IS THIS AN ISRAELI SELF-GOAL TO DIVIDE INDIA AND IRAN? By Ghulam Muhammed

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Letter to the Editor:

IS THIS AN ISRAELI SELF-GOAL TO DIVIDE INDIA AND IRAN?

The first time ever use of 'limpet mine' in India, points to a foreign agency hand in the attack on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, carrying an Israeli citizen, in the heart of Indian capital, New Delhi. As Indian Express as well as Ronen Bergman in New York Times has mentioned, 5 Iranian nuclear scientist had met their fate in the similar 'limpet mine' car blow-outs, and Iran has accused Israeli agency Mossad for the terrorist attacks on its scientists. Now Israel is blaming Iran for New Delhi terror attack. In fact, the ‘limpet mine’ has been known to be favorite Mossad instrument of assassination in the Middle East.

While as a knee-jerk reaction, Indian Government and Indian media, spearheaded by TIMES NOW and its over-smart anchor Arnab Goswami, has been widely repeating the Israeli charges, India should be very cautious in handing this very delicate situation, as its own interest in dealings with Iran, are at stake and that is the main reason, both US and Israel are pressurizing India -- without any regard or reference to an independent India' own economic and global interests.

A Times of India report, filed by its US correspondent, highlights how Israeli/American Jewish lobby in the US is building up pressure on India to force it to tow their line of antagonistic and warmongering agenda in the neighborhood of India.

India, its political analysts, its media and its people should be fully aware and vigilant about a war in our neighborhood that my cost us dearly, if things go wrong. It may be a very disastrous and damaging affair. Both  the US and Israel are hell-bent on abusing India's friendship and its vast resources, to carry on their own hegemonic agenda around the world, including the Gulf, South East and Far East --- all in the bogus pretext of their own self-serving security parameters. The canvas of their agenda is very vast and India will have to decide from very beginning, if its baby steps to humor the West and Israel may result it to desperately run a forced marathon to the last mile, that would change India for good. A hundred year struggle to free India from the clutches of foreign colonial powers may end up again in enslaving of a billion Indians.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

BJP's 'dirty picture' - By Seema Mustafa - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL - MUMBAI

http://freepressjournal.in/news/47720-bjp-s-dirty-picture.html

BJP's 'dirty picture'

• India
• Feb 13, 2012

FRANKLY SPEAKING BY SEEMA MUSTAFA

The filth that has crept into the party is a natural corollary of its anti- women, communal and divisive agenda
 
Is there a contradiction between an individual who insists that women should be fully clad in public, and watches pornography whenever he gets a chance? Actually not, as the first follows the second with both indicative of a dirty mind that treats women like objects and commodities to be used and discarded at will.

The three Ministers caught watching pornography in the Karnataka Assembly are all members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, clearly 'respected'by their senior colleagues.

It would have been a surprise had they been members of any other party, as the filth that has crept into the BJP is a natural corollary of its anti- women, communal, and divisive agenda. Right wing politics of the BJP kind breeds dirt that then spreads to a point where deviant criminal behaviour is accepted, and perhaps even perceived, as normal.

One would expect a political party calling itself national, and aspiring to be in government at the Centre as well, to have taken immediate action against the three Ministers - Laxman Savadi, J Krishna Palemar and C C Patil - instead of hedging bets. The resignations came only after the Opposition created a ruckus and it became very clear to the party and its government in Karanataka that the three men, close to a corrupt mining mafia in the state, were left with no choice in the matter. Even so it was really sad to see BJP spokespersons fielding questions on television, and instead of going all out to condemn the Ministers seeking refuge in the usual " let there be an enquiry, let the Speaker ( of the state Assembly) decide." The men in question claimed that they were 'working'and not watching a pornographic clip on their mobile telephones.

But the explanation made matters even worse because they said they were watching a gang rape that has the nation up in arms. The BJP remains reluctant to castigate these men, and to throw them out of the party. And even if it does so at the end of the day, the reluctance to do so has sent shock waves through the country.

