India Together: P Sainath - Nine decades of non-violence - 16 September 2007

India Together: P Sainath - Nine decades of non-violence - 16 September 2007

Nine decades of non-violence
Countless rural Indians sacrificed much for India's freedom, to fade into oblivion later, seeking neither reward nor recognition. Gandhian Baji Mohammed, who has been active for 70 years in one or the other cause, is amongst the last of this dying tribe, writes P Sainath.

• Write the author • P Sainath • Send to a friend • Printer friendly version

"We were sitting in the tent, they tore it down. We kept sitting," the old freedom fighter told us. "They threw water on the ground and at us. They tried making the ground wet and difficult to sit on. We remained seated. Then when I went to drink some water and bent down near the tap, they smashed me on the head, fracturing my skull. I had to be rushed to hospital."

Baji Mohammed is one of India's last living freedom fighters - just one of four or five nationally recognised ones still alive in Orissa's Koraput region. He is not talking about British brutality in 1942. (Though he has much to say on that, too.) He's describing the vicious attack on him during the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, half a century later. "I was there as part of a 100-member peace team." But the team was given no peace. The old Gandhian fighter, already in his mid-seventies, spent ten days in hospital and a month in a Varanasi ashram recovering from the injury to his head.

No hatred in his heart

There is not an iota of anger as he describes the event. No hatred towards the RSS or Bajrang Dal that led the attack. Just a gentle old man with a charming smile. And a firm Gandhi bakht. He's a Muslim who heads the anti-cow slaughter league of Nabrangpur. "After the attack, Biju Patnaik came to my home and scolded me. He was worried about my being active even in peaceful protest at my age. Earlier, too, when I did not accept this freedom fighter's pension for twelve years, he chided me."

Baji Mohammad at home in Nabrangpur, Orissa with his most precious possession: a photo showing him in one of Mahatma Gandhi's protest marches.
Picture: P Sainath.

Baji Mohammed is a colourful remnant of a dying tribe. Countless rural Indians sacrificed much for India's freedom. But the generation that led the nation to it is dying out swiftly, most of its members in their late 80s or 90s. Baji is closing in on 90.

"I was studying in the 1930s, but did not make it past matric. My guru was Sadashiv Tripathi who later became Orissa Chief Minister. I joined the Congress Party and became president of its Nabrangpur unit [then still a part of Koraput district]. I made 20,000 members for the Congress. This was a region of great ferment. And it came fully alive with satyagraha."

However, while hundreds marched towards Koraput, Baji Mohammed headed elsewhere. "I went to Gandhiji. I had to see him." And so he "took a cycle, my friend Lakshman Sahu, no money, and went from here to Raipur." A distance of 350 km of very tough, mountainous terrain. "From there we took a train to Wardha and went on to Sewagram. Many great people were at his ashram. We were awed and worried. When could we meet him, if ever? Ask his secretary Mahadev Desai, people told us."

"Desai told us to talk to him during his 5 p.m. evening walk. That's nice, I thought. A leisurely meeting. But the man walked so fast! My run was his walk. Finally, I could no longer keep up and appealed to him: Please stop: I have come all the way from Orissa just to see you."

"He said testily: "what will you see? I too, am a human being, two hands, two legs, a pair of eyes. Are you a satyagrahi back in Orissa?' I replied that I had pledged to be one."

"Go,' said Gandhi. "Jao, lathi khao. (Go and taste the British lathis.) Sacrifice for the nation.' Seven days later, we returned here to do exactly as he ordered us." Baji Mohammed offered satyagraha in an anti-war protest outside the Nabrangpur Masjid. It led to "six months in jail and a Rs. 50 fine. Not a small amount those days."

More episodes followed. "On one occasion, at the jail, people gathered to attack the police. I stepped in and stopped it. "Marenge lekin maarenge nahin,' I said. (We shall die, but we shall not attack.)"

"Coming out of jail, I wrote to Gandhi: what now? And his reply came. "Go to jail again.' So I did. This time for four months. But the third time, they did not arrest us. So I asked Gandhi yet again: now what? And he said: "take the same slogans and move amongst the people.' So we went 60 km on foot each time with 20-30 people to clusters of villages. Then came the Quit India movement, and things changed."

"On August 25, 1942, we were all arrested and held. Nineteen people died on the spot in police firing at Paparandi in Nabrangpur. Many died thereafter from their wounds. Over 300 were injured. More than a thousand were jailed in Koraput district. Several were shot or executed. There were over a hundred shaheed (martyrs) in Koraput. Veer Lakhan Nayak [legendary tribal leader who defied the British] was hanged."

"Coming out of jail, I wrote to Gandhi: what now? And his reply came. 'Go to jail again.' So I did." • The last battle of Laxmi Panda

Baji's shoulder was shattered in the violence unleashed against the protesters. "I then spent five years in Koraput jail. There I saw Lakhan Nayak before he was shifted to Berhampore jail. He was in the cell in front of me and I was with him when the hanging order came. What should I tell your family, I asked him. "Tell them I am not worried,' he replied. 'Only sad that I will not live to see the swaraj we fought for.'" Baji himself did. He was released just before Independence Day - "to walk into a newly free nation." Many of his colleagues, amongst them future Chief Minister Sadashiv Tripathi, "all became MLAs in the 1952 elections, the first in free India." Baji himself "never contested the polls. Never married."

"I did not seek power or position," he explains. "I knew I could serve in other ways. The way Gandhi wanted us to." He was a staunch Congressman for decades. "But now I belong to no party," he says. "I am non-party." It did not stop him from being active in every cause which he thought mattered to the masses. Right from the time "I took part in the bhoodan movement of Vinoba Bhave in 1956." He was also supportive of some of Jayaprakash Narayan's campaigns. "He stayed here twice in the 1950s." The Congress asked him to contest elections more than once. "But me, I was more sewa dal than satta dal. (More service oriented than power seeking.)"

Greatest moment

For freedom fighter Baji Mohammed, meeting Gandhi was "the greatest reward of my struggle. What more could one ask for?" His eyes mist over as he shows us pictures of himself in one of the Mahatma's famous protest marches. These are his treasures, having gifted away his 14 acres of land during the bhoodan movement. His favourite moments during the freedom struggle? "Every one of them. But of course, meeting the Mahatma, hearing his voice. That was the greatest moment of my life. The only regret is that his vision of what we should be as a nation, that is still not realised."

Just a gentle old man with a charming smile. And a sacrifice that sits lightly on ageing shoulders. ⊕

P Sainath
16 Sep 2007
Courtesy: The Hindu

P. Sainath is the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. He is one of the two recipients of the A.H. Boerma Award, 2001, granted for his contributions in changing the nature of the development debate on food, hunger and rural development in the Indian media.

