World's #9 Most Powerful Person Now Accused of Corruption -- Will She Fall? - Cleo Pascal - Huffingtonpost.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cleo-paskal/worlds-9-most-powerful-pe_b_853132.html

Cleo Paskal

Associate Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs

GET UPDATES FROM Cleo Paskal

Like

13

World's #9 Most Powerful Person Now Accused of Corruption -- Will She Fall?

Posted: 04/25/11 07:17 AM ET

share this story

New Delhi. Some of India's biggest fish are getting caught up in the country's fast-growing wave of anti-corruption activity. In what could be India's equivalent of a judicial jasmine revolution, previously invulnerable politicians, business icons, and pillars of the community are all nervously keeping their lawyers on speed-dial.

The anti-corruption push is an unprecedented coming together of myriad facets of Indian society. Religious leaders are concerned about the effects on morality and spiritual growth. NGOs speak of the effects on the poor. The middle class is angry about its future being stifled by a smothering blanket of day-to-day corruption. The intelligence services see corruption a clear threat to national security. And the business community, thanks to globalization, has seen how efficiently things can operate without having to constantly pay bribes or be tangled in red tape, and they want the same thing at home.

Even the Supreme Court is fed up, with Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy saying about the vast sums of Indian money being illegally hidden away in Liechtenstein Bank:

We are talking about the huge money. It is a plunder of the nation. It is a pure and simple theft of the national money. We are talking about mind-boggling crime.

The scandals are bursting on to the front pages fast and thick. Suresh Kalmadi, a Congress Party politician and the former head of the corruption-plagued Commonwealth Games, was arrested April 25. 

According to a report by the Indian Comptroller and Auditor General, the 2G spectrum scam alone, in which 2G licenses were sold off in a manner that was, to say the least, less than transparent, cost close to $40 billion in lost revenue.

All across India, people are saying enough is enough. And suddenly the unthinkable is starting to happen. People considered above reproach, or at least untouchable, are coming under the judicial cross-hairs. 2G alone has seen charges laid against one former government minister and several captains of industry.

And the latest high profile target is one of the biggest fish of all, Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, currently #9 on Forbes list of the World's Most Powerful People.

Sonia Gandhi has one of the most remarkable life stories in international politics. Born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino into a family of modest means in rural Italy, she didn't even get a chance to complete high school before heading to the UK for work. There she met Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. She eventually married him and the young family moved in to Indira Gandhi's New Delhi's home, putting her literally in the heart of Indian politics.

After Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984, Sonia's husband Rajiv became Prime Minister. Following Rajiv's 1991 assassination by Tamil terrorists, there were rumors that Sonia was going to put herself forward as Prime Minister.
As she herself later said, she "could not walk past the portraits of my husband, my mother-in-law and her father and not feel that I had some responsibility to try and save the party they had given their lives to."

Given her focus on the party, it was fitting that instead of becoming Prime Minister, she ended up as President of the powerful Congress Party. Politically, it proved to be a smart move as it gave her power without direct responsibility -- while she is #9 on Forbes list of power people, the actual Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is only #18. According to Forbes, "Gandhi remains the real power behind the nuclear-tipped throne [...] she has cemented her status as true heiress to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty."
Her image is of a dutiful, submissive Indian wife, now widow. When her husband was alive, she would walk behind him. In public she wears saris. Although a devout Catholic, she is often photographed at Hindu Temples. And like a good Indian mother, though she has decorously pulled herself out of the race for Prime Minister, she is happy to encourage her son, Rahul, to take the job.
However there have been growing, persistent murmurs about questionable business deals and inexplicable exponential jumps in the personal wealth of her and her family.
The allegations came out in the open in 1995 when M. D. Nalapat, then Resident Editor (Delhi) of the world's largest English language newspaper, the Times of India, began a groundbreaking series of articles about Sonia.
The articles made the controversial (at the time) claim that the public docility was just a ploy, and that Sonia actually had serious political ambitions (later confirmed by her role in Congress). Also, crucially, the series said that her desire for power wasn't simply altruistic and that the wealth not only of her, but of her Italian relatives, rose stratospherically after Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984.
Nalapat's articles could not be ignored as he was one of India's most respected journalists and had, throughout his career, taken on corrupt politicians, social inequity and institutionalized discrimination.
This however was a 'topic too far'. While the facts in the article were never refuted, Nalapat was forced out of journalism in 1998 and moved into academics.
Next came public questions from another highly reputed source, Sten Lindstrom, Sweden's special prosecutor investigating the pay-offs associated with the sale of weapons by Bofors to the government of India. His investigation showed that a close friend of Sonia's, Ottavio Quattrocchi, has received kickbacks in the millions.
In 1998 Lindstrom gave an interview in which he said:

