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Barefoot – A sense of betrayal
By Harsh Mander
When communal pogroms are unleashed, all members of the community, irrespective of whether they were personally affected or not, internalise the suffering and the pain, and feel betrayed…
In any communal carnage, there are direct victims: those whose properties are looted or destroyed, whose bodies suffer assault, or whose loved ones are attacked or killed. But sectarian conflict is also vicariously an assault on that entire community. Therefore, the entire targeted community is also vicarious victims of the communal pogrom. Even though they do not actually suffer any personal loss, of assaults on body or property, or the death of people they loved or even personally knew — and may well be protected by various levels of privilege from any realistic probability of such a direct attack in the future — they also suffer. They suffer because the attack was to avenge, shame or break the spirit of the entire community.
Many similarities
Even though these were separated by 18 years of history, there is, tragically, a great deal in common between the communal massacres that played out on the streets of Delhi in 1984, and in settlements and by-lanes across Gujarat in 2002. There is considerable consensus among credible and independent observers of both these massacres that these were not spontaneous conflicts between people of different religious identities; they were pogroms systematically and cynically enabled by acts of commission and omission of public agencies at all levels, including those in positions of command authority. State officials similarly stood by in both episodes, as mobs were allowed and even actively encouraged to loot and torch properties, desecrate places of worship, and gruesomely murder, often by burning alive, people of specified minority faiths: Sikh in one case and Muslim in another. In both instances, communal organisations and political leaders worked openly in tandem to stir and stoke communal hatred, and to organise the logistics of the slaughter, efficiently transporting men, weapons and inflammables to settlements and commercial establishments of the communities marked out for slaughter.
Both brutal pogroms against religious minorities were sought — by the political leadership and in wide sections of popular perceptions in the community of majority faith — to be rationalised as ‘ justified’ or even ‘righteous’ violence, because entire communities were deemed to be guilty merely by their shared identities with alleged killers. The attacks in both pogroms were on communities and not individuals; they built upon and further consolidated large and persisting social hostility prevailing at the time of the massacres against the communities. The two massacres also had in common the role of communal organisations in manufacturing and sustaining hatred; and underlying agendas of political power, riding on waves of engineered hatred. Ruling governments in both massacres reaped rich, even unprecedented, electoral harvests in elections that followed in the wake of the slaughters. Both massacres also share a common history of impunity, with the majority of the killers and marauders and all those in command positions of authority in government and the civil administration still unpunished.
Source of anguish
For the entire Sikh community, including those who were born after 1984, in India and anywhere in the world, the 1984 pogrom in Delhi and other parts of India endures in memory as a source of intense anguish and loss; it also fuels a dormant anger and alienation, even as the community typically prospers, and many of its members excel variously in business, politics, sports, the armed forces, the letters and the arts. Both anguish and anger were far more visible in the years immediately after the carnage, but these gradually subsided, even as suspicion and hate against Sikhs by members of the majority Hindu community dwindled.
Today, over 26 years after the carnage, there are few signs of actively perceived victimhood in the collective psyche of the Sikh community in most parts of India. The abject failures to bring to justice those who led and organised the crimes of 1984 still rankle most Sikhs. There is anger still against what is perceived by them to be the imperious insensitivity of Indira Gandhi in using brute military might in the Operation Bluestar, to crush insurgents who took refuge in the Golden Temple, because it desecrated this most revered place of worship of the Sikh people. But for the greater part, they seem to have pushed the trauma behind them.
I observe greater community anger in Sikh majority Punjab, but here the rage is not just for the crimes of 1984 or even for Operation Bluestar, but for the enormous human rights abuses and mass killings by security forces who felled thousands of Sikh militant youth during the late 80s and 90s. By contrast, a shrill and vastly exaggerated sense of victimhood is still actively fostered in non-resident Sikh settlements, such as in Canada, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
A similar sense of victimhood was experienced by Indian Muslims world-wide after the 2002 Gujarat carnage. The brutal assaults on Muslim men, women and children after 58 people tragically lost their lives in the train fire at Godhra on February 27, 2002 was intended as a punishment and a warning to the entire Indian Muslim community. More than at any moment in independent Indian history, Indian Muslims across India and even those who had taken citizenship in countries of the North or the Gulf, felt personally, intensely devastated by the violence. I have interacted with many gatherings of Muslim people — in cities, towns and villages across India and in many countries in the world after 2002 — and each time I have been struck by the extent to which they have internalised the suffering of the direct victims as if it was their own.
