Palash Speaks

Tragedy of the Ridiculous White House: The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Chertoff "by coincidence" had security advisor at mall during shooti
Posted by: "Lori R. Price" lrprice@snet.net lori_price_clg
Sun Dec 9, 2007 10:45 pm (PST)
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
10 Dec 2007
http://www.legitgov .org/
http://www.legitgov .org/index. html#breaking_ news
Chertoff "by coincidence" had security advisor at mall during shooting spree --Memorandum of Agreement Signing and Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano on Enhanced Driver's Licenses 06 Dec 2007 Question: Mr. Secretary, a question on a different subject relating to the Omaha shooting [Westroads Mall] yesterday. I was wondering if you and the department have any concerns about safety at shopping malls... Secretary Chertoff: This past fall, we held regional training seminars in 12 cities across the country to talk about things like IED and vehicle-borne IED prevention, and soft target awareness... We also have our protective security advisors who go and visit various facilities. We actually had one, by coincidence, at the mall in question at the time of the incident, discussing reaction to IEDs and what you can do to prevent or reduce your vulnerability to IEDs. We had, again, given over $45,000 to this particular mall as part of a Buffer Zone Protection Plan, which resulted in allowing them to build entrance bollards, portable barriers, and communication systems.
DHS Advisor was Present at Omaha Mall During Shooting 07 Dec 2007 An advisor from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was present at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb. during the attack by deranged 19-year-old gunman Robert Hawkins on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff revealed at a press conference yesterday. The mall had received $45,000 under a grant from the Buffer Zone Protection Plan to protect against vehicle-borne IEDs by deploying bollards at mall entrances, portable barriers and communications systems. Chertoff did not give the advisor's name.
Homeland Security Visited Omaha Mall Before Massacre By Kurt Nimmo 08 Dec 2007 "We learned today that shortly before the shooting a Homeland Security employee visited the Westroads Mall to talk with officials about the mall's security," reports Charles Gibson for ABC News. "Airports and sports arenas have tightened security considerably since 9/11, but malls have been reluctant to do so." [See: Gun Nut Kills Eight After Bush Speech --Shoppers flee mall in terror 06 Dec 2007 A crazed gunman shot eight people dead before killing himself in a crowded shopping mall last night - an hour after President [sic] Bush gave a speech nearby. Though police suspected the gunman was acting alone, a second man wearing camouflage was arrested. Last week a grenade was found hidden behind a plant stand at the same mall.]
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Tragedy of the Ridiculous White House: The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Posted by: "Romi Elnagar" luesapphire48@yahoo.com">bluesapphire48@yahoo.com bluesapphire48
Sun Dec 9, 2007 9:52 pm (PST)
http://www.counterp unch.org/ Tragedy of the Ridiculous White House The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
The one thing a president cannot afford to be is ridiculous. This week George Bush lurched into that fatal category and into the true twilight of his presidency, festooned with all the traditional discomfitures. Senior aides and close advisors parley with literary agents and find compelling reason to quit the White House and spend more time with their families. In public even the First Lady seems to edge away from her stricken mate.
The latest, fatal instrument of Bush

A critique of Amartya Sen
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Friends,
Please find my article on the views of Amartya Sen on land acquisition. I would like to hear from you.
Best regards,
Abhijit Guha.

