'India could revert to pre-1947 state'

[Shabaz Sharif]

Im talking about their social and economic status. Muslims are the most backward communtiy that exists in planet earth. Just compare the muslim lands to other areas. Where ever they are there in numbers, humans are involved in conflict.

Well if Muslims are backward community everywhere then where are developed Hindus? India haver higher rate of poverty and lower per capita income even then Pakistan and still there is no limit of delusional Indians like u.

 

[akzaman]

India Is Colonising Itself

By Arundhati Roy & Shoma Chaudhuri

There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? Do you think it will grow more in the days to come? What are its causes? In what context should all this be read?

You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, being reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing western countries which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labour to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in Independent India. The secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one. They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere. They’ve managed to commandeer the resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, the water and electricity. Now they want the land to make more cars, more bombs, more mines – super toys for the new super citizens of the new superpower. So it’s outright war, and people on both sides are choosing their weapons. The government and the corporations reach for Structural Adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the ‘friendly’ corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down peoples’ throats. Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger-strikes, satyagraha, the courts, and what they thought was friendly media. But now, more and more are reaching for guns. Will the violence grow? If the ‘growth rate’ and the sensex are going to be the only barometres the government uses to measure progress and the well-being of people, then of course it will. How do I read the signs? It isn’t hard to read sky-writing. What it says up there, in big letters is this: The **** has hit the fan, folks.

You once remarked that though you may not resort to violence yourself, you think it has become immoral to condemn it, given the circumstances in the country. Can you elaborate on this view?

I’d be a liability as a guerilla! I doubt I used the word ‘immoral’-morality is an elusive business, as changeable as the weather. What I feel is this: Non-violent movements have, for decades knocked on the door of every democratic institution in this country and have been spurned and humiliated. Look at the Bhopal Gas victims, the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The NBA for example, had a lot going for it, high profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to re-think strategy. When Sonia Gandhi begins to promote Satyagraha at the World Economic Forum in Davos it’s time for us to sit up and think. For example, is mass civil disobedience possible within the structure of a democratic nation-state? Is it possible in the age of disinformation and corporate-controlled mass media? Are hunger-strikes umbilically linked to celebrity politics? Would anybody care if the people of Nangla Machhi or Bhatti mines went on a hunger-strike? Sharmila Irom has been on a hunger strike for six years. That should be a salutary lesson to many of us. I’ve always felt that it’s ironic that hunger-strikes are used as a political weapon in a land where most people go hungry anyway. We are in a different time and place now. Up against a different, more complex adversary. We’ve entered the era of NGOs – or should I say the era of palthushers - in which mass action can be a treacherous business. We have demonstrations which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and social forums which posture militantly but never follow up on what they preach. We have all kinds of ‘virtual’ resistance. Meetings against SEZs sponsored by the biggest promoters of SEZs. Awards and grants for environmental activism and community action given by corporations responsible for devastating whole ecosystems. Vedanta, a company mining bauxite in the forests of Orissa wants to start a university. The Tatas have two charitable trusts that directly and indirectly, fund activists and mass movements across the country. Could that be why Singur has drawn so much less flak than Nandigram, and why they have not targeted, boycotted, gheraoed? Of course the Tatas and Birlas funded Gandhi too – maybe he was our first NGO. But now we have NGOs who make a lot of noise, write a lot of reports,but who the sarkar is more than comfortable with. How do we make sense of all this? The place is crawling with professional diffusers of real political action. ‘Virtual resistance’ has become something of a liability.

There was a time when mass movements looked to the courts for justice. The courts have rained down a series of judgments that are so unjust, so insulting to the poor in the language they use, they take your breath away. A recent Supreme Court judgment allowing the Vasant Kunj Mall to resume construction though it didn’t have the requisite clearances said in so many words, that the question of Corporations indulging in malpractice does not arise! In the era of corporate globalization, corporate land-grab, in the era of Enron and Monsanto, Halliburton and Bechtel, that’s a loaded thing to say. It exposes the ideological heart of the most powerful institution in this country. The judiciary along with the corporate press, is now seen as the lynchpin of the neo-liberal project.

In a climate like this when people feel that they are being worn down, exhausted by these interminable ‘democratic’ processes, only to be humiliated eventually, what are they supposed to do? Of course it isn’t as though the only options are binary – violence versus non-violence. There are political parties that believe in armed struggle, but only as one part of their overall political strategy. Political workers in these struggles have been dealt with brutally, killed, beaten, imprisoned under false charges. People are fully aware that to take to arms is to call down upon yourself the myriad forms of violence of the Indian State. The minute armed struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world shrinks and the colors fade to black and white. But when people decide to take that step because every other option has ended in despair–should we condemn them? Does anyone believe that if the people of Nandigram had held a Dharna and sung songs the West Bengal Government would have backed down? We are living in times, when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.

You have been traveling a lot on the ground -- can you give us a sense of the fissures you are seeing on the ground. What are the trouble spots you have been to? Can you outline a few of the combat lines in these places?

Huge question – what can I say? The military occupation of Kashmir, neo-fascism in Gujarat, civil war in Chhattisgarh, MNCs raping Orissa, the submergence of hundreds of villages in the Narmada Valley, people living on the edge of absolute starvation, the devastation of forest land, the Bhopal victims living to see the West Bengal government re-wooing Union Carbide – now calling itself Dow Chemicals - in Nandigram. I haven’t been recently to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharshtra, but we know about the almost hundred thousand farmers who have killed themselves. We know about the fake encounters and the terrible repression in Andhra Pradesh. Each of these places is has its own particular history, economy, ecology. None is amenable to easy analysis. And yet there is connecting tissue, there are huge international cultural and economic pressures being brought to bear on them. How can I not mention the Hindutva project, spreading its poison sub-cutaneously, waiting to erupt once again. I’d say the biggest indictment of all is that we are still a country, a culture a society which continues to nurture and practice the notion of untouchability. While our economists number-crunch and boast about the growth rate, a million people, human scavengers - earn their living carrying several kilos of other peoples’ **** on their heads every day. And if they didn’t carry **** on their heads they would starve to death. Some ******* superpower this.

How does one view the recent State and police violence in Bengal?

No different from police and State violence anywhere else – including the issue of hypocrisy and doublespeak so perfected by all political parties including the mainstream Left. Are communist bullets different from capitalist ones? Odd things are happening. It snowed in Saudi Arabia. Owls are out in broad daylight The Chinese Government tabled a bill sanctioning the right to private property. I don’t know if all of this has to do with climate change. The Chinese Communists are turning out to be the biggest capitalists of the 21st century. Why should we expect our own Parliamentary Left to be any different? Nandigram and Singur are clear signals. It makes you wonder – is the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism? Think about it - the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnam War, the Anti- Apartheid struggle, the supposedly Gandhian Freedom struggle in India…what’s the last station they all pull in at? Is this the end of imagination?

The Maoist attack in Bijapur -- the death of 55 policemen. Are the rebels only a flip face of the State?

How can the rebels be the flip side of the state? Would anybody say that those who fought against Apartheid – however brutal their methods - were the flip side of the state? What about those who fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought the Nazis? Or those who fought Colonial Regimes? Or those who are fighting the US occupation of Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This facile new report-driven ‘human rights’ discourse, this meaningless condemnation game that we all are forced to play, makes politicians of us all and leaches the real politics out of everything. However pristine we would like to be, however hard we polish our halos, the tragedy is that we have run out of pristine choices. There is a civil war in Chattisgarh sponsored, created by the Chattisgarh Government which is publicly pursing the Bush doctrine – if you’re not with us, you are with the terrorists. The lynch pin of this war, apart from the formal security forces, is the Salwa Judum – a government backed militia of ordinary people forced to take up arms, forced to become SPOs (Special Police Officers). The Indian State has tried this in Kashmir, in Manipur, in Nagaland. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands tortured, thousands have disappeared. Any Banana Republic would be proud of this record.. Now the government wants to import these failed strategies into the heartland. Thousands of Adivasis have been forcibly moved off their mineral –rich lands into police camps. Hundreds of villages have been forcibly evacuated. Those lands, rich in iron-ore are being eyed by corporations like the Tatas and Essar. MOUs have been signed, but no one knows what they say. Land Acquisition has begun. This kind of thing happened in countries like Colombia – one of the most devastated countries in the world. While everybody’s eyes are fixed on the spiraling violence between government backed militias and guerilla squads, multinational corporations quietly make off with the mineral wealth. That’s the little piece of theatre being scripted for us in Chattisgarh.

