(Indian Express, Jan 20, 2009
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=412947 )
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chargesheet in the Malegaon blast case claims that as per statements from the accused the town was singled out for the blast as "it was the ideal place where the Muslim community crowd was the maximum" and that prime accused Lt Col Prasad Purohit had told fellow conspirators it was time to set up a parallel, Hindu government-in-exile which could operate out of Israel and ensure a completely sashastra (armed) India. Purohit, according to the chargesheet, promised "all logistic help" with finances from several quarters and support from some of his contacts in Thailand. The ATS chargesheet, which includes two important confession statements, statements of witnesses under Section 164, laptop records, telephonic records, detailed SMSes and financial transactions across states, will be filed tomorrow in the designated MCOCA court chaired by sessions judge Y D Shinde.
The ATS will tell the court how a group called Abhinav Bharat became a "front organisation" for a conspiracy which led to an explosion at 9.26 pm on September 29, 2008 at Bhikku Chowk, Malegaon. While all eleven accused have been charged with conspiracy, logistics and execution of the blast, the key roles, according to the ATS, were those of Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Sudhakar Dardwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey. This will be the first case where a probe has been able to reach the conspirators - unlike other cases where only those who planted bombs have been arrested. In this case, the alleged bomb planters - Sameer Dange, Ramji Kalsangra - and Pravin Patil, another on the wanted list, remain at large. Patil also used the cover name of Mutalik and is a close aide of Purohit.
While the forensic finding of the chassis and engine number of the motorcycle used in the blast - it was a Gujarat registration number GJ-05-1920, owned by Pragya Singh Thakur - led the ATS to Gujarat, it was the statements of witnesses and the forensic report that helped the ATS build a strong case. The ATS chargesheet has relied heavily on the statement of Sudhakar Chaturvedi (37), the last to be arrested, who said Purohit had called him on September 17, asking him to give the keys of his house in Deolali to a person named Pawar. According to the ATS, Pawar handed the keys to Ramji Kalsangra who along with some others used the house to assemble the bomb that was eventually used in Malegaon. The ATS team took a picture of Ramji to the locality where Chaturvedi stayed. Two witnesses identified him and confirmed that Ramji did come to the house. A search of the house revealed remains of items used in making the bomb - this was verified by a forensic team. Evidences include recordings from the laptop of Sudhakar Dardwivedi which also has footage of various meetings.
Of the arrested, it is Rakesh Dataram Dhavde's involvement in the conspiracy that led the ATS to slap MCOCA charges against all ten accused. Pragya Singh's telephonic conversations recorded with accused Shyam Sahu immediately after the blasts will be included in the chargesheet. According to the ATS, the Abhinav Bharat, a group founded on June 12, 2006 in Raigad where Shivaji was coronated, initially had retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay in the role of working president. Later, under the control of Purohit, it became the "front for an agenda of creating a Hindu Rajya". While the "anger and the determination" to create a parallel government which "gives power to Hindus" can be seen in the records of the many meetings that transpired between the accused, the ATS says that it was at a meeting in Bhopal where the conspiracy for Malegaon was hatched.
Purohit was said to have convinced the group that the time had come for a parallel government - and he detailed the idea of a bomb blast.The group, according to many statements of the accused, was told about possible safe houses in Israel from where the conspirators could operate once their ideology took root and their numbers increased. According to the ATS, Pragya Singh promised "two of her men" from Gujarat. Upadhyay and Pune-based Ajay Rahirkar played key roles in logistics, conspiracy meetings and finances while Sudhakar and Sameer Kulkarni, the ATS says, were active foot soldiers of Abhinav Bharat who were paid a monthly sum of Rs 5,000 and were called 'Chanakyas'.
|
January 31, 2009
Protest Against Attack on Film Crew by Hindutva goons!
[message from filmmaker Rakesh Sharma]
Please help by registering your strongest protest to the Police Commissioner
as instead of taking any action against the mob attacking the crew at
midnight (asking for Richa to be bodysearched, tearing Rvviu's clothes,
snatching the camera, taking the ffotage away), the police seemed to pander
to them, and have confiscated our footage illegally!
January 29, 2009 Fax CP 22621835
Hasan Ghafoor, IPS
The Commissioner of Police, Mumbai
Sub: Harassment of documentary film crew and illegal confiscation of footage
Dear Sir,
We are working with Rakesh Sharma (98203 43103), well-known independent
documentary film-maker. Today, we were filming for his latest film which
deals with the human tragedy of terror and hate attacks, among other things
documenting the diversity of responses from the civil society in the last
few weeks. These have included memorial and felicitation functions,
interviews with victims, patients and their families, peace marches,
workshops and several other miscellaneous events. Today evening, as part of
our ongoing filming, we were shooting at the Sadhu Sammelan on peace and
terror at their public meeting at Somaiya grounds on Sion-Chunnabhatti road.
We took the required permissions from the organizers and were escorted by
them into the press enclosure to enable us to film the speakers. After the
meeting, as is our usual practice, we were taking audience reactions. While
filming with an audience member from Simla, we were suddenly surrounded by a
mob of approx 100-150 people, who identified themselves as members of
Bajrang Dal and the Dharma Raksha Manch, raising objections to the
interview. Though we tried to reason with them, the mob grew increasingly
hostile and manhandled the cameraman Rrivu Laha and snatched the camera.
They intimidated Ms Richa Hushing and demanded that she be body searched by
one of the Durga Vahini members. The local event co-ordinator of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad who identified himself as being in-charge of security,
intervened to stop further manhandling and demanded that the footage
recently shot by the crew, be immediately erased in their presence. The tape
itself was physically snatched by the mob from the cameraman.
At this time, the police wireless van attached to the Wadala Truck Terminus
Police Station, reached the spot and intervened. They escorted us to their
van and PI Chavan questioned us and offered to register a formal complaint.
In the meanwhile, the other policemen went into the mob and brought a man
named Wankhede with the tape that had been snatched by the mob. While the
police were questioning him, two people arrived – one of them a delegate who
had earlier addressed the meeting and the other, a local politician
contacted by Wankhede. They then insisted that the crew be allowed to leave
only after the tape had been formally confiscated by the police.
As we had just been subjected to mob violence, harassment, intimidation and
were under duress, we agreed to comply with the demands of the mob and left
the scene as we had a continuing fear of our safety. We are writing this
complaint immediately on our arrival in our office.
We request you to treat this letter as a formal complaint and take
appropriate action. Further, our footage containing not just the said
interview but also much of our filming throughout the evening has not yet
been restored to us. We urge that our tape be handed over to us urgently. We
have spoken to SI Chavan telephonically at 1.30 am and informed him that
this formal complaint is being lodged and have ascertained that the said
tape remains in his personal possession.
Yours sincerely,
Richa Hushing Rrivu Laha, Jogesh Malakar
independent fim-maker (9969879319) cinematographer (9372446397) AD
(65882504)
CC:
SI, Wadala Truck Terminus Police Station
DCP of the zone
Indian Documentary Producers' Association
Please help by registering your strongest protest to the Police Commissioner
as instead of taking any action against the mob attacking the crew at
midnight (asking for Richa to be bodysearched, tearing Rvviu's clothes,
snatching the camera, taking the ffotage away), the police seemed to pander
to them, and have confiscated our footage illegally!
January 29, 2009 Fax CP 22621835
Hasan Ghafoor, IPS
The Commissioner of Police, Mumbai
Sub: Harassment of documentary film crew and illegal confiscation of footage
Dear Sir,
We are working with Rakesh Sharma (98203 43103), well-known independent
documentary film-maker. Today, we were filming for his latest film which
deals with the human tragedy of terror and hate attacks, among other things
documenting the diversity of responses from the civil society in the last
few weeks. These have included memorial and felicitation functions,
interviews with victims, patients and their families, peace marches,
workshops and several other miscellaneous events. Today evening, as part of
our ongoing filming, we were shooting at the Sadhu Sammelan on peace and
terror at their public meeting at Somaiya grounds on Sion-Chunnabhatti road.
We took the required permissions from the organizers and were escorted by
them into the press enclosure to enable us to film the speakers. After the
meeting, as is our usual practice, we were taking audience reactions. While
filming with an audience member from Simla, we were suddenly surrounded by a
mob of approx 100-150 people, who identified themselves as members of
Bajrang Dal and the Dharma Raksha Manch, raising objections to the
interview. Though we tried to reason with them, the mob grew increasingly
hostile and manhandled the cameraman Rrivu Laha and snatched the camera.
They intimidated Ms Richa Hushing and demanded that she be body searched by
one of the Durga Vahini members. The local event co-ordinator of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad who identified himself as being in-charge of security,
intervened to stop further manhandling and demanded that the footage
recently shot by the crew, be immediately erased in their presence. The tape
itself was physically snatched by the mob from the cameraman.
At this time, the police wireless van attached to the Wadala Truck Terminus
Police Station, reached the spot and intervened. They escorted us to their
van and PI Chavan questioned us and offered to register a formal complaint.
In the meanwhile, the other policemen went into the mob and brought a man
named Wankhede with the tape that had been snatched by the mob. While the
police were questioning him, two people arrived – one of them a delegate who
had earlier addressed the meeting and the other, a local politician
contacted by Wankhede. They then insisted that the crew be allowed to leave
only after the tape had been formally confiscated by the police.
As we had just been subjected to mob violence, harassment, intimidation and
were under duress, we agreed to comply with the demands of the mob and left
the scene as we had a continuing fear of our safety. We are writing this
complaint immediately on our arrival in our office.
We request you to treat this letter as a formal complaint and take
appropriate action. Further, our footage containing not just the said
interview but also much of our filming throughout the evening has not yet
been restored to us. We urge that our tape be handed over to us urgently. We
have spoken to SI Chavan telephonically at 1.30 am and informed him that
this formal complaint is being lodged and have ascertained that the said
tape remains in his personal possession.
Yours sincerely,
Richa Hushing Rrivu Laha, Jogesh Malakar
independent fim-maker (9969879319) cinematographer (9372446397) AD
(65882504)
CC:
SI, Wadala Truck Terminus Police Station
DCP of the zone
Indian Documentary Producers' Association
January 30, 2009
A running thread of deep saffron (Christophe Jaffrelot)
The Indian Express - January 29, 2009
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-running-thread-of-deep-saffron/416409/
A running thread of deep saffron
by Christophe Jaffrelot
The people behind the Malegaon terrorist attack fell into three categories — Sangh parivar cadres, army men and old Savarkarites. The first person to be arrested by the police, Pragya Singh, was a sadhvi and former ABVP leader. A second group of the accused comprised army men, retired or not, related to the Bhonsle Military School (BMS). Major Ramesh Upadhyay, a former defence services officer was arrested first, but the key figure was Lt Col Prasad Purohit, who had approached Upadhyay when he was posted at Nasik as liaison officer. Purohit and Upadhyay imparted military training to young activists — including bomb making — and were instrumental in getting arms and explosives.
Most of the training camps took place in the BMS, which had been directed by Rtd Major P.B. Kulkarni between 1973 and 1988, andwho had been associated with the RSS since 1935. In fact, the Bajrang Dal organised training camps in the BMS (Nagpur) as early as 2001. The five accused mentioned above were all members of Abhinav Bharat, a Pune-based movement initiated by Purohit in June 2006, whose working president was Ramesh Upadhyaya but whose president was none other than Himani Savarkar, V.D. Savarkar’s daughter in law, who also headed the Hindu Mahasabha.
The people, the places and the modus operandi are revealing of the continuity that underlines the Hindu tradition of terror, harking back to V.D. Savarkar. The young, revolutionary Savarkar had created the first Abhinav Bharat Society in 1905. The movement drew its name and its inspiration from Mazzini’s ‘Young Italy’, but was also influenced by Frost Thomas’s Secret Societies of the European Revolution, a book dealing mostly with the Russian nihilists. The movement was dissolved in 1952, but ten years back, just before finishing his term as Hindu Mahasabha president, Savarkar had created the Hindu Rashtra Dal, another militia whose mission was to impart military training to the Hindus in order to fight the Muslims, Gandhi’s followers and the Mahatma himself. This movement cashed in on the work of the same institution — the Bhonsle Military School, started in 1935 by B.S. Moonje, another Nagpur-based Savarkarite, after a European tour which had exposed him to Mussolini’s Balilla movement.
Like the Abhinav Bharat of today, the Hindu Rashtra Dal attracted Hindutva-minded Maharashtrian Brahmins — especially from Poona — who found the RSS insufficiently active. Some of them also had connections to the British Army.
Nathuram Godse and N.D. Apte, the two main architects of Gandhi’s assassination, are cases in point. Godse thought that RSS strategy contented itself with “organisation for the sake of organisation”. The Hindu Rashtra Dal, by contrast, organised training camps where volunteers learnt how to manufacture bombs and use guns from bicycles and cars. The key instructor was N.D. Apte who had served the army as Assistant Technical Recruiting Officer. In this capacity, he could use the War Service Exhibitions — which were intended to attract young Indians to the army — to initiate Hindu Rashtra Dal members into the art of modern arms.
The Hindu Rashtra Dal’s terrorist agenda culminated in the assassination of Gandhi, who had already been a Savarkarite target before — in 1934, they threw a bomb in Poona Municipal Town Hall where Gandhi was making a speech against untouchability.
While today’s Abhinav Bharat belongs to an old tradition harking back to Savarkar and even Tilak, the new element here lies in the implication of one serving officer of the Indian army. Certainly, any institution can have a black sheep. But was he that isolated? He has already named other officers who would have been his more or less passive accomplices and his colleague, Upadhyay, who once headed the Mumbai unit of the BJP’s ex-servicemen cell. The BJP, indeed, inducted ex-army men in large numbers since the 1990s. After the BJP came to power in 1998, two dozens ex-servicemen more joined the party. This inflow of ex-army men may reflect the increasingly communal atmosphere of the institution. In December 2003, a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies for Tehelka, one of the first among army men — and probably the most comprehensive — showed that 19 per cent of the soldiers interviewed felt that the army practised some religious discrimination — and 24 per cent of the Muslims among them shared this view.
Instead of distancing itself from the Hindu terrorists, as it had done in the 1940s, this time the Sangh Parivar has decided to support the Malegaon accused. Bajrang Dal chief Prakash Sharma declared that “policy makers should be worried if the Hindus were taking to arms because of the government’s skewed approach to war on terror” and admitted that the Bajrang Dal was running training camps too “to boost their morale [the Bajrang Dal's members]. The country wouldn’t get its Abhinav Bindras if there were no armed training for the youth”.
In a way, the RSS, with the Bajrang Dal, has created a buffer organisation to handle the dirty work that the Sangh was earlier obliged to do itself — work similar to that of the Savarkarite organisations, whether they are called Hindu Rashtra Dal or Abhinav Bharat.
The writer is a political scientist and South Asia specialist at CERI, Paris
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-running-thread-of-deep-saffron/416409/
A running thread of deep saffron
by Christophe Jaffrelot
The people behind the Malegaon terrorist attack fell into three categories — Sangh parivar cadres, army men and old Savarkarites. The first person to be arrested by the police, Pragya Singh, was a sadhvi and former ABVP leader. A second group of the accused comprised army men, retired or not, related to the Bhonsle Military School (BMS). Major Ramesh Upadhyay, a former defence services officer was arrested first, but the key figure was Lt Col Prasad Purohit, who had approached Upadhyay when he was posted at Nasik as liaison officer. Purohit and Upadhyay imparted military training to young activists — including bomb making — and were instrumental in getting arms and explosives.
Most of the training camps took place in the BMS, which had been directed by Rtd Major P.B. Kulkarni between 1973 and 1988, andwho had been associated with the RSS since 1935. In fact, the Bajrang Dal organised training camps in the BMS (Nagpur) as early as 2001. The five accused mentioned above were all members of Abhinav Bharat, a Pune-based movement initiated by Purohit in June 2006, whose working president was Ramesh Upadhyaya but whose president was none other than Himani Savarkar, V.D. Savarkar’s daughter in law, who also headed the Hindu Mahasabha.
The people, the places and the modus operandi are revealing of the continuity that underlines the Hindu tradition of terror, harking back to V.D. Savarkar. The young, revolutionary Savarkar had created the first Abhinav Bharat Society in 1905. The movement drew its name and its inspiration from Mazzini’s ‘Young Italy’, but was also influenced by Frost Thomas’s Secret Societies of the European Revolution, a book dealing mostly with the Russian nihilists. The movement was dissolved in 1952, but ten years back, just before finishing his term as Hindu Mahasabha president, Savarkar had created the Hindu Rashtra Dal, another militia whose mission was to impart military training to the Hindus in order to fight the Muslims, Gandhi’s followers and the Mahatma himself. This movement cashed in on the work of the same institution — the Bhonsle Military School, started in 1935 by B.S. Moonje, another Nagpur-based Savarkarite, after a European tour which had exposed him to Mussolini’s Balilla movement.
Like the Abhinav Bharat of today, the Hindu Rashtra Dal attracted Hindutva-minded Maharashtrian Brahmins — especially from Poona — who found the RSS insufficiently active. Some of them also had connections to the British Army.
Nathuram Godse and N.D. Apte, the two main architects of Gandhi’s assassination, are cases in point. Godse thought that RSS strategy contented itself with “organisation for the sake of organisation”. The Hindu Rashtra Dal, by contrast, organised training camps where volunteers learnt how to manufacture bombs and use guns from bicycles and cars. The key instructor was N.D. Apte who had served the army as Assistant Technical Recruiting Officer. In this capacity, he could use the War Service Exhibitions — which were intended to attract young Indians to the army — to initiate Hindu Rashtra Dal members into the art of modern arms.
The Hindu Rashtra Dal’s terrorist agenda culminated in the assassination of Gandhi, who had already been a Savarkarite target before — in 1934, they threw a bomb in Poona Municipal Town Hall where Gandhi was making a speech against untouchability.
