By Barun Roy
Dr. Sudip Ghosh, Professor Emeritus, South Carolina, USA has called for all parties in West Bengal to refrain from converting the Gorkhaland Movement into a communal affair. Dr. Ghosh in an interaction with Beacon Online said, “Bengalese all over the world have had a soft corner for Darjeeling Hills and are essentially lovers of the land, people and culture. To portray the fact that Bengalese own Darjeeling Hills is absurd to say the least. It is high time that Gorkhas who predominate in the Hills be given the Right to Self Determination.” Asked about the steps taken by the CPIM lead West Bengal Government, he said, “Buddhadev Bhattacharya must initiate dialogue with the GJM leaders but before that he must give up his ‘Bengal owns Darjeeling Hills’ perspective. In modern day democracy, Colonial attitudes must be shed. CPIM has failed in Nandigram and its policies should not lead to another Nandigram in the tranquil hills of Darjeeling. What is happening in the Dooars Terai is sad. People of both races, Bengalese, Nepalese and Kamtapuris who have lived peacefully for years should not be pitched against each other in armed struggles. The Communist Government at Kolkata might feel that this will weaken the Gorkhaland Movement, yet in reality it will instead break the very fabric of Bengal and indeed the whole of North East. I request all involved including the GJM leadership to calm the people, resolve immediate animosity and concentrate on negotiating with the Union Government at New Delhi. To read more visit: http://beacononline.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/beacon-online-requested-to-rally-international-bengali-community-in-the-favour-of-gorkhaland/#comment-5965
Thursday, June 12, 2008
BEACON ONLINE REQUESTED TO RALLY INTERNATIONAL BENGALI COMMUNITY IN THE FAVOUR OF GORKHALAND
Redrawing the map of Gorkhaland
The three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling district—Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong—have been closed down for an indefinite period by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) as part of their agitation for the formation of a separate state of Gorkhaland. The GJM, formed late in 2007, has revived the demand for Gorkhaland and has been holding protests and rallies in support of a state that is to be carved out of West Bengal.
•What is the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and who is leading it?
The GJM was formed by Bimal Gurung, earlier a councillor of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. He was a close associate of Subhas Ghising, president of the Gorkha National Liberation Force (GNLF). The two fell out in 2007 over the attempt to extend 6th Schedule status to Darjeeling. Under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, certain tribal-majority areas are given autonomy in administration. While the GNLF wanted the 6th Schedule status with enhanced powers for the Hill Council, the GJM desired full statehood. The Centre introduced the 6th Schedule to the Constitution Amendment Bills in Parliament in December 2007 but it was shelved.
•So where is Subhas Ghising and what has happened to the GNLF?
While the GNLF exists as a political organisation, almost its entire support base has moved to the GJM. After a visit to Kolkata in March this year, Ghising was barred from entering Darjeeling by the GJM until he resigned as caretaker administrator of the Hill Council. The term of the last Hill Council expired in 2004, and no elections were held thereafter. The West Bengal Government appointed Ghising as caretaker administrator, extending his term every six months until his resignation in March. Thereafter, Ghising has remained confined to his home in Darjeeling.
•What is behind the demand for Gorkhaland?
The demand for a separate administrative set-up for Gorkhas of India was first voiced in 1907, when the premier civil-society body of the Gorkhas, the Hillmen’s Association, asked the British for an administrative set-up separate from Bengal. In 1946, the then undivided Communist Party of India demanded that the Darjeeling areas be constituted in an entity called Gorkhastan. The GNLF took up the issue in a big way from 1986. All these demands considered the ethnic, cultural and linguistic distinctions between the populations of Darjeeling and the rest of West Bengal. Under the West Bengal administration, feel the Gorkhas, Darjeeling has not developed despite being a world-renowned centre for tea, tourism and education.
•What is different from this current demand for Gorkhaland and the one led by the GNLF?
There are two major turns that the current demand for a separate state has taken that distinguishes it from the earlier demand.
First, the map for the current Gorkhaland envisages not only the three hills subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, but also Siliguri and parts of the Dooars that fall in Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts in North Bengal, extending up to the River Sunkosh on the border with Bhutan. While the GNLF had included Dooars in its programme, it did not push for their inclusion in their map of Gorkhaland, a result of which was that when the DGHC formed only the hill subdivisions were included in it, leaving out chunks of the plains where large populations of Gorkhas reside. The GJM has managed not only to garner the support of Gorkhas in the plains, but also of the Adivasis, who form a substantial percentage of the population of the Dooars. This has created tensions between the Bengalis of Siliguri and the Gorkhas. The Bengali resistance to Siliguri’s inclusion in the agitation plans of GJM is lead by its local MLA and West Bengal Minister of Municipal Affairs Asok Bhattacharya. The Siliguri Municipality has already passed a resolution that it will fight all attempts to include Siliguri in the proposed state.
Second, unlike earlier, there is an intellectual push to the current demand for Gorkhaland. One of the impetus for a separate state of Gorkhas would be securing of their identity as Indians. Indian Gorkhas have long been misidentified as being citizens of Nepal and they feel that a state of their own will root them to India. The Gorkhaland of their imagination, therefore, does not only secure the economic development of the Darjeeling area but also the political identity of the over one crore Indian Gorkhas across the country.
• So are the Indian Gorkhas migrants from Nepal or where have they come from?
Indian Gorkhas have been residents of India for centuries. Under the Treaty of Sugauli in 1815, Nepal ceded an area of 18,000 sq km to the British. This territory constitutes what are today parts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Darjeeling district. A treaty with Bhutan in 1860 brought the current Dooars areas in Bengal and Assam into British possession. The Gorkha population resident in these territories became part of British India then. The Gorkhas participated in the Freedom Movement with Gandhiji and also joined the Azad Hind Fauj in big numbers. The tune of India’s national anthem Jana Gana Mana was taken from an original composition by Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gorkha in the INA. Two Gorkhas, Damber Singh Gurung and Ari Bahadur Gurung were members of the Constituent Assembly. Ari Bahadur Gurung was a member of the drafting committee. He is a signatory to the first Constitution of India.
However, there are two groups of Gorkhas in India, the Indian Gorkhas and those who have come to India under the provisions of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty of Friendship that allows Nepalese citizens to come and work, buy property and settle in India without permits. Their presence in India has led to confusion about the nationality of Indian Gorkhas and they are often misidentified as Nepalese citizens. A separate state of Gorkhaland, they feel, will help seal their identity as Indians.
•What happens now?
West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that there will be no official talks with the GJM so long as they continue to demand Gorkhaland. On its part, the GJM says it’s a separate state or nothing. The 1980s agitation saw violence that took a toll of 1,200 lives. Dialogue between the political organisations and the state and Centre looks like the only way out. (Indian Express)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Darjeeling Strike: Gorkhaland
1st 3 photos by Barun Roy (beacon Online)
GJM has always tried to bond the Gorkha people all around world. GJM’s main motive to unite the Gorkha people and safeguard their interest where they are in minority. There are lots of Gorkha people in Naxalbari, wherein they have been socially, politically, educationally, boycotted.
GJM took the initiative to unite them and thought of making them socially, politically, educationally conscious.
GJM took several initiatives to hold a “Workshop” in Naxalbari. However, the permission was denied by the West Bengal Government ruled by CPI (M), who is totally against the up-liftment of Gorkhali community.
There are several evidences that GJM had requested for permission which was denied several times – The reason for denial is – “Security Concerns”
Two words - Security Concerns
How can Gorkhali people say that they are safe in West Bengal when they cant provide security to mere 1,000 people when they want to hold a workshop for social awareness.
Quite amazing we are in West Bengal.
Now coming to the point again :
As GJM had requested for the permission to hold Workshop on Gorkhaland. The permission was denied.
The only alternative was Dharna (bhok hartal) in non-violent way. No, one was accused, it was just a bhok hartal.
Now, these people where on Bhok Hartal were physically assaulted, man handled, attacked with latthis, stones and were the victim of abusive languages.
These people on Dharna (Bhok Hartal) were attacked by the so called NGO grouped backed by CPI(M) and local administration.
Now …The only democratic (non violent) way left in the hands of GJM was Strike.
NB : the only way to protest in a non-violent way in INDIA is Strike.
Tourist in Darjeeling and Sikkim were given enough time (36 hours) to leave Darjeeling so that they do not face any inconvenience. Tourists were explained the cause of the Strike and the people of Darjeeling requested these tourists to visit Darjeeling again. Some of the tourists were interviewed and they expressed that they would prefer to come Darjeeling again. These tourists were not at all harassed by the people of Darjeeling.
Most of the tourist understood the need of Gorkhaland. Some, of them even took part in meetings organized by the people of Darjeeling.
