LETTER TO THE EDITOR: British High Commissioner's interference in Indian politics

Monday, October 22, 2012

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

British High Commissioner's interference in Indian politics

It is with great sense of outrage that Indian TV audiences viewed British High Commissioner to India, in his press conference, declaring with a straight face, that Britain is not endorsing or rehabilitating Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the fact that it is now initiating a re-engaging of Gujarat by calling on the Chief Minister, who is widely believed to be the mastermind behind the genocidal communal riots of 2002 in the State of Gujarat.

Nine out of ten questions from the press were addressed to the High Commissioner, to find out what made the sudden decision to make a call on Modi in the wake of the coming State Assembly elections.

Does this not amount to a gross political interference in the democratic processes of sovereign state of Indian Republic?

The High Commissioner was however; very truthful and persistent that any such move is to serve the best interest of his country.

However, how does UK's best interest coincide with Indian Government's own best interest in letting a foreign ambassador make such a drastic move that for all practical purposes, will amount to an international conspiracy for regime change in India.

It is true, that if it is in the best interest of UK, it can haul African leaders to International Court of Justice for any similar wholesale slaughter of people in their respective countries. How does the crimes committed in Gujarat by state authorities through either acts of commission or omission of its duties towards its citizens, do not appear to UK, the paragon of worldwide standard bearer of Human Rights, to be a fit case for international persecution of the criminals?

Instead of issuing an international warrant against the criminals to be hauled in British courts, especially when 3 British Muslims were killed in those riots, UK's conservative government of David Cameron deems it fit to ignore crimes committed against Muslims everywhere in the world and stick to its new interpretation of the best interest of Great Britain.

After all what can be expected from those themselves alleged to have committed war crimes in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a great dereliction of duty by the UPA coalition government of Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Gandhi, to have allowed the old colonials to come back and meddle in our internal affairs, so directly, so blatantly, so audaciously.

Imagine, a similar indiscretion by a US Ambassador visiting say West Bengal, would have unleashed a storm of protests all over the country. Why David Cameron's UK government is being treated by Sonia and Manmohan Singh with kid gloves.

Indian Government must lodge a strong protest with the UK government, fully adhering to the sentiments of its own people, requiring UK to stop all such interference in the internal affairs of Indian Republic.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

Kissinger, US intelligence community endorse “World Without Israel” - By Kevin Barrett - PRESS TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/30/264323/kissinger-intel-community-accept-israels-end/

Kissinger, US intelligence community endorse “World Without Israel”

Angry Palestinians in Hebron (File Photo)

Sun Sep 30, 2012 5:51PM GMT

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By Kevin Barrett

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been vilified in the Western media for daring to imagine “a world without Israel.”

But according to news reports, Henry Kissinger and sixteen American intelligence agencies agree that in the near future, Israel will no longer exist.

The New York Post quotes Kissinger “word for word”: In 10 years, there will be no more Israel.

Kissinger's statement is flat and unqualified. He is not saying that Israel is in danger, but could be saved if we just gave it additional trillions of dollars and smashed enough of its enemies with our military. He is not saying that if we elect Netanyahu's old friend Mitt Romney, Israel could somehow be salvaged. He is not saying that if we bomb Iran, Israel might survive. He is not offering a way out. He is simply stating a fact: In 2022, Israel will no longer exist.

The US Intelligence Community agrees, though perhaps not on the precise 2022 expiration date. Sixteen US intelligence agencies with a combined budget over USD70 billion have issued an 82-page analysis titled “ Preparing for a Post-Israel Middle East.”

The US intelligence report observes that the 700,000 Israeli settlers illegally squatting on land stolen in 1967 - land that the entire world agrees belongs to Palestine, not Israel - are not going to pack up and leave peacefully. Since the world will never accept their ongoing presence on stolen land, Israel is like South Africa in the late 1980s.

The extremist Likud coalition governing Israel, according to the US intelligence report, is increasingly condoning and supporting rampant violence and lawlessness by illegal settlers. The report states that the brutality and criminality of the settlers, and the growing apartheid-style infrastructure including the apartheid wall and the ever-more-draconian system of checkpoints, are indefensible, unsustainable, and out of synch with American values.

The sixteen US intelligence agencies agree that Israel cannot withstand the coming pro-Palestinian juggernaut consisting of the Arab Spring, the Islamic Awakening, and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the past, dictatorships in the region kept a lid on the pro-Palestinian aspirations of their people. But those dictatorships began to topple with the fall of the pro-Israel Shah of Iran in 1979 and the establishment of a democratic Islamic Republic, whose government had little choice but to reflect its people's opposition to Israel. The same process - the overthrow of dictators who worked with, or at least tolerated, Israel - is now accelerating throughout the region. The result will be governments that are more democratic, more Islamic, and far less friendly to Israel.

The US intelligence community report says that in light of these realities, the US government simply no longer has the military and financial resources to continue propping up Israel against the wishes of more than a billion of its neighbors. In order to normalize relations with 57 Islamic countries, the report suggests, the US will have to follow its own national interests and pull the plug on Israel.

Interestingly, neither Henry Kissinger nor the authors of the US Intelligence Report give any sign that they are going to mourn the demise of Israel. This is remarkable, given that Kissinger is Jewish and has always been viewed as a friend (if occasionally a tough friend) of Israel, and that all Americans, including those who work for intelligence agencies, have been influenced by the strongly pro-Israel media.

What explains such complacency?

Americans who pay attention to international affairs - a category that surely includes Kissinger and the authors of the Intelligence Report - are growing fed up with Israeli intransigence and fanaticism. Netanyahu's bizarre, widely-ridiculed performance at the United Nations, where he brandished a cartoonish caricature of a bomb in such a way that he himself came across as a caricature of a “mad Zionist,” was the latest in a series of gaffes by Israeli leaders who seem prone to overplaying their hand.

