Surya Namashkar 1-23-12

From Sectarian to Multi-Religious Congregations

Mirza A. Beg

January 18, 2012

Indian Muslim Observer Jan. 23, 2012

http://www.indianmuslimobserver.com/2012/01/opinion-from-sectarian-to-multi.html

The article “Surya Namaskar, Fatwa and Muslims “, by my friend Mike Ghause (printed below- http://www.indianmuslimobserver.com/2012/01/latest-editorial-surya-namaskar-and.html) brought to my attention a rather juvenile endeavor by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mr. Chauhan. He wants to congregate the largest assembly of worshipers, to garner a place in the Guinness book of world records, beating the record held by Kazakhstan. Mr. Chauhan has asked the schools to participate, perhaps because it is easy to assemble a large crowd by collecting obligated student.

Every one knows, certainly the Chief Minister of a state should know that a pluralistic society respects all religions equally. A call from the Chief Minister, the chief authority of the state with jurisdiction over the schools with multi-religious body of student is a form of coercion of students from other religions.

Apparently a respected Muslim Qadi (Legal Scholar) advised (Fatwa) that the bowing to any other entity except God is un-Islamic and the Muslim Students should abstain.

I substantially agree with Mike’s views in his article. I might add that the Indian democracy has come a long way, but has not matured enough. Often unnecessary small misunderstandings among different religious communities have been exploited by the sectarian interests to injure the cohesion of the communities. At times they deteriorate in riots and loss of innocent lives.

Press often unknowingly misconstrues the verbiage of religious leaders to mean what it does not. ‘Fatwa’ is one loaded word that evokes exaggerated sectarian passions. Unmitigated and ill-explained opinions even when right can sow unnecessary dissension.

As juvenile as the desire of the Chief Minister is to get into the Guinness book, it offers a teachable moment for our society particularly the youth. Some of the following is well known, but perhaps not fully understood in all its implications:

India is a Pluralistic Democratic Republic. It honors all creeds and their right to worship or not to worship. The government should not promote, impose or suppress any set of beliefs. Such a society works better when we as individuals also honor and respect the belief of others and try to understand them. And when religious scholars or jurists give their opinions on social issues they should be extremely careful in the nuances of their verbiage.

From my childhood my friends and I have worshiped in our own ways, but that did not stop us in participation in the religious festivals of others. It was that much more fun, it created deeper understanding of others and closer friendships.

I do not have Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Christian, Jewish, or friends with other prefixes, but have friends whom I value for who they are and for our unselfish bonds. They also happen to belong to many other religions and beliefs.

If he does hanker for a place in the Guinness book of world records, it would be a lot better if the Chief Minister Chauhan invites people of all religions to come together and offer prayers in their own traditions at the same place and the same time for the betterment and amity in the country and perhaps the world as Mike has suggested. What a grand spectacle and occasion of amity it would be. Guinness may even have to open another category for the Multi-religious congregation of worship.

Mirza A. Beg may be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com, His essays are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

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LATEST EDITORIAL: Surya Namaskar and Muslim response

by IMO admin | January 20‚ 2012 at 2:55 PM 0 comments

Columnist Communalism Editorial Featured Interfaith Relations Issues Latest News Mike Ghouse Photo Gallery

By Mike Ghouse

The Surya Namaskar is a Hindu religious tradition, a beautiful act of bowing to the Sun and welcoming the first rays of dawn as an expression of gratitude to the energy it breathes in to life and everything about life.

India is a pluralistic society, where we have come to respect every which way one worships one, none or many representations of God. Even among Hinduism we have an amazing diversity of people who express their gratitude from no to an iconic to an abstract manifestation of that elusive creator.

The Chief Minister of the State of Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan called on the schools and the public to join him in the Surya Namaskar to beat the Guinness world record set by the Kazakhs who currently hold the world record in mass prayers. The intent of performing this act with a million people was not for spiritual need, but to get on the Guinness Book of World Records; a crazy passion of Indians.

At least Shivraj Singh Chouhan did better than Rick Perry, the governor of Texas who invited the evangelist exclusively to pray for the nation’s well being in a certain way to exclude all other Americans including Christians of different denominations. Indeed he duped the evangelicals in buying their support for his bid to the Presidency.

The Times of India reported that the city’s Chief Muslim cleric Qazi Abul Kalam Qasmi said, "Parents should take a call on sending kids to school, if there is apprehension that the child may be forced." The newly appointed Qazi maintained that Suryanamaskar, which involved 'bowing before the sun', was against Islamic tenets. "If a Muslim performs the 'suryanamaskar' the child and his parents would both be accountable in the act of felony." Qasmi maintained.

Indeed, the Qazi is right; it is not an Islamic practice to bow to any manifestation of God, but the God himself the non-visible energy. Everyone should have the freedom to pray or not pray in certain way and no one should compel or look down for not participating. That is our pluralistic ethos for over 5000 years and we need to be loyal to that heritage.

An alternate way to look at the opinion of the Qazi would have been to participate in the group act, but do it in a way that works from an Islamic point of view. This would have meant that we are all in this together for a better India and better place to live cohesively. However, no one should expect everyone to jump and do what they do. It would have been a good example of working together without compromising our faith.

Prophet Muhammad had led mass Prayers for rain and famine and for other goodness of the society. Two years ago, I was planning on going to Florida and witness a pastor burn the Quraan, if he was indeed burning, I was going to pray my two Rakat (unit) Nafeel Muslim prayers next door to his Church in an open space with prior permission from the City. We all would have prayed for his well being along with several fellow Muslims. Burning Quraan was not an act of bravery but stupidity and countering it with anger would have been greater stupidity. Unfortunately he postponed his act and I had a 9/11 Unity Day event the next day in Dallas as well.

There are examples set by Prophet Muhammad for situations like this. While he was travelling to Taif, a few miscreants pelted rocks at him causing him to bleed, his associates wanted to go get the boys, but Prophet stopped them and instead asked them and the Angel Gabriel to join him in prayers and pray for their well being. This is what Jesus meant when he said, turn the other cheek.

Prophet Muhammad was the ultimate peace maker, every act of his is a model for us to learn from, and he was the consummate conflict mitigater and goodwill nurturer.

When we attend weddings, some of us are strictly vegetarian and some eat variations of meat products from fish and poultry to beef. We wear different clothing’s and drink a variety of sodas to coffee with cream or black and same goes with the tea. Do we have a problem with that? Then we should not have the problem with this either as long as the Chief Minister is not getting his wish at the cost of public funds.

The right wingers among us need to honor Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Hindus for their choices and each minority should not take this as an imposition in a free society. Nor any one should be negative if one does not participate.

May Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s dreams to solidify his political stand come true and those who are opposed to him politically can also hold a Chandra Namaskar to get what they want, but together, let Madhya Pradesh go on the Guinness book of world records. Bengal or any other state has a choice to out do it as well.

[Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies where no Indian has to live in anxieties, discomfort or fear of the other. He is a frequent guest at the TV, radio and print media offering pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His work is indexed at www.MikeGhouse.net and his current articles at www.TheGhousediary.com. Mike Ghouse is now associated with IndianMuslimObserver.com as Foreign Editor. He can be contacted at MikeGhouse@aol.com]

Corruption - India 11-01-26

Rooting-out Corruption is Good, but

Parallel Government is Injurious to Democracy

Mirza A. Beg

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Indian Express, Delhi, August 26, 2011

http://blogs.expressindia.com/showblogdetails.php?contentid=837637#

Milli Gazette, Delhi, August25, 2011

http://www.milligazette.com/news/2136-india-rooting-out-corruption-is-good-but-parallel-government-is-injurious-to-democracy

Anna Hazare has captured the imagination of the Indian body politic. His clarion-call to end the exponentially growing, endemic corruption in India has been reverberating and gathering supporters with each passing day. The news media in India has become his megaphone.

The corruption has been increasing over the decades in magnitude as well as pervasiveness. The developing economy, increasing disposable income of the middle class and much larger workforce provide more opportunities for bribes. At the top levels of the government the bribes have grown from thousands to tens of millions of Rupees.

On my visits to India, I enjoy asking probing social and political questions in conversations with a wide spectrum of very friendly and talkative fellow travelers. Everyone is against corruption as a simple nebulous principle. But the answers get clouded and muddled when it benefits their lives.

The Indian Government finally realized that the evil of corruption has reached the tipping point and drafted a legislation to create an independent office of Lokpal (ombudsmen) to watch over various agencies with independent, but limited authority. It would have the power to investigate. Based on evidence, it would recommend and direct the judicial system to take action. Obviously it would take time for such a system to mature and work. Unfortunately the judicial system is not beyond corruption either.

The office of Lokpal would be similar to the office of the Election Commissioner, which has worked rather well, notwithstanding all the ills of the society. Indian elections are by and large fair and have successfully changed the government many times.

Yet the corruption at all levels including the legislature has grown, because the most important driving force for voting for a candidate is not honesty, but sectarianism – a substantial majority votes based on religion, cast and regional advantages. Political parties put up candidates based on these considerations. Once elected, they distribute economic largess as well as jobs and contracts to their most important supporters and casts in their constituency. Ironically, it is not considered corruption by a large majority of the populace.

Anna Hazare and his companions proposed a much stronger and aggressive office of the Lokpal (ombudsman). They insist that all the branches of the government would be under its authority including the Prime Minister. It would have independent police and judicial powers. In effect, it would be akin to a parallel unelected government, and would have minimal check on its authority.

When aroused, people like simple and fast remedies. Anna Hazare’s remedy of cut ting the Gordian knot in one strike is simplistic and very appealing. To force his ideas on the government, he first threatened and then took up a fast unto death. It sounds enticing, especially coming from a person who has put his life on the line and has a long record of service to the poor and personal honesty.

Taking advantage of the situation, all sorts of people have jumped on his band wagon for their own purposes, while many opposed to him have unearthed records, where he appears to have supported unsavory ideas and people. Many in the minority community want to join him but are weary of some of the Anna’s unsavory backers. No one is perfect, and he has some explaining to do.

I applaud his taking a stand and galvanizing the placid electorate to demand reform. One needs to look at it not from sectarian perspective, but a long range national perspective. Means and ends should be carefully considered. They do matter. Democracy is not easy to nurture. A system that changes with the changing wind of public opinion does not last very long. An unaccountable parallel government is an idea fraught with danger. Impetuously designed laws with the best of intentions have unintended consequences. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That is why most stable democracies have a bicameral legislature, so that a part of the legislature, called the upper house or senate --is protected from the immediacy of the impetuous public emotions.

Democracy by its very nature is inefficient. The system of checks and balances is an impediment to quick solutions of long festering social problems. Simplistic and draconian solutions against an evil are easy to understand and support. Anna Hazare has projected himself as a leader in the Gandhian tradition. But there is a difference.

Gandhi Ji agitated and fasted to give voice to the people, against an unelected imperial colonial government. Hazare is holding hostage, a legitimately elected government of the people. With his popularity growing by the day, the government is being held on ransom with a false choice of Hazare’s bill or widespread chaos.

In a democracy, the government is only as good as the people vote for. If the electorate really wanted honesty and integrity, they could have voted for them as beacons. But they did not, they vote for personal aggrandizement on the basis of cast etc. Impetuous quick solutions often bring unintended consequences. Thoughtful people should take time to bring in change without injuring the constitution and the essence of democracy. The start has been made to check corruption. Anna Hazare should compromise to get a good bill instead of throwing the country in to chaos.

Mirza A. beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or mirzasmusings.blogspot.com

Shahid Azmi Murder 10-02-12

Murder of Shahid Azmi,

Assault on the Heart of the Indian Democracy

Mirza A. Beg

February12, 2010

Counter Currents. February 14, 2010

http://www.countercurrents.org/beg140210.htm

Indian Muslims, February 12, 2010

http://indianmuslims.in/murder-of-shahid-azmi-assault-on-the-heart-of-the-indian-democracy/

Thirty-two years old, Shahid Azmi, the defense counsel to the accused, framed by the police in the Malgaon case in Maharashtra, was gunned down in his office by a five member assassination squad in broad daylight. In his very young career he became the voice of the downtrodden and defenseless, because he had suffered the heavy hand of the corrupt state police as a young boy of fifteen.

He reported to the police, many times, to no avail, about the threats he received from those who manipulate the justice system for sectarian purposes and kill those who get in the way.

Shahid Azmi, the defense attorney’s murder is more detrimental to the Indian democracy than many other terribly egregious murders that are in themselves the bane of Indian democracy and civil society.

All injustices, particularly murders are injurious to the functioning of a civil society. Even more detrimental to the functioning of democracy is state terrorism or the state turning a blind eye to the murder of citizens who try to keep the state honest. Injustices and mayhem perpetrated by the state against the minorities, as in Gujarat, under Chief Minister Mr. Modi, is almost universally known. There are many other states where political heavy weights run a parallel government through open intimidation, irrespective of the political party in power. Mr. Bal Thakery of Maharashtra is well known to wield such evil supra-state power.

The tribal people in Orissa and Chhattisgarh, Dalits in Bihar, Muslims and Christians in many states, particularly in Gujarat have suffered grievously. It has been well documented. The military and police have often been oppressive and brutal in states rife with long term ubiquitous rebellions. They end up feeding the cause that feeds the rebellion rather than being about a solution in states such as Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram as well the as the tribal belt of Central India.

Yet, with all these pitfalls and lamentable inadequacies, the Indian democracy has made great strides, because many brave and principled Indians have made great sacrifices to stand up and expose the corruption of power. Such efforts occasionally gather wider support and come to the notice of the Supreme Court of India. The Apex court occasionally feels obliged to intervene for the cause of justice, when the state government apparatus and the lower courts are completely overwhelmed by the sectarian attitudes, as in the case of Gujarat under Mr. Modi.

Indians owe a great debt of gratitude to these brave citizens, journalists and lawyers, the conscience keepers of the Indian democracy. They risk their safely to take up the cause and cases, to uphold the constitution of India that guarantees justice to the hapless accused, boxed in by the corrupt judicial system at the lower rungs of the justice system.

The murder of Shahid Azmi is not a murder of an individual only, it is a brazen effort to intimidate and ultimately obliterate the idea of justice and silence the voice of the Indian conscience. The central government of India should do its utmost to bring the murderers to justice, because it is an assault on the soul of the Indian constitution and state, much more grave than the terrorist that kills individuals or the thief that prowls in the darkness of night.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Oman Snubs Modi 2009-10-27

Oman Disinvites Modi - News Reverberates in India

Mirza A. Beg

Written Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Counter Currents, Wednesday, October 28, 2009
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg281009.htm

Media Monitor Network, Wednesday, October 28, 2009
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/67736

Some times good guys also win. It happens only once in a while, but when it does, it gives hope to many who struggle against the evil perpetrated by the powerful, the rich and the connected.