The meta-narrative of the pregnant woman whose womb was slit open and the foetus set aflame is repeated and recalled as though it was experienced by a known loved one, as are numerous gruesome stories of rape, arson and murder. Each grieves with a personal sense of loss, each time a new mass grave is discovered, or when a Muslim is killed by the police in a faked encounter. I have met non-resident Indian Muslims who have not returned to India for years, but who slipped into clinical depression after the Gujarat carnage. Many weep and hold my hands, even years later, like people unable to come to terms with an enormous personal tragedy.
Intensely personal
More than anything else, I encounter in the hearts and minds of Indian Muslims after 2002, the anguish of intense betrayal. Each recounts his or her personal memories of childhood and youth, peopled by close Hindu friends, who they believed loved them without chauvinism: with whom they comfortably shared the spaces of home, play and school, and who were an intrinsic presence in moments of joy, celebration and sadness. But today they are variously wounded, by the open support of their childhood comrades for Hindutva ideologies, or by their rankling silences, their failures to condemn the injustice of holding them culpable only because of their separate religious identity. They wonder what has changed between them and the Hindu friends of their childhood, and agonise whether they were only fooling themselves that their bonds were untainted by prejudice.
The sense of personal betrayal is matched by the State’s open partisanship. State authorities have been known to be biased against minorities in all communal riots, but the Indian Muslim still encounters an entirely new low when a government unrepentantly becomes complicit in abetting the most brutal mass assault on women and children in recent history, and yet is unpunished. Instead it is emphatically voted back to power, not once but twice, and the person perceived to be the chief architect of the slaughter is projected as a realistic contender for the position of Prime Minister of the country in the not-too-distant future, cheered on by most of the country’s leading industrial leaders.
They wonder if the solemn pledge of the Constitution — that no person in this country is the child of a lesser god — was in the end a sham.
(http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/article1573887.ece 26/03/11, The Hindu)
Maoists burnt villages, claims Chhattisgarh government
A week after The Hindu first published allegations that security forces burnt close to three hundred homes, sexually assaulted three women and killed at least three men (two are still missing) in three villages in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, the State government finally broke its silence and blamed the atrocities on Maoist guerillas.
Speaking in the Vidhan Sabha, Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar admitted that 327 troopers of the Chhattisgarh Police and Central Reserve Police Force conducted a five day area domination exercise from March 11 to March 16 and raided the villages of Morpalli, Timapuram and Tarmetla; but claimed that, in each instance, the security forces were ambushed by Maoists who burnt the villages and escaped in the ensuing confusion.
Rejecting the Home Minister’s explanations, the opposition held Chief Minister Raman Singh personally responsible for the incident and boycotted the Vidhan Sabha for the day.
According to Mr. Kanwar’s statement, the security forces raided Morpalli village on March 11 this year, when they were attacked by Maoists. The Maoists then allegedly set fire to a number of homes and escaped. Citing the testimony of one Madavi Ganga of Morpalli village in this regard, Mr. Kanwar said a case had been registered in the Chintalnar Police Station.
On March 20, this correspondent interviewed Madavi Ganga of Morpalli. As reported in The Hindu on March 23, Mr. Ganga said the police picked him up, along with his son and teenage daughter, on March 11 and took him to the Chintalnar police station where he was held overnight and repeatedly beaten.
His daughter said she was kept in a separate cell and was sexually assaulted by policemen. The Madavi family said they were released only when the women of Morpalli surrounded the Chintalnar police station and demanded their release. This correspondent visited all three villages where eyewitnesses claimed that their homes had been burnt by Special Police Officers (SPOs) and Koya commandos of the Chhattisgarh police.