Of course it’s horrible that 55 policemen were killed. But they’re as much the victims of Government policy as anybody else. For the Government and the Corporations they’re just cannon fodder – there’s plenty more where they came from. Crocodile tears will be shed, prim TV anchors will hector us for a while and then more supplies of fodder will be arranged. For the Maoist guerillas the police and SPOs they killed were the armed personnel of the Indian State, the main, perpetrators of repression, torture, custodial killings, false encounters. The ones whose professional duties involve burning villages and raping women. They’re not innocent civilians – if such a thing exists - by any stretch of imagination.

I have no doubt that the Maoists can be agents of terror and coercion too. I have no doubt they have committed unspeakable atrocities. I have no doubt they cannot lay claim to undisputed support from local people – but who can? Still, no guerrilla army can survive without local support. That’s a logistical impossibility. And the support for Maoists is growing, not diminishing. That says something. People have no choice but to align themselves on the side of whoever they think is less worse.

But to equate a resistance movement fighting against enormous injustice, with the Government which enforces that injustice is absurd. The government has slammed the door in the face of every attempt at non-violent resistance. When people take to arms, there is going to be all kinds of violence – revolutionary, lumpen and outright criminal. The government is responsible for the monstrous situations it creates.

The term Naxals and Maoists and outsiders is being used very loosely these days. Can you declutter it?

‘Outsiders’ is a generic accusation used in the early stages of repression by governments who have begun to believe their own publicity and can’t imagine that people have risen up against them. That’s the stage the CPI (M) is at now in Bengal, though some would say repression in Bengal is not new, it has only moved into higher gear.. In any case what’s an outsider? Who decides the borders? Are they village boundaries? Tehsil? Block? District? State? Is narrow regional and ethnic politics the new communist mantra? About Naxals and Maoists – well… India is about to become a police state in which everybody who disagrees with what’s going on risks being called a terrorist. Islamic terrorists have to be Islamic – so that’s not good enough to cover most of us. They need a bigger catchment area. So leaving the definition loose, undefined, is effective strategy, because the time is not far off when we’ll all be called Maoists or Naxalites, terrorists or terrorist sympathisers and shut down, by people who don’t really know – or care -who Maoists or Naxalites are. In villages of course that has begun – thousands of people are being held in jails across the country, loosely charged with being terrorists trying to overthrow the state. Who are the real Naxalites and Maoists? I’m not an authority on the subject, but here’s a very rudimentary potted history.

The Communist Party of India the CPI was formed in 1925. The CPI (M) Communist Party Marxist- split from the CPI in 1964 and formed a separate party. Both of course were parliamentary political parties. In 1967 the CPI (M) along with a splinter group of the Congress, came to power in West Bengal. At the time there was massive unrest among starving peasantry in the countryside. Local leaders of the CPI(M) – Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar led a peasant uprising in the district of Naxalbari which is where the term Naxalites comes from. In 1969 the government fell and the Congress came back to power under Siddharta Shankar Ray. The naxalite uprising was mercilessly crushed - Mahashweta Devi has written powerfully about this time. In 1969 the CPI (ML) – Marxist Leninist split from the CPI (M). A few years later around 1971, the CPI (ML) devolved into several parties: the CPI -ML (Liberation) largely centred in Bihar, CPI –ML (New Democracy) functioning for the most part out of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, the CPI-ML (Class Struggle) mainly in Bengal. These parties have been generically baptized ‘Naxalites.’ They see themselves as Marxist Leninist, not strictly speaking Maoist. They believe in elections, mass action and, when, absolutely pushed to the wall or attacked- armed struggle. The MCC – the Maoist Communist Centre at the time mostly operating in Bihar was formed in 1968. The PW Peoples War, operational for the most part in Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1980. Recently, in 2004 the MCC and the PW merged to form the CPI (Maoist) They believe in outright armed struggle and the overthrowing of the state. They don’t participate in elections. This is the party that is fighting the guerilla war in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand.

The Indian state and media largely view the Maoists as "internal security" threat. Is this the way to look at them?

I’m sure the Maoists would be flattered to be viewed in this way.

The Maoists want to bring down the State. Given the autocratic ideology they take their inspiration from, what alternative would they set up? Wouldn't their regime be an exploitative autocratic violent one as well? Isn't their action already exploitative of ordinary people? Do they really have the support of ordinary people?

I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that both Mao and Stalin are dubious heroes with murderous pasts. Tens of millions of people were killed under their regimes. Apart from what happened in China and the Soviet Union, Pol Pot, with the support of the Chinese communist party (while the West looked away discreetly) wiped out two million people in Cambodia and brought millions of people to the brink of extinction from disease and starvation. Can we pretend that China’s cultural revolution didn’t happen? Or that that millions of people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were not victims of labour camps, torture chambers, the network of spies and informers, the secret police. The history of these regimes is just as dark as the history of Western Imperialism, except for the fact that they had a shorter life-span. We cannot condemn the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir while we remain silent about Tibet and Chechnya. I would imagine that for the Maoists, the Naxalites as well as the mainstream Left, being honest about the past is important to strengthen peoples’ faith in the future. One hopes the past will not be repeated, but denying that it ever happened doesn’t help inspire confidence….Nevertheless, in this part of the world, the Maoists in Nepal have waged a brave and successful struggle against the monarchy in Nepal. Right now in India the Maoists and the various Marxist Leninist Groups are leading the fight against immense injustice in India. They are fighting not just the State, but feudal landlords and their armed militias. They are the only people who are making a dent. And I admire that. It may well be that when they come to power they will as you say, be brutal, unjust and autocratic, even worse than the present government. Maybe, but I’m not prepared to assume that in advance. If they are, we’ll have to fight them too. And most likely someone like myself will be the first person they’ll string up from the nearest tree – but right now, it is important to acknowledge that they are bearing the brunt of being at the forefront of resistance. Many of us are in a position where we have are beginning to align ourselves on the side of those who we know have no place for us in their religious or ideological imagination. It’s true that everybody changes radically when they come to power – look at Mandela’s ANC. Corrupt, capitalist, bowing to the IMF, driving the poor out of their homes – honouring Suharto the killer of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian communists with South Africa’s highest civilian award. Who would have thought it could happen? But does this mean South Africans should have backed away from the struggle against apartheid? Or that they should regret it now? Does it mean Algeria should have remained a French Colony, that Kashmiris, Iraqis and Palestinians should accept military occupation? That people whose dignity is being assaulted should give up the fight because they can’t find saints to lead them into battle?

Is there a communication breakdown in our society?

Yes.

http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/03/india-is-colonising-itself.html

 

[akzaman]

Kashmir: The Land Of Widows And Orphans

By Pradeep Mohinder

Rape of women, disappearance, illegal detention ,threatening at gun point, molestation, looting and terrorising raids by security forces and by unknown gunmen have been a day to day phenomena in Kashmir valley and in border districts of Jammu.

Seventeen years of turmoil has not only ruined the Jammu Kashmir economically but, has turned the valley in to the land of widows and orphans. It is matter of fact that that in the state there are more than twenty-five thousand orphans (25,000) and approximately six thousand widows in state, but Central and State governments are unaware of this amazing and horrifying fact and they only have the data of arms and ammunition recovered or militants gunned down by security forces during search operations.