Such is the case when some decent ordinary people with the support of many other decent people were able convince the Government of Oman to deny Mr. Modi a visa. It thwarted, Gujarat’s Chief Minister Mr. Modi from falsely projecting himself as a world trotting statesman and camouflaging his evil deeds.

Mr. Modi was elected the Chief Minister of Gujarat State in the western part of India, on the platform of a fascistic leaning Indian Peoples Party (Hindi initials BJP). It came to power in late1990s. It got that chance because the Congress party that had governed India since independence from Britain in 1947, with only one break of four years, had become stale and the populace was tired. In that vacuum stepped in the rightwing BJP. It cashed in on its years of devious hard work, promoting sectarian riots and fear mongering in the well trodden footsteps of demagogues, albeit with an Indian patina. For years the BJP had engineered riots against the Muslim minorities, Christian evangelism and lower cast Indians. Finally it was able cash in on the fear it had planted among decent ordinary Hindus.

Mr. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat in February 2002, when a train carriage in which the BJP goons were travelling and harassing people on the railway station, was burnet at Godhra in Gujarat. To this day it has not been conclusively proven as to who did it. Instead of arresting those responsible for the event and bringing them to justice, he blamed Muslims, whom his party has been killing for years in contrived riots. The next day in the manner of Nazi “Krstallnacht” he unleashed a reign of terror and mayhem, by the goons of his party under the protection of his chosen police force, in the manner of Nazi SS.

As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided over and orchestrated widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless Muslims were massacred and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless. It was internationally reported as a pogrom against the Muslim minority in Gujarat.

International human rights organizations, including the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the National Human Rights Commission of India held Mr. Modi directly responsible for orchestrating that gory mob violence in which innocent Muslims were butchered, burnt alive and women gang raped.

Mr. Modi has also succeeded in corrupting and intimidating most of the judiciary in Gujarat. The criminals are protected by Mr. Modi’s police, while thousands of displaced Muslims are unable to return to their homes. The same gangsters also harass Christians and have burned their Churches.

The Supreme Court of India felt compelled to step in. It compared Mr. Modi with the infamous Roman Emperor Nero and ordered an especially constituted team from the Federal (Central) Government to investigate Mr. Modi’s crimes.

Though his party has lost national power in two successive national elections of 2004 and 2009; unfortunately in the federal structure of India, states have power over law and order, just as the federal US government was hampered in the American South of1960s. Mr. Modi has succeeded in polarizing the normally decent people of Gujarat and has won elections to remain the Chief Minister in Gujarat. And because as often happens, fascistic demagogues are efficient, Mr. Modi is indeed efficient and has brought businesses to Gujarat supported by some among the rich diaspora of Guajaratis from the US.

Now that his party is in decline in the rest of India, he has been trying mightily to project himself as a world class leader with an eye on gaining national leadership. With a well-deserved harvest of global condemnation haunting him, Mr. Modi is desperately courting foreign collaboration to mend his image to achieve political restitution in India.

Fortunately because of the efforts of those who value the Gandhian tradition of India, Indians from all religions and ethnic groups came together, petitioned and convinced the US State department to deny Mr. Modi the coveted visa, not only once but twice in three years.

Spurned by the US and some Western countries, he aimed at developing contacts with the rich Gulf Emirates. Mr. Modi nefariously planted stories of being invited by the Sultanate of Oman. Again some concerned people took it upon themselves to circulate a petition on line. Again many human rights organizations all over the world, but most importantly from India extended their full support. Many wrote personal letters to the Ambassador and the government of Oman.

In response, not only the Ambassador of Oman disinvited him, but took out an advertisement in a well respected national newspaper, Indian Express, stating that the Sultanate of Oman had not invited Mr. Modi to Oman.

To Mr. Modi’s discomfort the news is reverberating though the Indian press and has even been picked up by the international web based media. (It can easily be searched on Google, “Modi denied Visa to Oman”). It puts his efforts towards gaining coveted visas from Indonesia that he has been working on, and visa from many other countries in jeopardy.

Though it is only a small victory for decency, and not much help to those who perished in the Mayhem engineered by Mr. Modi in Gujarat, but it does give incentive to average people. They can make a difference. All they have to do is, try.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or Mirzasmusings@blogspot.com

Mumbai Carnage 08-12-01

Mumbai Carnage, Wish It Was The Last Horror!

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, December 1, 2008

Media Monitor Network, Wednesday, December 3, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/57272

Counter Currents, Thursday, December 4, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg041208.htm

The American Muslim, Friday, December 5, 2008
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/mumbai_carnage_wish_it_were_the_last_horror/

Pine magazine Friday, December 5, 2008
http://pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=1559

The coordinated attacks on the Taj-Mahal Hotel and nine other sites in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) have claimed about 190 innocent lives, with hundreds more injured. Distressed Indians and concerned people all over the world are looking for answers.

Quick preconceived answers demand immediate retaliation. To mollify the public, authorities arrest and torture a few easy targets and extract confessions. Over the years there have been dozens of well documented incidences of police summarily executing helpless people in what are euphemistically called encounters (fake gun battles). It only validates the terrorist propaganda.

Comprehensive answers take time. I hope the government of India will diligently take up the slow and painful task of investigation and prosecution of those involved, within India and with international help, those hiding in other countries.

With the globalization of commerce, unfortunately terrorism has also become globalized. The terrorist networks have become an international scourge. In the 1960s and 70s the Baader Meinhof Gang and the Red Army collaborated with disparate terrorists, such as the Irish Republican Army, the Shining Path Guerillas in Latin America and the Abu Nidal in the Middle-east. With greater sophistication and richer resources, Al Qaida is even more effective, mostly, but not exclusively in Muslim countries.

Initial reports based on the interrogation of the only surviving Mumbai attacker indicate that at least some of the terrorists were from Pakistan. Pakistan and India have a sad history of wars and animosity. But no nation has suffered the ravages of Islamist extremist terrorism more than Pakistan. Bombings in major cities of Pakistan are pervasive. The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was bombed only a few months ago. From the statements of the President Zardari, it seems that the newly elected fledgling government of Pakistan realizes that the extremist ideology sown by the Zia regime in the1980s has come back as an evil whirl-wind to destroy the country.

There are segments of society in India and Pakistan with legitimate grievances.
Extremists exploit these grievances through carnage to achieve a greater polarization. Unfortunately many governments have done the same through their intelligence agencies to destabilize weaker countries. It behooves Pakistan and India to unshackle themselves from the sordid history of hatred and join forces to eradicate this scourge for mutual benefit.

After every major carnage, organizations, leaders and pretend leaders in India and around the world customarily condemn the outrage, and then go about their business as usual. Equating this carnage to 9/11 is spurious. Such outrages have been happening in India, Pakistan and many other countries with the regularity of tides. Unfortunately the Mumbai carnage is greater only in magnitude and daring, therefore more newsworthy. Such reprehensible carnage is lamentably not surprising. A series of bomb blasts tore through the busy markets in Delhi on the 13th of September, preceded by more than a dozen gory blasts in major cities in the last three years, including an earlier blast in Delhi and a train bombing in Mumbai in July 2006, claiming hundreds of lives. Today, merely four days after the Mumbai carnage, three people were killed in Assam (Eastern India) in yet another train bombing.