A second factor is the festering resentment many Americans feel over the Israel Lobby's imperious domination of public discourse. Every time a well-known American journalist is fired for going “off-script” about Israel, as happened to Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez, a mostly-invisible backlash, like a tidal wave rippling beneath the surface of the ocean, grows in power. And every time the Israel lobby slaps down someone like Maureen Dowd, who recently observed that the same Israel-fanatics who dragged the US into the Iraq war are now trying to do the same thing with Iran, the more people begin to wake up and realize that people like Dowd, Thomas, and Sanchez are speaking the truth.

A third reason for complacency in the face of Israel's impending demise: The American Jewish community is no longer united in support of Israel, much less its Likudnik leadership. Sophisticated Jewish journalists and analysts like Philip Weiss are recognizing the insanity of Israel's current leadership and the hopelessness of its predicament. According to recent reports, it is no longer fashionable among young American Jews to care about Israel. And despite Netanyahu's frantic attempts to sway Jewish voters toward the Mormon Likudnik Mitt Romney, polls show that Obama, who is on record saying he “hates” the “liar” Netanyahu, will easily win the majority of Jewish votes.

Finally, we come to the least obvious - but most powerful - reason for Kissinger's and the CIA's complacency in the face of Israel's implosion: The inexorable trickle-down of knowledge that Israel and its supporters, not radical Muslims, carried out the 9/11 false-flag attacks.

Increasingly, it is not fringe anti-Semitic groups, but high-level responsible observers, who are saying this. Alan Sabrosky, the half-Jewish former Director of Strategic Studies at the US Army War College, has come on my radio show to say that he has discussed with his colleagues the “100% certainty” that Israel and its supporters did 9/11. And Alan Hart, the former lead BBC correspondent for the Middle East (and personal friend of Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat) has also come on my radio show to break the story that he, too, knows that Israel and company orchestrated 9/11.

Today, we even have a presidential candidate, Merlin Miller, who is on the record stating that Israel, not al-Qaeda, carried out the 9/11 attacks.

The chief purpose of 9/11 was to “seal in blood” an intense, unbreakable emotional bond between the US and Israel, in a desperate bid to assure Israel's survival by launching a long-term US war against Israel's enemies. As the “dancing Israelis” arrested for celebrating the 9/11 operation tried to convince the police: “Our enemies are your enemies. The Palestinians are your enemies.”

But more and more Americans, including the US intelligence community as a whole, now recognize that the enemies of Israel (the entire Muslim world of over 1.5 billion people, along with most of the non-European world) do not have to be the enemies of the United States. In fact, the US is going broke and sacrificing thousands of lives in wars for Israel - wars that damage, rather than aid, US strategic interests. (One of those interests, of course, is buying oil and gas from stable, cooperative governments.)

As the recognition grows that 9/11 was not a radical Islamic attack, but an act of dastardly, bloody treason by supporters of Israel, it will become ever-easier for American policy makers, following in the footsteps of Kissinger and the sixteen intelligence agencies, to recognize the obvious: Israel has reached the end of its shelf-life.

KB/HGH

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is www.truthjihad.com. More Press TV articles by Dr. Kevin Barrett

New Kid on the block - THE 'K' FACTOR - By Arati R Jerath - TOI - Crest Edition, Mumbai, India

http://www.timescrest.com/coverstory/the-k-factor-9000 The Times of India Crest Edition

 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

>  Cover Story

New kid on the block

The 'K' factor

Arati R Jerath | October 13, 2012

Rookie politician Arvind Kejriwal did the unthinkable last week. He pointed an accusing finger at Gandhi family son-in-law Robert Vadra for amassing huge wealth in a short span of time through questionable deals with real estate giant DLF. As all hell broke loose, both the Congress and the BJP were left shell shocked. They were stunned, not so much by the revelations about Vadra (which have been a hot topic of political gossip for over a year now), but by Kejriwal's audacity. For, the new kid on the block had just broken the Omerta code of Indian politics: never rake muck about family members of top leaders in public. Kejriwal was unapologetic about crossing the Rubicon, the line observed by most mainstream parties, and dragging the country's first son-in-law into his line of fire. "Some people in this country are holy cows. People are scared to speak up about them, " he told Times Now. "We want to expose these holy cows so that people have the courage to talk about them. " But the political class was not amused. "There are some unwritten rules of our politics, " a senior BJP leader told TOI-Crest. (He did not want to be identified. ) "We never spare our opponents but we make it a point not to make an issue of their personal life unless there is open abuse of power. We help even opposition leaders with medical treatment, with school and college admissions. I don't want to take names but there are innumerable examples of such give and take in our politics. "

There was always something daringly different about Kejriwal. When he was outside the tent, pissing on the system through a unique social media inspired anti-corruption movement with gummy old Gandhian Anna Hazare as a mascot, he was reviled as an anarchist and anti-democratic. Now that he's inside the tent, having announced his intention to form a political party, he's still pissing on the system with wanton disregard for conventional terms of engagement. If the political establishment thought it could tame him by daring him to join electoral politics, it had clearly read him wrong. Kejriwal is the ultimate maverick, determined to break several eggs and shake things up.

Is he then the game-changer India's moribund politics has been waiting for, the piped piper who will lead the rats to their destruction with sniper shot exposes of corruption? Or is he just a flash in the pan, a rootless wonder without a base, an organization or staying power? These and other questions will be answered in the months ahead as Kejriwal kicks off his new party and challenges the established political order. But there is no denying that he already has the Congress and the BJP running for cover, the Congress because of corruption charges that lead to the very top and the BJP because it has come out looking weak, ineffectual and thoroughly compromised in the war on corruption.