Frontier Vol.40; No.19 November 25- December 1, 2007.
MORE ON AMARTYA SEN
HOW THE ARGUMENTIVE
INDIAN FAILED
Abhijit Guha
In his long interview (1682 words) published in The Telegraph (a Kolkata
based English daily) on 23 July, Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen
unequivocally supported the acquisition of fertile agricultural land for industries
in West Bengal1. It is quite shocking to find that nowhere in his interview the
Nobel laureate, who is known as a welfare economist, did utter a single sentence
on the need for resettlement and rehabilitation of the peasants who are
dispossessed from their only source of livelihood.2 Professor Sen, like the
bureaucrats and ruling party politicians, but unlike resettlement researchers,
confined himself only within the domain of monetary compensation, which is
awarded to the landlosers by following a 112-year-old colonial law-The Land
Acquisition Act, 1894. He also seemed to be totally oblivious about the various
categories of the peasantry, viz. landless agricultural workers, unrecorded
bargadars, artisans and small traders who though badly affected, are not paid any
compensation (according to the law) against land take-over for modern
technologically sophisticated and capital-intensive industries which do not have
the capacity to absorb even a small portion of the population engaged in labourintensive
agriculture. Undoubtedly, Sen's blatant support to the acquisition of
fertile land at the cost of the sufferings of thousands of poor peasants in a widely
circulated newspaper would not only strengthen the hands of the bureaucrats and
ruling party politicians who want to keep the colonial law intact, but it would also
spread confusion among the ordinary people who search for a balanced view on
this very important issue.
OMISSIONS
In reply to a question regarding his views on farmland acquisition, Sen went back
to the pre-colonial and colonial history of Bengal. He stated: 'It is also very
important to recognise that production of industrial goods was based on the
banks of the Hooghly and the Ganges, which are fertile areas anyway. So, to say
that "this is fertile agricultural land and you should not have industry here" not
only goes against the policy of the West Bengal Government but also against the
2000-year history of Bengal'. This sweeping statement is not only simplistic but it
also obscured the qualitative differences between pre-British and post-colonial
industries which grew on the banks of rivers. It is now a well known fact of
history that pre-colonial and indigenous industries of India were small scale
family and caste based enterprises which had an organic relationship with the
then agriculture and one should not forget the fact that India was one of the
world's most urbanised countries during the Mughal period. R G Hambly Gavin,
an historian estimated that in Akbar's Kingdom there were 3,200 big cities, and
towns whose hinterlands reached far out into the rural areas and many of these
cities developed along the rivers or major trade routes (Gavin 1982). The famous
French historian Fernand Braudel estimated that the total urban population in
India during 17th Century was about 20 million which was approximately the
total population of France in 17th century(Braudel 1984). But did all these mean
that agricultural land was rampantly grabbed and destroyed in the medieval
period in India for the sake of building industries and townships as it happened
during industrialisation in England? Braudel's observations are pertinent in this
context. According to him in 1600 AD, rural India was farming only a portion of
its best available land and the uncultivated land, where new villages were later
built, had then offered peasants extra space to support more grazing which in
turn meant more draught animals for ploughing, and more dairy products (Ibid).
The authoritative historian of Mughal India, Irfan Habib has found that with two
annual harvests, cereal yields in India were higher than those in Europe until the
19th century and the modest quantity subtracted from the harvest for the
peasant's own subsistence left a larger surplus available for marketing (Habib
1963) . So, markets, urban centres and industries in pre-colonial India were all
organically linked with agriculture which in turn was based on the prudent use of
land, water and forest (Agarwal and Narain 1997). This organic relationship was
broken and almost shattered during the colonial period when indigenous crafts
and cottage industries were destroyed for the interest of the large scale heavy
industries of England. Amartya Sen has spoken about the growth of Manchester
and Lancashire on fertile farmland. But where from cotton for the mills of these
industrial cities came? They came from the agricultural fields of the British
colonies where the peasants were forced to give up cultivation of food crops to
supply the raw materials for the industries in Great Britain. So the question is not
simply whether agricultural lands were acquired for industries or not, but for
whose interest and at the cost of whose sufferings? Professor Sen seems to have
forgotten the economic history of India!
The second observation that Amartya Sen made in his interview dealt with
compensation. Here again, one finds him totally silent on the anti-people,
undemocratic and extremely authoritative nature of the colonial Land
Acquisition Act. Regarding the payment of compensation at Singur for the small
car factory of the Tatas, he said : 'The government paid much higher price than
the value of the land in the free market. From that view it was fair.' This sentence
simply revealed Sen's ignorance about land acquisition in India in general and
Singur in particular. Because, the value of the privately owned land to be
acquired (whether it is in Singur or in any place of India) for a project is
calculated on the basis of the average sale data (usually 3 years) of the land in the
market prior to the date of notification for land acquisition. After the calculation
of the land value, a solatium of 30 percent and a requisition compensation of 12
percent is added on the land value. The provision for 30 percent solatium on land
value was made by an amendment in the colonial law in 1984 in the Lok Sabha.
Before that it was 15 percent. The point of paying 'higher' price for compensation
as Sen has claimed in favour of the Left Front Government [LFG] is therefore, out
of question.
In Singur, however the LFG had added an extra complexity by offering a bonus
of 10 percent in addition to solatium and requisition compensation for those
peasants (some of whom were absentee landowners) who gave consent to give
away their land for the industry. There is no scope in the law to offer this sort of
bonus. Court cases are now being filed on this point and other procedural flaws
which is plaguing the government regarding Singur land acquisition till today. An
economist, Abhirup Sarkar of the Indian Statistical Institute, in his paper
published in the Economic and Political Weekly has shown that the
compensation paid to the farmers of Singur for their multicrop land is much less
than the current agricultural return from the land if one takes into account the
savings bank interest and the prevailing rate of inflation(Sarkar 2007).3 The
basic lacunae in the calculation of land value through previous land sale data lie
with the fact that the colonial law ignores the future potential of a particular piece
of land whether in terms of providing food security and empowerment to a family
for successive generations or in terms of the escalation in the price of the land
after the building of industries, real estates and townships. The affected peasant,
therefore, is always a loser in this mighty game of industrialisation which
Amartya Sen viewed as a panacea for countries all over the world.
The third observation of Amartya Sen dealt with agriculture in Bengal. It is
better to quote him first before one disects his views : 'The prosperity of the
peasantry in the world always depends on the number of peasants going down. It
is not that historically agricultural production goes up so much that they become
hugely rich on that basis. Bengal has done very well in terms of agriculture
compared to other states. But that has not made Bengal immensely prosperous'.
One, who is slightly familiar with Sen's own contribution in the field of economics
and the history of land reforms under the initial years of the Left Front
Government would be simply astonished by this statement for two reasons.
Firstly, prosperity does not only mean a rise in agricultural production but it
also includes poverty reduction, which was achieved largely through land reforms
and decentralisation of power through panchayats in West Bengal, it may not be
out of place to quote from a recent book. "India : Development and Participation"
(2002) written by Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen : 'Changes were rapid after the
Left Front coalition came to office at the state level in 1977 ... This change in the
balance of power has made it possible to implement a number of far-reaching
social programmes that are often considered "politically infeasible" in many other
states. Two notable examples are land reform and the revitalization of democratic
institutions at the village-level. The Left Front's commitments and initiatives
appear to have achieved some important results. In particular, there has been a
comparatively rapid decline of rural poverty in West Bengal since 1977' (pp. 94-
95). It is a real irony that the idea of prosperity which Sen expressed in his
interview did not contain one of its vital indicator, viz. poverty reduction.
Secondly, Amartya Sen's own concept of 'entitlement failures' applies well to the
staggering number of displaced peasants who are involuntarily deprived of their
livelihood by large scale acquisition of agricultural land. But strangely, Sen does
not seem to be interested in applying his concept of 'entitlement failure' to those
group of dispossessed peasantry; instead, he opined in favour of their reduction
in number, as if all these peasants are absorbed in gainful employment in those
industries!
The fourth and final observation of Amartya Sen which he expressed in his
interview was on violence practised by both government and the opposition
parties. He said: 'It is now very important for both the government and the
opposition to avoid violence. There is never a case for violence'. Interestingly, just
on the next day, after his interview was published, The Telegraph carried a news
item entitled : 'Farm OK but no force : Trinamul'. In the news item the Trinamul
MLA Sougata Roy stated : 'The question is whether fertile land can be taken by
force. Our state can't afford to move away from highly productive land as that in
Singur. Mamata Banerjee had demanded that the land of unwilling owners be
returned. Sen bypassed this crucial issue.' Here again one finds Sen's treatment
of the issue of violence centered round land acquisition highly superficial. The
reason behind the contention is simple. Because, when the only source of
livelihood of a person is taken away by the state with the help of a very powerful
law against which she/he cannot even appeal to a court in a democratic country
to nullify government action, then it is already an act of coercion backed by
physical force. If one resists land acquisition, the state would apply physical force
to evict him. A scholar of Amartya Sen's stature should have opined towards
changing the colonial Land Acquisition Act which does not contain provisions for
rehabilitation and consultation with the statutory panchayats instead of invoking
the spirit of Indian non-violence.
IRONIES
Amartya Sen's long interview evokes two interesting ironies. In an article entitled
'Portents of Famine' published in The Statesman (27 January 2007) D
Bandopadhyay mentioned : 'Did not Amartya Sen point out that in the Great
Bengal famine of 1943 it was not the absence of stock of food but inability of the
households to access such food through their own income (entitlements) that 3 to
4 million men, women and children died mostly on the pavements of what was
then Calcutta City due to hunger and starvation?' Mr Bandopadhyay referenced
Amartya Sen to criticise the policy of rampant acquisition of fertile farmland by
the Left Front Government, which the former thought may lead to the 'same
situation as was witnessed during the Great Bengal Famine in 1943'. Professor
Amartya Sen would now definitely disagree with D Bandopadhyay!
The second irony of Sen's interview was revealed when the Bureau reporter of
the daily in which the interview was published talked to Mr Nirupam Sen, the
industry Minister of West Bengal. Amartya Sen told in the interview that the
government has committed a 'tactical mistake' by not exploring the possibility of
maximising the land price in Singur. The economist, (Prof Sen) despite saying
that the government paid higher rates of compensation, also suggested that the
value of the land would have been higher had the land been made free for
competition among industries. Interestingly, on this point the Trinamul leaders
agreed with Prof Sen but Mr Nirupam Sen disagreed with him. The industry
minister rejected the Nobel Laureate's proposal by saying that government
intervention (i.e. land acquisition by the colonial law) is necessary since
'thousands of small plot owners would not be able to negotiate and extract the
best price from big companies and their agents'.
So, land will be acquired by the colonial law, there will be no rehabilitation,
people will protest, violence will continue and, people are back to square one!
Amartya Sen's flashy interview has not been able to convince the minister of the
Left Front Government in following the principles of free market capitalist
economy in allowing the peasants to sell their land to the highest bidder. The
minister of the LFG preferred to stay with the colonial law to acquire land for the
capitalists.
References :
Agarwal Anil and Sunita Narain. 1997 (ed.) Dying Wisdom (Chapter 3), pp.269-311. Centre for
Science and Environment. New Delhi.
Bandopadhyay, D. 2007 The Statesman 'Portents of Famine'. 27 January 2007.
Braudel Fernand 1984. Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, The Perspective of the
World, Vol-111. Collins/Fontana Press, London.
Dreze Jean and Amartya Sen 2002 India : Development and Participation, Oxford University
Press, New Delhi.
Fischer, S. 2003.'Globalization and its Challenges'. The American Economic Review, Vol.
93,No.2, pp.1-30.
Gavin RG Hambly 1982. Towns and Cities in Mughal India, in Tapan Roychaudhuri and Irfan
Habib (ed). The Cambridge Economic History of India, C. 1200-1750, Vol.1.
Habib Irfan 1963. The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707, Asia Publishing House, New
Delhi.
Sarkar, A. 2007. 'Development and Displacement : Land Acquisition in West Bengal'. Economic
and Political Weekly, April 21, 2007, pp. 1435-1442.
Sen, A. K. 2006. Manab Unnayaner Pathe (Towards Human Development), pp. 1-36. Pratichi
(India) Trust and Institute of Development Studies Kolkata. Calcutta University, Alipore
Campus
The Telegraph. 23 July 2007.
The Telegraph. 24 July 2007.
Notes:
1. Just few months before The Telegraph interview Amartya Sen was in Kolkata to attend a
collaborative seminar of Pratichi(India) Trust and Institute of Development Studies Kolkata
(IDSK) and made an interesting comment on Singur land acquisition which was printed in a
booklet. Sen's statement literally translated being from Bengali reads: ... 'a lot of criticisms are
on regarding the land acquisition for the small car factory project of the Tatas at Singur in
Hooghly. But the middle and upper classes uprooted the adivasis from their agricultural land
in Santiniketan to build houses. I have not seen any protest against this incident.' (Sen 2006 :
p.12) Suffice it to say that this statement of Sen is factually incorrect since Mahasewata Devi
had been protesting against the take-over of adivasi land in Santiniketan since long. Secondly,
his statement is logically inconsistent because absence of protest against land acquisition in
one place should not prevent people to protest in another place. By this statement at IDSK Sen
simply tried to advance an weak argument against the political parties, affected farmers'
organization and other civil society groups who were protesting against the acquisition of
fertile land in Singur. On hindsight, Sen's IDSK comment however is consistent with his The
Telegraph interview.
2. Sen is however not alone to remain silent on resettlement and rehabilitation among the
celebrated economists while talking on development or globalization. Another celebrated
economist Stanely Fischer in his long paper 'Globalization and its Challenges' also did not
consider displacement of millions of people by development projects all over the world and the
need for their rehabilitation as one of the challenges of globalization(Fischer 2003).
3. It seems from Amartya Sen's statements which he made in the interview that he did
not seriously read the series of papers, letters and editorials published in EPW on the
issues of land acquisition, compensation and rehabilitation in Singur during 2006-
2007. When the reporter of The Telegraph asked him about the land acquisition in
Singur and Nandigram, Sen, after commenting elaborately on Singur said:
'Nandigram is a much more complex issue. There is a question whether that kind of
operation was needed, whether it was the right place. But I have not studied it in the
way 1 have studied Singur. So I won't comment'. Any layperson, would surely think
that the Nobel laureate has studied on Singur and since he is frank, he did not want to
comment on Nandigram.