In the past few decades, thousands of innocent lives have been lost in sectarian violence all over India. Kashmir is a festering wound of competing claims of the two countries, left-over from the partition of the British colonial India. By now the average Kashmiri wants to be left alone. More than 80,000 Kasmiris, mostly civilians have died in the last twenty years. It is a major source of recent terrorism. Preliminary reports indicate that the Mumbai terrorists were connected to the Lashkar Taiba movement that was spawned in Kashmir with the help of the Zia regime in 1980s.

Imagine; one of our loved ones among the dead, and the tragedy hits home. Many loved ones regularly fall to endemic terrorism. In a wider sense they were us, mindless tits for the multiple tats and on it goes. Governments with impunity suppress and even kill weaker minorities to mollify the majority population, in the name of nationalism, in blatant violation of humane laws.
Some, otherwise ordinary people after years of victimization, blinded by anger take refuge and find justification in terrorism. Unable to penetrate the bastion of oppression, they attack easy defenseless targets. Terrorists become so callous in their anger multiplied by hate-filled ideologies that they lose all sense of decency, distinction and humanity, visiting carnage in distant lands on innocent people.
Growing up in India, only a few of my friends were Muslims, most were Hindus. We celebrate our friendship on my visits to India. Some of these friends are quite involved in helping down-trodden and forgotten masses. They hold no animosity towards Muslims. But the virulence of decades of violence and propaganda has polarized a few of them, especially their children. Similarly the polarized Muslims do not know my humane Hindu friends. With polarization, fewer Hindus and Muslims know each other personally. They tend to stereotype each-other as caricatures based on propaganda.

With each episode of sectarian riot the divide grows. The attack and demolition of a 16th century Mosque and ensuing loss of thousands of lives in December 1992, and the pogrom in Gujarat in February 2002, where 2,000 Muslims were killed and more than hundred thousand driven from their homes, have created a deep fissure. More recently the bomb blasts in markets, trains and now the Mumbai carnage are part of the downward spiral. The chasm is widening in spite of tireless work being done by enlightened and thoughtful people from all communities, especially Hindus. Unfortunately the sectarian propaganda is more powerful than thoughtful analysis.

A few weeks ago an educated Brahmin Gujarati friend wrote to me that he is supporting Mr. Modi’s Hindu (fascistic) party in the upcoming elections in Gujarat, because he wants a strong government that supports economic development. The sad part is that at least tacitly he had condemned the pogrom against Muslims by Mr. Modi in 2002, the worst crime a government can commit against its citizens. I reminded him, but he did not address my question.

People, honest in personal dealings; good neighbors, who would help the needy and feed the hungry, are taken in by the propaganda, driven by the partisans from the opposing sides, turning lies into truth and making enemies out of friends. Good people end up supporting horrible policies and even pray for the success of their leaders who spread misery in their name.

We will be at least morally culpable, if it happened in our neighborhoods and we closed our eyes. In this globalised information age, there is no place too far. Ignoring the plight of people we only see on television screens, is tacitly supporting the oppressor. It becomes our collective guilt.

An instructive example is Mr. Bush’s statement in the wake of 9/11, “Now they will taste the American justice”. The whole world supported our sentiment. Sadly, what they got was blind vengeance and indiscriminate incarceration of about 700 people at Guantanamo Bay, including many 12 to 14 year old minors, without trial for more than six years in violation of the Geneva Convention. It brought shame to America. In spite of strenuous objections of the Bush administration, some Americans petitioned the courts. Slowly the courts intervened. How we wish, it was the American justice that they faced.

Terrorism is a scourge. It should be eradicated through the implementation of humane civil laws. The vocabulary of war, such as “war on terrorism” sounds good but denigrates the civil society to lawlessness of war. It predisposes us to forsake our humanity and fall for the militaristic propaganda, where trigger happy excesses, bombings, and civilian deaths are justified as “collateral damage”, as if a neighbor’s wall was damaged by mistake, and will be made whole.

The first reaction to terrorism is to suppress it by brute force, such as in case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Brute force spirals into tit for tat. The situation only worsens. There are ways to defeat it, as in Northern Ireland in the1970s and 80s. The brute British force only exacerbated it, until the British government reached an equitable political settlement.

It is time for universal cooperation. The United Nations was created to be the instrument of the collective will of the world. It has worked very well in helping the poor and feeding the hungry. It has failed in implementation of the international law to protect the rights of the down-trodden minorities from the state terrorism in sovereign countries, and keeping stronger nations from attacking weaker nations. But the five permanent members of the Security Council have hindered its purpose.

The only effective way to remove the cancer of terrorism is to leave the hubris of the 20th century behind, ushering a new peaceful and just millennium by adhering to the International Charter of Human Rights and strengthening the United Nations. This requires the modification of the Security Council so that no country is above the international law.

Mirza A. Beg can be reached at mab64@yahoo.com. His writings are at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Delhi Blasts 08-09-15

Delhi Blasts, Time to go Beyond Condemnations

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, September 15th 2008

The American Muslim, September 16, 2008
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/india_delhi_blasts_time_to_go_beyond_condemnations/


A series of bomb blasts tore through the busy markets in Delhi on the 13th of September. They are reprehensible, but lamentably not surprising. There have been more than a dozen gory blasts in major cities, including Delhi in the last three years.

After each such episode, there are many customary statements of condemnation. But after so many times, condemnations sound stale and obligatory. It is time to shake our collective conscience and challenge our hackneyed thinking to develop thoughtful and just solutions.

With the exponential expansion of beneficial technology; the technology of mass killing has also made tremendous gains in the military research labs of the nation sates, ostensibly for defense. The unforeseen blow-back is that terrorists eventually get access to these technologies as well to enhance their ability to kill using remote-triggers and more lethal explosives.

India is home to almost all religions and ethnicities, and has more distinct languages and dialects among its vast multitude than any other country in the world.

The process of welding such diversity into a nation has not been easy. There were language riots in late fifties and early sixties, when the central government tried to impose Hindi as a national language. In spite of the pressure from the Hindi language chauvinists, the government wisely relented. More respect for regional languages and the go slow approach worked. Hindi is now accepted as the national link language. There have been endemic ethnic conflicts between local upper casts and lower casts. The police composed of only upper casts was often partial. The induction of lower casts in the police and administration has some what eased the problem.

Rise of sectarian parties to power:

With the increasing literacy, and dwindling secular education, Indians are getting more religiously polarized. This has resulted in the rise of religious-supremacist political parties. So much so that many states elected Hindu chauvinist parties (called Hindutva in Indian parlance) in late 1980s and by 1990s they took power at the central government. In a democracy minority sectarianism, though odious is not lethal. But the majority sectarianism because of the power of votes usually ends up in fascism and destruction of democracy.

Gradually under Hindutva (Hindu sectarianism) leadership the education system has become even more sectarian and the religious divide among the majority Hindus and minority Muslims has become more stark and lethal. A vast majority of Hindus and Muslims are decent law abiding citizens, who have lived with each other harmoniously. They are being polarized by endemic riots, usually engineered just before the elections using fear mongering to garner votes. This has lead to a vicious downward spiral.