It is ironic that Kejriwal's Vadra salvo should have hit both national parties equally hard, albeit in different ways. The Congress is extremely rattled, as is evident from its flip-flop defensive strategies, first sending out top ministers to defend Vadra and then withdrawing them when there was a backlash. This seemed to be Bofors Mark 2 without Rajiv Gandhi's huge majority in Parliament to buffer them.

But the BJP too is shaken. "Yes, Kejriwal has stolen our thunder. And rightly so, " admitted a party leader and strategist. Last year, the BJP had in its possession the same documents Kejriwal waved at his press conference but after an intense discussion, the leadership decided not to rake up the issue in Parliament even after submitting a motion in each House asking for a discussion. In an oblique reference to the Omerta code of silence, Sushma Swaraj is supposed to have insisted that children not be dragged into political controversy while Rajnath Singh apparently said that most political leader's offspring are involved in real estate deals.

In hindsight, as Kejriwal hogs the limelight and tickles a middle class appetite for exposes on corruption in high places, the BJP realizes that it missed an opportunity to regain a constituency it had lost to the Congress in the 2009 election. Instead of the main opposition party, the face of a yet-to-be-born party is grabbing eyeballs in urban India.

Kejriwal has two things going for him: his knack of picking up issues that resonate with middle India which is the core voter base of both national parties;and his bid to take political protest back to the streets in novel ways. The BJP opted to stall Parliament over Coalgate and battled the Congress on familiar turf. Kejriwal jumped on the graft charges against law minister Salman Khurshid and threatened to gherao Sonia Gandhi's residence till he resigns.

Or look at the way he stole the bijli agitation from under the BJP's nose. Invited to join the BJP protest against the recent electricity tariff hike in Delhi, Kejriwal took the mike and lashed out at the party for colluding with the Congress government in the capital city. BJP leader Vijay Goel, who was standing helplessly next to him, was virtually in tears. He complained later that Kejriwal was "weakening" the fight against the Congress. While Goel did the usual dharna, Kejriwal turned up at the house of labourer whose electricity meter had been disconnected due to non-payment of an inflated bill and with much fanfare, first tore up his bill and then reconnected the meter. It was a great photo op and has since become a talking point in the city.

Those who have known Kejriwal from his early years as an activist say he is terrifyingly ambitious and hugely publicity-hungry. He always wants to be in the spotlight. There is no question that Kejriwal's recent stunts have been geared to snatching as much television time as possible. But then a fledgling politician fighting big guns like the Congress and the BJP probably has to be over-the-top to be noticed. In a communications era, the name of the game is publicity.

This is just the beginning. Kejriwal has consistently maintained that his entry into politics is not about winning or losing elections. It's about changing the way politics functions in the country so that it becomes people-centric and participatory instead of top down. He has his task cut out for him. To sustain his campaign till the elections roll around, when the Kejriwal effect will be put to test, he will have to ensure that he is always one step ahead of the Congress and the BJP, that he maintains a constant flow of novel ideas and that he doesn't slip as he climbs higher. It's a gamble. If Kejriwal has the stomach and stamina, political engagement could be a whole new ball game in the future, without any holy cows and codes of silence.

When ISI became a ‘front for SIMI’ - By Muzamil Jaleel | Past the Muslim monolith - By Christophe Jaffrelot - THE INDIAN EXPRESS

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/when-isi-became-a--front-for-simi-/1010126/01

When ISI became a ‘front for SIMI’

Muzamil Jaleel : New Delhi, Mon Oct 01 2012,

Maulana Naseeruddin

In the circles of police’s “SIMI investigations”, the name Maulana Naseeruddin comes up often. Sometimes he has been charged, sometimes his sons, sometimes his acquaintances. In one such case against an “associate” of his son, the Hyderabad police filed an affidavit before the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal calling Pakistan’s ISI a front of SIMI.

Asked by the tribunal to explain his claim, P Devender, then inspector in Saidabad police station, reiterated that “it is correct that in my affidavit when I referred to Inter Service Intelligence, I am referring to Inter Service Intelligence of Pakistan” and that the nodal officer of Andhra Pradesh will be “filing a secret note on the basis of which this statement has been made”.

Moutasim Billa[h]

DEVENDER’S affidavit, filed on June 11, 2010, was part of the government’s evidence to justify the continuance of the ban on SIMI. To substantiate his claim that SIMI was “functioning under various fronts like the ISI”, Devender cited a case registered in March 2008 at the Saidabad police station when he was an inspector there.

It concerned Moutasim Billa, 22, of Jevan Yar Jung Colony, Saidabad, who had been arrested on March 5, 2008, from near his residence. Devender claimed that Billa was arrested because he had been booked in an FIR (198/2007) at the Gopalapurram police station.

Devender also called him a close associate of “the son of Maulana Naseeruddin”, who is a “SIMI activist”. Naseeruddin and Billa’s father, Mohammad Aleem Islahi, are well-known clerics in Saidabad and their families used to be close then. Along with Naseeruddin’s, Islahi’s is the other address frequently at the centre of any terror investigation in Hyderabad.

At the time of Billa’s arrest, the Hyderabad police had claimed that it was in connection with two “rioting” cases registered against him, in 2004 (an incident involving the death of his brother) and in 2007 (for terror conspiracy and sedition, registered at the Gopalapurram police station). Hyderabad police had booked 21 Muslim youths including Billa for a terror conspiracy and subsequently linked them to the Mecca Masjid blasts. Billa and the other accused were acquitted on December 31, 2008. The Mecca Masjid blast case finally took a new turn after Swami Aseemanand’s confession in December 2010, which implied that these Muslim men had all been wrongly blamed. Eighty-two Muslim men had been picked up, interrogated or booked and all were subsequently acquitted.

In May this year, Billa was again named, this time in four cases of rioting and disturbance of peace, and shown as an “absconding accused”. “These recent cases were registered one after another in a single day,” said Billa, who recently earned a B Tech degree. “They have shown me as absconding, which means, ‘You can go on with your life till we want to take you away again’.”