Amartya Sen on India: Past and future

Amartya Sen on India: Past and future

Ideals and expediency - Muneer A. Malik on Mussaraff vs Chiefe Justice

Dawn
June 27, 2007

IDEALS AND EXPEDIENCY

by Muneer A. Malik
IN my first article about the current lawyers'
movement, I had countered skeptics convinced of
its ultimate futility by reminding them that the
longest journey starts with a single step.
Now, as the movement grows from strength to
strength; as hundreds of thousands of people turn
up to show their support from Abbottabad to
Lahore, Peshawar to Chakwal; as an increasingly
desperate regime seeks refuge behind the corps
commanders, I have still not been approached by
any intermediary seeking to broker a compromise.
To save everyone's time, let me make the bar's
position absolutely clear. The demands of the bar
are non-negotiable and brook no compromise. This
is because of the inherent nature of this
movement.
To begin with, what are the objectives of our
movement? Firstly, it is about changing the
mindsets of our people. Throughout our history,
the masses have viewed the bureaucracy, the
military and the judiciary as part of the same
ruling elite, cooperating with each other to
subjugate the people. The minds of the masses
have been inoculated against the concept of true
justice. We were taught obedience at the cost of
our liberty and independence.
This mindset is a hangover from our colonial
past. These institutions were created by the
British as a means of controlling the civilian
populace. They were manned by Englishmen from the
same background taught to venerate the same ideal
- the preservation of the Raj.
Judges and ICS officers were not meant to empower
the masses and improve their lot, they were there
to keep the peace so the British could continue,
unhindered, with their commercial exploitation
and empire building. Likewise, the army's primary
role was internal not external. Their job was to
quell local rebellions that could threaten
British dominance. Alas! This role remains the same.
Decentralisation and separation of powers were
never on the agenda. When a few thousand
Englishmen set out to establish total control
over a land of three hundred million people, any
localised pockets of power could have proved
fatal. A division of powers between the different
institutions of state would be suicidal.
Our fight is for a separation of powers, for
constitutionalism, for the principle that all men
are equal before the law and for the ideal that
the pen is mightier than the sword.
Thus the DC ruled his district (with the willing
cooperation of the local elite, the feudal lords)
with a free hand and without any constraints. His
basic job was to keep the people quiet and
subservient to imperial dictates.
If populist leaders, like Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
B.G. Tilak or M.K. Gandhi, became too noisy, he
knew he could always call upon his willing
brothers in the judiciary to convict them for
sedition or banish them from the practice of law.
If matters went further, the likes of General
Dyer would bail him out by shooting a few hundred
natives for the restoration of 'peace'.
The supposed impartiality and independence of
judges in the colonial era is a complete myth. Of
course, they were neutral when deciding land
disputes between two natives. But when the
interests of the Raj were at stake, when the
interests of the people collided with those of
their colonial masters, they never let their
government down.Unfortunately, our nation's
independence and the departure of the British did
not bring their system of governance to an end.
Rather, a 'coloured' ruling establishment quietly
stepped into the shoes of their departing masters
and adopted their practices and beliefs. After
all, it was more civilised to be an Englishman,
notwithstanding that you were not admitted to
their clubs unless you served as a waiter.
As a result, concepts such as the rule of law or
the independence of the judiciary never took root
in the minds of our people. We were never
convinced that the judiciary's true function was
to guard the rights of the people and to protect
the masses from oppression.
The first aim of our struggle is to change those
beliefs. We seek to convince the masses that the
courts are not there only to adjudicate property
disputes between rich landowners or the competing
commercial interests of multinational
corporations, but that a truly independent
judiciary will allow the common man to realise
his fundamental rights. That judges with security
of tenure will be fearless enough to administer
true justice. That such judges will protect them
from the abusive exercise of power by the wadera,
the 'seth' or the SHO.
We seek to inculcate the belief that laws are not
meant to be jealously preserved in
jurisprudential tomes but to be applied, by
activist judges, for the protection of the common
man, and that the rule of law is an idea worth
fighting for.
To do so, we have to change the mindset of our
judges about their true duties and functions.
This is our second aim. For too long they have
functioned as if they were part of our
military-bureaucracy, and now the plundering
capitalist (the attempted sale of the Steel Mills
being a case in point), establishment. They need
to realise that they are no longer part of a
foreign force seeking to forcibly impose its will
upon the people. They need to end their
alienation from the masses and align themselves
with the wishes of the people.
Why is it that Justice M.R. Kayani considered it
acceptable to contest elections and become
president of the Civil Servants of Pakistan
Association while he was sitting on the bench of
the high court, particularly when the major
portion of his duties involved the judicial
review of the wrongful acts of civil servants?
It was not because of any particular lack of
integrity on his part. Rather, he was known as
an outspoken and honest judge. It is simply the
pernicious elitism that pervades our entire
judiciary that leads them to ally themselves with
the ruling classes rather than with the masses.
Our judges can easily identify with the causes of
senior government officials but not those of a
'kissan'. That is exactly why I call for a
Supreme Court of the People of Pakistan.
Why is it that high court and Supreme Court
judges consider it perfectly acceptable to lunch
in elitist clubs and exchange views with
industrialists, government ministers and
advisers, bureaucrats et al, but shy away from
sharing a cup of tea with the labourer or
political worker at a trade union function? Does
this not distort their perception about the needs
and aspirations of the people of Pakistan?
The visit of the governor of Sindh - fresh from
his debriefing in London - to the Sindh High
Court is illuminating. Eyebrows were raised when
seven honourable judges examining the May 12
tragedy refused to meet him and he was told that
there could be no discussion on that issue. Why
should there have been even an iota of surprise?
The government of Sindh, and the party to which
the governor belongs, had been directly
implicated in the tragedy of May 12. I say that
at the risk of my life and that of my children.

Would there have been any astonishment if any
judge refused to entertain a common litigant who
wanted to have a cup of tea in the
judge's chamber and discuss the facts of his
case? The commendable behaviour of the Sindh High
Court judges was newsworthy because too often in
the past our judges have fallen short of this
standard of rectitude when it comes to the power elite.
The idea that judges interpret the law in
splendid isolation strictly in accordance with
recognised and time-tested legal doctrines is
entirely fallacious. Our Supreme Court has
repeatedly pointed out that the Constitution is
an organic document and needs continuous
reinterpretation in light of changing times and
needs. So who will inform them about the changing
needs of the hour? Must it be the generals, the
industrialists and the bureaucrats?
Take the example of the reviled doctrine of
necessity. Blatantly illegal and unconstitutional
acts were repeatedly justified by our
Supreme Court on the basis that they were
necessary for survival of the nation. And who was
the spokesman for the nation? The generals.

Why can't the needs of the nation be determined
by directly listening to the voice of the nation?
Why must the doctrine of necessity always be
employed in favour of the military-bureaucracy
establishment? Can it never be used in the other
direction - to force a general (even if he has
invented a specious legal cover for his actions)
to respect the legitimate desires and aspirations
of the people?
I recall discussing this issue with the late
Justice Dorab Patel. A splendidly honest man, he
felt compelled, nevertheless, to defend his
brethren. He justified previous judicial
decisions based on expediency on the grounds that
they were made by a few old men left alone in
face of the entire army's might. This movement
seeks to reassure our judges that they are not
alone. If they choose to do the right thing, the
whole legal community and the entire nation will
turn out in their support.
The learned Chief Justice is no charismatic
politician. His speeches, on purely legal issues,
do not enthral the nation. But when hundreds of
thousands of people stand all day in Lahore's
scorching heat and brave all night Faisalabad's
thunderstorms waiting to catch a glimpse of him,
they do so to salute the courage of the man. They
do so to show their support for a judge who dares
to say 'no'.
Our aim is to instil that courage in every judge
throughout the land. Our aim is to illuminate a
path that leads beyond the Maulvi Tamizuddin,
Dosso, Nusrat Bhutto and Zafar Ali Shah cases.
Our third objective is to restore civilian
supremacy in Pakistan. We are no longer prepared
to live under the barrel of the gun. Those guns
and their wielders must return to their rightful
positions; facing outwards at the frontiers of
our land. The people will rule themselves.
Of course, our elected politicians will make
mistakes, both honest and dishonest, and there
will be misrule. But the court of
accountability must be 170 million Pakistanis and
not nine corps commanders. Elected governments
must complete their tenure and face
up to their failures at the time of polling
instead of being handed a convenient excuse by
their forced ouster at the hands of the military.
Fourthly, our aim is to strengthen all the
institutions of our state; the executive, the
legislature, the judiciary as well as the media.
Only by strengthening these pillars and strictly
enforcing the limits on their separate powers in
accordance with the Constitution can we protect
ourselves from tyranny and secure the rule of
law. Only then can we rid ourselves of the
inequities of the past.
To achieve these goals, we welcome the support of
every segment of civil society; the media as well
as labour unions, NGOs as well as political
parties. But our demands are non-negotiable. We
will not sacrifice our principles at the altar of
expediency. Any dialogue with the establishment
can only begin after they take steps that
concretely display their commitment to these principles.
Our history is replete with tragic compromises.
We don't need to go too far. The Zafar Ali Shah
case was a compromise by the judiciary.
Musharraf's military takeover was legitimised in
exchange for a promise that elections would be
held and a civilian government installed within
three years.
Five years have passed since those elections, but
all power still rests with Musharraf and his
corps commanders rather than with the prime
minister and his cabinet. On March 9, 2007, while
cabinet ministers hunkered under their beds, the
ISI, MI and IB chiefs wreaked havoc.
The Seventeenth Amendment was a compromise by the
politicians. Musharraf was allowed to continue
as president despite his uniform in exchange for,
essentially, a verbal promise that he would shed
it in a year. Characteristically, he reneged and
four years later he was donning the same uniform
when he attempted to fire the Chief Justice. No
amount of apology, no matter how sincere, will
bring back lost times and opportunities.
For once in our history, people from every
segment of civil society, judges and politicians
alike, need to stand up for ideals and eschew the
culture of deal-making. The struggle is not for
tawdry offices and superficial power; it is about
principles. If we can maintain our united
commitment to these principles, we shall triumph
and overwhelm all opposition. But if we fail to
learn from history, we will be condemned to relive it.
The writer is president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.

Science and the Islamic world—The quest for rapprochement - Physics Today August 2007 - Pervez Hoodbhoy

Science and the Islamic world—The quest for rapprochement - Physics Today August 2007

Lal Masjid: What should Musharraf do now?

Lal Masjid: What should Musharraf do now?