Very small religious communities, not affected by sectarianism did not feel the contamination of the society by Hindutva’s incessant propaganda through the governmental agencies. Now even the small Christian community has been targeted by the Hindutva forces, especially in the backward tribal areas where because of evangelical activities many low-cast or castless tribal communities have accepted Christianity.

The birth of terrorism:

There were no terroristic bombings in India before 1993. Though the sectarian riots have been on the rise since 1960s, often the sectarian police being the main culprit, it was the demolition of the 16th Century Mosque (Babri Masjid) in December 1992 that lead to the new era of bombing crowded markets.

The demolition was preceded by a slow deliberate 1,000 miles march of Mr. Advani from Gujarat State in western India to the site of the mosque in sleepy little town Ayodhya in UP, a state in Northern Indian. Two months long slow march with fan-fare and speeches full of venom and misquotation of history whipped up Hindu passions that resulted in many local riots. The march was stopped by the secular Chief Minister of UP state. As a result he was defeated in the next election and the new Hindutva party Chief Minister allowed a frenzied mob to take down the large historic Mosque, brick by brick in the full glare of the television. The Indian Prime Minster of a supposed secular party sat in Delhi cloistered in his office offering inane excuses.

In the wake of the demolition of Babri Masjid there were riots in many parts of India. The riots in Mumbai (Bombay) were particularly gruesome because the Police carried out a massacre of Muslim localities. An inquiry commission under Justice Shri Krishna (a devout Hindu) found the local and national Hindutva parties guilty. Just as many other such commission reports, the Shri Krishna commission report was s also shelved and no cases were brought against the politically powerful culprits.

The heightened sectarianism brought the Hindutva party (BJP) to power at the center in Delhi and Mr. Advani, a criminal became the Deputy Prime Minister. “Ayodhya” episode was milked for a decade by whipping up hate through virulent sectarian grafting of feudalistic medieval history on democratic India to weaken and injure the basic democratic ethos. Threatening demolition of many other historic mosques, worked again and Hindutva party (BJP) won in many states including Gujarat.

The pogrom in Gujarat under the Chief Minister, Mr. Mody in which about 2,000 Muslims were by the mob under police protection throwing incendiary bombs from behind the police lines is well documented, and condemned all over the world and all secular Hindus.

Unfortunately as Muslim felt cornered and unprotected by the government, the Muslim polarization gave rise to underground fringe groups that took it upon them-selves to avenge the massacres. As always when small fringe groups take up arms to avenge, they only do more damage by killing other innocent citizens who had no part in violence and further polarize the populace.

After many such bombing, supposedly by the Muslim fringe groups, many Hindu groups attached to the Hindutva Parties have also sprung up. They have been caught at least on two occasions and couple of times the bombers have blown themselves up while constructing crude bombs.

After each set of bomb blast the police habitually accuse the commonly known Muslim fringe groups and arrest local Muslim youth, usually with no evidence. The police often torture them, but the cases are either not brought to the court or they are thrown out. It simply creates more hatred for the police and the government without any tangible positive result. The cycle goes on.

Way back to sanity of civil and just society:

The road back to sanity after fanning the flames for decades is never easy. The essential glue that holds a nation together is the sense of belonging. Belonging means a common purpose, rooted in equal opportunity and justice for all. A simple concept, but it becomes exceedingly difficult after it has been violated for years.

Four steps are essential for return to democratic sanity.

1. The government has an essential obligation to bring the culprits of bombing to justice, irrespective of their affiliation or religion, not for the sake of revenge or to avenge the innocent, but for the essential concept of justice.

2. But selective justice is no justice at all. To restore the Muslims and the Christian victims of violence in Orrisa and Gujarat states, the investigative reports of the high powered commissions on the major riots, languishing in archives, should be brought back to the light. Those accused should be brought to the bar of justice, as it was done in the case of the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 in wake if the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

3. Teaching of secular values to the children is essential to nurture pluralistic democracy. Primary and secondary education in all schools should have a strong component of secular education. Indians are inheritors of an ancient multi religious civilization. The values from all religions and philosophies should be included as a positive re-enforcement of multi-religious, multi-cultural ethos. This is the most important aspect of raising a better generation.

4. To sustain the secular education and eventually eliminate sectarianism, the police force, the administration and the judiciary should have adequate representation of all religious and ethnic communities. The excuse that the employment is dependent upon the competitive qualifications is a rouge by sectarian forces. No great intellectual prowess is needed to be a policeman, a city clerk, or a low to mid level administrator. The government can not monitor each small office, but the presence of people of all communities integrated in an office setting impedes discrimination and helps assimilation of citizenry to weld a nation, as has been the proven by the assimilation of the lower casts in the power structure.

Mirza A. Beg can be reached at mab64@yahoo.com His writings are at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Minority safety India 08-08-21

Need for Equitable Representation of Minorities in the Administration of Indian Government
Mirza A. Beg
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Counter Currents, Monday, August 25, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg250808.htm

Indian Muslims Sunday, August 24, 2008
http://indianmuslims.in/need-for-equitable-representation-of-minorities-in-the-administration-of-indian-government/

Khabrein Info .com, Saturday August 23, 2008
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16101&Itemid=58


The essential requirement of good governance in a country is the welfare of all its citizens. This is the paramount ideal of constitutional democracies. India is a constitutional republic based on a very good and robust constitution.

The first duty of the Indian government is to protect the life and liberty of all its citizens. Everything else pales in comparison. Endemic sectarian riots rob the beleaguered communities. It dehumanizes and polarizes the majority as well as the minority. India has been rocked by cyclical sectarian riots for decades with increasing partisanship of those in power. With the burgeoning information technology, India has unprecedented opportunity and is on an upward trajectory to find its rightful destiny. The endemic poverty of a majority of its citizens and the fear of life by many minorities is an enormous drag, impeding progress.

Many, weak secularist though lightly infected with sectarianism take shelter and find justification in a myopic view that India is better than many other countries. It is true India is a better democracy than many. India’s record is even better, considering the size and tremendous diversity of the population. But simply saying that we are better than others does not wish or wash away the problems. It certainly does not help the nation, particularly the suffering poor and the minorities at the receiving end of the stick.

Baser human instincts propel many, to smugly justify what is advantageous to them and find the reverse reprehensible, if advantage accrue to others. Societies and nations do better when this tendency is on the decline or enough people stand up for the downtrodden. India has a better record than many other countries. Many great souls, particularly from the majority community have sacrificed a lot to stand up for justice for those perceived to be “the others”. Sectarianism of the majority is much more injurious to the nation than the minority sectarianism, because in a democracy minorities do not have the power of numbers to drive the agenda.

Free press should be and is a boon, but it becomes a bane when ordinary decent citizen inundated with insidious propaganda absorbs sectarianism (communalism in Indian parlance) without realizing it. Half truths from anecdotal stories are circulated to fortify sectarianism. Democracy has a self corrective mechanism, when enough thoughtful people rise up to negate such misuse and help protect the minorities from the clutches of entrenched sectarian interests. Fortunately many from the majority community in India have taken up this necessary burden.

Sectarian forces use perceived anecdotal injustices to spread their propaganda. Systematic discrimination and oppression that creates a deprived underclass can only be determined by rigorous social scientific research. In India the constitution itself made special provisions for the long suffering down-trodden casts and tribes (Scheduled casts and tribes) to overcome the horrible disparities and systemic exploitation of millennia. When such constitutional remedies are used some very deserving individuals of upper casts have felt cheated. That is what happens when we think of people as groups.