BJP President Nitin Gadkari seems to be sheltering all that is criminal and deviant in the party. The mining mafia in Karnataka has a good representation in the state government, and many say these men call the shots at every level. They keep the political parties in good funds, and protect their own against any action. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is another case in point, with the BJP with support from several corporate honchos and sections of the media, insisting that he was 'innocent'of any involvement in the Gujarat violence where women were brutally raped and killed all over the state. This kind of mentality, protected and sheltered and nurtured, leads to the kind of behaviour that was captured on cameras in the Assembly.

The lack of remorse is amazing.

These men are elected representatives of the people, sworn to uphold the Indian Constitution and the rule of law.

Instead they violate the law at every step. Be it attacking young women for wearing jeans or watching pornography or as one of the Ministers had earlier gone on record to maintain that women should dress properly or they would invite rape. That comment should have been enough for the BJP to initiate action against him at the time, but then how can it when it endorses the same thinking and mindset.

It seems that all that is base and viciously anti- woman is drawn to the BJP. This is but natural as somehow right wing ideology of the kind espoused by many of our political parties and groups encourages such positions.

Fiscal growth that makes our Prime Minister very happy does not turn into mental growth at any level, as the status of women in India continues to be dismal. The murder of young women for making their own choices in Haryana and the role of Khap Panchayats in determining their fate has gone unchallenged. Both the Congress and the BJP, for the sake of votes, have kept quiet when confronted with this local form of bestiality, with the result that the killers have remained outside the law. And in fact, the mindset has been strengthened because of this support to a point where many young people have had to flee their homes to escape Khap Panchayat trials, and almost certain death.

Instead of scoring brownie points as the Congress seems to be doing, the political parties should take the lead in launching a massive movement for the true empowerment of women through the universal principles of justice and equality.

But clearly this is like asking for the moon, as these same political parties have totally failed to accommodate even 33 per cent women within their organizations as a first step to ensuring similar reservation for women in the Legislatures. Women activists are usually ignored by the political parties with only relatives of known male politicians getting nominations to fight the elections. Others who have managed to contest an election or two speak of harrowing experiences, with every political step fraught with humiliation and uncertainty.

Even while writing this one has received a mail about the dipping sex ratio in Gujarat. Of the 956 girls for every 1000 boys in the zero to six year age group in 1961, modern Gujarat under the great administrator Modi now has a ratio at 886 per 1000 boys according to the 2011 census. In other words, instead of moving ahead we are moving backwards, and instead of ensuring a place for our girls in the sun are ensuring that they are moved into the backwaters, discriminated and forgotten.

FRANKLY SPEAKING - SEEMA MUSTAFA

Comments posted on Facebook over BBC’s story on : Rashid Ghannouchi on Britain, Islam and liberal democracy By Mukul Devichand BBC Radio 4:

On his visit to India and interactions with Muslim groups, Shaikh Raashid Ghannouchi spoke positively on democratic and secular polity of India and wondered why Indian Muslims have not taken the democratic route and participated wholehearted in political field, when the choices are so open and so available. He compared and lamented how Muslims in Arab Middle East has been banned from participating in elections, by the use of so many undemocratic moves by the dictators. He felt India is ripe for Muslims to take part in its mainstream politics and contribute to its development as a just welfare society.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-16932923

12 February 2012 Last updated at 00:57 GMT

Share this page

• Email
• Print

27

• Share
• Facebook
• Twitter

Rashid Ghannouchi on Britain, Islam and liberal democracy

By Mukul Devichand BBC Radio 4

 

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• The toughest place to be a train driver
• FBI files of the rich and famous
• All for the want of a winter horseshoe
• Could coffee become India's top drink?

One of the leading ideologues of the modern Muslim world has a vision of a state where respect for Islam and other faiths exists within a secular system - and he points to the UK as a model. But can his words be taken at face value?

Woodville Road in Ealing, West London, is not necessarily the first place you would expect a new future for political Islam to be forged.
But it was partly here, in tree-lined English suburbia, that the softly-spoken Sheikh Rashid Ghannouchi developed a unique set of ideas that are are gaining traction internationally, in the wake of the Arab Spring.

The green lawns of suburban London appear to have been more than just a base for Mr Ghannouchi. He once famously declared that Britain embodied the values of his ideal Islamic state more than most Muslim-majority nations - a shocking statement at a time when many Muslim ideologues saw the West as a mortal enemy.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The state should not have anything to do with telling people what to wear, what to eat and drink, what they should believe in”

Rashid Ghannouchi

"We consider that a state is more Muslim, more Islamic, the more it has justice in it," he says.