Miles_to_go.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Miles_to_go.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Forgotten pages of History - CONTRIBUTIONS OF ULAMA IN THE FREEDOM OF INDIA*

*BY **M. Burhanuddin Qasmi*,*manager@markazulmaarif.org *

August 2007, the 60th anniversary of India's freedom, we undivided Indians will celebrate it with proud and all possible glitters. That's alright! But remember, what our history is telling about freedom struggle is not all-- there are pages deliberately forgotten, dusted with prejudiced and narrowness or completely removed from our history books. A part of this argument was carried by Eastern Crescent (May issue), '150 years: The first war of India's independence' which discussed some pages of untold history from 1757 to 1857. And concluded with establishment of Darul Uloom Deoband in 1866 after defeat, heavy lose of lives of freedom fighters in the 1857's united war of independence to continue with the freedom struggle. The discussion below is continuation of the same argument in chronology.

In 1877, *Shaikhul Hind *Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan, the first student of Darul Uloom Deoband, set up an Organisation called *'Samratut Tarbiyat' *(result of the training). *(Tahreek-e Shaikul Hind 61)* The aim of the organization was to prepare for armed insurrection against the British. The movement continued for at least 30 years. With Maulana Mohammad Qasmi Nanotwi's demise in 1880 and the lacunas in organizational set up, appeared to be an obstacle for the desired goal, the movement was abandoned. *(Aseeran-e Malta 23)* In 1909, *Shaikhul Hind* Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan re-organized his * Fidayeen* (devotees) under a new banner* 'Jamiatul Ansaar'*. Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi had been called to Deoband to take charge of secretariat of this new organization *(personal Dairy of Obaidullah Sindhi 20).*

The first introduction of the Jamiatul Ansar was made at the annual function of Darul Uloom Deoband in 1911. Before 30 thousand distinguished Ulama from around undivided India and out side, the Jamiat declared its aims and objectives and the reason as to why it was necessary to struggle for the freedom of the country. Buoyed by the successful launching and the support that it elicited from the masses, Jamiatul Ansaar organized its first rally at Moradabad town in April 1911. Participants from Aligarh, Nadwatul Ulama Lucknow and Deoband gathered in large numbers. In 1912 and 1913 the Jamiat * *organized mass gathering and successful public agitation in which thousands of people from Meerut and Shimla took active part. The huge mass support exhibited by Jamiat unnerved the government and they began planning to root out the main source-- * *Darul Uloom Deoband*,* from where such a powerful organization had sprung. The leading members were asked by *Shaikhul Hind*to give up their membership of Jamiat in order to save the educational institution from irreparable losses that it might have suffered at the hands of colonial rulers. *(Ulama-e Haque 1/131, Yad-e Baiza 107, Moqam-e Mahmood 203-204 and Naqash-e Hayat 2/144)*

*A New Establishment Springs Up in Delhi*

Soon after the ban of Jamiatul Ansar in 1913, the freedom seekers appeared in Delhi with a new name *'Nazzaaratul Ma'arif'*. Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and Shaikhul Hind were the leading figures behind this new setup. The zeal, spirit and purpose of the new set up was none the less freedom.

*Mujahideen* (freedom fighters) used the organization as a corridor to reach Delhi. It was also used as a public relation and financial resource base. Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Maulana Abul Kalaam Azaad, Maulana Sindhi * *and Shaikhul Hind used to meet here secretly*. (Aseeran-e Malta 27 and Ulama-e Haque 1/136)* When the First World War (1914) began between Germany and Britain, the freedom fighters once again changed their action plan. They decreased domestic activities and fully concentrated on supporting Germany. *(Naqash-e ayaayaHayaat 2/210)*

*Shaikhul Hind Visits Hijaz*

*Fidayeen-e *Freedom saw the war as a golden opportunity to strike at the roots of the British interest. Armed insurrections were planned against the British forces. Haji Saheb Tarang Zaie and Maulana Saifur Rahman Kabulie from Shaikhul Hind's * *Volunteer Group were selected as field commodores with operational base at Zaigi in 'Bajore, the capital of tribal autonomous Yaghistan. *(Al-Jamiat, Sunday edition January 6, 1985)*. Shaikhul Hind Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan dispatched his deputy, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, to Kabul and he himself left for Saudi Arabia. The purpose of the visit was to solicit support from the Muslim countries because without weaponry and their active support it was quite impossible to achieve the goal.

Shaikhul Hind reached Makkah on October 9, 1915 and met the Turk Governor, Ghalib Pasha.* *On his request the powerful Governor of the Usmani Caliphate (Turk) agreed to extend support against the British government. In order to publicize his support among Muslims of the sub-continent, he wrote a long letter exhorting the general public to continue with their struggle, assuring them of his government's open support in the future.

It was before the United States took side to any of the warring parties in word war l. Later when the US government sided with the allied forces-- Russia, France and Britain-- the whole war scenario changed. Turk and German-- Central alliance was defeated. As a consequence of the defeat at the hands of allied forces with full connivance of the United States of America, the Usmani Caliphate * *was destroyed. The dream of Shaikhul Hind and his lieutenants to drive away the colonialists, by waging war against the British forces on Indian soil, never materialized. *(Aseeran-e Malta 34, Naqash-e Hayaat 2/212, 186-87 and Tahreek-e Shaikhul Hind 72) *

*The First Government of India in Exile*

As mentioned earlier, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi was sent to Kabul for a special mission. He established a Government in exile there, with Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali and himself as Ministers and Maharaja Pratap Singh as the President. * *Formation of *'Lashkar-e- Najat Dehinda'* (Liberation Army) with headquarter in Madinah and *Shaikhul Hind* Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan as Chief was declared.* *

Meanwhile, an international set up by the name of *'Junoodur Rabbaniyah'*(Army of God) was formed. The purpose of this group was to represent the movement around the world in order to garner international support against the colonial rule. *Shaikhul Hind* was named *Al-Qayed* (the Leader) of this group too. *(Tahreek-e Shaikhul Hind 281, 282 & 271). *

Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi wrote a letter to Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan, in Saudi Arabia, with details of his activities in Kabul and the future plan. The letter was written on a silk piece of cloth. Maulana Mohammad Mian Mansoor Ansari also enclosed a long letter detailing office bearer's name of the Government in Exile and a blueprint for Junoodur Rabbaniyah. These letters were dispatched to Madinah through Shaikh Abdur Raheem Sindhi. However, on the way these letters reached in the hands of a neo-Muslim named 'Rab Nawaz'. The same was passed to the British Commissioner in Multan. The date inscribed on the Silk letter was 8/9 Ramdhanul Mubarak 1334 A.H*.,*corresponding to 9/10 July 1916, which reached at the hand of Commissioner in the first week of August 1916. How such a grievous blunder occurred, no one could explain it later! *(Naqash-e Hayaat 2/213, Thareek-e Shaikhul Hind 268-269) * **

*Tahreek-e Reshmi Rumaal*

As a consequence of the disclosure of *'Silk Letter Conspiracy'*, as in the British record, or '*Tahreek-e Reshmi Rumaal*' of 1916 against the British Empire, 222 pioneering Ulama from all over the country were arrested on this charge. *(Muqaam-e Mahmood 297-298)*

Shaikhul Hind and his comrades Maulana Waheed Ahamad Faizabadi, Maulana Azeez Gul, Hakim Syed Nusrat Hussain and Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni were arrested in * Hijaz* (Makkah) on 23 Safar, 1335 A.H*.* They were sent to Malta via Cairo by a ship on 29 Rabius Sani 1335 A.H. corresponding to 21 February 1917 and clamped in the prison for 3 years and 4 months. They were released and reached Bombay on June 8, 1920. However, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and Maulana Mohd. Mian Mansoor Ansari had to remain in exile for several years. *(Abstract: Safar Nama-e Malta 118-127, Aseeran-e Malta 51 and Naqash-e Hayaat 2/135)*

*Jamiat Ulama-e Hind*

The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885, with a view to unite Hindu and Muslims to participate in the struggle for freedom. More than 300 Ulama issued a decree ( *Fatwa*) favouring Hindu-Muslim union for freedom struggle which was repeatedly published in the newspaper called *'Nusratul-Abrar'.*Maulana Abul Kalam Azad launched the weekly *'Al-Hilal'**,* a heraldry of freedom struggle and campaigned the same mission. The same Ulama, in March 1919, set up *'Jamiat Ulama-e Hind'*. Mufti Kifayatullah was elected the first President. By the end of the First World War most of the freedom fighters in India eschewed the path of armed struggle. They preferred non-violence as a means to achieve freedom. * *

The *Khilafat Conference,* presided by Maulana Fazle Haq in Delhi resolved to boycott the 'Victory Celebration' of the British Government in Nov. 13, 1919. The resolution had the support of Seth Chutani * *and Mahatma Gandhi. Subsequently Mufti Kifayatullah issued a *Fatwa*, signed and endorsed by 20 Ulama, declaring participation in the victory celebration of the British government as impermissible for Muslims-- as long as the settlement with the rulers of defeated Ottoman Empire was not in accordance with the Islamic law and the popular sentiments of the Muslims. *(A historical View on Jamiat Ulama 59)*