The case of grouping Muslims and Hindus as groups has many pitfalls, because they do not form homogeneous groups. But in the last six decades, because of endemic sectarian riots a large proportion of Hindus and Muslims have polarized and coalesced into a sectarian consciousness.

In order to design a solution based on well researched statistical data from the government archives and dozens of judicial enquiry reports into cyclical sectarian riots the Government of India established a committee under Justice Sachar. An exhaustive and comprehensive “Sachar Committee Report” came out in December 2006. It deals with the consequences of the endemic sectarian riots, destruction of lives and property and systematic discriminations against a large minority of Muslims and recommends temporary reservations in government employment for Muslims to compensate for the decades of discrimination.

Many object to sectarian reservation, suggesting that help should be based on economics parameter, taking into account individual circumstances. Religion or cast based reservations are not a panacea and have built in resentment. I sympathize with this view, but experience has shown that individuals, especially those at the bottom of the ladder have no power to get redress from systematic discrimination. The only way though imperfect is to implement the policy for the discriminated groups. Larger numbers provide vigilance in implementation of a policy.

The solutions are not simple, but some redress is imperative otherwise, India will continue sliding down the spiral in the sectarian abyss. Fortunately there are two trends to the advantage of India at this juncture.

First is the fast expanding Indian economy due to the technological revolution and the globalization. In a limited economy, for some to get redress others loose, but in an expanding economy it is easier to share, except for those whose ideology is based on hatred of others.

Second. No government can or should try to micro engineer every facet of life on the basis of perfection in equality. It will fail under the enormous weight of bureaucracy. In the burgeoning fields of sciences, education and research meritocracy ought to rule and profit motivated fast expanding private sector can not afford not to employ the best and the brightest. It is in the realm of the governing power where some parity is needed. Inequality in governance, such as police powers, justice dispensation and licensing of industries is not only deleterious, but it has been lethal, as proven time and again in endemic sectarian riots. Based on the judicial inquiry reports and disproportionate number of victims from the minority communities the injustice becomes obvious.

Why the representation of Muslims in administration is pitiful? No great intellectual prowess or great qualification is needed to be a policeman, a city clerk, or a low to mid level administrator. The judiciary at the district level must have judges represented from all communities to avoid blatant miscarriage of justice. Experience has shown that these are the levels where the most damage is done to the impoverished powerless communities. If different communities have approximate parity in these jobs, sectarian riots will not occur, or if they do, they will be very short lived, because the culprits will have a much better probability of being brought to justice.

Fortunately the Supreme Court of India has been a beacon of responsibility and Justice. One reason could be that they are in the lime light. It was the Supreme Court, the court, the court of last resort that was able to put breaks on Mr. Modi’s pogroms in Gujarat. Though the sectarian influences have kept him in power, but his murderous ways have been checked. There are now documented evidences of the culpability of the Gujarat government under Modi using the state machinery of power. That is why the events in Gujarat have been classed as pogroms rather than riots by most non sectarian observers.

The essential responsibility of a government is to safeguard its people from the enemies. Foreign enemies are easy to recognize, it the domestic enemies who injure the constitution and the national fabric. They are more dangerous and pose an existential challenge to the nation. The sectarian rioters are the domestic enemies. They can be curbed if the government really wants. There are glaring examples within India. Bengal, particularly Calcutta was prone to communal rioting in the 1960s. Since the advent of the communist government in Bengal the sectarian riots have all but vanished.

Should there be limited reservations in above mentioned jobs? I feel uncomfortable with the idea. Besides religion and politics when they are directly connected, they make an explosive mix and it solidifies the identity separation. The government should make effort to bring about equity in essential services among many better defines smaller subgroups among all communities. It will avoid major cleavages based on religion. Many minor cleavages tend to cancel out each other. It is good for the people and it is good for the country.

If the government does not succeed soon in designing programs similar in spirit as the “Affirmative action” in USA, I am afraid the reservations, a much less desirable remedy until a reasonable approximation to parity is achieved will be needed by default. By limiting reservations to administration of justice, police, army and low level bureaucracy will leave the rest of the burgeoning private enterprise open to meritocracy.

A government that can not safeguard the lives of its citizens fails in its primary purpose.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com
Mirza’s essays and poems can be read at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Passing of Nirmala 08-5-5

The Passing of Nirmala Deshpande

Mirza A. Beg
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Counter Currents, Friday, May 2, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg020508.htm

The American Muslim, May4, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/the_passing_of_nirmala_deshpande/0016195


Nirmala Deshpande, 79, a veteran Gandhian, died in her sleep at her home in Delhi, Thursday morning. It is natural to mourn the passing of a dear friend. Though I did not know her personally, I mourn her passing as if she was a close friend. We knew of her great sacrifice and struggle to keep the flame of humanity and justice alive against powerful winds of hatred and strife around the world, particularly in her homeland, India, the land of Gandhi.

Her being was a source of strength to many who saw and felt her piety. Many took sustenance from her selfless work for the downtrodden and marginalized in a fast changing society, where sectarianism has become entrenched in the halls of power. In that respect she became a dear friend to all who cared. To them she was popularly known as “Didi” (respected elder sister in Hindi).

Her passing is particularly sad, because she was a great soul. She was seventy-nine years old and no one has defied the law of nature to live forever. Her life was a beacon and her death should be a time of reflection. People like her are a gift to humanity by the providence. Fortunately humanity continues to produce people like her in every generation to carry the torch of humane concerns. Democracies, though imperfect, provide secular saints such as Nirmala Deshpande a modicum of sustenance to nudge the conscience of many to uphold the values we often preach, but do not practice.

All freedom and justice-loving Indians loved and respected her. Muslims, Christians and untouchables in India are especially indebted to this frail woman born in a Brahmin family, for her tireless efforts against discrimination and marginalization. Her fearless stand rallied many Indians against the pogrom carried out by the fascistic provincial government of Gujarat against Muslims in 2002, in which about 2,000 Muslims were brutally burned and massacred.

She saw the tyranny of governments cloaked in crass nationalism, used as an excuse to foster hatred. She tried to bring the peoples of India and Pakistan, former brothers, now contentious neighbors, towards understanding and amity. She knew that constitutional safeguards work only when the majority community considers it a duty to protect the minority rights. Therefore she took up the cause of marginalized minorities in India.

In her memory, Muslims all over the world, especially in India and Pakistan, owe it to Islam and humanity to convince the Muslim majorities in all countries to protect the rights of minorities. Thoughtful Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh have found their voices in Nirmala’s Gandhian tradition to speak up for Hindu and Christian minorities. Their rights have been violated by some out of visceral hatred or financial gains, especially resulting from seemingly good, though egregious blasphemy laws.

Protecting the minorities is a test of civilization. It protects the rights of all. Looking the other way or ignoring small violations of human rights leads to greater discrimination and injustice.

She adhered to the best of the creeds that humanity offers. Widely known as a Gandhian, she was able to carry the torch of Gandhi Ji’s ideals at a time when Gandhi Ji’s name is reviled by a large section of Indian polity or at best is used only for ceremonial purposes by those who profit from his name, but consider his ideology and humanity to be impractical or at best, quaint.