A critique of Amartya Sen
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Friends,
Please find my article on the views of Amartya Sen on land acquisition. I would like to hear from you.
Best regards,
Abhijit Guha.

Frontier Vol.40; No.19 November 25- December 1, 2007.
MORE ON AMARTYA SEN
HOW THE ARGUMENTIVE
INDIAN FAILED
Abhijit Guha
In his long interview (1682 words) published in The Telegraph (a Kolkata
based English daily) on 23 July, Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen
unequivocally supported the acquisition of fertile agricultural land for industries
in West Bengal1. It is quite shocking to find that nowhere in his interview the
Nobel laureate, who is known as a welfare economist, did utter a single sentence
on the need for resettlement and rehabilitation of the peasants who are
dispossessed from their only source of livelihood.2 Professor Sen, like the
bureaucrats and ruling party politicians, but unlike resettlement researchers,
confined himself only within the domain of monetary compensation, which is
awarded to the landlosers by following a 112-year-old colonial law-The Land
Acquisition Act, 1894. He also seemed to be totally oblivious about the various
categories of the peasantry, viz. landless agricultural workers, unrecorded
bargadars, artisans and small traders who though badly affected, are not paid any
compensation (according to the law) against land take-over for modern
technologically sophisticated and capital-intensive industries which do not have
the capacity to absorb even a small portion of the population engaged in labourintensive
agriculture. Undoubtedly, Sen's blatant support to the acquisition of
fertile land at the cost of the sufferings of thousands of poor peasants in a widely
circulated newspaper would not only strengthen the hands of the bureaucrats and
ruling party politicians who want to keep the colonial law intact, but it would also
spread confusion among the ordinary people who search for a balanced view on
this very important issue.
OMISSIONS
In reply to a question regarding his views on farmland acquisition, Sen went back
to the pre-colonial and colonial history of Bengal. He stated: 'It is also very
important to recognise that production of industrial goods was based on the
banks of the Hooghly and the Ganges, which are fertile areas anyway. So, to say
that "this is fertile agricultural land and you should not have industry here" not
only goes against the policy of the West Bengal Government but also against the
2000-year history of Bengal'. This sweeping statement is not only simplistic but it
also obscured the qualitative differences between pre-British and post-colonial
industries which grew on the banks of rivers. It is now a well known fact of
history that pre-colonial and indigenous industries of India were small scale
family and caste based enterprises which had an organic relationship with the
then agriculture and one should not forget the fact that India was one of the
world's most urbanised countries during the Mughal period. R G Hambly Gavin,
an historian estimated that in Akbar's Kingdom there were 3,200 big cities, and
towns whose hinterlands reached far out into the rural areas and many of these
cities developed along the rivers or major trade routes (Gavin 1982). The famous
French historian Fernand Braudel estimated that the total urban population in
India during 17th Century was about 20 million which was approximately the
total population of France in 17th century(Braudel 1984). But did all these mean
that agricultural land was rampantly grabbed and destroyed in the medieval
period in India for the sake of building industries and townships as it happened
during industrialisation in England? Braudel's observations are pertinent in this
context. According to him in 1600 AD, rural India was farming only a portion of
its best available land and the uncultivated land, where new villages were later
built, had then offered peasants extra space to support more grazing which in
turn meant more draught animals for ploughing, and more dairy products (Ibid).
The authoritative historian of Mughal India, Irfan Habib has found that with two
annual harvests, cereal yields in India were higher than those in Europe until the
19th century and the modest quantity subtracted from the harvest for the
peasant's own subsistence left a larger surplus available for marketing (Habib
1963) . So, markets, urban centres and industries in pre-colonial India were all
organically linked with agriculture which in turn was based on the prudent use of
land, water and forest (Agarwal and Narain 1997). This organic relationship was
broken and almost shattered during the colonial period when indigenous crafts
and cottage industries were destroyed for the interest of the large scale heavy
industries of England. Amartya Sen has spoken about the growth of Manchester
and Lancashire on fertile farmland. But where from cotton for the mills of these
industrial cities came? They came from the agricultural fields of the British
colonies where the peasants were forced to give up cultivation of food crops to
supply the raw materials for the industries in Great Britain. So the question is not
simply whether agricultural lands were acquired for industries or not, but for
whose interest and at the cost of whose sufferings? Professor Sen seems to have
forgotten the economic history of India!
The second observation that Amartya Sen made in his interview dealt with
compensation. Here again, one finds him totally silent on the anti-people,
undemocratic and extremely authoritative nature of the colonial Land
Acquisition Act. Regarding the payment of compensation at Singur for the small
car factory of the Tatas, he said : 'The government paid much higher price than
the value of the land in the free market. From that view it was fair.' This sentence
simply revealed Sen's ignorance about land acquisition in India in general and
Singur in particular. Because, the value of the privately owned land to be
acquired (whether it is in Singur or in any place of India) for a project is
calculated on the basis of the average sale data (usually 3 years) of the land in the
market prior to the date of notification for land acquisition. After the calculation
of the land value, a solatium of 30 percent and a requisition compensation of 12
percent is added on the land value. The provision for 30 percent solatium on land
value was made by an amendment in the colonial law in 1984 in the Lok Sabha.
Before that it was 15 percent. The point of paying 'higher' price for compensation
as Sen has claimed in favour of the Left Front Government [LFG] is therefore, out
of question.
In Singur, however the LFG had added an extra complexity by offering a bonus
of 10 percent in addition to solatium and requisition compensation for those
peasants (some of whom were absentee landowners) who gave consent to give
away their land for the industry. There is no scope in the law to offer this sort of
bonus. Court cases are now being filed on this point and other procedural flaws
which is plaguing the government regarding Singur land acquisition till today. An
economist, Abhirup Sarkar of the Indian Statistical Institute, in his paper
published in the Economic and Political Weekly has shown that the
compensation paid to the farmers of Singur for their multicrop land is much less
than the current agricultural return from the land if one takes into account the
savings bank interest and the prevailing rate of inflation(Sarkar 2007).3 The
basic lacunae in the calculation of land value through previous land sale data lie
with the fact that the colonial law ignores the future potential of a particular piece
of land whether in terms of providing food security and empowerment to a family
for successive generations or in terms of the escalation in the price of the land
after the building of industries, real estates and townships. The affected peasant,
therefore, is always a loser in this mighty game of industrialisation which
Amartya Sen viewed as a panacea for countries all over the world.
The third observation of Amartya Sen dealt with agriculture in Bengal. It is
better to quote him first before one disects his views : 'The prosperity of the
peasantry in the world always depends on the number of peasants going down. It
is not that historically agricultural production goes up so much that they become
hugely rich on that basis. Bengal has done very well in terms of agriculture
compared to other states. But that has not made Bengal immensely prosperous'.
One, who is slightly familiar with Sen's own contribution in the field of economics
and the history of land reforms under the initial years of the Left Front
Government would be simply astonished by this statement for two reasons.
Firstly, prosperity does not only mean a rise in agricultural production but it
also includes poverty reduction, which was achieved largely through land reforms
and decentralisation of power through panchayats in West Bengal, it may not be
out of place to quote from a recent book. "India : Development and Participation"
(2002) written by Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen : 'Changes were rapid after the
Left Front coalition came to office at the state level in 1977 ... This change in the
balance of power has made it possible to implement a number of far-reaching
social programmes that are often considered "politically infeasible" in many other
states. Two notable examples are land reform and the revitalization of democratic
institutions at the village-level. The Left Front's commitments and initiatives
appear to have achieved some important results. In particular, there has been a
comparatively rapid decline of rural poverty in West Bengal since 1977' (pp. 94-
95). It is a real irony that the idea of prosperity which Sen expressed in his
interview did not contain one of its vital indicator, viz. poverty reduction.
Secondly, Amartya Sen's own concept of 'entitlement failures' applies well to the
staggering number of displaced peasants who are involuntarily deprived of their
livelihood by large scale acquisition of agricultural land. But strangely, Sen does
not seem to be interested in applying his concept of 'entitlement failure' to those
group of dispossessed peasantry; instead, he opined in favour of their reduction
in number, as if all these peasants are absorbed in gainful employment in those
industries!
The fourth and final observation of Amartya Sen which he expressed in his
interview was on violence practised by both government and the opposition
parties. He said: 'It is now very important for both the government and the
opposition to avoid violence. There is never a case for violence'. Interestingly, just
on the next day, after his interview was published, The Telegraph carried a news
item entitled : 'Farm OK but no force : Trinamul'. In the news item the Trinamul
MLA Sougata Roy stated : 'The question is whether fertile land can be taken by
force. Our state can't afford to move away from highly productive land as that in
Singur. Mamata Banerjee had demanded that the land of unwilling owners be
returned. Sen bypassed this crucial issue.' Here again one finds Sen's treatment
of the issue of violence centered round land acquisition highly superficial. The
reason behind the contention is simple. Because, when the only source of
livelihood of a person is taken away by the state with the help of a very powerful
law against which she/he cannot even appeal to a court in a democratic country
to nullify government action, then it is already an act of coercion backed by
physical force. If one resists land acquisition, the state would apply physical force
to evict him. A scholar of Amartya Sen's stature should have opined towards
changing the colonial Land Acquisition Act which does not contain provisions for
rehabilitation and consultation with the statutory panchayats instead of invoking
the spirit of Indian non-violence.
IRONIES
Amartya Sen's long interview evokes two interesting ironies. In an article entitled
'Portents of Famine' published in The Statesman (27 January 2007) D
Bandopadhyay mentioned : 'Did not Amartya Sen point out that in the Great
Bengal famine of 1943 it was not the absence of stock of food but inability of the
households to access such food through their own income (entitlements) that 3 to
4 million men, women and children died mostly on the pavements of what was
then Calcutta City due to hunger and starvation?' Mr Bandopadhyay referenced
Amartya Sen to criticise the policy of rampant acquisition of fertile farmland by
the Left Front Government, which the former thought may lead to the 'same
situation as was witnessed during the Great Bengal Famine in 1943'. Professor
Amartya Sen would now definitely disagree with D Bandopadhyay!
The second irony of Sen's interview was revealed when the Bureau reporter of
the daily in which the interview was published talked to Mr Nirupam Sen, the
industry Minister of West Bengal. Amartya Sen told in the interview that the
government has committed a 'tactical mistake' by not exploring the possibility of
maximising the land price in Singur. The economist, (Prof Sen) despite saying
that the government paid higher rates of compensation, also suggested that the
value of the land would have been higher had the land been made free for
competition among industries. Interestingly, on this point the Trinamul leaders
agreed with Prof Sen but Mr Nirupam Sen disagreed with him. The industry
minister rejected the Nobel Laureate's proposal by saying that government
intervention (i.e. land acquisition by the colonial law) is necessary since
'thousands of small plot owners would not be able to negotiate and extract the
best price from big companies and their agents'.
So, land will be acquired by the colonial law, there will be no rehabilitation,
people will protest, violence will continue and, people are back to square one!
Amartya Sen's flashy interview has not been able to convince the minister of the
Left Front Government in following the principles of free market capitalist
economy in allowing the peasants to sell their land to the highest bidder. The
minister of the LFG preferred to stay with the colonial law to acquire land for the
capitalists.
References :
Agarwal Anil and Sunita Narain. 1997 (ed.) Dying Wisdom (Chapter 3), pp.269-311. Centre for
Science and Environment. New Delhi.
Bandopadhyay, D. 2007 The Statesman 'Portents of Famine'. 27 January 2007.
Braudel Fernand 1984. Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, The Perspective of the
World, Vol-111. Collins/Fontana Press, London.
Dreze Jean and Amartya Sen 2002 India : Development and Participation, Oxford University
Press, New Delhi.
Fischer, S. 2003.'Globalization and its Challenges'. The American Economic Review, Vol.
93,No.2, pp.1-30.
Gavin RG Hambly 1982. Towns and Cities in Mughal India, in Tapan Roychaudhuri and Irfan
Habib (ed). The Cambridge Economic History of India, C. 1200-1750, Vol.1.
Habib Irfan 1963. The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707, Asia Publishing House, New
Delhi.
Sarkar, A. 2007. 'Development and Displacement : Land Acquisition in West Bengal'. Economic
and Political Weekly, April 21, 2007, pp. 1435-1442.
Sen, A. K. 2006. Manab Unnayaner Pathe (Towards Human Development), pp. 1-36. Pratichi
(India) Trust and Institute of Development Studies Kolkata. Calcutta University, Alipore
Campus
The Telegraph. 23 July 2007.
The Telegraph. 24 July 2007.
Notes:
1. Just few months before The Telegraph interview Amartya Sen was in Kolkata to attend a
collaborative seminar of Pratichi(India) Trust and Institute of Development Studies Kolkata
(IDSK) and made an interesting comment on Singur land acquisition which was printed in a
booklet. Sen's statement literally translated being from Bengali reads: ... 'a lot of criticisms are
on regarding the land acquisition for the small car factory project of the Tatas at Singur in
Hooghly. But the middle and upper classes uprooted the adivasis from their agricultural land
in Santiniketan to build houses. I have not seen any protest against this incident.' (Sen 2006 :
p.12) Suffice it to say that this statement of Sen is factually incorrect since Mahasewata Devi
had been protesting against the take-over of adivasi land in Santiniketan since long. Secondly,
his statement is logically inconsistent because absence of protest against land acquisition in
one place should not prevent people to protest in another place. By this statement at IDSK Sen
simply tried to advance an weak argument against the political parties, affected farmers'
organization and other civil society groups who were protesting against the acquisition of
fertile land in Singur. On hindsight, Sen's IDSK comment however is consistent with his The
Telegraph interview.
2. Sen is however not alone to remain silent on resettlement and rehabilitation among the
celebrated economists while talking on development or globalization. Another celebrated
economist Stanely Fischer in his long paper 'Globalization and its Challenges' also did not
consider displacement of millions of people by development projects all over the world and the
need for their rehabilitation as one of the challenges of globalization(Fischer 2003).
3. It seems from Amartya Sen's statements which he made in the interview that he did
not seriously read the series of papers, letters and editorials published in EPW on the
issues of land acquisition, compensation and rehabilitation in Singur during 2006-
2007. When the reporter of The Telegraph asked him about the land acquisition in
Singur and Nandigram, Sen, after commenting elaborately on Singur said:
'Nandigram is a much more complex issue. There is a question whether that kind of
operation was needed, whether it was the right place. But I have not studied it in the
way 1 have studied Singur. So I won't comment'. Any layperson, would surely think
that the Nobel laureate has studied on Singur and since he is frank, he did not want to
comment on Nandigram.

