Bahuguna kept eyes wide shut as Uttarakhand govt ignored experts' warning of catastrophe in 2012

NB - This report appeared in Mail Today. It includes 2 sub-headings, 'Hypocrisy' and 'A Little too late'.  I attach beneath it a letter to the Editor which is self-explanatory - Dilip

They knew. In October 2012, the Uttarakhand government received a 48-page report called 'Investigations in the Asi Ganga valley on the aftermath of flash flood/landslide incidences in August, 2012.' A team of experts had examined the Uttarkashi disaster where a combination of heavy rainfall and flash floods had swept away vehicular and pedestrian bridges, cutting the Gangotri valley off from the outside world and killing 29 people. As many as 85 villages were damaged and over 500 people were stranded on the Rishikesh-Gangotri National Highway. The report, complete with pictures of IAF Mi-17s evacuating stranded villagers and details of measures to avoid such calamities, said a disaster of such a magnitude was waiting to happen. And it did, within a year. The report prepared by the Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre (DMMC) suggested a strict ban on construction in close proximity to the river channel in Uttarkashi. "For this, a detailed survey of the area and identification of high risk zones is recommended,' said Dr Piyoosh Routela, executive director of the DMMC, a body headed by the state's chief secretary. It is not clear what happened to this report. What is known is that nobody acted on the report. "This report has been sent to top district officials for further actions. We are also working on constituting a committee to do the survey of high risk zones. Please don't assume that we are not working at all," Routela said. When asked if the chief minister was aware of this report, he tried to evade the question: "How would I know if he has read the report or not?" Routela also happens to support the state government in its opposition to a December 2012, notification of the Union environment ministry which declared the entire watershed around the 135-km stretch between Gaumukh and Uttarkashi, along the Bhagirathi river, as an eco-sensitive zone under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. This means no construction activity in the area. Hypocrisy The state passed a resolution against the notification, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna even meeting the prime minister in this connection. "How can there be ban only in Uttarakhand? Just because we have the holy rivers and pilgrims come to our state? There should be uniform policy for all the states. Why no such ban in Himachal Pradesh or Jammu and Kashmir?" said Routela. When told that he advocated a ban on construction, he retorted, "Only in dangerous areas." The Uttarakhand government list of failures has more. It failed to provide land to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to install two Doppler radars in Nainital and Mussoorie. The Central government had purchased 12 Doppler radars costing Rs 12 crore each from the US-based Weather Detection Systems to strengthen early warning indicators related to disasters; two were sanctioned for Uttarakhand in 2008. The DMMC report observed that almost all the damage in 2012 had taken place along the river bank. This was caused primarily by abnormally high rainfall in the catchment of the streams. This was, however, a normal phenomenon that had occurred in the past. What had not happened before was the destruction of infrastructure in such huge magnitude simply because there was not much construction along the rivers. But now there has been heavy construction activity in these areas. "This can be attributed to long recurrence interval of such events and the short disaster-related memory of the masses," the report said. The number of structures along the river increased rapidly even after the devastating floods in Uttarkashi in 1978 which killed nearly 1,000 people. Cost of tourism The report also takes note of the presence of large number of tourists during the time when such natural calamities are likely to strike. "The monsoon season coincides with the peak pilgrim season of the state and people in large numbers from across the nation visit Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri, Gangotri and Hemkunt Sahib shrines in the higher Himalayas. Pilgrims and tourists in large numbers were thus stranded at various places during the current monsoon season," said the report. It could as well be talking about the June 2013 disaster. The report explained how commercial interests opened the gates to disaster. "It is a general practice in the hills to align roads along rivers and streams. Apart from convenience and comfort, ever increasing economic opportunities in the vicinity of the roads encourages people to settle down in the proximity of the roads even if it implies being exposed to disaster risk. Increasing tourist and pilgrim traffic further promotes this tendency." The Uttarakhand government, however, chose to ignore such uncomfortable truths and did not act on any of the recommendations suggested in the report. It said that structures damaged in the floods must be removed from the bank of Asi Ganga and construction of structures in close vicinity of the river should be banned. Why did the Uttarakhand government ignore this report that pointed at certain doom? Perhaps it was the death toll of 29 that the 2012 Uttarkashi floods are credited with. A little too late It's relatively minuscule when compared with the devastation just 10 months later. Routela said state government officials had a review meeting on his report on June 7 at Uttarkashi. But he could not explain why it took eight months for the first discussion over a report which was an unambiguously clear warning to the state government. http://m.indiatoday.in/story/uttarakhand-government-ignored-experts-warning-of-catastrophe-in-2012/1/285715.html NB: Letter to Editor, Mail Today (29 June, 2013) Dear Sir, In the wake of the Uttarakhand environmental disaster the stories you have carried on bureaucratic negligence are informative. However we need to meditate not only on official but also public opinion and behaviour. Until recently your paper was using phrases like 'green terror' and 'green brigade' to describe the concern about ecological norms and those who cared about their implementation (see the editions of October 5, 2012; and January 5, 2013). You too have contraposed development to environmental safety; and need to reflect upon your role as an organ of public knowledge and opinion. 'Green terror' is a phrase best used to describe what happens when we celebrate growth as an end in itself, without regard to the earth. yours sincerely, Dilip Simeon PMO tames green terror - MAIL TODAY ePaper epaper.mailtoday.in/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9...4...01/...‎ Jan 5, 2013 – Headlines. Mercury plunges to five- year low in Delhi. BITING cold conditions continue to persist in the Capital where mercury plunged to 2.7 ... Between green terror and growth fascism Green is a colour that often makes people see red. I am not talking merely of the opposition between environment and justice, but also the battles between green and growth. The tragedy is categories are set up as Manichean dualisms when they should be friendly reciprocities in a democracy.  One misses the public nature of public policy that can challenge these false debates with real and lethal consequences.  The recent battle between Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Natarajan and an India Inc. crying for growth is one such drama. A recent India Today issue characterised the behaviour of the ministry of environment as outdated, creating a stranglehold on the Indian economy. Ironically, corporate India is seducing itself with corporate social responsibility but sees green justice as alien.  It is a case of downstream management refusing to recognise upstream ethics. The drama is a complex one. It began with a series of skirmishes. The initial one was between Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Mr Ramesh on growth. Central to it all was the advice Madhav Gadgil, the great ecologist, gave that ecological zones should be divided into go and no-go territories presenting growth and development. Mr Gadgil’s classification is not just relevant for the Western Ghats; it’s not ecology specific. It’s a different way of conceptualising reality so as to adjudicate it between sustainability and growth, between green and red. This is why the Gadgil classification was met with such immaculate hysteria. It tried to provide a conscience for the growth ideologues... read more: http://archive.asianage.com/columnists/between-green-terror-and-growth-fascism-115