While today’s Abhinav Bharat belongs to an old tradition harking back to Savarkar and even Tilak, the new element here lies in the implication of one serving officer of the Indian army. Certainly, any institution can have a black sheep. But was he that isolated? He has already named other officers who would have been his more or less passive accomplices and his colleague, Upadhyay, who once headed the Mumbai unit of the BJP’s ex-servicemen cell. The BJP, indeed, inducted ex-army men in large numbers since the 1990s. After the BJP came to power in 1998, two dozens ex-servicemen more joined the party. This inflow of ex-army men may reflect the increasingly communal atmosphere of the institution. In December 2003, a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies for Tehelka, one of the first among army men — and probably the most comprehensive — showed that 19 per cent of the soldiers interviewed felt that the army practised some religious discrimination — and 24 per cent of the Muslims among them shared this view.
Instead of distancing itself from the Hindu terrorists, as it had done in the 1940s, this time the Sangh Parivar has decided to support the Malegaon accused. Bajrang Dal chief Prakash Sharma declared that “policy makers should be worried if the Hindus were taking to arms because of the government’s skewed approach to war on terror” and admitted that the Bajrang Dal was running training camps too “to boost their morale [the Bajrang Dal's members]. The country wouldn’t get its Abhinav Bindras if there were no armed training for the youth”.
In a way, the RSS, with the Bajrang Dal, has created a buffer organisation to handle the dirty work that the Sangh was earlier obliged to do itself — work similar to that of the Savarkarite organisations, whether they are called Hindu Rashtra Dal or Abhinav Bharat.
The writer is a political scientist and South Asia specialist at CERI, Paris
Eradicating Terrorism
Eradicating Terrorism: Groping in the Dark
Ram Puniyani
November 26 terror attack on Mumbai shook the whole nation like never before. The society and state have been putting in their best to see that measures are taken where by the terror acts don’t repeat. So traumatized has been the nation that every conceivable measure is being given a serious thought for the safety and security of society.
To begin with the condolence for the dead was expressed through number of events, candle light march, human chains, all religion prayer meetings and area networking has come up in a very visible fashion. In many of these protests the anger against politicians had a free for all expression, at places sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly the fear of Pakistan and ‘Jehadi’ terrorists has been the running thread of the protests. The misplaced call for war against Pakistan is the part of this phenomenon only. The state, the central Government in order to show that something is being done, passed a law, empowering the state as if that will deter the terrorists, who generally come with the full readiness to die. The state is blowing hot and cold, sometimes threatening war and at others talking tough and less often also saying that war is no option.
State is also reviewing the quality of bullet proof jackets, increasing airport security and the security of coast line. Civic society groups have been undertaking workshops for disaster management, a university went on to declare a two year course against terrorism. The best amongst these have been the mohalla committee initiative to cement peace between different communities.
One recalls that after most of the severe phenomenon of violence the civic society has responded with great concern earlier also. Be it the post Babri demolition Mumbai riots or the Gujarat carnage 2003, for a good bit of time socially oriented and concerned individuals and groups sprang into the relief, rehabilitation and intercommunity amity work. This time there is a lot of ferment and a part of it does hold Pakistan as the culprit of the attacks of terror. The measures taken by state though some of them welcome, the measures of civic society groups, related to intercommunity amity are very valuable. But how far will they go?
It seems that the knee jerk reaction after the phenomenon is more focused on the symptoms of the phenomenon. Tighten security, have better bullet jackets and have stringent laws. There is not much attempt to go beyond the obvious to unravel the truth of sectarian and terrorist violence. Surely sectarian violence is due to some political groups baking their bread in the divisive politics, the ground for which is prepared by the hate ideology, spread of misconceptions and distorted view of the minorities, their history, their present. So, as lot of groups and individuals correctly talk about peace, about need for amity, their attempts do not reach to the core issue of fighting against divisive politics, the attempt to unravel the truth about minorities, their present, their’ past.
The communal violence and emotive issues give more strength to the communal parties, who in turn give bigger space to their affiliates who work at cultural and religious level to increase the communal divides and weaken national integration, further paving way to still worse violence in times to come. Not only that, their intensity has been worsening every next time they are staged. Gujarat was worse than Mumbai and Orissa has been more horrific than Dangs. The trajectory of communal violence has clearly shown that all the efforts by state to curb it have been misdirected; the social initiatives have been serious but probably not hitting the target in the effective way. One means the communal congruence of right wing ideology during last three decades.
As far as terrorist attacks are concerned, the formulation that All Terrorists are Muslims has been the understanding on which policies are made and implemented. With the result that the real causes of terror are not taken up for treatment of the disease of terrorism. From 1993 onwards terror attacks have been occurring, stringent laws or other wise. The deeper injustice has been giving raison de tre' to the repetition of these attacks. Here also the attacks have been worsening, the Mumbai one being worst so far.
If we see a bit more seriously, the real causes of terrorism have not taken up for fighting against. The popular perceptions stops at Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba being the real cause obviates the need to see beyond Al Qaeda etc. It prevents us from seeing the role of US imperialism in bring them up and using these groups for US’ political-economic gains. So all anger, protest against Pakistan and accompanying factors gets major importance. One misses the point that terrorism of AL Qaeda variety has roots in US policies of control over oil resources. It is due to those policies that these groups were propped up to fight Russian armies occupying Afghanistan. One has to see beyond the obvious to realize that this type terrorism has its genesis from the deeper political designs. The indoctrination of the radical groups which began due to this policy of US can not be fought against merely by strengthening some more laws and by new set of weapons.
Pakistani society is as much a victim of this dastardly phenomenon as India is. Terrorists always are looking for the holes in security through which they operate and their biggest advantage is that they are indoctrinated to the extent that they are willing to stake their all, including their lives to do what they have been doing. On similar wave length operates the terror attacks by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and other of her group. These Hindutva warriors have also been indoctrinated into hating others for the sake of their avowed goal of Hindu Rashtra. So where do we go, what direction we give to our concerns to ensure that terror attacks do not occur.
First and foremost, all places where injustice prevails, where democracy is stifled in a shortsighted way, those places become a rich fertile ground for breeding of terrorism. The one planted by US, Al Qaeda type, needs to be fought at global level. US is to be made accountable for much of this cancer which has spread in the area. While firmly dealing with the present terror set ups, democracy also needs to be made strong in Pakistan itself. One sees the subtle difference in the utterances of democratic elements in Pakistan and the Army-ISI-Mullah combine. The global peace movement has to ensure that the United Nations comes to the fore and stops the hegemony, the imperial behavior of US in particular. No measure short of restoring UN, making US follow the wishes of global community, a more democratized United Nations will suffice. This rejuvenated UN has to take up the global issue of terrorism, and put a brake on one sided, arbitrary US policies. US war on terror, and those who go by that, need to be put on the margins and entire charge of global interventions taken up by UN.
While draconian laws are no solution to the problem, it is likely they create and intensify the problem. The mantra of ‘tighten the security’ has not yielded any success in preventing it. The core point is to see that the concerned civic society makes its stand clear, that terrorism’s roots lie in injustice on one hand and US policies on the other. We need to raise our voices against injustice and US hegemony both to see that over a period of time the terror menace is eliminated by and by.
--
Ram Puniyani
November 26 terror attack on Mumbai shook the whole nation like never before. The society and state have been putting in their best to see that measures are taken where by the terror acts don’t repeat. So traumatized has been the nation that every conceivable measure is being given a serious thought for the safety and security of society.
To begin with the condolence for the dead was expressed through number of events, candle light march, human chains, all religion prayer meetings and area networking has come up in a very visible fashion. In many of these protests the anger against politicians had a free for all expression, at places sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly the fear of Pakistan and ‘Jehadi’ terrorists has been the running thread of the protests. The misplaced call for war against Pakistan is the part of this phenomenon only. The state, the central Government in order to show that something is being done, passed a law, empowering the state as if that will deter the terrorists, who generally come with the full readiness to die. The state is blowing hot and cold, sometimes threatening war and at others talking tough and less often also saying that war is no option.
State is also reviewing the quality of bullet proof jackets, increasing airport security and the security of coast line. Civic society groups have been undertaking workshops for disaster management, a university went on to declare a two year course against terrorism. The best amongst these have been the mohalla committee initiative to cement peace between different communities.
One recalls that after most of the severe phenomenon of violence the civic society has responded with great concern earlier also. Be it the post Babri demolition Mumbai riots or the Gujarat carnage 2003, for a good bit of time socially oriented and concerned individuals and groups sprang into the relief, rehabilitation and intercommunity amity work. This time there is a lot of ferment and a part of it does hold Pakistan as the culprit of the attacks of terror. The measures taken by state though some of them welcome, the measures of civic society groups, related to intercommunity amity are very valuable. But how far will they go?
It seems that the knee jerk reaction after the phenomenon is more focused on the symptoms of the phenomenon. Tighten security, have better bullet jackets and have stringent laws. There is not much attempt to go beyond the obvious to unravel the truth of sectarian and terrorist violence. Surely sectarian violence is due to some political groups baking their bread in the divisive politics, the ground for which is prepared by the hate ideology, spread of misconceptions and distorted view of the minorities, their history, their present. So, as lot of groups and individuals correctly talk about peace, about need for amity, their attempts do not reach to the core issue of fighting against divisive politics, the attempt to unravel the truth about minorities, their present, their’ past.
The communal violence and emotive issues give more strength to the communal parties, who in turn give bigger space to their affiliates who work at cultural and religious level to increase the communal divides and weaken national integration, further paving way to still worse violence in times to come. Not only that, their intensity has been worsening every next time they are staged. Gujarat was worse than Mumbai and Orissa has been more horrific than Dangs. The trajectory of communal violence has clearly shown that all the efforts by state to curb it have been misdirected; the social initiatives have been serious but probably not hitting the target in the effective way. One means the communal congruence of right wing ideology during last three decades.
As far as terrorist attacks are concerned, the formulation that All Terrorists are Muslims has been the understanding on which policies are made and implemented. With the result that the real causes of terror are not taken up for treatment of the disease of terrorism. From 1993 onwards terror attacks have been occurring, stringent laws or other wise. The deeper injustice has been giving raison de tre' to the repetition of these attacks. Here also the attacks have been worsening, the Mumbai one being worst so far.
If we see a bit more seriously, the real causes of terrorism have not taken up for fighting against. The popular perceptions stops at Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba being the real cause obviates the need to see beyond Al Qaeda etc. It prevents us from seeing the role of US imperialism in bring them up and using these groups for US’ political-economic gains. So all anger, protest against Pakistan and accompanying factors gets major importance. One misses the point that terrorism of AL Qaeda variety has roots in US policies of control over oil resources. It is due to those policies that these groups were propped up to fight Russian armies occupying Afghanistan. One has to see beyond the obvious to realize that this type terrorism has its genesis from the deeper political designs. The indoctrination of the radical groups which began due to this policy of US can not be fought against merely by strengthening some more laws and by new set of weapons.
Pakistani society is as much a victim of this dastardly phenomenon as India is. Terrorists always are looking for the holes in security through which they operate and their biggest advantage is that they are indoctrinated to the extent that they are willing to stake their all, including their lives to do what they have been doing. On similar wave length operates the terror attacks by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and other of her group. These Hindutva warriors have also been indoctrinated into hating others for the sake of their avowed goal of Hindu Rashtra. So where do we go, what direction we give to our concerns to ensure that terror attacks do not occur.
First and foremost, all places where injustice prevails, where democracy is stifled in a shortsighted way, those places become a rich fertile ground for breeding of terrorism. The one planted by US, Al Qaeda type, needs to be fought at global level. US is to be made accountable for much of this cancer which has spread in the area. While firmly dealing with the present terror set ups, democracy also needs to be made strong in Pakistan itself. One sees the subtle difference in the utterances of democratic elements in Pakistan and the Army-ISI-Mullah combine. The global peace movement has to ensure that the United Nations comes to the fore and stops the hegemony, the imperial behavior of US in particular. No measure short of restoring UN, making US follow the wishes of global community, a more democratized United Nations will suffice. This rejuvenated UN has to take up the global issue of terrorism, and put a brake on one sided, arbitrary US policies. US war on terror, and those who go by that, need to be put on the margins and entire charge of global interventions taken up by UN.
While draconian laws are no solution to the problem, it is likely they create and intensify the problem. The mantra of ‘tighten the security’ has not yielded any success in preventing it. The core point is to see that the concerned civic society makes its stand clear, that terrorism’s roots lie in injustice on one hand and US policies on the other. We need to raise our voices against injustice and US hegemony both to see that over a period of time the terror menace is eliminated by and by.
--
January 29, 2009
A National Temple Network For Hindutva
Times of India
24 January 2009
Purohit and Pandey planned 'Bharat Mata' temple
by Mateen Hafeez, TNN
MUMBAI: Self-proclaimed Shankaracharya, Sudhakar Dwuvedi alias Dayanand Pandey, during a conspiracy meeting for making India a Hindu Rashtra, had
suggested construction of a `Bharat Mata' temple with names of Hindus killed from 5th century to the time of British viceroy Lord Mountbatten inscribed on its walls.
According to him, those killed were "icons for today's Hindu youths''. A person identified as Sharmaji in the meeting stated that the Israelis have written their history on walls and the Bharat Mata temple would be based on the same concept.
TOI had first reported about the Malegaon blast accused's bigger plans of making India a Hindu Rashtra with the help of Israel and taking India's control in their hand. Police have arrested serving Army officer, Lt. Col. S P Purohit and 10 others for the September 29, 2008 Malegaon terror strike. The suspects were members of a social organisation, called Abhinav Bharat.
In the meeting, Purohit said Bharat Mata temples would be constructed across India to propagate their agenda of a Hindu Rashtra. "The Bharat Mata Temple will grant sanctity to the idea of the nationhood,'' Purohit said in the meeting. Initially, the conspirators decided to select a temple in Kashi but rejected that idea since it does not mention the names of those killed or sacrificed their lives during that period.
"From AD 712 to the period of Lord Mountbatten (1947), those who sacrificed their lives or were killed during the foreign invasions, their names should be mentioned in the temple,'' Pandey suggested in the meeting. The first foreign invasion on Indian soil was in AD 712 by Arab warrier Mohammed Bin Qasim who attacked the pirates for looting Arabian traders and had also plundered the kingdom of Raja Dahir in Sind. Qasim, who was 16 when led his army from Arab to India, is known as the "conqueror of Sind'' in books.
Purohit also said to have suggested resurrection of national icons who have been motivating generations of people over the century. "This is because we feel that there are no national icons to look up to for the youth today. Cast system is our biggest enemy and our aim is the unity of all Hindus. Bharat Mata is our only god and Chhatrapati Shivaji is our ideal. We aim to bring all the nation under the saffron and anyone in this nation must be known only as a Hindu. Destiny has chosen us to fulfill this noble cause,'' Purohit is reported to have said.
In the meeting, Purohit also suggested maintaining the forts of Shivaji in Maharashtra and the other forts in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. "The youths can also be narrated the stories of the icons in those regions. For this, we will give more emphasis on the icons from the past in different regions,'' Purohit had said.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com
24 January 2009
Purohit and Pandey planned 'Bharat Mata' temple
by Mateen Hafeez, TNN
MUMBAI: Self-proclaimed Shankaracharya, Sudhakar Dwuvedi alias Dayanand Pandey, during a conspiracy meeting for making India a Hindu Rashtra, had
suggested construction of a `Bharat Mata' temple with names of Hindus killed from 5th century to the time of British viceroy Lord Mountbatten inscribed on its walls.
According to him, those killed were "icons for today's Hindu youths''. A person identified as Sharmaji in the meeting stated that the Israelis have written their history on walls and the Bharat Mata temple would be based on the same concept.
TOI had first reported about the Malegaon blast accused's bigger plans of making India a Hindu Rashtra with the help of Israel and taking India's control in their hand. Police have arrested serving Army officer, Lt. Col. S P Purohit and 10 others for the September 29, 2008 Malegaon terror strike. The suspects were members of a social organisation, called Abhinav Bharat.
In the meeting, Purohit said Bharat Mata temples would be constructed across India to propagate their agenda of a Hindu Rashtra. "The Bharat Mata Temple will grant sanctity to the idea of the nationhood,'' Purohit said in the meeting. Initially, the conspirators decided to select a temple in Kashi but rejected that idea since it does not mention the names of those killed or sacrificed their lives during that period.
"From AD 712 to the period of Lord Mountbatten (1947), those who sacrificed their lives or were killed during the foreign invasions, their names should be mentioned in the temple,'' Pandey suggested in the meeting. The first foreign invasion on Indian soil was in AD 712 by Arab warrier Mohammed Bin Qasim who attacked the pirates for looting Arabian traders and had also plundered the kingdom of Raja Dahir in Sind. Qasim, who was 16 when led his army from Arab to India, is known as the "conqueror of Sind'' in books.
Purohit also said to have suggested resurrection of national icons who have been motivating generations of people over the century. "This is because we feel that there are no national icons to look up to for the youth today. Cast system is our biggest enemy and our aim is the unity of all Hindus. Bharat Mata is our only god and Chhatrapati Shivaji is our ideal. We aim to bring all the nation under the saffron and anyone in this nation must be known only as a Hindu. Destiny has chosen us to fulfill this noble cause,'' Purohit is reported to have said.
In the meeting, Purohit also suggested maintaining the forts of Shivaji in Maharashtra and the other forts in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. "The youths can also be narrated the stories of the icons in those regions. For this, we will give more emphasis on the icons from the past in different regions,'' Purohit had said.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com
Nazi-style salutation introduced by Bombay's far right party
Indian Express
Jan 24, 2009
MNS salute to Hitler, apes Nazi-style greeting
by Rakshit Sonawane
Mumbai : While his estranged uncle Bal Thackeray has not made any bones in the past about his admiration for Hitler, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has gone one step ahead and decided to introduce the controversial Nazi-style salutation for the rank and file of the party.
Party sources said that at a meeting of Shakha Pramukhs held two days ago in Thane, MNS members were told to greet each other and party chief Raj by raising their right hand in “Heil Hitler” style and say, “Jai Maharashtra”, from tomorrow. Raj is due to address a rally in Thane on Saturday, coinciding with the celebration of the controversial Uttar Pradesh Diwas which the MNS has opposed.