Serious violations of human rights in Malaysia
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com

To
The Chairman
Human Rights Commission
Malaysia
Dear sir
Subject: Serious violations of Human rights of Indian origin Citizens in Malaysia
The Forum which is a prominent non political religion neutral civil rights action group based in India with international membership, has been watching the events taking place in your country since last 2 years.
We have also analysed the reports in non Indian and independent media.
We come to the conclusion that apparently there is serious violations and bias against citizens of Malaysia having Indian origin and with particular religion-Hinduism.
Is it only a matter of chance that only temples came in way of development of Malaysian towns? If that is so, it is one hell of chance and coincidence and not at all believable.
Secondly, there is huge and continuing discrimination and ill treatment based on religion.
This is very serious matter. Malaysian Politicians and clergymen are treading into dangerous area of ethnic and communal repression and revolt.
Are we trying to develop another point of perennial conflict on world map not learning from events in other countries like Iraq, Srilanka and several others.
We have in high esteem Malaysia as a fast developing and open country with modern outfit and outlook.
This ethnic discrimination must end immediately and all ethnic groups should be given equal and level playing field in society and governance. Since Hindus are very small minority they should be given representation in Malaysia government structure and political seats in Parliament to inspire confidence.
The reaction of large number of Hindu citizens as emerging in India is now disturbing.
The patience of people should not be taken as neglect of problem going on in Malaysia of continuous neglect and harassment on ethnic grounds.
WE should not forget that India has more population of Muslims and we have perfect harmony between Hindus, Muslims, sikhs and Christians and we don't only talk ,but walk the talk.
If strife in Malaysia continues for more time and Hindu origin people's confidence is not restored, we shall be forced to come to an adverse conclusions about Malaysia and its governance.
The Muslims in India may also loose respect for them by Hindu majority.
There is too much at stake and hence we request you to kindly strongly take up the matter with PM of Malaysia and Government to restore all temples razed down preferably at same place at government expenses and also declare concrete policies and actions that inspire confidence in world community that all ethnic groups in Malaysia are treated equally and Hindus feel secure, safe and equal in national participation and development on merits. The charges of bureaucrats in Malaysia that Hindu origin people are Lazy and Incompetent is ludicrous and out rightly rejected.
They(migrants) are the people who were taken to Malaysia for hard work by British colonisers and have done well to help building modern Malaysia.

I hope you will take it very strongly and seriously and we shall have every cause to feel satisfied in coming few months. Please put stop to a potential conflict zone emerging and its backlash in increasing suspicion about Muslim community behaviour, globally.
It would be in interest of global peace and self interest of Malaysia as a country that we always wish the best for. Malaysia is known for tourism and it may take severe beating in coming times.
We hope your organisation shall act promptly and effectively in interest of humanity and human rights being your main objectiveas a Commission.
Thanking you

Prof R K Gupta
Hony. President
Forum for Enforcement of Civil Liberties-India
(india FORCE)
www.indiaforce.org

Malaysia 'appreciates' Indian stand on Hindraf
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says he appreciates the Indian government's decision to shun a visiting leader of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf).
"I appreciate it," Badawi was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper Monday.