*Non-Cooperation Movement*

The first conference, December 28, 1919, of the new Jamiat was held at Amritsar under the presidentship of Maulana Abdul Bari of Firangi Mahal. The Conference expressed anxiety and protested over the non-release of Shaikhul Hind and Maulana Azad. *(Jamiat Ulama Keya Hain 2/5-16)*

At the Khilafat* *Conference in Allahabad, June 9, 1920 the decision to launch *'Non-cooperation Movement' *was taken *(Tahreek-e Khilafat 155-156) *. On July 19, 1920*, *Shaikhul Hind issued a statement supporting the non-cooperation movement. The movement was formally launched on August 31, 1920. *(Aseeran-e Malta 53).* Later, on October 29, 1920, a detailed edict was issued again and the *Al-Jamiat*, with signatures of 500 Ulama, published it *(Jamiat Ulama Keya Hain 2/30)*. Armed with *Fatwa, *the leaders and volunteers of the *'Khilafat Committee*' and the *'Indian National Congress' * went into open agitation and started their struggle against imperialism.* *A special Conference of Jamiat Ulama-e Hind was held in Calcutta on September 6, 1920, presided by Maulana Taj Mahammad Sindhi. Maulana Azad moved the non-cooperation resolution in the conference and the same was passed. The resolution had * *declared that any kind of cooperation or association with the British Government was *Haraam* (Prohibited by the Shariah) *(Jamait Ulama par Tarikhi Tabsara 58)*

*Movement to Boycott Foreign Goods*

The British government on 8 August, 1921 declared the non-cooperation *Fatwa * of the Khilafat Committee as illegal. On 18 September, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jawhar, Maulana Shawkat Ali, Maulana Nisar Ahmad Kanpuri, Peer Ghulam Mujaddid and Dr. Saifuddin Lachko were arrested on the charges of illegal publication and the distribution of the *Fatwa*. *(Shaikhul Islam, A Political Analyses 99) *In the third Jamiat conference in Lahore, 18-20 Nov. 1921 a resolution to *'Boycott Foreign Goods'* was passed. On charges of inciting boycott, 30 thousand people were put into the prison--most of them Ulama and Muslim freedom fighters. On February 5, 1922 Mahatma Gandhi announced the end of boycott due to the *'*Chauri Chaura' incident, where three freedom fighters were killed by the British troops and in retaliation the local public killed 23 British police personnel. Since the killing of the British police personnel was in violation of the non-violence policy of the freedom struggle, Mahatama Gandhi called off the non-cooperation and civil disobedience movement. *(Tahreeke Khilafat 243-244)*

*Shudhi Karan Movement-- Seed of divide and rule*

The call to non-cooperation and civil disobedience was given jointly by Hindu as well as Muslim leaders. The unity of the two communities and the successful response the call of civil disobedience received from the common masses once again proved an unexpected challenge to the British Government after the war of 1857. In order to break this unity, the British government started propagating ' *Shudhi Karan*', by their Hindu agents. The *'Shudhi Karan'* tactics by the British through aided Hindu extremist group resulted a severe set back for Jamiat Ulama, Indian National Congress and the freedom movement. Since thousands of poor Muslims were lured to Hinduism in the name of Shudhi Karan, Jamiat Ulama couldn't cope with its real mission of freedom struggle. Jamiat took the challenge seriously and succeeded in calling back these poor Muslims to their original religion - Islam *(What Jamiat Ulama Is?)*. But this already sew a seed of differences, mistrust among some common Hindus and Muslims-- the Britishers had their goal achieved which ultimately resulted in to partition of our great country and the bitterness is still prevalent.

*The Demand for Total Freedom*

The fourth conference of Jamiat, held in December 1922 under the presidentship of Maulana Habeebur Rahman Usmani, adopted a resolution to *'Boycott the Assemblies'.
* The fifth conference was held at Cocanada in January 1924. In his presidential address, Maulana Syed Hussain Ahmad Madni raised the demand for complete independence.* **(Muslim Ulama Ka Kirdaar 33). *At the seventh conference of Jamiat in Calcutta, held on March 11-14, 1926, presided by of Maulana Syed Sulaiman Nadwi, a resolution for complete freedom of India was passed for the first time.* **(For resolution detail see, What Jamiat Ulama is? 2/119-121) *In* *the eighth general meeting of Jamiat, held in Peshawar, December 2-5, 1926 under the presidency of *Allamah Anwar Shah Kashmiri*, a resolution to oppose *'Simon Commission'* was passed by full strength. This very sentence of the resolution: " *freedom is not given on platter, you got to snatch it*", sums up the mood of those freedom fighters (*What Jamiat Ulama is 2/145). *

After Jamiat had passed the resolution against Simon Commission, the Indian National Congress realized its importance. In its 'Madras' convention, held December 26, 1927, the Congress adopted a resolution demanding the British government to recall Simon Commission. Simon returned back to Britain unsuccessful in his mission on March 31, 1928 *(Maulana Azad, A Political Dairy 213-214)* **

*Difference between Congress and Jamiat *

Jamiat* *was a key member in the 'All Party Conference', held at Lucknow in 1928. The conference criticized the *'Nehru Report'* that sought autonomy under the British rule. The Congress policy of autonomy under the British rule was against Jamiat's policy of complete freedom. Consequently, Jamiat had to suspend its support to the Congress as long as it did not abandon the Motilala Nehru Report. In its Lahore Meeting, held on December 31, 1929, the Indian National Congress voted in favour of Jamiat demand for complete freedom of India after 5 years.

In relation to *Gandhiji's Dandi March*, in 1929, several leaders of the Jamiat including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Hifzur Rahman Seoharvi, Maulana Fakhruddin, Maulana Syed Mohammad Mian and Maulana Bashir Ahmad Bhatia were arrested. At the ninth conference at Amroha, held on May 3-5, 1930 under the presidency of Maulana Moinuddin Ajmeri *,* a fresh resolution was adopted for an alliance and full cooperation with the Congress. *(Tahreek Azadi-e Hind Mey Muslim Ulama aour Awam Ka Kirdaar 99)*

*Civil Disobedience Movement *

During the 'Civil Disobedience Movement' of 1930, the President of Jamiat Mufti Kifayatullah, and the General Secretary Maulana Ahmad Saeed Dehlavi were arrested. At the time of the *'Second Civil Disobedience Movement'* in 1932, the Jamiat like the Congress appointed an organizational arbitrator*.
'Idara Harabia'** *(center for struggle) was set up for which the responsibility was entrusted to Maulana Abul Mahasin Sajjad. Mufti Kifayatullah Dehlavi was appointed the first arbitrator of Jamiat. He led the procession of more than 100,000 strong men on March 11, 1932 and courted arrest at Azad Park of Delhi. He remained in jail for 18 months. *(Al-Jamiat: Special Issue Mufti-e Azam 44-45)* The second arbitrator, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni was arrested while on his way to Delhi from Deoband. Thereafter, one after the other arbitrators i.e. Maulana Ahmad Saeed Dehlavi, Maulana Hifzur Rahman Seohari, Maulana Syed Mohammad Mian Deobandi, Maulana Habeebur Rahman Ludhianvi and so on were arrested. Most of them were put in jail for 1 to 2 years. Approximately 90 thousand people were arrested, 44.5 thousands among them were Ulama and Muslims. *(Karwan-e Ahrar 1/106)*

*The Root of Communalism *

The freedom movement was gaining ground every day. A weakened British Empire, even though they had won the War against powerful Ottoman Empire and Germany, was not able to cope with the situation. In the face of resolute and nationwide agitation and civil disobedience of the freedom fighters, the imperialist ruler had no way out but to sow the seed of communalism that would have divided the two communities (Hindu & Muslim) whose activists together were standing like rock against the British interest. To implement the nefarious and infamous *'divide & rule' *policy in 1935, the British government announced assembly election on the basis of proportional representation on religious basis. A Hindu was allowed to vote for a Hindu candidate and Muslim to a Muslim only. *(Tahreek Azadi-e Hind Mey Muslim Ulama aour Awam Ka Kirdaar 100) *It was, perhaps, this poisonous seed that later grew into strong tree-trunk and began producing bitter fruits in abundance. Hindu and Muslim freedom fighters who fought together for the liberation of this great country began suspicious of each other's motive. This not only resulted in the bloodshed, communal politics but also became the main cause for the partition of India.