"When people asked me why I came to Britain, I explained that I was going to a country ruled by a queen where people are not oppressed and where justice prevails."

More than 20 years ago, Mr Ghannouchi - then, as now, Tunisia's leading Islamist ideologue - sought refuge in Britain. He used the time in exile to complete a series of writings arguing that Islam and modern, secular democracy are compatible.

"His views have always been considered quite liberal," says Maha Azzam of the Chatham House think tank in London. "He was able to return after over two decades in exile… and still win the hearts and minds of the young."

In a dramatic sequence of events last year, Tunisia kick-started the Arab Spring by throwing off dictatorship, and then held elections, from which Mr Ghannouchi's party, Ennahda, emerged as the biggest winner.

Continue reading the main story

Find out more

• Listen to Analysis on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 12 February at 21:30 GMT

• Download the podcast
• Listen through the BBC Radio 4 website
• Follow Analysis on Facebook
• Follow Analysis on Twitter

Mr Ghannouchi's writings, have already been required reading by Muslim parties competing in elections and they are now experiencing renewed popularity across large swathes of the Muslim world.

He says he sells more books in Turkey than Tunisia. He is being read in Malaysia's Islamic Party, and his writings are apparently attracting attention among younger members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as they grow in power.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood recently followed in Ennahda's footsteps, winning a third of the seats in parliamentary elections.

Other Brotherhood-inspired parties hope to benefit if countries elsewhere in the region, such as Yemen and Syria, eventually move towards democracy.

In a detailed interview for the BBC's ideas series, Analysis, Mr Ghannouchi was candid about his ideology and the challenges it now faces.

Tunisia is now drawing up a new constitution and one of the key questions it faces is the role of Islam in the government apparatus. Many want religion to be the basis of the country's law, while others want to see a strict division between religion and state.

"Tunisia's elite is very closely connected to French secularism - the idea that society and state have to be secular and religion has very little role to play in that society," says Maha Azzam of Chatham House.

In pre-revolutionary Tunisia, even the hijab or female headscarf was largely banned.

Mr Ghannouchi argues that Britain's version of secular democracy is more neutral and tolerant than the French, and therefore has some of the answers.

Continue reading the main story

Ennahda

• Founded in 1981 as the Islamic Tendency Movement, inspired by Muslim Brotherhood
• Changed name to Ennahda - or "Renaissance" - in 1989
• Banned by then-President Ben Ali in 1992; regained legal status in March, 2011

"The type of state we want is one that doesn't interfere in people's private lives," says Mr Ghannouchi.

"The state should not have anything to do with imposing or telling people what to wear, what to eat and drink, what they believe in, what they should believe in."

He says he has no plans to ban bikinis on the beach or the sale of alcohol, for example. "I would prefer it if people didn't do this, but it is up to them," he says.

"His vision for the model of an Islamic nation is built heavily on the idea of values," explains Anas Altikriti, a British Islamist intellectual whose father led the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq.

Mr Ghannouchi goes back to the values of the Koran rather than a literal reading of it. He then argues that these values - such as justice, public consultation and human rights - are encapsulated in modern democratic states.

But many secular-minded people simply do not trust Rashid Ghannouchi.

"He's just playing on words," says Ibtisam, one of a group of Tunisian feminist law students.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

For the past 30 years the Muslim Brotherhood has been raising the slogan, 'Islam is the answer' - well now they really need to answer many, many tough questions”

Anas Altikriti British Islamist intellectual

"The danger is that yes, they say you can go to the beach in a bikini. But at the same time when women on the beach are attacked [by Islamists], they are doing nothing to protect them," she says.

Others in both the Arab World and the West accuse Mr Ghannouchi of double-talk when it comes to Islam and democracy.

While he encourages Islamists to work in a secular system he has also written that "secularism is turning the West into a place of selfish beasts".

He says this was meant as a criticism of how religious and moral values were fading away. "This leads to threats to family values, to values of solidarity," he explains.