Just because of this legitimate Strike – All the leading News Papers and News Channels (National and International) have reported about Darjeeling’s demand Gorkhaland.
The News Channels that reported about Gorkhaland in India are as follows :
Aaj Tak – Leading News Channel.
IBN 7
India TV
Times Now
NDTV
Zee News
News 24
BBC World
To name few News Papers that covered the demand of Gorkhaland after this strike are :
Hindustan Times (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Hindustan– Hindi (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Times of India (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
The Telegraph – West Bengal
Metro Now – Delhi
The Statesmen – West Bengal
The Pioneer - (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Punjab Kesari – Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh
The Hindu -(Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Indian Express (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Mail Today - Delhi
Jan Satta – Delhi
Nav Bharat Times –Delhi
Dainik Jagaran – Delhi
Deccan Chronicle - (Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Mumbai)
Anand Bazar Partika - (Delhi, West Bengal)
Amar Ujjala – Delhi
Dainik Bhaskar – Delhi
This speaks a small Success Story to begin with.
This News has brought attention to the Movement and from this that we must carry on forward.
Gorkhaland movement in its present avatar is different from the earlier one. There are lots of intellectuals involved in the movement.
The difference people find between Subash Ghising and Bimal Gurung is :
Subash Ghising never wanted intellectuals to be a part of his movement. However, Bimal Gurung is opposite. He wants all the intellectuals to be part of his movement.
Bimal Gurung is the one and only person who initiated second Phase for Gorkhaland
Bimal Gurung is the only person who braved to go against all the odds.
Bimal Gurung is the only person who risked his Life to Challenge the so called undisputed leader of the Hills
Bimal Gurung is the One who unified a Dispersed Diaspora of Dreamers and Lovers of Gorkhaland.
Bimal Gurung is the One who Inspires people of all walks of life to join this Movement; he is the One who bears the brunt of all misgivings.
Today he qualifies to stand tall to lead the people for achieving Gorkhaland and we should (though I would prefer to use the word ‘must’ here) support him. Right from the day he declared this movement, he has said that he does not aspire to seek to occupy a ‘Chair’ - let us believe him at least for now as the ‘Chair’ is far away at this present juncture.
Let’s support the one and only solution of Darjeeling - GORKHALAND.
Furthermore, I would request to every one to educate the people and the Media with the necessity of Gorkhaland wherever it may be – be it in India or abroad.
The legitimate need of Gorkhaland needs your support and publicity and it is first our responsibility to educate our fellow citizens about this - so please write about the necessity of the Creation of Gorkhaland.
This could be one of the greatest ways in which you could make your contribution.
So Gorkhas Go Ahead - Pen is Mightier than the Sword.
Jai Gorkha. Jai Gorkhaland. Jai Hind.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Tea with Maoists
Baburam Bhattarai and I are very different. He studied Marxist analysis at Jawarhalal Nehru University; I studied neoclassical economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He founded Nepal’s United People’s Front and went underground during the Maoist rebellion; I taught at Harvard and now work at the World Bank. He has a picture of Che Guevara on his car’s gas cap; mine has the logo of my daughter’s soccer team.
Nevertheless, based on our speeches and writings as well as an afternoon together in Kathmandu recently, we found much common ground. We are both concerned about the high and rising inequality in South Asia in general, and Nepal in particular. We agreed that among the causes of this inequality are: (i) slow growth in agriculture; and (ii) lack of employment growth, especially in manufactured exports. I then pushed the envelope a bit by suggesting that the reasons for both (i) and (ii) were government policies which, although introduced with the best of intentions, are backfiring and hurting the poor. For instance, in Sri Lanka, government policy forces farmers to grow rice, a highly vulnerable and not very profitable crop. And the lack of manufactured-export-led employment growth in South Asia in general is associated with extremely restrictive labor regulations in the subcontinent.
Baburam countered on agriculture by saying that the real reason is the feudal relationships that dominated South Asian agriculture. Unless these relationships are changed, simply integrating with the global economy would not benefit the poor. On labor regulations, without disagreeing with the direction of the effect, he wondered whether the magnitude was so great. He suggested other reasons why there was little manufactured export growth in Nepal, including the small size of the domestic market, low levels of education and health of the workers, and weak infrastructure. I agreed with the last factor, but pointed out that other countries with equally low levels of education and health, such as Bangladesh, have been able to attract sizeable investments in garment exports, employing some 2 million workers. Bangladesh also has the least restrictive labor regulations in South Asia. One of his Maoist colleagues from the Planning Commission put it plainly: “These labor laws protect a few hundred thousand workers at the expense of the millions who are trying to get jobs.”
We then discussed infrastructure, particularly the need for greater investment in hydropower in Nepal. Baburam agreed that Nepal needed this. I gingerly asked why I had been given the impression that the Maoists were opposed to foreign investment in the sector, especially by India. He complained about Nepal’s “excessive” dependence on India (he said 75 percent of exports went to India—the real figure is about 60 percent). When we pushed him on the point, he explained that their real fear was that Indian companies would buy up all the licenses and extract all the profits. We said that we feared the same thing, which was why we were trying to design programs for benefit-sharing by the population living in the river basins. He seemed pleased to learn this, and responded favorably to the proposition that Nepal needed a major effort to harness its enormous hydropower potential.
Finally, Baburam asked a question: “Why does the World Bank say it will give money for education only if schools are transferred to communities?” My colleague, Roshan Bajracharya, pointed out that the Bank has never said this. What we do say is that we would like to give money so that it benefits students. If the government has a benchmark of 40 students per teacher, we will calibrate our assistance accordingly, and make sure that each group of 40 students gets a teacher, and that teacher is actually teaching. Our experience has been that simply funding the teacher doesn’t achieve this. By contrast, school management committees appear to be better at getting teachers to teach. Consequently, we do fund the program of transferring management to school management committees, but the principle is that we would like money to chase the student rather than the teacher. Baburam said that direct conversations such as the one we were having were useful to allay false impressions.
In closing, both Baburam and I confirmed that this had been a useful start, and hoped that we could have a continuing dialogue on economic policy issues.
Endnote: Throughout the meeting, Baburam had been staring quizzically at Roshan. When the meeting ended, Roshan reminded him that they had been at college together (albeit many years apart), and that Baburam’s wife was Roshan’s classmate. This led to another round of handshakes and smiles all around.
India ought to tread cautiously on Nepal
Singh’s comments confirm the worst fears among a large section of the Nepalese public that large parts of India still haven’t come to terms with the abolition of its Hindu monarchy and attendant rituals. In the run-up to elections in April, Nepalese journalists and political observers routinely pointed to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) “meddling”, especially in the Terai region, from neighbouring Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Still, that was the VHP, an extremist faction of the “sangh parivar” (the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, family), which along with its many godmen sought to influence Nepal’s election result, in the hope that a fractured polity would not be able to remove the world’s only surviving Hindu monarch, Gyanendra. You could have argued that the BJP, a political party which ran the country for six years until 2004, and therefore, presumably, had a better understanding of both history and geopolitics, would have known better. The irony is that Jaswant Singh is one of a handful of leaders across the political spectrum with intimate knowledge of foreign affairs, defence and economics (he was minister in charge of each of these portfolios during the National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, government). As the key interlocutor with then US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, Singh drove home the message to the world’s most powerful country that a nuclear India had come to stay. From Kandahar to Riyadh, via Agra and Ashkabad, Singh was at the centre of India’s foreign policy story as it unfolded over those years.
The short point here is that for Jaswant Singh to have made those remarks about Nepal was not only bad form, it was also bad policy. After all, Singh has dealt with Nepal in his capacity as a key minister of the government of India. For him to say these things about a neighbouring country, especially one which has just held its first free and fair elections, is an exercise in surprising shortsightedness. If Jaswant Singh returns to office and if the Maoists are still in power — two big ifs, of course — you can bet the last of your slip-sliding rupee that Indo-Nepal relations will hit rock-bottom.
In fact, the BJP national executive threw up more surprises. If it wasn’t Jaswant Singh making noises about Nepal, there was Rajnath Singh redefining secularism for the rest of us, in terms of “dharmnirpeksh” (religion-neutral) and “panthnirpeksh” (sect-neutral). As the party savoured the sweet taste of success in Karnataka, it was time, Rajnath Singh felt, for India to move away from the former towards the latter.
In Karnataka’s aftermath, a victory which has considerably added to the national perception that the throne in Delhi is no longer as elusive for the BJP, it was left to L.K. Advani to announce that an expanded NDA will fight the next national elections with parties which “may not be ideologically aligned” to the BJP. Clearly, Advani wants to distance himself further and further away from the 6 December 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, and mould himself into a leader with broader appeal.