the Gandhis, particularly now Sonia, should explain how Quattrocchi-owned companies got such fat sums as payoffs from the Bofors deal. After all, what is the connection of Sonia and the Gandhi family to Quattrocchi? Who introduced Quattrocchi and his AE Services to Bofors? At least one thing is certainly known now. A part of the payoffs definitely went to Quattrocchi. [...] the papers all pointed to the Gandhi family.

Not only have the questions not been answered by Sonia, but in spite of substantial evidence against him, Quattrocchi has managed to evade prosecution in India, and has even had his kickback funds unfrozen from overseas accounts.
Part of the genius of Sonia Gandhi is her ability to present herself as a helpless victim, convincing even her political rivals not to fear her as she is fatally flawed. In 1998, India was being led by BJP Prime Minister Vajpayee. When Nalapat spoke with him about Sonia, he was bluntly told to lay off, as, "so long as a white Christian lady is head of the Congress Party, I [Vajpayee] and my party will always be in power". Vajpayee and his party lost power to Sonia's Congress in 2004.
But the most serious threat to Sonia -- and, as she is at the apex of the Congress Party, and so to Congress itself -- is now lying on the desk of #18, the Prime Minister of India.
On April 15, former Law and Justice Minister and Harvard Professor Dr. Subramanian Swamy asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for leave to lay corruption charges against Sonia Gandhi. In a meticulously researched 200+ page submission Dr Swamy alleges Sonia Gandhi has been involved in corruption in India since 1972 and personally benefited from the Bofors scam (1986), has held billions in non-Indian bank accounts since at least 1991, illegally profited from the Iraqi oil-for-food deals (2002), and even accessed KGB payoffs during the Cold War.
The Prime Minister has three months to decide whether or not to grant sanction to prosecute. If he doesn't, Dr. Swamy can take the case directly to the Supreme Court, which under Chief Justice Kapadia is showing a definite proclivity towards facilitating corruption cases.
While, so far, the corruption cases in India have caught up some pretty big fish, if charges are laid against Sonia Gandhi, it won't just be part of a wave, it will be a sea change.
Sonia Gandhi is not just an individual, she is the steely core of a pillar of Indian politics. If she crumbles, it will shake the foundations of the venerable Congress Party, and possibly leave a gaping hole in the political scene. Meanwhile, a range of polarizing and regional parties are ready to rush in and stake their claim. Given the growing importance of India in our heavily globalized world, this is not just an Indian story, this is one all should be following very closely indeed.

Follow Cleo Paskal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cleopaskal

Mass Graves Hold Thousands, Kashmir Inquiry Finds: The New York Times | ‘Where is the body, the remains? I want to know. I want to see’ -Indian Express

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/world/asia/23kashmir.html

Mass Graves Hold Thousands, Kashmir Inquiry Finds

By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: August 22, 2011

NEW DELHI — Thousands of bullet-riddled bodies are buried in dozens of unmarked graves across Kashmir, a state human rights commission inquiry has concluded, many of them likely to be those of civilians who disappeared more than a decade ago in the brutal insurgency in the troubled region.