Mr. Kanwar claimed that a similar pattern of ambush and arson was witnessed when the security forces raided the villages of Timapuram and Tarmetla, where the Maoists surrounded the forces, killed three SPOs and set fire to the villages.
In each case, the Home Minister said that police cases had been registered at the Chintalnar police station. However on March 23, a week after the alleged crimes, Dantewada’s Senior Superindent of Police, S.R.P. Kalluri told IANS that he had no knowledge of any incidents in the area, claiming, “It’s all Maoist-propaganda, nothing happened there.” Mr. Kalluri has since been removed from his post and transferred to Surguja.
In the Vidhan Sabha, the Leader of the Opposition Ravindera Chaubey, refused to accept the Home Minister’s statements. “No one from the administration has been able to visit the site. How can we believe this?” he asked.
(http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1579049.ece 28/03/11, The Hindu)
2 Orissa PSOs jailed for ‘accidentally’ killing DIG
More than four years after former deputy inspector general Jaswinder Singh was shot by one of his security guards, a sessions court in Koraput district on Monday sentenced his two PSOs to jail. On October 16, 2006, Jaswinder Singh, the DIG of the Naxal-infested south-western police range, was killed when the 9 mm pistol of his personal security officer Sheshananda Sarangi went off “accidentally” as they were travelling in a jeep. Another PSO, Ashish Sarangi, tried to make it look like a Maoist attack. The court sentenced Seshananda to 10 years in prison and asked him to pay a penalty of Rs 20,000. Ashish was awarded three-year jail term and fined Rs 10,000.
(http://www.indianexpress.com/news/2-Orissa-PSOs-jailed-for–accidentally–killing-DIG/768636/ 29/03/11, Indian Express)
6 militants held during search ops
Six militants belonging to different outfits have been arrested by security and police personnel during search operations in Manipur, officials said in Imphal on Tuesday. Two militants of the banned People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were arrested from different parts of Imphal town on Wednesday. They were identified as T Ranbir (37) and N Shyamkumar (46). The two were allegedly involved in extortion of money, they said, adding that two mobile phone handsets were also seized from them.
In another search operation, a militant of Kangleipak Communist Party-Military Council identified as M Ranjita Devi (37) was arrested by a joint team of Assam Rifles personnel and police from Kanglatombi area in Senapati district on Monday, they said, adding that some incriminating documents were recovered from her possession.
In another operation at Kanglatombi area, three militants of United Tribal Liberation Army (ULTA) identified as L Singson (18), Ch Singson (30) and T Sitlou (21) were arrested by a joint team of police commandos and Assam Rifles personnel.
(http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/imphal/6-militants–held-during-search-ops/Article1-678849.aspx 29/03/11, Hindustan Times)
ULFA following LTTE – Paresh Baruah chasing the lost game
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Ex-Dy Speaker, 2 Others Acquitted of Terror Charges
In an embarrassment to the Delhi Police and intelligence agencies, a Delhi Court has acquitted former Deputy Speaker of Manipur Assembly T Shaymkumar Singh and two others of charges of being involved in terror acts. Additional Sessions Judge Satinder Kumar Gautam acquitted the three, who had been charged with various stringent provisions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
He, however, convicted the two Manipuri youths, arrested along with the former deputy speaker in 2006, on charges of impersonation and carrying fake identity cards. While convicting the two youths, who claimed to be human right activists, the court, however, freed them on March 18, setting off their sentences against the period of their detention in Tihar Jail.
The two had been been languishing in Tihar jail since October 2006 after their arrest along with Singh outside the Indira Gandhi International Airport by the Delhi Police on a tip off by the Intelligence Bureau, which suspected them to be members of outlawed United National Liberation Front (UNLF). Singh, who had been able to secure bail during his trial, was deputy speaker of Manipur Assembly between August 2007 and April 2009.
“The prosecution has been able to prove only the charges (of impersonation) under section 419 of Indian Penal Code against accused M J K Singh and P G Singh (the two Manipuri youths),” the court said.