Doubts are also expressed by those who worry that Islamist leaders will turn on Israel. When questioned by the BBC about Israel's right to exist, he didn't answer directly - saying instead that Israel has a duty to make peace with the Palestinians.

So is this all tactical talk - using democracy as a way to impose theocratic states by the back door?

No, says Maha Azzam. She argues that Tunisians and other Arabs have now lost their fear of tyrannical dictators, and so Islamic parties have no option but to remain democratic.

"The struggle of those that came out on to the streets of Tunisia is for accountable government," Ms Azzam says.

"Within that context, they still want respect for Islamic values, but I don't think that there is a desire for an Islamic system of government that throws away democracy."

Anas Altikriti says Mr Ghannouchi's theories are helping the Muslim Brotherhood to stop talking endlessly about ideology and instead address the tough questions - such as how to create jobs - that the electorate care about most.

"For the past 30 years the Muslim Brotherhood has been raising the slogan, 'Islam is the answer,'" he says. "Well now they really need to answer many, many tough questions."

You can listen to the full Analysis programme about Rachid Ghannouchi's ideas on the BBC Radio 4 website, or on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 12 February 2012 at 21:30 GMT. You can also download the podcast.

 

Anonymous vows ‘crusade’ against Israel - RT | 'Anonymous' hacker group threatens 'reign of terror' against Israel - HAARETZ

http://rt.com/news/anonymous-crusade-israel-iran-081/

Anonymous vows ‘crusade’ against Israel

Published: 11 February, 2012, 16:19

New York : A man wears an Anonymous mask and a NY Giants jacket. (AFP Photo/Don Emmert)

TAGS: Conflict, Military, Scandal, Middle East, Protest, Politics, Human rights, Internet, Israel

Online collective Anonymous has pledged a “crusade” against Israel. Claiming the country is committing “crimes against humanity” and gearing for “nuclear holocaust”, the group promised a campaign against the Israeli government.

In their statement issued early on Friday, Anonymous accused Israeli leaders of creating false democracy, serving the interests of a “select few” while “trampling the liberties of the masses.” The group said that Israel manipulates public opinion with a combination of “media deception” and “political bribery”.

Addressing the Israeli leaders, Anonymous stated that their “Zionist bigotry” is to blame for killings and displacements, adding that “as the world weeps” they are planning their “next attack”. The group pledged not to allow the attack to happen.

"You label all who refuse to comply with your superstitious demands as anti-Semitic and have taken steps to ensure a nuclear holocaust,” said the Anonymous. “We will not allow you to attack a sovereign country based upon a campaign of lies."

The group promised a three-step campaign against the current government of the country.

These will include “systematically” removing it from the internet and turning Israel into a free state, the third step remaining undisclosed. 

However, in announcing the news, Israeli daily Haaretz comforted its readers by saying that the group is far from putting all of its threats into reality. The group previously threatened to attack the Knesset’s website but failed to fulfill the promise.

Still, in one of the recent developments Anonymous did crash the CIA website, which remained down hours after the attack. The group said it did this for “lulz”, meaning “for laughs”.

-------
 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/anonymous-hacker-group-threatens-reign-of-terror-against-israel-1.412118

• Published 06:31 10.02.12
• Latest update 06:31 10.02.12

'Anonymous' hacker group threatens 'reign of terror' against Israel

Group uploads video blaming Israel for committing 'crimes against humanity,' and criticizes its treatment of Palestinians.

By Oded Yaron

Tags: Palestinians

The hacker group “Anonymous” released a video Friday threatening to begin a ‘reign of terror’ against Israel, in the latest round of cyber warfare between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli hackers.

The video, which was posted on YouTube in the early hours of the morning, blamed Israel for committing 'crimes against humanity,' and criticizing it for its treatment of Palestinians.

	Anonymous hackers group logo.

“Through the use of media deception and political bribery, you have amassed the sympathies of many. You claim to be democratic, yet in reality this is far from the truth. In fact, your only goal is to better the lives of a select few while carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses,” says the clip's computer-generated narrator over ominous background music.

The video also makes reference to the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, claiming that Israel has “taken steps to ensure a nuclear holocaust,” and that it will not be allowed “to attack a sovereign country based upon a campaign of lies.”