The aim apparently is to bring in uniformity in salutation, promote discipline and ensure that all members remember that they have to work for the welfare of Maharashtra, an MNS leader said.
“Heil Hitler” was the Hitler salute which meant “Hail to Hitler”. It is a variant of the Roman Salute, adopted by the Nazi Party as a sign of loyalty to its leader. It was adopted following its use by supporters of Italian Fascism under the leadership of Benito Mussolini and other mass movements of the era.
The Hitler salute became the personification of Hitler’s cult in Nazi Germany. The salutation has also reportedly been adopted by some controversial neo-Nazi groups in Europe.
Raj, like his uncle and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, has in the past praised Hitler for his strict discipline and abilities to mobilise his countrymen after the devastation during World War I.
Raj’s Thane meeting on Saturday coincides with Uttar Pradesh Diwas celebrated by migrants in the region. The MNS has warned migrants not to go ahead with the event and the police, apprehensive that Raj’s rhetoric could spark trouble, have issued a notice to him, seeking details of what he plans to say.
Party sources had earlier said that Raj planned to respond to all the fun that was poked at him in the aftermath of 26/11 when angry citizens put up posters asking where Raj was when the attack was taking place and how north Indian commandos had to land in the city to save Mumbaikars.
Jan 24, 2009
MNS salute to Hitler, apes Nazi-style greeting
by Rakshit Sonawane
Mumbai : While his estranged uncle Bal Thackeray has not made any bones in the past about his admiration for Hitler, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has gone one step ahead and decided to introduce the controversial Nazi-style salutation for the rank and file of the party.
Party sources said that at a meeting of Shakha Pramukhs held two days ago in Thane, MNS members were told to greet each other and party chief Raj by raising their right hand in “Heil Hitler” style and say, “Jai Maharashtra”, from tomorrow. Raj is due to address a rally in Thane on Saturday, coinciding with the celebration of the controversial Uttar Pradesh Diwas which the MNS has opposed.
The aim apparently is to bring in uniformity in salutation, promote discipline and ensure that all members remember that they have to work for the welfare of Maharashtra, an MNS leader said.
“Heil Hitler” was the Hitler salute which meant “Hail to Hitler”. It is a variant of the Roman Salute, adopted by the Nazi Party as a sign of loyalty to its leader. It was adopted following its use by supporters of Italian Fascism under the leadership of Benito Mussolini and other mass movements of the era.
The Hitler salute became the personification of Hitler’s cult in Nazi Germany. The salutation has also reportedly been adopted by some controversial neo-Nazi groups in Europe.
Raj, like his uncle and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, has in the past praised Hitler for his strict discipline and abilities to mobilise his countrymen after the devastation during World War I.
Raj’s Thane meeting on Saturday coincides with Uttar Pradesh Diwas celebrated by migrants in the region. The MNS has warned migrants not to go ahead with the event and the police, apprehensive that Raj’s rhetoric could spark trouble, have issued a notice to him, seeking details of what he plans to say.
Party sources had earlier said that Raj planned to respond to all the fun that was poked at him in the aftermath of 26/11 when angry citizens put up posters asking where Raj was when the attack was taking place and how north Indian commandos had to land in the city to save Mumbaikars.
Karnataka: Hindutva's Thugs Running Amuck - a compilation
Editorials, Statements and Reports compiled by sacw.net (29 January 2009)
(i) Ram Sene attack is form of terror (Editorial, The Asian Age)
(ii) Pub Brawl (Editorial, The Telegraph)
(iii) Barbarians At Large (Editorial, Times of India)
(iv) Mangalore's Taliban: India outraged (Prerna Thakurdesai)
(v) What Is Sri Ram Sena? (NDTV)
(vi) Sene’s shame old story (expressbuzz.com)
(vii) Sri Ram Sena should be strongly disciplined; its origins thoroughly investigated (Press Statement, SAHMAT)
(viii) Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action (Press Statement by Communist Party of India (Marxist))
(ix) Women drinking is as old as the hills in Karnataka (Sowmya Aji)
(x) Outrage in Mangalore (Editorial, The Tribune)
(xi) It’s goondaism, not Hinduism, say experts (Vikas Pathak)
(xii) Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
(i)
The Asian Age
28 January 2009
Editorial
RAM SENE ATTACK IS FORM OF TERROR
Jan. 28:The Sri Ram Sene, which shamefully assaulted women in a Mangalore pub last Saturday, has relied on an inglorious tradition to justify its degrading action, executed in the name of defending "Indian norms". The perpetration of cruelty and violence, especially against women, in the name of religious or moral sanction, or taking the plea of defending the putative values of a society, or nation, or a particular tradition, has been with us for hundreds of years. In our own times, the Taliban began shooting women at point blank range or beheading them in public for not taking seriously the mores sought to be enforced by them. This, incidentally, was among the social causes that led to revulsion against the extremists in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion. In Kashmir, from time to time, terrorist elements have used violence against women in particular to enforce their diktat on a generally unwilling society. Not so long ago, Hindu society in Rajasthan and other places found the recrudescence of the hateful sati system, which had to be put down through the use of administrative force. More often than not, attacks on women are conducted by well-organised groups that enjoy political patronage of influential groups, and often administrative patronage as well. It will indeed be a surprise if the Ram Sene is found to be a body without powerful patrons who will spring to its defence.
It is interesting that the Bajrang Dal has reportedly sought to take the credit for the physical attack on young women in Mangalore away from the Ram Sene. The Bajrang Dal is an integral part of the Hindu far right, many of whose affiliates have gone on the rampage from time to time in different parts of the country. Such outfits keep their cadres mobilised by attacking artists and the arts in various forms, assaulting the integrity of women, and spreading poison against minority groups. Invariably, the justification is an assumed moral outrage at deviations from the religious or cultural sensibilities the political parties or ideological formations backing these outfits happen to espouse. There is little that distinguishes the self-proclaimed "guardians" of our tradition from the guns-and-bombs category commonly described as terrorists. Both use violence to intimidate ordinary people in order to spread fear and achieve political ends. Both consciously subvert processes as by law established. The only way to beat them back is to meet them frontally. If the state retreats, they are emboldened. If powerful elements of the state deviously support them while pretending to do otherwise, extremists eventually overtake those elements and seek direct power for themselves. This is what the Taliban are doing now in Pakistan, for instance. In recent history, the inspiration of the Hindu far right comes from the gory episodes of Gujarat, circa 2002, and the wilful and organised demolition of the Babri mosque, circa 1992. The administration must meet the challenge posed by the likes of the Ram Sene forcefully and skilfully. If it is serious, the goons will take flight. It will also help if the Sangh Parivar leaders publicly dissociate themselves from the self-appointed guardians of our values and our culture.
o o o
The Telegraph
January 28 , 2009
Editorial
PUB BRAWL
When a bunch of Hindu rightwing thugs stormed a pub in Karnataka and beat up the women in it, their ostensible reason had something to do with “Indian norms”. It is not quite clear whether these norms were being violated by the women drinking alcohol in public or being affirmed by their being beaten up by the men. Perhaps a bit of both. But the violence of the assault on the women and on the men who tried to come to their rescue, together with the verbal abuse hurled at the women, was evidence of the passion with which these norms could be upheld. More than 25 members of the Sri Ram Sena have now been arrested in Karnataka, but the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have distanced itself from the Sri Ram Sena’s zeal, claiming that the outfit was not a member of the sangh parivar. Mangalore’s cosmopolitanism, its religious mix and its urban culture were all against the grain of the conservatism of a BJP-ruled state. In a big city like Mumbai, the bigotry of the Hindu Right, though often in evidence, gets diluted by the magnitude and variety of its citizenry. But it would be easier to bully a smaller city like Mangalore. And everything would depend on what sort of an attitude the state government adopts with regard to such incidents, and the extent to which the state’s law and order machinery can deal with such lawlessness without bowing to partisan pressures.
As with the Shiv Sena’s agitations in Maharashtra almost every year on Valentine’s Day, what such collective eruptions attest to is a violently irrational element at the heart of certain invented traditions that are nevertheless perfectly capable of organizing themselves institutionally. Outfits like the Sri Ram Sena are driven by passions that find their focus on such preoccupations as female virtue or appropriate forms of publicly expressed patriotism, all formulated in terms of a certain idea of India. Women sitting in a pub drinking alcohol violates this idea in a way that civilized, rational and modern minds will find difficult to fathom. Yet, the power of hordes is just as difficult to ignore, and benighted enthusiasms are very often collectively held. The freedom to have fun in a secure, yet liberated, public arena is a fundamental right for women and men in any modern democracy. The State as well as civil society will have to persist in protecting these rights.
o o o
Times of India
28 January 2009
Editorial
BARBARIANS AT LARGE
It only keeps getting worse. Intolerance is a stain that is spreading deep and fast in our country. Violent attacks by hoodlums inspired by
extreme ideologies - be it regional chauvinism, religious bigotry or a warped sense of Indian tradition and ethos - are becoming an alarmingly frequent feature of our times. The incident last weekend in Mangalore, in which women were physically assaulted by a bunch of goons bearing allegiance to the Sri Ram Sene - a fringe right-wing outfit - simply because they chose to visit a pub is further evidence of this phenomenon.
Like those associated with other extremist right-wing groups, members of the Sri Ram Sene are self-appointed custodians of ‘Indian culture’. Just what is this monolithic culture that these people refer to and use as an excuse to further their exclusionary political agenda? Is beating up women also part of this culture? Our culture and traditions are neither static nor singular. Through the centuries, they have been shaped and reshaped by historic events and interactions with other cultures. Today, there could be more than a billion ways of being Indian.
It's worrying that small groups of people can hold the public to ransom and assault our collective liberties with such apparent ease. More troubling is the fact that our state and central governments seem ill-equipped and unwilling to crack down swiftly on such groups. Be it against Raj Thackeray in Mumbai or similar troublemakers elsewhere, administrations move too slowly and feebly, undermining citizens' faith in their ability to secure law and order. Those responsible for attacks on churches and prayer halls last year in Mangalore have not all been brought to book yet.
This time, a couple of dozen men involved in the pub attacks have been taken into custody but all attackers have not yet been arrested. State home minister V S Acharya has not helped matters by saying that pub owners must "augment security to prevent this kind of incident in future". What is the minister suggesting? That we privatise the enforcement of law and order? Isn’t it the government’s job to ensure public security?
The state government's condemnation of the incident and stated resolve to suitably punish the guilty are welcome. But that is not enough. Unless it fairly pursues the matter, and is seen to be serious about keeping its word, the government in Karnataka runs the risk of being accused of looking the other way as the state, known for its tolerant spirit, slides down a path of intolerance.
o o o
ndtv.com
MANGALORE'S TALIBAN: INDIA OUTRAGED
by Prerna Thakurdesai
Tuesday, January 27, 2009, (Mumbai)
The attack by activists of a fringe group called the Shri Ram Sena, attacking women at a pub in Mangalore, has brought back memories of similar acts of moral policing across the country.
It's an incident that's bringing back bitter memories of attacks by other fringe groups across the country where state governments watched rather than crackdown.
A case in point is the Shiv Sena's various attempts to stop those celebrating Valentine's Day.
Another instance, is Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which attacked north Indians to promote its sons of the soil issue.
In August 2008, on the outskirts of Bangalore, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike had attacked a rave party.
Again in October 2005, the Pattali Makkal Kakchi had attacked actress Khushboo over her comments on pre-marital sex.
"Besides condemning these Talibanese, we should ask the question why the government is doing nothing about it. It almost seems like they are a part of it," said writer and lyricist, Javed Akhtar.
The outrage against the Mangalore incident was evident on the streets, specially among women, the primary targets of the attack.
"They don't want us to live in peace. It's not like we don't know how to regulate ourselves," said one woman.
There were similar reactions on the web from bloggers and Youtube users.
"We are celebrating Republic Day today and this video shows exactly how Republic we are," said a web user.
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ndtv.com
WHAT IS SRI RAM SENA?
NDTV Correspondent
Monday, January 26, 2009, (Mangalore)
A handful of men from a group thought of deciding how others should behave in Mangalore. The group is called Sri Ram Sena. Here's the history of the group and the man who founded it.
There was nationwide outrage, as the images of the Mangalore pub incident scarred the collective psyche of a nation that's celebrating Republic Day.
Pramod Muthalik is the man who laid the foundation of the right-wing Hindu group called the Sri Ram Sena.
"Whoever has done this has done a good job. Girls going to pubs is not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the state," said Pramod.
Pramod Muthalik, a full-time RSS man earlier, was the Karnataka coordinator of the Bajrang Dal four years ago. Soon he was expelled from the Bajrang Dal after which he joined the Shiv Sena and later he formed his own group.
This isn't the first time the Sri Ram Sena has indulged in moral policing.
In August, 2008, it vandalised an exhibition of M F Husain's paintings in Delhi.
Interestingly, the group also finds mention in the Malegaon blast chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra Police. In the transcript of a conversation, the prime accused Colonel Purohit is quoted saying, "The Shri Ram Sena is doing very good work. Purohit calls the leader of the group as Muthalik.
In an interview given to a website, Muthalik staunchly defended Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, another key accused in the Malegaon blast case, saying she is innocent.
And now he's dismissing the Mangalore pub attack as a small incident.
o o o
expressbuzz.com
SENE’S SHAME OLD STORY
BRUTE FORCE: A group of Sri Ram Sene activists attacked women at the Amnesia pub in Mangalore on Saturday, triggering an uproar
Express News Service
First Published : 27 Jan 2009 07:24:15 AM IST
MANGALORE: As the nation watched in horror the shameful act of women being chased out of a pub in Mangalore and being assaulted, the pressure on the Karnataka government was clearly showing.
On the one hand, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said that nobody would be allowed to take the law into their hands, on the other, Home Minister V S Acharya appeared to be in denial mode.
Speaking to reporters in Udupi, Acharya said it was an attempt by former CM M Veerappa Moily to malign the government, adding that extortionists were behind the attacks and the Sangh Pariwar had nothing to do with it. This was despite the fact that Sri Ram Sene national president, Pramod Mutalik, owned responsibility for the attack on women at Amnesia pub in Mangalore’s Balmatta and promised similar action in the future. Speaking to Express from his hideout, Mutalik said, “Sri Ram Sene will not sit silently, watching the attack on Hindu culture.
Sene will not apologise for what has happened in Mangalore.” While admitting to the fact that Sene men chased the girls out of the pub, Mutalik justified the act and said, “We got information that they were all drug addicts… The Sene men made them run but we never tried to molest the girls.”
Media to blame, say SP, DGP That the police had been caught on the wrong foot was also evident from the notice the Mangalore Superintendent of Police, N Satheesh Kumar, served on mediapersons who were present at Amnesia pub when the attack was carried out on Saturday. He wanted to know from the mediapersons why they did not inform the police when they had information about the action.
DG&IGP R Srikumar took the same line and said media was hand-in-glove with the attackers.
In New Delhi, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhary called it the Talibanisation of India. “I am absolutely horrified at the insensitivity on the eve of Republic Day. I will seek an explanation from the state government as well as the self-styled Sri Ram Sena,” she said.
25 arrested Eight more persons were arrested on Monday for the attack in Mangalore, bringing up the total to 25. The 17 accused arrested earlier were produced in court on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody for 15 days. IGP (Western Range) A M Prasad told Express that the arrested persons would be booked under the Goonda Act, if they are found to be repeat offenders.
The police is also examining the possibility of charging them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, he said.
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http://www.sacw.net/article548.html
SAHMAT
8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi 110 001
Telephones: 23711276/ 23351424
email: sahmat@vsnl.com
27.1.2009
PRESS STATEMENT
We join all right-thinking people in condemning the criminal assault on a group of women at a Mangalore pub by hooligans operating under the banner of the Sri Ram Sene. We remind the public that this group (whose name has been spelt as it is in phonetic loyalty to the Kannada language) is the same as the Sri Ram Sena, which carried out an attack on an exhibition mounted by Sahmat in August last year, celebrating M.F. Husain’s contributions to Indian art.
We take note of the hurried and deeply embarrassed statements by the leaders of the Hindutva cultural fraternity, dissociating themselves from the Mangalore atrocity. Yet we denounce their concurrent assumption of the power to legislate on what social practices are true and what are not, in their relationship with Indian culture.These are not decisions to be made by a sectarian political leadership.
The Sri Ram Sena was little heard of or known, till it attacked the exhibition that Sahmat mounted in August to protest the exclusion of M.F. Husain’s work from a major display and sale of Indian art that was mounted at that time.
Sahmat sounded the alarm then about this debutant group, a spawn of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, both credentialed members of the Hindutva family. And Sahmat has continued to warn about the dangers posed by the new organisation within the Hindutva fold, which has been showing the kind of destructive energy that belies its fledgling, newborn, character.
Clearly, the Sri Ram Sena has emerged out of the campaign of hatred and intolerance that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates within the broader Hindutva parivar launched many years back. The BJP leadership has issued some hasty and embarrassed statements distancing itself from the atrocities in Mangalore. But these have little credibility, since the BJP continues to take political capital out of the legacy of its baleful campaign of moral majoritarianism.
We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those who have participated in this atrocity in Mangalore, or contributed to it in any fashion. The prosecution should be purposive and should address all individuals who bear constructive responsibility for creating the climate of intolerance that made this criminal assault possible.
We urge the investigating agencies to pay attention to the growing evidence that this is about more than an art exhibition or about an incident in Mangalore that may seem trivial in relation to the scale of atrocities perpetrated in the last two decades by the agents of majority communalism.It has been credibly reported that the elements who directed the Mangalore attacks were in intimate contact with individuals currently being prosecuted for their culpability in the Malegaon bomb blasts of September 29 last year.
