holiday Home bungalow where Vanzara and others held petty criminals hostage until they collected hefty sums of money. This illegal detention centre is a piece of our time, outsourcing of torture with the Gujarati entrepreneurial acumen, the extraordinary rendition. The owner of the notorious bungalow of illegal detention, torture, rape and murder, Raju Jirawala, has reportedly admitted that Ishrat Jahan was also kept there before she was bumped off in a fake encounter along with three others.. Even Zahira Sheikh had “enjoyed” the hospitality of the state of Gujarat there when it extended patronage to her vis-à-vis Teesta Setalvad. Whose pride was Modi celebrating during those gaurav yatras and whose shame was orchestrated?
Sub nationalism is a challenge to nationalism. Dr Samuel Johnson has truly said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Vanzara committed the crimes in the name of patriotism and Modi denied that Muslims could be patriotic. Like Bush of either with us or against us- policy he left them no choice, either you vote Modi or vote Mian Musharraf.
The Constitution of India has enshrined the simple truth that those who create disaffection among the people of India pose a threat to the nation and hence guilty and liable to prosecution. Could Pandes and Vanzaras dare to bell the cat? Whose honour were they sworn to uphold and whose shame were they orchestrating? Modi: ditto.
That they were subverting the Constitutional authority is undeniable. When Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh felt that situation was not suitable for election Modi and his party were hell bent on election as they were sure of reaping a rich harvest of hatred they had sown. Nay, Modi went on repeating the full Christian name James Michael Lygdoh to carry home the point that as the Commissioner was a Christian he was against election. This kind of tactics is equivalent to the modus operandi of the encounter cops: that they received tip off from informers that a criminal was coming to town, they laid a trap, the criminal refused to surrender and opened fire at the police who returned fire, he was injured, they rushed him to hospital but he died before admission. This is simply a canard. Modi’s harping on Lyngdoh’s religion or any other person’s religion, other than his own, is another. When Ahemdabad was burning this Nero went to the bank of Sabarmati and croaked that the Hindus prayed and got rain and dared the Muslims to perform the miracle!
Adding insult to injury, Modi said about the wretched refugees in relief camps: “Relief camps are actually child making factories. Those who keep on multiplying the population should be taught a lesson”. (The Hindu, September 10, 2002) When the National Human Rights Commission asked for a copy of the speech the government of Modi said that no such tape existed. It was then that Star News telecast the same. As is their wont even the worst situation they are reputed to turn to their advantage (doesn’t matter if it flies into the face of the Constitution). Pravin Tagodia came out with VHP’s plan to distribute one lakh cassette of that notorious speech of Mehsana district of September 9, 2002. In all this there is no feeling of qualm either on the faces of Modi or Tagodia as there was no such expression on Vanzara the other day. The National Human Rights Commission is a constitutional statutory body and the Gujarat government is another.
Is not the whole world watching what is going on here? Sometimes back there was an attack on the American library in Kolkatta (Calcutta) in which several police men died. The US State Department refused to buy our argument that it was a terrorist attack. The reason was that a man had a brother who was killed in fake encounter in Gujarat. In revenge he organized the attack in Calcutta. The US State Department told India that it was a personal revenge and not a terrorist attack. Lest the same might happen again we need to do our homework well for the honour of the country.
Much like what the British court and police did. On Monday 30 April 2007 a British court sent five persons to life imprisonment for preparing to plant a bomb. Two were acquitted although one of them, Sujah Mehmood, was the brother of the main accused, Omar Khayyam. The other acquitted was Nabeel Hussein whose debit card was used to pay for storage of the fertilizer used in making the explosive device. The British police did not require any stringent laws like Pota to operate. They used the everyday criminal law of investigation and arrest and did not go for fake encounters. Neither the police there is complicit nor the judiciary.
What is the reason that we in India failed abysmally? And the reason is: money. Sohrabuddin Sheikh was an extortionist. He forced the marble traders of Rajasthan to pay for safe passage of their goods which passed through Madhya Pradesh. Some BJP trader gave “supari” to Vanzar to end the nuisance. Vanzara used Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh police to arrest Sohrabuddin and wife Kauser. Holiday Home was used for illegal detention and extra judicial killing which is what an encounter is. Vanza must have also tried to make Sohrabuddin cough up money. He has minted wealth to the tune of 150 crores by this way, not to speak of how much Daya Naik has got, what with his five star hotel in Dubai and all.