Moreover, the video threatens to start a crusade against Israel that will take the form of three steps, only revealing that the first of these steps will attempt to systematically remove Israel from the internet.

It must be noted that, to date, not all of the group’s threats have been carried out. Anonymous has previously threatened to attack the Knesset website, although the site did not suffer any damage. 

Furthermore, due to the decentralized nature of the group, previous hacking threats on sites such as Facebook were later discovered to be the result of misunderstandings between members of the group. 


Over the past month, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli hackers have been battling in cyberspace. Starting on January 3, the hackers group, "Group-XP", claimed it had obtained personal information of about 400,000 Israelis, but checks carried out by the credit card issuers and the Bank of Israel determined that the details of between 14,000 and 15,000 active cards had been exposed. According to Maglan Internet Defense Technologies, a total of 31,000 credit card numbers had been exposed in all, some of them belonging to foreign nationals.

Anonymous Message To The State of Israel

http://youtu.be/nrJ551FFWp0?t=3s

YouTube - Videos from this email

What Role for Indian Think Tanks? - By Bhaskar Menon - http://undiplomatictimes.blogspot.in/

Bhaskar Menon has written a very thought-provoking and historical article that is a grave warning and a call for review of all that is going on in India in the name of progress, development, modernity and security. Foreign funds are not only flooding the corporate world, but are taking on our entire thinking faculties as a proud, independent and old civilisation that was toast of the world. The sectors that were starved of funding during the earlier Congress clamping down of India, have suddenly rushed to devour whatever crumbs are thrown at them, without even a shade of reflection as to where are we heading. Bhaskar Menon deserves great honour for having the courage and insight to bring out the calamitous slide of the nation into a quagmire that will not give us any chance for a free existence for another millennium. Saner elements should band together and expose all those carpetbaggers, opportunists and self-seekers who are willing to sell the nation, for a few pieces of silver.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

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

http://undiplomatictimes.blogspot.in/

undiplomatic times

An Indian view of the world

What Role for Indian Think Tanks?

By Bhaskar Menon

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

According to an Edit Page article in The New Indian Express on 6 February, a global ranking of Think Tanks has found not one of India's 292 institutions good enough to be in the global top 30. In terms of number of TTs we rank third, behind the US with 1815 and China with 425,

The writer, Amitabh Mattoo, billed as a JNU professor and Director of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne, admitted that the criteria used in the ranking had been widely criticized, but nevertheless, urged remedial action by the government to avoid a “mushrooming” of American and European franchises with Indians as “junior partners.” His “guesstimate” was that some 50 percent of projects run by Indian Think Tanks were already funded from abroad.

Mattoo saw three factors as most responsible for the weakness of Indian Think Tanks: lack of adequate and steady funding, government suspicion of “truly independent” organizations, and the tendency of “idealistic founders” to become “feudal patrons.”

To deal with the situation, he urged the government to create four new TTs, each with an endowment of Rs. 1000 crore, dealing with Economics; Security; Politics/Governance; and Social Change. He recommended that they be given unconstrained “freedom to hire the best global talent to work on critical areas of policy” and work without “interference.”

Strangely for a piece titled Unthinking Think Tanks,” Mattoo said not a word about the quality of thought that has emerged from Indian Think Tanks.

If he had looked at that issue, it might have become quickly apparent that pots of money will not help, and that the “best global talent” might make things worse. For the basic problem with Indian TTs is not lack of money or access to foreign talent; it is the hangdog "Bollywood" state of mind, reflecting the belief that our reality is second-class, that it gains meaning only from association with that of the West.

Remember NDTV's maddening crawler "India's 9/11" that disfigured its coverage of the 2009 attack on Mumbai? It was as if Indian loss of life and blood lacked authenticity without a Western reference.

That syndrome is widely evident in India, including in areas of marked success.

"Bollywood" has been followed by the equally silly (and confusing) Tollywood, Kollywood and Mollywood.
 "Silk" is "India's Marilyn Monroe."

The Jaipur Literary Festival is "India's Cannes."

Jug Suraiya is "India's Art Buchwald."

Indian cuisine, traditional fabrics and costumes are referred to as "ethnic." (This might be mere ignorance: the usage originated in the United States, where the non-ethnic default was WASP: White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.)