The individual identified as the leader of the assault on Sahmat’s exhibition last August, was also the principal agent of a severe transgression of the basic ethos of academic life, when he spat at a college lecturer who had been invited to a discussion on the scourge of terrorism at Delhi University in November. Again, the Sri Ram Sena drew its moral and ideological sustenance from the Hindutva parivar, since the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a recognised affiliate of the family, had prepared the ground for this act of barbarity, by pronouncing an anathema on the college lecturer invited to speak about his first-hand experiences as a victim of so-called “terrorism” investigations.
The Mangalore incident shows that terrorism has several manifestations and multiple protagonists. We appeal to the public to break out of the template on terrorism that has been moulded by the Hindutva parivar and to recognise that all offences against civilised norms of conduct and the rule of law, contribute to the triumph of terrorism.
The police and investigating agencies, we urge, should not fail this test of standing up for the rule of law. Regrettably, their conduct over the last many years gives us little confidence that they will.
Finally, we would like to appeal to the media to evolve a set of norms on the coverage of such acts of criminality. We do not go along with the stricture handed down by Karnataka’s Director-General of Police, that the media should have informed the authorities of this criminal gang’s intent once it got advance notice. This is an issue that each media professional should resolve in accordance with his or her own sense of civic responsibility and his or her own ethical commitment.
We do believe however, that the media should evolve a credible set of norms on the coverage of criminal acts that it has advance notice of. Clearly, the Mangalore hoodlums staged their criminal act in the belief that they would, through the breathless reporting of India’s booming and thoroughly irresponsible electronic media, enjoy a few minutes of nationwide fame.
If the media were to deny moral vigilantes the coverage that they so desperately seek, it would deny them the oxygen of publicity that they flourish on. Media professionals need, in this context, to clearly lay down the norm that they will not succumb to competitive pressures and provide any variety of coverage to the perpetrators of criminal actions, even when these are dressed up in moral and political terms.
Ashok
for SAHMAT
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January 27, 2009
PRESS STATEMENT
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action
After the brazen and criminal attack on young women by the Shri Ram Sene in Mangalore, the BJP state government has not acted firmly in taking action against this Hindu extremist outfit.
It may be recalled that this extremist group was responsible for a series of attacks on churches in Mangalore and targeting Christians in other places. The failure to take firm action in these instances and the efforts to soft-pedal their activities by the Home Minister then have emboldened the group.
The Polit Bureau demands that all the leaders of the Sene be arrested and immediate steps taken to proscribe the organisation’s activities.
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Mail Today
28 January 2009
WOMEN DRINKING IS AS OLD AS THE HILLS IN KARNATAKA
by Sowmya Aji in Bangalore
THE attack on girls in a Mangalore pub in the name of “ Hindu ethos” has led to a public outrage in Karnataka.
Litterateur and critic K. Marulasiddappa opined that Hindu culture was being used as a mask by goons to indulge in anti- social activities. “ Ours is a very healthy tradition, all these narrow minded ideas have actually come to them from Christian influence. How can you complain about halfnaked women when our temples in Belur and Halebidu have sculptures of half- naked women? That is our tradition.
And what is the Shiva linga , that we worship? Why are we being prudish?” he said.
Unless Hindu ethos are narrowly defined as the Brahminical practice of abstinence, the Kannada Hindu tradition doesn’t bar women from drinking in public and this spirit of gender equality is celebrated in many works of literature.
Sure, the girls of Mangalore belong to the category of the upwardly mobile urban women, who earn and hold their own. And among the urban women in this happening coastal town, drinking in public is nothing new.
Upper middle class women have been drinking in public for at least 25 years, much before the Sri Rama Sene or its goons who vandalised the pub were even born.
Then, the lower classes whom the vandals probably claim to represent, always enjoyed their drinks without any gender biases. Folklorist Kodihalli Ramaiah contends that the attack by the Sri Rama Sene goes against the essential multiculturalism that is said to constitute the Hindu way of life.
“ In all our folk rituals in Karnataka, be it the Dalits or backward classes, drinking, whether it is men or women, is a very essential part. Far from being banned, drinking is actually mandatory,” he said.
Ramaiah pointed out that there are also great scenes of women getting drunk in venerated Kannada writer Kuvempu’s novels set in coastal Karnataka. “ It is true that women do not really come out in the open spaces and drink, but it is certainly a part of Hindu culture. What we do not understand about the Sri Rama Sene contention is, what kind of Hinduism are they talking about? There are several layers in the Hindu community, so this attack on women drinking in public is actually an attack on Hindu culture itself,” he maintained.
The state has very strong traditions of women drinking in other contexts also. “ Women are given brandy to drink to ward off the jinni ( spirit) right after childbirth. It is to warm them up and is a socially accepted norm,” said Dr Vivek Benegal, additional professor of psychiatry at the Deaddiction Centre in Nimhans.
Particularly during festivals of individual gods, that vary from community to community and region to region, women drink publicly and participate on par with the men.
The Kamana Habba, similar to the North Indian Holi, is one such festival where women drink in public and participate in the celebrations. This stretches across all the socioeconomically backward sections of the society.
Benegal, who collaborated with the India segment of the WHO’s study on gender, alcohol and culture international study ( GENACIS), said that the drinking of alcohol in women had gone up from approximately 1 per cent in 2003 to over 5 per cent in 2007. The study had Karnataka as the India hub.
“ Women seem to be drinking when spouses or male family members are also drinking.
They start off because of some social practice like the childbirth tradition,” he explained.
The study has also identified the new trend among urban women, not just in Bangalore but in places like Mangalore, Shimoga and other tier II and III cities, of social or connubial drinking. “ There is a lot of social drinking that happens.
These people are not drinking to get drunk,” Benegal added.
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The Tribune
June 29, 2009
Editorial
OUTRAGE IN MANGALORE
The BJP govt falters again
The manner in which some activists of the Hindu hardliner group called the Sri Rama Sena barged into a pub in Mangalore on Saturday and thrashed revellers, including girls, is highly reprehensible. The self-appointed moral police chased many girls in the pub, mercilessly beaten and molested them. Strangely, the activists have justified their criminal action, claiming that they have received “complaints” from the people that the pub users had been “violating traditional Indian norms”. Clearly, the Sena activists have no right to interfere with the freedom and independence of young boys and girls. The BJP government headed by Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa has responded to the outrage belatedly. About 27 activists were arrested after two days of the incident. Worse, Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthallik has been arrested not for the pub attack but for a different offence — creating communal disharmony in Davanagere on January 11!
How will these hooligans be punished if the government tries to protect them? The law and order in Karnataka has been vitiated ever since the BJP came to power. The saffron outfits appear to have no fear of the law. The government’s delayed response to the Mangalore outrage is a shocking repeat of its earlier inaction when the Hindutva extremists torched Karnataka’s churches and prayer halls a few months ago. Such incidents have been occurring with sickening regularity. Recently, the activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike stormed a private party on Bangalore’s outskirts. Earlier, Karnataka Yuva Vedike activists went on the rampage at a leading hotel’s pub in Bangalore.
Unfortunately, though pseudo-vigilante outfits are proliferating and acting with impunity in the BJP-ruled state, the government has been found reluctant to tackle them. The BJP can restore law and order only if it gets rid of the lumpen elements in the party and checks its outfits from taking the law into their own hands. It needs no new laws to deal with hooligans. The existing laws are enough to deal with them. What is needed is the will to crackdown on some of the Parivar’s elements who are out to disturb peace in the country on one pretext or another. The rule of law in Karnataka is under serious threat and the BJP government would do well to remember that it cannot afford to be seen on the side of the hoodlums even if they are motivated by the ideology of its liking.
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The Hindustan Times
IT’S GOONDAISM, NOT HINDUISM, SAY EXPERTS
Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 29, 2009
In Brindavan, there is a park where Lord Krishna is believed to come every night to perform Raas Lila. “Nobody stays back at Nidhi Van at night as it is said that anyone who does so, goes mad. People say Krishna’s flute and the sound of the Gopis’ anklets are heard there,” said Uma Shankar Mishra, a local resident.
Popular Hinduism does not consider the “erotic” as polluting: the god who gave the message of the Gita is also revered as a lover-god. But this pluralistic tradition is under threat from fringe right wing groups such as the Sri Ram Sene, which attacked women at a pub in Mangalore on the absurd ground that this was against “our culture”.
“The Sri Ram Sene has nothing to do with Hinduism. They are goondas posing a law and order problem,” said Hinduism scholar Jyotirmaya Sharma.
Historian Ramchandra Guha said these attackers have nothing to do with Indian culture or Hinduism. “We have a vast reservoir of young men in India who haven't had quality education and can be mobilised in any sectarian way — Sri Ram Sena, MNS or even Maoism,” he told HT.
Both ‘ascetic’ and ‘erotic’ ideals are part of Hinduism. Hindu beliefs exist in multiples. Rather than “right” and "wrong" ways, there are various alternative paths in Hinduism.
If there is a celibate Hanuman, there is the lover-god, Krishna. On 12th century poet Jaydev’s celebration of Krishna as a lover-god in Gita Govind, historian A.L. Basham wrote, “Its inspiration to the Western mind seems erotic rather than religious.”
The Hindu Right, however, wants asceticism to be hailed and eroticism banished. This is an imitation of the 19th century Victorian repression of anything amorous and is thus colonial in inspiration. Ironically, this imitation of Victorian values is being paraded as “pure” Indian culture.
Popular images of Ram show him as a smiling god. However, the Sangh Parivar depicts him as a warrior, seeking to reduce a benevolent god to a warrior. In the process, they have damaged the idea of Ram – which inspired many including Mahatma Gandhi. “Neither Valmiki nor Tulsidas ever saw Ram as a violent god. Valmiki depicted him as a pretty boy,” Sharma pointed out.
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MAN WHO FOUGHT VIGILANTES IN KARNATAKA RECEIVES THREAT TO LIFE
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/29/stories/2009012956141000.htm
(i) Ram Sene attack is form of terror (Editorial, The Asian Age)
(ii) Pub Brawl (Editorial, The Telegraph)
(iii) Barbarians At Large (Editorial, Times of India)
(iv) Mangalore's Taliban: India outraged (Prerna Thakurdesai)
(v) What Is Sri Ram Sena? (NDTV)
(vi) Sene’s shame old story (expressbuzz.com)
(vii) Sri Ram Sena should be strongly disciplined; its origins thoroughly investigated (Press Statement, SAHMAT)
(viii) Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action (Press Statement by Communist Party of India (Marxist))
(ix) Women drinking is as old as the hills in Karnataka (Sowmya Aji)
(x) Outrage in Mangalore (Editorial, The Tribune)
(xi) It’s goondaism, not Hinduism, say experts (Vikas Pathak)
(xii) Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
(i)
The Asian Age
28 January 2009
Editorial
RAM SENE ATTACK IS FORM OF TERROR
Jan. 28:The Sri Ram Sene, which shamefully assaulted women in a Mangalore pub last Saturday, has relied on an inglorious tradition to justify its degrading action, executed in the name of defending "Indian norms". The perpetration of cruelty and violence, especially against women, in the name of religious or moral sanction, or taking the plea of defending the putative values of a society, or nation, or a particular tradition, has been with us for hundreds of years. In our own times, the Taliban began shooting women at point blank range or beheading them in public for not taking seriously the mores sought to be enforced by them. This, incidentally, was among the social causes that led to revulsion against the extremists in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion. In Kashmir, from time to time, terrorist elements have used violence against women in particular to enforce their diktat on a generally unwilling society. Not so long ago, Hindu society in Rajasthan and other places found the recrudescence of the hateful sati system, which had to be put down through the use of administrative force. More often than not, attacks on women are conducted by well-organised groups that enjoy political patronage of influential groups, and often administrative patronage as well. It will indeed be a surprise if the Ram Sene is found to be a body without powerful patrons who will spring to its defence.
It is interesting that the Bajrang Dal has reportedly sought to take the credit for the physical attack on young women in Mangalore away from the Ram Sene. The Bajrang Dal is an integral part of the Hindu far right, many of whose affiliates have gone on the rampage from time to time in different parts of the country. Such outfits keep their cadres mobilised by attacking artists and the arts in various forms, assaulting the integrity of women, and spreading poison against minority groups. Invariably, the justification is an assumed moral outrage at deviations from the religious or cultural sensibilities the political parties or ideological formations backing these outfits happen to espouse. There is little that distinguishes the self-proclaimed "guardians" of our tradition from the guns-and-bombs category commonly described as terrorists. Both use violence to intimidate ordinary people in order to spread fear and achieve political ends. Both consciously subvert processes as by law established. The only way to beat them back is to meet them frontally. If the state retreats, they are emboldened. If powerful elements of the state deviously support them while pretending to do otherwise, extremists eventually overtake those elements and seek direct power for themselves. This is what the Taliban are doing now in Pakistan, for instance. In recent history, the inspiration of the Hindu far right comes from the gory episodes of Gujarat, circa 2002, and the wilful and organised demolition of the Babri mosque, circa 1992. The administration must meet the challenge posed by the likes of the Ram Sene forcefully and skilfully. If it is serious, the goons will take flight. It will also help if the Sangh Parivar leaders publicly dissociate themselves from the self-appointed guardians of our values and our culture.
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The Telegraph
January 28 , 2009
Editorial
PUB BRAWL
When a bunch of Hindu rightwing thugs stormed a pub in Karnataka and beat up the women in it, their ostensible reason had something to do with “Indian norms”. It is not quite clear whether these norms were being violated by the women drinking alcohol in public or being affirmed by their being beaten up by the men. Perhaps a bit of both. But the violence of the assault on the women and on the men who tried to come to their rescue, together with the verbal abuse hurled at the women, was evidence of the passion with which these norms could be upheld. More than 25 members of the Sri Ram Sena have now been arrested in Karnataka, but the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have distanced itself from the Sri Ram Sena’s zeal, claiming that the outfit was not a member of the sangh parivar. Mangalore’s cosmopolitanism, its religious mix and its urban culture were all against the grain of the conservatism of a BJP-ruled state. In a big city like Mumbai, the bigotry of the Hindu Right, though often in evidence, gets diluted by the magnitude and variety of its citizenry. But it would be easier to bully a smaller city like Mangalore. And everything would depend on what sort of an attitude the state government adopts with regard to such incidents, and the extent to which the state’s law and order machinery can deal with such lawlessness without bowing to partisan pressures.
As with the Shiv Sena’s agitations in Maharashtra almost every year on Valentine’s Day, what such collective eruptions attest to is a violently irrational element at the heart of certain invented traditions that are nevertheless perfectly capable of organizing themselves institutionally. Outfits like the Sri Ram Sena are driven by passions that find their focus on such preoccupations as female virtue or appropriate forms of publicly expressed patriotism, all formulated in terms of a certain idea of India. Women sitting in a pub drinking alcohol violates this idea in a way that civilized, rational and modern minds will find difficult to fathom. Yet, the power of hordes is just as difficult to ignore, and benighted enthusiasms are very often collectively held. The freedom to have fun in a secure, yet liberated, public arena is a fundamental right for women and men in any modern democracy. The State as well as civil society will have to persist in protecting these rights.
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Times of India
28 January 2009
Editorial
BARBARIANS AT LARGE
It only keeps getting worse. Intolerance is a stain that is spreading deep and fast in our country. Violent attacks by hoodlums inspired by
extreme ideologies - be it regional chauvinism, religious bigotry or a warped sense of Indian tradition and ethos - are becoming an alarmingly frequent feature of our times. The incident last weekend in Mangalore, in which women were physically assaulted by a bunch of goons bearing allegiance to the Sri Ram Sene - a fringe right-wing outfit - simply because they chose to visit a pub is further evidence of this phenomenon.
Like those associated with other extremist right-wing groups, members of the Sri Ram Sene are self-appointed custodians of ‘Indian culture’. Just what is this monolithic culture that these people refer to and use as an excuse to further their exclusionary political agenda? Is beating up women also part of this culture? Our culture and traditions are neither static nor singular. Through the centuries, they have been shaped and reshaped by historic events and interactions with other cultures. Today, there could be more than a billion ways of being Indian.
It's worrying that small groups of people can hold the public to ransom and assault our collective liberties with such apparent ease. More troubling is the fact that our state and central governments seem ill-equipped and unwilling to crack down swiftly on such groups. Be it against Raj Thackeray in Mumbai or similar troublemakers elsewhere, administrations move too slowly and feebly, undermining citizens' faith in their ability to secure law and order. Those responsible for attacks on churches and prayer halls last year in Mangalore have not all been brought to book yet.
This time, a couple of dozen men involved in the pub attacks have been taken into custody but all attackers have not yet been arrested. State home minister V S Acharya has not helped matters by saying that pub owners must "augment security to prevent this kind of incident in future". What is the minister suggesting? That we privatise the enforcement of law and order? Isn’t it the government’s job to ensure public security?
The state government's condemnation of the incident and stated resolve to suitably punish the guilty are welcome. But that is not enough. Unless it fairly pursues the matter, and is seen to be serious about keeping its word, the government in Karnataka runs the risk of being accused of looking the other way as the state, known for its tolerant spirit, slides down a path of intolerance.
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ndtv.com
MANGALORE'S TALIBAN: INDIA OUTRAGED
by Prerna Thakurdesai
Tuesday, January 27, 2009, (Mumbai)
The attack by activists of a fringe group called the Shri Ram Sena, attacking women at a pub in Mangalore, has brought back memories of similar acts of moral policing across the country.
It's an incident that's bringing back bitter memories of attacks by other fringe groups across the country where state governments watched rather than crackdown.
A case in point is the Shiv Sena's various attempts to stop those celebrating Valentine's Day.
Another instance, is Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which attacked north Indians to promote its sons of the soil issue.
In August 2008, on the outskirts of Bangalore, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike had attacked a rave party.
Again in October 2005, the Pattali Makkal Kakchi had attacked actress Khushboo over her comments on pre-marital sex.
"Besides condemning these Talibanese, we should ask the question why the government is doing nothing about it. It almost seems like they are a part of it," said writer and lyricist, Javed Akhtar.
The outrage against the Mangalore incident was evident on the streets, specially among women, the primary targets of the attack.