"We have a good, firm relationship with India, a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding," he said.
"Any issue that crops up should be solved within the country itself, based on its own laws," he said.
None in the Indian government met Hindraf leader P. Waytha Moorthy last week. Moorthy, who blamed the Indian bureaucracy, however met leaders of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including L.K. Advani.
Moorthy claimed that the BJP had agreed to lobby with the government to take a supportive view of the group that claims to speak for the two million plus Tamils in Malaysia.
He also met Tamil leaders in Chennai, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
The Malaysian government had reacted strongly to initial comments by Karunanidhi as well as concern by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and accused India of trying to meddle in Malaysia's internal affairs.
On being told by Kuala Lumpur of Hindraf's suspected terror links, Mukherjee subsequently said: "A terrorist is a terrorist... he has no religion, no nationality."
However, Hindraf has denied having links with any terrorist organisation.
The group's legal adviser P. Uthayakumar Sunday said the claims were a ploy to prevent Hindraf from seeking help from foreign governments and NGOs.
"It is the government's plot to stop us from getting foreign help. There is no truth in it. These are lies to prevent us from getting foreign attention," The New Straits Times quoted Uthayakumar as saying.
Hindraf courted controversy after a rally it staged on Nov 25 to voice the grievances of people of Tamil origin in Malaysia. The rally was declared illegal and forcibly dispersed. Thirty-one people associated with the rally have been denied bail and are being persecuted on charges ranging from disturbing peace to attacking a policeman on duty with intent to murder.
Hindraf leaders are being described by the media here as extremists, and the government is probing their suspected links with terror groups, particularly the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been banned by the UN, US, Britain, India and others.
Source: IANS

Allied forces re-take Taliban town
Kabul: Afghan and international forces have retaken a southern Afghan town held by Taliban militants since February, the Defense Ministry said Monday. A Taliban spokesman said the militants fled to avoid civilian and Taliban casualties.
Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Afghan, British and U.S. forces had ''completely captured'' Musa Qala, a town in the opium growing belt of Helmand province. He said fighting is continuing around the town.
Afghan and international troops have stepped up operations around Musa Qala since early November, and fighting in the area has intensified in the last several days, as Allied forces advanced on the town.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said militant fighters left Musa Qala as a strategic decision to avoid Taliban and civilian casualties.
''Because of the massive bombings this morning, the Taliban didn't want to cause more casualties. So this afternoon all the Taliban left Musa Qala,'' Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone.
A resident of Musa Qala, Haji Mohammad Rauf, said he saw Taliban fighters leave the town in trucks and motorbikes around noon. Two hours later, hundreds of Afghan soldiers streamed into town and established security checkpoints, he said.
''I was standing on my roof and saw hundreds of Afghan soldiers drive into town,'' Rauf said. ''All the shops are closed and families are staying inside their homes.''
A British military spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Eaton, said he couldn't confirm that the Taliban had left the town's center, but said he wouldn't be surprised.
''This is what happens. We have had a number of operations in the past where once the Taliban realize they are overmatched they leave,'' Eaton said. ''I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case here. Ultimately our aim is to take Musa Qala and if we take Musa Qala without a big fight, that's fantastic.''
Taliban militants overran Musa Qala in February, four months after British troops left the town, following a contentious peace agreement that gave security responsibilities to Afghan elders.
U.S.-led coalition troops carried out air strikes Sunday against compounds used by Taliban weapon smugglers in Musa Qala, the coalition said Monday. Several militants were killed and two civilians were wounded, it said.
Following the air strike, the joint Afghan and coalition forces came under attack as they searched compounds in the area.
''Using a combination of accurate, conventional munitions and small arms, the combined force returned fire, killing the militants,'' it said. Ten suspects were detained.
Musa Qala is in the north of Helmand province, the world's largest opium poppy growing region, and the front line of Afghanistan's bloodiest fighting this year.
Elsewhere, an Afghan army helicopter crashed in central Afghanistan on Monday because of bad weather, killing four people, the Defense Ministry said. The Mi-17 helicopter went down in Salar district of Wardak province, where the weather was foggy.
Two helicopters were traveling from Kabul toward western Afghanistan when one of them crashed, said Wardak provincial police chief Zafaruddin, who goes by only one name. Authorities recovered three bodies from the burning wreckage, he said.
In neighboring Sangin district, Afghan police clashed Monday with a group of Taliban militants, leaving 15 militants dead and 11 others wounded, said district police chief Mohammad Ali.
Authorities recovered some of the dead militants' bodies, Ali said. There were no casualties among Afghan troops, he said.

Pak detainee alleges CIA tortured him
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Sharif rules out alliance with Bhutto, defends U-turn on polls
Times of India - 4 hours ago
ISLAMABAD: Defending his U-turn on participating in the upcoming polls, Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday said a "partial boycott" would have been "disastrous" for the opposition even as he ruled out any electoral alliance with his ...
Poll campaign begins in Pakistan NDTV.com
Pro-Musharraf party puts brave face on poll fight Reuters

As a row over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture tapes destroyed by it heats up, a Pakistani detainee has claimed that he was subjected to "state-sanctioned torture".
Majid Khan, who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, claimed through his lawyers that he was subjected to an aggressive CIA detention and interrogation programme that he said was notable for "elaborate planning and ruthless ... torture", the Dawn newspaper reported on Monday.
Khan and other high-value detainees are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantanamo prison in Cuba he called Camp 7.
The New York Times said on Sunday that they included 14 men, some suspected of being former Al Qaeda officials, who President Bush acknowledged were held under a secret CIA programme.
Asked about Khan's assertions, Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, said: "The US does not conduct or condone torture."
CIA Director Mike Hayden revealed on Friday that in 2005, it destroyed video tapes of officers subjecting two Al Qaeda suspects to harsh interrogation techniques.
Responding to a request for a criminal probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA and the US Justice Department said they would conduct a joint investigation into the destruction. The White House has promised assistance.

"Thomas Parackal" writes:
The trouble with Pakistan (in fact, with all Islamic states including pseudo-democracies like Malaysia) is that the 'default ruling class' is not democratic and so are the common men (I use men deliberately - women's voice doesn't count, but they too are far from democratic). Even in Turkey, which has close to a century of forced democratization and secularization, it is just a matter of time before Sharia reasserts itself.
There is little chance of democracy taking root in Islamic countries, unless a complete change of political and social philosophy is effected.
Tom
On Dec 10, 2007 12:55 PM, ymalaiya < ymalaiya@yahoo. com> wrote:

As I see it, things are moving in the direction of democracy in Pakistan. However there is considerable skepticism, which is perhaps a good sign.
Here are some views:
Is this the road to democracy?

Global unrest: Senegal, Assam, Balochistan, Egypt
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Delhi bound Brahmaputra Mail derails, 1 killed
At least one passenger of Delhi bound down Brahmaputra Mail was killed and 150 more were injured when the train derailed near Jalpaiguri in West Bengal late on Sunday evening. At least eight bogies of the train derailed and a few of them were flung almost 20 meters away from the track between Rangapani and Nilbari stations 15 km from Jalpaiguri junction. Though the cause of the derailment could not be ascertained immediately, the railway authorities have already ordered an inquiry into the accident.
The accident occurred around 11 p.m. and as the news of the accident reached Jalpaiguri railway authorities rushed rescue vans to rush the injured to hospitals. The bogies that derailed included three air-conditioned coaches, which turned turtle. Some of the coaches were so badly damaged that they mangled into twisted mounds of steel affecting rescue operation. Darkness of the night and winter chill in north Bengal too seriously affected rescue work. Locals joined the railway authorities in extricating the dead and injured from the derailed bogies.
Brahmaputra Mail made headlines on August 1, 1999, when at least 400 passengers (mainly military personnel) died after the train hit the stationary Awadh-Assam Express head-on at Gaisal, around 100 km from Siliguri.
Priests seek ban on country brew
Ranchi: Tribal community priests in parts of Jharkhand have launched a unique campaign against 'handia', a traditional home-made rice wine, by announcing that they will not attend ceremonies where the liquor and meat are offered as 'prasad'.
In west Singhbhum district, tribal priests have decided not to attend marriages and other functions where 'handia' is served, and have demanded a complete ban on the sale of the liquor.
"Handia is part of our culture, but it has had a bad impact on the people of our community. Tribals waste their hard-earned money on the liquor," said Ganpati Sohrai, a tribal priest of west Singhbhum district.
"We have announced this boycott to send a message to our people that they should stop using this liquor," he added.
Echoing the view, Gandura Munda of Dumka district said: "In the past, many tribals lost their lands to moneylenders. Even today, many of them are in a pitiable condition because of their addiction to 'handia'. They feel content after having it and this makes them lazy, preventing them from achieving anything in life."
"So we thought of launching the campaign,” he added.
Among Jharkhand’s tribal societies, 'handia' forms an integral part of daily life and the priests' move has invited sharp criticism from some members of the community.
"’Handia' is offered to our gods. How can we leave our tradition? The priests have gone mad," said Karma Oraon, a tribal man.
Another tribal, Neelkath Soren said, "We are against the priests' announcement. We admit that our men are victims of 'handia'. But we cannot afford to end its use in our prayer and daily functions."
Source: IANS