If we look at more considered manifestations of thought, for instance, at the books that have come from our post-1947 political and corporate leaders, there is the same unquestioned kowtowing to the dominance of the West. Paranoia about American intentions in India does not qualify as evidence to the contrary; it is an attitude fostered by a political "Left" slavishly imitative of the British model.

The slavishness can be traced back to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's hugely influential attitudes to the West (and his fundamental differences with Mahatma Gandhi on that count). Perhaps the crux of his attitude was captured in his declaration to Gandhi during their 1928 exchange of letters: "You misjudge greatly, I think, the civilization of the West and attach too great importance to its many failings. ... I think that Western, or rather industrial civilization, is bound to conquer India."

Nehru's staggering presumption has become general today. The fact that industrial civilization has proved to be unsustainable and is in a state of terminal crisis has made hardly a dent on the views of Indian acolytes. For instance, former President Abdul Kalam's several books and numerous speeches present a vision of a "developed India" entirely in technological terms. He hardly ever mentions Gandhi's vision of how India could progress, and ignores the great problems that beset industrial development.

An ancillary to the worship of technology seems to be ignorance of Indian realities. Nandan Nilekani's " Imagining India" is a good example of that phenomenon. Consider his explanation of why newly independent India was mistrustful of free-market economics: "Nehru saw Britain as a hard, repressive State, and the market-friendly systems it had established got tarred with the same brush." (Colonial rule, established and maintained with violence, grossly discriminatory towards Indian business, was "market-friendly"!!!) Other examples of ignorance are rife. At one point he refers to Sita's "Kush" as "the son of Vishnu."

I could give numerous other examples from a wide range of writers, but will desist for fear of boring the reader. The evidence is overwhelming that the Maya of the West has come to suffuse the disordered view of our thought leaders. We have not had since Gandhi a leader who comprehended clearly the challenges facing India.

To understand how Mattoo's hankering after the "best global talent" is rooted in post-colonial confusion, consider how ridiculous it is to have a global ranking of Think Tanks.

In the United States, Think Tanks are instruments of a variety of interest groups, making the arguments to be taken on board by legislative processes minutely overseen by political lobbyists. Chinese TTs are meant to facilitate, strengthen and on occasion hide the Communist Party’s brutal grip on power. In India, as Mattoo notes, TTs are founded by idealists who then become invested in keeping control of their creations and turn into “medieval patrons.”

Given those differences, what is the basis for comparison?

This is not to deny Mattoo's point that we stand in danger of a foreign takeover of our policy space.
But money and foreign talent are not an appropriate response to that danger.

Indian reality, more than that of any other nation, is sui generis. We Indians are its best judges.

Perhaps the way forward would be to reorient our Think Tanks so as to generate on every major policy issue, a national discourse rooted in an understanding of our post-colonial situation. The overall aim must be to understand contemporary global realities within the frame of India’s historical experience.

The difficulty in undertaking such an effort will lie in surmounting the enormous distortions that colonial rule introduced in our understanding of Indian history. Perhaps a National Truth Commission about the colonial period, examining what the British did to India would be a good way to begin. Once the past is clear our policy options will clarify themselves.

Posted by Bhaskar Menon at 2:51 PM 0 comments Links to this post

 
Labels: Bollywood, china, india, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mattoo, Nandan Nilekani, Think Tanks, United States

Polls 2012: Muslims in Meerut still nurse wounds of two-decade old riots - By Iftekhar Gilani - DNA

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_polls-2012-muslims-in-meerut-still-nurse-wounds-of-two-decade-old-riots_1647668

Polls 2012: Muslims in Meerut still nurse wounds of two-decade old riots

 
Published: Thursday, Feb 9, 2012, 9:00 IST
By Iftikhar Gilani | Place: Meerut | Agency: DNA

Emerging from a printing press, with ink soaked hands and drenched clothes, Iqbal Ahmed can be taken for any other labourer. But he is a medical graduate; his life totally changed 25 years ago when he was among the hundred-odd picked up from Hashimpura locality of Meerut when it was engulfed in the worst-ever communal riots.