"They don't want us to live in peace. It's not like we don't know how to regulate ourselves," said one woman.
There were similar reactions on the web from bloggers and Youtube users.
"We are celebrating Republic Day today and this video shows exactly how Republic we are," said a web user.
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ndtv.com
WHAT IS SRI RAM SENA?
NDTV Correspondent
Monday, January 26, 2009, (Mangalore)
A handful of men from a group thought of deciding how others should behave in Mangalore. The group is called Sri Ram Sena. Here's the history of the group and the man who founded it.
There was nationwide outrage, as the images of the Mangalore pub incident scarred the collective psyche of a nation that's celebrating Republic Day.
Pramod Muthalik is the man who laid the foundation of the right-wing Hindu group called the Sri Ram Sena.
"Whoever has done this has done a good job. Girls going to pubs is not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the state," said Pramod.
Pramod Muthalik, a full-time RSS man earlier, was the Karnataka coordinator of the Bajrang Dal four years ago. Soon he was expelled from the Bajrang Dal after which he joined the Shiv Sena and later he formed his own group.
This isn't the first time the Sri Ram Sena has indulged in moral policing.
In August, 2008, it vandalised an exhibition of M F Husain's paintings in Delhi.
Interestingly, the group also finds mention in the Malegaon blast chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra Police. In the transcript of a conversation, the prime accused Colonel Purohit is quoted saying, "The Shri Ram Sena is doing very good work. Purohit calls the leader of the group as Muthalik.
In an interview given to a website, Muthalik staunchly defended Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, another key accused in the Malegaon blast case, saying she is innocent.
And now he's dismissing the Mangalore pub attack as a small incident.
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expressbuzz.com
SENE’S SHAME OLD STORY
BRUTE FORCE: A group of Sri Ram Sene activists attacked women at the Amnesia pub in Mangalore on Saturday, triggering an uproar
Express News Service
First Published : 27 Jan 2009 07:24:15 AM IST
MANGALORE: As the nation watched in horror the shameful act of women being chased out of a pub in Mangalore and being assaulted, the pressure on the Karnataka government was clearly showing.
On the one hand, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said that nobody would be allowed to take the law into their hands, on the other, Home Minister V S Acharya appeared to be in denial mode.
Speaking to reporters in Udupi, Acharya said it was an attempt by former CM M Veerappa Moily to malign the government, adding that extortionists were behind the attacks and the Sangh Pariwar had nothing to do with it. This was despite the fact that Sri Ram Sene national president, Pramod Mutalik, owned responsibility for the attack on women at Amnesia pub in Mangalore’s Balmatta and promised similar action in the future. Speaking to Express from his hideout, Mutalik said, “Sri Ram Sene will not sit silently, watching the attack on Hindu culture.
Sene will not apologise for what has happened in Mangalore.” While admitting to the fact that Sene men chased the girls out of the pub, Mutalik justified the act and said, “We got information that they were all drug addicts… The Sene men made them run but we never tried to molest the girls.”
Media to blame, say SP, DGP That the police had been caught on the wrong foot was also evident from the notice the Mangalore Superintendent of Police, N Satheesh Kumar, served on mediapersons who were present at Amnesia pub when the attack was carried out on Saturday. He wanted to know from the mediapersons why they did not inform the police when they had information about the action.
DG&IGP R Srikumar took the same line and said media was hand-in-glove with the attackers.
In New Delhi, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhary called it the Talibanisation of India. “I am absolutely horrified at the insensitivity on the eve of Republic Day. I will seek an explanation from the state government as well as the self-styled Sri Ram Sena,” she said.
25 arrested Eight more persons were arrested on Monday for the attack in Mangalore, bringing up the total to 25. The 17 accused arrested earlier were produced in court on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody for 15 days. IGP (Western Range) A M Prasad told Express that the arrested persons would be booked under the Goonda Act, if they are found to be repeat offenders.
The police is also examining the possibility of charging them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, he said.
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http://www.sacw.net/article548.html
SAHMAT
8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi 110 001
Telephones: 23711276/ 23351424
email: sahmat@vsnl.com
27.1.2009
PRESS STATEMENT
We join all right-thinking people in condemning the criminal assault on a group of women at a Mangalore pub by hooligans operating under the banner of the Sri Ram Sene. We remind the public that this group (whose name has been spelt as it is in phonetic loyalty to the Kannada language) is the same as the Sri Ram Sena, which carried out an attack on an exhibition mounted by Sahmat in August last year, celebrating M.F. Husain’s contributions to Indian art.
We take note of the hurried and deeply embarrassed statements by the leaders of the Hindutva cultural fraternity, dissociating themselves from the Mangalore atrocity. Yet we denounce their concurrent assumption of the power to legislate on what social practices are true and what are not, in their relationship with Indian culture.These are not decisions to be made by a sectarian political leadership.
The Sri Ram Sena was little heard of or known, till it attacked the exhibition that Sahmat mounted in August to protest the exclusion of M.F. Husain’s work from a major display and sale of Indian art that was mounted at that time.
Sahmat sounded the alarm then about this debutant group, a spawn of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, both credentialed members of the Hindutva family. And Sahmat has continued to warn about the dangers posed by the new organisation within the Hindutva fold, which has been showing the kind of destructive energy that belies its fledgling, newborn, character.
Clearly, the Sri Ram Sena has emerged out of the campaign of hatred and intolerance that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates within the broader Hindutva parivar launched many years back. The BJP leadership has issued some hasty and embarrassed statements distancing itself from the atrocities in Mangalore. But these have little credibility, since the BJP continues to take political capital out of the legacy of its baleful campaign of moral majoritarianism.
We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those who have participated in this atrocity in Mangalore, or contributed to it in any fashion. The prosecution should be purposive and should address all individuals who bear constructive responsibility for creating the climate of intolerance that made this criminal assault possible.
We urge the investigating agencies to pay attention to the growing evidence that this is about more than an art exhibition or about an incident in Mangalore that may seem trivial in relation to the scale of atrocities perpetrated in the last two decades by the agents of majority communalism.It has been credibly reported that the elements who directed the Mangalore attacks were in intimate contact with individuals currently being prosecuted for their culpability in the Malegaon bomb blasts of September 29 last year.
The individual identified as the leader of the assault on Sahmat’s exhibition last August, was also the principal agent of a severe transgression of the basic ethos of academic life, when he spat at a college lecturer who had been invited to a discussion on the scourge of terrorism at Delhi University in November. Again, the Sri Ram Sena drew its moral and ideological sustenance from the Hindutva parivar, since the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a recognised affiliate of the family, had prepared the ground for this act of barbarity, by pronouncing an anathema on the college lecturer invited to speak about his first-hand experiences as a victim of so-called “terrorism” investigations.
The Mangalore incident shows that terrorism has several manifestations and multiple protagonists. We appeal to the public to break out of the template on terrorism that has been moulded by the Hindutva parivar and to recognise that all offences against civilised norms of conduct and the rule of law, contribute to the triumph of terrorism.
The police and investigating agencies, we urge, should not fail this test of standing up for the rule of law. Regrettably, their conduct over the last many years gives us little confidence that they will.
Finally, we would like to appeal to the media to evolve a set of norms on the coverage of such acts of criminality. We do not go along with the stricture handed down by Karnataka’s Director-General of Police, that the media should have informed the authorities of this criminal gang’s intent once it got advance notice. This is an issue that each media professional should resolve in accordance with his or her own sense of civic responsibility and his or her own ethical commitment.
We do believe however, that the media should evolve a credible set of norms on the coverage of criminal acts that it has advance notice of. Clearly, the Mangalore hoodlums staged their criminal act in the belief that they would, through the breathless reporting of India’s booming and thoroughly irresponsible electronic media, enjoy a few minutes of nationwide fame.
If the media were to deny moral vigilantes the coverage that they so desperately seek, it would deny them the oxygen of publicity that they flourish on. Media professionals need, in this context, to clearly lay down the norm that they will not succumb to competitive pressures and provide any variety of coverage to the perpetrators of criminal actions, even when these are dressed up in moral and political terms.
Ashok
for SAHMAT
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January 27, 2009
PRESS STATEMENT
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action
After the brazen and criminal attack on young women by the Shri Ram Sene in Mangalore, the BJP state government has not acted firmly in taking action against this Hindu extremist outfit.
It may be recalled that this extremist group was responsible for a series of attacks on churches in Mangalore and targeting Christians in other places. The failure to take firm action in these instances and the efforts to soft-pedal their activities by the Home Minister then have emboldened the group.
The Polit Bureau demands that all the leaders of the Sene be arrested and immediate steps taken to proscribe the organisation’s activities.
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Mail Today
28 January 2009
WOMEN DRINKING IS AS OLD AS THE HILLS IN KARNATAKA
by Sowmya Aji in Bangalore
THE attack on girls in a Mangalore pub in the name of “ Hindu ethos” has led to a public outrage in Karnataka.
Litterateur and critic K. Marulasiddappa opined that Hindu culture was being used as a mask by goons to indulge in anti- social activities. “ Ours is a very healthy tradition, all these narrow minded ideas have actually come to them from Christian influence. How can you complain about halfnaked women when our temples in Belur and Halebidu have sculptures of half- naked women? That is our tradition.
And what is the Shiva linga , that we worship? Why are we being prudish?” he said.
Unless Hindu ethos are narrowly defined as the Brahminical practice of abstinence, the Kannada Hindu tradition doesn’t bar women from drinking in public and this spirit of gender equality is celebrated in many works of literature.
Sure, the girls of Mangalore belong to the category of the upwardly mobile urban women, who earn and hold their own. And among the urban women in this happening coastal town, drinking in public is nothing new.
Upper middle class women have been drinking in public for at least 25 years, much before the Sri Rama Sene or its goons who vandalised the pub were even born.
Then, the lower classes whom the vandals probably claim to represent, always enjoyed their drinks without any gender biases. Folklorist Kodihalli Ramaiah contends that the attack by the Sri Rama Sene goes against the essential multiculturalism that is said to constitute the Hindu way of life.
“ In all our folk rituals in Karnataka, be it the Dalits or backward classes, drinking, whether it is men or women, is a very essential part. Far from being banned, drinking is actually mandatory,” he said.
Ramaiah pointed out that there are also great scenes of women getting drunk in venerated Kannada writer Kuvempu’s novels set in coastal Karnataka. “ It is true that women do not really come out in the open spaces and drink, but it is certainly a part of Hindu culture. What we do not understand about the Sri Rama Sene contention is, what kind of Hinduism are they talking about? There are several layers in the Hindu community, so this attack on women drinking in public is actually an attack on Hindu culture itself,” he maintained.
The state has very strong traditions of women drinking in other contexts also. “ Women are given brandy to drink to ward off the jinni ( spirit) right after childbirth. It is to warm them up and is a socially accepted norm,” said Dr Vivek Benegal, additional professor of psychiatry at the Deaddiction Centre in Nimhans.
Particularly during festivals of individual gods, that vary from community to community and region to region, women drink publicly and participate on par with the men.
The Kamana Habba, similar to the North Indian Holi, is one such festival where women drink in public and participate in the celebrations. This stretches across all the socioeconomically backward sections of the society.
Benegal, who collaborated with the India segment of the WHO’s study on gender, alcohol and culture international study ( GENACIS), said that the drinking of alcohol in women had gone up from approximately 1 per cent in 2003 to over 5 per cent in 2007. The study had Karnataka as the India hub.
“ Women seem to be drinking when spouses or male family members are also drinking.
They start off because of some social practice like the childbirth tradition,” he explained.
The study has also identified the new trend among urban women, not just in Bangalore but in places like Mangalore, Shimoga and other tier II and III cities, of social or connubial drinking. “ There is a lot of social drinking that happens.
These people are not drinking to get drunk,” Benegal added.
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The Tribune
June 29, 2009
Editorial
OUTRAGE IN MANGALORE
The BJP govt falters again
The manner in which some activists of the Hindu hardliner group called the Sri Rama Sena barged into a pub in Mangalore on Saturday and thrashed revellers, including girls, is highly reprehensible. The self-appointed moral police chased many girls in the pub, mercilessly beaten and molested them. Strangely, the activists have justified their criminal action, claiming that they have received “complaints” from the people that the pub users had been “violating traditional Indian norms”. Clearly, the Sena activists have no right to interfere with the freedom and independence of young boys and girls. The BJP government headed by Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa has responded to the outrage belatedly. About 27 activists were arrested after two days of the incident. Worse, Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthallik has been arrested not for the pub attack but for a different offence — creating communal disharmony in Davanagere on January 11!
How will these hooligans be punished if the government tries to protect them? The law and order in Karnataka has been vitiated ever since the BJP came to power. The saffron outfits appear to have no fear of the law. The government’s delayed response to the Mangalore outrage is a shocking repeat of its earlier inaction when the Hindutva extremists torched Karnataka’s churches and prayer halls a few months ago. Such incidents have been occurring with sickening regularity. Recently, the activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike stormed a private party on Bangalore’s outskirts. Earlier, Karnataka Yuva Vedike activists went on the rampage at a leading hotel’s pub in Bangalore.
Unfortunately, though pseudo-vigilante outfits are proliferating and acting with impunity in the BJP-ruled state, the government has been found reluctant to tackle them. The BJP can restore law and order only if it gets rid of the lumpen elements in the party and checks its outfits from taking the law into their own hands. It needs no new laws to deal with hooligans. The existing laws are enough to deal with them. What is needed is the will to crackdown on some of the Parivar’s elements who are out to disturb peace in the country on one pretext or another. The rule of law in Karnataka is under serious threat and the BJP government would do well to remember that it cannot afford to be seen on the side of the hoodlums even if they are motivated by the ideology of its liking.
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The Hindustan Times
IT’S GOONDAISM, NOT HINDUISM, SAY EXPERTS
Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 29, 2009
In Brindavan, there is a park where Lord Krishna is believed to come every night to perform Raas Lila. “Nobody stays back at Nidhi Van at night as it is said that anyone who does so, goes mad. People say Krishna’s flute and the sound of the Gopis’ anklets are heard there,” said Uma Shankar Mishra, a local resident.
Popular Hinduism does not consider the “erotic” as polluting: the god who gave the message of the Gita is also revered as a lover-god. But this pluralistic tradition is under threat from fringe right wing groups such as the Sri Ram Sene, which attacked women at a pub in Mangalore on the absurd ground that this was against “our culture”.
“The Sri Ram Sene has nothing to do with Hinduism. They are goondas posing a law and order problem,” said Hinduism scholar Jyotirmaya Sharma.
Historian Ramchandra Guha said these attackers have nothing to do with Indian culture or Hinduism. “We have a vast reservoir of young men in India who haven't had quality education and can be mobilised in any sectarian way — Sri Ram Sena, MNS or even Maoism,” he told HT.
Both ‘ascetic’ and ‘erotic’ ideals are part of Hinduism. Hindu beliefs exist in multiples. Rather than “right” and "wrong" ways, there are various alternative paths in Hinduism.
If there is a celibate Hanuman, there is the lover-god, Krishna. On 12th century poet Jaydev’s celebration of Krishna as a lover-god in Gita Govind, historian A.L. Basham wrote, “Its inspiration to the Western mind seems erotic rather than religious.”
The Hindu Right, however, wants asceticism to be hailed and eroticism banished. This is an imitation of the 19th century Victorian repression of anything amorous and is thus colonial in inspiration. Ironically, this imitation of Victorian values is being paraded as “pure” Indian culture.
Popular images of Ram show him as a smiling god. However, the Sangh Parivar depicts him as a warrior, seeking to reduce a benevolent god to a warrior. In the process, they have damaged the idea of Ram – which inspired many including Mahatma Gandhi. “Neither Valmiki nor Tulsidas ever saw Ram as a violent god. Valmiki depicted him as a pretty boy,” Sharma pointed out.
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MAN WHO FOUGHT VIGILANTES IN KARNATAKA RECEIVES THREAT TO LIFE
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/29/stories/2009012956141000.htm
January 28, 2009
ABVP threatens those speaking up against Pub attack in Mangalore
The Hindu
29 January 2009
Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
Sudipto Mondal
Shetty has given his statement to the police
Women victims, however, remain untraceable
MANGALORE: “I want everybody to know that if something happens to me or if I am killed, the Sri Ram Sene will be responsible,” says Pawan Kumar Shetty, one of the victims of the January 24 vigilante attack on the ‘Amnesia’ pub here.
Mr. Shetty single-handedly took on the rampaging mob, helping several women guests to escape.
Mr. Shetty, who spoke to The Hindu on January 26, has since gone into hiding. He contacted this correspondent again on Wednesday and arranged a meeting in the midst of a rally being taken out in protest against the attack. He felt that he would be safer in a crowd.
“My father has received several threatening calls saying I will be murdered if I talk to the media or the police. The callers said they were from the Sri Ram Sene. I am not bothered about myself; I am worried about my family. Please tell this to the world,” he said before melting into the crowd.
Mr. Shetty is not the only one to be targeted for speaking out. A senior National Students Union of India (NSUI) leader has received over 15 phone calls in the past two days. Superintendent of Police N. Satish Kumar said the District Crime Intelligence Bureau had been asked to trace them.
A student of the University College here was also threatened, allegedly by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Wednesday for speaking to the media against the attack on the pub. Visibly upset after the threat, she chose not to go on record. “But I want everybody to know that I was silenced.”
ABVP activists who spoke to The Hindu at the University College said they would take “action” against human rights activist and Professor of English at the college, Pattabhi Rama Somayyaji. They have taken exception to Mr. Somayyaji’s comments in the media against the pub attack. “We will teach him a lesson for making anti-Hindu statements,” said an ABVP member over phone.
According to the students who turned up for the rally in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday, ABVP members issued threats to students of the University College, the Gokarnatha College and the SDM Law College to stop them from agitating.
Minutes before the protest rally, tension prevailed at the SDM Law College where a large number of ABVP activists tried to physically prevent students from leaving the premises for the protest venue. The situation was defused with the help of college officials.