To uphold India’s honour is to appeal to its high principled commitments in the Constitution, a monumental document worthy of bowing to it in reverence and, more, observing its articles in letter and spirit in practical administration of the country. Concerned Citizens Tribunal in its report on the carnage in Gujarat called Crime Against Humanity did just that. Prepared by Justice V R Krishna Iyer, Justice P.B.Samant, Justice Hosbet Suresh, Advocate K.G.Kannabiran, Ms Aruna Roy, Dr K.S. Subramanian, Prof Ghanshyam Shah and Prof Tanika Sarkar it strove in the spirit of right to information which is a fundamental human freedom, to put the finger on the pulse that the health of any society lies not in denials and half-truths when grave injustices have occurred, but in courageously admitting to them, righting those wrongs with justice and then reconciliation. Most of what the PM said about Gujarat was half truth and what CM and Deputy PM said was outright denial of truth. The tight control of reign ruled out admission of what happened there, and then the question of righting of wrong did not arise. The disclosure in Soharabuddin murder case is proving the point.
Ehsan Jaffri was an eyesore to Narendra Modi. He often denigrated the MP and wanted him out of his way when he toured for electioneering. That was before 2002, since then Mian Musharraf replaced the MP and our shame went right to the podium of General Assembly in the UNO. How could we stop it when the marauding crowd, despite commissioner of police Ahemdabad PC Pande’s presence in the vicinity, was playing cricket with the skulls of the hapless victims of the Gulberg society in the evening of the fateful day?
Since then Pande has been elevated as DGP of Gujarat and the Gulberg has given way to Holiday Home bungalow where Vanzara and others held petty criminals hostage until they collected hefty sums of money. This illegal detention centre is a piece of our time, outsourcing of torture with the Gujarati entrepreneurial acumen, the extraordinary rendition. The owner of the notorious bungalow of illegal detention, torture, rape and murder, Raju Jirawala, has reportedly admitted that Ishrat Jahan was also kept there before she was bumped off in a fake encounter along with three others.. Even Zahira Sheikh had “enjoyed” the hospitality of the state of Gujarat there when it extended patronage to her vis-à-vis Teesta Setalvad. Whose pride was Modi celebrating during those gaurav yatras and whose shame was orchestrated?
Sub nationalism is a challenge to nationalism. Dr Samuel Johnson has truly said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Vanzara committed the crimes in the name of patriotism and Modi denied that Muslims could be patriotic. Like Bush of either with us or against us- policy he left them no choice, either you vote Modi or vote Mian Musharraf.
The Constitution of India has enshrined the simple truth that those who create disaffection among the people of India pose a threat to the nation and hence guilty and liable to prosecution. Could Pandes and Vanzaras dare to bell the cat? Whose honour were they sworn to uphold and whose shame were they orchestrating? Modi: ditto.
That they were subverting the Constitutional authority is undeniable. When Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh felt that situation was not suitable for election Modi and his party were hell bent on election as they were sure of reaping a rich harvest of hatred they had sown. Nay, Modi went on repeating the full Christian name James Michael Lygdoh to carry home the point that as the Commissioner was a Christian he was against election. This kind of tactics is equivalent to the modus operandi of the encounter cops: that they received tip off from informers that a criminal was coming to town, they laid a trap, the criminal refused to surrender and opened fire at the police who returned fire, he was injured, they rushed him to hospital but he died before admission. This is simply a canard. Modi’s harping on Lyngdoh’s religion or any other person’s religion, other than his own, is another. When Ahemdabad was burning this Nero went to the bank of Sabarmati and croaked that the Hindus prayed and got rain and dared the Muslims to perform the miracle!
Adding insult to injury, Modi said about the wretched refugees in relief camps: “Relief camps are actually child making factories. Those who keep on multiplying the population should be taught a lesson”. (The Hindu, September 10, 2002) When the National Human Rights Commission asked for a copy of the speech the government of Modi said that no such tape existed. It was then that Star News telecast the same. As is their wont even the worst situation they are reputed to turn to their advantage (doesn’t matter if it flies into the face of the Constitution). Pravin Tagodia came out with VHP’s plan to distribute one lakh cassette of that notorious speech of Mehsana district of September 9, 2002. In all this there is no feeling of qualm either on the faces of Modi or Tagodia as there was no such expression on Vanzara the other day. The National Human Rights Commission is a constitutional statutory body and the Gujarat government is another.
Is not the whole world watching what is going on here? Sometimes back there was an attack on the American library in Kolkatta (Calcutta) in which several police men died. The US State Department refused to buy our argument that it was a terrorist attack. The reason was that a man had a brother who was killed in fake encounter in Gujarat. In revenge he organized the attack in Calcutta. The US State Department told India that it was a personal revenge and not a terrorist attack. Lest the same might happen again we need to do our homework well for the honour of the country.