It said, “Rest of the (terror-related) charges against accused T S K Singh, M J K Singh and P G Singh have not been proved beyond all reasonable doubts since the testimony of prosecution witnesses did not inspire confidence to bring home the guilt of the accused persons as per charges framed.
“The testimony of prosecution witnesses does not reflect with the frame-work of the administration of criminal law and justice delivery system. The testimony of prosecution witnesses in cross-examination have created several dents which reflect the manner in which the investigation has been conducted as their testimony failed to inspire confidence to the judicial scrutiny,” the court said. It noted that only the identity cards recovered from the two youths were found to be fake.
In its order, the court, on basis of depositions by various prosecution witnesses, came to the conclusion that the three Manipuris had been arrested by the Delhi Police on the basis of a tip off from the Intelligence Bureau. “Prosecution witness Ravinder Kumar Tyagi (a police officer) has admitted in his statement that during the probe, he came to know that accused Singh is a politician, contractor and social worker and he contested the Assembly election,” the court said.
It said, “In his cross-examination, Tyagi admitted that Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma (who arrested the three), has briefed them about the information received from the Intelligence Agency.” Though the police had also booked them for allegedly colluding in their terror activities, the court found out that two other persons arrested by the police never knew the third and they could never hatch any criminal conspiracy jointly.
“So far as charge under section of 120 B of the IPC (criminal conspiracy) is concerned, the two accused persons did not know the third accused before the arrest and there is no prior meeting of mind,” the court said. The court acquitted the three of the terror charges on the basis of its findings during the cross- examination of Special Cell’s Assistant Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who had investigated the case.
“ACP Yadav specifically stated in cross-examination that no evidence could be collected against Singh to the effect that he was trying to help the two high ranking member of banned organisation UNLF to established their base in Delhi,” the court said. “He further admitted that no separate evidence could be collected regarding harbouring of two other accused by T Shyamkumar Singh. There is no evidence on record to show that the accused persons had any intention set up to base camp at Delhi.
“There is no evidence on record to prove against the accused T Shyamkumar Singh that he has given financial assistance or help to perform any unlawful activity either in Manipur or in the territory of India,” the court noted.
(http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?716746 28/03/11, Outlook India)
A community scared of both Muslim and Hindu extremists
Suresh Nambath
In a cable sent after the 2006 Mumbai attacks, the United States Embassy reported that its contacts had little faith in the ability of Islamic leaders, political parties, security agencies or the Indian government to prevent a terrorist attack and the anti-Muslim backlash that could follow. “Extremists in Uttar Pradesh barely conceal their activities and seem to operate with impunity,” Charge d’Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt quoted the Embassy contacts as saying in a report on the situation of north Indian Muslims after the serial train blasts in Mumbai.
Mr. Pyatt, in the cable sent on July 13, 2006 (71263: confidential) said the Mumbai attacks had focussed attention on the fragile communal situation in the North Indian Hindi belt, most particularly in Uttar Pradesh. “While Indians are grateful that the Mumbai attacks have not yet set off a communal conflagration, North Indian Muslims remain nervous and fearful.”
Noting that Uttar Pradesh, with a 17 per cent Muslim population and a large concentration of Shias, has endured a string of terrorist attacks since 2001, including multiple bombings on moving trains similar to the Mumbai blasts, he pointed out that the Students Islamic Movement of India and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the two principal suspects in the Mumbai attacks, are both active in the State.
Maulana Arshad Madani, the president of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind, which is the political wing of the Deobandi sect, decried the Mumbai bombings as “barbaric acts calculated to disturb communal harmony.” But there were no similar statements from other prominent Muslim organisations or leaders, especially Wahhabi organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami.
“Less prominent Muslim organizations came forward, with generally anodyne statements, including the Muslim Political Council of India, whose President, Tasleem Rehmani rhetorically urged the GOI to declare all victims of the bombings as martyrs to national integrity,” he said.