Of course the Gandhian path that Nirmala Deshpandey traveled is difficult to follow. Gandhi Ji did not live an easy or opulent life. It is certainly much more difficult than succumbing to self interest in the pursuit of wealth and political power to the detriment of the weaker sections of the society.

Humanity has innate potential to rise above its selfish baser instincts, but only a few harness it to help lead their people towards a better tomorrow. She lived in the tradition of the great conscience keepers of their nations.

Mirza A. Beg writings are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/
Mirza can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com

Thoughts for 2008, 07-12-20

Will the year 2008 be Different?

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, December 20, 2007

Counter Currents, Wednesday, December21, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg211207.htm

The American Muslim, Tuesday, December 20, 2007
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/will_the_year_2008_be_different/0015294

Media Monitors Network, Monday, December 24, 2007
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/48396

My News India, Sunday, December 30, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1601

Asia Peace, Article of the month, December 2007
http://www.asiapeace.org/article_of_month.htm

January 1, of the year 2008 of the Julian-Gregorian calendar will be just another day in the steady flow of time. Some will celebrate because it is customary, while others will rejoice in the ever present hope of renewal, but most of the teaming poor and dispossessed of the world will not notice it. The wars will go on as legalized murder. It will be yet another day of misery and deprivation.

Most people, across the globe, at least wish for peace on Earth and equity and justice for all. They are kind and considerate as individuals. But as a group, “us versus them”, we conveniently forget that it requires treating the distant “others” as we, the “us” would like to be treated. It is easy to find tortuous reasons to justify selfish interests, resulting in wars based on the worst of lies, the self serving lies that we tell ourselves. They propel us to support the politicians who lie most convincingly that killing neighbors or a people in far off lands is necessary to preserve our way of life.

Religions become the most convenient hand maiden of the propagandists, and we willingly with enthusiasm profane what we purport to hold sacred.

Eventually all wars do end, often with the exhaustion of all sides. In the past two centuries, the quantum growth in modern technology has provided unimaginable material conveniences. It has brought prosperity, but sadly there is even a greater growth in weapons to feed the wars; weapons that can be used without any danger to the user; impersonalized weapons.

In my name, with my taxes, a neighborhood full of people with similar dreams as mine, in a far off place, will be destroyed by a rocket delivered by a remote controlled plane, while I am celebrating the New Year festivities and talking of peace and goodwill. If confronted by the deception, the trite explanation will be “collateral damage”, or at best an oft repeated hackneyed phrase “Oops, a mistake for which we are extremely sorry.”

Ours is an age of information and instant communication. No technology can be secret for very long. Every weapon invented by an established government to oppress others in the name of crass nationalism will eventually leak out or are sold to those fighting the oppression, who after gaining power, in turn become oppressors.

The wars can not be fought or sustained unless the populace is duped into believing that the “ungodly other” or “beastly other” is trying to destroy them. The propaganda is self-sustaining and it grows until we are jolted after falling off the precipice.

Those who see injustice and keep quiet, end up being silent supporters of oppression. The "innocent" bystanders are no longer as innocent as they want to believe, especially in a democracy. If we do not object to our own government's misdeeds at home and abroad, we are guilty, because in a democracy we are the government.

Many of us were not taken in by the lies of warmongers. We foresaw and wrote about the quagmire and destruction that the war would bring, but being right before a majority realizes the folly is perceived as a greater political folly. The strength of ethical principles and intellect is branded as weakness of brawn by the glib power seekers who keep trying to deceive the electorate by appealing to the baser instincts.

We need to speak in louder and clearer voices to inject backbones in politicians who want to be with the winning side. We also need to convince the popular media that people do want to hear the other side as well. It is not economically injurious. They do not need to imitate Fox news. Unless we do it in greater numbers, the malfeasances of the Bush administration in domestic policy and endless indiscriminate wars in the name of peace will continue to create more terrorists and wider wars.

The warmongers had their run. They have sown terrible death and destruction. They have the power of the latest weapons, but they suffer a great disadvantage. They have to be against others to be hegemonic. They thrive on hatred, pitting “us” against “them”.

The ideals of peace and of consideration of others as human beings may appear to be powerless, but they have one great advantage. They can unite across the false divide created by forces of ignorance and war. They extend a hand of friendship across the artificial rift. They can erase the dishonest division.

Let us make the year 2008 a watershed, when the 21st century emerges from the deathly clutches of the wars of the 20th century to claim its much needed place to unfold an era of peace in the flow of time.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Justice & Gujarat 07-12-10

Justice for the Victims of Gujarat Pogrom

Mirza A. Beg

December 10, 2007

Counter Currents, Tuesday December 11, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg111207.htm


Dear Mr. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
The Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.

At this important juncture, the helm of the ship of state, the Republic of India is primarily in your hands. The agenda of the executive and political power has been entrusted to your judgment by the people of India, in the hope that you will leave an ethical and proud legacy for the generations to come. Unfortunately the nightmare of the BJP misrule persists in many parts of the Republic and the constitutionally guaranteed rights of minorities are still being violated with impunity.

The perpetrators, the victims and the average Indians know that Narendra Modi's government engineered the riots in Gujarat resulting in the death of 2000 innocent people and injuring hundreds of thousands more in 2002. The justice to the victims is being denied because the BJP controlled governments in Gujarat and at the Center concealed the evidence, precluding a citizen’s ability to seek redress in the courts of law. Therefore, it was not a spontaneous riot, but a planned Pogrom.

The fig-leaf of lack of legal evidence of Modi government's direct involvement is believed only by the morally bankrupt. Even the American and European governments, though well disposed towards India, know enough to repeatedly deny the coveted diplomatic visa to Modi.

Over the years sectarians within the Congress party stealthily looked the other way while the Hindutva (Hindu sectarians) engineered cyclical riots, too numerous to list, often supported by the police. It culminated in the orchestrated destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 while the then Congress Prime Minister Narsimha Rao, feigned helpless surprise for six long hours. The loss of faith among the secular electorate, and the minorities resulted in Congress's defeat in the successive general elections.

After being in wilderness for eight years, the Congress led coalition under your new and vigorous leadership was elected as a repudiation of the fascistic and sectarian agenda of the BJP. Indian electorate gave the Congress another chance in the hope that the party has learned a lesson and returned to its founding secular and humane principles.

The dead and the dispossessed are still waiting for justice after five long years. Some may find them a political inconvenience, but they cannot be wished away.

We understand that political disputes in a democracy are decided by elections; and the division of power between the Central and the Provincial governments are well established in the constitution. But the constitution clearly provides mechanisms to punish provincial governments guilty of blatant criminality. Many times in the past provincial governments have been dismissed by the President for much less.

The brave reporters and editors of the Tahelka News magazine took enormous risks to record irrefutable evidence from the culprits, exposing the hand of Modi and the Gujarat government. They did what the government should have done.

I know the elections in Gujarat are around the corner; some wedded to politics of unprincipled power, afraid of political muscle of the Hindutva forces, want to cajole them. This will be a grave mistake. Instead of more placebos of toothless inquiry commissions, the Central government should protect the Tahelka reporters and promptly bring charges against Modi and his cohorts in the court of law. A five year delay is not too soon. Failure to act will fortify the assessment that the Congress has forsaken the ethos of the Indian Constitution to succumb to the destructive lure of power. It will confirm the perception of Congress as enablers of riots by stealth sectarianism.