The most affected and neglected areas are border districts, like Kupwara, Anantnag, Pulwama and Baramulla in the valley and Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur in the Jammu region.

These women have not lost only their husbands but also the source of livelihood with them. These poverty stricken women have nothing to feed their children and a number of other insecurities hunt them in the absence of their husband.

The people of the state are not only harassed and raped by unknown gunmen but even the Indian army is doing the same.

In 1991 the Indian army raped 30 women in Kunan- Poshpura in Kupwara aged between 18 to 85 years, but to this day these women have gotten neither compensation nor justice from the government. Even young girls who were yet to be married are still waiting that some day some one will come to marry them and are living in cow sheds awaiting justice.

If one will visit the Deevar, Sogam, Dardpora and other villages of the border district Kupwara, one will find hundred of widows and thousand of orphans at the mercy of god. One of the widows from the village Dardpora named Shakeela said "I have three children. My husband was taken for interrogation in 1994 and after a few days his body was found in the jungle. He was killed with bullets pumped into his body. After his death I have no other option other than to beg or to go for illicit activities.”

It is a matter of concern that most of the married women face the problem of miscarriages, which is one of the fastest growing problem in the rural and border areas of the state yet to be noticed by the health department.

The young widows and teenaged orphan girls are facing more problems due to their youth as they are always at risk of molestation and getting raped.

One of the widows, Reehana aged 22 from Deever, said, "Being young I am always being harassed and molested both by security forces and renegades and that has become the day to day routine. Even though I am educated still I cannot go out to work because of all this".

Even the NGOs, which are trying to help them are not able to perform well because of government hurdles. Ghulam Nabi a tailor at J&K Yateem Trust Craft Centre in the village Deevar said, "Even though these girls get free training in tailoring, they are not able to earn their livelihood as the village has limited resources and the government has done nothing to facilitate their skill.’

Safe means of livelihood for these widows and orphans is very important. Otherwise, when the young boys and girls grow up in such deprived condition either they will definitely follow the gun culture or fall victims to the pimps.

http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/03/kashmir-land-of-widows-and-orphans.html

 

[akzaman]

A New Dalit Movement Emerging From Maharastra ?

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

If television channels are to be believed then the Dalit rampage in the Indian state of Maharastra is an outcome of what they term as 'simple' incident of desecration of Baba Saheb Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur. 'Even when Kanpur was not burning why should the Dalit protester take Mumbai to ransom', an anchor remarked. The responses on various websites were like 'send' these guys back to villages or 'appeasement' by the government. The other felt pain to term it as 'political' while liberals were questioning the wisdom of the Dalits about why they have been pained over a statue. ' Do we need statues in India, said a hypocrite TV anchor. Surely, we do not need statues in India but who have more statutes than the parents and grand parents of these anchors and experts. Can they tell Lal Krishna Advani and his company, as why are they fighting to put two statutes where the Babari Masjid once stood. So many statutes of Hanuman and other gods are there taking our large space while very little for human being to live a life of dignity in India. If we become iconoclast in India, the Brahmin would go out of work for they have monopolized to keep all these statutes in every part of India. What are these temples about and why should they keep so many statues of so-called Gods. Throw them away and give these temples to the poor and all our housing problems would be resolved.

Coming back to main point of Dalit fury in Maharastra where life has been paralyzed. 'It is ironic, said few experts, that Dalits in UP are not doing anything but in Maharastra they are unnecessarily agitated.' Now, the powerful UP Police, which spinelessly goes around with the local MLAs, has arrested a young man called Arun Valmiki for allegedly defacing Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur. That is the best tradition of a brahmanical administration to convert an issue of Hindu hatred into an internal Dalit fighting. You can see how immediately after the Khairlanji incident, the one person who was suspended for dereliction of his duty was a Dalit constable. So the authorities feel that a constable has not filed FIR and therefore need punishment but the powerful upper caste hate campaigners sitting in the offices remain untouched and unaccountable. What is the power of a constable if a crowed is on rampage? Why no police officer was dismissed or suspended for dereliction of duty in Khairlanji.

Therefore, the uprising in Maharastra has a signal for the self styled mainstream Dalit political leaders and parties. Mend your ways or get lost as the young Dynamic Dalit leadership would emerge out of a crisis from Maharastra. It is certain that incidents like Khairlanji and Gohana would fuel the Dalit anger and turn them to streets. Out of this anger and frustration would emerge a leadership which would not compromise like their leaders.

Painful it is, when one see, how the mainstream Dalit political parties find no shame in aligning with the thugs of Hindutva and even campaigned for them. How can an Ambedkarite ever think of joining hand with fascist forces in India without offering an apology? And it is not just once; the same forces are again ready to embrace the Hindutva for their own ulterior motives.

One can see what happen to Hindutva. It is a philosophy of betrayals. It betrays those who it embraces. See how moralistic Lal Krishna Advani was yesterday in Parliament when he felt 'shocked' and 'shameful' as central minister Shibu Soren was convicted. And our CBI want death sentence for him. The same CBI, which cannot get punishment for Narsihma Rao or Rajiv Gandhi in the Boforse Scandal and which spinelessly, took order from Lal Krishna Advani when he was home minister and facing cases of Babari Masjid Demolition. I am sure, Advani would demand the same punishment and feel double shock after hearing Navjot Singh Siddhu, a BJP MP, very loud mouth, for allegedly murdering a person in Punjab. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held Siddhu guilty for the same. One hope we will have same kind of ruckus in Parliament by the Hindutva party.

It is more than shocking that our Parliament did not have time so far to discuss violence on Dalits. They do not have even time to discuss why the courts are intervening in the matter of executive. The fact of the matter is that our political class is the most opportunistic one in the world and the Dalit leaders are no different than their brahmanical masters. They have used money and funds to propagate their own interest while keeping quiet on the violence against Dalits. Over two months have passed and Parliament has not time to discuss Khairlanji while issue of Saurav Ganguli's inclusion become more important for politicians to debate in the parliament.

Khairlanji was flashpoint in Maharastra. Incident of atrocities against Dalits are on the rise. Like every incident related to Muslims, the state had the easier way of describing the incident as ISI sponsored. Now with growing dalit violence, it is the Naxal intrusion in the Dalit ranks alleged the officials.

Those who do not understand the importance of Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar in the lives of millions of Dalits world over make the folly of terming these events as shocking and well planned incidents as 'nothing' specific. Ambedkar's statues are not like any one else's statues. They are not erected by the governments as done in many other cases of so-called 'freedom fighters' and political leaders. Ambedkar symbolize Dalits fight for Dignity and honor. Ambedkar mean the strongest and most potent symbol of Dalit power and assertion.


Maharastra government's failure to punish the perpetrators of the Khairlanji violence is like other incidents. We have not heard what happened to the conspirators of Kumher massacre in Rajasthan or Tsundur in Andhra Pradesh. There is virtually no information to what happened to the perpetrators of ghastly crimes in Gohana and Jhajjar in Haryana. Therefore, it is a pattern to attack the Dalits whenever they assert their identity. Whenever they perform better than any upper caste Hindu, Dalits would have to pay price, that is what our system has failed to protect the dalits against this savagery of the upper caste Hindus.