* SENEGAL: Attack on street traders sparks mass unrest
* INDIA: Unrest by adivasis in Assam
* BALOCHISTAN: Killing sparks strike, blockades
* EGYPT: Victory for textile workers' strike

Concessions fail to end riots over ban on Dakar's street hawkers
Agencies in Dakar
Friday November 23, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian .co.uk/internati onal/story/ 0,,2215700, 00.html
Senegal's worst riots for almost two decades persisted into a second
day yesterday, despite government efforts to defuse a crisis
triggered by a decision to ban hawkers from the streets of the
capital, Dakar.
Market stalls remained shuttered while police fired tear gas at
stone-throwing protesters, witnesses said. The unrest was
nonetheless less destructive than the violence which convulsed the
city the previous day after President Abdoulaye Wade's government
ordered police to evict thousands of street vendors whose stalls
line the city centre's pot-holed streets.
"Enough's enough," said the red-banner headline of Le Populaire
newspaper. "Dakar joins the evicted street vendors to show their
discontent with the government."
The disenchantment began to spread last week when the security
forces began clearing the capital's intersections of beggars and
hawkers under a presidential decree aimed at bringing some order to
the city's clogged streets.
On Wednesday groups of men protesting at the ban faced off against
riot police, throwing stones at the officers. The police replied
with tear gas and arrested dozens. Police were also seen beating
some men with batons as they quelled the protest and shut down a
union march that the government had prohibited because of the
unrest. Two buildings burned, along with cars caught in the melee.
The unrest was extremely rare for a west African city often held up
as an example of peace and stability in the region. It was
aggravated by wider discontent over unemployment, rising prices of
rice and bread, and a perception that the government is building
luxury hotels and roads while ignoring the poor.
The government has indicated that it will soften the presidential
decree. The prime minister, Hadjibou Soumare, who met
representatives of the traders late on Wednesday, agreed to keep
certain central streets open to vendors at the weekend, and to set
aside a special area for them during the rest of the week, said
Maimouna Sourang Ndir, the minister of life quality and leisure.
Local aid groups estimate that there are between 50,000 and 100,000
unlicensed vendors and beggars in the capital. Young men sell
everything from ironing boards to electronics in the streets.
Dakar's legions of jobless young are also losing patience. "Wade
pledged to help the youth if he got a second mandate," one of them,
Ibrahim Mbemgue, 28, told Reuters. "He betrayed the people."
Behind the Adivasi unrest in Assam
M.S. Prabhakara
http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 12/03/stories/ 2007120354911100 .htm
The continuing violence in Assam over the last few days, in
particular the wanton vandalism and the crude and vigilantist
retaliation that took place in and around Dispur in Guwahati on
November 24, has rightly attracted wide and critical notice.
However, any exclusive concern with the violent events of that
Saturday, in particular the voyeuristic focus by the visual media on
the shameful attack on the person and personal dignity of a young
woman by the mob that has been unreservedly condemned by the people
of the State, may obscure the real issues: the demand of the
Adivasis for classification as a Scheduled Tribe, and the complex
factors that inform the resistance to that and similar demands.
The Adivasi, a nomenclature now adopted by the approximately 20
million strong Tea Garden Labour and ex-Tea Garden Labour community,
is not the only community in Assam seeking classification as a
Scheduled Tribe. Five other communities (the Tai-Ahom, the Moran,
the Motok, the Chutia and the Koch-Rajbongshi) , all presently
classified as Other Backward Classes (OBC), have also for long been
pressing for recognition as Scheduled Tribes. The first four live
predominantly in the districts of Upper Assam while the Koch-
Rajbongshi live predominantly in western Assam, sharing broadly the
same physical (and political) space as the Bodos, the most numerous
of the tribal communities of the State. The Adivasis are, for the
most part, settled in the vicinity of the tea gardens.
Contrary to the general impression, the clashes do not bespeak any
deeply ingrained hostility between `tribal people and non-tribal
people,' or between the tribal people and caste Hindus, in Assam — a
convenient distinction between supposedly irreconcilable categories
made in much of the analysis of the so-called ethnic clashes in
Assam and the north-eastern region. The Adivasis, though aspiring
for recognition as a tribal community and indeed historically
belonging to authentic tribal stock, are at present not recognised
as a tribal community. It is only in popular usage that they are
referred to as Tea Garden Tribes and ex-Tea Garden Tribes. Strictly
speaking, their fight is not so much for their recognition as a
tribal community as for the restoration of that tribal identity to
which they believe they are entitled, being the descendants of
various tribal communities of Central India who, over a century-and-
a-half ago, went or were indentured to work in the gardens of
eastern India. What they are fighting for is therefore the
restoration of their legitimate cultural patrimony.
Why and how did the descendants of the tribal people whose ancestors
were brought to Assam from other parts of India cease to be tribal
people in their present environment? The answer lies in the peculiar
rules that determine such recognition, according to which a person's
tribal identity is irrevocably and forever linked to her or his
place of origin — in the present instance, the persons' ancestral
origins. For instance, the progeny of a Munda, a recognised tribal
community in Jharkhand and other contiguous States, one of the 96
communities listed under the category, Tea Garden Labourers, Tea
Garden Tribes, Ex-Tea Garden Labourers and Ex-Tea Garden Tribes in
the official `Central List of Backward Classes, Assam,' who was
taken to Assam to work in the tea gardens over a century-and- a-half
ago has lost his tribal identity, though were such a person to
return to his (now notional) ancestral place, he would regain his
tribal identity.
Such absurd rules and requirements do not however obtain in other
cases of migration. A non-tribal person moving, say, from Karnataka
to Assam continues to retain all the socio-cultural coordinates of
his or her identity.
Indeed such absurd anomalies govern even the movement of tribal
communities within Assam, and in the States that were carved out of
colonial Assam after independence. For instance, the 23 recognised
tribal communities in Assam are broadly identified under two
categories: the Hill Tribes, that is, the 14 communities recognised
as `tribal' in the `hill areas,' now comprising the two Autonomous
Districts of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills; and the Plains
Tribes, that is, the 9 communities recognised as `tribal' in rest of
Assam, supposedly all `Plain'. Neither of the locational
identifications is accurate, indeed cannot be accurate, given the
facts of geography but that is the least of the problems.
More materially, neither of these two categories carries its tribal
identity when it moves out of its `designated areas.' Thus, Census
figures for Guwahati city, very much in the Plains of Assam, which
has people from every part of the country and also from foreign
parts, do not enumerate a single person belonging to any of the
14 `Hill Tribe' categories. Indeed, every Plains district enumerates
zero population of Hill Tribes.
Similarly, the Census figures for the two Hill districts do not
enumerate a single person from any of the nine designated `Plains
Tribe' categories. The reality is different; however such personas
living outside their allotted spaces are for official purposes
simply made `un-persons' .
While the Adivasis' case for the restoration of their primordial
tribal status seems strongest, the issues and demands underlying the
struggle of the five other communities seeking recognition as
Scheduled Tribes are equally complex. The Koch-Rajbongshi, also
known as Sarania Kachari, historically part of the Bodo Kachari
stock, lost their tribal identity over a long period going back to
the days before the colonial conquest of Assam through a complex
process of conversion and acculturation into the Vaishnavite variety
of Assamese Hinduism. Such advantages as the conversion may have
brought have lost their relevance in post-independence India where,
increasingly, the tribal identity is getting to be perversely
privileged by non-tribal communities. Corresponding urges and
expectations no doubt drive the demands of the other communities
seeking to be classified as Scheduled Tribes.
The State government says it is not opposed to conceding the demands
but has pleaded its inability in view of the existing rules. There
are indications that these rigidities may be relaxed, at least in
respect of the Adivasi demand. However, if the Adivasi demand is
conceded, the demands of other communities too will have to be
eventually conceded. The issue also has national implications, in
the context of the contradictions highlighted in the presently
dormant Gujjar agitation for classification as ST.
The more immediate opposition in Assam to the extension of ST
recognition to the six communities is however likely to come from
the presently recognised Scheduled Tribes. The estimated 20 lakh
Adivasis constitute about 60 per cent of the total ST population of
the State which, according to the 2001 Census, was 3,308,570.
The addition of such a large population to the present ST pool will
undoubtedly affect existing allocations in areas such as reservation
of seats in legislative structures, higher education and jobs. Put
simply, such identity struggles carry a cost, and a price.
(For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Manufacturing
Identities? Frontline, 7 October 2005; In the Name of Tribal
Identities, Frontline, 2 December 2005; and Separatist Strains,
Frontline, 1 June 2007.)