Embassy’s survey
The Embassy conducted an informal survey of Muslim contacts from Lucknow and other cities. “Respondents included several Maulvis (both Sunni and Shia), Urdu language journalists, political and community leaders, scholars and academics. Their responses revealed a remarkable unanimity on ‘Islamic terrorism.’ All expressed disdain for what they characterized as the ‘weak response’ of India’s Muslim leadership to the Mumbai attacks, accusing such leaders of taking a ‘head in the sand’ approach and denying stark realities. They pointed out that after a string of terrorist assaults by Muslim extremists throughout India, it is now common knowledge within the Muslim community that the terrorists have established a support system and sympathizers’ network among Indian Muslims to help carry out attacks conceived and orchestrated by foreign Muslims.”
In his analysis, Mr. Pyatt wrote: “The Mumbai attacks cannot help but increase unease amongst North Indian Muslims, who have witnessed politically-engineered communal riots in several UP cities over the past six months. Muslim fears are compounded by the lack of governance in UP and Bihar.” The police force in Uttar Pradesh, the Charge said, had been suborned and corrupted by the Samajwadi Party [the ruling party]: “We doubt that it would be able to maintain security if communal rioting gets out of hand.”
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, had begun to stage “anti-terrorism” rallies at various locations in the Hindi belt, including communal flashpoints with large Muslim populations. “In the Hindutva lexicon, ‘terrorism’ is synonymous with Islam and most Muslims will see the BJP rallies and statements for a war against terrorism as provocative calls for a war against Islam,” the diplomat wrote.
“North India, and particularly UP remain stressful and the Mumbai attacks have exacerbated an already fragile communal situation. Our Muslim contacts have reported over the past six months that SIMI and other Islamic extremists, (including mysterious individuals they claim are ‘members of al Qaeda’) have been active in the Muslim community, recruiting disaffected young men with offers of physical training, study of the Qu’ran, job opportunities and easy money. They are worried that these are nascent terrorist cells that could be activated to carry out attacks at the behest of foreign-based organizations,” he added in the cable.
A community besieged
Painting a picture of a community besieged by both Muslim and Hindu extremists, he said: “Muslims see signs that militant Hindutva organizations are also reviving and could use a terrorist attack as an excuse to mount reprisals. The silence of most North Indian Muslims is most telling, as it indicates a community scared of both Muslim and Hindu extremists and determined to keep a low profile at all costs.”
(This article is a part of the series “The India Cables” based on the US diplomatic cables accessed by The Hindu via Wikileaks.)
(http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1579424.ece 29/03/11, The Hindu)
Saviours turn tormentors
Despite the Supreme Court’s disapproval of the formation of the salwa judum in Chhattisgarh to fight the Maoists with the blessings of the state government, the latest outrage in three villages in the Dantewada area by the police and the vigilante group has shown that the latter is still active. Since the incident occurred in a remote and deeply forested area, it took several days for the news of the atrocities to filter through. But now it is apparent that it is just the kind of incident which helps the Maoists to gain support among the local people.
During an anti-Maoist operation in the villages, the police and the salwa judum activists were said to have killed at least three men with many more still missing, raped three women and burnt nearly 300 huts and destroyed granaries. Their depredations were such that several people died of starvation later because the stored food and grains were destroyed. As a result, the government had to send emergency rations.
When a group of social workers led by Swami Agnivesh, a prominent Maoist sympathiser, tried to reach the area, they were forced to turn back by the local police and the salwa judum supporters, who evidently did not want the outside world to know of their acts of murder, rape and arson. Evidence of how the salwa judum has become a law unto itself was available when a police officer, who accompanied Swami Agnivesh, failed to file an FIR about the attack on their convoy with the local police.
The government may have belatedly become active by transferring two of the senior officials. But it will take much more than such token gestures to ensure that the police do not violate the letter and spirit of the law in their pursuit of the Maoists and that illegal entities like the salwa judum do not run amok with impunity.
Dantewada is one of the areas which have borne the brunt of Maoist violence. The deaths of 75 CRPF jawans in a Maoist ambush in April last year were one of the most chilling incidents which marked the anti-Maoist operations. Since then, a fall in the number of such incidents has underlined the government’s success in tackling the Maoist menace. However, while carrying on the drive against the insurgents, the government has to ensure that its forces do not resort to cruelty and lawlessness of the rebels.