A friend recently asked me that the violence against Dalits is mainly being perpetuated more by the backward communities so why I had used the word upper caste violence against the Dalits. Agreed, that the backward communities are the front rankers in hitting the Dalits but they are faithful slaves of the brahmanical institutions of criminal violence against the Dalits. The entire brahmanical structure is based on caste based identities and every caste feel proud of identity in terms of 'bigger' than the lower one. Ambedkar defined it as 'graded' inequality. It was not a fight between equals and unequal. The battle here is more difficult because of the compartmentalization of our caste structure. Brahmanical values thrived on this rigid regimentation of communities in their identities and their contradictions. Hence, the backward classes or simply the hinduised shudras may be attacking the Dalits but they are simply following the guidance of the brahmanical scriptures and values which rule on the small contradiction between different communities. Lastly, every person above the level and who instigate violence is an upper caste in relative term because that is the nature of caste violence in India. It is important to understand this psyche of the Varna system. The Dalits, backwards and even the upper caste Hindus who feel uncomfortable here, must understand that as long as you are part of Varna system you would always oppress the lower one. That is for sure as we feel immense proud in our identities. Dr Ambedkar knew this and provided a humanist Buddhist alternative which he redefined according to his own convictions and embraced with nearly half a millions followers in 1956. It is important that without changing our social system, the Dalits and backwards would continue to fight against each other. The Dalits have taken the leadership. A large number of them have embraced Buddhism and do not live in the past of caste system. It is now essential for the backward communities if they feel that they too are victim of the caste system, they should follow the new path. Nothing will come out of anti Brahmanism if we are not embracing a new socio cultural system. Anti Brahmanism would only strengthen the next powerful communities and they would do the same as the Brahmins did as it has no philosophy only nepotism and identity to work on. The Thevars, Yadvas, Kurmis, Kunbis, Jats, Gujjars, Marathas and so on would continue to suck the blood of the Dalits as they inherently feel themselves as 'higher' than the Dalits and hence are not ready to follow the Dalits. How can they do it hence they are ready to follow various Brahmin Swamis but at the same time raise the slogan of 'anti Brahmin' movement for political purposes. Such political purposes will not solve the socio cultural crisis of India as long as we continue to be part of Varna system.

Now, there is some uproar in Parliament but that would not suffice. Political allegation would be made by parties to score their political points. The Hindutva party can blame every one from the SP-BSP to the congress and nothing will change. The silver lining from Maharastra's spontaneous movement is that it has resurrected the new dynamism. Baba Saheb always felt that a radical powerful dalit leadership would always emerge from a movement or agitation though the Dalit leaders who retires from the government jobs first create a party and then want people to follow them in their pursuit for power. But, here the situation is different as Dalit youth have taken to the street and particularly the presence of women in the movement shows how far the movement has gone.

It is therefore important for these dynamic youths not to allow political parties use their initiative for their own political purposes. They should use this opportunity to develop a vibrant Dalit movement with strong political convictions which can send jitters in the spines of all those who want to co-opt the great legacy of Baba Saheb Dr Ambedkar. If the youths do not take the leadership in their hands, they would end up as what happened in the creation of Uttaranchal state. A spontaneous movement of the students created the state though wrongful demands yet after the creation it is the mainstream parties who are reaping the benefits of it. The parties have forgotten virtually all those who laid down their life. Nepal has similar example. The power is in the hands of those who licked the boots of the king and served him like slave and those died protesting against monarchy are forgotten easily. The followers of Ambedkar should not allow this to happen.

Dalits saved the democracy in India curtsy Dr Ambedkar. They vote in large number and participate in the festival of democracy more than any other community. And nearly sixty years have passed to freedom of India and our institutions and social system remain confined to a few elite caste and groups. Why have we allowed this to happen? How prophetic Ambedkar was, when he said that if there were no social democracy, the Dalits would themselves blow up the political democracy in the country. What happened in Maharastra was a clear case of frustration in the Dalit youth, when the system so laborious developed by Dr Ambedkar, refused to shed its biases and prejudices against the Dalits. How long will Dalit glorified this great democracy and Parliament when every day their life is endangered and their livelihood is snatched from them. It is not that the entire Maharastra burnt out of a desecration of Baba Saheb's statue which was most unfortunate but the unease was there as the shameless government of the state had done very little to bring the culprits to the book. If the democratic institutions do not give justice to the Dalits on time, mere symbolic presidents, prime ministers and chief ministers would gladdened the heart of them for a few days but in longer term, would increase the unease. And remember, it would be difficult for any government to curtail the Dalit rage if political democracy does not pave way for social democracy. It is clear that Dalits have ideological clarity and strong convictions than most of the other communities. It would be nearly impossible to stop them now if the governments, political system does not behave in an unbiased way, without prejudices.


Already, newspapers are writing a lot on the so-called infiltration of the Naxal movement in the Dalit groups but the happy news is that Dalit Panthers are resurrecting and it is reassuring that Maharastra would again lead the Dalits all over the country with progressive ideas and uncompromising stand on various issues confronting the nation. If the movement has to survive and lead the country, the Dalit movement, who ever leads it, has to reassure its people to say a big NO in an unambiguous term to the communal fascist forces and secondly fight the honor of the people against the onslaught of international parties colluding with the national one, on their natural resources. In the meanwhile, those who say that UP Dalits are not agitated because of BSP is leading them, may be wrong in future. Dalits in Uttar-Pradesh may vote BSP for political purposes yet inside their heart they are highly agitated. And surely flirting with the upper caste and the Hindutva would further damage the cause of the Dalit empowerment. But the more the Dalit leadership fails the people, the better it is for a new radical Dalit leadership in the state. Maharastra, they say, did not have a Dalit leader but the movement would definitely throw leadership and surely, Uttar-Pradesh Dalit will also find a way out, if their political leaders continue to play games with the Hindutva as well as capitalist power elite. It is time of reckoning in the legacy of Ambedkarite movement and a time of introspection for our political parties and governments.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit my blog at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-rawat021206.htm

 

[indiapakistanfriendship]

Yaar akzaman whats your problem .....

You want India to be wiped out from the face of the earth.. Then all the best to u and your mission..

Dont come out with these arundhati roy statements... We know that she says what she says for the sake of publicity..

And as far I can remember.. ISN'T BD in a state of turmoil now .. Is.nt army ruling your country.. I BETTER SUGGEST YOUD CARE ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY RATHER THAN ABOUT OURS

All your posts shows the inferiority compkex you suffer due to the conditions in your country

AAA yes I know now mwmbers will come and claim how BD will be an economic superpower etc etc....

 

[akzaman]

Of Illusory Democracies, Rogue States, and Accelerating Humanity’s Demise

By Jason Miller

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world….


---Louis Armstrong

In an increasingly frightening and unstable world, there is one nation we know will stand firm and resolute in its commitment to freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Without the relentless, selfless efforts of the United States, humankind would plunge into a seething cauldron of tyranny, slavery, chaos and endless war. Besides Israel, severely weakened as it is by the constant strain of fending off the barbarian hordes seeking to “wipe it off the map” and Great Britain, incessantly pressured by its Leftist, pacifist neighbors to appease and negotiate, the home of the brave wages its courageous struggle virtually alone.

But fear not. The time draws nigh when an aspiring superpower will stand firmly alongside the United States in its defense of humankind. India, the world’s largest democracy and a haven for the free market economics of Capitalism, is forging a deep alliance with the United States.

What a wonderful world it will indeed be when two nations, each of which was forged in the crucible of revolution against the imperial tyranny of Great Britain, can ally themselves to fend off the twin evils of terrorism and Islamofascism as they unite to spread democracy and corporate benevolence.

As Robert Blackwill, ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003, deputy assistant to the president, deputy national security advisor for strategic planning, and presidential envoy to Iraq from 2003 to 2004, noted in The National Interest(1):

“Not only do our vital national interests coincide, but we share common values as well. The policies of United States and India are built on the same solid moral foundation. India is a democracy of more than one billion people—and there are not many of those in that part of the world. Indian democracy has sustained a heterogeneous, multilingual and secular society. In the words of Sunil Khilnani, the author of The Idea of India (1999), India is a "bridgehead of effervescent liberty on the Asian continent." George W. Bush fastened onto the genius of Indian democracy very early on, long before he was president. This has now become an even more central element of American foreign policy, given the march of freedom across the Greater Middle East and the president’s emphasis on the growth of pluralism, democracy and democratic institutions in that region.”

After considering the above, if resplendent roses and deciduous trees of all manner are not overwhelming your imagination with a stunning display of vernal regenerative beauty, better check your pulse.

Yet closer examination indicates that a number of the exaltations heaped upon the United States’ new confederate in the Far East are both unwarranted and highly disingenuous.