*Muslim League Avails Opportunity*

*Muslim League* as a political entity came into existence in the year 1906. It, however, couldn't attract public attention before the India Act 1935 was announced - least to say of garnering public support and respectability in the Muslim eyes. Since the election was to be conducted on religion--communal basis, Jamiat leadership was not sure what role it should play in such an idiosyncratic political situation. And for sure it didn't want to directly participate in this undesired election directly.

Jamiat decided to put the Muslim League as a front organization with its full backing. This was, to me, a historic blunder committed by the Jamiat because an organization of such a strong mass base seldom brings other organization in the front that could steal the show. Due to lack of proper future visionary in part of Jamait and the extremist posture adopted by some Muslim League and Congress members, the gulf between the two major political parties went on increasing. The situation turned from bad to worse because both were either ruling or in opposition in the provinces-- under a two party (Hindu - Muslim) theory. The communal harmony and amity that existed between the two communities were shattered. Both the parties left no stone unturned to defame each other and ferociously used religion to attack political rivals. As a consequence the British agents provocateur had the field day. Certain religious discords or sentimental issues were intelligently coloured by the British to turn their schism into hatred which made an irreparable damage to the national unity and integrity of great India.

Gradually the two communities took sides of the political parties they had voted for. In such a charged political atmosphere Jamiat Ulam's call for communal amity, political unity and struggle for a total freedom fell on deaf years-- it was already too late for Mualana Madni, Maulana Azad and Mahathma Gandhi. Having no way out, the Jamiat had to break the alliance with the Muslim League. Thereafter, the Jamiat decided against having any truck with the Muslim League. But the League had already achieved as much mass support as required to impress upon the British government that it was the true representative of the Muslim community. *(History of Jamiat Ulama-e Hind 94)* The British, on the other hand, were regaling over the fruits of their harvest, *'Divide and Rule Policy', *that had stupendous success in dividing the two communities. The Congress and the League were like the proverbial saying:

"*The fighting crows do not sense that its prey is being eaten by the smart fox." *

*World War II & Ulama's Opposition to the Conscription*

Jamiat Ulma-e Hind strongly opposed conscription during the World War II (1939-45). They declared complete non-cooperation in the British war-efforts. The book ' *Ulama-e Hind ka Shandar Maazi'*, written by Maulana Mohammad Mian, was banned and the author arrested. The Jamiat* *Working Committee, on July 13-14, 1940, termed the ban and arrest as a tyrannous step. The leaders of Jamiat including Maulana Hifzur Rahman Seoharvi, Maulana Ahmad Ali Lahori, Maulana Mohd. Qasim Shahjahanpuri, Maulana Abul Wafa Shajahanpuri, Maulana Shahid Mian Fakhri Allahabadi, Maulana Mohammad Ismail Sambhali, Maulana Syed Akhtarul Islam with others were arrested for their opposition to conscription and the British war-efforts. *(History of Jamiat Ulama 103)*

*Quit India Movement*

In a Jamiat conclave, held at Bachhraon, April 23-25, 1940*, *Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni raised the question of India's total independence once again. As a consequence he was arrested on June 24 on his way to Punjab to participate in the *'unity conference'*. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment. The imprisonment term was about to finish that he was served another notice on January 4, 1943 under the Defense of India Rules and kept in *Naini *jail until August 22, 1944. Thereafter, he was released unconditionally. The Jamiat Working Committee on 5th August 1942, adopted a resolution calling upon the British to *'Quit India'*. The signatory of the resolution were Mufti Kifayatullah, Maulana Ahmad Saeed, Maulana Hifzur Rahman and Maulana Abdul Haleem Siddiqui. It was after Jamiat that the Bombay Session of the Congress on August 9 passed the famous 'Quit India' resolution that led to the arrest and incarceration of the Congress and the Jamiat leaders.

*Freedom or Partition of great India*

The *Partition of India* was a partition that led to the creation on 14 August 1947 and 15 August 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and Union of India (later Republic of India) upon the granting of independence to British India from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In particular, it refers to the partition of the Bengal province of British India into the Pakistani state of East Bengal (later East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) and the Indian state of West Bengal, as well as the similar partition of the Punjab region of British India into the Punjab province of West Pakistan and the Indian state of Punjab. (Wikipedia web site)

Mr. A.G. Noorani rightly observes: The Partition of India ranks, beyond a doubt, as one of the 10 greatest tragedies in human history. It was not inevitable. India's independence was inevitable; but preservation of its unity was a prize that, in our plural society, required high statesmanship. That was in short supply. A mix of other reasons deprived us of that prize -personal hubris, miscalculation, and narrowness of outlook.

While Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League bear heavy responsibility -since they demanded and pressed for Pakistan - the Congress (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru) cannot escape blame. Least of all the hypocritical Sangh Parivar. Its chief mentor V.D. Savarkar formulated the two-nation theory in his essay Hindutva, published in 1923, 16 years before Jinnah came up with it. The Hindu Mahasabha leader Lala Lajpat Rai wrote in The Tribune of December 14, 1924: "Under my scheme the Muslims will have four Muslim States: (1) The Pathan Province or the North-West Frontier; (2) Western Punjab (3) Sindh and (4) Eastern Bengal. If there are compact Muslim communities in any other part of India, sufficiently large to form a province, they should be similarly constituted. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not a united India. It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Muslim India." This was 16 years before the League adopted the Pakistan Resolution in Lahore, on March 23, 1940 (Frontline: Dec. 22, 2001 - Jan. 04, 2002

Though Jamiat Ulama-e Hind resolutely opposed the idea of Pakistan, its leaders, especially Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni and Maulana Azad were victims of Muslim League violence but by the year 1945 the League gained tremendous political ground in the Muslim mass against Congress. *(Ulama-e-Haque vol.2)*. After the Jamait had publicly alienated itself from the Muslim League and sided with Congress, Jamait itself got divided and the section with Congress was severely harassed as Congress agents through out India.

The Britain, thus, legitimately found a ground to deal with All India Muslim League as Muslims representative body in support of Pakistan and on June 3, 1947 Lord Mountbatten announced the plan for partition of India. We were first partitioned on religion to India and Pakistan in the night between 14 and 15 August then freed and later on language in 1971 East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

Will some of us ponder over those facts while celebrating our freedom!

A Darul Uloom Deoband graduate and Editor '* Eastern Crescent'
*, M. Burhanuddin Qasmi is also a poet and Director of Mumbai based institute *'Markazul Ma'arif Education and Research Centre'

The Statesman - Foeticides, fake medics jolt govt

The Statesman
Foeticides, fake medics jolt govt

Statesman News Service
BHUBANESWAR, July 24: The twin issues of foeticides and spurious medicines continued to rock the state with the crime branch recovering human bones again today from the pit used by a private nursing home in Nayagarh. Reports of raids, sealing of unauthorised ultra sound clinics and unearthing of abandoned medicines poured in from the far-flung districts.
Police and medical officers ,who were rudely jolted by the illegality taking place right under their noses since long, claimed that they were on the alert and monitoring activities at all ultra sound clinics/private nursing homes as well as medicine shops. Raids were being carried out; some of them sealed, they said. Sample of medicines are sent for tests from medicine shops and godowns in different parts of the state.
Reports of such raids came in from Berhampur, Padmapur, Bargarh, Balasore, Rayagada and a few other districts. At Cuttack, a squad has been formed by the police to inspect and monitor such places.
Meanwhile, in the state capital, the Left parties took to the streets demanding a CBI probe into the feticide and fake medicine racket. They also demanded the resignation of the health minister. He has lost the moral right to hold the post, they charged.
Led by the All India Democratic Women Association leaders Tapasi Praharaj and Puspa Das, the Left students wings staged a dharna and later submitted a memorandum to the Governor. They urged upon the government to immediately form participatory and representative committees to ensure strict implementation of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and prevention of misuse) Act and institute a proper medical vigilance system.
Alleging that the Nayagarh incident was one of female feticide, they said it reflected the abysmal failure of the health and social welfare administration in the state.
The demographic profile of the state has already become a matter of concern as sex ratio per 1000 male is 938 in rural areas and 917 in urban areas, they noted. They pointed out that the PNDT Act mandated the district collectors to form committees for its implementation but nowhere in the state had this been effectively implemented.
Similarly, the fake medicine racket is thriving in the state largely due to failure of the health department to keep a tab and put in place a system of constant vigil, they alleged.