Balach Marri's killing : Balochistan shuts down
http://www.dailytim es.com.pk/ default.asp? page=2007\11\23\story_ 23-11-
2007_pg1_5
QUETTA: More than a hundred protesters were arrested across
Balochistan on Thursday as the province observed a complete shutter-
down strike against the killing of Nawabzada Balach Marri, a Baloch
nationalist leader.
Police rounded up around fifty protesters in Quetta, most of whom
had come from Sariab, where Balochis are in a majority. Fifteen
protesters were arrested in Gwadar, where the Balochistan National
Party, National Party and the Baloch Students Organisation had
called for a complete strike. Ten leaders of the National Party were
detained in Panjgur district where police used tear gas and baton-
charged the protesters. Dozens of protesters were arrested from
other provincial districts including Khuzdar, Dalbandin, Turbat,
Sibi, Panjgur, Mustung, Noshaki. Life came to a stand still in these
districts while protests were largely peaceful.
"A state of red alert has been declared in Quetta with 4,000 police
personnel and the Frontier Corps (FC) deployed at different
locations. Around 70 mobile teams will continue to patrol Quetta,"
the city's police chief Mohammad Akbar said.
In Quetta, a complete shutter down strike was observed in the Baloch-
populated areas where protesters burnt two government vehicles and
pelted stones at official buildings. Shops, banks and business
centres remained closed. The city government had announced the
closure of all educational institutes on Thursday.
However, life continued as usual in the rest of the city. Supporters
of Balach Marri also blocked many roads, including the RCD and
Mekran Highways for many hours. Meanwhile, three bomb blasts took
place in Hub, Balochistan' s industrial town, and Sibi, suspending
power supply to many parts of Hub township and damaging the local
post office. staff report
'The struggle is one'
The Mehala Al-Kubra textile workers are providing a model for
protest, and not just in the public, industrial sector, writes Faiza
Rady
http://weekly. ahram.org. eg/2007/870/ eg5.htm
In Mehala Al-Kubra, a sprawling industrial town in the Nile Delta
north of Cairo, the tension is still palpable following last month's
strike at the state-owned Misr Spinning and Weaving Company. On
Sunday, the workers' coordinating committee distributed a leaflet in
which they accused the plant's newly appointed union leader, Masaad
Al-Fiqi, of catering to the president of the General Union of
Textile Workers, Said El-Gohary, instead of representing labour
interests.
The workers, whose basic pay is supplemented by a complex system of
monthly and yearly bonuses, are demanding a 22 per cent increase on
incentive payments.
"Twenty-two per cent may sound like a huge increase but it really
isn't much," says labour activist and veteran textile worker Al-
Sayed Habib. "The highest increase in incentives amounts to LE150
($45) and we've only had three such increases over the past 18
years."
Average take-home pay at the plant, including bonuses and
incentives, is about LE500 ($75) -- which barely places the workers
above the two dollar-a-day poverty line. Younger workers, and those
recently hired, receive below average wages. They are paid LE300 or
less, which pushes them below the poverty line. Egyptian textile
workers are at the bottom of the regional salary scale. According to
the American Chamber of Commerce they earn 92 per cent less than
workers doing similar jobs in Israel, 81 per cent less than in
Turkey and 65 per cent less than in Tunisia.
Inflation has eaten away at spending power that was already severely
limited. Official sources say inflation is running at 12 per cent
though, as Egyptian labour historian Joel Beinin points out, the
real figure is likely to be much higher. The price of vegetables has
increased by 37.6 per cent while the cost of many basic
pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, has doubled.
"Most of us cannot survive on our salaries. The cheapest flats now
rent for LE300. How can we survive if we have to pay our entire
salary on rent?" asks Faysal Nakousha. "Many work at a second job
after their eight-hour shifts. They end up working an average of 12
hours a day, sometimes more. We don't see our families; our lives
are reduced to a mad race around the clock. And we still barely keep
our heads above water. For me the worst feeling about living in such
dire poverty is to know that my kids are being deprived of many
things."
Habib and his comrades see their protest action as part of a long-
term process. "Our strike hasn't yet been settled. We gave the
government a one-month grace period to make payments and comply with
our other demands. This is going to be a long struggle," he says.
The workers have accused CEO Mahmoud El-Gibali and his assistants of
embezzling company funds and squandering money on personal trips
abroad and are demanding they be dismissed. The allegations are
still being investigated.
In addition to bread and butter issues the workers have formulated
other, more political demands, the most important of which is the
call for independent labour unions. In March, 14,000 Mehala workers
signed a petition to impeach their local union committee and
denounce the General Confederation of Trade Unions (GCTU) as an arm
of the government.
Their rejection of the GCTU has had a domino effect on workers'
protests nationwide. The 7 December Movement -- Workers for Change
(the name of the coalition of workers refers to an earlier strike by
the Mehala workers) has issued a statement saying that "one of our
first goals is not to recognise official representatives like the
workers' unions and syndicates which have clearly demonstrated they
do not represent workers' demands". Workers for Change are connected
to the protest movement Kifaya and view themselves as part of the
political opposition to the current regime. In addition to rejecting
the state-controlled GCTU, they are directly contesting the
government's neo-liberal policies by protesting against the drive to
privatise the public sector -- a demand every public sector workers'
strike has picked up. "Important elements among the Mehala strikers
are now framing their struggle as a political fight with national
implications, " says Beinin. "They are directly challenging the
economic policies of the regime."
And they are building a movement. "I have just returned from a
meeting with a textile workers' committee from the Shebin Al-Kom
plant," says Mohamed El-Attar, a prominent Mehala strike leader. "We
are coordinating with other workers and plan to meet with them on a
regular monthly basis because we're all in this together. Whether
we're industrial workers or white collar workers, in the public or
in the private sector, the struggle is one."
An activist with the Centre of Workers' and Trade Union Services
(CWTUS), an advocacy NGO that the government closed last April,
Attar believes that Egyptian workers have succeeded in launching a
nationwide intifada since the Mehala textile workers' first work
stoppage on 7 December, 2006. They decided to strike after the state-
owned company failed to fulfil Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's pledge
to increase public sector workers' annual bonuses from LE100 ($18)
to the equivalent of two months' pay.
Unwilling to risk a protracted showdown with a labour force of
27,000 the government backed down and came to the negotiating table.
The strikers and Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin reached a
compromise: the workers accepted a bonus equal to 45- days-pay
instead of the promised two months, and the minister pledged to pay
them a ten per cent profit-share if the company made more than LE60
million in profits.
The Mehala workers' December strike established a successful model
of protest triggering a wave of industrial actions across Egypt,
including the ongoing tax collectors' protest that has mobilised
some 55,000 workers. Though initiated by industrial workers, the
labour intifada has quickly gained momentum within both the public
and private sectors. The Land Centre, an agricultural workers'
watchdog, reports a total of 283 industrial actions during the first
half of 2007. In the wake of the December strike in Mehala textile
workers from mills in Shebin Al-Kom and Kafr Al-Dawwar went on
strike over similar demands. Railway and metro workers, teachers and
tax collectors have all followed suit.
The Mehala workers have also pointed to an alternative to the local
union committees of the GCTU. "Among the Mehala workers' most
important gains is that they forced the confederation to accept
their committee as a negotiating partner in lieu of the local union
committee," says labour journalist and CWTUS activist Adel Zakaria.
"It is incredible, we actually received an invitation from Said El-
Gohary, head of the General Trade Union of Textile Workers, to
attend union meetings at the headquarters in Cairo," says
Attar. "They recognise us as the Mehala workers' committee because
they know they can't negotiate without us. This is a victory."