But back to Nepal. The euphoria with which the Maoist-led Constituent Assembly evicted Gyanendra from the Narayanhity palace a week ago is slowly dissipating, as the interim prime minister, G.P. Koirala of the Nepali Congress, refuses to step down. With the Maoists continuing to argue that, as the single largest party, they have the right to both positions of president and prime minister, the political stalemate in Nepal could have disastrous consequences.
According to Nepal’s Kantipur newspaper, the newly installed Indian ambassador, Rakesh Sood, has met Prachanda, the Maoist chief, to ask him whether his party wants both posts, or would it be happy with just one. Perhaps Sood is trying to broker a compromise between the Maoists and the Nepali Congress, and trying to persuade both sides to respect the verdict of the people, which did not give either party a complete majority.
Sood would be well aware—as is the rest of Nepal—of the statements of his own national security adviser M.K. Narayanan who, barely 10 days before the April elections, announced that New Delhi would like the Nepali Congress to come back to power in Kathmandu. And although, ever since, the government has sought to reassure all parties that it is not interested in taking sides, there are those who believe that New Delhi should weigh in with its old friend Koirala, ask him to step down and concede that the Maoists are at least the single largest political party in the elections.
Truth is, Nepal has always had a special relationship with India. Both the BJP and the Congress party would do well to remember that. (liveMint.com)
Jyoti Malhotra is Mint’s diplomatic affairs editor and writes on the intersection of foreign policy, trade and politics every week.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Left’s Misfired Missive
Tendentious Anti-imperialism
Monday 2 June 2008, by Sankar Ray
The West Bengal supremo and Polit-Bureau member of the CPI-M, Biman Bose, slapped a suspicion at the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha leadership that the movement is inspired by US imperialism. In a more gossipy than substantive tone, he said: “We do not have evidence to prove the allegation but we have strong doubts that US Intelligence agencies are linked with the political turmoil in the Darjeeling hills.” Carrying on his political formulation in a cavalier fashion, he added that there might be a possible involvement of the US secret agencies in Darjeeling as the USA, adept in ‘the art of Balkanisation’ or vivisecting non-conformist countries into smaller ones, may have some role in the “ongoing disturbances in the Darjeeling hills”. Bose was speaking to the media at the Siliguri party office.
Bose, albeit as crucial a political personality as the Left Front Chairman, is at home in trying to sell rumours. Immediately after the people of Nandigram were astir in the first week of January 2007, he told the media that the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar had a secret meeting at Sonachura, Nandigram, to chalk out the agitation. When Medha shot back saying that she had never been to Nandigram and threatened to sue the LF big boss, the latter climbed down stating that he got such an information and expressed regret. When Tapasi Malik, daughter of a landless labourer, was found assassinated and charred at Singur, Bose said she might have died out of a failed romance. A silly attempt to vilify the first martyr of Singur peasants’ struggle against the Tata Motors project. There are many such instances, all in video cassettes of several private TV channels, of baseless accusations or concoctions by the man, known as the best recruit of the CPI-M’s organisational genius, Promode Dasgupta.
The LF Chairman wants to differentiate between the GJMM and Gorkha National Liberation Front, led by Subhas Ghising, as the GNLF can’t be accused of links with US imperialism. B T Ranadive, a founding PB member of the CPI-M and infamous for pushing the undivided CPI into a sectarian quagmire in the late 1940s, wrote a piece in the CPI-M’s mouthpiece People’s Democracy two decades back and branded the Gorkhaland stir as “yet another attack of the secessionist forces on the unity and integrity of India”. (B.T. Ranadive: “Gorkhaland Agitation—a Part of Imperialist plot in the East”, PD, September 10, 1988) But the CPI-M stopped calling the GNLF and Ghising ‘secessionist’ when there was a discreet deal between Ghising and the CPI-M for smooth victory of the CPI-M nominee from the Darjeeling parliamentary seat. Every time (except in 2004) the GNLF used to boycott polls in the hill segments and ensured victory of the CPI-M. When in 2004 the GNLF decided to side with the Congress nominee, Dawa Narbula, the CPI-M campaigners raked up the secessionist allegation against the GNLF.
The CPI-M has in the last two decades been very often spearheading its criticism against US imperialism and the neo-liberal ideology. This is commendable. Now the party talks of peace and peace movement unlike in the 1960s and 1970s when its fire-eating leaders like M. Basava-punnaiah, BTR and Dasgupta used to ridicule the World Peace Council and its Indian arm, the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation which now is gradually in for grab by the AKG Bhavan, thanks to the submissive attitude of the CPI. In the late 1960s, the CPI-M, parroting the Communist Party of China in its resolution at the Burdwan plenum, slandered the CP of the Soviet Union stating that the CPSU leaders “go to the extent of exaggerating the concept of peaceful coexistence… as a form of class struggle”. However, this was a downright lie as the document adopted by the 81-party meeting (Moscow, 1960) categorically said: “Peaceful coexistence of states does not imply renunciation of class struggle as the revisionists claim.” Among the signatories of the document was the CPC, which unfortunately distorted this in the letter of the Central Committee of the CPC to the CC of the CPSU on June 14, 1963; and that constituted the whole essence of the CPI-M’s ideology after splitting the CPI.
The tirade against US imperialism is excellent but not the misuse of it. The CPI-M General Secretary, Prakash Karat, propped up by the mainstream media as an outstanding ideologue, told newspersons at the recently-concluded 19th Congress of the CPI-M at Coimbatore that the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee (Committee of Resistance against Eviction from Land) of Nandigram is inspired by US imperialism. West Bengal’s Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, a delegate, and Karat referred to the US State Administration’s human rights violation report in India, especially Nandigram. “ It is now evident that there was something more than the issue of land,” Karat remarked, as if the Nandigram stir was inspired by the Bush Administration.
The role of US imperialism in the Nandigram movement was discovered by the AITUC General Secretary and CPI group leader in the Lok Sabha, Gurudas Dasgupta, who raised the matter during Zero hour in Parliament on March 14 drawing attention to the US State Department report, 2007 ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—India’. “The issue is: it is India’s concern, not the US’s,” the firebrand MP said. But there is a catch here. A statement was issued by the CPI-M PB on the same day chiding the US Government for ‘unnecessary and unwarranted’ interference and denouncing the reference to Nandigram. The AKG Bhavan biggies advised ‘all right thinking people to reject this contention and interference of the US Government’. The choice of March 14 was to divert attention of TV-viewers from the coverage of events on the first anniversary of the Nandigram incidents that provoked the State Governor to express his sense of ‘cold horror’.
THE idea of giving the US (read the CIA) tag on the genuine agrarian struggle was novel, but ludicrous too. What Karat, Dasgupta and Roy Chowdhury suppressed was that it was not a report prepared by the US Government, but a verbatim reproduction of a UNHRC report. It is accessible to netizens the world over. The credit line to the UNHRC was there too. Karat’s feigned innocence is mischievous. Interestingly, the selective ballyhoo was not made on March 11 when it was uploaded in the US State Department’s website but on March 14. The concocted link between the US imperialists and Nandigram protesters was to give the protesters a bad name and hang them. This is not only cowardice but tendentious.
The 293-word portion on Nandigram in the UNHRC document reads: On March 14, thousands of local villagers in the Nandigram district of West Bengal attacked police and Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPM) supporters who tried to enter an agricultural area earmarked for conversion to an industrial zone. Acting on orders from the CPM-led State Government, the police fired on the crowd, killing 14 individuals and injuring 45. The Kolkata High Court ordered an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but the court later revoked the CBI’s investigative authority and asked the CBI to preserve evidence. On July 10, members of the Anti-Naxal Special Police Force killed five persons including an alleged leader of the CPI-Maoist cadre at Ammadlu village in Chikmagalur district. According to the Karnataka police, all five were members of the local Naxalite unit, while human rights groups alleged that four of those killed were residents of a house caught in the crossfire. At year’s end a magisterial inquiry into the encounter was underway.
From November 6 to 11, CPM members, whom human rights groups claim had State Government support and direction, conducted a violent campaign of intimidation to regain control over the Nandigram area from the BUPC. The BUPC included those opposed to the CPM’s plan to acquire local land for industry, some former CPM supporters, and Opposition party workers and was backed by the Trinamul Congress, part of the West Bengal Opposition. News reports and eyewitness accounts noted that CPM cadres fired on BUPC supporters and local villagers, killing at least three and injuring others, burned many houses, and engaged in numerous rapes. On November 27, journalists reported the discovery of mass graves in the area. Following a government order on December 7, the CID initiated an inquiry into the identity of the bodies”.