Police have not yet been able to establish contact with the women victims of the attack. While Mr. Shetty gave his statement to the Mangalore North police on Monday, the women continue to be untraceable.
“We want the victims of the attack to know that they will have to cooperate with the police to bring the culprits to book,” Superintendent of Police N. Satish Kumar said. They would be given all protection if they decided to speak out. “Only a senior officer will speak to them. The victims and their family can directly call me on my mobile number 9448469727,” he said.
29 January 2009
Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
Sudipto Mondal
Shetty has given his statement to the police
Women victims, however, remain untraceable
MANGALORE: “I want everybody to know that if something happens to me or if I am killed, the Sri Ram Sene will be responsible,” says Pawan Kumar Shetty, one of the victims of the January 24 vigilante attack on the ‘Amnesia’ pub here.
Mr. Shetty single-handedly took on the rampaging mob, helping several women guests to escape.
Mr. Shetty, who spoke to The Hindu on January 26, has since gone into hiding. He contacted this correspondent again on Wednesday and arranged a meeting in the midst of a rally being taken out in protest against the attack. He felt that he would be safer in a crowd.
“My father has received several threatening calls saying I will be murdered if I talk to the media or the police. The callers said they were from the Sri Ram Sene. I am not bothered about myself; I am worried about my family. Please tell this to the world,” he said before melting into the crowd.
Mr. Shetty is not the only one to be targeted for speaking out. A senior National Students Union of India (NSUI) leader has received over 15 phone calls in the past two days. Superintendent of Police N. Satish Kumar said the District Crime Intelligence Bureau had been asked to trace them.
A student of the University College here was also threatened, allegedly by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Wednesday for speaking to the media against the attack on the pub. Visibly upset after the threat, she chose not to go on record. “But I want everybody to know that I was silenced.”
ABVP activists who spoke to The Hindu at the University College said they would take “action” against human rights activist and Professor of English at the college, Pattabhi Rama Somayyaji. They have taken exception to Mr. Somayyaji’s comments in the media against the pub attack. “We will teach him a lesson for making anti-Hindu statements,” said an ABVP member over phone.
According to the students who turned up for the rally in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday, ABVP members issued threats to students of the University College, the Gokarnatha College and the SDM Law College to stop them from agitating.
Minutes before the protest rally, tension prevailed at the SDM Law College where a large number of ABVP activists tried to physically prevent students from leaving the premises for the protest venue. The situation was defused with the help of college officials.
Police have not yet been able to establish contact with the women victims of the attack. While Mr. Shetty gave his statement to the Mangalore North police on Monday, the women continue to be untraceable.
“We want the victims of the attack to know that they will have to cooperate with the police to bring the culprits to book,” Superintendent of Police N. Satish Kumar said. They would be given all protection if they decided to speak out. “Only a senior officer will speak to them. The victims and their family can directly call me on my mobile number 9448469727,” he said.
Malegaon Case: Will the new investigation officers diliver ?
Mail Today
28 January 2009
Editorial
Whither Malegaon?
THE greatest honour that could have been bestowed on slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare would have been to carry forward the aggressive investigation of the Malegaon blasts that he was conducting. The investigation, though, seems to be allowing some people get a convenient bypass. Charges of sedition and waging war against the State, after a recorded conversation surfaced of the main accused — serving military intelligence officer Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit exhorting his coconspirators to seek help from Israel to dislodge the Indian state — have not been pressed by the current chief K. P. Raghuvanshi.
Malegaon residents have already raised their voice against Raghuvanshi, as they had done earlier when the 2006 Malegaon blast probe was delegated to him, to be later taken over by the CBI. Clearly, the new chief does not inspire confidence in the stakeholders and the reasons for it are not far to seek. Karkare was trying to flesh out the case and probe every possible angle, thus bringing in people like Abhinav Bharat chief Himani Savarkar and others with linkages to Purohit within the case’s investigating dragnet.
The ensuing pressure from the Sangh Parivar did not derail Karkare from heading where the clues led.
Considering that this is the case which shattered the common perception of Islamic terrorists behind every terror attack in the country, there is a pressing need to carry it to its logical conclusion. For this, it must be handled by an officer with impeccable credentials.
28 January 2009
Editorial
Whither Malegaon?
THE greatest honour that could have been bestowed on slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare would have been to carry forward the aggressive investigation of the Malegaon blasts that he was conducting. The investigation, though, seems to be allowing some people get a convenient bypass. Charges of sedition and waging war against the State, after a recorded conversation surfaced of the main accused — serving military intelligence officer Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit exhorting his coconspirators to seek help from Israel to dislodge the Indian state — have not been pressed by the current chief K. P. Raghuvanshi.
Malegaon residents have already raised their voice against Raghuvanshi, as they had done earlier when the 2006 Malegaon blast probe was delegated to him, to be later taken over by the CBI. Clearly, the new chief does not inspire confidence in the stakeholders and the reasons for it are not far to seek. Karkare was trying to flesh out the case and probe every possible angle, thus bringing in people like Abhinav Bharat chief Himani Savarkar and others with linkages to Purohit within the case’s investigating dragnet.
The ensuing pressure from the Sangh Parivar did not derail Karkare from heading where the clues led.
Considering that this is the case which shattered the common perception of Islamic terrorists behind every terror attack in the country, there is a pressing need to carry it to its logical conclusion. For this, it must be handled by an officer with impeccable credentials.
Karnataka Sri Rama Sene Boss linked to Malegaon accused
Mail Today
28 January 2009
Muthalik- Purohit link reveals Hindutva nexus
By Krishna Kumar in Mumbai
SRI RAM Sene chief Pramod Muthalik, whose goons attacked girls at a Mangalore pub on Saturday, is a close ally of Malegaon blast accused Srikant Prasad Purohit, according to the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS).
A purported conversation recorded between Purohit and an associate, part of the ATS chargesheet filed in court, dwells on the good work done by Muthalik in Karnataka.
ATS officials confirmed Purohit and Muthalik had a meeting in February 2008 in Kolkata. The Sri Ram Sene chief had also made public statements decrying the martyrdom status for Hemant Karkare, the ATS chief who had arrested Malegaon accused Pragya Thakur and Purohit. Muthalik is reported to have said the curse of Pragya, a self-styled godwoman, killed Karkare.
The transcripts — accessed from another Malegaon accused, Dayanand Pandey’s laptop — in possession of the Maharashtra ATS show Purohit, formerly a lieutenant colonel with the Army, singling out Muthalik for praise for toeing the hardline Hindutva agenda of (Purohit’s front) Abhinav Bharat. “There is a group in Karnataka which has been doing very good work. But this good work is being done their own way. These people are associated with the BJP and the Sangh Parivar... the founder had some differences and left Bajrang Dal to form his own Rashtriya Hindu Sene and Sri Ram Sene,” Purohit is quoted as having said.
Muthalik apparently was so well known in Sangh Parivar circles that Purohit’s audience knew who he was referring to. An unidentified voice responded: “Is this person Muthalik?” Purohit’s Sangh Parivar allegiance and his attempt to create alternative organisations to further push the Hinduta ideology are evident in his advice for Muthalik. Responding to the unidentified person’s question, Purohit is quoted as having said, “ Yes, Muthalik. I had only one question to him. You did so much for the Bajrang Dal in Karnataka, but once it grew you were sidelined. So you need to have an alternative… so that the work you are doing is not hampered.” ATS officials said that they have no knowledge of how many times Muthalik and Purohit have met. However, they claimed to know of at least one instance where Purohit was publicly seen with Muthalik. “ This meeting was held in Kolkata in February 2008 by another Hindutva radical Tapan Ghosh, who has formed an organisation called Hindu Samhati,” said an ATS officer.
Interestingly, the two had much in common. Purohit, like Muthalik, was totally opposed to the mushrooming of BPOs and call centres in the country.
The Mangalore- Malegaon link is further lent credence by the fact that Muthalik’s associates are no strangers to terror plots. The Karnataka Police recently arrested a close associate of Mutalik, Nagaraj Jambagi, for being involved in the Hubli blasts of May 2008.
Though Muthalik disowned Jambagi, it remains to be probed whether the two were in touch during the bombing.
January 27, 2009
Recommendations to The US Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom
To: The Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom
From: Dr. Angana Chatterji
Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, California 94103
achatterji@ciis.edu; 415.575.6119 (office); 415.640.4013 (mobile)
December 30, 2008
Re.: Recommendations for action, as requested, following a briefing held on December 10, 2008, on ’The Threat Religious Extremism Poses to Democracy and Security in India: Focus on Orissa’, at 2168 Rayburn in Washington D.C.
I thank the Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom for honoring me with an invitation to testify at the hearing. I submit the following recommendations for consideration related to United States policy in its continued association with India, in ensuring mutual respect for, and commitment to, freedom of religion, a secular state, and the attendant human rights and civil liberties of disenfranchised, including minority, groups and peoples.
The following submission is mindful of the political/policy borders and boundaries that mediate issues of national sovereignty. The implicit assumption is that actions to uphold human rights, civil liberties, and democratic governance by the United States Government contributes significantly to international discourse in ways that are beneficial globally as well as to United States domestic policy and practice. The following submission is an appeal for ethical negotiation between India and the United States as the most powerful (United States) and populous (India) democracies seek to fulfill their commitment to human rights and its attendant freedoms. In so doing, various constituencies in both nations remain hopeful that any opportunity for association between these states will assist in enabling mutual adherence to responsible and democratic governance.
The following is in addition to the dossier of my research that I submitted at the hearing.
Note:
I am a Citizen of India and a Permanent Resident of the United States. My observations are based on research on religious freedom and minority rights conducted by me in Orissa. I have undertaken 16 trips to the state since June 2002, and undertaken work in 66 villages, 11 towns, and 4 cities across 17 districts in Orissa. In 2005-2006, I co-convened the Indian People’s Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa through the Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights with Advocate Mihir Desai, with a panel led by Former Chief Justice K.K. Usha of the Kerala High Court.
Religious violence and the religionization of social life by Hindu nationalist organizations have continued to endanger life and livelihood for minorities in India, as witnessed in Gujarat (2002), Jammu-Kashmir (2008), Orissa (2007-2008), Karnataka (2008), Assam (2008), and elsewhere. The violence against Christian minority communities in Orissa in August-October 2008 was not unexpected. In Orissa, since the mid-1990s, a formidable mobilization has been established by Hindu nationalist groups, including in Kandhamal district. These groups have acted with egregious impunity with adverse impact on society, economy, culture, religion, polity, and security in the state. The Sangh Parivar ’family’ of Hindutva, Hindu supremacist, organizations has a visible presence in twenty-five of thirty districts in Orissa. The Sangh Parivar has amassed between 35 and 40 major organizations with numerous branches (including paramilitary hate camps) in 25 districts in Orissa, with a massive base of a few million operating at every level of society, ranging from, and connecting, villages to cities, in their campaign to ’convert’ Orissa for the ’Hindu nation’.
Following the recommendations for action listed below please find a note on actions proposed by concerned citizens in India, and a brief note on the context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa today.
Recommendations for action in the United States:
Various diasporic charitable organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalist ideologies operate in the United States. This has been well documented with details submitted by me in the dossier. These organizations routinely maintain links with Hindu nationalist leaders and organizations in India, including in Orissa. As well, these diasporic organizations seek to influence public discourse and policy in the United States that relates to India. They also fundraise to export capital and resources to counterpart/affiliate organizations in India, including in Orissa, that assist in various ways in promulgating Hindu nationalist ideology. It is imperative that charities involved in work that promulgates and maintains an infrastructure of hate and violence against minorities be so designated. A list of such charities must be responsibly developed in consultation with academics, researchers, and independent bodies with relevant expertise on the subject. Following such identification, investigations must be undertaken by relevant authorities into the actions of these organizations operating with charitable status. Note: The categorization of organizations that promulgate divisiveness, hate, and violence must occur with the utmost care and in a transparent manner, so as to not infringe on the freedoms, rights, and entitlements of organizations that legitimately undertake charitable work, or ensue the demonization of vulnerable groups and marginal, even unorthodox, perspectives. The objective is not to further involve the state in public life, but to note that the state is already involved in the ability of these organizations to function. Hindu nationalism operates as a transnational movement and the reach of its affiliated ’charitable’ organizations in the United States continues internationally through groups they fund and support in India. Halting their interventions requires new ways of thinking about domestic and foreign policy and necessitates coordination between the United States and India as a tenet of bilateral cooperation.
Toward the above and further:
1. Undertake a systematic, routine, and detailed investigation into the actions of diasporic Hindu nationalist groups to identify and investigate their status, actions, finances, and the actions and affiliations of their membership in the United States, as well as their affiliates and cadre. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities.
2. Many of these organizations, registered as charitable entities in the United States, routinely allocate sizeable amounts of money under ’program services’, disproportionately directed to Hindu nationalist and affiliated groups in India. The effects of this have been documented in the organized violence against Muslims, aided by officials of the state government at the highest level, in Gujarat in 2002.
3. Certain diasporic organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalism, such as the India Development Relief Fund (IDRF, Tax identification number 52-1555563) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A, Tax identification number 51-0156325), Sewa International (Tax identification number 20-0638718), and Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA (Tax identification number 77-0554248) are registered as charity organizations in the United States. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of these fall within the objectives of their tax-exempt status; whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as 501(c)3 groups given the nature of their activities, whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected, and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups should be reviewed, and, where appropriate, revoked. Further, their activities should be monitored to determine their role in fomenting hate and undermining the human rights of various individuals and groups in India. Note: The VHP failed to gain recognition at the United Nations as a ’cultural organization’ in 1999 because of its philosophical underpinnings, even as the VHP-A continues to function as an independent charity, registered in the United States since the 1970s.
4. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh-USA (Tax identification number 52-1647017, an ideological affiliate of the militant Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India) and VHP-Overseas (Tax identification number 04-3576058) are registered as 501(c)3 groups and operate as cultural organizations, seeking to mainstream and lobby Hindu nationalist concerns in the United States. The impact of their activities in promulgating hate and perpetrating ’terror’ and communal violence in India must be investigated.
5. Monitor visa issuance to, and the travel of, Hindu nationalist leaders and activists charged with involvement in criminal acts. A case in point is Mr. Narendra Modi, the incumbent Chief Minister of Gujarat, who has been implicated in the violence orchestrated against Muslims in 2002, and whose visa was revoked by the United States in 2005, following advocacy on part of civil society groups and academics in the United States and support from Congressional members.
6. Ensure that appointees to federal and state positions, or those that serve in an advisory capacity, or as experts to state officials are scrutinized for affiliations or linkages they may hold within Hindu nationalist groups. These affiliations, where they exist, should not be treated as benign, and a reasoned investigation must be undertaken to determine whether the prospective appointee or advisor is able to fulfill requisite service obligations with ideological and practical distance from Hindu nationalist agendas. A case in point is Ms. Sonal Shah, who was appointed to President-elect Barack Obama’s 15-member Transition Team in November 2008. While her list of accomplishments and expertise run high, she has worked as a National Coordinator for the VHP-A and served on its Governing Council, and her organization, Indify, affiliated with Ekal Vidyalaya of India, and supported the ideological and political premises of Hindu nationalism, and their action programs.
7. Ensure that international human rights and independent monitoring groups are invited to India on a regular basis to monitor the status of religious freedom and human rights of minority communities and allied faith and secular peoples and groups. The ability of international human rights and independent monitoring groups to work in alliance with local civil society institutions is crucial to interrupting the isolation disenfranchised/minority groups experience and producing accountability.
8. Ensure that the constitutionality and transparent implementation of security laws of India, as they pertain to religious groups and religious freedoms, are able to be rigorously monitored by international human rights and independent monitoring groups in alliance with local civil society institutions. These laws have been, without due cause, disproportionately and variously used by law enforcement agencies in India against minority communities and those dissenting unethical practices of the state, and their rights have not been duly protected.
9. All bilateral projects must be assessed for their human rights implications, and cost-benefit analyses undertaken to determine/ensure that these projects are in fact positioned to make contributions that are empowering for disenfranchised groups, including minorities, so as to enable the restructuring of inequitable and institutionalized relations of power that lead to majoritarianism and communal violence.
Actions applicable to Orissa and at the national level in India:
Reciprocally, it is important to note certain actions that have been proposed by concerned citizens in India that the Government of India and Government of Orissa must undertake toward effective intervention into the organization and growth of Hindu nationalism. Toward this:
1. In India, the Central Bureau of Investigation must be required to expeditiously investigate the activities of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Orissa, and apply, wherever necessary, relevant provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Section 2G of the Act, ’unlawful association’ denotes: (1) ’that which has for its object any unlawful activity, or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any unlawful activity, or through which the members undertake such activity’; or (2) ’which has for its object any activity which is punishable under Section 153A or Section 153B of the Indian Penal Code 1860 ([Central Act] 45 of 1860) or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any such activity; or of which the members undertake any such activity’.
2. A review panel must be appointed by the Government of Orissa, in consultation with the National Human Rights Commission, the National Minorities Commission, and other relevant independent bodies, such as the People’s Union for Democratic Rights and People’s Union for Civil Liberties, to identify and investigate the status, actions, finances, and membership of Hindu nationalist groups and their affiliates and cadre, and the actions of their membership. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities, and reparations must be made retroactively to the affected communities and individuals. The Government of Orissa must act to stop instances of communalization from escalating into violent episodes.
3. Hindu nationalist leaders, activists, and organizations in Orissa charged with involvement in criminal acts and involvement in actions that have led, or may lead, to communal violence must be investigated and prosecuted.
4. Certain organizations, such as the VHP and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, are registered as cultural and charitable organizations. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of Hindu nationalist charitable organizations fall within the objectives of the social trust/public charitable trust and whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as social trusts given the nature of their activities; whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups must be reviewed and necessary action taken.
5. The Government of Orissa and the Central Government must make concerted efforts to identify, investigate, and eradicate paramilitary hate camps being operated in Orissa by the Hindu nationalist groups that instruct cadre in arms training and militancy with the express purpose of threatening and destroying disenfranchised and minority populations through social and economic boycotts, sporadic and organized intimidation, arson, rape, murder, and other forms of social, gendered, sexualized, economic, and physical violence.