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German woman and son clear litter in Rishikesh // Brit 'Garbage Girl' faces an uphill task

RISHIKESH: In the midst of a sea of survivors at the Rishikesh bus terminal, a nine-year-old rushed about with a carton in one hand swiftly picking empty cans, bottles and paper bags. His mother followed him. She too went about quietly collecting the waste lying around. Contributing to the relief exercise the mother and son from Germany are in no rush to catch the first flight to the comfort of their home and have instead stationed themselves here doing whatever is required. But their concern for the environment at the camp strewn with plastic bottles, paper plates, empty cartons brings to the fore the reality that the nation, despite the disaster in the hill state, is yet to learn to respect nature.

So far 35,000 survivors have registered with the administration, SDM Riskhikesh Ramji Saran Sharma told TOI on Wednesday. Rishikesh is the main transit point that evacuees have been brought to the last three days to catch buses, trains and flights from Dehradun. A sense of charity permeates the relief camps around these exit points with much relief work going on. But the environment is getting filthier every passing day. Dustbins are brimming, people are throwing plastic bottles in storm-water drains and the sites are marked by half-eaten eatables while paper plates are littered all over.

It was this scene that 9-year-old Ramo reacted to on Wednesday when he told his mother he wanted to pick up the waste. NGO workers trying to get people to join the garbage removal exercise along with the sanitation staff were only too happy to provide Ramo and his mother with gloves to pitch in. As the mother picked up glasses, Ramo dived under chairs and tables pulling out what he could find. He had no time to talk and only stopped once to ask the NGO worker if the gloves were safe. His mother said her name was Kamala and they'd had been living in different parts of India over the last few years.

The mother and son were in the upper reaches near Gangotri till a few days ago when they came down to Rishikesh. She said that Ramo studies in Rishikesh but will now be going to Europe to be with his grandmother for a while.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-27/india/40232475_1_ramo-mother-and-son-rishikesh

DEHRADUN: A white girl picks up plastic cups, paper plates and waste at the busy Sahastradhara helipad where survivors of the Himalayan tsunami are being flown in.

With her are some young men who also clean garbage left behind by the crowd that has thronged the helipad for a glimpse of the helicopters. The vicinity of the helipad is spotlessly clean. Meet Jodi Underhill, a 37-year-old Briton who runs the voluntary organization, WasteWarriors. She came to India in 2008 as a tourist and seeing the filth in the hill stations decided to do her bit to clean them up. Apart from helping to clean keep the helipad relief camp clean, which has witnessed a huge influx of relatives of stranded pilgrims, policemen and media contingents, Underhill has started a Facebook page to coordinate relief work and help volunteers. Underhill has a word of caution for those planning to do voluntary work in the devastated region. "You need to train yourself to work in the mountains," she said. Proper equipment is a must. Underhill is angry at the state of the Himalayan region and calls the flash floods a wake-up call. "This is the land of Shiva. It's a warning to people not to destroy the Himalayas."