Kalam, a man for all reasons - Rajdeep Sardesai

rajdeep_180.jpg
It was meant to be a celebration of excellence in journalism. The Ramnath Goenka award ceremony was a gathering of the country's power elite: top politicians, captains of industry, cerebral editors, page three shakers and the humble pen and mike pushers. The editors and proprietors were debating the eternal dilemmas of journalism: the relationship between journalistic excellence and business success. That's when President APJ Abdul Kalam intervened and spoke of the urgent need for the media to nation-build. Nothing profound, but said with a simplicity of intent. Then, even before the editors could respond, the President came up and sat cross-legged on the edge of the stage as a stunned audience watched. The president of India was literally sitting at the feet of the country's media denizens.
The next morning as the photo was splashed in the newspapers, my ten year old daughter looked at me quizzically, "Why is the president kneeling in front of you" Isn't he the president of the country"" In her question was a mix of awe and wonderment. It was also a reminder of just how Kalam had changed the presidency, and just why he will be missed when his term ends next week.
In the course of the presidential election campaign, a senior left leader had dismissed President Kalam's popularity as an "SMS" phenomenon. Kalam, it was suggested, was an idol only for a section of the Indian middle class whose voting preferences were not expressed in the ballot box but in much-hyped television contests designed to pump up ratings and revenues. A presidential election, we were reminded, was fought in the electoral college of MPs and MLAs, not in air-conditioned television studios.
And yet, it is precisely because Kalam's stature has stretched beyond the constituency of the neta that he is an important milestone in Indian public life. I have little doubt that if Kalam had to fight a general election in the heat and dust of non-metropolitan "real' India, he would struggle. He would not fit in with the caste matrix, he would certainly not have the financial resources, and even his religion might actually work against him. But Kalam's very unelectability in some parts of the country make him eminently appealing to the rest of the country.
To be dismissive of Kalam's popularity as a limited urban middle class phenomenon is to lose out on the tectonic socio-political changes that are taking place in the country. This is no longer an India where the dusty tracts of Jhabua or the distant roads of Jhoomritalaiya are entirely disconnected from the world beyond . Today, the bright lights of a south Mumbai or a south Delhi have a glimmer that stretches beyond geographical confines. In this age of technology, millions of citizens share a unified dream, shaped by a desire for rapid upward mobility and the benefits of material growth. In this aspirational age, President Kalam is more than just another middle class hero: he symbolizes the hopes and ambitions of an emerging India, a new age guru for a new India.
In that sense, Kalam is very different to any previous middle class hero. Middle class icons in the past can be broadly fitted into two categories. The first are politicians who often as a result of either personal idealism (e.g Jawaharlal) or peculiar confluence of circumstances (e.g. VP Singh and Manmohan Singh) acquire a larger than life image. The other are those who strike out against the political class, and are seen to acquire an anti-establishment cult following among those who are convinced that the political class is venal ( e.g. TN Seshan).
Kalam, on the other hand, is more than just a representative of middle class India. He represents a more universal value system, one that many of us recognize is unattainable, but which nevertheless is enormously attractive. His remarkable personal integrity for example makes him a shining representative of a Gandhian-like lifestyle, which is seen to have been lost in the maddening hustle and bustle of an acquisitive society. We hate the white ambassador with the lal batti as a symbol of unaccountable power. Kalam, by virtually rejecting the trappings of power even within the opulence of Rashtrapati Bhavan, restores a sense of belief in a certain old world value system.
Nor is Kalam a khadi-clad hermit in an ashram, but rather uniquely someone who has the hairstyle of a rock star and the mind of a scientist, making him as attractive to new India as he is to the old. That he isn't simply some professional seminarist preaching rural development in a vacuum, but is a tech-savvy individual who has his own website makes him someone who can bridge the generational divide that is seen to burden a country still coming to terms with modernity.
Indeed, it's the very eccentricities of Kalam that have been his strength, imbuing the office of the presidency with a human touch that has been missing in the past. Dr Rajendra Prasad carried the legacy of a freedom fighter; Dr S Radhakrishnan and Zakir Hussain the weight of academia. Their successors were politicians who were extensions of the prevailing ruling arrangement. Right through this period, the presidency seemed like a colonial relic, replete with the pomp and splendour of the erstwhile Viceroys and governor generals. Then, the presidency was about the grandeur of a Mughal Garden. In Kalam's India, it became about the novelty and excitement of a herbal garden, of flying a Sukhoi, of being in submarine or sharing a meal with jawans in Siachen.
Kalam may have been an NDA appointee, but it is to his eternal credit that he is not seen as an NDA president today (ironically, the one false move he made was to allow the UPA government to enact the midnight murder of the constitution in Moscow while imposing presidents rule in Bihar). Equally importantly, while his being a member of a minority community might have helped elevate him to presidency, there is not a single occasion in the last six years when there has been even a whiff of religiosity associated with the Kalam persona. In that sense, he is a "living" example of Indian secularism, free of the cynical politics that has reduced minority achievement to effete tokenism.
Indeed, it is the manner in which Kalam has dramatically changed our perceptions of the presidency that make it incumbent on the political class not to lose out on the opportunity to build on his legacy. Unfortunately, the Pratibha Patil versus Bhairon Singh Shekhawat contest has done precisely the opposite. Two provincial politicians slugging it out for the post of the country's first citizen, the character of the contest has reminded us just how and why politics has become a backward sector of the economy.
In the end, Kalam's real charm perhaps lay in the fact that he seemed impatient with the conventions of high office. Undoubtedly, in his own race to Raisina, he may have played the power game. Some have even accused him of being a great pretender. But the fact is that once he was president, Kalam seemed to not give a hang about power and pelf. No adoring family hung about him, he wore the same shabby bandgala to every function, the superbly eccentric hairstyle remained constant , as did the bright-eyed urgent and detailed expositions about this or that highly important welfare scheme that had caught his attention.Which is why, as Pratibha Patil gets ready to take over as President, she has a hard act to follow. Will she sit cross legged on the ground, like her predecessor, and dive into a lively debate on journalistic ethics"
(This article first appeared in Hindustan Times)

We'll miss you, Dr Kalam by Fali Nariman

We'll miss you, Dr Kalam
Fali S. Nariman
Posted online: Monday, July 23, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST

We will miss him -- that unconventional figure who became India's First Citizen in July 2002. Never pompous, not even 'presidential' (in either deportment or demeanour), he walked into the Palace at Raisina Hill with few worldly goods -- he now leaves with even fewer: "I will go with only two small suitcases," he wistfully said last Thursday. We could have asked him to stay: but we didn't.
There were excuses (there always are). It was said that apart from Rajendra Prasad there had been no 'precedent' for a second term. But as any lawyer will tell you, if you have a good case in court there is no need for a 'precedent'; it is the good case that makes the precedent! But all this is in the realm of wishful thinking: as the poet says: "We look before and after and pine for what is not..."
The stark reality is that this lovable figure -- popular, sometimes even populist, but never ostentations -- now exits from Rashtrapati Bhavan in the same frame of mind as he entered it: with an overriding concern for the 'underdog'. Hear this: one year into office, on the morning of July 14, 2003, at 8.40 am, the RAX in the office of the secretary to the president rang. President Kalam was at the other end. "Mr Nair," he said in a voice that was (as always) cool and composed, "last night I could not sleep because my bedroom was leaking..." P.M. Nair froze and muttered something. "Any other president," he now recalls, "and my head would have rolled, although for no fault of mine."
At the other end of the line, the president (sensing Nair's embarrassment), continued reassuringly, "Don't worry Mr Nair, I know you will immediately set things right in my bedroom. What I am worried about are those houses on the President's Estate where they may not have a second bedroom to shift to when the only one that is available leaks." So Nair got moving, and with the help of the CPWD, the old staff quarters -- until then dilapidated and neglected -- were transformed into bright new leak-proof houses: in almost record time. Nair tells me that he was greatly impressed at the concern and compassion shown by the president -- not for himself but for other inmates on the Presidential Estate. It has been said that no man, however great, is a hero to his own secretary or his own valet. But as with all such sayings there are exceptions -- from that point on, Nair had found his hero!
Now another revelation -- so far kept under wraps at Rashtrapati Bhavan (under presidential orders): In May 2006, President Kalam's relatives from the south decided to descend on him (as relatives tend to often do). On instructions of the president they were welcomed by his staff at the railway station, and were looked after right up to the time they departed. But the Controller of Household was under strict instructions to keep a meticulous account of all the expenses incurred on behalf of the relatives -- all 53 of them. Not once was an office vehicle used for any of them.
It was made clear by the president that he would pay -- not only for the transport of all his relatives to and from Delhi, and also within Delhi, he would also pay for the various rooms occupied by them at Rashtrapati Bhavan and the food that was consumed by them -- the rooms at the prescribed rate, the food on the basis of expenses actually incurred.
When his relatives left after a week's stay, the president was of course sad to see them all go, but he was also lighter in his pocket: the total expenses debited to his personal account was Rs 3,54,924! As we practising lawyers often say in court "the facts speak for themselves": President Kalam has set a high benchmark of rectitude in public office -- worthy of emulation. And as a living embodiment
of 'Transparency-National', his parting words of advice were: "Don't accept gifts." Delicately put: what he meant to say of course was: "Don't accept gifts for favours in return."
Yes, we will all miss him. Me, too. Although I had publicly criticised him for putting his signature on the Bihar Dissolution Proclamation, and for not insisting on a personal meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi during his presidential trip to Myanmar, in retrospect, these were but aberrations -- small lapses -- in a hugely successful presidency.
Of him it can be said, as Winston Churchill once said about his departed king: "He nothing common did, or mean, upon that memorable scene." Memorable scenes are rarely re-enacted, but they are always remembered.
The writer is an eminent jurist

The Pioneer > Columnists - Don't prejudge Haneef - K P S Gill

The Pioneer > Columnists



Don't prejudge Haneef


The utter sensationalism, bias and hysteria that has attended most reportage and commentary on the arrest and detention of Haneef Ahmed in Australia is now being progressively exposed for its irrationality and error, as a few sane voices begin to put things in a perspective that has some connection to reality. Regrettably, the media frenzy has substantially been fed by - and, in turn, has fed - the responses of the Indian Government at the highest level, creating a cycle of disinformation that can only bring all parties to contempt.