Much like what the British court and police did. On Monday 30 April 2007 a British court sent five persons to life imprisonment for preparing to plant a bomb. Two were acquitted although one of them, Sujah Mehmood, was the brother of the main accused, Omar Khayyam. The other acquitted was Nabeel Hussein whose debit card was used to pay for storage of the fertilizer used in making the explosive device. The British police did not require any stringent laws like Pota to operate. They used the everyday criminal law of investigation and arrest and did not go for fake encounters. Neither the police there is complicit nor the judiciary.
What is the reason that we in India failed abysmally? And the reason is: money. Sohrabuddin Sheikh was an extortionist. He forced the marble traders of Rajasthan to pay for safe passage of their goods which passed through Madhya Pradesh. Some BJP trader gave “supari” to Vanzar to end the nuisance. Vanzara used Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh police to arrest Sohrabuddin and wife Kauser. Holiday Home was used for illegal detention and extra judicial killing which is what an encounter is. Vanza must have also tried to make Sohrabuddin cough up money. He has minted wealth to the tune of 150 crores by this way, not to speak of how much Daya Naik has got, what with his five star hotel in Dubai and all.
Black Fridays and Moral Responsibility by Mustaf Khan
The fateful day in 1993 that saw the horrendous serial bomb blasts was a Friday. The murky bloody deed of the D gang was an act of terror. But the motivation was communalism. Can we not then say that the subsequent Fridays of April 2005 in Delhi, September 8, 2006 in Malegaon and May 18, 2007in Hyderabad were also days of terror caused by communalism? True, rationality points in that direction. What causes enmity between communities of people of two religions is communalism. But the intelligence agencies right from the Intelligence Bureau to the local police and CID do not want to countenance even that suggestive hint. The slide into the chaos continues with the mounting death of the innocent victims.
Friday 18th May 2007 was to see a protest against the fake encounter death of Sohrabuddin and wife Kauser in which the Andhra Pradesh police had colluded with the Gujarat police under Vanzara. It was also the day when Judge P.D.Kode was to begin pronouncing punishment on the guilty of the ’93 serial blasts. But those who hatched the conspiracy of the blast in Mecca mosque did not want the protest to take place. They succeeded despite the warning that the central government home ministry had given about possible disturbance there. A local TV channel was there covering a cultural event as one such was there at the cemetery mosque in Malegaon on the auspicious occasion of the festival of prayer of Shabb-e-barat. In both the attacks those who plotted had taken note of the significance of the days and occasion and the wide publicity their evil design would receive. For that is the calculated aim of all the terrorists: public attention and propaganda of a cause. Which group carried out the bombings can be correctly guessed by its unwillingness to spell out on written page with banner head or through the word of mouth its terrific design. The other aspect is to give message to the victim that they have it coming to them. In other words intimidating them into submission.
The police were altogether absent from the Malegaon mosque and at the Mecca mosque there was dereliction of duty, unprepared ness. Then disproportionate use of force, Police chief of AP Basith said that the police were using rubber bullets which would not kill but only injure. It turned out that several people were killed and in one incident a boy was mowed down by the bullets. When his relatives and neighbours tried to lift the bleeding boy another bullet found home in the injured body. There is no definite body count but more died in police firing than in the blast.
An emerging situation of serious concern is the sensationalistic focus of issues. Either you highlight an issue or prevent it from surfacing. Why has the intelligence agency failed to look from this angle? It will require hard thinking. To begin with, those who wanted to highlight the fake encounter death through protest could themselves cause gruesome murder and mayhem to court sympathy. Or, those who attempted to snip it in the bud wanted to warn others from going on with the protest. Or, they aimed to divert attention from the events in Gujarat. Or, is it an act of retaliation, or what Pritish Nany calls tit-for-tat terrorism? Speaking about hidden agenda will lead invariably to the same polarization of Indian society which cannot augur well for the nation. However, the larger interest of the nation requires that we go to the root of the malaise and root it out.
To do that, doing away with stereotyping and finding scapegoat can help. The Chief Minister of AP Rajashekhar Reddy was still in Delhi at the time of the blast and from there he said that it was an international sabotage. In other words, the ISI is again at it. In the same vein is another chorus of LeT, HUJI, SIMI. These are ready made excuses the intelligence agencies are indoctrinated to repeat, to hide their failure since their failure is total and abysmal. There is also no whistle blower in them, either. They look at all the events from one colour! Either we revamp them or create a super rainbow intelligence agency.