She said authorities must rethink strategy and take a fresh look at the indiscriminate construction of dams, use of dynamites to blow up parts of mountains. There was a need to regulate tourists in the fragile regions. "You are doing a great job," policemen and officials at the helipad tell her.  

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-27/india/40232107_1_helipad-flash-floods-relief-work

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Alexis Coe - The Nobel Peace Prize For Espionage. Remembering Carl von Ossietzky

The Nobel Peace Prize For Espionage

On February 28, 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree gave Adolf Hitler the emergency powers he needed to suspend civil liberties, and the Nazi party wasted no time targeting political opponents.1 Carl von Ossietzky was arrested by the special police that very morning. It was not the first time the editor-in-chief of Die Weltbühne (The World Stage), the voice of leftist intellectuals, had been in a German prison. After Ossietzky ran an article exposing Germany’s secret rearmament, a clear violation of Treaty of Versailles, he was convicted of “treason and espionage.” He was sentenced to 18 months in Spandau Prison, but was released after seven months for the Christmas amnesty.2

The first time Ossietzky entered a Berlin prison, he was led by a procession of prominent German intellectuals, but many of those dissidents fled when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January of 1933. Philosopher Walter Benjamin lit out for Paris, and scientist Albert Einstein left to visit America and never returned, calling the Nazi takeover a “psychic illness of the masses.”

Ossietzky refused to leave his country, reportedly saying “a man speaks with a hollow voice from across the border.”3 He was an avowed pacifist dedicated to the restoration of “the other Germany,” the one he watched collapse as a soldier during World War I. Reactionaries on the right were actively seeking to amplify Germany’s power and militarism through fascism, and Ossietzky was determined to challenge them at every step.

This time, however, the Berlin prison did not release Ossietzky to freedom. Hitler hurriedly established concentration camps to imprison nearly 45,000 political opponents. Ossietzky was first sent to the Sonnenburg concentration camp shortly after it opened, and later Esterwegen.  In the camps, Ossietzky was subjected to hard labor and tortured, deprived of medical attention, forced to live in unsanitary conditions, and deprived of adequate sustenance. According to fellow prisoners, he suffered a heart attack, but the forced labor continued.4

By October of 1934, a small but notable group of European intellectuals began calling themselves the Freundeskreis Carl von Ossietzky. They launched a letter-writing campaign on the pacifist’s behalf. William Butler Yeats declined to get involved, asserting "he never meddled in political matters," especially those outside of Ireland. But Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, and Rose Macaulay readily showed their support.

Few believed Ossietzky would be freed. The Freundeskreis hoped that the editor’s plight would force the world to acknowledge the atrocities in Nazi Germany. The Third Reich was just a year old, and many still believed, or chose to believe, that Hitler could be reasonable. When the letters received little response, the campaign took on a more specific goal: The Nobel Peace Prize. Romain Rolland sent a letter of support to Oslo, asserting the committee “has never before had the opportunity to crown an apostle of peace who had remained true to his cause until martyrdom.” But as a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Rolland could not nominate Ossietzky.

Albert Einstein, who had won the Nobel Prize for Physics, wrote to the committee as well. He was teaching at Princeton, and focused his efforts on American recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, hoping he could convince them to nominate Ossietzky. Among others, he wrote to Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.5 The founder of Hull House was a well-known pacifist, and immediately cabled a nomination to Oslo.

On July 10th, Profiles in History will auction off a letter of appreciation written by Einstein, with a starting bid of $6000.

Dear Mrs. Jane Addams!

Thank you so much for supporting Ossietzky, who unfortunately won’t be able to endure the brutal treatment much longer. People here cannot imagine the cruelty suffered by all progressive people who are being persecuted in Germany.

Yours respectfully,

Einstein

In addition to laureates, the group also lobbied Norwegian politicians and other nominees shortlisted for the prize. Czech President Tomáš Masaryk, considered the frontrunner, was convinced to show support for Ossietzky, but no committee member dared to push the nomination through.

In 1935, there was no Nobel Peace Prize awarded. The committee, afraid to offend the new regime, announced they would exercise their right to reserve the prize for the following year.

After the announcement, Norwegian Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun published a pro-German attack on Ossietzky. The essay incensed other writers, liberals, labor groups, and students, who actively took up Ossietzky’s cause. Back in Paris, Freundeskreis sought to capitalize on the controversy. They made Ossietzky’s writings on peace widely accessible to Nobel laureates, along with a memorandum arguing that he deserved the prize for peace, and it was not an attempt to free him. In response, Oslo received a record-breaking number of nominations from 86 laureates in 11 countries.

With the 1936 Berlin Olympics rapidly approaching, the Nazi regime’s effective propaganda campaign was being hijacked by Ossietzky. His imprisonment was not only a distraction, but it brought attention to concentration camps. When the Red Cross insisted they be allowed to visit Ossietzky, Hitler felt obligated to agree.