There is no exaggeration, but understatement. The judgment by the High Court of Calcutta, inexplicably delivered in an inordinate delay after a bigger and more cruel genocide nearly for the whole of November last year, recorded 27 disappearances, 162 injured and half a dozen of rapes.
Karat, Dasgupta, Roy Chowdhury et.al should know that the UNHRC got Nobel Peace Prize twice for defending peace and human rights with their people working with great risks everywhere; why don’t they, then, pull up the UN affiliate instead of aiming at a deliberately wrong target? Dasgupta, arguably a vociferous pro-labour parliamentarian, danced to the tune of the AKG Bhavan honchos. True, without the CPI-M’s support he could not and will not be an MP.
About the CPI’s canine subservience, no elaboration is necessary. Its cadres lined up at the entrance of Coimbatore’s V. O. Chidambaram Ground, the venue of the mass meeting, to greet the first procession led by Sitaram Yechury. That’s the singularly great contribution of the CPI General Secretary, A. B. Bardhan, to his AKG Bhavan bosses.
The UNHRC referred to the Home Ministry’s 2006-2007 Report , revealing “1159 deaths in police custody between April and December 2006”. It makes a crisp reference to violence perpetrated by Naxalites—meaning the Maoists—in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and counter-terrorist excesses by the state too. Left MPs are deceptively silent about this. “Of the 336 individuals killed in Chhatisgarh, 93 were civilians, 170 police personnel (regular forces, as well as Special Police Officers) and 73 were alleged Naxalites. According to Andhra Pradesh Police, Maoists killed 44 civilians throughout the year.” The police too “were responsible for 47 encounter killings of Maoists during the year, compared with 110 in 2006”. Militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom “killed more than 110 persons in bomb attacks in the Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sivsagar districts of Assam”, the UNHRC stated. The official Left parties are unperturbed over the matter.
Let me drift a little to tell you a bit about Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, now a Minister of Higher Education, West Bengal. He was a temporary Maoist during the early period of the Naxalbari revolt, but went back to the CPI-M to regain a safe life and career. He was twice elected an MP too. The other day I was seeing a documentary of the Naxalbari movement, Basanter Dinguli ( Memories of Spring Thunder), written and directed Amar Bhattacharya, one of the many victims of state terror for involvement in the Naxalbari struggle that relived those high-voltage days which catapulted the agrarian imperative to the national arena. Amar did a good job, leave apart our ideological differences. Roy Chowdhury’s active role during the days of ‘spring thunder’ has a mention there.
However, Karat’s role in ‘transferred epithet’—US link to the Nandigram stir—had a hidden purpose. He confirmed that he is an obedient boy of the cash-rich CPI-M’s West Bengal unit which calls the shots from Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan. Asset values of buildings, constructed and owned by the CPI-M’s district and zonal committees and mass organisations like the CITU, All India Krishak Sabha, morninger Ganashakti and State and Central Government employees’ bodies, may be anything between Rs 300 crores and Rs 400 crores. Karat and other biggies at the A.K. Gopalan Bhavan, the party’s national headquarters, have to keep the M A Bhavan honchos in good humour, shelving ideological issues aside.
Poor Marx, five-star Communists like Karat and Yechury, posing as his disciples, conveniently forgot Marx’s words—“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me”—borrowed from Publius Terentius Afer, the playwright of the Roman Empire, known more as Terence (195-159 BC). Which was why Yechury wasted no time in justifying the mini-genocide at Nandigram on March 14 as if all this was provoked by the peaceful mass, under the banner of the BUPC. Maybe, tomorrow Karat and Yechury will defend the bumptious CPI-M MP—the overlord of Haldia—Lakshman Seth who tried to prevent the CRPF DIG Alok Raj to do his assigned task at Nandigram to help peaceful Panchayat polling there. The mafia face of false Marxism is out in the broad daylight of grim reality, at least in West Bengal. (Mainstream weekly)
Friday, May 30, 2008
We are victims too
BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED 29 May 2008
I AM puzzled at your silence and the silence of your newspaper on the Jaipur blasts," wrote in a very intelligent reader based in the US. Venkat, an Indian techie, (not his full name) seems to follow what I write and often sends me his feedback. And I must confess I often enjoy his interesting take on the issues that usually exercise me, even if I don't always agree with him.
This one, coming as it did soon after the terror attack on Indian city of Jaipur earlier this month, was a little surprising. Because after my day-to-day responsibilities, I barely manage to do a weekly column and it comes on a fixed day of the week. The Jaipur incident took place on May 13 and my column, even if it were devoted to the issue, wasn't due until May 22.
I wrote back to Venkat explaining my inability to keep pace with his expectations. I also pointed out in passé that we had run an editorial on Jaipur the very next day condemning the attack in strongest terms, not to mention several letters — many of them from Indian and Pakistani Muslims — angrily condemning the outrage.
Back home in India, numerous Muslim organisations and public figures have been vehemently protesting the attack that killed 62 people. But their voices couldn't have reached Venkat or the larger Indian society. Because the marginalised, ghettoised and semi-literate community that I come from has lost its voice — literally.
Even when an anguished Indian Muslim speaks his mind on issues like terror and the larger concerns facing the community and the country, the media has little time or patience for these sound bites. Because, let's face it, it's the bad news that interests the media. Some bearded mullah condemning acts of terror by "suspected Muslim terrorists" hardly makes for exciting reading and viewing.
The media is more interested in burning the 'usual suspects' at the stake of public opinion even before they are judged by a court. Evidence be damned. Justice can go take a walk! Who cares who really is responsible for the Jaipur attacks? Or the Hyderabad blasts? Or the Mumbai train bombings?
I wish friends like Venkat could read Urdu newspapers and magazines. For they'd see how Indian Muslim views these despicable acts targeting innocent people. The minority community is as outraged as fellow Indians over the spilling of innocent blood. In fact, it's all the more anguished because the responsibility for these heinous acts is being laid at its door.
Prominent Urdu dailies are full of commentaries by Muslim leaders and intellectuals condemning the Jaipur tragedy and growing incidents of this nature.
How many of these statements have found their way into the English dailies or those hysterical Hindi news channels? No wonder Venkat is 'puzzled' over our silence. This is precisely why one has repeatedly been shouting out, for what it's worth, to the world that such outrageous actions have nothing to do with Islam.
Even if some driven men unleash terror in the name of Islam, it's unfair to drag this great faith through the mud for the irresponsible actions of its followers.
Terrorism is an extremist and nihilistic death cult. There cannot be a greater absurdity than linking it to a faith that celebrates life and hope and advocates peace, justice, reason, balance and moderation in everything we do.
This is what I tried to argue after the 7/7 London bombings. Even as one has repeatedly assailed the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and widespread human rights abuses as part of the terror war, one has never shied away from taking on the extremists who claim to speak on behalf of Muslims and yet shed innocent blood.
In fact, I see these elements as greatest threat to Islam and Muslims because they kill in the name of our faith and distort its humane teachings. Which is why one has constantly pleaded with Muslim intellectuals and leaders to raise their voice against this lunatic fringe.
God knows we can't afford to lose this battle of hearts and minds. The Muslims really need to make some noise; making it clear to the world that this is not the Islam we know (no apologies to Bush).
That said, I find these expectations from Indian Muslims to prove they are not with the terrorists, every time there's an attack of this sort rather disconcerting. Why do we have to prove our innocence and loyalty to the land that has been our home for more than a thousand years every time there's an incident like this?
Indian Muslims have paid and continue to pay an incalculable price for the Original Sin of the country's Partition. How long are we supposed to carry this cross on our shoulders? This is especially unfair to people born after the Partition. The people of my generation and even those from my parents' generation never had a role to play in the division of the country, whatever the geopolitical and historical factors that contributed to it.
Why then is this burden of historical guilt thrust on us time and time again? It's the shadow of this guilt that has been the bane of Indian Muslim's existence. Weighed down by this shame, he has put up with every injustice and insult all these years.
This is why while his fellow Indians confidently demand their share of the pie, he is content in his ghetto and grateful for the crumbs — or promises of crumbs — the politicians throw his way. He is elated when his identity as an Indian is recognised at the time of polls and is wooed by political parties. But times are a-changing. Today's Muslims aren't prepared to be treated like second-class citizens in their own land.
We love this great land as much as the next Indian. Nobody has any right to lecture us on patriotism. And we aren't ready to stand there, our heads bowed in shame, and take the blame every time some nut out there goes berserk.
Trust me it does hurt us too when innocent people suffer. I still can't get the image of that young woman in a new saree, henna still fresh on her hands, out of my mind. She lay there on the road, next to a young man, maybe her husband. She looked as if she was asleep. My heart went out to her and her loved ones. She didn't deserve to die this way. And those who did this to her must be brought to justice and must be made to pay for their crimes.