I recall the deep frustration we felt when Western Governments stonewalled India on all cases relating to Khalistani terrorist activities, safe havens, mobilisation, funding and propaganda in foreign countries, during the period of terrorism in Punjab. Before they were jerked awake by 9/11 and subsequent Islamist attacks on Western targets, no amount of evidence was ever enough to convince these countries that a fugitive being demanded by India on extradition was actually a terrorist. Progressive disclosures relating to the Kanishka bombing conspiracy in Canada - which resulted in 329 deaths - have demonstrated the degree to which Western agencies were willing to ignore terrorist activities directed against India from their soil.

The boot is now on the other foot, and, in the Haneef case, we are behaving as unreasonably towards Australia as various Western powers did toward India. It needs to be clearly emphasised that there are no allegations that Haneef has been mistreated, tortured or otherwise discriminated against. He has been held in custody in connection with an extraordinarily serious crime - the failed terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow - on incontrovertible evidence, his SIM card, that ties him directly to the terrorists. No investigative agency will treat such a link lightly, and Australian authorities have indicated that there is other evidence that has not yet been disclosed (rightly, in view of the systematic leaks by defence lawyers and the process of trial by the Press that is currently ongoing).

In any event, the investigations into this case span three countries - the UK, India and Australia - and no enforcement authority will allow a suspect to go free until all the evidence has been assessed. This is inevitable where such close linkages to terrorists - if not to terrorist activity - are demonstrated, and even if Haneef is innocent, it remains the regrettable case that his troubles will not end until the investigations are concluded.

The Indian media has repeatedly paraded Haneef's family members, including his mother and his wife, and treated their testimonies as incontrovertible proof of his 'innocence'. While this crude theatre of the 'pornography of other people's suffering' may be good for TRP ratings, and may even inspire India's Prime Minister to comment, it has absolutely no evidentiary value.

In a long career in policing, including extended tenures dealing with insurgencies and terrorism, I have only rarely come across a family of a criminal or terrorist who is willing to admit the culpability of their son, brother, husband or other close relative, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Haneef's parents and wife in India cannot have any conclusive knowledge of his activities in the UK or in Australia - and his innocence or guilt would need to be demonstrated on altogether different grounds.

Concerns have also been expressed over the decision to hold Haneef in solitary confinement. Apart from the basis of this decision in Australian law, this is perhaps the most humane decision that could have been taken. Australian authorities have discreetly spoken of 'privacy', but the truth is, such a measure is best for Haneef's protection.

Few people in India are, perhaps, acquainted with the curious case Dhiren Barot aka Issa al Britani aka Abu Issa al Hindi, the Kenyan-born Britisher of Indian ethnicity, who converted to Islam and joined Al Qaeda in plotting to detonate a radioactive 'dirty bomb' and to commit other acts of mass terrorism in the UK. Barot was convicted on these charges in October 2006 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On July 16, 2007, Barot was attacked by other prisoners at the maximum security Frankland Prison in Durham, and was permanently disfigured after boiling water and, later, boiling oil, was thrown over him.

There is a well-established policy in Western detention centres that holds certain categories of detenues, including paedophiles and terrorists, both suspected and convicted, in isolated facilities or solitary confinement for their own safety.

None of these considerations have found much space in the frenetic reportage on the issue, which has been entirely prejudged. This has become a staple of successive media trials that have taken place on high profile cases in the recent past. In almost every case, a terrorist is never a terrorist - often even after he has been convicted, and his conviction upheld by a succession of courts, right up to the Supreme Court. On the other hand, we find that the police are always - with or without evidence - guilty of 'human rights violations' irrespective of the actual evidence, or of the procedural integrity of their actions.

All generalisations are subject to exception, but it is increasingly the case that most media organisations in India have become propagandists, resorting to outright falsehoods, 'sloganising' every issue, routinely abusing and demonising particular parties, while others are shielded or exempted from even the most cursory examination or censure.

Thomas Jefferson once remarked that the man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. The deep ignorance of history, fact, process and law that characterises news organisations today - and most prominently the electronic media - has trivialised and distorted the gravest and most momentous concerns of our age, and there appears to be an inverse relationship between the power and reach of the media in India and its adherence to any acceptable standards of reportage and conduct.

A deep arrogance is compounding profound ignorance to produce some of the most unfortunate commentaries on the Haneef case. We must not prejudge Haneef. This means, essentially, that, till investigation is complete and all the evidence is in, we must not conclude either that he is guilty or innocent.

The Australian investigative authorities are best positioned to assess the evidence currently at hand, and unless there is clear indication of abuse, torture, racism or procedural irregularities, we must invest our faith in their system, even as we hope that, when our turn comes, others will find it possible to trust our far more imperfect systems.

KalingaTimes.com : Orissa CM orders crime branch probe into female foeticide

KalingaTimes.com : Orissa CM orders crime branch probe into female foeticide

HindustanTimes-Print - Haneef: India’s hypocrisy by Barkha Dutt

HindustanTimes-Print


Barkha Dutt
Email Author
New Delhi, July 21, 2007
First Published: 00:09 IST(21/7/2007)
Last Updated: 00:23 IST(21/7/2007)

Haneef: India’s hypocrisy
Our schizophrenia as a people is astounding. Right now we are consumed with self-righteous indignation over how Mohammed Haneef, an Indian citizen and an initial suspect in the Glasgow bomb blast, is being treated by the Australians. In his humiliation, we see a sinister attack on our national pride. In the decision to scrap his visa, we see the premature death of our own emigration dreams. We want our government to be less effete in its intervention. We think this is about racism, not terrorism.

In itself, this is a worthy (if slightly selfish) and laudable emotion. By all accounts, the 27-year-old doctor from Bangalore is being victimised, hounded and tortured. A magistrate has already ruled that there is no evidence to link Haneef with the bombing conspiracies in either Glasgow or London. And yet, an innocent man continues to be held in solitary confinement with the ludicrous explanation that the solitude is actually designed to give him more ‘privacy’. Haneef has eloquently argued his own innocence, describing himself as a “Muslim with moderate views” who believes that “every drop of blood is human”. When Australian Prime Minister John Howard still goes on to declare grandly that he is “not uncomfortable” with the young doctor’s continued detention our outrage is spontaneous and entirely legitimate.

But, what if Haneef had been arrested in Bangalore instead of Brisbane? What if a suicide bomber had rammed his explosives-laden car into the airport at Srinagar, instead of Scotland? And what if our investigating agencies had then told us that Haneef was a dreaded terrorist because he had loaned his mobile sim card to one of the men involved in the attack? Would we have been as concerned then about whether an innocent man had been locked away? Would we have demanded transparency from our judicial process on the grounds that the evidence was sketchy? Or would we have simply ranted about how India is a soft State and Islam a factory for fundamentalists? We have branded the Australians as racist, but would we have called ourselves communal?

The overwhelming anger at Haneef’s arrest would be a lot more reassuring, were it not underlined by a distinct double standard.

Turn your mind back to the Parliament attack of 2001. It was indisputably an attack on the nerve centre of India, and the desire for visible justice was entirely understandable. But, in a case eerily similar to Haneef’s, didn’t our investigating agencies almost put an innocent man on death row? The special Pota court trying the case in its early stages convicted a Delhi-based college teacher along with the other accused and sentenced him to death. The entire case against Professor S.A.R. Geelani was based on the fact that he had some telephonic contact with the prime accused in the days before the attack. It was left to the Supreme Court to conclusively throw out the case against the professor and acquit him of all charges. But even today, intelligence officials and investigating officers insist that their case against him was foolproof and they had been let down by the courts. I don’t remember any public outrage defining the national response to the Professor Geelani case. If anything most people seemed willing to believe the police and were impatient and dismissive of the do-gooder human rights activists campaigning for his release.