Swiss diplomat Carl Burckhardt was sent to visit Ossietzky, who he found gravely ill with tuberculosis. In his report, Burckhardt described him as “a trembling deadly pale something, a creature that appeared to be without feeling, an eye swollen, teeth apparently smashed, it dragged a broken, badly healed leg… a human being that had reached the uttermost limits of what can be borne.”

The German government feared that Ossietzky would die, and made a great show of sending Ossietzky to a prison hospital. Following the lead of the Freundeskreis, the Nazis pressured Nobel laureates to write to the committee as well—in support of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France, who founded the modern Olympics. They also challenged the assertion that Ossietzky had ever been advocate of peace, disseminating anti-Ossietzky materials at home and abroad, including a fabricated interview in which Ossietzky proclaims, “Heil Hitler!”

The advisor who drafted the original report on Ossietzky assured the committee the documents were falsified, but many of the members took Germany’s threats seriously. Halvdan Koht, the Norwegian Foreign Minister who sat on the committee, withdrew from deliberations. The Prime Minister, Johan L. Mowinckel, left shortly after.

In 1936, the committee nonetheless announced Ossietzky was indeed awarded the previous year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, committee chairman Fredrik Stang made it clear they were not disapproving of the Nazi regime, and made no mention of the concentration camps, concluding: “In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Carl von Ossietzky we are therefore recognizing his valuable contribution to the cause of peace—nothing more, and certainly nothing less.”

Nazi Germany, however, read the award as a direct critique. The Reich formally complained to the Norwegian government, and Hitler sent Hermann Wilhelm Göring to deal with Ossietzky in the prison hospital.6 The Gestapo, which Göring founded in 1933, argued that even if they accompanied Ossietzky to Oslo, he might escape, and would most definitely use the prize money to speak out against Germany. Instead, Göring offered Ossietzky a deal. If he rejected the prize, the German government would offer him freedom and a pension. Ossietzky proved more determined than ever, declaring, “I was a pacifist, I remain a pacifist.”

The German Propaganda Ministry publicly declared that Ossietzky was free to accept the award, but denied him the passport to do so. The Nobel committee sent the prize money to Germany, which was promptly stolen by Ossietzky’s lawyer.7 The German press was forbidden to comment on the prize, while the government proclaimed that all future German nominees were obligated to reject it.8

Ossietzky was moved to a private sanitarium, where he clung to life for another 17 months. The Gestapo guarded his room, regulating correspondence and visits. On May 4, 1938, Ossietzky died from tuberculosis and other injuries resulting from three years in concentration camps. That same year, Time named Hitler “Man of The Year.”

In 1990, Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm called for her father’s high treason and espionage conviction to be reopened. Two years later, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice upheld the 1931 ruling, stating:

According to the case law of the Reichsgericht, the illegality of covertly conducted actions did not cancel out the principle of secrecy. According to the opinion of the Reichsgericht, every citizen owes his Fatherland a duty of allegiance regarding information, and endeavors towards the enforcement of existing laws may be implemented only through the utilization of responsible domestic state organs, and never by appealing to foreign governments.

While that ruling was unfortunate, just last week Julian Assange said that the new "mark of international distinction and service to humanity" was not the Nobel Peace Prize, but rather an indictment for espionage. 9

NOTES:

 1. The February 27, 1933 arson attack on the Reichstag building, which housed the German Parliament, enabled the Nazis to become the majority party. Hitler had become the Chancellor of Germany just four weeks before the fire, but the mass arrests of Communists and other political opponents allowed him to greatly consolidate his power.  

2. He had been the editor of the article, but the writer was Walter Kreiser. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison as well, but fled Germany. While Ossietzky did not appear to show any particular attachment to Christmas, his parents were Catholic and Protestant.  

3. Biographer Wilhelm von Sternberg has speculated that Ossietzky, given a few more days, would have fled as well. Given Ossietzky’s contention that his voice would lose potency outside of Germany, compounded with a later offer of freedom that he rejected, suggests that the Sternberg’s suggestion was a highly debatable opinion.  

4. In 1934, Heinrich Himmler’s SS took over the concentration camps and began purging Germany of “racially undesirable elements,” including Jews, criminals, gay men and women, and Gypsies.  

5. Addams had won the prize in 1931 for her “expression of an essentially American democracy,” and donated the money to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was regarded as the most prominent woman reformer of the Progressive Era, helping bring attention to women’s issues. 

 6. Hitler would name Göring as his successor in 1941.  

7. The German government sentenced the lawyer to two years of hard labor for embezzlement, and forced the gravely ill Ossietzky to attend the show trial. It would be his last public appearance.  

8. The proclamation would prevent three German citizens from accepting their awards: Richard Kuhn and Adolf Butendant won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 and 1939, and Gerhard Domagk won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939. The committee would eventually reissue their certificates and medals, but not the prize money. 