But don't blame a whole community when it's not even established who is responsible for this outrage. And please do not expect us to apologise for these extremist acts. For we are victims of this terror too.
After Jaipur, RSS and BJP men went on the rampage targeting Muslim homes and small businesses in the old city. But how many of us know that at least eight of those killed in Jaipur were Muslim? All of those killed in Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad and many of the victims of the Gokul chaat joint, again in Hyderabad, had been Muslims. Many of those killed in the Mumbai train bombings were from the minority community.
In fact, if there's one community that has suffered the most at the hands of terrorists, it is the Muslims. Just look around, from Pakistan to Afghanistan and from Iraq to Palestine, it is Islam and its followers who are at the receiving end, whatever the causes. Not to mention the disgrace it has brought to the fair name of a great faith, distorting its humane and liberating teachings, perhaps forever.
But this goes beyond religious identities and ideologies. Terror knows no faith. And we are all its victims, whether we are Muslims, Christians or Hindus. (Khaleej Times)
Aijaz Zaka Syed is a senior editor of Khaleej Times. The views expressed here are his own. Write to him at aijazsyed@khaleejtimes.com
Food crisis? What food crisis?
FINALLY, a voice from the UN is saying something sensible about the world food crisis. John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian aid chief, is asking UN agencies to cool some of their dire rhetoric about the impact of high food prices.
By the yardstick of the last big food crisis in 1974, that had US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger running to an emergency UN conference in Rome to pledge that "within a decade no child should go to bed hungry", it is not such a severe event. In terms of real prices the price hike is not so high as it seems; in terms of the rise of consumer buying power over the last 34 years it is not biting so deeply.
Moreover, take wheat and rice out of the equation and many food prices have not risen so significantly — millet and barley among grains and most root staples — potatoes, yams, cassava. Not least, the crisis's immediate solution, as it was in 1974, is only a harvest away. The sharp price rises of 1974 encouraged farmers to plant more and sell more and very soon the price of food was at historic lows.
Most of the Third World's poor — almost 75 per cent — live on the land, farming in small villagers. For them the food crisis could be a great opportunity. At last they can get a decent price for their produce — but only if governments allow the local market to pass along the price increases of the international market. Alas, many governments, fearful of alienating their more vocal urban electorates, are introducing policies that, as always in most developing countries, protect the urban dweller at the expense of the farmer.
The "world food crisis" of 2008 is a historic opportunity to allow the terms of trade to shift in favour of the rural poor. Food prices will fall of their own accord within six months to a year, but they are unlikely to fall as fast and far as they did in 1974 because the demand for food is increasing thanks to the pace of development not just in China and India but in Africa and Latin America too.
If governments can help the process along by stepping up the pace of building small rural feeder roads so crops can be moved to market, encouraging the use of fertilizer, even with subsidies, and allowing the introduction of genetically improved crops despite the Luddite policies of the European Union, then enormous steps can be taken in improving the lives of the rural poor. One has only to look at Nigeria and Malawi, two countries which in the last few years have engineered a revolution in agriculture by doing some of this.
In Nigeria, according to the International Monetary Fund, agricultural growth is now 8 per cent a year, almost as good as the growth in the oil sector. (However, this figure is regarded as somewhat too high by others) Malawi's maize harvest has increased by a third in a single year.
When the great Irish famine got under way 170 years ago, Charles Trevelyan, the British Treasury official responsible for famine policy, refused to allow the procurement of home cereals for relief because it would "disturb the market". In Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman", the returned Irish American Malone, insists on calling the famine "the starvation".
"Me father died of starvation in the black '47. Maybe you've heard of it?" "The famine?"
"No, the starvation. When a country is full of food and exporting it, there can be no famine. Me father was starved dead and I was starved out to America in me mother's arms."
Those governments who insist on imposing a status quo in their local rural market place are condemned to have their poorest people suffering or even dying because of it. A professor of economics at Oxford, Paul Collier, who is well known for his exploration of what makes people poor, has recently written that "the most realistic way to raise global food supply is to replicate the Brazilian model of large technologically sophisticated agro-companies supplying for the world market". This is nonsense. In some sparsely inhabited countries this might make sense. But where peasants are thick on the ground the most productive policy is to give peasants their head.
The countries that pioneered the East Asian miracle, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, were the countries that had vigorous land reform and split up their feudal estates in favour of the peasant. More recently, it was done in West Bengal, India. As long ago as the 1970s the World Bank found in study after study that a smaller average size of holding and a low concentration of ownership produced an increase in output per hectare.
The solution to the current "world food crisis" is right under most developing countries' noses. They should trust and help the peasant to respond to market forces. If some very poor people remain hungry then governments can buy locally and feed them at special low price shops. (Khaleej Times)
Jonathan Power is a widely published commentator and can be reached at JonatPower@aol.com
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
NEWSMAKER-The decline and fall of Nepal's last king
Now Nepal's King Gyanendra is vilified, set to lose his crown and even pay his own tax and electricity bills.
The 60-year-old businessman-turned-monarch has only himself to blame, many Nepalis say, after an ill-judged power grab in 2005 when he dismissed the government, jailed politicians and declared a state of emergency.
Gyanendra was apparently fed up with Nepal's corrupt and squabbling politicians and decided only he could rescue the country from a deadly Maoist insurgency.
The attempt backfired, and he was forced to back down the following year after weeks of street protests that ultimately sealed his and the monarchy's fate.
'He believed that he had the best intention,' said Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times weekly. 'But it was his autocratic streak that did him in.'
As a three-year-old boy Gyanendra was thrust on the throne in 1950 when his grandfather briefly fled to India, in the midst of a power struggle with the country's hereditary prime ministers, the Ranas.
When King Tribhuvan returned a few months later, Gyanendra retreated once more into the background, building a fortune in tea, tobacco and hotels and getting involved in environmental conservation.
Then, nearly seven years ago, his popular brother King Birendra and eight other members of the royal family were shot and killed by the crown prince, who then turned his gun on himself.
Gyanendra was back on the throne, and like many of his predecessors, he was brought up to believe he knew better than his subjects what was best for Nepal.
The massacre had broken the mystique of a monarchy once revered as incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu, while Gyanendra's seizure of power unleashed the wrath of the people.
'I think he is getting what he deserved,' said 48-year-old laborer Suntali Khatri, breast-feeding her two-year-old daughter next to a building site. 'He could not ask for more.'
Maoist rebels, whose main demand had been the abolition of the 'feudal monarchy', have gone on to become Nepal's largest party after a 2006 peace deal and elections in April.
They say Gyanendra can stay in the country as a commoner and businessman, provided he respects the assembly's decision.
The king himself has been reported as saying he had no intention of leaving Nepal.
Instead he is likely to drive from the pink pagoda-roofed Narayanhity Palace to his own, luxurious and well-guarded private residence in Kathmandu.
OVER-AMBITIOUS?
Gyanendra went to school in Darjeeling, a hill station in eastern India, and graduated from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.
Mohan Prasad Lohani, who taught him English in university, said he was an irregular student – more interested in politics than studies. 'He had his own notion of how things should change. He was very ambitious,' he said.
That ambition could have been his downfall, analysts say. And it has been a dramatic fall from grace.
In the last two years, the government has seized thousands of acres of royal lands, nationalised more than a dozen of his palaces and sacked his priest in a purge of palace employees.
Virtually confined to his palace, the king has had his annual allowance cut, been hit with tax demands and requests for unpaid electricity bills. He has seen his face replaced by an image of Mount Everest on the country's banknotes and praise of him purged from the national anthem.
Yet royalists who have met him say he has taken it all calmly.
They argue that a hasty abolition of the monarchy could backfire and leave the country without the anchor that it needs in times of change. But royalist parties won just four seats in the 601-member assembly.
While many Nepalis like the idea of a constitutional monarchy, few like the idea of being ruled by Gyanendra or his unpopular son Paras, who has a reputation as a playboy and a reckless driver.
'I think this is the end of the road for the monarchy,' Dixit said. 'Most Nepalis think it just not worth the trouble to keep any more.' (Writing by Gopal Sharma and Simon Denyer; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani) (signonsandiego.com)
Is Nepal Ready for a Republic?
By Krishna Giri
.There is no doubt that people have demanded change and it must be delivered. While implementing the changes, let’s hope the leaders will not make any other blunders and force the country into yet another crisis. The CA results have clearly favoured the Maoists. NC and UML cannot blame anyone but themselves for their failure. It was their strategic and analytical failure to reckon with the Maoists as a democratic force. In less than two years, Nepali leaders were convinced that the Maoist guerrillas had made a U turn from the ‘Shining Path’ to the ‘Path of Nirvana’. Now monks have started to hear the philosophical rhetoric about Buddhism from Prachanda & Co. What a shame.