Maulana Naseeruddin

THE 2004 rioting case against Billa, in fact, provides the context to this entire story. That October 31, Naseeruddin had gone to the DGP’s office along with his lawyer and a few other people to sign his weekly attendance, necessary because of an earlier case of communal violence. “Two months earlier, I had been arrested after police claimed I was going to plant bombs in a Ganesh temple. This absurd allegation came as a shock; I fell ill and was shifted to hospital. Our lawyer friends secured bail; this weekly attendance was a condition,” Naseeruddin said.

“That day, I reached the office late. My son-in-law Khalid, who is a lawyer, and a few others accompanied me. The CID officer who would take my signature asked me to wait, saying a senior officer wanted to talk to me.” Naseeruddin said he was taken to the IG, who told him a warrant for his arrest had come from Gujarat. A contingent of Guajarat Police led by then ACP Narendera Amin (now in jail over the murder of Sohrabuddin and Kousar Bi in a fake encounter) were waiting for Naseeruddin, “accused of a role in (former Gujarat minister) Haren Pandya’s murder”.

“People from our neighbourhood collected outside the gate,” Naseeruddin said. “They didn’t allow the Gujarat police vehicle to leave and there was a scuffle. Narendra Amin opened fire.” Mujahid Saleem, 26, Billa’s elder brother, was killed, protests followed, and the Andhra government promised a magisterial inquiry besides filing a case against Gujarat police. Police registered a case of rioting against Billa, too.

The maulana was taken to Gujarat and was initially arrested on charges of instigating Pandya’s killers, and subsequently booked in the Ahmedabad conspiracy case — an alleged conspiracy to avenge the Gujarat riots. On January 12, 2010, a designated POTA court acquitted the maulana along with others and he was released.

THE MAULANA’S SONS

“A lot had happened during those five years. My three sons had all been arrested,” Naseeruddin said. He said the two elder sons were framed but added that the youngest, without the family’s knowledge, had gone to Pakistan for arms training.

“When the Gujarat police shot Mujahid Saleem, my youngest son Raziyuddin Nasir was there. He saw Saleem die. This affected him deeply. When I was in jail in Gujarat, my wife told me he had to be taken to a psychiatrist,” Naseeruddin said. “After some time, he went for Umrah (pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia). He went missing for one-and-a-half years. 

During that time, he had gone to Pakistan for arms training. We had no clue,” he said. “We heard about him only when the Bangalore police arrested him (in 2008).”

He said his two elder sons, Maqeemuddin Yasir and Baleeguddin Jabir, were framed. “Yasir has three children and was the manager of our workshop while Jabir was a third year student at Deccan Engineering College. The police accused them of being involved in the Mecca Masjid and other blasts and arrested them, a year after the blasts,” he said. 

“They couldn’t show even a bit of evidence but didn’t release them. They were shifted to Madhya Pradesh where their names had been included in a SIMI case in Dhar. They had never been to Dhar.”

He said for the next few years, their case didn’t move. “The case was shifted to Indore where the trial concluded earlier this month; both were acquitted... This country is our home too. Why is there no justice for us?”

THE YOUNGEST SON

ON JANUARY 30, 2008, according to Satyapaa Sambha Khote, then DSP, Special Enquiry Squad, Bangalore, a youth named Mohd Asif was stopped by an inspector of Gokul Road police station, Hubli, for speeding with his motorcycle. “It was found that he did not have documents of the motorcycle. Hence the PI (inspector) seized the vehicle and filed a case,” Khote said.

Investigations allegedly revealed Asif’s “involvement” with SIMI. The police made 18 more people accused on March 20, 2008, including Raziyuddin Nasir. In the affidavit, Khote claimed that Asif, a medical student at Hubli, and two other accused had met in “Castle Rock, Haliyal Road farmhouse, and Soudatti Road Darga” in the last week of April 2008, “aimed inter-alia at Islamisation of the world by means of Jihad”. According to Khote, the three held another “conspiracy meeting” at Castle Rock in November 2007 where they decided to “damage the sovereignty of the government of India and to ignite anti-national sentiments... ultimately changing the elected sovereign government and establishing Islamic government”.

Khote went on to give a long list of their “targets” — Kaiga nuclear plant, Infosys in Bangalore, Dell, IBM etc. For this mammoth task, they were apparently armed with four country-made revolvers — three of these rusted and defunct — and homemade grenades with gelatin sticks.

Khote produced a “confessional statement” by Nasir to Karnataka police, admitting he had gone to Pakistan for arms training. In the statement, Nasir says he was disillusioned after his father’s arrest and the death of “our family friend” Mujahid Saleem during the protest. Nasir was later booked in the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts case and is currently in Sabarmati jail in Gujarat.

THE WOMEN

In his affidavit filed on June 11, 2010, inspector Devender said that after Billa’s arrest on March 5, 2008, the women of Billa’s family — whom Devender calls “SIMI support militant ladies” — led by Billa’s sister Huma Islahi and Maulana Naseeruddin’s wife Tasneem Fatima had “attacked” the police station. Thirty women and children were rounded up in March 2008, including one with her seven-year-old daughter. Seven of them were students, 15 aged 19. Nine of the women were sent by the court for age determination tests to check if they were minors.

While most of the women were from Billa’s family or his neighbours and there was nothing to link them to SIMI, the affidavit called it a “rare case in entire India where SIMI militant activists organised their lady activists and... assaulted police”. Devender admitted that investigation records do not show these women as SIMI members. “This is as per my knowledge while working in the department and as per intelligence sources,” he said.

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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/past-the-muslim-monolith/1010091/0

Past the Muslim monolith

What, exactly, unites Indian Muslims and what divides them?


Christophe Jaffrelot : Mon Oct 01 2012, 23:55 hrs


What, exactly, unites Indian Muslims and what divides them?