The government agencies and departments are working at cross purposes. Home Minister S Patil says it was an improvised explosive device while reports indicate that it was quite sophisticated one using mobile phone as a detonating device. In the case of Malegaon blasts Home Secretary of the Union Government, Mr Duggal, said RDX was used but the superintendent of police of Malegon, Rajwardhan Mishra, denied it.
In the incidents of mosque bombing in Parbhani, Nanded, Delhi, Malegaon, and Hyderabad no one has been caught except the SIMI activists. Some Bajrang Dal activists were arrested for the Marathwada region bombings but no further inquiry was conducted. The police do not favour that angle of investigation.
Apropos to this, the American poet Robert Frost said
Some say the world will in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great And would suffic
Friday 18th May 2007 was to see a protest against the fake encounter death of Sohrabuddin and wife Kauser in which the Andhra Pradesh police had colluded with the Gujarat police under Vanzara. It was also the day when Judge P.D.Kode was to begin pronouncing punishment on the guilty of the ’93 serial blasts. But those who hatched the conspiracy of the blast in Mecca mosque did not want the protest to take place. They succeeded despite the warning that the central government home ministry had given about possible disturbance there. A local TV channel was there covering a cultural event as one such was there at the cemetery mosque in Malegaon on the auspicious occasion of the festival of prayer of Shabb-e-barat. In both the attacks those who plotted had taken note of the significance of the days and occasion and the wide publicity their evil design would receive. For that is the calculated aim of all the terrorists: public attention and propaganda of a cause. Which group carried out the bombings can be correctly guessed by its unwillingness to spell out on written page with banner head or through the word of mouth its terrific design. The other aspect is to give message to the victim that they have it coming to them. In other words intimidating them into submission.
The police were altogether absent from the Malegaon mosque and at the Mecca mosque there was dereliction of duty, unprepared ness. Then disproportionate use of force, Police chief of AP Basith said that the police were using rubber bullets which would not kill but only injure. It turned out that several people were killed and in one incident a boy was mowed down by the bullets. When his relatives and neighbours tried to lift the bleeding boy another bullet found home in the injured body. There is no definite body count but more died in police firing than in the blast.
An emerging situation of serious concern is the sensationalistic focus of issues. Either you highlight an issue or prevent it from surfacing. Why has the intelligence agency failed to look from this angle? It will require hard thinking. To begin with, those who wanted to highlight the fake encounter death through protest could themselves cause gruesome murder and mayhem to court sympathy. Or, those who attempted to snip it in the bud wanted to warn others from going on with the protest. Or, they aimed to divert attention from the events in Gujarat. Or, is it an act of retaliation, or what Pritish Nany calls tit-for-tat terrorism? Speaking about hidden agenda will lead invariably to the same polarization of Indian society which cannot augur well for the nation. However, the larger interest of the nation requires that we go to the root of the malaise and root it out.
To do that, doing away with stereotyping and finding scapegoat can help. The Chief Minister of AP Rajashekhar Reddy was still in Delhi at the time of the blast and from there he said that it was an international sabotage. In other words, the ISI is again at it. In the same vein is another chorus of LeT, HUJI, SIMI. These are ready made excuses the intelligence agencies are indoctrinated to repeat, to hide their failure since their failure is total and abysmal. There is also no whistle blower in them, either. They look at all the events from one colour! Either we revamp them or create a super rainbow intelligence agency.
The government agencies and departments are working at cross purposes. Home Minister S Patil says it was an improvised explosive device while reports indicate that it was quite sophisticated one using mobile phone as a detonating device. In the case of Malegaon blasts Home Secretary of the Union Government, Mr Duggal, said RDX was used but the superintendent of police of Malegon, Rajwardhan Mishra, denied it.
In the incidents of mosque bombing in Parbhani, Nanded, Delhi, Malegaon, and Hyderabad no one has been caught except the SIMI activists. Some Bajrang Dal activists were arrested for the Marathwada region bombings but no further inquiry was conducted. The police do not favour that angle of investigation.
Apropos to this, the American poet Robert Frost said
Some say the world will in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great And would suffic
The Law of the Jungle by Mustafa Khan
The young people of India might not be seized of the great social disturbances marred with violence that they occasionally watch when the channels are changed. Such as the Meenas laying siege to the Gujjars protesting with the dead bodies of their kith and kin killed in the agitation/counter agitation on lawless roads and tracks in Rajasthan. Howsoever we may teach them that the TV is the idiot box, it does give sense to the events taking place around us. Last week on May 29, 2007 we had a young man tied by his wrists to a tree in the courtyard of the district session court in Agra. He was covered with snot, spittle, blood, sweat, and, of course, tears. The lawyers of the court were slapping him, punching him, spitting on him, hitting on his grotesquely shaved head and abusing him in all sorts of ways. All this went on for an hour as he stood stripped, with only his eyes moving around fully spread with fear.