6. Various police and court investigations related to crimes against minorities have not been undertaken in Orissa. On various occasions, the police have refused to file First Information Reports (FIR). Police desks should be set up for registering minority grievances and filing FIRs, and the Government of Orissa must appoint a team of Special Public Prosecutors to conduct proceedings as necessary. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.
7. The Government of India and the Government of Orissa must take adequate and expeditious steps to ensure that those who convert voluntarily to Christianity, Islam, or any other faith are allowed to practice their religion. Failing to do so is in serious violation of Articles 25-28 of the Constitution of India, which define the Fundamental Rights of every citizen of India, and those that the Government of India and the Government of Orissa are obligated to uphold. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.
8. Hindu nationalist organizations are forcibly converting Christians and other non-Hindus in Orissa to Hinduism. Sangh Parivar activists claim India to be a Hindu nation and all Adivasis (tribals, indigenous peoples) and Dalits (erstwhile ’untouchable’ groups) to be ’originally’ Hindus, even as Adivasis and Dalits often do not self-identify as such. Drawing on such rationales, Hindu nationalist organizations justify coercion in ’bringing back’ Adivasis or Dalits to Hinduism. Urgent steps should be taken to stop the Hinduization of these communities by means of coercion or duress. The police and courts must act immediately and authoritatively to stop Hindu nationalists from enacting forcible conversions or ’reconversions’, and the police must be required to submit regular and public reports documenting their work in this matter.
9. The disparagement, demonization, and vilification of any religion should be statutorily prohibited and held punishable under the Indian Penal Code.
10. The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, must be reviewed and repealed.
11. The Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960, must be reviewed and repealed.
12. The Government of Orissa must establish and activate the State Minorities Commission.
13. The BJD-BJP coalition government in Orissa must honor the Constitutional mandate requiring the separation of religion from state.
14. Police, judicial, and governmental reform, including diversity training, must be addressed by relevant state institutions, and action taken against officers of the law and political servants who abuse their position of public trust by using their power to influence and support Hindu nationalist organizations and sustain a climate of communalism in Orissa.
15. The Government of Orissa must adopt an integrated and sustainable approach to community development, and take concrete efforts to stop further ghettoization of minority communities. The Government of Orissa must promote non-segregated localities, housing complexes, housing societies, clubs, educational, and recreational institutions, and that the Government of Orissa must publicly support social interactions, including voluntary inter-caste, inter-faith, and inter-class unions, marriages, and partnerships.
16. The Government of India must issue a White Paper on bomb blasts and terror attacks in India and constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee that investigates such incidents.
17. The law should be amended to obviate the requirement of prior sanction of the state before prosecuting anyone for hate speech.
18. The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, introduced in the Parliament of India in December 2005 and approved by the Union Cabinet in March 2007, must be passed, and with the requisite clauses to ensure state accountability. The bill, advocated by citizen motivated efforts for the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity, in its official formulation as introduced by the Congress government, remained deficient in defining procedures for state and public accountability. As presently drafted, the law will become applicable only selectively. An amendment should do away with the law being made applicable only selectively, at places and times as convenient to the state. In addition, there exist no dedicated provisions for reparation and rehabilitation of victims/survivors. The bill fails to address issues of negligence displayed by state authorities in preventing and controlling communal violence, and in disbursing timely and just compensation and psychosocial rehabilitation, as well as establishing parameters for witness protection and for soliciting and recording victim testimonies. It fails to chart measures to bring justice and accountability with regard to gender and sex-based crimes in the event of communal violence (which is not effectively addressed by the Indian Penal Code or separate legislation), and in imposing checks and balances on the state and its police and security forces, whose inertia and majoritarianist complicity in communal collisions have been consistent.
19. On 29 November 1949, India became a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9 December 1948. On 27 August 1959, India ratified the Genocide Convention. However, India is yet to fulfill its obligatory commitment to enact legislation to implement the convention, which it must be compelled to undertake.
Context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa:
Conscription into Hindu activism is coordinated through political reform, propaganda/thought control, cultural and religious interventions, developmental/social service and charitable work, sectarian health care, unionization, and revisionist education. Hindu nationalists have inaugurated various trusts and branches of national and international institutions in Orissa to aid fundraising, including, reportedly, the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, Utkal Bipanna Sahayata Samiti, and Odisha International Centre. It is noteworthy that since March 2000, the state government has comprised of a coalition of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (the parliamentary wing of Hindu nationalism).
The Sangh Parivar has built a cadre comprised of Hindus, men and women, in targeting Christians, Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits, and other disenfranchised, progressive, and secular groups in Orissa. Orissa has a population of 36.8 million (Census 2001). Of this, 761,985 - 2.1 percent - are Muslims. Orissa Christians number 897,861 - just 2.4 percent of the state’s population per the census of 2001 (in 1991, it was 2.1 percent, and in 1981, 1.7 percent). There are 6.08 million Dalits in Orissa, 16.5 percent of the population. Adivasis are 8.14 million in number, 22.1 percent of the population, the largest among all states in India.
The Sangh Parivar’s agenda is enabled by the staggering inequities present in the state, where severe social and institutionalized forms of caste, class, and gendered oppressions are rampant, facilitative of regularized violence, including sexualized violence. Unemployment is on the rise in Orissa and abysmal daily wages prevail; 47.2 percent of the total population lives in poverty while 48 percent of the rural population is poor (87 percent of the state’s population lives in villages currently and per the 2001 census, there are 51,352 villages in Orissa). Among the Adivasi population, 63.6 percent are poor while 40.5 percent of Dalits live in poverty. Among the Muslim population, 70 percent are poor in Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Puri districts, where they are concentrated.
During the 2008 violence in Orissa, various militant Hindu nationalist organizations acted with impunity. The violence was led by the following groups — the Bajrang Dal, VHP, and RSS. Following the riots and extended violence against Christian communities in Kandhamal district of Orissa in August-October 2008, the Government of Orissa and police, military, paramilitary forces deployed in the state failed to respond effectively, efficiently, or appropriately. This posed a serious threat to democratic governance in the state and the ability of government to ensure the security and sanctity of peoples and groups made vulnerable through majoritarian communalism as perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations in the state. The Central Government in New Delhi as well failed to respond in a timely and effective manner and with due concern.
It is only after the violence drew significant national and international attention, and began to generate other and political consequences, that both state and central governments responded to stop the violations against Christian minority groups in Orissa. The outrage and response of the state failed to match the proportion and extent of violence perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations. As of 25 December 2008, rehabilitation measures and provisions ensuring the security of vulnerable groups in rural areas and towns in Kandhamal district remained vastly inadequate.
The matters and circumstances that led to the Kandhamal violence of 2007 and 2008 in Orissa continue to pose a threat to the sanctity and security of human rights in the state, particularly of religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians and Muslims, disenfranchised Adivasi, Dalit, and caste groups, and other vulnerable groups such as women, and secular organizations and active individuals across the state. Failure to take preventative and effective action continues to jeopardize the rule of law, the right to life and livelihood, freedom of religion, of speech, movement, assembly, inquiry, and the right to information in Orissa. As I write this, the situation in Orissa remains beleaguered and volatile, de facto in a state of emergency.
From: Dr. Angana Chatterji
Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, California 94103
achatterji@ciis.edu; 415.575.6119 (office); 415.640.4013 (mobile)
December 30, 2008
Re.: Recommendations for action, as requested, following a briefing held on December 10, 2008, on ’The Threat Religious Extremism Poses to Democracy and Security in India: Focus on Orissa’, at 2168 Rayburn in Washington D.C.
I thank the Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom for honoring me with an invitation to testify at the hearing. I submit the following recommendations for consideration related to United States policy in its continued association with India, in ensuring mutual respect for, and commitment to, freedom of religion, a secular state, and the attendant human rights and civil liberties of disenfranchised, including minority, groups and peoples.
The following submission is mindful of the political/policy borders and boundaries that mediate issues of national sovereignty. The implicit assumption is that actions to uphold human rights, civil liberties, and democratic governance by the United States Government contributes significantly to international discourse in ways that are beneficial globally as well as to United States domestic policy and practice. The following submission is an appeal for ethical negotiation between India and the United States as the most powerful (United States) and populous (India) democracies seek to fulfill their commitment to human rights and its attendant freedoms. In so doing, various constituencies in both nations remain hopeful that any opportunity for association between these states will assist in enabling mutual adherence to responsible and democratic governance.
The following is in addition to the dossier of my research that I submitted at the hearing.
Note:
I am a Citizen of India and a Permanent Resident of the United States. My observations are based on research on religious freedom and minority rights conducted by me in Orissa. I have undertaken 16 trips to the state since June 2002, and undertaken work in 66 villages, 11 towns, and 4 cities across 17 districts in Orissa. In 2005-2006, I co-convened the Indian People’s Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa through the Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights with Advocate Mihir Desai, with a panel led by Former Chief Justice K.K. Usha of the Kerala High Court.
Religious violence and the religionization of social life by Hindu nationalist organizations have continued to endanger life and livelihood for minorities in India, as witnessed in Gujarat (2002), Jammu-Kashmir (2008), Orissa (2007-2008), Karnataka (2008), Assam (2008), and elsewhere. The violence against Christian minority communities in Orissa in August-October 2008 was not unexpected. In Orissa, since the mid-1990s, a formidable mobilization has been established by Hindu nationalist groups, including in Kandhamal district. These groups have acted with egregious impunity with adverse impact on society, economy, culture, religion, polity, and security in the state. The Sangh Parivar ’family’ of Hindutva, Hindu supremacist, organizations has a visible presence in twenty-five of thirty districts in Orissa. The Sangh Parivar has amassed between 35 and 40 major organizations with numerous branches (including paramilitary hate camps) in 25 districts in Orissa, with a massive base of a few million operating at every level of society, ranging from, and connecting, villages to cities, in their campaign to ’convert’ Orissa for the ’Hindu nation’.
Following the recommendations for action listed below please find a note on actions proposed by concerned citizens in India, and a brief note on the context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa today.
Recommendations for action in the United States:
Various diasporic charitable organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalist ideologies operate in the United States. This has been well documented with details submitted by me in the dossier. These organizations routinely maintain links with Hindu nationalist leaders and organizations in India, including in Orissa. As well, these diasporic organizations seek to influence public discourse and policy in the United States that relates to India. They also fundraise to export capital and resources to counterpart/affiliate organizations in India, including in Orissa, that assist in various ways in promulgating Hindu nationalist ideology. It is imperative that charities involved in work that promulgates and maintains an infrastructure of hate and violence against minorities be so designated. A list of such charities must be responsibly developed in consultation with academics, researchers, and independent bodies with relevant expertise on the subject. Following such identification, investigations must be undertaken by relevant authorities into the actions of these organizations operating with charitable status. Note: The categorization of organizations that promulgate divisiveness, hate, and violence must occur with the utmost care and in a transparent manner, so as to not infringe on the freedoms, rights, and entitlements of organizations that legitimately undertake charitable work, or ensue the demonization of vulnerable groups and marginal, even unorthodox, perspectives. The objective is not to further involve the state in public life, but to note that the state is already involved in the ability of these organizations to function. Hindu nationalism operates as a transnational movement and the reach of its affiliated ’charitable’ organizations in the United States continues internationally through groups they fund and support in India. Halting their interventions requires new ways of thinking about domestic and foreign policy and necessitates coordination between the United States and India as a tenet of bilateral cooperation.
Toward the above and further:
1. Undertake a systematic, routine, and detailed investigation into the actions of diasporic Hindu nationalist groups to identify and investigate their status, actions, finances, and the actions and affiliations of their membership in the United States, as well as their affiliates and cadre. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities.
2. Many of these organizations, registered as charitable entities in the United States, routinely allocate sizeable amounts of money under ’program services’, disproportionately directed to Hindu nationalist and affiliated groups in India. The effects of this have been documented in the organized violence against Muslims, aided by officials of the state government at the highest level, in Gujarat in 2002.
3. Certain diasporic organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalism, such as the India Development Relief Fund (IDRF, Tax identification number 52-1555563) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A, Tax identification number 51-0156325), Sewa International (Tax identification number 20-0638718), and Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA (Tax identification number 77-0554248) are registered as charity organizations in the United States. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of these fall within the objectives of their tax-exempt status; whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as 501(c)3 groups given the nature of their activities, whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected, and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups should be reviewed, and, where appropriate, revoked. Further, their activities should be monitored to determine their role in fomenting hate and undermining the human rights of various individuals and groups in India. Note: The VHP failed to gain recognition at the United Nations as a ’cultural organization’ in 1999 because of its philosophical underpinnings, even as the VHP-A continues to function as an independent charity, registered in the United States since the 1970s.
4. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh-USA (Tax identification number 52-1647017, an ideological affiliate of the militant Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India) and VHP-Overseas (Tax identification number 04-3576058) are registered as 501(c)3 groups and operate as cultural organizations, seeking to mainstream and lobby Hindu nationalist concerns in the United States. The impact of their activities in promulgating hate and perpetrating ’terror’ and communal violence in India must be investigated.
5. Monitor visa issuance to, and the travel of, Hindu nationalist leaders and activists charged with involvement in criminal acts. A case in point is Mr. Narendra Modi, the incumbent Chief Minister of Gujarat, who has been implicated in the violence orchestrated against Muslims in 2002, and whose visa was revoked by the United States in 2005, following advocacy on part of civil society groups and academics in the United States and support from Congressional members.
6. Ensure that appointees to federal and state positions, or those that serve in an advisory capacity, or as experts to state officials are scrutinized for affiliations or linkages they may hold within Hindu nationalist groups. These affiliations, where they exist, should not be treated as benign, and a reasoned investigation must be undertaken to determine whether the prospective appointee or advisor is able to fulfill requisite service obligations with ideological and practical distance from Hindu nationalist agendas. A case in point is Ms. Sonal Shah, who was appointed to President-elect Barack Obama’s 15-member Transition Team in November 2008. While her list of accomplishments and expertise run high, she has worked as a National Coordinator for the VHP-A and served on its Governing Council, and her organization, Indify, affiliated with Ekal Vidyalaya of India, and supported the ideological and political premises of Hindu nationalism, and their action programs.
7. Ensure that international human rights and independent monitoring groups are invited to India on a regular basis to monitor the status of religious freedom and human rights of minority communities and allied faith and secular peoples and groups. The ability of international human rights and independent monitoring groups to work in alliance with local civil society institutions is crucial to interrupting the isolation disenfranchised/minority groups experience and producing accountability.
8. Ensure that the constitutionality and transparent implementation of security laws of India, as they pertain to religious groups and religious freedoms, are able to be rigorously monitored by international human rights and independent monitoring groups in alliance with local civil society institutions. These laws have been, without due cause, disproportionately and variously used by law enforcement agencies in India against minority communities and those dissenting unethical practices of the state, and their rights have not been duly protected.
9. All bilateral projects must be assessed for their human rights implications, and cost-benefit analyses undertaken to determine/ensure that these projects are in fact positioned to make contributions that are empowering for disenfranchised groups, including minorities, so as to enable the restructuring of inequitable and institutionalized relations of power that lead to majoritarianism and communal violence.
Actions applicable to Orissa and at the national level in India:
Reciprocally, it is important to note certain actions that have been proposed by concerned citizens in India that the Government of India and Government of Orissa must undertake toward effective intervention into the organization and growth of Hindu nationalism. Toward this:
1. In India, the Central Bureau of Investigation must be required to expeditiously investigate the activities of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Orissa, and apply, wherever necessary, relevant provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Section 2G of the Act, ’unlawful association’ denotes: (1) ’that which has for its object any unlawful activity, or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any unlawful activity, or through which the members undertake such activity’; or (2) ’which has for its object any activity which is punishable under Section 153A or Section 153B of the Indian Penal Code 1860 ([Central Act] 45 of 1860) or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any such activity; or of which the members undertake any such activity’.
2. A review panel must be appointed by the Government of Orissa, in consultation with the National Human Rights Commission, the National Minorities Commission, and other relevant independent bodies, such as the People’s Union for Democratic Rights and People’s Union for Civil Liberties, to identify and investigate the status, actions, finances, and membership of Hindu nationalist groups and their affiliates and cadre, and the actions of their membership. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities, and reparations must be made retroactively to the affected communities and individuals. The Government of Orissa must act to stop instances of communalization from escalating into violent episodes.
3. Hindu nationalist leaders, activists, and organizations in Orissa charged with involvement in criminal acts and involvement in actions that have led, or may lead, to communal violence must be investigated and prosecuted.
4. Certain organizations, such as the VHP and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, are registered as cultural and charitable organizations. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of Hindu nationalist charitable organizations fall within the objectives of the social trust/public charitable trust and whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as social trusts given the nature of their activities; whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups must be reviewed and necessary action taken.
5. The Government of Orissa and the Central Government must make concerted efforts to identify, investigate, and eradicate paramilitary hate camps being operated in Orissa by the Hindu nationalist groups that instruct cadre in arms training and militancy with the express purpose of threatening and destroying disenfranchised and minority populations through social and economic boycotts, sporadic and organized intimidation, arson, rape, murder, and other forms of social, gendered, sexualized, economic, and physical violence.
6. Various police and court investigations related to crimes against minorities have not been undertaken in Orissa. On various occasions, the police have refused to file First Information Reports (FIR). Police desks should be set up for registering minority grievances and filing FIRs, and the Government of Orissa must appoint a team of Special Public Prosecutors to conduct proceedings as necessary. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.
7. The Government of India and the Government of Orissa must take adequate and expeditious steps to ensure that those who convert voluntarily to Christianity, Islam, or any other faith are allowed to practice their religion. Failing to do so is in serious violation of Articles 25-28 of the Constitution of India, which define the Fundamental Rights of every citizen of India, and those that the Government of India and the Government of Orissa are obligated to uphold. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.