Both of you understand the economics of dispossession and personal loss. Steadfastly you have overcome great impediments to reach your present coveted positions, not in search of power, but in pursuit of ideals. Great leaders courageously navigate the country to uphold the Constitution and establish principles that the succeeding generations will be proud to follow. It is time to use the irrefutable evidence provided by the Tahelka reporters to bring the powerful nefarious sectarian forces to justice and set the Indian Republic on the firm footing as a nation of laws.

Mirza A. Beg can be reached at mab64@yahoo.com or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

India genocide expose 071031

Tehelka, Journalists Lead Indians to Redeem their Values

Mirza A. Beg

Tuesday, October 31, 2007

Countercurrents, Friday, November 2, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg021107.htm

My News India, Friday, November 2, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1090

Khabrein, Friday, November 2, 2007
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8054&Itemid=88

Indian Muslims; Saturday, November 3, 2007
http://indianmuslims.in/tehelka-journalists-lead-indians-to-redeem-their-values/

Pine magazine, Saturday, November 3, 2007
http://pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=996

Tahelka, the intrepid news magazine did what the Indian government should have done in the past five years. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to the editor of Tahelka, Tarun Tejpal and reporter Ashish Khetan who took enormous risk to procure evidence on video tapes about the planning of the genocide perpetrated by the fascistic Gujarat state government in February – March 2002. The tapes also record admissions of suppression of evidence and bribery by the public prosecutors to protect the guilty.

The culpable Gujarat state government (still in power), got away with it, because at the time their party (BJP) was also in power at the center in Delhi. In 2004 elections for the central Parliament, the Indian electorate exhibited maturity by defeating the fascistic coalition in favor of a secular coalition dominated by the Congress party. However the Congress has been reticent to bring the Gujarat government to the bar of justice. It is afraid of being falsely tarred by the fascists, as anti–Hindu.

That may not come to pass. In the past, when the Congress party was a large undefeatable behemoth, many in its cadre were extremist sectarians who had joined in pursuit of power and weakened the secularist principles from within. To the extent that in early 1990s, Narsimha Rao became the Congress Prime Minister, who by his calculated inaction allowed the demolition of the Babari Masjid, unleashing the demon of naked violence, aided and abated by the guardians of law and order.

Those chauvinists have left the Congress and joined the BJP. The Congress after a long time is again a secularist party and has garnered the votes in 2004 based on secularist values. There is always political danger in taking a principled stand. With the strong evidence provided by the Tahelka reporters, there is more political danger in not following the principles.

Indian newspapers have reported for years that minorities, Muslims and Christians have been harassed in Gujarat since the BJP – a fascistic party came to power. What was not well known is that BJP and its allies were prepared to unleash a state supported pogrom of death, burning and looting on the Muslims. They just needed an excuse. The burning of a train carriage at Godhra on February 28, 2002 provided the pretext. Local Godhra Muslims were accused of setting the carriage afire from outside.

Instead of taking time to bring the culprits to justice, Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat gave verbal license of unrestrained pogrom for three days. It has been known for years, the Tahelka reporter have provided the corroboration on the video tape.
In 2003 a forensic report from the Capital of Gujarat, Ahmadabad came to the conclusion that the fire was set from inside the carriage. In March 2006, a commission appointed by the Ministry of Railways, under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court Justice Banerjee came to the same conclusion.

The Gujarat state Police and judiciary under pressure from the Modi government have stymied the investigation for years; so much so that the Supreme Court of India passed strong strictures and ordered a proper investigation in the only case filed, because the government could not stop it.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, V. N. Khare, referring to the Best Bakery Burning case, wrote on September 13, 2003, “Your rajdharma (governing principle) is to punish offenders and bring the guilty to book. If you can’t, you quit.

In the final judgment, the Justices Raju Doraiswamy and Arijit Pasayat, April 12, 2004 wrote,” The modern day “Neros” were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected.”

The Supreme Court can only pass strictures on the cases brought before the court. The court has provided the strongest directive to the government of India to take the rights of the oppressed minorities with utmost seriousness.

It is the duty of the state government to follow. In this case the state government is the chief culprit. This puts the onus on the Union (Central) government. The constitution provides for the Union government to intervene when the state government is the oppressor and the state police and judiciary are badly compromised.

The investigations that the Gujarat government suppressed and the Central Bureau of Investigation should have carried out long time ago, were done by Ashish Khetan of the Tahelka magazine at enormous risk. Now the evidence is on the tape and can not be ignored.

For the editorials and articles in the Tahelka Magazine go to-
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107Tarunspiece.asp
For the Spy-cam video of the culprits boasting of their heinous deeds go to. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107spycam_videos.asp

Independent observers have widely reported the brutal killing of about 2000 Muslims and the burning and looting of more than 100,000 Muslim homes .The government is the culprit so its figures are suspect. Many of the looters were photographed while the police were looking on. Many social workers, most of them from the Hindu community have taken enormous risk in helping the helpless in preparation of cases and have become voices of the voiceless.

This is not a struggle among the Hindus and Muslims as the bigots would like to propagandize. It is a struggle of decent humane Hindus and Muslims against the oppressive wing of the religion gone astray within Hinduism and Islam.

The greatness of the progressive Indian democracy is evident in that Muslims have done better in India than in many Muslim countries. The struggle against the state sponsored pogroms by the Gujarat government controlled by a fascistic Hindu party is led overwhelmingly by the secularist as well as deeply religious humane citizens, rooted in the Hindu ethos. The Supreme Court Judges, the brave community activists such as Tista Setalvad, Ram Punyani, V. K. Tripathi, and thousands others come from the Hindu tradition. Editor and brave reporters of the Tahelka Magazine and many other national publications such as “The Hindu” have an overwhelmingly Hindu staff.

While India is making great strides, some sectarian criminals in the provincial legislators have become an impediment to peace. Bal Thakary in the name of Hinduism has held the whole state of Maharashtra and its great city Mumbai hostage as his fiefdom. He has engineered riots where hundreds of people have been killed. Narendra Modi is still the chief minister of Gujarat and has used the levers of power to kill and deprive minorities of their constitutional rights.

Last week the Indian government awarded a well deserved national integration award to Professors Punyani and Banduklwala for giving voices to the oppressed. These well deserved awards are not a substitute for justice.

The appointments of judicial inquiry commissions are used as sop. The retired judges do a meticulous job. The inquiry takes a few years to complete. In time passions cool and the national memories fade. The government ignores the recommendations. The guilty not only go free, but also find encouragement to become even more brazen and bold in their evil deeds. It is time to bring cases before the courts to be pursued assiduously against all culprits, particularly those who have used power to spread mayhem and injustice.

Decent citizens of all religions and creeds should raise their voices against the terrorism by misguided individuals. The struggle for the soul of the nation becomes the highest duty when the state itself engages in planned terrorism, in our collective name. The religion we hold dear is besmirched when it is used to justify heinous atrocities. To raise our collective voices to bring the culprits in power to justice becomes imperative and the utmost duty. Those who keep quiet, or find excuses become supporters of the tyranny.

Brave reporters of the Tahelka Magazine have blown the lid off a very well known secret. They have provided the evidence. If the government does not follow through, it will be terribly injurious to the foundational values of Indian democracy.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com, Read his articles at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/