Appeal for Justice to the Victims of 2002 Carnage in Gujarat
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNAL HARMONY IN ASIA (ACHA)
www.asiapeace.org & www.indiapakistanpeace.org
4410 Verda Lane NE, Keizer, OR 97303, USA
Pritam Rohila, Ph. D., Executive Director, 503.393.6944, asiapeace@comcast.net
December 8, 2007
Appeal for Justice to the Victims of 2002 Carnage in Gujarat
For three days, following the Sabarmati Express fire on February 27, 2002, at Godra, Hindu mobs in parts of Gujarat played havoc with the lives, property and dignity of innocent citizens, just because they were Muslims.
Recent revelations by the Tehelka investigators have clearly established the crucial role high officials of the Gujarat government played in this state-sponsored terror, and in the subsequent protection of its perpetrators.
We appeal to the Government of India to immediately undertake all measures at its command to fully and impartially investigate the matter, and punish all the perpetrators, planners and supporters of this cruel and inhuman episode in the state’s history. Also the Government of India must ensure appropriate compensation to and rehabilitation of all the victims and their families and safety and progress of all India’s minorities. Finally the Government India must provide full protection to all those individuals and organizations, which have been associated with uncovering facts about this whole episode and its instigators, planners, supporters and perpetrators.
Pritam K. Rohila, Ph. D.
For Directors and Members of
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA)
SC to hear pleas against Modi on Wednesday
The Supreme Court on Monday deferred the hearing on two petitions seeking action against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his "inflammatory" remarks about the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter in 2005. The Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday an application seeking to make Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a co-accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case on the basis of his alleged statement justifying the act. A Bench headed by Justice Tarun Chatterjee said it would be the first matter to be heard on Wednesday.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, submitted before the bench the translated version of the transcript of the speech given recently by Modi at Mangrol in Gujarat. The ASG submitted that the statement of the Chief Minister was prima facie complete interference with the process of justice. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for Sohrabuddin's brother, Rubabuddin Sheikh said it was a gross contempt of court.
However, during the heated arguments, senior advocate Arun Jaitley opposed their submissions saying the matter could be taken up when "tempers are down".
Meanwhile, in the face of a strong BJP demand, the Election Commission issued a notice to the Congress President Sonia Gandhi on her comment against Gujarat Chief Minister Nerendra Modi. Gandhi called Modi "merchants of death" while addressing an election rally in Gujarat recently. The Commission also decided to issue a notice to Congress leader Digvijay Singh for his remarks about "existence of Hindu terrorism in Gujarat". The commission sources said that both the Congress leaders have been asked to give their reply by Tuesday.
The BJP on Monday has filed a complaint with the Election Commission against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and others following an advertisement issued by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, alleging that "the advertisement is an attempt to woo voters of a particular community and violation of model code of conduct". The Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India, has published a half-page advertisement in one of the national newspapers in Gujarat, two days ahead of the first phase polls in the state to be held on December 11, titled, "Prime Minister's new 15-point programme for the Welfare of Minorities".
"The advertisement is explicitly directed at minorities and specifies names of religions like Muslims, Christians and others," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said. The advertisement says, "The Centre offers free coaching to students and candidates belonging to minority communities in approved coaching institutes."

Zee News
Advani is BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate
Zee News - 27 minutes ago
New Delhi, Dec 10: LK Advani, the man who had been waiting in the ante-chamber of power almost for a decade now, overshadowed by his more charismatic peer, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been finally named as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the ...
Advani is bjp's prime ministerial candidate Sify
Advani named bjp's PM candidate NDTV.com
Film claims 22 killed in Gujarat fake encounters
By IBNlive.com
Monday December 10, 11:55 AM
New Delhi: Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Samir Khan Pathan, Sadik Jamal, Ishrat
Jahan and Javed Shaikh are among 22 people killed in encounters by
controversial Gujarat DIG Vanzara and his Anti-Terror Squad.
They were all allegedly terrorists plotting to kill Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi.
But in his documentary Encountered On Saffron Agenda, filmmaker
Subhradeep Chakraborty claims that these killings too were fake encounters.
“My film contests the claims of the Gujarat police that they killed
Lashkar and Jaish terrorists who were planning to kill Narendra Modi. In
fact, through inter-linked testimonies of the families of the victims,
their lawyers and independent investigators my film raises credible
doubts about the intention and motive of the Gujarat government,” says
Chakraborty.
Nineteen-year-old Ishrat Jahan from Thane in Maharashtra and Pranesh
Pillai alias Javed Shaikh, a Pune businessman, were killed in an
encounter June 2004.
In the film, their families and lawyers question the police reports.
“It was said that four terrorist fired at a large police team but no
policeman got injured. How could it be possible? Javed was driving. He
fired bullets. The girl also fired at them. Other terrorists also fired
heavily but not even a dog got killed,” says Javed Sheikh’s father,
Gopinathan Pillai.
Ishrat Jahan's sister Musarrat also questions the police role. “If a
girl was sitting in a car so the bullet would hit her hand, abdomen,
sides etc. But one bullet caught her between the legs. I am sure police
raped her and to hide their misdeeds they fired there. I can't even
imagine that police can be so immoral,” she says.
The film also highlights the case of Sadik Jamal, a domestic help from
Mumbai killed by Vanzara in an encounter in 2003
“Shouldn’t someone have seen it? When encounter took place someone
might have been witnessed it, isn’t it? At least someone must have heard
the gun shot? There is nothing like that in this,” says Sadik Jamal's
uncle Musa Bhai.
The Gujarat government and police refused to speak with the filmmaker.
But the awkward co-incidence that with the arrest of DIG Vanzara, all
terrorist attempts on Modi's life seem to have ceased suggest that the
disturbing questions the film raises, deserve an answer.
Congress' flip-flop on Sonia remarks continue
New Delh: Continuing its flip-flop on the "merchant of death" controversy, Congress today suggested that Sonia Gandhi did not name Narendra Modi but had the entire state administration including the Chief Minister in mind when she made those remarks.
"She criticised the entire Gujarat scenario-- people in the Government. She did not take anybody's name...Referred to ugly things in the name of administration," party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed told reporters.
He dismissed as "outrageous" the equating of Gandhi with Modi and insisted that the model code of conduct had not been violated by the party as she had only pointed to "political failures of the government".
Ahmed, who was subjected to a volley of questions, said as head of the state government, "Modi should own the responsibility".
Earlier, another party spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi also sang the same tune. Speaking separately, he said that "The text (of Gandhi's speech) is for everybody to see. No names appear in the text." Whatever she has said was available in black and white for all to see, he said.
Ahmed's comments today flew in the face of remarks made by Singhvi on Saturday when he had insisted that Gandhi's comment about 'merchant of death' was about Modi and the party was not apologetic about it.
Singhvi had then also disowned a statement of senior Congress leader and Union Minister Kapil Sibal that Gandhi had not referred to anyone in her speech during the election rally in Gujarat.

BBC News
Polling for first phase of Assembly polls in Gujarat tomorrow
Hindu - 3 hours ago
Ahmedabad (PTI): Polling for the first phase of the crucial assembly polls in Gujarat for 87 seats in the 182-member house will be held on Tuesday in the midst of sharp exchange of words between the Congress and the ruling BJP.
‘Congress stands by Sonia’s statement’ Zee News
Gujarat all set for polls on Tuesday NDTV.com
Gujarat exposes BJP-CPI-M nexus!
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=179893
Rajinder Puri
Yesterday CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat gave an ultimatum to the government: scrap the Indo-US Nuclear deal immediately after the Gujarat polls are over ~ or face a mid-term general election! Comrade Karat said he refrained from giving this ultimatum earlier because he did not want the BJP to derive political advantage in the Gujarat poll.
Either Comrade Karat is exceptionally stupid or he thinks that the rest of us are stupid. Why did he have to make this threat on the eve of polling day in Gujarat? Would he not know that the threat of impending destabilization of the Union government would immensely help the somewhat uncertain electoral fortunes of Narendra Modi? Surely he would know that. Then why did he not wait to make his threat till polling was over in Gujarat? That would not have weakened in any way his stated objective to derail the N-deal. He could have accomplished it without introducing a new negative factor that could seriously mar Congress fortunes in the Gujarat poll. It is reasonable to infer that Karat well understands the likely political fallout of his threat. So did he deliberately time his threat to help BJP in the polls? This sounds preposterous. Unless attention is directed to what this scribe wrote in these columns on 10 October, 2007. Identifying the forces that were opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal it was pointed out that the powerful US-China corporate lobby was activating its tentacles both through Washington and Beijing to scuttle the deal. It was pointed out: “The most influential section of the US media, US big business, China, Israel, pro-Islamists, CPI-M, BJP ~ they are all on the same side. With one voice they chant the same refrain: ‘Kill the Indo-US nuclear deal!’ They add up to a formidable group and a powerful voice. Should it be called Leftist? Rightist? Or does money make the world spin?” Is there any other credible explanation why the CPI-M should have issued its ultimatum just before polling day in Gujarat?

Bail of Binayak Sen rejected today in Supreme Court

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Bail of Binayak Sen rejected today in Supreme Court*
Press Release:
REJECTION OF DR. BINAYAK SEN'S BAIL APPLICATION IS UNJUST &
DISAPPOINTMENT
TO HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
- PUCL CG
Raipur, 10th December, 2007:
The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)-Chhattisgarh
is
sadly disappointed with the Order of the Hon'ble
Supreme Court of India, which today rejected the Bail Application of
Dr.
Binayak Sen, General Secretary, Chhattisgarh PUCL, and
Vice-President, National PUCL.
Millions of patriotic citizens of Chhattisgarh, and hundreds
and
thousands of social and human rights activists all over
the country were looking towards the Supreme Court for justice, which
has
not been done. The PUCL considers Bail as a right of an accused,
rejection
is an