8. Hindu nationalist organizations are forcibly converting Christians and other non-Hindus in Orissa to Hinduism. Sangh Parivar activists claim India to be a Hindu nation and all Adivasis (tribals, indigenous peoples) and Dalits (erstwhile ’untouchable’ groups) to be ’originally’ Hindus, even as Adivasis and Dalits often do not self-identify as such. Drawing on such rationales, Hindu nationalist organizations justify coercion in ’bringing back’ Adivasis or Dalits to Hinduism. Urgent steps should be taken to stop the Hinduization of these communities by means of coercion or duress. The police and courts must act immediately and authoritatively to stop Hindu nationalists from enacting forcible conversions or ’reconversions’, and the police must be required to submit regular and public reports documenting their work in this matter.
9. The disparagement, demonization, and vilification of any religion should be statutorily prohibited and held punishable under the Indian Penal Code.
10. The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, must be reviewed and repealed.
11. The Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960, must be reviewed and repealed.
12. The Government of Orissa must establish and activate the State Minorities Commission.
13. The BJD-BJP coalition government in Orissa must honor the Constitutional mandate requiring the separation of religion from state.
14. Police, judicial, and governmental reform, including diversity training, must be addressed by relevant state institutions, and action taken against officers of the law and political servants who abuse their position of public trust by using their power to influence and support Hindu nationalist organizations and sustain a climate of communalism in Orissa.
15. The Government of Orissa must adopt an integrated and sustainable approach to community development, and take concrete efforts to stop further ghettoization of minority communities. The Government of Orissa must promote non-segregated localities, housing complexes, housing societies, clubs, educational, and recreational institutions, and that the Government of Orissa must publicly support social interactions, including voluntary inter-caste, inter-faith, and inter-class unions, marriages, and partnerships.
16. The Government of India must issue a White Paper on bomb blasts and terror attacks in India and constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee that investigates such incidents.
17. The law should be amended to obviate the requirement of prior sanction of the state before prosecuting anyone for hate speech.
18. The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, introduced in the Parliament of India in December 2005 and approved by the Union Cabinet in March 2007, must be passed, and with the requisite clauses to ensure state accountability. The bill, advocated by citizen motivated efforts for the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity, in its official formulation as introduced by the Congress government, remained deficient in defining procedures for state and public accountability. As presently drafted, the law will become applicable only selectively. An amendment should do away with the law being made applicable only selectively, at places and times as convenient to the state. In addition, there exist no dedicated provisions for reparation and rehabilitation of victims/survivors. The bill fails to address issues of negligence displayed by state authorities in preventing and controlling communal violence, and in disbursing timely and just compensation and psychosocial rehabilitation, as well as establishing parameters for witness protection and for soliciting and recording victim testimonies. It fails to chart measures to bring justice and accountability with regard to gender and sex-based crimes in the event of communal violence (which is not effectively addressed by the Indian Penal Code or separate legislation), and in imposing checks and balances on the state and its police and security forces, whose inertia and majoritarianist complicity in communal collisions have been consistent.
19. On 29 November 1949, India became a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9 December 1948. On 27 August 1959, India ratified the Genocide Convention. However, India is yet to fulfill its obligatory commitment to enact legislation to implement the convention, which it must be compelled to undertake.
Context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa:
Conscription into Hindu activism is coordinated through political reform, propaganda/thought control, cultural and religious interventions, developmental/social service and charitable work, sectarian health care, unionization, and revisionist education. Hindu nationalists have inaugurated various trusts and branches of national and international institutions in Orissa to aid fundraising, including, reportedly, the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, Utkal Bipanna Sahayata Samiti, and Odisha International Centre. It is noteworthy that since March 2000, the state government has comprised of a coalition of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (the parliamentary wing of Hindu nationalism).
The Sangh Parivar has built a cadre comprised of Hindus, men and women, in targeting Christians, Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits, and other disenfranchised, progressive, and secular groups in Orissa. Orissa has a population of 36.8 million (Census 2001). Of this, 761,985 - 2.1 percent - are Muslims. Orissa Christians number 897,861 - just 2.4 percent of the state’s population per the census of 2001 (in 1991, it was 2.1 percent, and in 1981, 1.7 percent). There are 6.08 million Dalits in Orissa, 16.5 percent of the population. Adivasis are 8.14 million in number, 22.1 percent of the population, the largest among all states in India.
The Sangh Parivar’s agenda is enabled by the staggering inequities present in the state, where severe social and institutionalized forms of caste, class, and gendered oppressions are rampant, facilitative of regularized violence, including sexualized violence. Unemployment is on the rise in Orissa and abysmal daily wages prevail; 47.2 percent of the total population lives in poverty while 48 percent of the rural population is poor (87 percent of the state’s population lives in villages currently and per the 2001 census, there are 51,352 villages in Orissa). Among the Adivasi population, 63.6 percent are poor while 40.5 percent of Dalits live in poverty. Among the Muslim population, 70 percent are poor in Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Puri districts, where they are concentrated.
During the 2008 violence in Orissa, various militant Hindu nationalist organizations acted with impunity. The violence was led by the following groups — the Bajrang Dal, VHP, and RSS. Following the riots and extended violence against Christian communities in Kandhamal district of Orissa in August-October 2008, the Government of Orissa and police, military, paramilitary forces deployed in the state failed to respond effectively, efficiently, or appropriately. This posed a serious threat to democratic governance in the state and the ability of government to ensure the security and sanctity of peoples and groups made vulnerable through majoritarian communalism as perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations in the state. The Central Government in New Delhi as well failed to respond in a timely and effective manner and with due concern.
It is only after the violence drew significant national and international attention, and began to generate other and political consequences, that both state and central governments responded to stop the violations against Christian minority groups in Orissa. The outrage and response of the state failed to match the proportion and extent of violence perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations. As of 25 December 2008, rehabilitation measures and provisions ensuring the security of vulnerable groups in rural areas and towns in Kandhamal district remained vastly inadequate.
The matters and circumstances that led to the Kandhamal violence of 2007 and 2008 in Orissa continue to pose a threat to the sanctity and security of human rights in the state, particularly of religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians and Muslims, disenfranchised Adivasi, Dalit, and caste groups, and other vulnerable groups such as women, and secular organizations and active individuals across the state. Failure to take preventative and effective action continues to jeopardize the rule of law, the right to life and livelihood, freedom of religion, of speech, movement, assembly, inquiry, and the right to information in Orissa. As I write this, the situation in Orissa remains beleaguered and volatile, de facto in a state of emergency.
With Karkare gone, is the case being weakened?
Mail Today
January 27, 2009
MALEGAON BLASTS
By Krishna Kumar in Mumbai
With Karkare gone, is the case being weakened?
THE MALEGAON blast case against Hindutva terrorists, painstakingly built by the slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, appears to be unravelling under his successor K. P. Raghuvanshi.
Raghuvanshi is not investigating the links of the accused with the Sangh Parivar, claim the victims of the September 2008 blast — in which seven people were killed. Worse, the prosecution is now assuming the tone of defence while explaining glaring lapses in the chargesheet.
Despite the entire case resting on a conspiracy to violently overthrow the Constitution and install hardline Hindutva instead, Raghuvanshi is loath to press tough charges like waging war against the state and sedition against the accused.
In a recorded conversation produced as part of the chargesheet, the main accused — serving military intelligence officer Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit — exhorted his co- conspirators to seek help from Israel and Hindu forces abroad to dislodge the Indian state.
Yet the prosecution is not convinced. “ They were only talking. It could have just been in their mind,” defended Raghuvanshi.
He also maintained his role was investigating the Malegaon blast only. As an afterthought, he added that his legal team was examining the transcripts and may invoke the law against three or four of the accused later. “ If we had invoked the charge of waging war against the country, the case would have got weakened.
We are legally examining the transcripts and may later go for a separate trial, with the charges,” he said.
The ATS’s hesitation is surprising, since all terror cases invite charges of waging war against the state and sedition as a matter of routine. And the Malegaon case, with the exchanges between Purohit and retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, is tailor- made for tough laws.
For instance, the law lays out, “ Whoever wages war against the government of India or attempts to wage such war or abets the waging of such war, shall be punished with death.” It adds: “ A ( an accused) joins an insurrection against the government of India.
A has committed the offence defined in this Section.” More surprising is the prosecution’s unwillingness to apply the sedition law, which also fits the case perfectly. The relevant IPC Section has it that, “ Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by signs, or by visible representation or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine may be added.” This soft treatment of the Malegaon accused has led many to question the ATS’s credibility. A former Maharashtra minister didn’t hide his disappointment: “ I don’t want to say anything about Raghuvanshi.
No one can replace Karkare. He was of a different mettle.” But Maulana Abdul Karim Milli, a community leader from Malegaon, was scathing in his attack of Raghuvanshi. “ We had protested when he ( Raghuvanshi) took over the 2006 Malegaon blast case, which was then given to the CBI. Now, he has taken over this probe. Our people don’t believe he would lead the probe or the trial fairly.” Malegaon residents have made up their mind to seek out politicians in Delhi and Mumbai to have Raghuvanshi removed. He initially investigated the Nanded bomb blast case, in which a couple of Sangh Parivar bomb- makers were accidentally killed while making a bomb. The Nanded probe could have exposed the Hindutva terror conspiracy, averting subsequent blasts in Muslim localities and mosques.
In the 2008 Malegaon probe, the ATS has also not questioned many of the co- conspirators who plotted a Hindutva takeover of the country. For instance, there is a reference to a two- time BJP parliamentarian, one Colonel Dhar and Delhi- based doctor R. P. Singh, who were actively engaged in giving shape to Purohit’s idea of a “ new nation”. The probable links of the accused with other blasts like the Hyderabad Mecca Masjid one have not been probed at all.
Equally baffling is the ATS’s attempt to co- opt Abhinav Bharat president Himani Savarkar as a prosecution witness, even though she had a definite role in Purohit’s organisation and activities.
Raghuvanshi laughed off these concerns, saying: “ We need evidence against them, we have charged those who were involved in the Malegaon blast. If we put the names of 50 people that crop up then our case will fail.” The case now seems to be only about a few people whose organisational and ideological links have been completely blurred out. That was something Karkare attempted to flesh out, inviting the wrath of the Sangh Parivar.
January 27, 2009
MALEGAON BLASTS
By Krishna Kumar in Mumbai
With Karkare gone, is the case being weakened?
THE MALEGAON blast case against Hindutva terrorists, painstakingly built by the slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, appears to be unravelling under his successor K. P. Raghuvanshi.
Raghuvanshi is not investigating the links of the accused with the Sangh Parivar, claim the victims of the September 2008 blast — in which seven people were killed. Worse, the prosecution is now assuming the tone of defence while explaining glaring lapses in the chargesheet.
Despite the entire case resting on a conspiracy to violently overthrow the Constitution and install hardline Hindutva instead, Raghuvanshi is loath to press tough charges like waging war against the state and sedition against the accused.
In a recorded conversation produced as part of the chargesheet, the main accused — serving military intelligence officer Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit — exhorted his co- conspirators to seek help from Israel and Hindu forces abroad to dislodge the Indian state.
Yet the prosecution is not convinced. “ They were only talking. It could have just been in their mind,” defended Raghuvanshi.
He also maintained his role was investigating the Malegaon blast only. As an afterthought, he added that his legal team was examining the transcripts and may invoke the law against three or four of the accused later. “ If we had invoked the charge of waging war against the country, the case would have got weakened.
We are legally examining the transcripts and may later go for a separate trial, with the charges,” he said.
The ATS’s hesitation is surprising, since all terror cases invite charges of waging war against the state and sedition as a matter of routine. And the Malegaon case, with the exchanges between Purohit and retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, is tailor- made for tough laws.
For instance, the law lays out, “ Whoever wages war against the government of India or attempts to wage such war or abets the waging of such war, shall be punished with death.” It adds: “ A ( an accused) joins an insurrection against the government of India.
A has committed the offence defined in this Section.” More surprising is the prosecution’s unwillingness to apply the sedition law, which also fits the case perfectly. The relevant IPC Section has it that, “ Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by signs, or by visible representation or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine may be added.” This soft treatment of the Malegaon accused has led many to question the ATS’s credibility. A former Maharashtra minister didn’t hide his disappointment: “ I don’t want to say anything about Raghuvanshi.
No one can replace Karkare. He was of a different mettle.” But Maulana Abdul Karim Milli, a community leader from Malegaon, was scathing in his attack of Raghuvanshi. “ We had protested when he ( Raghuvanshi) took over the 2006 Malegaon blast case, which was then given to the CBI. Now, he has taken over this probe. Our people don’t believe he would lead the probe or the trial fairly.” Malegaon residents have made up their mind to seek out politicians in Delhi and Mumbai to have Raghuvanshi removed. He initially investigated the Nanded bomb blast case, in which a couple of Sangh Parivar bomb- makers were accidentally killed while making a bomb. The Nanded probe could have exposed the Hindutva terror conspiracy, averting subsequent blasts in Muslim localities and mosques.
In the 2008 Malegaon probe, the ATS has also not questioned many of the co- conspirators who plotted a Hindutva takeover of the country. For instance, there is a reference to a two- time BJP parliamentarian, one Colonel Dhar and Delhi- based doctor R. P. Singh, who were actively engaged in giving shape to Purohit’s idea of a “ new nation”. The probable links of the accused with other blasts like the Hyderabad Mecca Masjid one have not been probed at all.
Equally baffling is the ATS’s attempt to co- opt Abhinav Bharat president Himani Savarkar as a prosecution witness, even though she had a definite role in Purohit’s organisation and activities.
Raghuvanshi laughed off these concerns, saying: “ We need evidence against them, we have charged those who were involved in the Malegaon blast. If we put the names of 50 people that crop up then our case will fail.” The case now seems to be only about a few people whose organisational and ideological links have been completely blurred out. That was something Karkare attempted to flesh out, inviting the wrath of the Sangh Parivar.
Attack in Mangalore - NDTV Video
(Click on the title above to access the video)
In a shocking incident of moral policing which will put any right thinking person to shame, a right wing Hindu group Sri Rama Sena attacked women in a Mangalore pub on Saturday. The attackers are unrepentant and say they had received complaints about the presence of these young women. Women were hounded out of a pub and hit by the molesters in the process.
In a shocking incident of moral policing which will put any right thinking person to shame, a right wing Hindu group Sri Rama Sena attacked women in a Mangalore pub on Saturday. The attackers are unrepentant and say they had received complaints about the presence of these young women. Women were hounded out of a pub and hit by the molesters in the process.
Karnataka: Government circular for performing rituals in Hindu temples
The Hindu
27 January 2009
Eclipse: Minister orders special poojas
Bageshree S.
Bangalore: Temples in Karnataka were ordered in a circular to “ward off severe ill-effects” of the solar eclipse — the event coincided with Republic Day — by no less an authority than the State government. In a first-of-its-kind circular issued by the government last week, all temples were directed to perform special poojas or religious rituals immediately after the solar eclipse.
In accordance with Hindu traditions, temples usually do perform special rituals on an eclipse day. However, now the government issued an official circular “as per the suggestions of Aagama pandits” to perform Mrityunjaya Japa, Mrityunjaya Havana, Udaka Shanti Padhatana and Nakshatra Havana. It stated that the ritual would ensure the “safety of the people of State and the general good of the State.”
Muzrai and Housing Minister B.N. Krishnaiah Shetty, who signed this circular, defended it as an effort to “create awareness” of the eclipse in all temples, including those in small villages “because the position of stars is not auspicious” for the State. “Big temples in towns perform poojas. The circular will ensure that it is done in smaller villages also,” he told The Hindu.
Asked if a circular of this kind from the government would send the wrong signals — perpetuating superstition as against cultivating the scientific temper — he said: “I am acting as a Muzrai Minister whose responsibility are the temples and affairs related to them. You could have found fault with me if I were a Science and Technology Minister.” He added that the money for the poojas came from the money donated by the devotees to the hundi and no special allocation was made by the government.
Reacting to the circular, Narendra Naik, president, Federation of Indian Rationalists Associations, said it was “not right” on the part of the government to worry about celestial occurrences such as the solar eclipse. It should concern itself with “things for which it is elected to power” such as providing corruption-free governance. He said people should to “go about their life in a manner that is good to themselves and those around them, with or without eclipse.”
27 January 2009
Eclipse: Minister orders special poojas
Bageshree S.
Bangalore: Temples in Karnataka were ordered in a circular to “ward off severe ill-effects” of the solar eclipse — the event coincided with Republic Day — by no less an authority than the State government. In a first-of-its-kind circular issued by the government last week, all temples were directed to perform special poojas or religious rituals immediately after the solar eclipse.
In accordance with Hindu traditions, temples usually do perform special rituals on an eclipse day. However, now the government issued an official circular “as per the suggestions of Aagama pandits” to perform Mrityunjaya Japa, Mrityunjaya Havana, Udaka Shanti Padhatana and Nakshatra Havana. It stated that the ritual would ensure the “safety of the people of State and the general good of the State.”
Muzrai and Housing Minister B.N. Krishnaiah Shetty, who signed this circular, defended it as an effort to “create awareness” of the eclipse in all temples, including those in small villages “because the position of stars is not auspicious” for the State. “Big temples in towns perform poojas. The circular will ensure that it is done in smaller villages also,” he told The Hindu.
Asked if a circular of this kind from the government would send the wrong signals — perpetuating superstition as against cultivating the scientific temper — he said: “I am acting as a Muzrai Minister whose responsibility are the temples and affairs related to them. You could have found fault with me if I were a Science and Technology Minister.” He added that the money for the poojas came from the money donated by the devotees to the hundi and no special allocation was made by the government.
Reacting to the circular, Narendra Naik, president, Federation of Indian Rationalists Associations, said it was “not right” on the part of the government to worry about celestial occurrences such as the solar eclipse. It should concern itself with “things for which it is elected to power” such as providing corruption-free governance. He said people should to “go about their life in a manner that is good to themselves and those around them, with or without eclipse.”
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