 9. Assange, who is wanted for espionage, wrote, “It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice.” He was referring to Edward Snowden, who is the eighth person to be charged with espionage under President Barack Obama. Widney Brown, Senior Director of Amnesty International, worries that Snowden’s “forced transfer to the USA would put him at great risk of human rights violations and must be challenged.”

http://www.theawl.com/2013/06/the-nobel-peace-prize-for-espionage

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Never the twain shall meet - Harris Khalique on Imran Khan's politics

The News (Pakistan), June 26, 2013

Z A Bhutto wrote in If I am Assassinated – a book he penned while in prison – that perhaps the real mistake he committed in his politics was to try to harmonise the interests of the upper classes with those of the downtrodden. This would never happen. Unfortunately, it seems that Bhutto was the second last mainstream popular Pakistani politician (Benazir being the last), who at least thought about the social, political and economic interests of the struggling classes.

The issue has been placed on the back burner now and there is no real distinction between the economic policies propagated or pursued by the major political parties. The discourse is all about who is more ‘efficient’ and less corrupt in implementing the same pro-rich economic paradigm that is supposed to serve the poor through a small trickle-down of surplus wealth by creating safety nets. The discordant interests of the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the elites and the commoners, have to be brought back into the mainstream. The fragile left may not be able to deliver on this count if a mainstream party does not take it up.

However, in the wake of religious extremism and brutal militancy over the past two decades, there is one relevant discourse – weak but persistent – alive in the country today. This discourse is about creating a modern state and a progressive society vis-à-vis an exclusive theocratic state and an orthodox society. In this current discourse, we see Imran Khan and the eclectic leadership of the PTI attempting to do the same that Bhutto did with the interests of two classes historically at odds with each other. For the PTI, it is between their socially liberal urban followers and the right-wing bigots.

Khan Sahib believes that he can harmonise their view of the world which happens to be his own view – created by an odd mix of personal experience, neo-conversion to parts of our faith (not sum, and one wouldn’t want to further indulge in this), limited understanding of human history and listening to the lopsided guidance provided by some short-statured advisers who come from the traditional right-wing politics in this country.

Bhutto could practice, understand and articulate what went right and what went wrong with his ideas and his politics since he had the ability, knowledge and capacity to reflect. He wouldn’t listen to the sane bits of advice either on many occasions from his aides who were also wiser than those of Khan Sahib today. Compared to Bhutto, Khan Sahib himself is neither as politically suave nor well-read enough in the realms of politics and history to be able to appreciate his own failings. For him, if things go right, it will be his charisma. If things go wrong, it will be other people’s fault.

People like us will remain in the bad books of the PTI leader and his ardent, blinkered followers for some time to come – or maybe forever. It will take them many years to learn that their bitter critics were their best friends. Therefore, it becomes all the more important for Khan Sahib’s experienced and sagacious well-wishers – who mostly happen to be liberal bureaucrats, retired ambassadors and foreign service officers, company executives, bankers, army officers, retired or serving – to remind him of certain hard facts about religious extremism, terrorism and the importance of creating a plural society that we have collectively learned from history.

The Jamaat-e-Islami’s partnership with the PTI in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government may not let this happen but the PTI is not just a ‘good looking Jamaat-e-Islami’ as our talented singer and blogger Ali Aftab Saeed shows in one of his video songs. Or is it?

Khan Sahib should be told that what one of his MPAs from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly said after a fatal bomb blast (that it was just a bomb blast and did not amount to doomsday) is something terribly serious. This statement coming from the ruling party’s MPA is an insult to the 40,000 Pakistani citizens and soldiers who were martyred over the past nine years at the hands of terrorists who are waging a war against Pakistan. Khan Sahib should also be asked to clarify his own and his party’s position on the assassin of Salmaan Taseer. When his MNA from NA-11, Mardan, Mujahid Ali Khan, demands an honourable release for Mumtaz Qadri, convicted by a court of law, it is the confusion in the party that is being reflected here.

Just to remind my readers, Khan Sahib himself condemned Taseer’s assassination while giving an interview in India. Very soon after, we were told that one of his party spokespersons participated in a rally held for Mumtaz Qadri in Lahore. This is no more a joke and the PTI just can’t evade answering these questions any more. Arif Alvi, the PTI MNA elected from NA-250, Karachi, clarified a little later that the statement from Mujahid Ali Khan that came out of the blue during the budget session of the national assembly was his (Mujahid’s) personal opinion. But what Arif Alvi himself said on a private television channel is no joke either. He sheepishly retracted, gave explanations and tried to clarify his position. The interview can be accessed online.

Arif Alvi is considered an old hand of Khan Sahib’s and a PTI stalwart from Karachi. After a major controversy, he was elected from a constituency that includes the two most affluent urban middle-class and elite neighbourhoods of Karachi – Clifton and the Defence Housing Authority. Alvi has categorically said that the Taliban’s demand for abolishing coeducation should be accepted. There are two immediate questions that are then raised. First, the schools that the Taliban were blowing up in Swat and other parts of Malakand were all girls’ schools and not coeducational facilities. I am not sure if in reality the Taliban are in favour of girls being sent to schools in the first place.