The inquiry, the result of three years of investigative work by senior police officers working for the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission, brings the first official acknowledgement that civilians may have been buried in mass graves in Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan where insurgents waged a bloody battle for independence in the early 1990s.

The report sheds new light on a grim chapter in the history of the troubled province and confirms a 2008 report by a Kashmiri human rights organization that found hundreds of bodies buried in the Kashmir Valley.

Tens of thousands of people died in the insurgency, which began in 1989 and was partly fueled by training, weapons and cash from Pakistan.

According to the report, hundreds of dead bodies of men described as unidentified militants were buried in unmarked graves. But of the more than 2,000 bodies, 574 were identified as local residents.

“There is every probability that these unidentified dead bodies buried in various unmarked graves at 38 places of North Kashmir may contain the dead bodies of enforced disappearances,” the report said.

The report catalogs 2,156 bodies found in graves in four districts of Kashmir that had been at the heart of the insurgency. It called for a thorough inquiry and collection of DNA evidence to identify the dead, and urged that anyone killed by security forces in Kashmir in the future be properly identified to avoid abuse of special laws shielding the military. from prosecution there.

Thousands of people, mostly young men, have gone missing in Kashmir. Some went to be trained as militants in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir and were killed in fighting. Many others were detained by Indian security forces. The wives they left behind are known as half widows, because the fate of their husbands is unknown. Parents keep vigil for sons who were arrested two decades ago.

Parveena Ahanger’s son Javed was taken away by the police on Aug. 18, 1990, and never seen again. A subsequent investigation found that he had been killed by security forces, but they have not been prosecuted, she said.

“I never got any response from the government,” she said. “I never got his dead body.”

After years of fighting in the courts to find out what happened to Javed, Mrs. Ahanger was skeptical that the human rights report would get her son’s body back, or bring her justice.

“If the high court doesn’t give any justice on this issue, what will the state human rights commission do?” she said.

Zahoor Wani, an activist who works with the families of people who disappeared during the insurgency, said that the report was a welcome first step but that the government must identify the dead and allow families to bury their relatives.

“It is a very good thing that they acknowledge it,” Mr. Wani said. “These families have been living in a hope to see these people again.
“They are neither dead nor alive. We need to move them to one pole or the other.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

--------------

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/where-is-the-body-the-remains-i-want-to-know.-i-want-to-see/835155/0

Mon, 22 Aug 2011

‘Where is the body, the remains? I want to know. I want to see’

Muzamil Jaleel 

 

Tags : J&K State Human Rights Commission, DNA test, Bilquees Manzoor, Ali Mohammad Mir  

 

Posted: Mon Aug 22 2011, 02:36 hrs
Srinagar:

 

The report by the J&K State Human Rights Commission establishing the presence of unmarked graves in Kashmir holding 2,156 unidentified bodies has given a glimmer of hope to hundreds who have been grieving for their spouses, siblings, children and friends who have gone missing over the past two decades, without any news.
As their wait for a closure, one way or the other, may now be just a DNA test away, here are stories of some of them:

A knock on the door one cold night

It has been nine years but Bilquees Manzoor hasn’t forgotten that knock on the door of their house at Rawalpora on the cold night of January 18. “When we opened the door, we found soldiers waiting outside,” says the 26-year-old. “They pushed us aside and started searching the house. When they finally left, they took my father along.” Manzoor Ahmad Dar had returned from his chemist shop just hours before. Bilquees says she and her family tried to resist but were pushed aside. Then only 17, she began searching for her father, starting from the Army camp where the raiding party of soldiers was stationed. “He (Major Malhotra) told us that he has been picked up for questioning and would be released soon,” she says. Bilquees says it was Major Malhotra who led the soldiers who picked up her father.