The Sachar Commission Report compared the situation of Muslims of India at the state level, but the next step is to disaggregate a community that has often been considered a homogenous whole. In the volume Muslims in Indian Cities, which I co-edited with Laurent Gayer, we offer a dozen local case studies. We analyse the socio-economic condition of the Muslims in 11 cities and examine how their neighbourhoods are structured — and how they relate to the rest of Ahmedabad, Aligarh, Bangalore, Bhopal, Calicut, Cuttack, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Mumbai.

National statistics show that Muslims are over-represented in towns and cities: 35.7 per cent of them lived in urban areas, while the urbanisation rate was only 28 per cent on average in 2001, according to the census. This harks back to the Muslim origin of many Indian cities — as their very names suggest, Ahmedabad, Ahmednagar, Aligarh, Allahabad, Aurangabad, Hyderabad, etc. But statistics also say that Muslims are over-represented among the poor: 37 per cent of the urban Muslims live below the poverty line, against 27 per cent of the rural Muslims — against, respectively, 22 and 28 per cent of Hindus. Why? Because, according to the Sachar Committee report, 8 per cent of urban Muslims are part of the formal sector whereas the national average is 21 per cent for Indian city and town dwellers.

These aggregates conceal a wide range of trajectories. In the cities that were capitals of princely states, like Bhopal and Hyderabad, decline started at the time of Partition and even more after the merger with the Indian Union, which deprived the local Muslim minorities of their old privileges. In eastern and southern cities where communalism has been less pronounced, socio-economic standards remained better (partly because of the Gulf connection, sometimes) and urban patterns were overdetermined more by class and caste than by religion.

The nostalgia for the composite culture of the Indian city, expressed with formulas such as mili juli, mushtarka, ganga-jamna tahzib, etc, is often misplaced because Indian cities have always been structured along ethnic lines. However, it still makes sense because many old/walled cities were like mosaics with a lane dominated by a single caste or community was adjacent to those dominated by others.

This pattern is eroding for two reasons. First, religious groups tend to promote homogeneity and, therefore, (self-)segregation. Which means that members of a given community prefer to live with each other and exclude the Other from their neighbourhood. They do not want to be minorities in localities and be exposed to the influence of another religion or have their children exposed to this influence. Nor do they wish to have members of the other community in their midst, so that their lifestyle, food habits, etc, are not affected by the others.

Second, in western and northern India, communal violence, unprecedented between the late 1980s and 2002, has led Muslims to leave the pockets where they were living next to the Other, and seek safe havens. This process has sometimes taken the form of ghettoisation. In our book, we use the word ghetto — that has acquired a loose meaning in common parlance — in a very specific manner to designate a place (1) where members of a community gather together irrespective of their class, for safety, (2) where the state has withdrawn and (3) which is badly connected to the rest of the city. Juhapura, at the periphery of Ahmedabad, is a case in point, with its 4 lakh-plus inhabitants. After the 2002 pogrom which affected Muslim pockets (including middle class ones, see Gulberg Society), rich Muslims moved in there as well. This has been something of a blessing in disguise for the locals since the newcomers have started to develop the place, including in terms of education, which rich and poor long for.

Other Muslim slums have not benefited from this inflow. In Aligarh, the class and caste divide between Sir Syed Nagar and Shah Mahal forms an invisible wall. In fact, the Muslim community, when it does not have to cope with an existential threat, is no less divided than any other. In most of the cities under review, caste and class over-determine the range of social networks. And sometimes, sectarian affiliations make things even more complicated. Bhoras and Khojas in the West and Shias and Sunnis in Lucknow will not relate to each others as co-religionists, far from it.

Politicians sometimes form a class of exploiters in themselves. In many of the cities under review, Muslims dominated assembly constituencies, making them safe seats for Muslims candidates. Few of them — mostly nominated by the Congress — have addressed problems of development, including education, during the election campaigns. They preferred to surf on identity issues, like the management of the Waqf properties. These problems are less difficult to solve, and so long as the local Muslims are in a precarious socio-economic situation, they are bound to need “saviours” and form votebanks.

This state of affairs, along with the fact that they have not found many jobs in the PSUs and the administration, partly explains why many middle-class Muslims members told us that they expected some improvement of their situation from the withdrawal of the state. 

Whether they will benefit from a more market-oriented economy remains to be seen.


Jaffrelot, co-editor of ‘Muslims in Indian Cities’, is a senior research fellow at CERI, Sciences Po, Paris and professor of Indian politics and society at the King’s India Institute, London

express@expressindia.com

Waiting for an Arab Spring of Ideas - By TARIQ RAMADAN - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/opinion/waiting-for-an-arab-spring-of-ideas.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&_r=0&pagewanted=all

Op-Ed Contributor

Waiting for an Arab Spring of Ideas

By TARIQ RAMADAN

Published: September 30, 2012

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DURING a recent visit to the United States, I was asked by intellectuals and journalists: Were we misled, during the Arab awakening, into thinking that Muslims could actually embrace democratic ideals?

The short answer is no. Participants in the recent violent demonstrations over an Islamophobic video were a tiny minority. Their violence was unacceptable. They do not represent the millions of Muslims who have taken to the streets since 2010 in a disciplined, nonviolent manner to bring down dictatorships.

Many Americans were nonetheless shocked by the chaos and bloodshed across Muslim countries, believing that they had come generously to the aid of the Arab peoples during the uprisings. But Arabs, and Muslims in general, have a longer memory and a broader view. Their mistrust is fueled by America’s decades-long support for dictators who accommodated its economic and security interests; by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; by the humiliating treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay; and by America’s seemingly permanent and unconditional support for Israel.