Second, Alvi apparently has no idea that almost all public schools in Pakistan, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas, are already segregated. Moreover, if there has to be no coeducation at any level in the educational institutions, why should it be limited to institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone? Why should only Peshawar University be segregated? Why not start the process from Alvi’s own metropolitan city by segregating educational institutions in Karachi? Comparable to some neighbourhoods in Lahore, I can bet that most of the coeducational schools in Pakistan – if we map by NA constituencies – are in Alvi’s constituency and most of the higher educational institutions that are co-ed are in Karachi.

Alvi should also ask his party compatriots, the Kasuris, who run a large network of schools catering to high-income groups to abolish coeducation. But Alvi was with the JI before joining the PTI, wasn’t he? Old habits die hard. I am not commenting on the PTI’s coalition partners, JI, today. Otherwise, it is no less significant to mention that Sirajul Haq, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance minister, has recommended a separate assembly for women.

My sagacious and experienced PTI friends that I am speaking to through this column know very well that until reaching the ripe age of 40, Khan Sahib was a sportsman. Forget about pushing him to learn lessons from history, politics or philosophy. One thing may well be reminded to him from the trade he used to be good at – those who prevail in any game are not just talented, they are also clearheaded. Those who are confused, unsure and wobbly, seldom win. Even if they do, their glory is short-lived.

Harris Khalique...The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-185960-Never-the-twain-shall-meet

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Udisa Islam - Forced conversions in Bangladesh (Dhaka Tribune)

Dhaka Tribune, June 27, 2013

A new phenomenon where men kidnap 10-16-year-old girls from minority communities and force them to sign declarations that they are adults and wish to change their religion to Islam to get married. Human rights groups and NGOs are calling for more action to be taken to prevent a spate of abductions and rapes of women, who have reportedly also then been forced to convert to Islam as part of a “carefully-planned” strategy to reduce support for victims from their communities after the crime is perpetrated.

Prima (not her real name), a sixth grader from Gazipur’s Tongi area, was abducted on her way back from school on April 6 this year. Law enforcers found her 55 days later at a hotel in Cox’s Bazaar. She had been raped repeatedly by some boys from her locality during the period and was forced to convert her religion from Hinduism to Islam and marry one of the perpetrators, Rabiul Hossein Manik.

Experts say Prima’s traumatic experience was not an isolated case, but part of a new phenomenon where men kidnap 10-16 year old girls from minority communities and force them to sign declarations that they are adults and wish to change their religion to Islam to get married. Experts have termed the forced changes of religion as a “carefully-planned” step designed to ensure that the victims do not receive the support of their communities and to leave scope for the criminals to get away without punishment.

“It is only natural that the perpetrators of such crime would want to ensure that the victim cannot go back to her community or get its support. So they have devised this strategy and by forcing her to change her religion, they effectively ensure the victim cannot escape and go back and that no steps are taken by her community to free her and take her back,” Advocate Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA), explained to the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday.

However, there is no sign of concrete steps being taken by the government or social organisations for curbing these attacks or to rehabilitate the victims. The distress of the victims is evident in a letter sent to her father by Kakoli Haider (not her real name). The 13-year-old was asleep in her bed when five Muslim men invaded and vandalised their home a year back. She screamed and fought back only to be easily overpowered by the criminals who took her away.

Three months later, she communicated with her parents through a letter to her father where she said she felt like dying as the criminals had forced her to convert to Islam and one of them had married her in a ruse to 'legalise' their crime. Ranu Saha (not her real name), a 16-year-old Hindu girl, was also victimised in a similar incident last year. She was abducted from where she was staying with her brother in Patuakhali’s Bauphal area and was similarly forced to convert by the criminals.

In recent years, the alarming rate of increase in violence against women has forced the government to enact stringent measures via the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2002 (amended 2003), Acid Control Act 2002 and Domestic Violence (Prevention & Protection) Act 2010. However experts feel that the situation has barely improved and are calling for the government to put more effort in training law enforcers to deal with these types of crime.

“We can never overstate the relevance of legislation for control of crime and violence. However, on its own, legislation will have no bearing if it is not enforced,” Action Aid Bangladesh Country Director Farah Kabir said in her reaction to the inhuman attack on Prima. She pointed out that law enforcers initially refuse to accept kidnapping charges in such incidents and try to tag such crimes as love affairs. They overlook the issue of forced conversion which is “very unfortunate.”

Bangladesh Mohila Parishad President Ayesha Khanam said enacting more laws would not address the problem. “We, therefore, need to identify the root causes first and then formulate a better strategy to overcome the problem.” When questioned about why the parishad has not taken any step yet, Ayesha said, “We are trying to observe the situation. We will take effective step.”