Some time later, a probe was initiated into the custodial disappearance of Dar. On the basis of the inquiry, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar, directed the Sadar Police Station to register a case against Major Malhotra and his men of 35 Rashtriya Rifles. But when they still got no news of Dar, the family approached the J&K High Court. On its directions, the DGP constituted a special team to investigate the case. The police sent several written communications to the Army and asked them to produce Major Malhotra and other accused soldiers before the inquiry officer. However, police say, there was no response from the Army. The accused Army officer was meanwhile shifted to Assam and promoted as Colonel with the Assam Regiment.

Hoping that the government acts on the SHRC report, Bilquees says: “All these years, we were living with the hope that he would return one day. But today we want to know whether he is dead or alive.” She will fight till she gets justice, she adds, “till the culprits are punished”.

A costly trip to the market

Ali Mohammad Mir, 50, hasn’t stopped blaming himself for that small task he gave his son. Mir’s father was ailing and he sent out Rajab to buy medicines near their residence in Brein Nishat. That was a bright sunny day in June 1996. Rajab hasn’t been seen since. He was picked up by counter-insurgents working with the Army who initially demanded money for his release and then one day just stopped calling. “He was picked up by Papa Kishtwari (a notorious counter-insurgent) and his associates,” says Rajab’s son Zahoor Ahmad Mir.

The police initiated an inquiry, and on September 15, 1999, the Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Nehru Park wrote a letter (CR/99/NP/22-94-94) to the Senior Superintended of Police, Srinagar:

“...seen the missing person entering the camp of Papa Kishtwari. The said Ali Mohammad (Rajab) later disappeared.” The letter goes on to add that they suspect Rajab was tortured and his corpse disposed of.

While the police did arrest Kishtwari’s men who had picked up Rajab from the market, they were released after some time. “If the police are certain about their involvement, as the letter suggests, why were they released? Why is Papa Kishtwari still moving scotfree?”

Hopeful after the SHRC report of at least getting Rajab’s body, Zahoor says: “We only want to know the fate of our father. We don’t need any compensation... We know they have killed him. But where is the body? Where are his remains? I want to know. I want to see.”

A plate that always goes untouched

Whenever there is a celebration in the family, the Khans set out food on a plate and put it aside. She is 70 now but Sarwa Begum hasn’t stopped that practice, in the hope that one day there would be a knock on the door and her son who went missing 16 years ago would walk in, and demand his food. Jaleel Ahmad Khan, then 27, had left home at Shahkote in Uri for work that day in 1995. When he didn’t return, they went to every jail and security camp in the Valley. “But despite our all efforts, we couldn’t trace him,” says the distraught mother.

Sarwa isn’t even sure who picked up her son. One day in 1999, they got the news that Jaleel had been killed. They rushed there, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Then someone told them he had been spotted in a jail in central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Their hopes rekindled, “we started to look for him again”, says the mother. Since then, tragedy has struck the family again, with youngest son, Fayaz, 20, having an accident and becoming disabled. The earthquake in October 2005 destroyed their house.

About the SHRC report, Sarwa says she wants the government to tell them whether their children are dead or alive. “If they are dead, we want to see their graves where we can go and shed our tears,” says Sarwa.

Then there are the good days, when she and her 75-year-old husband Nawab Khan still believe Jaleel will return. “I am sure he can’t leave us like that.”

She has no answers for her son

Every winter, Tahira’s husband Tariq Ahmad would leave their home at Boniyar for Delhi for work. In 2002, he left and went missing, not reaching Delhi and not returning home. For nine years now 42-year-old Tahira has been asking everyone in authority just one question: whether she is a widow or not, and if her sons (16, 14 and 11 years’ old) are fatherless. The toughest is when her youngest son Sahil asks her about his father. “He was less than two years old then,” Tahira says. “He studies in Class VI now. Whenever he asks me questions about his father, I have no answers.”

Tahira has looked everywhere — in Kashmir and outside, in jails, security camps and interrogation centres. “It is not easy for me to think about the death of my husband,” she says. “But if the DNA test proves it, at least it will bring closure. It will at least end my uncertainty... I die every day. The hopes are slowly fading.”