The United States and its European allies would be well advised to examine why Muslims are seething. Withdrawing from Afghanistan, respecting United Nations resolutions and treaty obligations with regard to Palestine, calling back the killer drones and winding up the “war on terror” would be excellent places to start.

However, the time has come to stop blaming the West for the colonialism and imperialism of the past. Muslim-majority societies must jettison their historic posture as victims and accept that they are empowered actors, as millions of Arabs demonstrated last year by coming out into the streets and changing the course of history.

The timeworn dichotomy of “Islam versus the West” is giving way to an era of multipolar relations. The world’s economic center of gravity is shifting eastward. But the growing prominence of China, India and Russia, and of emerging powers like Brazil, South Africa and Turkey, does not automatically guarantee more justice and more democracy. Some Muslims are too quick to rejoice at the decline of American power. They seem unaware that what might replace it could well lead to a regression in social and human rights and to new forms of international dependency.

The Arab peoples, like those throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia, cannot, and do not want to, disregard the cultural and religious traditions that have long defined and nurtured them. As they pursue values like freedom, justice, equality, autonomy and pluralism, and new models of democracy and of international relations, they need to draw on Islamic traditions. Islam can be a fertile ground for political creativity — and not an obstacle to progress, as Orientalist thinkers in the West have so often claimed.

The Arab world, and Muslim-majority societies, need not only political uprisings, but also a thoroughgoing intellectual revolution from within that will open the door to economic change; to spiritual, religious, cultural and artistic liberation; and to the empowerment of women. The task is not an easy one.

A struggle for political and religious authority is taking place in these societies. There are deep divisions among Sunnis — traditionalists, secularists, reformers, Sufi mystics — and also between Sunnis and Shiites.

At the moment, Arab thought has been hindered by a barren ideological construct that pits secularists against Islamists, making it impossible for either to indulge in in-depth reflection about the intellectual limitations that afflict both of them.

Westernized secular elites, for all their talk of democracy and human rights, often are carrying over former colonial agendas and are deeply disconnected from the people they claim to represent. Or if they aren’t — like some grass-roots movements on the left — their influence is marginal at best. Some have collaborated with dictators, accepted cronyism or benefited from official corruption. Others have remained close to the inner circles of the military (as in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Iraq). By standing against any overlapping of religion and politics, they have put forward a vision of democratization that is incoherent and disconnected from Islamic memories and traditions.

The Islamists have legitimacy, having paid a heavy price in opposing dictatorships for decades. They have made electoral gains in Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia by adapting to the shifts in power brought about by the protesters and cyberactivists. Yet they are facing contradictory expectations: they must remain faithful to their Islamic credentials while facing foreign pressure with regard to democratic processes, economic policies and relations with Israel. No figure embodies these contradictions more than Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s new president, who tried last week to forcefully rebut President Obama’s absolute defense of free speech at the United Nations. But calling for limits on offensive speech is no solution. We don’t need more laws. We need courageous scholars and intellectuals who are willing to discuss topics their fellow Muslims don’t want to hear: their failings, their tendency to play the victim, the need to take responsibility for their actions. Only that sort of leadership will halt the tide of religious populism and emotionally driven blindness of the masses.

While the example of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., is interesting, it cannot be a reference for the entire Middle East. Turkey has a unique history; its challenges are not the same as those of the Arab world. The Arab Islamists, even as they celebrate their electoral successes, may well be entering a far more sensitive period of their history. They may lose the Islamic credibility they had as opposition forces, or be obliged to change and adapt so much that their political program is abandoned. Winning might be the beginning of losing.

Meanwhile, Salafi and Wahhabi groups with literalist interpretations of Islam have become more visible and politicized over the last five years. Having for decades refused political participation — equating democracy with kufr (rejection of Islam) — they are now slowly engaging in politics.

Some of these groups (known as salafi jihadists) have turned to violent radicalism. Others, financed by Islamic institutions in Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf oil monarchies like Qatar and Bahrain — supposed allies of the United States — have entered mainstream politics, where they promote a religious, anti-democratic populism that plays on emotions, demonizes the West (especially America) and actively undermines the struggle for democratic reform. There is a danger that the model of Afghanistan — where in the 1980s the Taliban, supported by the Saudi and American governments, became the main force of resistance to Russian domination — may be repeating itself.

There can be no true democracy in the Middle East without a profound restructuring of economic priorities, which in turn can come about only by combating corruption, limiting the prerogatives of the military, and, above all, reconsidering economic relations with other countries and the gross inequalities of wealth and income within Muslim countries. The emergence of a dynamic civil society is a precondition of success. Concern for free and critical thought must take the form of educational policies to build schools and universities, revise outdated curriculums and enable women to study, work and become financially independent.

The Arab world has shaken itself out of its lethargy after decades of apparent resignation and silence. But the uprisings do not yet amount to a revolution. The Arab world must confront its historical demons and tackle its infirmities and its contradictions: when it turns to the task, the awakening will truly have begun.

Tariq Ramadan, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, is the author, most recently, of “Islam and the Arab Awakening.”

Don’t give terror tag to innocent minority people: Supreme Court - By J. Venkatesan - THE HINDU ENGLISH DAILY, CHENNAI, INDIA

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dont-give-terror-tag-to-innocent-minority-people-supreme-court/article3939481.ece?homepage=true



New Delhi, September 27, 2012

Don’t give terror tag to innocent minority people: Supreme Court

J. Venkatesan

Share  ·   Comment (20)   ·   print   ·   T+

  

The Hindu Police must ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because “my name is Khan, but I am not a terrorist,” a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad said on Wednesday. 

Ensure that no innocent has the feeling of sufferance only because ‘my name is Khan, but I am not a terrorist,’ Bench tells Police

No innocent person should be branded a terrorist and put behind bars simply because he belongs to a minority community, the Supreme Court has told the Gujarat Police.

Police must ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because “my name is Khan, but I am not a terrorist,” a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad said on Wednesday.