State minister of women affairs, Meher Afroz Chumky, said gender sensitisation and issues of women rights and equality should be included in the present education system. She added the media could play an important role in creating awareness and in calling on law enforcers to properly attend to the victims. “We will communicate with the home ministry to solve these problems.”

http://www.dhakatribune.com/crime/2013/jun/27/forced-conversion-religion-after-abduction-goes-unchecked

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Gujarat Police killed Sadiq Jamal despite Intelligence Bureau's clean chit

The CBI, which is investigating the killing of a man called Sadiq Jamal in Ahmedabad in January 2003, alleges that not only was he shot dead by the police in a fake encounter, but also that the Intelligence Bureau or IB played a role in it. 

Like they did in the Ishrat Jahan case of a year later, the Gujarat Police have claimed they had intelligence that Sadiq was a terrorist who planned to attack Narendra Modi and other top BJP leaders. But the CBI, which has questioned an unprecedented six IB officials in the case, alleges that its investigations have patched together a vastly different story.

The CBI probe has found that the intelligence that the Gujarat Police got on Sadiq was from three reports generated by the IB - one by a member of IB's Mumbai station Gururaj Savadatti in end October 2002, another by the IB headquarters on November 24 the same year and a third five days later by then Ahmedabad station head Rajinder Kumar, who is also being investigated in the Ishrat encounter case.  

The CBI has found that these reports, which in different forms said Sadiq planned to attack Mr Modi and others, did not match his profile. The only charges ever registered against him in his hometown Bhavnagar in Gujarat were for an altercation in 1996 and an arrest for gambling in November 2002. He was released on bail the same day.  

But based on the multiple IB reports, Sadiq was detained by the Mumbai Police on December 19, 2002, and grilled by the IB for about a week. Senior IB official in Mumbai Ambady Gopinathan has given a statement to the CBI saying that they couldn't find anything against Sadiq. "On the basis of the interrogation, it was concluded by SIB, Mumbai that there was no substance in the input that Sadiq had intention to cause any harm to VVIPs as alleged in the initial source report," Mr Gopinathan says. He also says that the clean chit report was sent to the IB headquarters in Delhi. Despite this, he says, on January 3, 2003, Sadiq was handed over to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. 

What followed is more baffling. Though the IB had itself given a clean chit to Sadiq and recorded on January 6 that he had been handed over to the Gujarat Police, Rajinder Kumar generated a report that Sadiq had not been apprehended yet and that efforts were on to locate him. To this, Sudhir Kumar, special director IB West, noted on the file that those efforts must continue.  On January 13, Sadiq was killed by the police in a hail of bullets.

The CBI's investigation through this paper trail of reports was reportedly facilitated by IB officers coming forward to share details and expose the alleged role of their colleagues.

Is there a deeper conspiracy in the alleged fake encounters of people like Sadiq Jamal and Ishrat Jahan? Or did the Gujarat Police actually thwart multiple attempts on the life of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi? Questions that still need answers.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/gujarat-police-killed-sadiq-jamal-despite-intelligence-bureau-s-clean-chit-385555?pfrom=home-lateststories

See also:

SABA NAQVI - The Dark Knights And The Dead Damsel


Ishrat Jehan's mother appeals for justice // CBI Probe Nails IB Officer’s Role

Did Narendra Modi, Amit Shah know of the Ishrat Jahan encounter in advance?

Public Appeal by R.B. SREEKUMAR, FORMER DGP, GUJARAT

Police records show Gujarat riots weren’t a sudden backlash

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system - Tehelka expose

1984 carnage - 5 convicted, main accused Sajjan Kumar acquitted

Probe larger conspiracy says Zakia Jafri's counsel, reminds SIT of SC order regarding 2002 riots


Close Encounters 

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Seema Sirohi - Why US shouldn’t accept Dalrymple’s reading of Afghan ‘history’ // Afghan diplomats defect

Sometimes it is better to write about history that is long gone and archived for easy or privileged access. But with his latest essay on Afghanistan, William Dalrymple has crossed into the wilds of contemporary geo-politics and proved the axiom that history can also be someone’s pet interpretation. Or more dangerously, a convenient narrative set to convenience some.

Dalrymple’s A Deadly Triangle: Afghanistan, Pakistan, & India is being promoted among the powerful in Washington almost as THE version of what happened over the past three decades in Afghanistan. He wrote the essay for The Brookings Institute, a major DC think tank, and with it his entry into the American wonk club is assured. The story is told in Dalrymple’s typically engaging style with enough “live feeds” to keep up reader interest. But his thesis is deeply problematic and ultimately wrong. To sum it up in his words: “The hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan.”

The theory fits right into Washington’s most popular narrative about South Asia – India-Pakistan rivalry is the root of all evil. It is regularly promoted by US analysts and officials. It ends with the fond hope that if only India would resolve the Kashmir problem as the Pakistanis fervently want, things would settle down. A version of it came recently from Bruce Riedel in his latest book, “Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan.”