Admittedly, one can find a degree of ambivalence concerning the deepening relationship between the United States and India in our daily doses of agitprop. Yet by and large, the corporate media applauds what it portrays as an expanding partnership between the world’s most powerful democracy and its most populous democracy.

Their propagandistic deception begins with the simple use of the word democracy. Neither country qualifies as a constitutional republic, let alone a true democracy. Rife with election fraud, Corporatism, gross wealth disparities, militarism, belligerent expansionism, toxic nationalism, and a laundry list of traits characterizing a fascist state, the United States could easily qualify as one of democracy’s greatest foes. India does not lag far behind.

Hype and spin aside, determined investigation and fastidious scholarship by people like Bangladeshi barrister M.B.I. Munshi, researcher Isha Khan, and many others reveal the ugly realities behind India’s corporate media façade. India and the United States do share a number of commonalities, but few of them relate to “democracy”, “liberty”, or “solid moral foundations”.

While it is true that both nations were founded by noble people who wrested themselves free of the yoke of Great Britain’s imperial oppression, like degenerate trust fund children, the heirs of liberty have defecated on their family’s reputation and squandered their fortune.

India’s Monroe Doctrine

Providing painstaking documentation in his 2006 book, The India Doctrine, M.B.I. Munshi clearly exposes India’s unwritten and unacknowledged ambitions to realize Akhand Bharat (a unified India). India’s desire to attain superpower status is no secret, but its power elite and decision-makers are loathe to admit their tenacious pursuit of imperial supremacy of the subcontinent.

As Munshi’s exhaustive research demonstrates, India’s policies, attitudes, and actions toward its neighbors are quite analogous to the machinations of the United States throughout Central and South America. Replete with its own version of the Monroe Doctrine (Akhand Bharat) and an intelligence agency called RAW (their version of the CIA), India has a long-term commitment to wielding undue power and influence throughout the subcontinent.

Of the Wealthy, By the Wealthy, and for the Wealthy

In his recent book, In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India, Edward Luce notes:

This is a country where 300 million people live in absolute poverty, most of them in its 680,000 villages, but where cellphone users have jumped from 3 million in 2000 to 100 million in 2005, and the number of television channels from 1 in 1991 to more than 150 last year….India’s economy has grown by 6 percent annually since 1991, a rate exceeded only by China’s, yet there are a mere 35 million taxpayers in a country with a population of 1.1 billion. Only 10 percent of India’s workers have jobs in the formal economy.Luce’s brief assessment above merely provides a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg. India has embraced the “Washington Consensus” with such fervor that the tenets of American Capitalism are virtually a religion amongst the power elite in Delhi

In his Yahoo Finance fluff piece, Why What’s Good for India is Good for Us(2), which is laden with hosannas for India’s emergence as a powerful democracy with free markets, economist Charles Wheelan points out that a third of the world’s impoverished reside in India and concludes that the American Way is their ticket to prosperity.

Never mind the fact that free trade, deregulation, privatization, the emasculation of organized labor, militarization, an insatiable demand for growth, and corporatization are destroying the environment, condemning at least half of the world’s population to abject poverty, maintaining a state of perpetual war, and have caused the United States to devolve into a failed state. India represents another billion workers and consumers to power the engine of capitalism. Consequences be damned! There are profits to be realized!

Israel’s Second-Best Friend?
Heavily tainting its credentials as a nation modeling and promoting democracy is India’s close relationship with Israel, a state with a foreign policy that is perhaps more belligerent, hubristic, and criminal than that of the United States, if such an “accomplishment” were possible. In 2005 India bought nearly $2 billion worth of weaponry from Israel, which qualified them as the Israeli “defense” industry’s number one customer. India officially recognized Israel as a state in 1992 and has since become Israel’s second-largest trading partner(3). While the Indian government enriches Israel (a nation engaged in the ruthless oppression and collective punishment of the Palestinians), further destabilizes the subcontinent with its heavy militarization, and prioritizes spending on weaponry over humanitarian needs, a third of their population wallows in profound economic misery.

It’s Just Another “Goddamned Piece of Paper”

Perhaps one of the most telling hypocrisies entangled in the intricate web woven by the ruling elite of Washington and Delhi is the Bush-Singh nuclear agreement. Barring unlikely resistance from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the United States will begin supplying India with uranium sometime this year. While the United States will almost certainly go to war with Iran to squash its attempt to develop nuclear capabilities, it is preparing to provide India with nuclear materials. Rogue states that it is, the US is unilaterally altering the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by denying Iran, a party to the treaty, its right to develop nuclear power, and enabling India, which has not signed the NPT, to further its nuclear program. Coupling this with Ehud Olmert’s recent admission that Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal denudes the deeply duplicitous agenda of the United States (and its allies) and further destabilizes our world in a profound way.

Did Blackwill write of “solid moral foundations”?

Please do hold the music, Mr. Armstrong. Those illusory springtime blossoms accompanying the US-Indo alliance wither rapidly in the face of relentless wintry blasts of truth concerning the widespread, persistent human rights violations and social injustices in India:

Ostensibly armed with “rights and liberties”, most people in India grapple with an archaic and ineffective justice system. The poor and middle class are subject to a woefully inadequate judiciary and law enforcement apparatus which is heavily biased toward the wealthy and powerful(4). (Sound familiar, America?) The Indian government is a slow, inefficient and deeply corrupt bureaucracy. (Feel the resonance on this one too?)

While the rigid caste system has relaxed to some degree, the Dalits (aka “Untouchables”) still face tremendous discrimination at the hands of the Brahmins (the Hindu elites). Even after the valiant efforts of the late Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a Dalit who rose to great prominence and became the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, true social justice for the Dalits is still but a tantalizing mirage(5).

Despite laws banning the traditional mandatory dowry, India’s National Crime Record Bureau has determined that there is still one dowry death every 77 minutes! The rampant consumerism and materialism engendered by India’s love affair with the US socioeconomic system has heightened demands made by grooms and their families. Often, when a bride’s family is unable to “deliver the goods”, the groom brutalizes or kills his wife. Like many of the laws India has passed to uphold human rights, the legislation banning the practice of dowry demands is rarely enforced(6).

Another tragic result of dowry demands is the wide-spread practice of infanticide. Many Indians consider having a daughter to be a huge liability. Since 1987, ten million female infants have died at the hands of parents unwilling to face the hardships imposed by the deeply ingrained dowry system. One common technique parents employ to murder these precious innocents is to pour sand in their mouths just after they are born(7).

Representing another egregious violation of human rights (and yet another feeble effort by the government to protect the victims) is the existence of an estimated 12 million child laborers in India. That figure comes from the power brokers in Delhi. Various NGO’s and charitable organizations assert that the number of Indian children enduring the deprivation of their childhood, hard work for ridiculously paltry wages, and physical beatings is much higher(8).

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend

One of the oft-heard reasons that the United States and India constitute a match made in heaven is that India is an ideal ally in the “War on Terror”. Remember that the United States and its collaborators are actually waging a war on Islam. They are the enemy because a large number of Islamic people have the sheer audacity to dwell in a region possessing a significant percentage of the world’s remaining oil reserves and in and around the land the Zionists, with British and American complicity, elected to steal.

Mother India is certainly doing her part to quell the “Muslim rabble”. Aside from her close alignment with Israel and the United States, her ongoing war with Pakistan over Kashmir, and her pursuit of domination of her Muslim neighbors on the subcontinent (i.e. Bangladesh), she is home to a pathological strain of Hindu nationalism known as Hindutva. A spokesman for RSS, perhaps the most radical Hindutva organization, stated:

“The entire world acknowledges that Israel has effectively and ruthlessly countered terror in the Middle East. Since India and Israel are both fighting a proxy war against terrorism, therefore, we should learn a lesson or two from them. We need to have close cooperation with them in this field."