It ordered the acquittal of 11 persons, arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and other laws, and convicted for allegedly planning to create communal violence during the Jagannath Puri Yatra in Ahmedabad in 1994.

“We emphasise and deem it necessary to repeat that the gravity of the evil to the community from terrorism can never furnish an adequate reason for invading personal liberty, except in accordance with the procedure established by the Constitution and the law,” the Bench said.

Being an anti-terrorist law, the TADA’s provisions could not be liberally construed, the Bench said. “The District Superintendent of Police and the Inspector-General and all others entrusted with operating the law must not do anything which allows its misuse and abuse and [must] ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because ‘My name is Khan, but I am not a terrorist’.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Prasad said: “We appreciate the anxiety of the police officers entrusted with preventing terrorism and the difficulty faced by them. Terrorism is a crime far serious in nature, graver in impact and highly dangerous in consequence. It can put the nation in shock, create fear and panic and disrupt communal peace and harmony. This task becomes more difficult when it is done by organised groups with outside support.”
 
‘Means more important’

But in the country of the Mahatma, the “means are more important than the end. Invoking the TADA without following the safeguards, resulting in acquittal, gives an opportunity to many and also to the enemies of the country to propagate that it has been misused and abused.”In this case, Ashraf Khan and 10 others, who were convicted under the TADA, the Arms Act and the IPC were aggrieved that no prior approval of the SP, as mandated under the provisions, was obtained before their arrest and recording of statements.
 
Appeal allowed

Allowing their appeals against a Gujarat TADA court order, the Bench said: “From a plain reading of the provision, it is evident that no information about the commission of an offence shall be recorded by the police without the prior approval of the District Superintendent of Police. An Act which is harsh, containing stringent provisions and prescribing a procedure substantially departing from the prevalent ordinary procedural law, cannot be construed liberally. For ensuring rule of law its strict adherence has to be ensured.”

The Bench said: “In view of our finding that their conviction is vitiated on account of non-compliance with the mandatory requirement of prior approval under Section 20-A(1) of the TADA, the confessions recorded cannot be looked into to establish the guilt under the aforesaid Acts. Hence, the conviction of the accused under Sections 7 and 25(1A) of the Arms Act and 4, 5 and 6 of the Explosive Substances Act cannot also be allowed to stand.”

Keywords: Supreme Court, Gujarat police, terror tag, innocent minority people, TADA Act, 1994 Jagannath Puri Yatra

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Comments posted on The Hindu website article: [supposedly under editorial moderation]

Though the Supreme Court has come out with clear reiteration of the most basic and fundamental point of justice in the current TADA cases, one hopes the details of the judgement, does take into account the long years of incarceration very typical of such police procedures. Justice delayed is justice denied. Supreme Court should have gone further with 2 more steps- One: compensation to the victims for years lost languishing in jail. TWO: Identifying and punishing those in the police force that have deliberately and maliciously used/abused TADA rule to give vent to their communal prejudices. Only a comprehensive and holistic judgment will be and should be treated as full restoration of people's rights and their dignity and not any piece-meal sops even though rightly heralded as a great service to the nation and its standards of justice.


Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
--------------

The Hindu Readers' Comments:

This judgement is fine act of balancing - Importance of the rule of the law. It just proves the point, that in the interest of the justice investigating and prosecuting agencies can not float the rule of the law. There are no exceptions. Not for TADA cases and not for any other case in general. If the confession is tainted it must be discarded. Howsoever difficult it may turn out it to be. It would do a tremendous amount of harm if the officers did not follow the procedure and a terrorist is let go on technical details.

from:  Krishna Dammanna

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 02:28 IST

Long live India.... Only on the basis of justice and equality, love and brotherhood

from:  Saeed Bhura

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 05:17 IST

The Supreme Court has echoed the secular credentials of our country. Mere suspicion should not be the ruse of the police to detain a person for alleged complicity in an act of terror. Also the defencers of law and order should have a time frame within which the alleged charges against the suspects are substantiated with clear evidence and eye witness. Endless detention does not serve the ends of justice. Irrespective of the community one belongs to law should be applied uniformly. At the same time it is essential that the majority of the minority community members join the main stream of life and do not isolate themselves in ghetto like habitats inviting suspicion. Literacy and availability of opportunities too would play a big part in the emancipation of the minorities and the majority community has to take the lead in making the conditions conducive for them to feel at ease.

from:  R.Vijaykumar

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 06:06 IST

BUt what about the rehabilitation of those who lost the most precious years of their life rotting in jails & then got acquitted becoz the charges framed by the Police against them couldn't stand strong in Supreme Court?In this case these 11 men lost 18 years of their life in the prison(total=198 yrs).(Last year also there was another young man in Delhi who was acquitted after being imprisoned for more than a 13 years on purely fabricated and unsustainable charges).The question is-what would they do after returning to their families?
Now the problem is these men aftr spending so many years in Jail aren't left with any skill to make a living, the result is a group of 11 men isolated from society for the rest of their life--disgruntled with their own country- can become potential easy targets of terror (hiring)cells.If there was any goverment funded institution that could impart any skill to these men, they(acquitted individuals)would be in condition good enough to move-on with life.

from:  M.Ateeque

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 07:35 IST

This is similar to what happened to Tamils in Sri Lanka

from:  Sharan Chennai

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 08:42 IST

Sir, It is true that no innocent minority communal person can be branded as a terrorist. Terrorists belongs to every community as they have a fanatical extremism by upholding their religion. But at the same time as of now most of terrorist activities happened all over the world is pointing towards muslim community only. Even US President Obama said muslims are mostly affected people of terrorism and remember he himself is a musalman. In this particular case of Jagannath Puri Yatra in Ahmedabad in 1994 - it was Congress govt. ruling at that time namely Chhabildas Mehta 17 February 1994 14 March 1995 1 Indian National Congress has used TADA against those minority people. Hence, it clearly portrayed how pseudo secular mindset that INC is in possession. Finally my request to the minority people is beware of pseudo secular nature of congress rather than others

from:  N. Swaminathan

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 09:03 IST

A loudabble directive. It needs no emphasis that no innocent person in general, should be branded as terrorist without due process/ procedure established by the laws of the land.