He was a lucky one to be taken to jail. For, others were shot dead and thrown into the Upper Ganges and the Hindon Canal allegedly by the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of UP.

Iqbal’s life was so battered that he became mentally wreck and could not continue practicing medicine.

This communally sensitive western UP is now calm. The bloody riots in 1989 sent the Congress packing out of power in the state.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi may be trying hard to re-build the party edifice, enticing various communities including Muslims, but the residents here are hardly in a mood to forgive his party.

In the dingy alley of Hashimpura, there are few takers for the Congress’s promises of employment opportunities for youth and quotas for minorities and free electricity connections to the poor. 

“What we need is justice and security and not doles,” says Laiq Ahmed, president of the local unit of Muslim Majlis.

Shrieks of 70-year-old Peeru, a walking skeleton, rents the allies of Hashimpura as she recounts how her 16-year-old son Nizamudin was dragged and pushed into a PAC truck. Mentally disturbed, she still awaits the return of her son.

Jamaludin Ansari (75) recalls that even BJP leader LK Advani had sympathised with them when he visited the area and was confronted with the story. Then a owner of a roaring scissor manufacturing business, Ansari is now meeting both ends by running a small shop inside his dingy hovel.

His 22-year-old son Qamruddin was killed in cold blood. He even didn’t get his body, despite identifying his clothes in Kotwali.

“Since then everything got shattered. My customers were mostly Hindus, they refused to visit my factory out of fear and prejudice,” says the old man.

Unlike Gujarat, where hordes of NGOs have descended to seek justice for the 2002 riots victims, old and frail residents of Hashimpura and Maliana localities, whose sons were killed 25 years ago, are left to their own to pursue the case in Delhi’s Tis Hazari court, which recently concluded examining the 91st witness.

The anger against the Congress is palpable. “We will never forgive the party till we get justice,” says Ansari, only to add in the same breath that other secular parties like the SP and the BSP have also looked the other way, not even initiating disciplinary actions against the PAC personnel.

Out of the five survivors of the bloodshed, Babudin, now 43, shows three bullet marks on his body — the PAC had picked him up from his house and fired at him.

Now as stakes run high in the UP elections, the issue hardly finds reverberations in the poll lexicons of the Congress and the SP, who are pitted against each other in the Muslim dominated seat.

After delimitation, Hashimpura has been merged with Meerut cantonment, thus saving local Congress candidate Yusuf Qureshi from their wreath. Qureshi, a lawyer and PhD, is pitted against SP’s Rafiq Ansari. It has sharply divided Muslims on caste lines.


While butchers and those associated with meat business are backing Qureshi, weavers, labourers and others are vouching for Ansari. Meat shop owners ask their customers to vote for Qureshi.


But hardly the issue of Hashimpur figures in the lexicon. The role of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the past, which is supposed to be favourably inclined to Muslims, did nothing for getting justice done in the case.

The incident which sealed the fate of the Congress finds no mention in the manifestos. Justice still seems a faraway proposition for the victims of Hashimpura.

Israeli angle to Maldives 'coup' - Report by Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis - New Delhi

Though world media including Indian, BCC, CNN are silent on the subject, an Israeli angle has surfaced in a report by IDSA - that is funded by the Indian Ministry of Defence. It functions autonomously.

http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/PoliticalTransitioninMaldives_akumar_090212

Israeli angle to Maldives 'coup'
 

" The hardliners also opposed Nasheed's restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel, his attempts to transform the school curriculum which was narrowly focussed on Islamic principles, and his defence of a 'modern' Islam that is open to other faiths. They also wanted the government to stop Israeli flights and tourists from coming to Maldives."
-----------------

IDSA COMMENT

Political Transition in Maldives

Anand Kumar

February 9, 2012

The dramatic events which took place in Maldives on February 7, 2012 has led to the ‘involuntary’ resignation of the country’s democratically elected president. Although the political situation is likely to stabilise in the short-term with the elevation of Vice President Dr. Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik to the position of president, multi-party democracy established in the country after the 2008 elections has received a definite setback.

Waheed has vowed to uphold the rule of law. He intends to form a government of national unity and has assured that presidential elections would be held in 2013 as planned. Justice Abdullah Mohamed, whose arrest triggered these developments, was released soon after the presidential change over.