More recently, Tariq Dar, a Kashmiri model who made it big in Bangladesh was locked away on charges of terrorism. Accused of playing a role in the Delhi blasts of 2005, he spent three months in custody. Finally, the police were forced to concede in court that they did not have enough evidence to build any case against him, and he was able to walk free. The judge who acquitted him was passionate in her ruling. “It’s astonishing,” she wrote that “without an iota of evidence against him, Dar was kept in custody for 90 days which could be a lifetime for any common citizen.” But do you remember anyone you know sharing her anger? Today will be the 19th day Haneef has spent in custody, and we find that appalling. Yet, we were distinctly unmoved, when someone closer home, spent much longer in prison. How can we possibly explain this hypocrisy?

According to the Herald Sun, an Australian citizen, Roy Somerville, who has never met Haneef emerged as an unlikely benefactor and offered to post the ten thousand dollars in bail because he believes in a ‘fair go’. The newspaper quotes the Brisbane resident as saying that if the police only charged Haneef for giving his cousins an old sim card, then it was “bullshit”. Can you imagine anyone in India bailing out a stranger implicated in a case of terrorism?

Of course, it is true that Australia has never known what it feels like to live in the shadow of militant violence and so its civil society may find it much easier to be benevolent compared to us. It is also true that the involvement of Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer from Bangalore in the Glasgow attack, has busted several myths we have about ourselves.

Readers of this column may remember that just a fortnight ago, I argued that political correctness on the left and religious bigotry on the right had strangulated honest conversation about the linkages between modern-day Islam and terrorism. There is an undeniable need to stop candy-flossing the impact of fundamentalism. India cannot pretend anymore that none of its citizens fancy membership to the Global Jehad club. We need to examine where our secularism has failed.

But equally, we still need to keep our democracy healthy. This means that as citizens of a progressive modern country we should be able to demand transparency from our investigating agencies. It also means that when people are locked away on flimsy charges, we owe it them and to ourselves to speak up, even if their politics and antecedents make us uncomfortable.

Seventy per cent of the men and women in India’s prisons are still awaiting trial — that’s a staggering 300,000 people. Some have already spent more time in jail just waiting for a court date than they would have had they been found guilty.

So, as we galvanise public opinion against the arrest of an innocent Indian in Australia, how about sparing some of that anger for the innocent Indians in India?

Barkha Dutt is Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=c8b2f97b-68f5-406c-889e-e13cc66d01e0
© Copyright 2007 Hindustan Times

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 1113 - Where the mind is without fear . . .Syed Badrul Ahsan

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 1113

Editorial


Ground Realities
Where the mind is without fear . . .
Syed Badrul Ahsan

Fear is a most depressing part of life. It lays people low. It turns them cautious, to the point of making them look and sound absurd. Sometimes, as in the case of the Awami League's general secretary Abdul Jalil, it causes in them much worry about death. Speaking of Jalil, a couple of days ago, when asked if he had grown fearful, he answered with a question of his own: "Who is not afraid?" He then added, "of death." He conveniently ignored the fact that the question about his being captive to fear had little to do with death and everything to do with his present hold, or the lack of it, on politics. That surely did not enhance his popular standing, for if any confirmation was needed about Jalil's sudden transformation from a brave, if somewhat naïve, political crusader to a supplicant for mercy, it was there in his brief response to that query on fear.

And yet fear has hardly ever been part of a politician's life. There are plenty of instances of courage that political leaders and workers have demonstrated in this country for future politicians to build on. Back in the 1960s, there was another general secretary of the Awami League whose moral authority and political principles, buttressed again by acute intelligence, made him impervious to fear. Tajuddin Ahmed belonged to a generation of politicians for whom fear was as unknown as was life in outer space. It was a generation that went to jail, and repeatedly too, in the furtherance of a national political goal, and had no regrets about taking a position on the issues of the day.

Consider, once again, the tremendous degree of courage that defined the political character of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He spent no fewer than thirteen years in prison, without so much as a whisper of regret about his participation in politics.

On the day the Agartala conspiracy case proceedings went under way, he proclaimed loudly in court, "Anyone who wants to live in Bangladesh will have to talk to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman." It was the moral fibre in the man that mattered, enough to sustain him in a Pakistani prison during the entirety of the Bangladesh liberation war. It was similar moral fibre that enabled Tajuddin Ahmed, Syed Nazrul Islam, M. Mansur Ali and A.H.M. Quamruzzaman to hold their heads high even as the bullets were sprayed into them in Dhaka central jail.

A frightened politician is a dead politician, or one in deep coma. Which is when you recall the immense bravery, for all his failings of character, in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Perhaps he would have lived if he had so much as petitioned General Ziaul Haq for mercy. In those final days of his tempestuous life, Bhutto conveyed to the world outside his prison cell the thought that politicians would lose their bearings, as indeed their hold on the future, if they caved in to fear. He went to the gallows; and the manner of it was enough to convince even his detractors that in the twilight of his life, Bhutto had turned his back on charlatanism, on drama and intrigue, and had actually lifted himself to a higher plane of being through embracing death rather than living but by the leave of the soldier who had once served under him.

And then there is the story of Saddam Hussein. No one will argue over the fact that he was a ruthless dictator, that a mere snap of his fingers sent hundreds to their doom. There was this other side to his character, though. While he could dispatch people to their graves with impunity, he could also hold out before the world an image of a secular, modern Iraq. With him gone, Iraq is now a carcass over which carrion fight and claw at one another. Saddam went to his death with courage undiminished. He showed no fear, expressed no regrets. He knew, as do the rest of us, that it was foreign occupation that was squeezing the life out of him. When, therefore, Iraq's leader fell to his death through a pulling of the lever on the gallows, it was the politician in him that triumphed. No politician plunges to his end in abject supplication. And politicians committed to a cause survive decades in jail, eventually to send their tormentors scattering all around. Read here the story of Nelson Mandela. No Verwoerd, no Botha and no De Klerk was ever able to intimidate him.

Fear was never part of the vocabulary that G.M. Syed employed in politics. Regarded as a traitor to the state by successive governments in Pakistan, Syed remained undaunted, and not once told his captors that he wished to say farewell to politics. Much the same was true of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whose undying devotion to the cause of Pashtunistan certainly did not endear him to the military regimes that governed Pakistan. Follower of and friend to Gandhi, Badshah Khan, as he was known, lived to a grand old age without having known fear. It was a trait he had already passed on to his son Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the tormented politician who did not let obstacles come in his way. If his National Awami Party had to be outlawed by the Bhutto government, he quickly found a way out of the jam. He simply reinvented the party as the Awami National Party.

In Pakistan, where the state has traditionally been symbolic of fear, brave men have often lighted the path to hope for ordinary mortals. Ghaus Bux Bijenzo and Abdus Samad Achakzai are names that continue to evoke reverence in their country, and outside it. In his ageing years, in India, Jayaprakash Narayan saw little reason not to rise in protest against Indira Gandhi and the political depredations of her son Sanjay. He went to jail in the way a Gandhian ought to have, with no fear and without complaint.

Fear in a politician may not affect the overall course of a nation's history. But it surely damages the politician to a rather irreparable degree. As part of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party hierarchy, Moudud Ahmed was a pivotal force in the Zia-Sattar regimes before being carted off to prison in the early days of General Hussein Muhammad Ershad. He re-emerged into sunlight and made his way straight to the new military ruler's door. Did he have to do that? Or were there other compulsions preying on his thoughts of the future?

In Pakistan, Mushahid Hussain, the influential journalist and confidante of Nawaz Sharif, was taken into custody soon after Pervez Musharraf stormed his way to power in October 1999. He returned to the limelight to tell Pakistanis, in so many words, that he had ditched Sharif and was now firmly in the camp of the country's newest dictator. If Mushahid had been led to his new position through fear, there was the memory of the man without fear, he who had never seen reason to genuflect before the men who wielded power. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, convicted in the Rawalpindi conspiracy case of 1951, did not bow before temporal political authority. His politics and his poetry came shorn of fear.

There are all the tales of fearlessness, some of them of epic proportions, you will come across in politics. The long suffering of Aung San Suu Kyi promises to lengthen even more, and yet she breaks not at all. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina demonstrates, through days and nights of admirably endless struggle, the reality that for men and women of commitment to a cause and belief in a goal, the mind is always without fear and the head is necessarily held high.

And that is all you need to know. That is the principle you ought to live for, and die defending.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.