I do not agree that the Nepali people actually know the difference between a CA Election and a Parliamentary Election. But I expect these are known to the national leaders CA election was not an election to make a government. Right from the beginning of the 12-point understanding, governments are to be formed by consensus. Though it’s a real pity that only eight parties are involved in this consensus and the rest of the parties are left behind. SPAM is the unofficial authoritarian regime in Nepal. So, why are the Maoists so desperate to form a government on their own? What do they mean by the danger of ‘power polarisation’ if high profile portfolios (President, Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Home Minister etc) are shared? They do not have the authority to form the government on their own and they should be watched carefully for years to come. Their hands are still red and the political dramas are not over yet. However, they should be allowed to lead the next government.
The country is only a week away from the first sitting of the CA. And if parties followed their election promises, we are only a week away to becoming the newest republic in the world. The biggest question at this time is: DO WE REALLY NEED TO BE A REPUBLIC? I do not think there is a straight forward answer. If there is, why is there so much confusion even after getting a mandate from the people? None of the major political parties backed the monarchy while going to the CA election. The Maoists, who promised to abolish the monarchy right from the beginning of their peoples war, and in the recent past, withdrew from the government to pressure for a republic in the interim constitution. But, they are the first party to propose a space for the monarchy. So, it is not as simple as they speak or promise. And if we look at it globally, countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are still debating on republican issues.
As a student of political science, I do believe politics is a science, where you need a balance of power to run a country or a party or a community. I still see monarchy as an institution, and as a power in Nepal. We have 240 long years of royal history. Kings only represent an institution. We cannot blame the institution if some representatives are bad. Consider the monarchy, NC, UML, MJF, RPP, Maoists etc. Who is good? We have to pick someone good from the worst. If we start to judge the institution with just a few rulers, that may not be ‘fair dinkum’ for the institution. And further more, we are talking about millions of people who are connected to this institution by emotion. Everybody should be heard in an inclusive democracy. The country cannot provoke or isolate any marginalised people. The Maoists know these things better than anyone else because they know their history and rise to power. Having said that, the bad royals should learn lessons from history and appropriate action needs to be taken against them. The country neither needs Gyanendra nor Paras, but it needs the institution. The country should look for the best avenue to overcome this crisis. A redefined model of monarchy should be activated in Nepal. Minimum ceremonial and cultural powers with limited allowance should be given to the monarch. CA debates should go on to impose new powers and restrictions to the Institution. A provision for abolishing monarchy by a referendum should be secured in the new constitution.
Declaring a republic may not sound like a gigantic step at this stage but to face the consequences after the declaration are the prime challenges. Leaders have repeatedly proved that they work for the day but not for the future. Who will be responsible if, by declaring a republic, the country is plunged into another chaos? Is monarchy alone responsible for all failures? The time has come to make a sensible decision. Even if monarchy has to go, it has to go through a transition. If we look back from BS 2007 to today, the monarchy’s power has shifted a lot. They are losing than gaining. Their desire for more has made them losers. So, it is trouble-free for the people and the CA to make them even weaker. This is how people should be punished in politics, cutting the power and narrowing the space to move; if we believe in democracy. Abolishing the monarchy by a simple majority of votes in the first CA sitting is not a democratic exercise, whereas, in the same interim constitution, to change a government we need a two third majority. As long as politicians recognise people as FORCE rather than POWER, the country cannot move forward and we cannot expect actions and decisions that are in the national interest. Aggressive and premature action filled with vengeance may throw the country into long term volatility and political catastrophe.
(The author is currently a student of political science in Canberra, Australia): Kantipuronline
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
‘Mental Complexes’ Result in Western Sympathy for Tibet
Will it be possible to persuade Western governments and public opinion that China is the victim of Tibetan ‘running dogs’? In this op-ed from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po, published before the voyage of the Olympic torch began, Hong Kong television commentator Dr. Qiu Zhenhai explains how the Beijing government can turn the public relations battle in its favor. Far more reasonable - even to the point of admitting error on the part of the Chinese government - the key, according to the author, is to understand the flaws and contradictions in Western thinking and to mount a massive new public relations campaign.
By Dr. Qiu Zhenhai, commentator for Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV
Translated By Mark Klingman
March 22. 2008
China - Wen Wei Po - Original Article (Chinese)
Tibet’s largest riot in 20 years has aroused international concern. Although over the past few days Chinese officials have released some news, they have yet to allow foreign reporters to interview the locals and the rumors are flying. Particularly European countries are of the belief that information from the Chinese government is wholly unreliable. This statement sounds harsh, but the Western world’s inherent thinking and feeling on the issue of Tibet is a reflection of this. If we carefully study the mentality behind this thinking and improve China’s international public-relations skills, we can try to overcome the limitations of the West’s political culture.
The Olympic Games in Beijing are still four and a half months away. Although this is a moment of crisis, the crisis may also offer opportunities.
Tibet is a complicated issue. There does need to be a deeper, more respectful, civilized dialogue and an improvement in relations between Han Chinese and Tibetans. But long-term delays and the way the Tibetan running-dogs have acted in their own political interests have resulted in the growing complication of Tibetan affairs. But looked at in isolation, it’s clear that the disturbances, rioting, vandalism and heinous disorder are being dealt with according to the law. If any incident of this kind took place in a Western country, regardless of the “complexity” of the surrounding issues, the local government would carry out effective programs to clamp down and maintain peace. The 1992 riots in Los Angeles as well as the 2005 riots in Paris are perfect examples.
Only on the Tibet issue do Western media and intelligentsia diverge from their usual thinking. In the past, Western intellectuals have almost unanimously condemned the Chinese government over Tibet. In regard to the current turmoil, they have condemned the use of force and demanded official Chinese restraint, regardless of the facts surrounding the riots. But the West’s criticism is in stark contrast to its long history of intellectual and empirical rigor, because it is fully aware that the question of Tibet is a deep and complex one. Therefore we must take the first step: We must study the Western position on the question of Tibet, along with the international public relations measures utilized by Western intellectuals.
TIBET: A WESTERN BLIND SPOT AND MENTAL COMPLEX
On the question of Tibet, Western intellectuals have multiple overlaid and intertwined complexes. So when they speak with the appearance of “rationality” on the issue of Tibet, they merely give vent to their own confusion and demonstrate the vicious circle that they’ve gotten themselves into.
COMPLEX NUMBER ONE: The long-standing, traditional liberalism and idealism of the West, which is concerned primarily with civil liberties, human rights, self-determination, and confidence in basic government, arose out of the Renaissance and the bourgeois [industrial] revolution. These ideas are the precious spiritual wealth of the West. The trouble is that for a variety of reasons, when this spiritual wealth encounters the Tibet issue, it gets twisted and perverted.
COMPLEX NUMBER TWO: Over the past few centuries because of the success of modernization, there has been a “tilting” process toward the West. The West has become a model for the world in human rights, democracy, freedom, civil law, and the self-determination of peoples. These have become so-called natural, mainstream values, and therefore in the exchanges between the West and China, the West has had a commanding position. China is not and should not reject these ideals due to their Western origins. Rather, China should take part in these universal values of freedom, democracy, and human rights, and should remain “inclined” toward dialog with the West.
COMPLEX NUMBER THREE: Along with the rapid development of the West and shift of the East-West balance toward the West (especially the major European countries), there has also come an odd spread of primitive “hippie” culture - those in search of novelty and interested in “finding themselves” - as well as religious fanaticism, the leading representatives of this being Africa and Tibet.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the controversy surrounding the 2008 Olympics as it relates to the United States. (The moderate voice)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
India and Pakistan —keep talking
THE India-Pakistan dialogue has opened a new window of opportunity that both sides must address. As New Delhi and Islamabad sound each other out on the sensitive issue of Kashmir, a series of confidence-building measures are helping raise the political comfort level. Nonetheless, the sustainability of the composite dialogue hinges on their ability to address what they consider the core issues — cross-border violence for India, and the long standing Kashmir concern for Pakistan.
A 60-year-old 'difference of opinion' on Kashmir is unlikely to be resolved in just a few months. Instead the two sides should, and must, continue talking to build better ties and confidence between the neighbours. Simultaneously, they should also improve the lives of people in the entire poverty-ravaged, economically battered province of Kashmir.
As foreign ministers of the two countries lead these historic talks, there is greater seriousness and sincerity in taking on the touchy question of Kashmir.
India wants credible assurances from Pakistan that violence in Kashmir Valley comes to an end and the militants in Pakistan opposed to the peace initiatives are checked. For its par, Pakistan wants to see concrete progress in tackling what it calls as the core issue of Kashmir. The peace process that began in 2002 has not suffered any major hitch, even though it has faltered and slowed down at times.