(http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/editorials/saviours-turn-tormentors/260454.html 29/03/11, Express Buzz)
Sambasivudu: A man with many rivals
You die as you live. It came as no surprise that Sambasivudu, who was involved in at least 35 murder cases, met a bloody end. In fact, the former Maoist leader and TRS politburo member was said to be unrepentant for the killings, which included two sitting MLAs Ragya Naik and Ch Narsi Reddy. He was the mastermind behind the assassination bids on former CMs Chandrababu Naidu and Nedurumalli Janardhan Reddy before he came out overground in February 2009 after being in the movement for over 20 years.
“I have no regrets,” he had remarked on the murders and violence while addressing reporters when he came overground in the presence of then home minister K Jana Reddy.
Sambasivudu entangled himself in land settlements soon after joining the mainstream. Sources said he had several rivals, including the kith and kin of landlords who were killed by him in Valigonda, Rachakonda, Bhongir, Alair, Mothkuru and Tirumalagiri mandals when he was calling the shots in the Maoist party as secretary of Nallamala division. “There was huge money involved in the Bibinagar land settlement case and Sambasivudu had a major stake in it,” sources revealed.
In Bhongir division where he emerged as a strong TRS leader, members of 23 Naxal-affected families were waiting for an opportunity to eliminate him. Rumours were rife that former Maoist Nayeem, who is absconding, has a role in his murder.
As a top Maoist leader, Sambasivudu had a vice-like grip on the Nallamala forest region after having joined the movement in 1990. Maoist Nallamalla forest division secretary and state committee member Panduranga Reddy alias Pratap alleged that Blue Tigers or Cobras (so-called police outfits) might have killed Sambasivudu as he was emerging as a strong leader of T-movement.
Though TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao condemned the killing, it was a muted reaction as allegations about Sambasivudu’s land dealings were flying thick and fast in recent times. When he joined TRS at Telangana Bhavan on January 3, 2011, Sambasivudu asserted that he was not a Naxalite but a `Telanganite.’ And it was at that meeting KCR had promised to endorse and implement the agenda of Naxalites after the formation of Telangana state on the grounds that the Naxalites too were struggling to provide justice to the poor, houses to the homeless and land to the weaker sections.
Analysts said though there were several members in TRS, including party floor leader Etela Rajender and others, who have emerged from organisations like PDSU and Janashakti, Sambasivudu’s entry into TRS was controversial as the surrendered Maoist leader was involved in numerous murders in Mahbubnagar district alone.
Curiously, Sambasivudu admitted that he was only part of the planning of the murder of Maktal MLA Ch Narsi Reddy, father of minister D K Aruna, on August 15 in 2005 but claimed the action was committed by another team.
(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/There-were-many-waiting-to-seek-revenge/articleshow/7803150.cms 28/03/11, The Times of India)
Salwa Judum leader to undertake anti-Naxal campaign in Gadchiroli
Salwa Judum leader from Chhattisgarh K Madhukar Rao will undertake a three-day public awareness campaign against Naxals in Bhamragarh tahsil of Gadchiroli from Saturday. Rao, who was the first to start the Salwa Judum campaign in Chhattisgarh in June 2005, at Karkeli village of Bijapur district, will address rallies of people in Lahiri, Bhamragarh and Bhatpar villages.
Asked how Rao is coming to Gadchiroli, Superintendent of Police Veeresh Prabhu told The Indian Express, “He sought permission for rallies. So, we made enquiry about him with our counterparts in Bijapur where he belongs. We got positive reports, so we decided to allow him… Rao is going to create awareness among tribals about how Naxals have been throttling development, how they have unleashed a culture of violence and how they don’t follow what they preach.
Rao, incidentally, is the hottest Naxal target in Chhattisgarh and generally moves with hundreds of his followers. He will be entering Gadchiroli with about 500-1,000 of them, along with a strong police posse. Afterwards, the Gadchiroli police will provide the security.
(http://www.indianexpress.com/news/salwa-judum-leader-to-undertake-antinaxal-campaign-in-gadchiroli/767769/ 27/03/11, Indian Express)
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