Whatever be the cause and whoever he may be, no young person as well as many grown ups in this land of ours would like to suffer this to happen to a fellow human being. Such a situation testing your sufferance is in books you read in your curriculum. There is for example Lord of the Flies of William Golding. There is Simon who represents conscience in the novel. He tries to find out what frightens the little children who are evacuated from England during the Second World War and parachuted on an uninhabited island in the tropics. First the boys choose Ralph as their leader. Then Jack reasserts his right to be the natural leader and divides them. His group organizes attacks on the other group. At one such occasion they come upon Simon in the rain and act a play of killing a pig and ritually stab him to death. In the end only Ralph is left and then they hound him out of his hiding and are about to kill him when a ship anchors off shore and the captain saves Ralph.
If children are left to themselves, unattended by adults, they would lapse into primitive barbarity. Rule of law will give way to the rule of jungle. This is what happened in Agra court. But the society in the form of the bar council or human rights commission can apply the rule of law and check in such waywardness leading to criminal behaviour.
A lawyer Ravindra Singh set the other lawyers upon Vinod . Whether it was for refusing to marry a recommended girl is unimportant. That the abused is from a downtrodden caste is also unimportant. What is important is the rule of law has not entered in our blood to make us balk from such dastardly acts.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things also shows such a reflex. Inspector Thomas taps the bosom of Amma with his stick as if he were picking up mangoes from the shop. He threatens to shave her hair (as the cops wantonly do to the sex workers in their utter lawlessness). He was angry that Velutha the downtrodden had dared to love Amma. The death of the child is accidental but the vested police and family members conspire a la the lawyers in Agra to frame Velutha. Even his own father takes out the artificial eye gifted to him by the rich family to return to them since his son had dishonoured the elite family. His custodial death at the hands of the police is a metaphor of the rule of jungle. Do the youth match up their curriculum with the stark reality of the day?
Indeed, outlawry has become the law of the land. To screen Parzania even the constitution and the criminal law are helpless. Another side of the same coin is Dara Mody moving out of the Gulberga society. Why should he leave the Muslim neighbourhood? “It is just a question of who can fight back better.” We pray his son should survive and be found out as was Ralph before the eerie law of the jungle of Jacks and jackals engulfs all!
Whatever be the cause and whoever he may be, no young person as well as many grown ups in this land of ours would like to suffer this to happen to a fellow human being. Such a situation testing your sufferance is in books you read in your curriculum. There is for example Lord of the Flies of William Golding. There is Simon who represents conscience in the novel. He tries to find out what frightens the little children who are evacuated from England during the Second World War and parachuted on an uninhabited island in the tropics. First the boys choose Ralph as their leader. Then Jack reasserts his right to be the natural leader and divides them. His group organizes attacks on the other group. At one such occasion they come upon Simon in the rain and act a play of killing a pig and ritually stab him to death. In the end only Ralph is left and then they hound him out of his hiding and are about to kill him when a ship anchors off shore and the captain saves Ralph.
If children are left to themselves, unattended by adults, they would lapse into primitive barbarity. Rule of law will give way to the rule of jungle. This is what happened in Agra court. But the society in the form of the bar council or human rights commission can apply the rule of law and check in such waywardness leading to criminal behaviour.
A lawyer Ravindra Singh set the other lawyers upon Vinod . Whether it was for refusing to marry a recommended girl is unimportant. That the abused is from a downtrodden caste is also unimportant. What is important is the rule of law has not entered in our blood to make us balk from such dastardly acts.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things also shows such a reflex. Inspector Thomas taps the bosom of Amma with his stick as if he were picking up mangoes from the shop. He threatens to shave her hair (as the cops wantonly do to the sex workers in their utter lawlessness). He was angry that Velutha the downtrodden had dared to love Amma. The death of the child is accidental but the vested police and family members conspire a la the lawyers in Agra to frame Velutha. Even his own father takes out the artificial eye gifted to him by the rich family to return to them since his son had dishonoured the elite family. His custodial death at the hands of the police is a metaphor of the rule of jungle. Do the youth match up their curriculum with the stark reality of the day?
Indeed, outlawry has become the law of the land. To screen Parzania even the constitution and the criminal law are helpless. Another side of the same coin is Dara Mody moving out of the Gulberga society. Why should he leave the Muslim neighbourhood? “It is just a question of who can fight back better.” We pray his son should survive and be found out as was Ralph before the eerie law of the jungle of Jacks and jackals engulfs all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)