The recent political developments in Pakistan have only helped further improve the positive reflections and reverberations. The political change of guard in Pakistan did raise doubts in some quarters about whether Islamabad will go ahead with the peace process; not because of a change of heart, but due to more pressing at-home issues that demanded greater attention. But the peace process has been moving at its own pace.
But it's time for the neighbours to move on and make some credible, genuine progress to help improve the condition of the people of Kashmir and address their historical concerns and aspirations. (Khaleej Times, Editorial)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Tibet issue (China's view)
Is Tibet part of China?
For more than 700 years, the central government of China has continuously exercised sovereignty over Tibet, and Tibet has never been an independent state. No government of any country in the world has ever recognised Tibet as an independent state.
(People's Daily, April 2008)
What was Tibet like before the Communists established control in 1951?
Even in the first half of the 20th Century, Tibet remained a society of feudal serfdom under a theocracy, one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe. The ecclesiastical and secular serf owners controlled the personal freedom of the serfs and slaves who made up more than 95% of the population of Tibet. By resorting to... extremely savage punishments, including gouging out eyes, cutting off ears, tongues, hands and feet, pulling out tendons, throwing people into rivers or off cliffs, they practiced cruel economic exploitation.
(Xinhua News Agency, March 2008)
What has happened since then?
Since its peaceful liberation in 1951, Tibet has undergone profound social changes, including democratic reform, reform and opening up, and has achieved remarkable social and economic progress.
(China's Foreign Ministry handbook, July 2007)
Who was behind a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, after which the Dalai Lama fled to India?
In face of the ever-growing demand of the people for democratic reform, some people in the upper ruling strata of Tibet, in order to preserve feudal serfdom and supported by imperialist forces, staged an armed rebellion all along the line on 10 March 1959 in an attempt to separate Tibet from China.
(Xinhua News Agency, March 2008)
We now possess sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa incident is part of the 'Tibetan people's uprising movement' organised by the Dalai clique. Its purpose is to create crisis in China by staging co-ordinated sabotage activities in Tibet. 'Tibet Independence' separatist forces led by the Dalai Lama takes the 2008 Beijing Olympics as their last straw to realise 'Tibetan independence'.
(China's Ministry of Public Security press release, April 2008)
The Dalai Lama keeps talking about a peaceful way. However, solid facts prove that his much-vaunted 'middle way' policy and 'peaceful demonstrations' are blatant lies fabricated by the Dalai himself and the Dalai clique.
(China's Ministry of Public Security press release, April 2008)
What does the Chinese government think about reports by the Western media about the recent events in Tibet?
It is unfortunate that a few Western media outlets, including some from the United States, are ignorant of the obvious truths and are basing their reports on distorted facts and unfounded claims.
(Zhang Yun, Chinese consul general for Los Angeles, Xinhua, April 2008) (BBC News)
The Tibet issue (Tibet's view)
Is Tibet part of China?
It is beyond dispute at various periods of its long history that Tibet came under differing degrees of foreign influence: the Mongols, the Gurkhas of Nepal, the Manchu emperors of China and the British rulers of India all played their parts. At other periods in the plateau's history, it was Tibet which exercised power and influence over its neighbours - including China.
It would be hard to find any state in the world today that has not been subjected to foreign domination or influence at some era in its history. In Tibet's case the degree and duration of foreign influence and interference was relatively limited.
What was Tibet like before the Communists established control in 1951?
Traditional Tibetan society - like most of its Asian contemporaries - was backward and badly in need of reforms. However, it is completely wrong to use the word "feudal" from the perspective of medieval Europe to describe traditional Tibetan society. Tibet before the invasion, in fact, was far more egalitarian than most Asian countries of that time. Hugh Richardson, who spent a total of nine years in Tibet as Britain's last and independent India's first representative, wrote: "Even communist writers have had to admit there was no great difference between rich and poor in [pre-1949] Tibet."
An internal Chinese military document states that from 1952 to 1958, the People's Liberation Army crushed 996 rebellions and killed over 10,000 Tibetans in the north-eastern region of Kanlho. Golog, another Amdo area, saw its population halved from an estimated 140,000 in 1956 to about 70,000 in 1964.
Referring to this area, the late Panchen Lama [the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama] told Beijing's leaders: "If there was a film made on all the atrocities perpetrated in Qinghai Province, it would shock the viewers. In Golog area, many people were killed and their dead bodies rolled down the hill into a big ditch. The soldiers told the family members and relatives of the dead people that they should celebrate since the rebels had been wiped out. They were even forced to dance on the dead bodies."
Who was behind a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, after which the Dalai Lama fled to India?
The '59 uprising against Chinese rule was a people's movement to resist all the changes the Chinese Communist Party were introducing in Tibet.
In the 17 Point Agreement signed between Tibet and China in 1951, the Chinese Communist Party promised that in return for Tibet coming to the fold of motherland, China would not change Tibet's traditional social system or tamper with the powers of the Dalai Lama. Both these promises were not kept, and the introduction of collectivisation and other aspects of the social system in Tibet forced the Tibetans to rise up.
Who was responsible for the recent unrest in Tibet?
In the early 1980s, a liberal policy was introduced in Tibet. This policy dismantled collectivisation and there were plans to withdraw 85% of the Chinese cadres working in the Tibet Autonomous Region. This policy was aimed at letting Tibetans govern themselves.
However, in 1994, all these liberal measures were withdrawn and a new policy called "grasping with both hands" was implemented in Tibet. This policy continued Tibet's economic development while reimposing political repression targeted at undermining Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism. The recent widespread protests in Tibet are Tibetans' resistance to this hardline policy.
What does the Tibetan government-in-exile think about reports by the Western media about the recent events in Tibet?
The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) thinks that the international media coverage about the recent events in Tibet is the most extensive. The media reports were, by and large fair, accurate and balanced. (BBC News)
Saturday, May 10, 2008
WATCHING THE WATCHDOG - Time for the press to look within
The formal institutions of Indian democracy are not especially marked by the capacity for self-correction and self-criticism. One fact should make this clear — that no senior politician, civil servant, or judge has ever been successfully convicted for corruption or abuse of power. What then of that great informal institution of Indian democracy, the press? Is there a mechanism by which we can understand, and correct, the errors, biases, and malpractices of newspapers and television channels?
This question is prompted by a discussion currently taking place on the website of the South Asian Journalists Association. It was initiated by James Mutti, an American Fulbright scholar, who had spent time studying the functioning of the press in northern India. Mutti found that “there is an inherent tension between India’s much-hyped economic growth and its deepening democracy”. The media was partly to blame for this. For it “abdicates its role as an educator in favor of being an entertainer”. Those who consume the news were a willing accomplice in this abdication. For “more people want to find out about the new iPod than Indian foreign policy”. And “those who read papers and watch TV are often more interested in Bollywood stars than rural poverty”. Mutti arrived at this less than cheering conclusion: “In India today, the media is big business — relying on corporate advertising and the spending of the middle class — and it is hard to claim that it is a public good that reaches most citizens.”
The website published a range of responses to Mutti’s article. One correspondent, while endorsing the visitor’s verdict, thought the state of the Indian media was a product merely of “immaturity”. “We haven’t had the media around for very long,” he wrote. “Certainly not half as long as the Americans have.” “The US media is extremely conscious of its role as primary sources of information to the rulers and the ruled alike,” wrote another contributor to the debate: “They know they trade in information. In the business plan of the Indian media, news is only the space that needs to be filled, so that advertisements can be carried.”
One commentator, the respected media analyst, Sevanti Ninan, thought that the data on the ground did not justify the article’s “sweeping conclusion”. Mutti, she suggested, had based himself largely on a reading of the English press. On the other hand, the regional press often did cover issues of interest to the less-than-affluent classes. In newspapers published in state capitals and district towns, she wrote, “the state of roads, schools and hospitals in rural and urban India get far more attention now than ever before because there are many more pages to fill at the local level. When accountability increases even the poor benefit.”
However, in so far as the English language press is concerned, Mutti’s criticisms may in fact have understated the problem. He speaks of the focus on glamour and celebrity and the neglect of the lives of ordinary Indians. This, he suggests, was a consequence of the press’s wooing of the consuming classes, who are a large (and massively revenue-generating) world unto themselves. It may be that because he is an American he mentioned Bollywood rather than cricket. But, as the manic coverage of the IPL has demonstrated, this game has contributed even more to the dumbing down of the media.