In February of 2002, Hindu nationalists slaughtered between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims and left another 150,000 homeless in the Indian state of Gujarat. In her book, The Gujarat Genocide, Garda Ghista observes:

“Even after the initial 72 hours, the violence continued with the active support and collaboration of local police,”

And noted author and human rights activist Arundhati Roy wrote this of the Gujarat massacre:

“We’re sipping from a poisoned chalice—a flawed democracy laced with religious fascism … Gujarat has been the petri dish in which Hindu fascism has been fomenting an elaborate political experiment.” (9)

Recently, the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee conducted a study on India’s minority populations. The results are now in the hands of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Consider some of the report’s findings relative to the Muslims of India [who encompass 140 million people or about 15% of the Indian population] (10):

In rural areas: 94.9% of Muslims living below poverty line fail to receive free food grain.
Only 3.2% of Muslims get subsidized loans. Only 2.1% of Muslim farmers have tractors, while just 1% own hand pumps.

54.6% of Muslims in villages and 60% in urban areas have never been to schools. In rural areas, only 0.8% of Muslims are graduates, while in urban areas despite 40% of the Muslims receiving modern education only 3.1% are graduates. Only 1.2% of Muslims are post-graduates in urban areas.

While West Bengal has 25% Muslim population, only 4.2% are employed in state services. In Assam, with a 40% Muslim population, only 11.2% are in government employment. Kerala has 20% Muslims, but only 10.4% of government employees are Muslim.

In Karnataka, where the Muslim population is 12.2%, 8.5% are employed in government services. While in Gujarat, of the 9.1% Muslim population, 5.4% are in state jobs; in Tamil Nadu, against a 5.6% Muslim population, 3.2% are employed in government.

Though West Bengal is known as a political bastion of the left bloc, the ones who have always spoken strongly against parties entertaining communal bias, the state has zero% Muslims in state PSUs. While Kerala has 9.5% in state PSUs, Maharashtra has only 1.9%.
Though the Sachar committee was not able to secure data regarding the presence of Muslims in the armed forces, it is fairly well-known that their percentage here is not more than three.
Muslims form only 10.6% of the population in Maharashtra, but 32.4% of the prison inmates here are Muslims. In New Delhi, 27.9 % of inmates are Muslims, though they form only 11.7% of the population here. While in Gujarat, Muslims form 25.1% of the ones imprisoned, they form 9.1% of the population. In Karnataka, Muslims form 12.23% of populace and 17.5% of those imprisoned.

It would appear that India deals with its “Muslim problem” in much the same way that the United States deals with its “Black problem”.

Careful scrutiny of the consummation of the US-Indo relationship and India’s meteoric rise toward superpowerdom via American Capitalism raises serious doubts about our collective sanity as we perpetuate an exploitative system conceived in the minds of men whose thinking was heavily shaped by their imperialistic and colonial socioeconomic paradigm. Concluding mass psychosis becomes even more probable when one considers that corporate personhood, monopolies, plutocratic tyranny, and unbridled avarice have so perverted what might have evolved as an ethical and sustainable socioeconomic system.

Why are so many people so deeply committed to an economic scheme which truly rewards so few? Driven by greed, ruthless competition, and oppression, this virulent system is truly beneficial for the mere handful of the world’s 6.5 billion human beings who parasitically monopolize most of the available wealth. Paradoxically, in a world still abundant with resources, a large percentage of the population wages a constant (and for many futile) struggle to attain the necessities of life.

Our ugly manifestation of Capitalism has relegated most of the human race to some form of slavery, serfdom or indentured servitude. It is an irresistible force devouring Mother Earth’s resources faster than she can renew them, befouling the environment with toxins and pollutants, and causing the extinction of animal and plant species at an alarming rate.

So the next time a think tank propagandist or corporate media pundit crows about India’s conversion to the “American Way”, remember that their sophistry amounts to a twisted celebration of the demise of humanity and the Earth.

From birth, it is burned into our cerebrums that the “freeing individualism” of Capitalism and the “stifling collectivism” of Communism are the only socioeconomic models from which we can choose. This is a despicable lie. We are not intellectually constrained to adhere to an ill-conceived economic philosophy hundreds of years old. Nor are we bound to its antithesis, which Marx formulated as a radical reaction to the harsh brutality of Capitalism. Somewhere between these two extremes lies a synthesis that could incorporate the best of both.

As human beings, we have been blessed with highly developed frontal lobes. If we are to survive as a species, we must use this gift to find a viable middle ground between Capitalism and Communism…hence enabling some semblance of Mr. Armstrong’s “wonderful world”.

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at homeless shelters. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/

Sources and Further Reading:

(1) Why is India America's Natural Ally? http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/May 2005/May2005Blackwill.html

(2) Why What's Good for India is Good for Us http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/2074

(3) The Case Against Collaboration Between India and Israel http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10862

(4) Without Drastic Justice Reforms the Republic is Meaningless http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2007/01/india_without_d.html

(5) A New Dalit Movement Emerging? http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-rawat021206.htm

(6) Indian Brides Pay a High Price http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2006/10/indian-brides-pay-high-price.html

(7) India Has Killed 10 Million Girls in 20 Years http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2728976&page=1

(8) In India, Child Labor Barred in Name Only http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/10/news/child.php

(9) Global Fundamentalist Wars http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/global-fundamentalist-wars.html

(10) Marginalization of Muslim Minority in India http://makkah.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/marginalization-of-muslim-minority-in-india/


http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/02/pox-upon-mr-armstrongs-wonderful-world.html

 

[akzaman]

Marginalization of Muslim Minority in India

The highly-anticipated report of the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee on the status of minorities in India was submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and was tabled in Parliament during the Winter Session.

According to this report tabled on November 30, 2006, the document strongly criticises both political parties in India and the community leaders for the shockingly poor development indices for Muslims, and has recommended “affirmative action”. The complete Sachar Report (12-13 megabytes in length) can be downloaded by clicking here, and contains several chapters along with a set of recommendations for the government on how to take steps for the benefit of the minority communities. A concise summary of the Sachar Report in Powerpoint format can be downloaded by clicking here.

The Muslim population of India was 140 million or 15 per cent in 2001, but faces tremendous deprivation, discrimination and exclusion. Here are some statistics from the Sachar Report:

In rural areas: 94.9% of Muslims living below poverty line fail to receive free food grain.
Only 3.2% of Muslims get subsidized loans.
Only 2.1% of Muslim farmers have tractors, while just 1% own hand pumps.
54.6% of Muslims in villages and 60% in urban areas have never been to schools. In rural areas, only 0.8% of Muslims are graduates, while in urban areas despite 40% of the Muslims receiving modern education only 3.1% are graduates. Only 1.2% of Muslims are post-graduates in urban areas.
While West Bengal has 25% Muslim population, only 4.2% are employed in state services. In Assam, with a 40% Muslim population, only 11.2% are in government employment. Kerala has 20% Muslims, but only 10.4% of government employees are Muslim.
In Karnataka, where the Muslim population is 12.2%, 8.5% are employed in government services. While in Gujarat, of the 9.1% Muslim population, 5.4% are in state jobs; in Tamil Nadu, against a 5.6% Muslim population, 3.2% are employed in government.
Though West Bengal is known as a political bastion of the left bloc, the ones who have always spoken strongly against parties entertaining communal bias, the state has zero% Muslims in state PSUs. While Kerala has 9.5% in state PSUs, Maharashtra has only 1.9%.
Though the Sachar committee was not able to secure data regarding the presence of Muslims in the armed forces, it is fairly well-known that their percentage here is not more than three.
Muslims form only 10.6% of the population in Maharashtra, but 32.4% of the prison inmates here are Muslims. In New Delhi, 27.9 % of inmates are Muslims, though they form only 11.7% of the population here. While in Gujarat, Muslims form 25.1% of the ones imprisoned, they form 9.1% of the population. In Karnataka, Muslims form 12.23% of populace and 17.5% of those imprisoned.
At the same time, the report rejects the following myths about Muslims in India:

Muslims shun modern education and flock to madrasas (only four per cent do so);
They are averse to family planning (fertility rates are in decline); and
Demographically they will before long flood the rest of the population.
The report finds that two factors characterize the Muslim problem — educational backwardness and socio-administrative mindsets. Education allows equality of opportunity, with schooling as the foundation. Access, retention, quality (of teaching, textbooks and infrastructure), and instruction in the mother tongue, Urdu, matter. Based on this, vocational, higher and professional education will follow. But to accomplish the first step satisfactorily, the Sachar Committee recommends, as for other matters, that the 58 districts of Muslim concentration be targeted. Simultaneously, madrasas should be enabled to modernise and issue recognised certificates so that their alumni can be mainstreamed into higher education, with special attention be paid to girls’ education, and the need for more female teachers, scholarships and hostels as a necessary capability.