Dalrymple’s “proxy war” reasoning implies – even though he may not have intended it — that Pakistan’s use of jihadi militants is somehow justified to counter Indian influence. And whatever emanates from the bunch of jihadis is indirectly India’s fault. It creates a troubling moral equivalence between India and Pakistan, between building roads and hospitals and bombing embassies. By his own accounting, Indian actions in Afghanistan today are positive and India’s presence small. So why blame India?

Dalrymple ignores the fact that Pakistan’s support of Afghan jihadis is an old policy, uncomfortably old and has nothing to do with India. It was spawned to fight Afghanistan’s support of Pashtun and Baloch nationalism and predates the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Two citations should suffice: an article by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi in the Yale Journal and a book by Pakistani scholar, Rizwan Hussain, “Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan.” Kabul was largely responsible for an ambitious overreach to try to build support for the idea of an independent Pashtunistan, with chunks from Pakistan’s Pashtun areas. Tensions were high in 1955 and again between 1960-61. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then crafted a response with a “forward policy” of supporting Islamist leaders inside Afghanistan. This policy grew and ultimately got married to the US Cold War objectives under Zia ul-Haq.

As many South Asian analysts have pointed out since Dalrymple’s essay came online on June 24, it is not because of India that Pakistani-trained jihadis and Al-Qaeda operatives are surfacing from Bosnia to Chechnya or that terrorists “decided to fly planes into the twin towers.” But his reasoning implies that vile actions by proxies of the Pakistan army can be laid at India’s doorstep.

Nitin Pai, a strategic analyst and director of Takshashila institution, tweeted: “US finances the war. NATO mucks up. Gulf kingdoms exert influence. Yet ‪@DalrympleWill sees Afghanistan as an India-Pakistan thing.” Sorry, India can’t accept this special delivery. Dalrymple’s narrative will be contested hard. India has little to do in creating the terrorist forces now unleashed on the world. His casual causation is incorrect – to put it politely.

It has been reported that he was recently invited to meet President Obama at the White House to present his latest book “Return of a King” about the 1839-42 British invasion of Afghanistan. He also gave a series of talks around Washington where everyone is eager to hear reasons to end US involvement and bring the troops home.

When Dalrymple writes that the Afghan war is no longer a war between US/NATO troops on the one hand and the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the other, Americans nod in approval. “Instead our troops are now caught up in a complex war shaped by two pre-existing and overlapping conflicts: one local and internal, the other regional.”

Framing the issue in the language of “our troops” and those people out there itself is loaded with politics.  Even the most pro-US government writers and academics use neutral language. But Dalrymple’s words help ease the qualms of departure without a proper exit strategy. He is essentially saying this is now an India-Pakistan issue, best left to them. We have done our bit or at least tried. Accept the fact that it became a graveyard for another empire. On that last point it is important to cite a piece by Dhruva Jaishankar and Javid Ahmad where they demolish the myth of Afghanistan being the “graveyard of empires” and the western-centric reading of Afghanistan’s history.

Dalrymple’s analysis of the Afghan situation suffers from another major drawback – he cites a selective sequence of events from which the Americans and British are largely absent or make only cameo appearances. It would have been far more honest to write about “the deadly rectangle” with one arm representing US, British and Saudi subversions and meddling in the Afghanistan of 1980s and 90s.

But he dismisses this important aspect in one line: “the recruitment (of Afghan mujahedin) was always controlled by the ISI, but was originally also funded by the Saudis and the CIA.” He makes it sound like the CIA gave just some pocket change to the jihadis, not the bank. With that he ignores numerous accounts in as many books documenting the extent and amount of American involvement and money that went into Afghanistan... 

George Crile’s “Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary History of the Largest Covert Operation in History” published in 2003 gives a full accounting of American enthusiasm for CIA’s Operation Cyclone, which pumped at least $3 billion through the ISI into the hands of extremists lovingly referred to by US officials as the “muj” in those days. The role of Britain’s MI6/SAS and Saudi cheque book diplomacy was equally important.

Surely, these factors changed the climate some.

But neither Washington nor London wants a history lesson at this time. Or ever for that matter. President Obama wants out of Afghanistan by whatever means necessary. The British, with their latest five-phase “peace plan” to open talks with the Taliban, are making it happen. Dalrymple’s narrative helps the process of rationalizing the exit.

Is it “Bollywood history” as Sunil Khilnani once said of his work? 
You can read William Dalrymple’s essay on the Brookings website.

read more: http://www.firstpost.com/world/why-us-shouldnt-accept-dalrymples-reading-of-afghan-history-906085.html?utm_source=voices&utm_medium=hp

Exodus: Afghan Diplomats Defect as Western Withdrawal Nears
A total of 105 Afghan diplomats were meant to report for duty at the Foreign Ministry in Kabul on Saturday. They were being rotated out of their foreign postings as scheduled, and it was time to return to headquarters. Yet just five of them have resurfaced. The others have apparently remained in the countries where they had been posted, among them several employees of the Afghan Embassy in Berlin.

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