As it happens, the contagion runs far deeper than trivialization. Consider, for instance, the unwholesome practice of private ‘treaties’ whereby, in exchange for passing on stock to press owners, companies can get favourable coverage in the news pages. Consider, again, the laying off by several newspapers of environmental and labour correspondents in recent years — an action never formally explained or commented upon, but which may be reasonably surmised as being linked to the bad publicity for potential advertisers that such reporters tend to bring.
At other times, the seductions are not commercial but political. Some proprietors, and more than some writers, are so closely allied to individual politicians or parties as to be less than objective about them. This phenomenon is particularly common among editors and columnists based in New Delhi. But it is not unknown in the state capitals, and even in district towns. For the local papers depend as heavily on advertisements supplied by the government (for tenders and suchlike) as their metropolitan counterparts do on patronage by the private sector. It can become hard, and even impossible, for small-town editors or journalists to openly challenge the misconduct of a district magistrate or a member of the legislative assembly.
Finally, there has been a decline in the quality and depth of reportage. The press appears to have become lazier in the past few decades. Once, even senior editors would make extended field trips to research a story, travelling in the interior and speaking to a cross-section of the public. Now, if they leave New Delhi, it is usually to accompany the prime minister to Beijing or Washington. But even some younger reporters have become prey to ‘hand-out journalism’, to stringing together stories on the basis of press releases, supplemented by the odd quote.
To be sure, there are dissenters. But these often write in a sanctimonious and self-righteous tone, setting themselves up as the lonely voice of conscience amidst a horde of unthinking cheerleaders for globalization and liberalization. They are also noticeably partisan, focusing on poverty and suffering in states (or nations) ruled by parties other than the communists.
There remain some honest editors and many good reporters. But I think it fair to say that within the English press in India there is much room for improvement. Let me offer an illustration of the kind of story we should but do not often see. For the last year and more, Sharad Pawar has simultaneously served both as the Union minister of agriculture and the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. That is to say, Pawar is in charge of the destiny of India’s most numerous social class as well of India’s greatest popular passion. He has held these posts at a time of a serious agrarian crisis on the one hand, and a massive reshaping of the cricket world on the other. How does he do these two jobs at the same time? What is his daily or weekly or monthly schedule of meetings and journeys? My own suspicion is that one sector under his watch must surely be suffering, and I think I can guess which one. But this (possibly widely-shared) suspicion awaits testing against the hard evidence of reportage. However, the sectors are each so important that a man who presumes to take charge of both surely needs to be subjected to far greater scrutiny that he has thus far been.
Other readers will have their own list of unexplored themes. Thus one contributor to the Saja debate writes that while “everyone knows about the fraud committed by [the] godmen of India”, “no main line papers would like to take up this kind of subject”. (Both Pawar’s daily schedule and the doings of godmen, by the way, are subjects amenable to investigation through print as well as television.)
We hear, rightly and often, of the need to make the legislature and the executive more accountable. The press is expected to play a vanguard role in making this happen. But who will watch the watchdog? This is a question that is asked less frequently. However, if we are lucky, the rise of the internet will perhaps compel the press to look within, thus to check against the corruptions and complacencies to which it, like any other human institution, is prone. (The Telegraph)
ramguha@vsnl.com
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Behind India-Nepal relations
By Lok Raj Baral
India-Nepal relations operate at various levels: personal, political, geo-strategic, economic, international, socio- psychological. So person-to-person and back-channel diplomacy become no less significant than other channels, though some of them get structured and continue to work as a framework for bilateral relations. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by the outgoing Rana Prime Minister, Mohan Shamsher and Indian Ambassador CPN Singh in 1950, is an example of a framework which India still thinks valid for the mutual benefits of the peoples of both the countries.
So India's Nepal policy revolves around the Treaty despite the erosion of many of its elements during the course of implementation. But Nepal has no India policy as it neither subscribes to the letter and spirit of the Treaty nor can it propose its abrogation. Almost all Left parties wanted abrogation of the Treaty while out of power, but in power, they want to review it in order to contextualize the Indo-Nepal relations. In their view, it would also put an end to the legacy of old British policy which the rulers of independent India preferred to continue with slight modifications.
In fact, the 1950 Treaty was concluded as a response to the presence of communist China in Tibet. Any Nepali ruler could have done the same as the Rana did then, though the Rana rulers were under dire need of cultivating India for the survival of the beleaguered regime as well as to insulate Nepal from the threat of communism. Such a context changed soon after the signing of the Treaty with India itself developing a close relationship with China along with the recognition of Tibet as the Autonomous Region in 1954. Nepal too took initiative to establish formal diplomatic relation with China to which India didn't object.
Later, in the wake of strained relations developing between China and India in the early 1960s, Nepal came closer to China in order to avert any perceived or real threats emanating from the South. India didn't recognize King Birendra's peace zone proposal to declare Nepal a zone of peace maintaining that it was vague asking Nepal which country posed a threat to its security. In India's interpretation, it was indirect approach to undercutting the spirit of the 1950 Treaty maintaining that the Treaty had permanency in maintaining Indo-Nepal relations. However, the Nepali power elite have all along been evasive on the issue but at the same time curse the Treaty for all ills that Nepal suffers today. Such conclusions are often drawn without studying thoroughly the actual effects of the Treaty on Nepal's overall underdevelopment.
It seems that the emerging political dynamics of Nepal has, of late, introduced certain degree of maturity in elite behaviors in both the countries, recognizing the commonality of interest and mutual interdependence. And in the process, India's role in Nepal is being studied with greater objectivity and understanding. Old emotions are being died down; adjustment of policies is underway; forces branded as anti-Indian are turning into friends, who are intent on coping with changes. The Maoist metamorphosis is the latest example for putting a positive impact on the emerging pattern of relationship.
India's role in facilitating the peace process by encouraging the Maoists to transform their role into multiparty mainstream politics and its positive response to the Maoist emergence as a powerful force in Nepali politics suggests that India does not dictate its terms on making political equation. Its preference to retain constitutional monarchy changed soon following the turn of events during the course of the movement in 2006 and later after the emergence of the Maoist party as the principal player in Nepali politics. Even the so-called monarchist lobbies in India seem to reconcile to the qualitative change that is underway in Nepal.
Perhaps the spectacular electoral gains of the Maoists and the latter's commitment to pluralist democracy might have prompted them to accept the new political realities. The transformation of the Maoists into competitive system and their bonhomie with India is a positive development for India. It has helped to falsify the claim that the Maoists in Nepal and the Indian Naxalites were working in tandem by creating a corridor from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh in India. So any Maoist transformation from insurgency to peaceful democratic path is salutary development in South Asia.
It is also a triumph of democracy regardless of the declining influence of the so-called democratic parties. If the present churning trends of politics is not properly understood and adjustments made accordingly by the parties, they would also be overtaken by the new forces. And India, despite its ambivalent attitude on the unfolding events and trends (during the movement in particular), has eventually coped with the new changes in Nepal.
How Indian changed position on the two pillar policy (constitutional monarchy and multiparty system) has had been able to create conducive environment for taking Indo-Nepal relations to a new height has been stated by the Maoist leader Prachanda himself during the course of an interview granted to a senior Indian journalist recently. He says: "Fortunately, the 19-day andolan led the GOI [Government of India] to clarify it would respect the people's verdict, even if this was for a republic. That was historically a very big change in Delhi's policy. And the 12-point understanding represented an equally big change in the Maoists position and attitude".
The emergence of the new national and regional parties in Nepal has also added a new dimension to Indo-Nepal relations. On the one hand, India needs to be cautious of not offending its constituencies that range from national parties to the regional groupings of the Tarai, while on the other, its delicate balance is also essential for not jeopardizing Nepal's national unity and territorial integrity for its own security. Its vital national interests can be protected only by discouraging fragmentary trends in Nepal. To the credit of Madhesi leaders of Nepal, Nepal's independence and sovereignty has been ensured. It is also up to the non-Madhesi political actors to address the genuine demands of the Madhesi people so that the great enterprise of nation-state building could be undertaken without any hindrance.
Indo-Nepal relation has certain characteristics to be endurable despite tumultuous changes that take place internally and externally. Many think that the 1950 Treaty is the main villain for straining India-Nepal and hence its abrogation is essential. Symbolically and even theoretically, such mutual security and economic arrangements are negation of many classical definitions of independent nation state but realistically, no states exist without interdependence.
Taking India-Nepal relations in their entirety, it can be said that even if treaties are abrogated or new treaties concluded, the basic spirit of India-Nepal relations remain the same. If the 1950 Treaty would have been replaced or abrogated as Bangladesh did after twenty years, much noise made against its continuation would have already been silenced. What Nepalis need more is internal cohesion, development, peace and democratic stability.(Kantipuronline)
| You Are 40% Left Brained, 60% Right Brained |
 Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports. |