Muslim comparative statistics of employment are shocking, whether in government, PSUs or the corporate and private sectors. Muslim job ratios are a quarter or less of their population. The report does not agree that this is due to lower educational attainments. Because of their relative absence in the administrative, police and security services, in the judiciary, corporate world, professions and public life, especially at local body levels of democratic participation and decision making — Muslims are reluctant to compete and do not come forward in sufficient numbers. The committee, however, found out that several constituencies of Muslim concentration are reserved for Scheduled Castes when other constituencies would better qualify.

The Muslim community believes that it is discriminated against. In several areas, discrimination clearly takes place with respect to access to social infrastructure (health, water supply and sanitation, transport and communications and bank finance). Muslims are not able to rent accommodation in cosmopolitan areas or buildings, leading to their ghettoisation.

The committee is of the view that the process of promoting inclusive development and mainstreaming would be greatly assisted by a constantly updated National Data Bank and the establishment of appropriate fast-track mechanisms to ensure equal opportunities. Affirmative action could be furthered by reference to a suitably constructed diversity index. Entities earning high diversity ratings could be eligible for various incentives on a sliding scale.

The Muslim condition in India is not uniformly bad. By and large the southern states are in better shape while the situation in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam is problematic.

Note from Rafik Beekun: It is unfortunate to note that as of December 29, 2006, the BJP party India is actively opposing Prime Minister Singh’s plan to redirect resources so as to help improve the sad condition of Muslims in India. For more about the long-term anti-Muslim agenda of organizations like the BJP, please click here. Rakesh Sharma is the extraordinarily courageous hindu producer of the documentary movie “Final Solution” about the politics of hate in India. This film was banned from India by the Censor Board for several months, and won Best Documentary and Critic’s Choice at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, as well as the Wolfgang Staudte Award, and Special Jury Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. A clip from this documentary shows the sinister anti-Muslim and anti-Christian global agenda of the BJP being openly declared by one of the top BJP leaders, and can be seen below:

http://www.imrc.ws/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=26

Please click here to read an impassioned editorial in the Deccan Times entitled “Dignity of An Individual” about the marginalization of the Muslims in India. The following editorial article about the potential politicization of the Sachar Report can also be read by clicking here.

To see a video about the results of the campaign of violence and repression against Muslims in India, please click here. The marginalization of Muslims in India, and its economic, political and social boycott have been systematically advocated by extremist political parties in India like the BJP, and the results of such exclusion have been murder, rape and destruction. As an example of such a deliberate campaign against Indian Muslims, please view the following videos of the Genocide in Gujarat:
1. Interviews of victims:
2. Genocide in Gujarat (Part 1 of 2):
3. Genocide in Gujarat (Part 2 of 2):

http://makkah.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/marginalization-of-muslim-minority-in-india/

 

[akzaman]

Indian brides pay a high price

By Amelia Gentleman International Herald Tribune

OCTOBER 23, 2006

NEW DELHI Once the wedding guests were all assembled, the father of the bride brought out a large metal tray on which he had piled up 51,000 rupees (in notes of 10 and 50 rupees, to make the heap look larger) and handed it to the groom.

A new television and sofa were conspicuously displayed in the same room, so that every member of the party could see what was being offered from the bride's family to the groom as a dowry. A full list of all the other items was copied out by hand and handed to five witnesses - itemizing all the pieces of furniture, kitchen equipment and jewelry that would be delivered in payment.

Unfortunately for Kamlesh, the 18-year-old bride, who uses only one name, the payment from her father, Misrilal, was insufficient. Her new husband had expected a scooter; his parents had wanted more than the 51,000 rupees - about $1,100 - that they got. During three years of marriage, the requests for an extended dowry settlement began to be accompanied by worsening bouts of violence - until in August, he beat her over the head with a wooden stick, tied her up and locked her in the cow shed as she bled profusely.

Violent dowry harassment is an increasingly visible phenomenon in India.

An average of one dowry death is reported every 77 minutes according to the National Crime Record Bureau and victim support groups say complaints of dowry harassment are rising, fueled by a rising climate of consumerism.

"Everyone is becoming more and more westernized - they want expensive clothes, they want the consumer objects which are constantly advertised on television. A dowry is seen as an easy way to get them," said Varsha Jha, an official with the Delhi Commission for Women.

Although the giving and taking of dowry is banned here under legislation that threatens a five-year jail term, activists describe the law as "ornamental" and point out that it is almost never imposed. Dowry negotiations remain an integral part of wedding arrangements, although, to avoid legal complications, the payments are often referred to as wedding gifts.

Kamlesh has barely spoken since the attack and doctors are investigating whether she suffered permanent brain damage. The Delhi Commission for Women, a government-funded body, is helping her to prosecute her husband, who is currently under arrest for the beating.

Officials at the commission see about 40 abused women every day, and estimate that approximately 85 percent of these cases are related to dowry demands, a figure that they say has grown over the past five years.

"There has been a rise in the materialistic way of life across India and dowry demands have risen to become more extravagant in line with these materialistic needs," Kiran Walia, chairwoman of the group, said. "It is one thing to give and take dowry. But what is really obnoxious is the torture women undergo because the dowry is less than expected."

Disputes over inadequate dowry split couples from every social strata. This week the former Indian cricket player Manoj Prabhakar was in court trying to settle a case of alleged harassment filed by his estranged wife, Sandhya. She says that the Maruti car, jewelry, television, fridge, sofa-set, double bed and cash handed over by her family as dowry when they married were considered unsatisfactory by her husband, and alleged that he harassed her for more from the start of their marriage. He denies this.

"People are getting more greedy and aggressive in their dowry demands," said Jha, of the Delhi Commission for Women. "You might expect that as the country becomes more and more Westernized, this traditional practice would be dying out, like other traditions, but actually the reverse is true. The old habits remain."

"The men say, 'I'll just ask the girl's parents to get me a Honda.' But they forget that then they have to buy the petrol, so they go back to the bride's family to ask for the petrol money. It's not a one- step system; it's a continuous process."

Kamlesh's father had been saving for his daughter's wedding and dowry for 16 years before she married, and was squirreling away as much as he could from his daily earnings as a carpenter of around 125 rupees. The total cost of the wedding and dowry came to around 250,000 rupees, 60,000 of which he borrowed from his boss. When the demands for further dowry payments from the groom's side began coming, it was impossible for him to meet them.

Misrilal said his daughter was being bullied for an increased dowry payment from the start. After her husband attacked her in August, he left her, tied up, in the shed for several days, without food or water, until relatives came to her rescue.

"Within a year of marriage he was beating her because of dowry," Misrilal said, sitting with his daughter in a hospital corridor, waiting for her head wound to be examined.

The burden both of dowry payments and lavish weddings is one of the main reasons why female feticide - the practice of aborting female fetuses - remains widespread in India. Earlier this year a report in The Lancet, a British medical journal, indicated that as many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past 20 years by families trying to avoid the expense of having a daughter and hoping to secure themselves a male heir.

"After all this torture, I feel that having a daughter is a curse," Misrilal said.