from:  kartik

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 10:10 IST

An innocent person being given a criminal tag, be it a terrorist or petty thief, is against the fundamental principles of Indian judiciary. The misuse of laws by law-enforcing agencies are not confined to any minority group. If reports of Human Rights organisations are tobe believed, hundreds of innocent people, irrespective of their religion or class, are booked under false or fabricated cases, including sedition charges, and lodged in prisons across the country. If registration of a case or arrest of the accused is a prerogative of the investigation officer, then he/she must be held responsible for the decision if the suspect is found "not guilty" at a later stage. After all, loopholes in law not only help in arresting but also in getting an acquittal. If doctors can be held responsible for a wrong treatment, why not the police for a wrong decision. The police should not be allowed to implicate an innocent man and finally get away with it. A criminal case is a permanent scar...

from:  Vijay Kumar S

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 10:56 IST

It is great lessons given to authority that 'No innocent person should be branded a terrorist and put behind bars simply because he belongs to a minority community.
The authority should judge by themselves and not on the pressure from the crook politicians for their survival. It is damaging the society and integrity and growth of Great India.

Muslim do showing our sincerity for growth of Great India.

from:  HajaMohideen

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 11:12 IST

Muslim leaders should also condemn acts of terrorism.Such a condemnation inspires and convinces the average citizen of the innocense of the majority of the minority community.

from:  nanduri somaya

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 11:33 IST

Our judiciary system is the only hope and guardian of our country. Let there be mass campaign to make this august body to be more independent from all political influence.

from:  Khaleelullah

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 12:31 IST

Against the backdrop of today's rock-bottom ground reality, the Supreme Court's reminder on individual rights that cannot be violated even in terror-related cases comes as a reminder more of the magnitude of the state's complicity in the detention and torture of innocents than of the magnanimous and just nature of our constitution and judiciary. Today, every reminder of what our constitution really stands for is actually a slap in the face of those who framed it in the first place: such is the extent to which it is violated and mocked upon now by the actions of its executives - and, of course, all in the name of national security. Constitution, or no constitution, this country is fast deteriorating into a Nation of Fear.

from:  Biju

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 12:32 IST

What about the life of these young men who lost there life?? Who will compensate?? And what about the officials who are behind this heinous crime of framing innocence?? Who will punish them??

from:  Suhail KK

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 12:40 IST

Highly appreciable decision of Supereme Court... which actually strengthens ones believe in the Judiciary System of India....India is Great...We live here UNITED with such a DIVERSITY which I dont know if there is any other country exists.... Everywhere the influence of the power exits and so as the control, but long live India which has always given the National Heros who stand against such corrupt political power and contribute in their territory and give India a recognition of a Perfect state. JAI HIND

from:  Syed Munawar

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 12:43 IST

Kudos to the supreme court decision.I request the government to make judgement as early as possible with these sensitive doubtful cases.They lost their life of 18 years span.i do completely with M.Ateeque views.The government should provide Compensation/jobs for those 11 innocent people.

from:  Balakrishna D

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 13:41 IST

Do not understand such judgements given by the courts and too after 18 long years!! The judges did not say anything about why they found them innocent instead dismissed the case based on technicalites.

If a case is dismissed based on technicalities, does the accused automatically become innocent. Think the courts should decide the case based on its nature and evidences provided rather than go on technicalities.

Instead the court should punish the law enforcers for break the rule of law and punish them as well. The same happened in CBI case against Mayawati.

from:  Vijay

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 14:37 IST

SC's decision is fine and will go a long way to protect the minority groups. But in states like Odisha, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, M.P. which have been declared as 'red corridor' the central & state govts are waging a war against the poorest of the poor Adivasi people where mere suspicion by local police has landed thousands in jail. Jharkhand alone has about 6000 innocent Adivasi under-trial prisoners. They are mostly young, all of them poor and even don't know why they have been arrested.
It will be up to human rights groups to come to their rescue using this verdict of the SC.
Stan Swamy
Ranchi, Jharkhand

from:  Stan Swamy

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 16:00 IST

great verdict ??? what about the lost years , the grief of their
families,the pain, the tears no one has the answer for that, the justice
is done when the people who arrested them, and the judge who punished
them all should serve 18 years in jail that is called justice

from:  suhail

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 17:41 IST

Neither terror tag nor a criminal tag should be given to innocent people, be they majority or minority. It is important for the government to define various type of serious crimes and police measures to deal with them so that law enforcement officials are not forced to choose Either or. Or.

from:  Som Karamchetty

Posted on: Sep 27, 2012 at 21:31 IST

By the same logic: Don't give communal tag to every majority
utterance/action.

from:  kvjayan

Posted on: Sep 28, 2012 at 11:54 IST

                                   

Your Name: Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai 
                                   
email: <ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com              

Make a comment

Though the Supreme Court has come out with clear reiteration of the most basic and fundamental point of justice in the current TADA cases, one hopes the details of the judgement, does take into account the long years of incarceration very typical of such police procedures. Justice delayed is justice denied. Supreme Court should have gone further with 2 more steps- One: compensation to the victims for years lost languishing in jail. TWO: Identifying and punishing those in the police force that have deliberately and maliciously used/abused TADA rule to give vent to their communal prejudices. Only a comprehensive and holistic judgment will be and should be treated as full restoration of people's rights and their dignity and not any piece-meal sops even though rightly heralded as a great service to the nation and its standards of justice.

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