A section of people in Maldives as well as in the international community have described the resignation of Nasheed as a coup. In fact, the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) to which Nasheed belongs has alleged that the resignation had been engineered by "rogue elements" of the police and military, along with supporters of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. MDP also alleged that the opposition threatened the president with a bloodbath if he refused to resign. For his part, Nasheed stated in a televised address that he chose to resign to protect the public from further violence.
Political uncertainty has been prevailing in Maldives for some time now. Nasheed’s problems began when his party failed to get a majority in the Maldivian parliament after the 2009 general elections. Nasheed wanted to relax strict Islamic laws to promote tourism, which is the largest foreign exchange earner for the country. However, his attempt to step-up facilities for tourism was defeated because of the assertion by the religious right and the judiciary. In the year 2010, Nasheed was forced to roll back his plan of allowing more multi-national companies from setting up resorts on unutilised islands.

Nasheed had received the economic crisis as a legacy from former president Gayoom who had left the country on the verge of bankruptcy. Maldivians have been protesting against soaring prices. Last year, the country also faced a major dollar crunch. India has been helping Nasheed’s government with occasional financial support to tide over these problems.

In the present political crisis Islamic radicals have also played an important role. There has been growing Islamic radicalism in Maldives. Islamic radicals have been trying to create problems for the government of Nasheed who represented the moderate stream in the country. Islamic radicals even demolished the monument constructed by Pakistan at Addu city on the occasion of the 17th SAARC summit in November. Showcasing Pakistan’s pluralistic heritage, the monument showed the different stages of cultural development in Pakistan from the Harappan and Buddhist past to its Islamic heritage before being proclaimed an Islamic Republic. However, inflamed religious passion in a section of the Maldivian population impelled them to destroy the monument.

The Maldivian government was also forced to briefly close all hotel spas and health centres in resort hotels in December 2012 after the hard-line Islamist Adhaalath party claimed that these were fronts for prostitution. This decision was however reversed as the country critically depends on tourism.

The hardliners also opposed Nasheed's restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel, his attempts to transform the school curriculum which was narrowly focussed on Islamic principles, and his defence of a 'modern' Islam that is open to other faiths. They also wanted the government to stop Israeli flights and tourists from coming to Maldives.

The country plunged into a constitutional crisis when Nasheed ordered the arrest of the Chief Criminal Judge Abdulla Mohamed in a joint operation by the Police and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) on January 16. The judge had ordered the release of a government critic and opposition leader Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, who, according to him, was illegally detained. The arrested person had allegedly defamed the government during a television interview in which he accused Nasheed's government of working against the state religion, Islam, with the support of Christians and Jews.

There is no doubt that the judiciary in Maldives is in a mess. A large number of unqualified and incompetent people have come into the judiciary towards the end of Gayoom’s dictatorship. However, the public in general disapproved of the arrest of Judge Abdullah. The Supreme Court of Maldives passed an order for his immediate release, but it was ignored by the Nasheed government. This alienated some conscientious lawyers and led to the resignation of SAARC's first woman Secretary General, Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed. She joined the protestors along with her husband.

It also created confusion in the country and rumours started circulating that Nasheed wanted to fill the judiciary with his men. 

Nasheed is an honest man but unfortunately he is not an astute politician. Due to the mishandling of the situation a political stand-off with religious overtones was transformed into an impasse between his government and the judiciary, which prompted many of his supporters to desert him. Nasheed’s mishandling of the situation precipitated the crisis resulting in his ouster.

In recent times India has invested a great deal of political and economic capital in the Maldives. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Maldives for the SAARC summit, he also visited Male and signed a framework agreement with the Maldivian government. 

This includes joint efforts against piracy and joint patrolling of seas and aerial surveillance. The Indian Navy helps the MNDF in preventing piracy. And the Indian private sector GMR group is building a new airport in Male.

For India, political uncertainty in Maldives is a cause for concern. 

Maldives is strategically located and sits astride important sea lanes of communication. Several external powers including China and Pakistan are looking to gain footholds in the country. They might use the prevailing political uncertainty to their advantage. It is in India’s interest that Maldives is able to tide over the present political crisis successfully and multi-party democracy survives in the country.