At the headquarters of the Delhi Commission for Women, the chairwoman, Walia, was meeting relatives of a young woman, Kusum Hardina, who set fire to herself a few weeks ago because she felt so desperate at the constant pressure from her in-laws to extract a higher dowry payment from her family.

On Sept. 22, she fought with her mother-in-law and brother-in-law over the dowry and then in a fit of anger poured kerosene over herself and set it alight. As she lay dying in hospital, she gave a statement to the police saying she had done it because she was being harassed for a dowry, Walia said.

She had tried to explain to her parents that she was being tormented, but they told her to stick with her husband. When she told the police, they sent around an officer who beat up her husband, which did not calm relations.

"We gave 22,000 rupees when they got married. But they wanted a color television, a motorcycle and a fridge as well," Asharam, the brother of the dead woman, said. "Her husband doesn't earn much as a builder, but he was greedy for possessions."

"Dowry should be stopped," he added. "Why should you give the husband's family money when you are already giving them a girl?"

Walia has launched an awareness-raising campaign, sending counselors to universities across the capital to alert students to the problem of dowry violence. But she was not optimistic about it chances of success.

"It is very unfortunate, but even educated boys are doing this. The rich set standards for the rest of society. I have no hope that this is coming to an end," she said.

 

[akzaman]

India Has Killed 10 Million Girls in 20 Years: Girls Are Considered a Burden in Sections of Indian Society

By PALASH KUMAR

Ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after, a government minister said on Thursday, describing it as a "national crisis".

A UNICEF report released this week said 7,000 fewer girls are born in the country every day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests but also through murder of new borns.

"It's shocking figures and we are in a national crisis if you ask me," Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told Reuters.

Girls are seen as liabilities by many Indians, especially because of the banned but rampant practice of dowry, where the bride's parents pay cash and goods to the groom's family.
Men are also seen as bread-winners while social prejudices deny women opportunities for education and jobs.

"Today, we have the odd distinction of having lost 10 million girl children in the past 20 years," Chowdhury told a seminar in Delhi University.

"Who has killed these girl children? Their own parents." In some states, the minister said, newborn girls have been killed by pouring sand or tobacco juice into their nostrils.

"The minute the child is born and she opens her mouth to cry, they put sand into her mouth and her nostrils so she chokes and dies," Chowdhury said, referring to cases in the western desert state of Rajasthan.

"They bury infants into pots alive and bury the pots. They put tobacco into her mouth. They hang them upside down like a bunch of flowers to dry," she said.

"We have more passion for tigers of this country. We have people fighting for stray dogs on the road. But you have a whole society that ruthlessly hunts down girl children."

According to the 2001 census, the national sex ratio was 933 girls to 1,000 boys, while in the worst-affected northern state of Punjab, it was 798 girls to 1,000 boys. The ratio has fallen since 1991, due to the availability of ultrasound sex-determination tests.

Although these are illegal they are still widely available and often lead to abortion of girl foetuses. Chowdhury said the fall in the number of females had cost one percent of India's GDP and created shortages of girls in some states like Haryana, where in one case four brothers had to marry one woman.

Economic empowerment of women was key to change, she said. "Even today when you go to a temple, you are blessed with 'May you have many sons'," she said. "The minute you empower them to earn more or equal (to men), social prejudices vanish."

The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in upmarket districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said.

"How do we tell educated people that you must not do it? And these are people who would visit all the female deities and pray for strength but don't hesitate to kill a girl child," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2728976&page=1

 

[Adux]

yawn; now pre-1947 has become about social evil thread..

 

[EagleEyes]

Keep posting here. Use one thread only.

Thanks.

 

[akzaman]

In India, child labor barred in name only

By Amelia Gentleman

It's lunchtime at the Evergreen Café in central Delhi, and middle-class women, laden with shopping, accept plates of fresh noodles and cold drinks from child waiters without a second glance.

Just hours after the Indian government introduced new legislation banning the employment of children under the age of 14 in roadside cafés, hotels and as maids in domestic service, the enormous challenge facing officials trying to enforce the law is visible on every street corner.

Behind the metal trailer, which serves as both kitchen and home for many of the dozen children employed here, the café's senior cook, Anil Sharma, shouted orders at the team of young boys, urging them to hurry with their tasks - molding dumplings from dough, washing plates, serving hot, impatient customers.

"Did they change the law? I heard something about it," he said, only mildly interested in the subject. "If the police come here, then we'll have to sack most of our boys. It will be bad for business because we don't pay the children as much as adults. The children will lose their jobs and prices will go up."

Among the children, there was a marked reluctance to disclose their ages. Saddam Khan, a short child wearing adult's trousers rolled up and bunched around his ankles, averted his eyes and claimed to be 15, but looked at least five years younger. Another waiter laughed when he heard him and shouted "He's lying," but the boy had no identity card to settle the matter.

In any case, Saddam views the new legislation with some irritation rather than welcoming it as a sign that the government planned to liberate him from exploitation. He said he was working to send money home to his family, who are farmers in Nepal. Of the 1,800 rupees, or about $40, he earns a month, he sends 1,600 rupees home. "They survive on the money I send them. If I don't work, how will I earn money to send them? Where else will they get the money from?" he asked.

As for the government's plan to rehabilitate child workers and get them into school, he was uncertain about how this would work in practice. "There's no point saying that we should be in school. We need money to go to school. We need money for food, for books. Unless you've got money, how can you study?" he said.

The crowded alleyways of Sarojini Nagar Market, a popular food and clothing bazaar, provide a stark illustration of the scale of the problem facing those charged with implementing the changed law on child labor. The market is just a 10-minute drive from the government buildings where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Monday on employers "to stop employing children as workers and actively encourage them to join schools," but there was no sign of any drive to enforce the legislation, even in such a high-profile Delhi location.

The changed legislation extends an existing law to include child waiters and maids, and employers found breaking the law will be liable to a year in prison or a fine of 10,000 rupees.

Child labor is an unregulated, opaque area of the labor market, so statistics illustrating the scale of the phenomenon vary enormously. Government estimates suggest there are more than 12 million child workers, of whom nearly 185,000 are employed in the home, and 70,000 work in cafés and restaurants. Charities working in the field argue the real figure is much higher.

On the streets beside the Evergreen café, young boys sold plastic baskets for 20 rupees, while small girls gathered rubbish, dragging ****** sacks as large as themselves.

Plumper children wearing leather sandals, some eating ice creams, holding on to their parents' hands, passed their working peers without interest; child labor is so omnipresent that it arouses neither compassion nor surprise in most passersby.

Selling fried dough balls to shoppers from a trolley on a street corner, Avdish Yadav, 12, said if he were prevented from doing this work, he would have to find another job to help support his family in rural Uttar Pradesh, an impoverished state to the east of Delhi. "What they grow, they eat, but it's never enough. Without the money I send, they will starve," he said.

Save the Children UK, a longtime campaigner on the issue of child labor, has argued that part of the solution lies in trying to convince people that employing young workers is shameful, attaching stigma to the concept of being served by a child.

However, despite government attempts at raising awareness, this social change has yet to be achieved.

Vikrant Mathur, a salesman with a private bank in Delhi, sat, relaxed, as a 9-year-old waiter at a nearby cheap restaurant served his lunch. "The government's idea is noble, but they need to provide an alternative for these children and their families," he said. "I like to think that I'm contributing in some way to this child's livelihood."

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=3097039

 

[bobloblaw]

mumarihq,

12 more years....india will dis-integrate...again. it happened once in 1947, now it will happen more, no need of 30 more years.. I am sure PUnjab, Kashmir, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and bengal will join with Pakistan, therefore Pakistan can have access to the bay of bengal, then you can re-unite with bangladesh and become Greater Pakistan,
dont worry. Inshallah, the day will come

Why so bitter?
I thought you were a patriotic indian

 

[Keysersoze]

Why so bitter?
I thought you were a patriotic indian

Dude I think you have already missed that whole party........

 

[Adux]

What do I say for that Keyser!!!!!